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As the call with the Sergeant was ended, Ravoch's gaze lingered on the abomination that the ashen-haired Rebel had dealt with. Whatever it was that he was pondering would be interrupted as his foe exclaimed that he was no padawan. Unimpressed brows rose as an amused smirk briefly showed. Without uttering a single word, the Sith Lord conveyed a skeptical taunt: "Really?
The young non-padawan proved how powerful he was in the force once more. The ground started shaking beneath the Sith Lord's feet but balance did not seem to even register as an issue to him. Instead, his eyes calmly traced the panels that were being ripped and torn from the corridor. Judging by Ravoch's detached expression, his response was boringly obvious. Where the Jedi was putting up a display of brute force, the Sith acted with disciplined precision. Panel by panel, he started to wrestle his opponent for control of a select few large panels close to his person.
When the onslaught eventually came and debris, both large and small flew his way, Ravoch brought the panels he had taken control of close, effectively forming a wall against the attack. With a sigh, he let go of the plates he controlled, causing them to fall harmlessly to the ground while his left hand unclipped the saber from the belt under the long deep red cape. Without missing a beat, the bare left arm emerged from behind his back, moving at an almost leisurely pace. It was economical and calculated; for the crimson red blade would ignite just in time to intercept the Jedi's deadly slash.
A sharp zuum could be heard as the blade ignited, soon followed by the violent hum of two blades clashing and remaining locked in place. Ravoch's gaze fell low as he studied the non-padawan. Finally, he took a step back and fell into a neutral Makashi stance. He would keep their blades locked but at a far enough distance that he wouldn't be in danger lest his foe leapt at him with a thrust. "Such aggression" his voice, deep and sharp, carried an amused tone.
Ravoch would then produce a sequence of attacks, keeping his movements small and economical. There would be no attempts at killing or maiming, instead he was prodding the youngster, searching for flaws and exploiting openings to inflict simple flesh wounds. It was a sequence he appeared to know well, for he would talk as he pressed his attack.
"Whatever did you do to end up here?" His amused eyes carried an air of superiority as he looked down at the non-padawan trying to defend against his minute attacks. "Thrown out of the order? Looking for a new home?" As the word 'home' was mentioned, Ravoch took a step back as if to allow his opponent a moment to answer. His arms spread wide, opening his chest up for the Rebel to attack whilst deceptively light feet carried him slightly farther away.
"Jedi who strike to kill usually have a past they want to run away from." The arrogance of an aristocrat intermingled with the authority of an Imperial Captain. Ravoch's eyes narrowed "What are you running from?"
Renn looked over his men as he listened to the scene unfold around him, the surgical movements of the bridge staff as they maneuvered the ship into position for the next command issued by Srina Talon
. His eyes shifted over to his Mand’alor, trying to exert the same level of stoicism whilst pushing down the jitteriness of Adrenaline pumping into his system all at once.
He moved towards his men once more, his words carried as he spoke, “All of you are with me, Clan Vizsla will stay back on assignment.” A glance came from one of the many members of Death Watch, clad in white armor and the symbol of Clan Vizsla on his pauldron. Renn took two strides to reach the man’s side. Renn extended his arm and gripped the nape of the man's neck. His words were quiet, just loud enough for the other man to hear, “Your duty is to protect the Mand’alor and stay by his side. Bring honor to our name, Cousin, Vode An.” His cousin turned his helm to look at Renn, a gentle nod as his voice rose, “Clan Vizsla, on me.” The gruff voice barked out as those who wore the same crest broke from their ranks and joined Renn’s cousin. Their eyes looked upon their Warmaster.
All Renn could do was glance between them all as he placed his fist in front of his heart, a small nod of his head, “Drinks are on me, until we meet again.” His eyes shifted between the members of his clan once more before he pulled away. His focus turned towards the rest of Death Watch, his hand rose as he swirled his finger in the air, and wordlessly, those around him stepped into stride behind him. Their steps fell into unison as they moved towards the ship's armory. Like vultures, the members of Death Watch ransacked all the equipment they could get their hands on: grenades, weapons, plasma torches, anything they might need to defy the likes of a Death Star.
The Warmaster made his way to the back of the armory, the one box left untouched by the rest of Death Watch, the emblem of his clan etched into the top of the metal case. Renn’s foot struck it as the box opened with an audible click. His eyes scanned the equipment as he grabbed his Carbine from the chest, placing two pistols into his holsters. Two vibroswords finding a home on his back. As he equipped himself in the corner, members of his troop came by, giving him a grenade here, an extra magazine there, all knowing that they could tear this place down to its bones before Renn would grab anything extra for himself.
After everyone had settled in, finishing up their last few preparations, Renn stood up from his corner of the armory and looked amongst the faces of those around him once more. “Time to go to work.” The words were simple and easy, but held more weight knowing what hell they were about to get themselves into.
Their march led them winding down the corridors of the ship until it finally ground to a halt. Renn looked back towards those who stood behind him, “Get your respirators ready, find a partner and do as I do.” With this, he hit the button on the door, the door behind them closing shut. The noise hit their ears as the air was sucked out of the room, their packs activated as their rebreathers kicked in. The pressure finally settled into nothingness around them as Renn moved over to the opposite door, activating the button next to it. His hands moved like lightning over his wrist padd, as those around him saw the gunship pull up in front of them. Renn floated over, landing on the open ramp as his boots magnetized to the hull; those around him followed by his example.
As the last member settled in, he looked towards the pilot, “Get us as close as you can, just out of AA range, and we’ll jetpack in from there. We are too small to be picked up by their defense web. From there, we will find access to the inside.” His attention turned towards those around him, “Time to show these Imperials what Mandalorians are made of.”
Blaster shots exploded past the ship as it dodged the fire, trying its best to get in close. The AA fire from the Sith Order ships that had just appeared in the system was the only thing that kept the craft from getting wiped out of existence. The wall of concentrated AA fire coming from the Orb of Death is easily detected by an experienced pilot, but even easier to see from those hitching a ride in the back. The wall of blaster shots seemed to thicken as they grew closer. Suddenly, the whole ship moved on a dime, the back end opening as the magnetization in the cargo area turned off. Renn and his Death Watch propelled out the back as they made their way towards the Death Star in front of them, their jetpacks activating as they maneuvered. Turbo shots whizzing past as they tried to find their targets. The comms crackled alive as he glanced behind him, “Jorn’s taken one to the pack.” The voice rang out from Jorn’s battle buddy, Renn’s comm came to life,“Hold onto him, get him to the hull of the weapon, he can make it from there.”. With more than one close call, they finally met the hall of the Death Star.
Renn motioned for one Squad to make their way around the other side of the hangar they had landed near. Their boots sticking to the hull as they made their move, Renn gave the command, and smoke grenades slipped into the atmospheric shield and exploded, masking as they made their entrance. As soon as the smoke ploomed, blaster bolts fired both ways.
The red blade hissed to life just in time, catching Ace's swing and locking the two of them in a clash that rattled down his arms. The strength behind Ravoch's parry wasn't overwhelming, but it was measured. Like the man had already dissected every inch of the exchange before Ace even moved.
When the Sith stepped back into a lean Makashi stance, Ace felt the shift immediately. Small cuts, prodding thrusts, each one designed to draw him out. To study him maybe. The rebel's body moved on instinct: wide Shii-Cho sweeps that caught Ravoch's probing strikes, slammed down by the blunt weight of Djem So counters. It wasn't refined. His footwork hit harder than it flowed, his guard shifted with more strength than grace. But it was effective enough, his lightsaber meeting crimson in a steady crash of sparks.
Inside, though, every word dug deep. Such aggression.Thrown out?Looking for a new home?
He could feel the ritual pressing through the walls, oil-thick, as if Solipsis himself were listening. Orryn's voice cut through, the smell of ash from Dathomir. The weight of it pressed on him as hard as Ravoch's blade.
His blade knocked aside another probing thrust, boots digging in to give his next swing the weight of raw power. His shoulders turned with the motion, lightsaber crashing in a horizontal arc backed with enough force to demand respect despite the lack of polish.
Then Ravoch stepped back. His arms spread, crimson blade angled open, chest bared. Daring him to engage.
Ace's eyes narrowed, breath heavy through his teeth. He knew that it was bait, obvious and deliberate. But the word still rang in his head, sharp as the slap that had nearly caught him before. What are you running from?
"I'm not running." He shot back.
His grip shifted, both hands firm on the hilt. The corridor seemed to shrink around him, the ritual's darkness pressing, Ravoch's taunt digging deeper. The smart move would've been patience, restraint. But Ace had no patience left. No restraint. Not with everything still burning inside him.
"I'm right here!"
He surged forward, blue blade slashing up into a rising arc toward the Sith Lord's open chest. But at the last instant, he snapped the strike short, a feint, letting his lightsaber hiss wide. His weight shifted low, his true attack whipping in sideways, fast and brutal, a Djem So-driven cut aimed for Ravoch's ribs. A trap set for the man who thought he could read him.
The first flash of fire tore across the hangar like a flare. TIE engines howled as starfighters scrambled from their racks. Below, stormtroopers opened fire in panicked volleys against shadows cutting through the atmospheric shield. Maera's visor tracked it all: thermal outlines, squad vitals, weapons discharges. Her HUD was a living tapestry of the battle.
Up in the rafters, her Death Troopers answered the intrusion with ruthless precision. Red lances of blaster fire screamed down, cutting jagged streaks through the haze and black smoke. The Death Troopers were silent; their rifles spoke for them, each shot measured and merciless. The white-armored stormtroopers below made noise; battle cries, ragged discipline, the sudden bloom of their deaths. Maera filtered it all out. She remained steady, unflinching in the storm.
Her breath rasped inside her helm's modulator. Adrenaline never ruled her; she ruled it. Every fight since Savareen had burned the hesitation away. Every scar was a lesson. Pain was memory, not weakness.
Then the smoke shifted, thick plumes curling unnaturally as they slipped through the glowing edge of the shield. This wasn't just cover; it was screening something far worse. Her HUD pinged: multiple jetpack signatures. Maera's lips pulled into a slight smile beneath the faceless mask. Mandalorians. This would be a hunt worth remembering.
"Squad, mark targets," she ordered, her voice a low growl through encrypted comms. The Death Troopers needed no elaboration. Half of them immediately shifted to suppressing fire, filling the hangar mouth with a storm of blaster bolts. Sparks flared as shots kissed beskar plating, but the Mandalorians pressed on, wings of fire strapped to their backs, cutting paths through the void.
Maera dropped from the rafters without hesitation. The durasteel floor thundered beneath her landing, her controlled grace absorbing the shock. Dust and smoke coiled around her as she rose, fists tightening. Her hidden eyes burned with a cold clarity. These warriors thought themselves eternal and untouchable. She would show them that fire could be drowned in shadow.
"Squad Aurek," she snapped, gesturing sharply, "with me." Three black-armored figures peeled from cover, slamming onto the deck next to her. Their rifles tracked, covering her flanks, their movements perfectly synchronized to hers. She signaled upwards with her other hand. "Squad Besh; pin them. Bleed them in the smoke." The acknowledgment blinked in her HUD. The rafters immediately came alive again, heavy bolts stitching lines of fire across the boarding vectors, forcing the Mandalorians to weave and falter.
Maera didn't wait. She strode to the smoke, crimson alarm light streaking across her armor. Each step carried the weight of unbreakable will, echoing the humming heartbeat of the station. "They've breached," she murmured, the voice just for herself as the blaster storm thickened. "Good." Her gauntleted hands flexed open, ready to break bone and tear metal. Let the Mandalorians come. The Emperor needed time, and Maera would carve it for him from their corpses.
The Saint chuckled, a synthetic gurgling, like shifting through unstable radio frequencies. The sound bellowed from the golden war mask.
The gore-crimson beam shone from his visor, glaring down at the man beside him.
He bore witness to his fury, celebrated his devotion, and watched in awe as the kneeling man opened his own flesh, etching deep runes across his skin.
Tissue split. Blood ran. But the Force had been commanded.
The holo-display across his battle visor flickered warnings: emergency protocols, pleas for help, distress calls racing across public channels. Chaos seeped into the World Star.
A static-laced chuckle escaped him once more before he addresed Deonis Laythar
his voice woven with that fractured synthetic mesh.
"Oh, brother… your dedication honors us all."
Mutilation was pain. Pain was worship. A doctrine carved into the very bodies of every zealot present.
He turned to his brethren, raising one massive gauntlet, and pointed to the bloodied supplicant.
"This is worship. This is a man of faith."
Then his hand swept forward, the robotic finger of his colossal gauntlet aimed down the endless corridor, outward from the sanctum that entombed the ritual shrine. He commanded:
"Go, brothers and sisters. Go in worship. Bring me the ashes of the unbelievers."
A heinous cackle, higher pitched, almost human, rang out from a shape veiled in red cloth, as twin blades scraped across metal. Salafir, dual-wielding his burning swords, scored a blackened line into the durasteel floor as he strode forward, boasting with confidence, leading the march into the labyrinth.
Without a word, the colossal husk of Gazim, his battle-brother, carrying an equally massive axe, followed. Last came Kandora, a veteran scout of the Arkanian war, who bowed to her Saint before signaling one of the Green Warden droids. At once, the machine stampeded forward, leading the first strike team into the battlefield's depths.
With a flick of his hand, Da'Razel beckoned another. One of his closest zealots, a warlock named Tú, came to aid the bleeding magistrate.
Taking stance behind him, Tú raised a lantern burning with strange, shimmering flame. He siphoned its fire, transmuting it into Force energy, which he poured into the wounded zealot, empowering his ritual, and strengthening the grotesque grafts of machine and flesh.
Da'Razel himself did not move. He remained sentinel, as was his sworn oath. He listened to the words resounding from the hall beyond.
It belonged to the man at whose shrine he prayed. A man who had risen to ever greater heights than saintship, a prophet. A messiah. One who through the centuries had touched all their lives in service to the God-Emperor.
The same figure he had first heard of as a child indoctrinated aboard the worldship Gehinnom, where he learned in awe about his dark tales.
And now, to stand so near, to labor for the same cause, the very prayers of his youth answered, and more. He would lay down his life, again and again, to remain in the eminence of such a prophet.
Every syllable uttered strengthened his soul, inflamed his conviction, and reminded him of the freedom he had been granted, the way his existence had been expanded into something far beyond what he had once believed possible.
With each verse, his faith deepened. His purpose sharpened. He knew they would all give their lives today, and he accepted it with joy in his heart.
For war was life.
As fire consumes to burn, so too does war consume to breathe life into the Empire. For the flame to burn eternal, war too must be eternal.
And the Saint knew, in the depths of his heart, that he longed for nothing more than to fight that eternal war.
A pilgrimage of pyres. Mumbling voices announced His holiness in perfect union.
"And He said unto them: Burn the unbelievers, scatter their ashes, and the wind shall carry their souls to me. Blessed are thee who burn, for their agony becomes the coal of Empire."
Blazing fumes trailed in their wake, thick ash-gray clouds obscuring their passage. Only the flickering tongues of fire from their weapons betrayed the silhouettes within.
"Pain is the tithe of the faithful. Agony the hymn of the saved. Let no body pass unbranded, no soul pass unscorched. For in the Empire's flame, all impurities are consumed, and only faith endures."
Kandora led them through corridors, lifts, service shafts, secret passageways. As hours dragged by and their prayers deepened into a trance, the resistance stiffened. Champions of the infidels, drawn from every creed and cause, converged here to resist the God-Emperor's faithful.
The levels became graveyards, filled with the Empires dead and dying. Troopers, engineers, doctors, pilots, bureaucrats, their titles and colored uniforms meant nothing. To the zealots, they were only fuel.
"Go forth as cinders, my children. Cast yourselves into the pyre, and rise again as flame. Let the galaxy know your devotion by the smoke of your works. For when all else is ash, His light alone shall be revered."
The procession marched over dampened bodies, heedless of the agonizing breaths beneath their boots. At last they reached a broad chamber, a crossway buried deep within the guts of the World Star.
Kandora stopped. Fingers flickering across a datapad, she marked the spot upon a virtual map.
"Here," she said softly. "Here we begin, brothers."
They spread out.
Gazim, a giant of absurd size and strength, untouched by the gifts of the Force, began dragging corpses and half-living into its center.
Salafir, a young Chagrian freed during the Champala crusade, dropped his burning blades, fell to his knees, and began the rites.
The chamber soon reeked of iron and rot.
Stripes of smeared, dried blood painted the passages from which Gazim dragged his quarry.
A hill rose at its center, grey uniforms heaped upon white plastoid, both cloth and armor soaked with arterial red.
Pleading voices crawled through the pile. Hands reached upward, trembling, begging. Some clutched at another in desperation, others tried to claw themselves free.
"Enough, Gazim! Brother Salafir, do not falter. Keep chanting!"
Kandora raised her voice, her thumb pressing a command rune. The Green Warden, its chassis painted a ritual crimson, beamed to life.
And from its maw poured a torrent of liquid fire, baptizing the mound in flames. The pillar of fire roared, and the chamber erupted in screams.
Flesh bubbled and split. Sinew snapped. Fat sizzled into grease. The acrid stench of seared hair and skin, clung to the air, a thick choking fume that climbed into the vents, seeped into connecting halls.
Salafir's chanting rose louder. They watched the shaking tossing bodies writher and convulse, bones blackened, and torsos collapsed like brittle charcoal.
The zealots did not mourn. They knelt. They praised. They rejoiced. They did not see cruelty. They saw consecration.
"A world in flames. A inferno of salvation. Blessed are they who burn, for their torment stokes the Empire eternal."
They had freed these souls, lifting them in smoke toward the God-Emperor's embrace.
A cloud of human ash drifted through vents and gangways, heralding their passage.
Kandora looked up from her datapad, her voice steady and sure.
"This will do, brothers. It will wake soon. Prepare yourselves."
Name: Kandora
Force User: No
Appearance: Scarred Echani woman, Ritual burns across face and arms, Red robes over armored scout gear, Heavy cybernetic implants.
Strengths: Tactical awareness, Precision, Speed.
Weaknesses: Lacking strenght, Heavily reliant on implants.
Ossus. A place far from where Allyson probably should have been. With her Master stepping back, Allyson's leash was loosened — not that Empyrean had ever held it tightly. Empyrean allowed Allyson to do as she pleased, let her learn and hunt wherever her feet took her. While she hunted his enemies and those of the Sith Order often, today's mission was more personal than the others.
Carefully, she moved under the protection of the Force. Her presence — visual and in the Force — vanished. She was nothing but a ghost weaving through the troopers as they marched in step. Their formation, as usual, was tight, but the Corellian was a snake, avoiding their march as they continued undisturbed.
There was something here that drew her here. Allyson was curious as well; it seemed no one but the woman knew why they were on Ossus, why they were at this ruin. Allyson continued to move, this time willing to watch and see what the Sithling had determined was so essential to abandon the stations that were gathering near Atrisia.
She had gotten word, through the Sith network, that something big was happening. It seemed the Princess had connections, ones that Allyson hadn't gone after herself. Makes the spy's work easier and allows her to focus on this one little tangent.
The fight on Brosi lingered in her mind — the woman's words stirred memories Allyson had buried for good reason. How did she know so much? Why did she bother when all she was going to do was betray the small trust Allyson had given her?
Her shoulders still hurt from the surprise attack. The overgrown garden lizard had been an annoyance to deal with. When the dust settled, the woman had disappeared, leaving Allyson with an annoyance that wouldn't go away.
Lucky for her, curiosity still outranked her orders. So she continued to follow, quietly hidden in the shadows.
Fa-Olan nodded and kept in step with Master Noble, as he swung his own blade and blocked blaster bolts that came close. He wasn't as skilled or capable as he might have liked, but he was able to stop from getting hit, at least. The warning about the size of the station did not fall on deaf ears, as the Padawan nodded and kept his focus. He had grown up in a mining colony, he understood depth and corridors and catacombs, and he wondered if that experience might help them.
"I can remember our path," Fa-Olan said confidently. "This station isn't nearly as complex as a mining colony."
Fa-Olan watched as Valery punched a hole through the enemy in the hangar, using the Force, and was inspired by the display - if he could reach those heights with his own abilities, Fa-Olan felt he could really do some good in the galaxy. He gave a grin despite himself.
"I'm with you!"
The Padawan charged close by the Jedi Master, as he swung and sliced through those that were missed by Master Noble. It was a highly tense but workable situation, as Fa-Olan trusted in the Force, and kept his mind on the moment - he would remain open to what the Force told him, seeing hints or indications, and would make sure to act on them.
Drystan pressed onward, following the trail that grew fainter with every step. That fading scent told him a few things: his quarry was widening the gap between them, concealing their presence even further—or, in the least likely case, had vanished entirely.
The first two were more probable, but it made little difference. Either way, the path forward was clear. A hunter's senses were vital, but they were only as useful as the mind that guided them. Sharp senses meant nothing paired with a dull intellect. And Drystan's mind—tempered through years of battle and blood—was as honed as the blade at his side. Once forged for the purpose of the Jedi's hunts, now it served his own pursuit of challenge and thrill.
He pieced it together quickly. Regardless of where his prey moved or how they concealed themselves, their objective would be the same: to push deeper into the Death Star. He understood that instinct well; a hunter often had to think like his prey.
With that single thread of logic, Drystan's confidence surged. Activating his HUD, he brought up a map of the sector and began overlaying simulated routes—thousands of potential paths leading from the outer corridors to the core. He compared them against his sharpened instincts and the subtle nudges of the Force that coursed through the structure's veins.
When the data and his intuition converged, the route became obvious. A grin crept across his face as he marked the optimal path, his pace quickening, his excitement palpable.
As Brandyn Sal-Sorenand Casaana advanced through a long corridor flanked by grated walls, the exit ahead opened into a wide chamber.
Without warning, a flash of crimson light tore through the space—splitting the air between them. A pillar of plasma erupted from the floor, cutting through the grating to their side as a dark figure emerged from the intersecting hallway.
Drystan stepped forward through the divide, his presence heavy and deliberate. The hum of his saber faded as he deactivated it, twirling the weapon lazily around his palm like a dagger before eyeing the pair. His head tilted, assessing—almost curious.
"Count my lucky stars. A two-for-one deal."
A smile ghosted across his exposed mouth beneath the visor as he rolled his shoulders, stretching his neck until it cracked. The intent he radiated was unmistakable: a challenge, plain and primal.
"Alright," he said evenly, voice calm but edged with anticipation. "How do you want to do this? Both of you at once would be ideal. It'll improve your odds of survival."
His stance was purposeful—positioned directly between them, cutting their formation apart. It was no accident. To attack from behind would have driven them forward; to strike from the front, they might have retreated. But here, in the center, they had no easy escape.
Drystan's grin widened. This was where things got interesting.
It uses the Force to grab a pair of sparking high-voltage wires to try to hit Connel from behind.
--------------------------
The Sith boarders and their ilk were accustomed to having powerful artificial intelligences that ran everything. That was how Sith Order space functioned, after all - an AI that monitored the lives of every citizen, managing data across the planets, moons, and stations of dozens of star systems. But the Galactic Empire did not function this way; in fact, the Emperor had created His system in exact contrast to it. He did not put His trust in a single machine to operate a thousand worlds; He used a byzantine labyrinth of living functionaries - COMLIT, COMFEAR, the ISB.
The Death Star was much the same. There was no vast, overarching, guiding intelligence with access to its every system; there were thousands of individual control stations working in tandem, operated by teams of organic technicians and their support droids. Redundancy and security were the precise goals of such a system; there was meant to be no single terminal or command station that could lead to all the others, no one location that could somehow suborn the entire station... no more than Malsheem or the Mors Mon would have a single such spot.
The lesson of IG-88's infiltration of the second Death Star had been learned and analyzed for future prevention.
Connections with compromised security stations were not figuratively firewalled; they were literally burnt out, their conduits melting to slag rather than transmit hostile signals. They could not be wirelessly accessed, did not connect to some kind of cloud network, but were instead hardwired for this precise purpose. Information stored on a terminal could be pulled from that terminal when infiltrated by an AI like Typhojem, but the moment a flood of commands began, the Empire automatically treated the compromised terminal the same way it treated its enemies.
It isolated and eliminated it. It turned its innards to ash.
There would be no pushing a button at a random security station and compromising the whole battlemoon.
On a similar principle, the Death Star did not have masses of automated guns. A legion of Imperial Gunners manned the turbolasers and ion cannons, not an AI system. Thanks to the introduction of Smartgunner Chips, not every single gun had to be independently targeted, but these guns were not slaved to an AI fire control system - they were coordinated in individual batteries. One gunner could aim and fire a single turbolaser turret, and the Smartgunner Chips connected to his system would then lock onto and fire on the same target.
One man could control a single battery in this way... but hardly anything near a percent of the station's weapons.
When Sars Sarad
pushed buttons in the compromised fire control station, a task that entire crews had to be trained for many weeks on to perform well, the button sequence did not automatically fire any defensive weapons. Instead, it sent out a signal to gunners in that section of the Death Star marking the Imperial Fleet as targets. This was the purpose of fire control: coordinating the vast volume of defenses, helping to identify priority targets, feeding information about the vectors and velocities of enemy ships to the gun crews across the station.
Having already received the information that boarders were trying to conduct sabotage and sow confusion, the vast majority of the section's gunners knew better than to open fire on what were very obviously their own ships; they had not moved from the vanjervalis chain formation around the station, after all, and could hardly be mistaken for incoming attackers. A few gunners, caught up in the tremendous stress and fear of the moment, might fire off a single burst from their battery before realizing they had just assured their own execution for incompetence.
The shields of a few defending vessels briefly glowed as a small volume of friendly fire licked them.
It was a clever tactic, a fatal embarrassment for those fooled by it, but not a devastating one.
To truly defeat the Death Star, it would not be enough to sneak around to a few of the thousands of individual stations, avoiding battle with the battlemoon's stronger defenders. It would take a concerted fleet attack, or the defeat of those harnessing the darkness unfolding on Atrisia from within the cathedral chamber, to secure victory over the sinister station. It would take a Clash of the Fates, a collision of powerful foes, not the easy, rampant slaughter of those who could put up no meaningful fight. And the battle for the Death Star was still young...
--------------------------
Connel was quick. With a tug of the Force, he overbalanced the Houk, pulling the bulky alien's swing past where it had been intended to land. Sparks flew and deck plating cratered as the hammer head slammed down, but it did not slam down on the Jedi. Following up on the advantage, Connel slid past. The Houk was surprisingly nimble for its bulk, and managed to keep its leg as Connel slid past; a hair's breadth closer, and the Jedi's saber would have taken the limb off at the knee, surely ending the fight. But the momentum was still in Connel's favor.
Clearly the hammer was going to be too slow and cumbersome against such a quick foe.
As Connel's lightknife streaked toward it, the Houk dropped the heavy weapon and reached out. A pair of shoto lightsabers jumped to its hands, crossing in front of its body to deflect the incoming lightknife. It was only partially successful in this regard; the impact of Connel's thrown weapon, and the last-minute nature of the parry, pushed its own blades back towards its skin. The plastoid armor over its thigh bubbled as it melted, and the Houk's mouth twisted in pain as the hot material scalded it. But the grimace soon settled into an unnerving smile.
It was a Sith Sovereign Protector. The pain of its brutal indoctrination had been far greater than this.
And pain was the fuel of the Dark Side, a well from which it could draw.
"You think highly of yourself," the Houk said, a low, rumbling laugh bubbling up from its meaty throat. "You believe the Emperor lost the moment you became involved?" The laughter intensified, bouncing off the dented and sparking walls of the increasingly demolished hallway. "He doesn't know who you are, and He will never have reason to care. You are an insect with delusions of grandeur." The Sovereign Protector took a step forward, his wounded leg buckling slightly as he moved. He harnessed the pain shooting through the limb.
"You could serve him well, you know. I can feel how much you enjoy hurting me."
"You want me to suffer, don't you, Jedi? You want to see me laid low, debased before you."
It took up a defensive position, its shotos held in a low and high guard, ready to intercept Connel's own sabers. Yet it was not in the Dark Side's nature to be wholly defensive... and it was in that nature to deceive. Even as the Houk spoke, it reached out with the Force, seizing a pair of sparking cables behind Connel. As it spoke, it silently guided the cables toward Connel's back, trying to slam them into his body and send an execution chair's worth of voltage coursing through him. "Come, then. Punish me. Sate your thirst for my pain and humiliation."
The cables leapt forward, their jagged ends racing for Connel's back...
Blood crusted on his skin as his carved runes gradually clotted. Trails of sweat ran through the crimson streaks that adorned him like warpaint, clashing oddly with the different shade of crimson tattooed onto his body in arcane patterns, and smeared the dried gore. His chest heaved with exertion, and his head spun, aching. It was all he could do to keep his gorge from rising and nausea and exhaustion swept over him in the wake of his rite; he bit his tongue hard enough to draw blood, the pain focusing him, helping him master his rebellious body.
He was sure that his master, the Emperor, would find a ritual like the one had had just performed to be child's play - a minor exertion of his godlike power at most. But Deonis could contain no more than a sliver of the kind of power Solipsis wielded. His soul did not burn so brightly in the Force as that of the God-King he worshipped. If there had not already been so much fuel in the carnage-strewn hallways where the boarders had entered, so much pain and death and destruction, he could never have given rise to so many of the technobeasts.
He had merely directed what already existed in forming them; his own strength was insufficient to create them out of whole cloth. Even then, the effort had taken him to the brink. He felt drained, sick, hollowed out. The voice of Saint Peterius seemed to come from a great distance, as distorted as if the golden-armored zealot spoke from underwater. And for all that sacrifice, all that exertion, Deonis could sense that he had bought precious little time. The kind of foes invading his master's creation were not the kind to be defeated by his conjuror's tricks.
Then he felt it - a ripple in the Force. An emergence. An arrival.
Deonis fought to keep the first seeds of doubt from entering his mind. He could not see the boarding craft launched from the Iron Eidolon - oddly enough, they were dropships of the obscure Athysian League, vanished many years prior - but he could sense the Force auras of those aboard them. The darkness in those auras was... overwhelming. It was not the comforting darkness of his master, the Emperor, which felt like a great cloak of shadow draped protectively over him. It was a hostile darkness, the kind of darkness the Emperor's enemies experienced.
Fresh intruders of staggering power. The Emperor had challenged the whole galaxy...
... and it seemed the whole galaxy had answered.
"He will overcome them," Deonis gasped, seeking to reassure himself with the utterance. "It is His destiny..." He could not permit himself to believe that he could have been wrong, that the Emperor could have miscalculated and overreached. His entire life had been guided by the whispers of the Dark Voice. He had left his homeworld, abandoned his family, because those whispers had convinced him that the only true soul in this churning, confusing galaxy was that of Darth Solipsis
. But he had missed the campaigns of the Maw and the Dark Empire.
This was his first experience facing down such incredible, unforgiving odds... and he felt fear.
Fear was not inherently a bad thing; it fed the Dark Side. Deonis let himself embrace the emotion, let goosebumps prickle along his skin and cold sweat run down his back. Fear and pain sent the adrenaline coursing back through his body, bought him a second wind. He managed to stand, burning that nervous energy. He would surely pay for this overexertion later, if there was a later for him, but so be it. His own life was not important. He had sensed these intruders for a reason; he was a weapon in the Emperor's arsenal, a soldier on His front line...
... and he existed to be fired, to be expended if necessary. His destiny was service, even unto death.
As Da'Razel sent forth his burning cultists to intercept one foe, Deonis knew that he himself must prepare to meet another. Those auras he sensed were overwhelming, and he feared them... but he feared the Emperor more, as all beings should. And would, he reminded himself, when Solipsis completed his inevitable and foretold domination of the galaxy. They were on the cusp of a new age, a new century of galactic history that would be the Emperor's to shape. "They come," Deonis told the Saint of Fire. "I must stand against them. I feel the Emperor's will."
He stowed away his ritual dagger and took up his staff once more.
"Bless me, Saint Peterius. Cauterize my weakness. Fill me with holy fire, and I will hold back His foes."
What is left UNDISCLOSED
LOCATION - Death Star III
Michael, Gabriel, Azrael,Sariel,Raphael,Jeremiel,Connel, Raguel
[Any text in brackets signifies comm-link usage and not face to face conversation]
The brute laughed, his voice scraping the walls like rusted metal. Words. Always words. Connel let the sound pass over him, irrelevant. Sith prattle — predictable, circular, hollow. The same empty song his father had heard a thousand times, the same song that ended on Coruscant.
The Protector thought him arrogant. Thought he believed himself the turning point. Connel snorted once, a short breath through the mask. Nothing more. If only the monster knew. Connel didn’t consider himself a tenth of what his father had been. Not the Jedi. Not the warrior. Not the man. That was gone. What remained was what the Light needed him to be, whether the Sith liked it or not.
So he circled. Silent. Calculating. Sabers humming at opposite rhythms, Night jagged and sharp, Day steady and cold. The Houk kept talking, words like bait. Serve Him. Thirst for pain. Delight in humiliation.
Predictable. Always predictable.
That’s when he felt it — the faint distortion of air, the hiss of ozone. The distraction. Behind him, sparking cables snaked forward, jagged ends lunging like fangs.
They struck.
Agony flared across his back, muscles locking, breath catching. For an instant his vision went white. It was meant to break him, to make him scream.
Instead, he remembered. The smell of ozone, the arc of lightning caught on a massive saber, his father’s stance unyielding against storms that should have killed him. A master’s lesson: pain was only power if you surrendered to it. Otherwise, it was fuel.
Connel’s fists clenched tighter around his hilts. His teeth bared behind the mask.
And then he answered.
The Force roared through him, channeled into his arms until the shortsabers vibrated in his grip. He spun, crossing the twins, and with a snap of will unleashed his fury in a blinding arc of Electric Judgment. Golden-blue lightning erupted outward, racing back along the hungry cables, consuming them and overcharging their source, at the same time exploding towards the Houk’s massive frame.
Connel stood firm, sabers raised, his breath steady. The air still reeked of scorched metal and flesh. He said nothing to the offer, nothing to the challenge. Only a single, measured truth escaped him, his voice low, edged in finality:
It reminded her of that fight - and what the Force had done to her that day. Her first instinct was to shake the strong, uncomfortable feeling that now crawled its way up her throat, but she hesitated. Such feelings, she knew, had their uses. There was a trick to allowing an overwhelming fear to linger while also needing a warrior's focus.
As much as Arris wished to test her skill against the beasts, she and her companions were already aboard the tram. She directed her fear of death into a fear of the junk golems that now pursued them, channeling the will to flee into the machine. The tram powered up and moved quickly like prey on the run.
If the technobeasts would still attack them, then - and only then - would she turn and fight.
"Well, either someone knows we're here or we've got a whole heap of these freaks aboard the station."
It wasn't a comfortable thought.
"The controls are yours, Gerra." She gestured towards the tram's console.
Though wary of imminent danger, Arris lit a deathstick to calm her nerves and took a long drag.
One among Gerra’s crowd finally pulled down their cowl.
Red-haired, amber-eyed, Mercy glanced at the tram and then back towards the horde of technobeasts turning around the corner towards them. "Tsch. It is the weak that require slaves to do the fighting for them." Mercy muttered as she turned back and yanked the doors of the tram open. The iron whined, the mechanics screeched, but in the end it turned towards her will and allowed them entry.
When Gerra opined that the Galactic Empire had not deserved their Death Star, Mercy could only concur. It belonged to her, as did anything else the Dark Lord claimed, he had put it all on the line when he agreed to the Kaggath after all.
"I have not seen a single vaunted Lord among their defenses yet, Gerra." She said in a conversational tone as they approached the controls of the vehicle. "If the extent of Solipsis’ might is what he brought to the Conclave, I will be extremely disappointed."
In that case this clash would be just as disinteresting as the last.
The tram turned on and the infernal machine sped away into the tunnel. Mercy settled in next to Arris and plucked the deathstick out of her fingers after her first drag. She pulled herself, letting the necrotic taste into her lungs and sighed softly as she passed it back to her.
"I realize you wish to claim this over-designed heap of metal. My suggestion is to go straight for his throne room. I have another score to settle with him and while I am not an Imperial designer, I would be shocked if it doesn’t contain the overrides that can assume direct control over the whole battlestation."
Quinn paused. Something in the Force shook the Echani as she looked up towards nowhere in particular. A small smile curled at her lips as she looked at Gerra.
"Reinforcements are inbound. Seems the Empress decided to join the fight."
The world shook around them. The Vahlan warlord scowled at the hurtling shapes of the technobeasts, listening to the Princess' words. More damage to repair when he claimed this station by right of conquest. Or... perhaps salvage if the Empress did true damage.
"I realize you wish to claim this over-designed heap of metal. My suggestion is to go straight for his throne room. I have another score to settle with him and while I am not an Imperial designer, I would be shocked if it doesn’t contain the overrides that can assume direct control over the whole battlestation."
"Your vendetta is your own, Star-Arm," he grunted. "We go to the overbridge."
It would take them closer enough to where she sought, if she chose to break off at that point. Although, knowing that the throne room might have backup overrides should the overbridge prove unassailable did sound appealing.
The tram lurched swiftly into motion and Gerra watched the snarling forms of the technobeasts recede as they hurtled toward their destination thanks to Arris' talents with Mechu Deru.
"Is this all the might of the Corpse Emperor can assay against me, brother? Corpses of metal and corpses of flesh? Bodies, bodies, bodies for the pile."
The hallway was silent, save for the sound of Meliant clicking the comlink. Again and again he paged his colleagues. He had nobody else to call. Perhaps all the buzzing would at least annoy them, wherever they were.
He listened in and picked up some updates across the channels. Technobeasts in the halls. Darth Carnifex cramming a malevolent AI into a scomp port, and that AI going on to flood the systems. Compromise the networks. Make a mess.
Great swathes of the station's communications network were being physically burned out to contain it. That seemed like only a marginal improvement to a Zambrano assuming direct control. Sooner or later something, somewhere important would break as a result of the scorched earth. Cracks in the chain. New vulnerabilities.
"Is this all the might of the Corpse Emperor can assay against me, brother? Corpses of metal and corpses of flesh? Bodies, bodies, bodies for the pile."
As if he needed a reminder of his own, personal problem still steadily approaching.
Someone coughed and Meliant turned to take a look at the sallow officer, who was shifting weight from one foot to the other. Hands clasped behind his back very professionally in order to keep them from shaking.
"What, are you worried?"
"No, sir." A lot of effort went into that lie.
"Good. You shouldn't be." Meliant humored him, clicked the commlink a few more times. "Did you know Saint Peterius of the Church is aboard this vessel? Him and his elite Karsta Raka."
"I did not." The officer straightened a little bit. "Then this station is protected by a considerable force."
Meliant laughed bitterly. "No, not at all. The Church are only good for flapping their gums, preening like birds. If you want something done around here, you call the Dark Side Elite."
The officer blinked. There was a playbook for dealing with blasphemy in the ranks, but not when the words came from one of the Dark Side Elite. "Did you… Call them?"
One of the death troopers looked back towards the two. He said something through his indecipherable voice scrambler, then the whole squad took up firing positions in the hallway.
Meliant, meanwhile, found himself a nice place to sit: a crate just to the right of the overbridge doors.
AIRLOCK062, ABOARD THE DEATH STAR III, APPROACHINGATRISIA, CORE WORLD TERRITORIES (903ABY)
'Stop right there, Nomads! You don't have the clearance to dock here!' 'Calm yourself, Trooper. Its already over.' 'But the battle still rages o-'
[CRACK]
[CRACK]
[THUD - THUD]
The Ancients, these masked gods to whom Yorunarr still prayed, had not waned in their power as Force Entities, marked as proof in the strength and ferocity of their exiled Priest-King; even with Archais and Arkania lost to his culture, the strength of the last Blood-Shaman persisted as if every last great temple remained. Letting fly with fists that cracked the helmets of the Guard Troopers that lay at his feet, it would be easier for others to believe in the glories that still awaited Novania's people, a hope for future revival, and in a time when all seemed to be lost to history itself, just as it had in the weeks following the death of his father.
As hope would always remain for the Godseer's people, so long as the Masks still existed.
Knowing this was enough to set the old Novanian in his ways, setting him on the same path as his Lord Imperator, and without a care in the world for how it might make him appear in the annals of monarchic history, Novania's Priest-King was finally willing to give up his aspirations for that one great act of martyrdom. That which would inspire new and exciting generations of heroes, new generations of Arkanian-born shamans to counter the cold, clinical ways of their ancient forebears; and whenever he looked to young souls like Tancred, the urge to make it count only seemed to intensify tenfold, making all the more sense with parental, mentoring instincts considered.
'Nice! So.... What now, Yorunarr?' 'Fair question, but knowing your connection to the Force, I figured you might know.' 'Thing is - there's a chance I do.... But its not me, per se.'
Laughing loud enough to be heard throughout the nearest docking bay, the old Novanian couldn't help but find the humour in the awkward convenience, only heightened by the fact similar conveniences had been befalling the unlikely duo throughout the course of their endeavour; first was the uneventful hijacking in disguise, next was the ignorance of the city's anti-air defence systems, and then the unchallenged docking until the point they dropped the off-ramp. Everything about this misadventure felt tailor-fitted to succeed, and from one miraculous turn of luck to the next, it all felt hilariously silly to Yorunarr in these moments, though he was more than happy to admit it was lifting him out from the grief that still assailed him by then.
'I think its Lilia, I think she's reaching out.' 'Probably is.... Probably shouldn't doubt it, I know I wouldn't.... Even if its a trap, we can handle it.'
[Hssss]
[Whiiirrrrr....]
'Was going to ask,"Are we going in loud or quiet?", but....'
As the slide door opened to the docking-bay beyond, the realisation of how they may have appeared in that moment seemed to bring out more laughter from the Godseer, but when the Chanting Saint looked back and forth between his duelling mentor and the two troopers lying unconscious at his feet, Tancred would quickly find himself wheezing and guffawing along with his old Novanian friend. Staring down at least fifteen blaster-barrels by then, the ridiculous circumstances leading up to this moment could only pale in comparison, the only thing keeping the mirth from mutating into rueful cackles of regret was the fact both warriors were trained to counter blaster trails and slugs alike, the most-fortunate of safety nets they could have called upon by that point of the failed infiltration.
'Looks like the,"Quiet", part is no longer an option.' 'Let us begin.'
There was a surpassingly niche forgotten skill attributed to the Luke Skywalker of legend. The skill was this: to root yourself to the core of the celestial body on which you stood (a Death Star, in this case) and stand so as to not be moved.
It combined extremely well with half a century of specialization in full-body Force Protection. Certain synergies with the ability to hide one's presence, too, in the appropriate context.
"Ashina,” recited Reliquiis. “I shall remember that name. Jedi.”
Her red visor followed this Master Ashina (Henna Ashina
) as she crept to the left of Reliquiis. Although the t-shaped visor showed a blank and fixed stare, her golden eyes behind it were far more perceptive. They watched the Master’s steps carefully; judging her approach, spying on the small movements of her stance, and of her face. All the while, Reliquiis still held her pointing hand aloft, pointed right at the Master Ashina. As the Master moved, Reliquiis’ Dark Side sodden hand mirrored, as if it were a flexed secondary weapon held in checking guard.
Reliquii’s gaze then flicked aside to look at the prior foe, the younger one (Kito
), a Padawan of this Master Ashina perhaps, moving in the opposite direction, seeking to surround her no doubt. For the Padawan, Reliquiis had raised the curved hilt of her crimson lightsaber to a high guard. The blade was raised in a straight vertical perch so the tip rose above her own head. The Dark Side lurched from within Reliquiis once more and was pulsed into her other arm now. She held it there as well. There was no need to react first. Even a foe’s trap had opportunities to elucidate more knowledge.
Just as Reliquiis prepared for the simultaneous attack that was surely to come, the entire battle station shuddered. Plates creaked and the innards of the station growled in activation. Everyone stopped and from the viewport came the tell tale signs of a hyperspace jump. The Station is moving?! Reliquiis thought. A retreat?No. Such stratagems would offend the Dark Lord’s machinations. Real space ripped back into view as the thin lines of streaking starlight faded back into distant dots of spectral constellations.
Rapidly approaching the viewport was the carnage of a roiling fleet battle and planetary assault over a blue green world. Reliquiis did not recognize the world by appearances, but the Padawan did. She blurted out the name. Atrisia? Repeated Reliquiis in her searching thoughts. The sudden feelings of fear and worry in both of her opponents piqued her supernatural powers of empathic intrusion. I see. These Jedi are the Lightsworn I have heard of, Reliquiis conjectured. There was so much more to these two.
Reliquiis waited, the interruption had been illuminating, but it was suddenly over.
In an instant…Master Ashina attacked first!
The Master sprang forward, headlong in a reaching lunge to extend the strike of her saber to cleave at Reliquiis’ torso. But, Reliquiis’ guarding hand had kept in time with her movements. Reliquiis threw down the hand and all the powers of the Dark Side that had so prior pooled inside it speared the floor plating directly beneath the Master’s lunging body. A tearing jerk upwards of her hand dislodged the plate and launched it high into the Master’s position; Reliquiis intended to send the Master, with the plate, into the ceiling and squash her.
But there was no time for the vain satisfaction of seeing the attack land, Reliquiis spun her head to the side at the Padawan. She was already gone. The Padawan had drawn upon the Force and had sped her attack into a glinting blur. She appeared inside Reliquiis’ own guard and was past her raised saber, her own body nearly meeting her breast and shoulder. Reliquiis instinctively shunted herself in a reacting jump aside.
The Padawan’s blade, burning a fiery arch through the scorched air, slashed its burning tip into Reliquiis’ helmet. The singed cleaving streak melted a gash down the visor and then burned her robes, the armor beneath it and lacerated a fiery wound down her chest. Reliquiis had leapt deftly aside just in time to only suffer the tip of the blade, but its radiating flames, fanned by the Force, burned harshly. Pain from her vessel body howled before being strangled by the Sith Amulet in her chest and converted into rage.
Focusing, fixating, vengeful rage. Reliquiis was wounded grievously but now the Padawan was exposed! The arch was finished, she had put everything into the swing. Once more she was now too close herself to Reliquiis. As her blade gouged the last of Reliquiis and passed downwards, the Sith Hound delivered her attack. Her crimson saber had remained high and still drawing in the Dark Side while she leapt aside. Sped into a dark blur by the Dark Side, Reliquiis brought down her saber in a plummeting side swipe and aimed, in one sweep, to sever both of the Padawan’s hands.
The Padawan had gained the honor of breaking Reliquiis guard, but was now trapped herself inside her blade’s sphere of influence.
