Tyrant Queen of Darkness
"And where many fell, many indeed are indebted to rise."
Tag - OPEN
H'ratth.
A world all but erased from the wider galaxy, swallowed by the upheaval that followed the collapse of the Galactic Alliance and the brief, revanchist regime that had styled itself the Galactic Empire. It was known for its jagged cliffs and unforgiving, arid climate—but also for something far older. Once, Jedi had trained here in the art of healing, refining their discipline in restoration.
Why such a world now drew the attention of the Tyrant Queen was known only to her.
Even the Jedi had long since abandoned it. With vital trade routes severed by marauding pirate fleets and access to critical resources choked off, H'ratth had fractured. Sectarian violence consumed it—smaller factions splintered along the lines of former nation-states and entrenched ethnic identities, each clawing for the meager remnants required to endure another day.
It was a tragic decline.
And hardly a unique one.
Skirting the dense lattice of ground-to-air batteries that made approach hazardous, Virelia brought her shuttle down upon a narrow, uncontested ledge carved into a sheer cliff face. There, embedded in the stone itself, loomed a sprawling ruin.
It was an ancient fortress, likely constructed long before the present age of fracture and bloodshed. Time and war had scarred it, but its foundations remained sound—more than sufficient for a base of operations as the Tyrant Queen began her quiet intervention upon the isolated world.
Halberd in hand, she purged the squatters with ruthless efficiency. She passed through the corridors like a closing vice—again inevitable, leaving only silence in her wake. The lower levels yielded the prize she sought: aging generators, dormant but not beyond salvation. A methodical assessment revealed the truth.
The primary generator required two components: a voltage regulator—entirely absent—and a replacement exhaust assembly, the current one damaged beyond recovery. Once installed, the fortress would draw breath again. Securing those parts, however, would require more than simple scavenging. She would need to locate them—and decide how best to claim them in a world already fractured by volatility and suspicion.
Information would be the first currency. And so she turned her attention toward neutral ground, a place where credits and whispers traded hands with equal ease.
A cantina would suffice.
Isolated and defiant, Shurik's Bar stood as one of the few remaining sanctuaries for the planet's criminals and castoffs. Set deep within the gullet of a narrow valley, the circular structure—encircled by a rough sprawl of tents and makeshift camps—leaned into the heavy, restless wind. Across the valley floor, racers and speeders carved wild arcs through dust and stone, engines screaming in a constant ruckus. It was noise for the sake of noise—a temporary reprieve from the bitterness and slow collapse that defined the world beyond the canyon walls.
Flak bursts and hoarse shouting tore through the air as a nearby battle ground on—ceaseless, mechanical, indifferent in its carnage. Yet even here, a semblance of charity endured. Triage tents sagged under the weight of the wounded, soldiers of every color and fractured banner kept tenuously from death's unending claim. The liquor they sought to drown their memories waited only a few steps away.
Further into the encampment, merchants and soothsayers conducted quieter wars of their own, peddling prophecy and firepower in equal measure. Redemption for the soul was priced no higher than a charged blaster cell. In a world so persistently brutal, most trusted in metal and munitions over murmured assurances of fate.
The devout rarely lasted long.
Within the cantina proper, smoke and coarse laughter clung to the rafters—a temporary refuge from the ruin outside. Every table was claimed by someone: the desperate, the ambitious, the broken, the predatory. Secrets and influence changed hands as fluidly as credits and fleeting loyalties. In this room, almost anything could be learned—the whereabouts of a vanished Jedi, a contract worth a fortune, the leverage required to bend a splintered world to one's will.
Alone in a shadowed corner sat a young blonde woman, her gaze drifting subtly from beneath lowered lashes as she nursed a glass of costly wine. Armor lay beneath the darkness that cloaked her frame—hooded, yet deliberately visible. She sat there, awaiting to see what opportunities made themselves clear.
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