Crisis on Ithor [Republic]

[Soeht]

Before the Gulag Plague, Ithor experienced a rebirth through the New Galaxy Rebuilding Plan. Just as with Alderaan, galaxy restored the once ravaged world. The surviving Ithorians returned to their ancestral homeworld and rebuilt their floating cities. When the Gulag Plague severed their ties to the rest of the galaxy, the centuries to follow allowed for the Ithorians to rebuild their ancient culture.

Through the will of the Force, Ithorians established a society much as it had been before the arrival of the Yuuzhan Vong. Yet in 836, the peaceful planet experienced a new threat that could tear the fabric of its society apart.

For some unknown reason, a large group of Ithorian Force users fell to the dark side and established their own cult. In time, they began launching terrorist attacks against the floating cities in order to bring them down. Their planned seemed to be to bring the Ithorian race to the surface and destroy its jungles - rebuilding its cities on top of the ashes.

The Ithorian council, which governed the planet, soon found their efforts to be inadequate in dealing with the cult and preserving their sacred forest. They called upon the Republic to assist them. The Jedi Order swiftly sent aid with selfless goals. The Republic did so as well, yet with the goal of establishing a military base in the Ottega system and Ithorian representation in the senate - forever integrating the planet into the Republic.

As part of the effort to root out the cult, Daella traveled toward one of the floating cities of Ithor with a strike force of Republic soldiers and Jedi. According to the Ithorian council, the cult took over the city and used it as their base of operations.

Meanwhile, diplomats would surely be going to speak with the Ithorian council to offer membership in the Republic.

 

[Serah Oricion]

Yusan smiled, looking down at the planet from the bridge of the ship he was on that resided in orbit. He was wearing battle armor and had two vibroblades over his back and two pistols on his sides, a grin on his fast. Let the Senators and diplomats that cant fight go and talk, but he was Echani, he would rather see this through more personally than most Diplomats, and why shouldn't he. This would earn him a name and more so, link him closer to those in the military. He had been prepared for hours now, and while everyone was scrambling about he made his way calmly to the hanger, ready to take a shuttle down to the surface with the strike force. The best part about the whole thing, was the looks of disgust from the diplomats, and the looks of worry from the soldiers, as if both doubted or hated Yusan for fighting. Of course he would have to be careful, his saber was hidden in his armor and his force sensitivity kept in check, he couldn't let someone know he knew how to use the force. @[member="Daella Apparine"]

 

[Arumi Zy]

@[member="Daella Apparine"]

The acrid stench of smoke expelled from the siths nostrils as he exhaled, inhaling again sharply on the cigarette he moved with the jedi strike force. In truth he had chosen to hide his alignment from the Ithorian councilors who might not understand his position or the fact he was part of the Jedi Order, atleast bound by their rules. He could feel the taint of the dark side pulling at his heart and his own dark hearts. Tendrils of entropy and hatred raced through him as he closed his eyes and tried to focus on the coming battle. Many times before he would have already fallen to the battle lust but he had to save himself, had to prepare for the task that was at hand. The jedi needed him, even if they wouldn't admit it. What best to find the monsters and destroy them then a monster.

@[member="Daella Apparine"] " The dark side grows stronger the closer we go, it is deep" he said as he focused on the pull " If the Ithorians have indeed embraced it, you would be best not to try to negotiate or try to save as your people do. They will kill you, they will use that want against you. They must be dealt with as enemy first, as possible friend last and treacherous most of all." Lord Fidelis said to those around him, his hand patting one of the hilts of his sabers yearning to be released.

 

[Soeht]

The shuttle approached the cult’s floating city. When @[member="Arumi Zy"] spoke, Daella glanced back at the man. Yet, she gave no reply. Her eyes then turned to @[member="Yusan Fenn"]. Once she drew her lightsaber, she waited near the door of the shuttle.

Without warning, fire from the floating city flew at the shuttle. The cult decided to strike first rather than talk with the Republic. Acting quickly, the pilot managed to avoid most of the laser fire and swung the shuttle near a docking platform.

In a dust-off-like manner, the shuttle stopped just inches from the platform to allow the Republic’s strike team to exit. Daella leaped out of the shuttle and was one of the forefront Jedi. She immediately ignited her yellow lightsaber and began blocking small laser fire from some cult soldiers in a building to the strike team’s left. Ahead of the strike team, five Ithorian cultists bearing lightsabers sprinted toward the shuttle.

 

[Serah Oricion]

Yusan didnt even need a command, letting Daella remove the pesky blaster carrying cultist he bolted forward and engaged the nearest pair of saber carrying Cultists. His hands ripped the Vibroblades out of their sheaths and he took up a defensive Echani stance as the charged. The two Ithorians knew what they were doing thought as, one cut towards Yusan's feet the other brought his saber down to stop Yusan from rolling to one side causing him to jump back a bit and have to reassess the two. It would not be simple, this much was easy to point out and he was not going to let that stop him. He closed his eyes and opened himself up to the force, though only enough so that it looked like the increase in ability was passive and not that he had been trained. Once opened up to the force he took an offensive stance and stepped forward, feinting two slashes where one went for the shin and the other went for the shoulder before pulling them back and stabbing at the Ithorian's chest. But they didnt reach the skin in time as the second Ithorian knocked him back with a force push. His eyes glared at the two and had he not been keeping up his guise he would have done far worse than he could at the time. With another deep breath he charged in, this time sending a wave of energy at the second Ithorian's feet, he hoped the amount of Force energy would block his rise in connection enough to get away with it as he plunged a blade into the dumbstruck companion of the fallen Ithorian. He brought the blade out and turned on the second cultist, walking over and sinking both blades into the still on the ground Cultist. Once done he collected the two sabers and clipped them to his belt, they were souvenirs after all. @[member="Daella Apparine"] @[member="Arumi Zy"]

 

[Arumi Zy]

@[member="Daella Apparine"] @[member="Yusan Fenn"]

Lord Fidelis grunted as he dropped from the shuttle, walking towards the cultist soldiers before igniting his sabers in mid charge. The sith roared as he sent a blaster bolt back into the face of one of the attackers, sending a flying saber at a another he lept backwards catching his returning saber in time to deflect the saber of a cultist force user. He twirled his body dropping low thrusting forward through the torso of the offending ithorian with his main hand. His secondary saber came up in a whir taking the stunned and near dead beings hands off, his primary weapon ended that creatures life permenantly in a blaze towards its fetid neck.

The sith quickly took a defensive stance as more blaster bolts began to barrel towards him, using his sabers and mastery of the force to deflect the bolts sending them in directions they could not harm the strike team. His face was contorted in what could only be considered hatred and anger as he moved forward leaving the others to deal with the surviving force users. He saw his opening, a section that appeared weak where the snipers fire was coming from. He reached out with the force gripping its supports and with a fist jerking motion sent the support flying away. The screams of the cultist soldiers began to echo as they tried to scramble up the collapsing platform before falling to a grizzly and fearful death.
" Stop wasting time on those creatures" he muttered as he began to deflect more blaster fire coming in at them. His yellow and green saber working in concert to deflect the deadly projectiles " Or do you need assistance with such feeble foes".

@[member="Yusan Fenn"] @[member="Daella Apparine"]

 

[Soeht]

Quick to deflect projectiles, Daella effortless moved in the same direction as @[member="Yusan Fenn"] ran off to.

After Yusan dispatched two of the Force using Ithorians, the other two began to charge at him. Yet, Daella swiftly got in the way. She attacked one of the Ithorians and locked sabers with it. After a brief hiss due to the clash, Daella rotated her saber around just to glance the Ithorian’s shoulder. The alien shirked away from Daella due to the pain. The Jedi Knight then sliced off both of the Ithorian’s hands and kicked it in the face - knocking it unconscious.

Daella glanced back at the collapsing building for a brief second - the scene being unique in that the Republic strike team did not bring any heavy weapons. She then glanced at @[member="Arumi Zy"] before turning back to the last of the first four Ithorian Force users.

More Ithorian soldiers began to rush at the strike team. They poured from the floating city’s Grand Hall, which was where the leader of the cult was supposed to be.

Before Daella could act against the last Ithorian Force user, it braced itself and took a huge breath. Then, it unleashed a terrible Force bellow that cracked the ground before it. The power of the bellow rushed straight for Daella and Yusan.

 

[Arumi Zy]

@[member="Daella Apparine"]

Darth Fidelis continued to bat away the blaster bolts that were coming towards him, his face locked in a eternal embrace of rage. He had neither the time nor the care to return their bolts towards them, he was moving towards the rest of the strike team. The sith lord grunted and growled as he let his guard down and extended a hand towards the Ithorian force user unleashing a wave of energy.

" Move before you find your demise" he roared at the pair.

 

[Daral Tal'Verda]

Violence. How he detested violence, but in this case it was needed. The short figure that was Olaf, pulled a shoto from his hip and ignited it, the emerald blade sprung up with a snap-hiss and instantly went to work blocking the bolts that came for him. As he neared a group of the soldiers he blasted them back with a force push, knocking them onto their backs and forcing them to drop their weapons.


Now, if he had been like @[member="Arumi Zy"], he'd have cut the fallen soldiers in two, instead he pulled their weapons towards himself, and cut them in two. Not wasting any time, he ran as fast as his legs could carry him to the side of @[member="Daella Apparine"] and @[member="Yusan Fenn"]. "Hurt, are you?" He asked, his speech pattern being the same broken galactic basic that his species was known for.

 

[Soeht]

With @[member="Yusan Fenn"] not moving from his position, Daella dove toward the Senator and attempted to push him as far away as possible. Regardless of whether or not she managed to spare Yusan from the Force bellow’s power, Daella still stood in its wake as she was barraged by it.

Wearing white Jedi armor over her typical hoody, cracks appeared in the duraplast shell. Daella clenched her teeth as the force of the blast brought her to her knees.

Once the Ithorian stopped roaring, Daella slowly and silently rose to her feet. She did not given a response to @[member="Olaf Freesa"]. She glared at the Dark Jedi Ithorian and gripped her lightsaber tightly with both hands.

In an instant, Daella lunged at the dangerous Ithorian. She slashed her lightsaber horizontally across. In an attempt to block Daella’s strike, the Ithorian held his crimson lightsaber vertically. As soon as contact was made between blades, Daella twisted her wrists so that the very tip of her yellow lightsaber touched the Ithorian’s hand. Instinctively, he dropped the crimson lightsaber and yelled in pain.

Slipping back from the pressure of the Ithorian’s yelp, Daella quickly regained her footing once more. Without hesitation, she swung her lightsaber once more at the Ithorian across his chest and killed him.

Instead of continuing to press forward toward the city hall, Daella turned back toward the rest of the Republic strike team. Ignoring @[member="Arumi Zy"] and Olaf, her eyes turned toward the Senator - which Jedi were charged to protect.

 

[Daral Tal'Verda]

Olaf froze momentarily, she'd killed him, @[member="Daella Apparine"] had killed the then unarmed Ithorian, perhaps it was justified, but it still shook the little green man. He too turned back to the senator @[member="Yusan Fenn"], only to see the man taking the cultist's blades as prizes, to say the least Olaf didn't approve of such barbaric actions, but he remained silent. To add to his discomfort was @[member="Arumi Zy"], a Sith, one who worked with the Republic, but still in all essence a Sith. He was a ruthless killing machine, an embodiment of everything that was wrong with the galaxy, and here Olaf was working with it. How lovely.

 

[Serah Oricion]

Yusan stood back up, his muscles aching from the force bellow which had hit him as he was pushed out of the way by Daella. He had seen it coming but risked taking the hit so that he was not revealed to be able to sense and use the force through training. He stood and immediately got into the battle instincts that he had been taught in by his father, his people, and most importantly his mother. Letting the innate sensitively flow through him as he stared at the next enemies. His hands closed around the two blades he carried, those being the cultist's unlit sabers which he activated and moved inn his hand for a moment before pressing forward towards the city hall.

His hands went to work the moment that a new enemy approached him, moving the block the blade and plunging the second saber into the Ithorian's chest. OR at least trying to. The Ithorian had seen it coming and sent a wave of force energy at Yusan, pushing him across the floor. Taking no time the Ithorian charged him now and brought the saber down in an arc over his head, which Yusan now blocked with both the blades in his hands and pushed the Ithorian's blade to the side before bringing the blades across the Ithorian's chest as it turned. The Ithorian's life slipped from it as the blades seared its flesh and cut into its bone and muscles, a sickening sound erupting from the creature's mouth. He took a moment to look down at the dead Ithorian, a level of pity overtaking Yusan for a moment before his eyes drifted back up to the city hall's doors. He strode forward, his mind reaching out and searching for danger, though this action risked discovery that he had been trained in the past it no longer mattered. There were already enough force users in the area that it should shroud that fact unless someone was right beside him.

@[member="Olaf Freesa"] @[member="Daella Apparine"] @[member="Arumi Zy"]

 

[Soeht]

As soon as @[member="Yusan Fenn"] showed signs of life, Daella began to press forward. The resistance against the Republic strike team increased the close that they reached the city hall. Daella seemed pressed to keep up against the heavy barrage of blaster fire.

When another lightsaber wielding Ithorian attacked Yusan, Daella rushed toward the senator as fast as she could as if to protect him. Though he felled the Ithorian, blaster shots zipped right toward him as he began to run forward once more. Already running, Daella quickly dashed between Yusan and the blaster fire. She batted away the bolts and returned them to sender. No more blaster shots came from that direction.

Just the city hall's doors stood before the Republic strike team, though. Daella waited for everyone to catch up before pressing forward.

 

[Serah Oricion]

Looked to his right, seeing the blasterbolts and ccursing himself for falling into such an easy position of elimination. But that did not come to pass as Yusan was saved by Daella's actions, which he would have to remember to thank her for saving his life. While he waited for the rest of the strike team he shifted in his armor and checked it for damage. While it was still intact the notable damage included the chest plate being dented and cracked by the force bellow and the Ithorian's force push. He did notice now a pain in his left shoulder that was due to a seared hole in the armor, it seems a blaster bolt had caught him and in the adrenaline of the situation he had not noticed. He threw down the saber in his left and switched the one in his right as best he could without alerting Daella to the fact that he had a saber of his own. It was possible that she might notice the change in sabers, but likely she would dismiss it as him throwing down the saber in his right hand to pick up the newly fallen Ithorian's saber, which he had pushed under the dead body. The saber in his hand now felt like it belonged compared to the two sabers he had used due to them being there. The saber after all had been his since his mother had given it to him, his connection to the saber was one that he could not just forsake. He lit it and stared at the blue blade, he pulled his robes around him and looked back at the rest of the strike force, waiting for them with Daella.

@[member="Daella Apparine"] @[member="Olaf Freesa"] @[member="Arumi Zy"]

 

[Daral Tal'Verda]

Regrouping with the others, Olaf was silent, not wishing to draw to much attention to himself. It wasn't a difficult task when you were shorter than three feet tall. Deactivating his blue saber (that's right, it's blue now, don't question it) he awaited orders from the mouth of @[member="Daella Apparine"], his only superior here.

@[member="Yusan Fenn"]
@[member="Arumi Zy"]

 

[Soeht]

After a glance at @[member="Yusan Fenn"], Daella quickly scanned the area and looked at everyone that is a part of the strike team. Once everyone had gathered by the door, Daella pushed against the heavy frame. It opened with ease. She then walked into the grand foyer of the city hall. No Ithorian cultist greeted them, with words or violence.

Just after Daella entered the empty grand foyer, a loud mechanical wail echoed throughout the floating city as if power systems were shutting down. Then, a shuttle shot out from behind the city hall. Its proximity shook the city hall and prompted Daella to rush outside. She looked up to the sky to see if fly northward.

After that, the ground began to lean to the east. Several more shuttles from the city took off to the sky. Daella and others would have felt as if they were lighter and the wind began to pick up.

The cultists had decided to turn off the floating city's repulsions. It now began to fall from the sky.

"Run," said Daella, the first thing she said throughout the entire mission as she began to flee toward the platform that the Republic strike team arrived on.

 

[Arumi Zy]

@[member="Daella Apparine"]

Lord Fidelis growled and noded at the female jedi as the city began to fall, force enhanced speed keeping him moving faster then most could manage. In another world and another day he would have seen this as the perfect chance to knock out a rival. He had no fear of that anymore, atleast not enough to truly show it.

 

[Serah Oricion]

He saw the shuttles leaving from outside the city hall then felt the ground lean as the city began to fall from the sky. Yusan cursed to himself as things changed around him quickly and for not expecting that before bolting for the shuttle, he was sufficiently slower than the Jedi due to his need for hiding his training. None the less though he was covering ground fast enough that he should have to worry about going down with the city. His eyes drifted off to the sky, staring at where the shuttles had gone and thinking how if he ever say these Ithorians again they would be dead next chance he got.

 

[Vexander Graves]

Strike teams and their special operations always had a backup plan. In this case, due to the nature of the situation, it wasn't odd to have a Jedi guarding the escape route in case everything else fails. Vexander was part of that backup plan. Looking through the hud of his Alpha 7 armor and through the scope of his XS-09 Sniper, he shot a few lightsaber wielding Ithorians without mercy before they could prepare any assault at the docking bay... they couldn't get closer than 800 meters... eventhough he was just a padawan learner, his skills combined with his recent training in the force gave him the clarity and serenity to pull the trigger with more precision than before... his dedication was paying off.

Vexander knew the action he could face in his position wouldn't be as much as the one the strike would see. However, he felt comfortable and saw the need of his role in the operation. Perhaps he was not going to ignite his lightsaber, which was attached to his belt; but at least he would help Ithor and the innocents who were facing the injustice those darksiders were creating.

The hud began to blip, placing red crosshairs in shuttles launching from the city... and almost at the same time the ground began to shake soo heavily that he had to kneel and place his left hand in the ground to keep his balance. "What the...?" said the man to himself. Still kneeling, he looked through the scope of his rifle towards the direction where the strike team went and in the distance... he could see them running towards the docking bay that they secured. "Impossible!" said Vex realizing the heavy change in the wind flow... the city was following down... "They are breaking their own ideals... the crash will affect the ecosystem below and will damage what they consider sacred!" His Master's warnings at the darkside were quite real, not that he doubted the claims... but facing that horrible truth was not normal for the young man.

Stepping inside the shuttle, the young man quickly ordered the pilot "Start the engines! We need to get out of here as soon as the team arrives!" Looking back at the team, the young man waited briefly for them to arrive.

@[member="Daella Apparine"]

 

[Daral Tal'Verda]

One didn't have to tell Olaf twice, he bolted, straight towards the ship along with the rest of his allies, he had to escape. Leaping onto the ship he looked to @[member="Vexander Graves"] and @[member="Daella Apparine"], worry in his eyes. "The people, save them we must." He said urgently, looking back out onto the city that was falling from its lofty position into the ground below.