Private Dead Ends

[Corin Trenor]

IN THE LIGHT vol. 3
Issue #1
Jand Talo

How long had it been? A month, months, a year? He dreaded to think it could ever be more than that, even more than the rot that stirred in his stomach with the thought of so much as a week. The mission on Denon, as endless as it sometimes seemed, came to an unceremonious close. With belongings stashed and stowed, the runt from the slums was over and done with; a Jedi walks where the boy once ran, though no less troubled. There was that venomous bite that urged him to stop, to put an end to it, lost between the musings of where one life carried on like an undead corpse and a new one blossomed and bloomed. Maybe it never would, maybe those were the terms Corin needed to come to realise. Maybe.

In the old, worn leathers the two wore on Denon, Corin roamed across the deserts of Yinchorr amid the threats of strong winds and an impending sandstorm. The local Yinchorri spoke in a strange tongue, one that Corin hardly understood. The remnants of an Imperial presence remained stationed upon the systems right above the northern border of the Galactic Alliance territories. He avoided them when possible, yet a known face was not so easy to hide. The wraps wound around his face with protective goggles shielding those harsh eyes as he soared across the deserts on a speeder.

The whir came to an end in front of a half-sunken bunker, marking an Imperial logo. Between the intense and whipping sand that blew about ahead of him, thunderously loud as it was, Corin could make out the holographic blue markings that indicated it was the right place. With a forearm shielding his mostly concealed forehead, he tread cautiously closer. His gloved hand wiped across the door, finding the crease. Fingers dug into it and started to pry it open, the discomforting creak and shudder of grinding metal rang out as Corin used all his strained might to slip between the made gap. The rough storm vanished with the sudden, sharp and cumbersome clang of the slamming door behind him. Dimly lit, the white lights on grey halls were half-alive and the walls and flooring seemed to be in an equal state of disrepair.

Something tore through here, Corin noted.

The latest lead of wherever it was Dagon went, for whatever cause that may well be. With hope, those same unknowns would be revealed.

 

[Jand Talo]

Yinchorr was yet another new experience.

The heat, the seemingly endless deserts, and the consistent sand storms that threatened to strip flesh from bone. Thankfully the Jedi robes worn by Jand were resilient to the elements, as the rugged materials held against what nature threw at it, though that didn't mean much when it came to the Nagai's face. In place were large goggles, which rested on the top of a face wrap, as the Jedi Padawan walked through the shifting sands with grunts every other step.

Jand had been sent to investigate an Imperial outpost, a mission that saw him away from the Maw-Alliance frontline for a short time, and had stumbled onto a small convoy - one that had been in a hurry, panicked even. The Imperials had been dispatched, efficiently, though the Padawan's speeder had been damaged in the confrontation. Thankfully the position of the outpost had been revealed from the officer's nav equipment, which indicated the location was close, and also provided a final destination for the contingent of soldiers...

But first, the outpost.

After what seemed a dozen hours, Jand reached the position, and was interested to see a speeder at the entry. That would help, once Jand was done. The compound appeared underground, a half-sunken bunker, though beyond that was unknown through the harsh winds and sand. With boots that crunched on the sand surface, Jand reached the door and pulled out his lightsaber, which he held loosely in hand as he pried the entry open--

"Hm?"

--and caught a glimpse of an individual inside, as the doors revealed the darkened interior from the blazing sun outside. The Padawan narrowed his eyes behind the goggles, as he used the Force to slam open the doors fully, before he slid inside and activated the blue bladed weapon with a snap-hiss.

"Identify yourself."

The sentient was humanoid, dressed in layered desert garb, but also seemed familiar and seemingly wasn't Imperial... and that was the only reason Jand hadn't attacked immediately.

Corin Trenor​

 

[Corin Trenor]

IN THE LIGHT vol. 3
Issue #2
Jand Talo

The air was thick and stale, left to carry the heat trapped inside the slanted Imperial bunker. The elements on Yinchorr had failed the Imperials, it seemed, with only half the pale white lights left turned on through a failing generator humming so loudly in its final moments while the rest either died or flickered frantically in some attempt to reignite. Piles of sand gathered in the corners, along the halls where the ground slanted to one side. Panels from the ceiling, walls, and floor were both removed or broken, with wires in varying states torn out and strewn about lazily. Corin placed a gloved hand across the metal seared into the grey-steel, seared into in a line as thick as a lightsaber with scores of filled stormtrooper armour flat around it.

Perhaps the thoughts that rose with boundless assumptions stole his attention, unaware of the approaching presence until the doors creaked and groaned before slamming themselves shut once more. Corin whipped around something fierce, his blue bladed saber igniting in his palm to find one so similar matching his own. His tensed frame loosened with the sudden realisation, lowering the fabric over his mouth and raising the rest fitted over his head.

"You first," said Corin with his own defenses lowered, foolishly as it was.

 

[Jand Talo]

The immediate entry to the facility was filled with all manner of chaos, as something - or someone - had severely destabilized the hallway. Not only the supports, but the walls and floor, which were skewed and uneven in gradient. Then there were the bodies, strewn about in various states of death, clearly indicated a threat that might have nearby - it was obvious the individual before Jand was not it, however.

The bodies were too old.

When the other spun, Jand crouched lower and prepared to engage, even as he caught sight of the blue lightsaber opposite him. The face that was revealed, when the sand-protective fabric was pulled back, caused the Padawan to grunt to himself. There was a sentient who Jand had not seen in a long, long time, none other than--

"Corin."

Jand relaxed somewhat, as he stood upright and reached up to remove his own coverings and goggles. Within moments the chalk-white skin of the Nagai was visible, though likely somewhat older than the other might have expected, but hopefully recognizable nonetheless. Due to the intermittent lighting, Jand kept the blade activated, as he lifted it up to help illuminate the surrounding hallway more so.

"I have not seen you since Ilum... that was a long time ago, now."

The other looked older, too. Ragged. Perhaps that applied to both of them, really, as Jand had spent the last half year on the Maw-Alliance frontlines. Still, curious, Jand raised an eyebrow as he walked toward the other Jedi...

"What brings you to this facility?"

Corin Trenor​

 

[Corin Trenor]

"Been a while, huh?" The often wayward Jedi wondered aloud with a small smile once the initial confusion fell from his face, "You grew up."

The years on Denon spent estranged from the Jedi Order, it held them all frozen in time; vestiges of his youth, now taken from him and made into men, into women. The memories of them all as boys and girls in training as Padawan learners were then, and this was now. The frontlines of a battlefield, of countless battlefields, raised into a war. That was their role in this Jedi Order, to become soldiers. It suited Corin well enough.

Though it saddened him a touch to see them all talk among themselves as friends with strengthened bonds, earned and gained from their years together. The very same that Corin robbed himself of with his own ignorance and stubbornness. Denon was sick, poisoned, in trouble, though it needed a Jedi. It needed the Corin that he should have been, that he always could have been.

The Jedi that Corin never allowed himself to be.

"Dagon," he said briefly. It was known well enough that the Jedi Knight was missing, vanished on some mission, left unseen and unheard from. "I'm trying to track him down and," his foot tapped the dead husk of a stormtrooper, "we've found his handiwork at the very least."

He stared a moment longer, thinking.

"And you?" He asked, turning to Jand.

Jand Talo

 

[Jand Talo]

Jand nodded at the response from Corin.

Both of them had, in many ways. Jand's was probably more obvious, now taller and broader, but that was beside the point. There was now opportunity to reunite with an ally, one that had been efficient in combat, and had the potential to assist in Jand's mission - should their paths continue to align.

When Jand listened to Corin explain his reason for being at the facility, the Padawan nodded again.

"I am investigating rumors of suspicious activity in this area," the Nagai said simply, as he looked around at the destruction they stood amid. "I was closest, when the request came through, along the Maw-Alliance frontline."

Jand scoffed.

"It seems the rumors were true. I am expected to investigate and report on findings..."

He turned to Corin, eyebrow raised.

"And I assume you intend to search this facility for traces of Dagon?"

It seemed things aligned.

Corin Trenor​