Invasion Double Tap | TSC Invasion of COV-held Abregado-rae

[SL-0182]

Location: Drop Sites - Abregado-rae
Thread Objective: I - Dropship Site
Mission Objective:

• Inject plague fruiting bodies with the Rampancy Serum.
• Inject plague flesh reavers with the Rampancy Serum.
• Inject the Rampancy Serum into the Heart Site.

Tag: Zandra Ruus

SL-0182 found her gaze briefly drawn to the sky, her lashes fluttering beneath her helmet’s visor. Were those giant cogs ticking within the clouds? The Asset allowed herself a moment to look closer, briefly entertaining a flicker of curiosity before she refocused on her mission and continued on her way to the next drop site. However, before she could make it much further, her nose caught a whiff of something eerily acrid and metallic. She stopped then, turning around to face the office building just as her sensors pinged fresh, unidentified contacts. Her combat skin’s adaptive camouflage activated with a mental command, blending her form into the backdrop as she slid into cover behind the building’s alley facade.

She studied the picture-in-picture feed in her HUD as it transmitted from her probe droid’s visual recorder, eyes widening as she picked out a Mandalorian infantry squad breaking into the office building’s front lobby.

All the while, the serum-treated, supercharged fruiting body convulsed, its blood-red mushroom caps swelling and rupturing to release dense plumes of spores into the air. A trio of serum-treated flesh reavers, having caught the scent of the Mandalorians grouped inside, gave an eerie, infernal howl and charged toward the building’s entrance, red acid spewing from their maws in corrosive arcs.

SL-0182 ascended to the top of the office building, her combat skin’s repulsorlifts carrying her upward before she alighted gracefully on the roof above the sixth floor.

From her elevated vantage point, she had the opportunity to look up once more. Her gaze caught the silhouettes of Mandalorian warships hovering over the city, dropships and basilisk war droids descending from the red-tinged clouds like harbingers of a coming storm.

SL-0182 did not dwell on the sight. In order to cover her approach, the Asset primed two of her semiautonomous seeker explosives, directing them via mental command to target the Mandalorians. Then, she dropped the pair of explosives down to the building’s entrance on the street below.

The two tiny sphere-shaped explosive drones honed onto the Mandalorians’ sensor signatures only a couple seconds after the flesh reavers’ charge. They shot towards their marks at 500 kilometers per hour, set to go off in a pair of baradium-catalyzed fusion detonations that might threaten to vaporize anyone caught inside their radius!

Spoiler: Loadout

• Klase Vele Combat Skin Mk. I - Helmet Configuration
  
  • Arms
    
    • FAE/M-02 Energized Forearm Vibroblade Mk. II - L Forearm
    • LPD-38 QuietNeedle Dartcaster - R Forearm
      
      • Ammunition
        
        • Hollow Dart - Rampancy Serum Payload (18)
        • Precompessed Air Reservoir (4)
  • Energy Shield
    
    • Phase III “Force Avenger” Energy Shield
• KSMG-7 Mk. II - Kainate Submachine Gun Model Seven Second Rendition
  
  • Ammunition
    
    • Extended Magazine - CryoBan Ammunition (2)
    • Standard Magazine - Armor Penetrator Ammunition (4)
    • Standard Magazine - High Explosive Ammunition (2)
  • Attachments
    
    • 1-5x FAE/S-08 Electro-Sight
    • Phase I “Susurration” Anti-Sonic Silencer
• Siqsa-S1 Semiautonomous Seeker Obscuration Canister (2)
• FAE/MDE-01-S1 Semiautonomous Seeker Thermal Explosive (2)
• Agzonûboj-type Probe Droid

 

[Vrirrig Awaud]

HA’RANGIR’S CHOSEN
ENCORE

He'd taken the rafters above the factory floor an hour before the flares went up, a shadow among girders and hanging chain, watching the Sith Legionnaires overextend themselves exactly the way Munin wanted them to. Patient work. Hunter's work. He'd counted their formations twice, marked their gaps, and waited.

Then the sky went blue.

War droids, engines, and other things he could only passively comprehend entered the field.

“COME VODE, YOU ARE CALLED! YOU ARE CHOSEN!”

He screamed, raising his arms as the true strength of the Mandalorians was revealed to the Sith.

The trap sprang below him — disruptor fire and slugthrowers tearing into the overcommitted Sith lines, the factory floor dissolving into smoke and screaming metal. Vrirrig should have dropped with the rest, added his blade to the kill count building beneath him.

But he didn't move. Not yet.

Because past the collapsing Legionnaire ranks, past the Graug tearing through rubble like something out of the old verses, he saw a certain Dark Lord. A figure in black sable and blood-forged aurodium, a cloak stitched from thousands of dead clans' beskar catching the firelight like scales. Something in Vrirrig's chest went very still and very loud at once.

I am not just chosen, I am THE CHOSEN.

Vrirrig examined the floor one last time, his back expanded from the deep inhale of air, blood rushes to his head as his eyes lock in. The Dark Lord's attention was likely elsewhere, carving a path for His Legion in the wrath of Munin's trap. An opening. A single, narrow, almost impossible opening.

He leaped, but not toward him. Away — up, along the catwalk, until he had angle and distance both. His jetpack kicked him off the gantry in a short, controlled burn, just enough lift to clear the wreckage below and put himself somewhere the Dark Lord wouldn't think to look first: above and behind, in the drifting smoke where a war droid's silhouette might hide his own.

He didn't hesitate once the angle was his.

His slugthrower rose, braced against the pull of the jetpack's idle thrusters, and he put a full burst into the gap where cuirass met pauldron. Rounds all housed the same address: find the gap, or don't bother firing.

Whatever the armor gave back, Vrirrig didn't wait to see it in full. The instant the burst landed he was already peeling away, a tight arc on the jetpack that put a support pillar between himself and whatever answer came next. His off hand found a grenade at his hip by feel alone — a glop canister, thumbed live and lobbed backward without looking, more instinct than aim. It hit the floor behind him and burst into a spreading wash of adhesive fog, thick enough to blind a targeting eye and slow a footstep that didn't belong to something already flying.

First mark taken, he thought, breath ragged behind his visor, jetpack carrying him low and fast back into the ambush's chaos. Not the last.​

Darth Carnifex | Nisk Keldau​

 

[Ceria Kesyk]

MERCY'S TYRANT SQUADRON
IN ORBIT // ABREGADO-RAE
Cruelty | Kjartan Hammer-Hand | Yuri Maji | He-Who-Walks-Between | Romul Saxon | Tytos Saxon | Gel Karn​

Spoiler: Fleet Composition

Lead ship: Tyranny

Main body:

• Tenacious-class Heavy Star Destroyers​
• Grand Victory-class Star Destroyers​
• Silencer-class Siege Destroyers​
• Ardent-class Fast Frigates​
• Tu'kata-class Sith Raiders​
• Thrantin-class Corvettes​
• Various smaller support ships​

Mandalorian ships rammed the Tyranny, peppering the shields with leeches and heavy fire. It was quite clear to Kesyk that this was a shield-breaching maneuver. Then why wasn’t it obvious to the Sith cruisers that sortied to intercept them?

“What are they doing?!” Kesyk screamed. “I don’t care about their guns. The Tyranny can handle guns.” She hailed the cruisers. “Concentrate fire on their engines and their hangars.” She disconnected.

They needed to knock out the enemy’s engines and obliterate any smallcraft as soon as they were sortied, not bombard the well-defended cruisers wholesale.

Ceria groaned and ran a sweaty hand through her hair.

“Ma’am! Our sensors are lighting up - something… something massive is coming out of hyperspace!”

Enemy reinforcements had arrived en masse. Their ships popped into real-space, one blip, then five, ten, and more as they lit up all instruments. Even against the black, the light of the rifts glistened off their hulls, illuminating an armada that now greatly outnumbered the Sith. However, they arrived amidst a veritable minefield of Netheric Rifts. Great hazards in space. Some Mandalorian ships would’ve exited dangerously close to them, possibly destroyed or swallowed on impact. Others would likely be forced to deviate in a snap decision, ending up on collision courses with elements of their own fleet. And the Field of Blades continued to pull on the minds of all those near them. Invoking violence and bloodlust, beckoning crews and commanders to charge into the abyss.

The Tyranny’s command deck was in chaos.

Analysts and ensigns scrambled at their stations, trying to account for the enemy’s rash strategy - ramming into the dreadnought’s shields, peppering the behemoth with fire.

The bridge captain marched to a communication console. “I’m summoning reinforcements.”

“No!” Kesyk snapped with a stamp of her feet.

Half the bridge had paused, their attention snapping to the spat. Eyes away from the battlespace screens that showed the Sith’s heavy destroyers being battered down, their fast frigates destroyed.

The captain looked at her as if she were crazy. “We’re outnumbered. We need to bring our fleets in!” He scowled and spat back.

She stared him down. Body tense. Sweat rolling down her face. Her hands shook. Her body shook against the tension, and yet she replied with eerie coldness, nigh above a whisper. “That’s an order, captain.”

He boiled over, screaming: “Fuck your orders!” And drew his sidearm. A pair of ensigns grabbed his arms, but the captain was strong. He shook himself free and leveled his gun.

Kesyk threw a punch, knocking the weapon from his hand. He punched back harder, splitting her lip and sending her to the floor. She scrambled halfway up, throwing the weight of her body against him. In a split moment, he was on the floor with her on top. She hit him. And she hit him. And she hit him. He threw up his hands, tried to grab her, threw a few futile punches of his own. And when her hands finally wrapped around his throat, as he looked up at her with fear, anger, and confusion in his eyes, she looked down at him with a jaw-clenched scowl and eyes that looked ready to pop out of her skull… until finally… he stopped twitching.

The bridge stayed silent as a dark tension clouded their judgment. It didn’t seem to matter now that the Mandalorian reinforcements bombarded their fleet with great fire. Turbolasers, mass driver rounds, and warheads streaked through Yuri’s fleet to reach them, as Tyrant was pinned between the enemy and the planet on its approach to low orbit. The Tyranny was hit. Some weapons breached the holes in the shields, scorching armor. Others missed altogether, raining down on Abregado-rae itself.

No, their eyes were all on their Vice Admiral, who rose and wiped the blood from her face; who panted and cackled in her own disbelief. She stumbled to the command station, hands falling flat on the console if only to brace herself from collapsing. Her eyes settled down on the viewscreen, on the tactical quagmire unfolding before her. She spat blood onto the screen and laughed again.

Then, she straightened her posture, blood trickling from her face wounds. Her eyes settled on the bridge crew.

“Our enemy is throwing everything they have at us. We are outnumbered… We are outgunned…”

It wasn’t exactly the beginning of a heroic speech.

“There isn’t a tactical handbook in the galaxy that could account for what we’re up against.”

Her attention, as did the rest, turned to the viewscreens along the walls. Feeds that focused in on the rifts, watching as otherworldly ships arrived from the other side.

Kesyk’s lips parted in a bloody smile.

“Lord Mercy… Isn’t it glorious?”

Spoiler: Fleet Actions

• Sith cruisers are firing on Yuri's ships that are ramming the Tyranny. They aim to destroy any smallcraft coming out of the hangars and knock out their warships' engines.
• The rifts are creating an element of severe chaos for the newly arrived Mando ships.

 

[Fenn Stag]

FENN STAG

Spaceport


​

"Gonna crack you open like a bilge-lobster, 'kay?"

The scattergun came early and quick, and Fenn ducked, but too late. The pellets hit him in the plate, and sent him back towards the civilians, slamming into one of them that was attempting to retreat. He took a deep breath, and didn't feel any broken ribs- at the moment. Cracked, maybe, but not broken.

She wanted his attention. She got it.

Fenn stood up quickly, boots slamming onto the floor beneath him as he leapt back to his feet. In full armor, in full gear. He rose to his true height- and rolled his shoulders to be more relaxed. His cybernetic arm whirred as he got into position, drawing his Beskad and aiming to slice her in half with the swing as well-

But, as soon as he drew his Beskad, his jetpack engines flickered on- and Fenn's fully armored, full bulk, came screaming towards the Sith in response. Her makeshift armor would do well, say, against a blade, perhaps a gun. But maybe less against the kinetic impact of Fenn's brutish form crashing into her at who-knows how fast.

​

 

[Meliant]

MERCY'S TYRANT SQUADRON
IN ORBIT // ABREGADO-RAE​

In some great hangar aboard the Tyranny, black-hearted, golden-skinned Meliant inspected the ranks of his Night Legion. No sound dared pass through that room, save the click-click-clicking of his armor as he threaded a lazy path among his favored minions. They stood at attention, and none dared flinch as the empty gaze passed over them.​

​

On Humbarine, his legionaries had broken the bones and sucked out the marrow of the bravest the Iron Covenant had to offer - the daring scouts and their daring rescuers. Even now some of them still bore the crude trophies of that battle, plucked from the disfigured corpses of Clans Rook, Saxon, Dragr, and yes, even Fett. If only Meliant himself had fared half as well.​

​

When at last this brooding survey was completed, Meliant called for his Tribune, Serapion, and the officers of these few maniples. "The vanguard must have softened them up by now, so we will finish the job. The factories..."​

​

They were interrupted by the arrival of a breathless ensign, who flung himself before Meliant's polished feed and, wheezing, relayed the latest developments of the battle. The Tyranny and the rest of the squadron were now imperiled against a spectral fleet, and more Mandalorian ships. Many dozens, it was said, and descent to the surface would be too dangerous.​

​

The Sword of the Heron King was sheathed at Meliant's side in a beautiful crimson baldric embroidered with golden thread. A commission from Ghorman, and a very expensive one at that. His hand tightened fiercely around the hilt and thus absorbed some small portion of his blossoming rage.​

​

He looked to his weary officers, "Get them ready to repel boarders."​

​

Serapion shut his black-shot eyes and nodded, and the rest of the Night Legion, only needing to sense his instruction, departed with haste.​

​

The Emperor of Coruscant kicked the ensign in the ribs and ordered him to stand, and they then went together to the bridge.​

Attn: Cruelty Ceria Kesyk

The doors slid open. Meliant was forced to wait as a pair of sour-faced ensigns dragged a dead man past him. Was that the captain? Everything was now deathly quiet as crewmen briskly went from station to station, hissing and muttering to one another. There is a level of panic that overwhelms the nerves so completely that one returns to a state of frigid calm. That was what Meliant observed here today.​

​

At the nucleus of all this were Cruelty and some woman - Serious Kelsey is what Meliant thought he heard when he had earlier been told her name. Well, he didn't look that Cruel and she didn't look that Serious, cackling and spitting blood and looking like she just got out of an ugly scrap. So he took the names to be ironic, which he supposed was funny to someone, if not him.​

​

Well, now they could be spiritually fortified by his presence - doubtless the sickly fluorescent light of the bridge striking his gilded armor would propel them to greater heights.​

​

"Hello assholes," he said, striding easily across the platform that overlooked the crew pits. "Somebody mentioned I'm stuck on the wrong side of a trap."​

​

Meliant looked out the viewport and observed the gates of hell disgorging phantom ships, maneuvering with phantom engines, firing with phantom turbolasers. Slowly he came to look again at his compeers. A deep tremor passed through the bridge as enemy guns raked the Tyranny's hull.​

​

"What the fuck are we doing? This was supposed to be a layup!"​

 

[Quinn Varanin]

//: Arris Windrun //:
//: Siv Dragr //: Kamon Hourn //:
//: Equip in Sig //:

Arris' answer made the Echani smirk; the woman was unaware of the potential that still resided within the young Queen. She brushed back her hair carefully behind her ear, the crown holding everything in place.

"You haven't even had a fraction of what Mercy's had," She mused, knowing… feeling the rivalry between the two women.

"Can you handle all of me?"

Quinn's eyes never left Arris as she moved away from her. Before this, Arris had never really reciprocated the kiss. On Brosi, there was almost a timidness to it; then, before that, the woman had just accepted the kiss without anything. To be held so possessively made her feel cherished and wanted in a way she hadn't felt in some time. For a brief moment, she had forgotten the heartache that lingered, weighing on her chest.

She adjusted the thin gauntlets back onto her hand as she allowed the spear to lean against her frame. Arris was different as the influence took hold, wrapping her in the familiarity of power. Quinn wondered if this was how everyone reacted to her, that burst of confidence and pure power. Her eyes followed as Arris watched the power continue to bleed into her, influencing every movement and action.

Something about the woman's change felt curious. She didn't fully understand why she became so different. Did it focus her skills? Did it twist something dark that Arris buried long ago? Or did Arris just become an extension of the device, an aggressive embodiment of its churning despair and hate?

Too many questions that Quinn didn't have answers to, but she would continue. Perhaps she could focus Arris just long enough to answer anything she asked.

"Mm, there's something about him, I'm unsure exactly, but back at the Casino, he felt empty." It was true; she sensed his lack of presence in the Force. It wasn't complete, but enough to notice.

"He thinks he can hide, but he screams so violently in the Force."

At that moment, Siv made himself known. His voice echoed over the chaos that rained upon the drop site. Quinn looked towards his direction from the corner of her eye. She watched him, felt the rage that fueled him, the hate — all of it.

It was delicious.

As expected, the man from Kestri, the one who had invaded her home during a private moment of peace — fired his weapon.

Finally.

Bolt after bolt came towards her, some straying into the crowd. Quinn didn't move; she didn't react, but the man would have found solace in his weapon hitting its mark. The blaster bolts did nothing. Each heated shot burned against the woman's skin and seemed to disappear. Its energy was stored carefully within the Echani, all of it for naught except to give the woman the added power she needed.

"A chance?" She tilted her head, her eyes never leaving Siv, she laughed at his perceived importance.

"You are nobody. You are a pretender, sullying the honor your armor represents. You are no Mandalorian. You are a common, perverted fool who thought it wise to invade a woman's bedroom."

Before the power that had been collected by the man's ignorant weapon, something from above made its presence known. A ship hovered over them, and a man fired another weapon upon her and others. Each bolt either faded before it reached her, or its power was so weak it kissed her skin like falling snow.

"How disappointing…" Her lips parted in an exhale; power surged from within and around. "Arris, I'll take care of them, focus on our task… I promise to make it worthwhile."

A hand rose towards her, slowly making a fist as her focus now included the ship and the Force around it began to push inward with devastating effects. The hull started to creak, fighting the rising pressure pushing into it. The Force continued to crush it, threatening the lives that were on the vessel.

Not satisfied with just turning the ship into a useless ball of durasteel. Quinn twisted her outstretched hand and forced the ship towards Siv, aiming to crush him and whoever was around him.

Friend or Foe didn't matter to the Sith. As long as Siv and his ilk all perished, it would be worth it.

 

[Mercy]

MERCY

EMPRESS | WARLORD | STAR-ARM

Location: On the ground | Objective: Embrace opportunity

Direct Allies: Srina Talon

Other Allied Forces: Xan Atropus | Veyla Tass | Kaelyr | Leontis Antalis | Astra Sadow | Grace

Sith Enemies: Carduul Akahl | The Arkanian​

.

Mercy did not judge the man for his zeal and pomp. After being surrounded by the sanctimonious Graspborn for so many years, worshiping her, dying for her, frankly twisting themselves into a pretzel to be seen by her… she understood the pressures of religion foisted on you better than most.

It was one thing to be a ruler. It was another thing to become a symbol to your people who attempted to identify meaning in every movement you made.

Some cracked underneath the pressure. Others began to believe in it. Mercy had always chosen disregard in the past, followed by humor.

But the slap landing against the prophetic Mandalorian was pretty damn satisfying. Carduul Akahl didn’t go flying, but there was something deeply pleasing about watching a man wrapped head-to-toe in beskar get shoved through the dirt after being back-handed. He was still standing, good for him, but better for her.

It meant the battle would continue.

She hummed softly as he denigrated her and the efforts of the Sith on this world. It was understandable. These Mandalorians didn’t truly understand war. They understood anger, clearly, fury. They understood what it meant to seek vengeance. But they didn’t see the beauty behind every kill, the joy of transforming an enemy into something less and then weaponizing it against themselves.

But she didn't stop moving. One moment she was running…and the next? She disappeared beneath the great beast. Her knees folded and silver-black nanite scales hit the pavement while momentum carried her into a low slide. The creature's considerable body passed overhead, but the maneuver brought her beneath the one place they were most vulnerable. Where claws, teeth, mane, armor, and those obscene jaws offered less of a threat.

It was powerful, that was true, but she was small, unbearably fast—And not the Sith Lord it was focused on. Her hands crossed at the wrists once more and two pressure switches depressed.

Snap-hiss.​

Artemis and Diana ignited together. Twin lengths of light appeared beneath her forearms, and Srina opened her arms as she passed beneath the canine, driving both blades into the softer underbelly, before dragging them apart with the forward motion of her slide.

Even as she danced with Carduul, she could see from the corner of her eye, as her sister executed a beautiful maneuver. Attempting to carve straight through one of the beasts.

As the mutation circled, Mercy felt the Force flowing back into her and then as it moved again, disappearing once more.

Like a kaleidoscope. Full awareness of the battlefield appearing, then disappearing again, it was overwhelming. It was a lot. Even more so when the trap finally sprung and the entire campaign seemingly turned upside down.

Mercy scowled when she realized she could sense what was happening in space too. A clear sign that Cruelty had gone beyond his mission parameters and decided to meddle, it displeased her, but the flash images were useful as she fed them back to Srina Talon in between the anti-force field appearing and disappearing.

“Ah, so that was your ploy…” Mercy responded as they continued to deflect and move, but she smiled under the mask. Her body felt the wear, the way another bone cracked when Carduul hit her well.

The Sith were dying. She felt them dying. Each death was a marker. A debt being fulfilled to her first and foremost.

They were here to exterminate Abregado-rae. Some had wondered why she had ordered the important figures to be captured then. It was simple. She had wished to save them for last, to allow them to watch as their world burned, before they’d join it. Mercy had not anticipated that these Mandalorians would join them in destroying the world they had promised to protect.

But the second purpose was as important as the first. Mercy wanted to force the Sith in the Covenant to choose. Would they join this nightmare, would they participate in horrors that went beyond what they had done so far?

Every Sith that died gave Mercy an answer all the same. They would not carry what came next, but their deaths would nourish those who did.

Something screamed overhead, and a voice, surprisingly familiar to her, whispered the possibilities. Her eyes momentarily flicked up from behind the ghoulish helmet, and she caught the flying buffoon tossing something at the prophet. Hard eyes bled amber with corruption, even as she chuckled. “Is he your brother? That’s my sister.”

Head gesturing towards the figure right as she touched her.

"Sestra..."

And there went whatever chance she had to check on Srina properly…She’d felt her pain like a beacon before it burned into a dull ache that the null field made even more distant. They had two very different reactions to it. Though, her battle-sister was strong. Good at hiding things. Mercy’s attention dipped just slightly at the feeling of a small hand pressing against hardened bone and tissue. A silent conversation passed between the two women.

Just a touch, just one word.

She reached back, and one massive hand reached back and settled over that over the Blackwall Empress before letting go. “I’m fine, darling. Still got my face.”

It was all either of them had time for. Srina was already falling back into motion. Leading off the flying menace with the jetpack. Which left the Sith Lord to return to her own.

“For I could ask the same thing. Every time I fight your ilk, it’s some freakshow that has to be cleaned up rather than the conquests of yore once lived by your ancestors. There's hardly much drive beyond the most base and plain of desires.”

He caught her right as the Force burst right back into her. His weapon smashing into her, sending her skidding back, the grenade sticking to her left unnoticed because Mercy was contemplating his words even as pain surged through her heavy bones.

“We are bad copies of bad copies of the real thing, prophet.” Mercy sighed as she righted herself again, steel in spine, sorting the pain of the dead in her skull from the pain in the current moment.

“Stuck in an endless loop. Jedi, Sith, Mandalorian, it is all a big practical joke… don’t you see? Forced to do the same shit, over and over again.” Voicing it out loud, fully, for the first time was almost enough to break through her battle-joy. Almost. Acier Moonbound had received parts of it, Arris Windrun and her had their own understanding within it. Anet Raine had heard it too, but if the understand had truly passed between them Mercy couldn't say.

“The difference between us? I stopped pretending like the past matters. But this particular brand of Mandalorians… Force, you cannot stop worshiping the past.”

Kesyk threw a punch, knocking the weapon from his hand. He punched back harder, splitting her lip and sending her to the floor. She scrambled halfway up, throwing the weight of her body against him. In a split moment, he was on the floor with her on top. She hit him. And she hit him. And she hit him. He threw up his hands, tried to grab her, threw a few futile punches of his own.

A flash of ghostly ships surging forward to attack the Tyranny with Cruelty, her darling Vice-Admiral on board, burned into her retina. Each time the Vice-Admiral punched the traitor in the face, Mercy felt it in her own skull.

The delirium was so bad that as she immersed herself in the telepathic network that the grenade exploded and force-froze her into the hardening glop… and she didn’t even notice it. Instead she kept bursting the network with images. Forcing everyone from Lily Rhodes to Arris Windrun and beyond to see what these Mandalorians were wreaking.

She did not care if it would cause them to sink deep into the jaws of defeat. She wanted them to see beyond it. To see the world burning that they had come here to burn. As the Iron Covenant tried to root out the Sith, they were destroying Abregado-rae along with it, doing their job for them.

Turbolasers, mass driver rounds, and warheads streaked through Yuri’s fleet to reach them, as Tyrant was pinned between the enemy and the planet on its approach to low orbit. The Tyranny was hit. Some weapons breached the holes in the shields, scorching armor. Others missed altogether, raining down on Abregado-rae itself.

Even some of the orbital fire that didn't hit the Tyranny reached the surface of the planet. Wiping out whatever was underneath it indiscriminately and pouring destructive heat across the lands.

Mercy was a prime target now. Immobile, stuck, while her eyes were casting over Abregado-rae, seeing everything and then nothing as the mutation circled.

The Crusader’s weapon braced once again, and in a graceful step of distance, it was again swung directly towards the left arm’s elbow with the spiked end. Though his blows may not pierce the armor, if he could just injure them beyond their regeneration's rate...perhaps?

“...I must accept how many must bleed. I will mourn for them, for they will not be able to rejoice in your destruction.”

I will not fail my people.​

The weapon smashed again into Mercy, but with the glop covering most of her, it was primarily the blunt damage transferred directly into her body. Breaking bone. A sound escaped her, pain yes, but also laughter.

“You still don’t get it.” The monstrous head shifted towards the attacker. “We don’t matter, your people don’t matter, my destruction doesn’t matter.” She laughed again, blood welling up in her mouth.

“The seeds I plant today will be cast across the Sith. Those who survive… they will carry me forward. And just as your ilk came to avenge the genocide of Mandalore… with our destruction you only ensure your own in turn.”

Now or tomorrow.

That was what gave Mercy joy. The truest emotion that surged through her veins in every move she made.

Where some of the Sith despaired at their coming doom, as the trap sealed itself shut, the Lord of the Covenant only saw the opportunities that would arise from here.

None of this mattered… and all of it did at the same time.

It was beautiful.

.

ERASE THE PAST

 

[Iris Beroya]

AMIDST THE BLUE SKIES, A LINK FROM THE PAST TO THE FUTURE.

THE SHELTERING WINGS OF THE PROTECTOR

​

Moving to...

Engaging: Helix
Allies: Yuri Maji
Starship: Jai'galaar Starfighter

STARFANG WING:
Strill Squadron | Fang Squadron | Claw Squadron | Talon Squadron

RESERVES:
Ghest Squadron | Svaper Squadron | Darkwolf Squadron

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[[ ABREGADO RAE: ATMOSPHERE ]]
[[ MISSION RESUME ]]
​

"Inform command that fire's are not going to be effective on these fungi.""What makes you think that? They're mushrooms aren't they? Don't they just burn?"Sindel rolled his eyes from beneath his helmet as he spat back in annoyance, irritated by the lack of common sense from his companion, "Because, you idiot, if you were trying to bring a plague upon your enemies, would you be burning everything else in sight to keep them contained or to spread them?", gesturing in the direction where the main reported drop site was and the clouds of black smoke that darkened the sky. "Clearly it gestates quicker under heat given how rapidly it's been spreading under the Sith's forced conditions. Why else would they bring a plague to their primary drop site and be simultaneously trying to burn every bit of organic matter around?"

”Alert the fighters and gunships. When applicable, recall them and refit with cryo weapons.” The captain called out. The bridge moved with precision to pass the information along to the rest of the fleet, recalling various wings of starfighters to refit them with more appropriate weaponry. Among them was the ship of Iris Beroya Iris Beroya and her wing along with various other sorties.

AWACS Watcher
«Welcome back from your RTB, Starfang Wing. Recent updates to the tactical situation are loading into your systems. The Sith have indiscriminately launched a biological Force-based weapon on civilian population centers. The weapon appears to be a fungal strain and is quickly infecting exposed sapients and turning them into... uhhh, hostiles. Our first field exams are in and it appears to grow faster under heat. Drop your payloads onto the infected sites and then prepare for new target assignments.»

Fang Lead
«Affirm.»
​

Now armed with cryoban bombs in addition to KrupX Munitions missiles, the jai'galaars and basilisks screamed through atmosphere.

Claw Lead
«Follow those plumes. Those are our targets.»

Fang 3
«What the hell are they doing to these people?»

Talon Lead
«Bombs away.»
​

Iris aimed for the base of a plume labeled as an infected zone and pressed a button as her starfighter screamed by overhead. The cryoban bomb lurched from its mount and fell, hurtling down before airbursting seconds above the ground in an explosion that could drop the surrounding temperature to freezing, suck the life out of any flames, and hopefully freeze this fungus out.

All the while, the serum-treated, supercharged fruiting body convulsed, its blood-red mushroom caps swelling and rupturing to release dense plumes of spores into the air.

She pulled back on the stick and climbed away to rejoin with Strill squadron and await further orders. Suddenly, a spike drove into her mind. Sithspit, this was exactly like Humbarine. Emotions flooded her that were not her own, fear and rage.

Then a call went out from command across the comms.

:: All ships, this is Yuri Maji of the Haran’s Call. Wake up, focus on what’s happening. They’re karkin’ with our minds. If ya gotta smack each other, do it! Don’t let them enter your thoughts. ::

AWACS Watcher
«Starfang, activate your neural bands.»​

Gritting her teeth in pain, sweat beading down her spine as her emotions raced, Iris managed to push a button on her wrist and felt a sense of relief as the pressure on her mind did not go away exactly, but lessened considerably.

The warlord was perched in a comfortable command chair on the spacious command bridge of the supercrawler, which lumbered slowly but unstoppably into position.

AWACS Watcher
«We have received report of a Priority One target. A Sith superheavy crawler has setup near the electrum factories. Move to intercept.»
​

The pilots of the wing turned their noses in the direction of the factories, as did Iris, and accelerated through atmosphere toward the new target.

​

 

[Xan Atropus]

X A N . A T R O P U S

| Location | Spaceport, Abregado-Rae​

| Objective | Scour the Hostages​

"Get. Up."

​

The words stirred something deep inside Xan's mind, a flash of anger flaring up as the simple command echoed in his mind. They drove into him just as easily as any blade did. A flash of a memory when he was in his youth; a slave broken and beaten repeatedly, barely alive in the fighting pits. Phantom pains flooded his senses, old unseen scars starting to rip and tear as his fingertips clawed at the ground he was on, curling tightly into a fist as he slammed his gloved knuckles into the ground, pushing himself off it.​

​

Feel that wretch? That inescapable pain that has scarred you for so many years?, the voice in his mind mocked. That is your weakness...​

​

His pupils began to dilate as memories of fists and whips flooded his mind, an overwhelming tidal wave of emotions. ​

​

No, no, no, no, no, no, no, NO!​

​

Xan's internal torment might have been the end of him as the Mandalorian approached him with blade in hand, the renegade too self absorbed in his own mind. The crack of a scattergun going off was the only reprieve he would get as Fenn was shot at by Veyla, knocking the Mandalorian away from him as the sound snapped him to his senses. A reminder that he was still alive.​

​

The voice hissed its poisoned words at him, ​

​

Kill or be killed boy. Was that not how you've survived all these years? Let the monster out. Let. Me. out.​

​

Xan got to his feet, beating his chest repeatedly to get his heart pumping. There was a brief moment of clarity that allowed him to quiet the voice in his mind. It was not time yet. He shook the other presence in his mind out as he watched Fenn turn his back on him. The renegade Sith triggered his saber in one hand as the crimson blade screamed to life once more, his free hand reached out through the Force to grasp a sizeable chunk of duracrete from a pile of rubble, turning his body as he swung around with the intent of slamming it into the Mandalorian's side.​

​

He had only just gotten his bearings from recovering from being disoriented and had not glimpsed where Vara was yet. His attention was focused on his aggressor, a flash of his past tormentor's visages replacing the Mandalorian in his mind.​

​

Veyla Tass
Fenn Stag | Vara Maji

​

 

[Arris Windrun]

Quinn Varanin | Siv Dragr | Kamon Hourn
Mention: Lily Rhodes | Vess Sadragen | Madrona A’Mia | Darth Strosius | Revna Marr | SL-0182
Down & Out
​

Her march was broken by the Mandalorian's arrival. She remembered him from the Casino. So it was him? She stood back as Quinn barked back, absorbing every round of his fire. Once again, the Echani surprised her.

Then a few icy rounds streaked from the sky. Windrun's attention shot up at the hovering ship and the gunner firing at them from the landing ramp. A few of the cryo rounds slammed into the cyborg's chest, doing little more than covering the impact areas in frost from that range. Her hand curled around a revolver, ready to draw...

"Arris, I'll take care of them, focus on our task… I promise to make it worthwhile."

Her attention snapped to Quinn first, then looked around them.

Weapons fire streaked across the sky, raining down from the battle in orbit. TIE Hunters and Mandalorian fighters clashed, the wreckage of the losers crashing down in fiery balls of debris. Gunfire, shouting, and terrified shrieks clamored around her, echoing from all across the city. Sith soldiers killed civilians, dragging their corpses into piles for the plague to fester. Some of the parasitically possessed had risen around them, including her own soldiers who had been infected, too.

Then they descended, like avenging angels through the gates of hell. Dropships and basilisk droids, Mandalorians and Gados, and at the forefront of them all.

And there was more. The enemy had arrived, breaching the debris clouds with an avenger's fury to drive the Sith back. All across the field, Sith forces were overwhelmed, many of them falling back to their defensive footholds, or regrouping at rally points.

"Damn it!" Arris muttered.

She looked back to Quinn, but for a moment she saw someone else instead.

"A... A daughter of theirs, Rox..."

I'm not running away.

But Quinn was right. Arris had a job to do. She kept the weapon holstered. "Handle them!"

Arris turned to run, shouting back. "And don't die on me!"

She threw her hand back - a telekinetic wave carried stones and other debris towards Siv as she withdrew from the fight.

The cyborg was quick on her feet, even quicker with the Force behind every step. She ran through the streets, past the fighting, past a few of her own men as they were being picked apart by the plague-ridden. Her first thought was 'Well, at least they'll feed it,' and that made her sick.

Not a moment later, she felt a familiar presence weave its way inside her skull. Arris clutched her head as she stumbled a step or two. "Lily..."

Her apprentice would feel a conflict of emotions running inside Arris Windrun. An exhilaration of violence, of a woman who yearned to feel strong, who needed to kill to be worthy. The other of a girl trapped, who couldn't deny the day she ran away.

"I ran... I just ran and stowed on a ship for Corellia."

Arris turned a corner and nearly got herself run over by a Sith battletank on the prowl. She grinned. 'At least we've got something heavy on the--' And then a basilisk droid swept down, knocking the tank onto its side, and tore into the underbelly like a predator dissecting its prey.

"Shit!" The cyborg kept running, and managed to link up with an AT-AT. No way a war droid was gonna knock that over. She used the feet as cover.

She needed to find a point. Somewhere to rally her forces, to secure the drop sites, and push the Mandalorians back. She linked up across secure channels, trying to connect with anyone at all. <:"This is Windrun to all forces - we need to regroup and rally. If anyone is on this channel... if anyone can hear me, don't let up! Regroup if you have to, but don't let them stop us. I repeat, don't--":>

There was a bright light. Arris stopped dead in her tracks and turned to the source. A great fireball erupted in the city, as something from orbit struck.

The shockwave rolled towards her, a great kinetic tsunami that carried with it fire and a cloud of smoke.

We are the end of this planet… and the next one. And the next…

The wave crashed into everything, her, the AT-AT, everything. The great walker trembled and collapsed, falling atop her.

 

[Cruelty]

MERCY'S TYRANT SQUADRON
IN ORBIT // ABREGADO-RAE

Kjartan Hammer-Hand | Yuri Maji | He-Who-Walks-Between | Romul Saxon | Tytos Saxon | Iris Beroya

Ceria Kesyk

Cruelty did not understand people, nor did he understand their emotions. Not in the way an empath did. The subtlety between fear and angst and sadness were lost to him if it was spread out over too many people. But in that moment as Cruelty watched, he understood Romul Saxon and empathized with him.

His heart went out for the efforts he was expunging.

The Lord of the Sith knew that even as he spun his web, it was all based on a rhetorical lie. The equation of the Sith with the Mandalorians. The Sith had come here to exterminate Abregado-rae and its people. With contempt in their heart, they wished to wipe out the world for daring to befriend their newly-found enemies. The Mandalorian renegades on the other hand, for all their clinical detachment and efforts to rationalize this as Those who are not Mandalorian, weren't people that mattered, wouldn't have done any of this if the Sith Covenant hadn't arrived with plague in hand.

They wouldn't have begun the killing and slaughter of civilians en masse. They wouldn't burn and then attempt to cryo-freeze city populations. And they certainly wouldn't have begun the mass bombardment of the Tyranny, even though every shot they missed, would be a shot hitting the planet they were supposedly there to defend.

That was the hypocrisy at the heart of Cruelty. He knew all of this... and yet he did not stop weaving the rhetoric. Even as Romul managed to win the chieftain's heart with quickly-chosen, wise words and a warrior's clasp on the shoulder, he was not winning every native heart that was spread through the fleet.

A mass of civilians armored and armed... were still civilians. Some resisted Cruelty's machinations, many even. Maybe they were furious with the imagery surging through their veins, but they would not rise arms against their Mandalorian protectors... not when there were Sith to destroy and murder first.

But... enough, a critical mass, accepted the cancer that Cruelty fed them. Even as false eyes watched Ceria Kesyk beat a poor man half to death before finishing it by throttling them, the Lord of the Sith executed his plan.

"Then LET US FIGHT!" Romul replied, raising his hammer with his other hand, and the Gados and Mandalorians roared with him as one. Courage, as it turned out, was not the absence of fear. Fear was natural. It was what one did despite their fear that made true courage.

Not all of them would meet his roar. Worse still, even as the majority charged to Romul's iron-will, a large section held hatred in their heart and a fraction of them... immediately snapped under the pressure of a Sith Lord's mind bending them to his will.

They began an immediate assault, shooting at everything that moved, including... the Mandalorians that charged with them. Turning what was supposed to be glorious run, into a chaotic... muddy... and dark onslaught where foe met foe even as ally turned against ally. In the grand scheme of things, the Sith would still be facing overwhelming odds.

But it wouldn't be as beautiful as the Mandalorians had hoped. It would be tragic and cruel instead.

It perceived him. The Thing. And he perceived it back. A being that reeked of raw, obese egotism and putrid carnality seeking to pass itself off as more than the sum of its parts. One Who Were Two. Two Who Were One.

Many such cases.

No matter.

It had perceived, but failed to act.

Another saw, but did not act save to wonder.

Then the maw above Abregado-Rae spat out the ship called Pathwalker, He Who Walks at the helm.

And pouring from the maw, following in his wake, were the ghosts of conflicts past.

Spectral ships, which still seemed to leak their mortal wounds of atmosphere and debris, spilled from the Netherworld. Dead Mandalorian ships, with dead Mandalorian crews long since perished in the conflicts of the years.

“Oh, that is interesting.” Cruelty murmured to himself as Meliant joined them at the bridge, just as the poor captain’s corpse was carried away.

He supposed he should have been horrified. Their advantage had disappeared all at once. Certainly the crew felt it. The panic infecting their system as the Vice-Admiral seemed to have lost her mind and declared there would be no reinforcements.

That this was all that they were allowed to have.

But Cruelty wished to die. Existence was torture. And his birth an affront to nature. So he felt no fear, but perhaps a smidgen of excitement that they'd all walk together into the night, hand in hand. Towards their death. Wouldn't that be nice?

“Hello, Meliant.” The man on the Throne waved with a cheerful gesture. “I do not think anyone could have foreseen such a twist of fate.” The words became a bit pointed towards Ceria, who had been so certain it would be a simple boarding action.

Had he not told her that fate often spun strangely?

But his true eyes were still on the rift. He had not anticipated anyone being able to find any number of Mandalorians in the Netherworld. Those sufficiently force-sensitive and also of the Dark Side, to actually be on the Field of Blades. A resting place for Sith Lords and Dark Jedi Masters.

Cruelty would have clapped if that had been appropriate in the moment. But a man lay slain outside the room, beaten to death, it would not be the move.

“Vice-Admiral…” Cruelty continued even as his false eyes closed again. “Please… get a hold of yourself. Our ships are dying… our people are being massacred… Abregado-rae itself is starting to burn… what are your orders?”

While he attempted to steady her towards action, his attention magnified on the rift.

Such a risky feat. Such boldness.

He shuddered.

Somewhere he felt the creator’s eyes on him… briefly… but long enough to know that his influence on the battlefield had been found out.

But maybe the Lord could still save himself, if he surprised her again, with his cruelty.

 

[Anet Raine]

Feydrik Munin | Calyx Sundrift
Robes | Mask | Lightsaber​

Anet looked back at Calyx, who now loomed over her.

He had asked: 'Did you know? Did you?'

Her grin turned to a slight frown. She grabbed his hand again, yanking him along as she phased through the building she had her back to. It was a costly trick, but the Dark Side emanated amongst the chaos of Abregado-rae, and now they were inside the next building.

She kept her eyes on him. "Did I know what?" And before he could press through her cheeky ignorance, Anet reached out and struck him across the face.

"Did I know that we would devastate this world?" She struck him again. "Yes, Calyx," and again. "I did."

The Sith knight raised her hand again, but held it this time as golden eyes hawked behind her mask. "The Kestrans have arrived in number, at the edge of our space, and the people of Abregado-rae welcomed them... They allow these Mandalorians from some backwater world at the edge of the galaxy to use their home as a staging ground. For what? How many worlds would they burn to get to us, Calyx?"

She pushed him to look outside the factory window, down to the streets where Mandalorians pushed back the Sith soldiers. While Mercy's legion was well-trained and equipped. While they had battle tanks, walkers, and air support aplenty. The Kestran counterattack had won a momentary advantage. The Sith created footholds of their own, no longer seizing ground - going from a rapid assault to slugging it out with Mandalorians. She watched as another Sith team exited a factory, barely holding it together. Their breaches were costly; some of them even failed. However, there was a silver lining: the Sith made the Mandalorians pay for every hit with the deaths of their own, or sacrificed defensive positioning.

Anet knew of others - Darth Carnifex and Helix - who would reinforce their position in time, but for now, she and Calyx were alone in the factory across from their sabotaged refinery. Of course, it was Varin Mortifer at the helm of this battlefield, and she wondered how he would respond; how they would follow him.

"You see how they slaughter the natives. What do you think will happen if we let them reach Eufornis Major or Fondor?"

Two ecumenopolises, with hundreds of billions of souls. But of course, Anet didn't really care about those lives. Because from that chaos, from that death, more Sith would arise. Those broken and tortured, those who survived Abregado-rae... how many of them would find the Force in themselves? And how many from those few would have the pain of this day echo in them, feeding dark kernels that might later blossom into vengeance?

We are the end of this planet… and the next one. And the next…

It was beautiful.

She yanked Calyx back around, awkwardly kissing his cheek despite her half-mask largely getting in the way. She smiled at him.

The delirium was so bad that as she immersed herself in the telepathic network that the grenade exploded and force-froze her into the hardening glop… and she didn’t even notice it. Instead she kept bursting the network with images. Forcing everyone from Lily Rhodes Lily Rhodes to Arris Windrun Arris Windrun and beyond to see what these Mandalorians were wreaking.

"Do you hate what's happened, Calyx? I hope so. You can even hate me, too... I promise, I'll make it worth your while."

She looked out the window again, as blue flares fluttered down the sky, and the Mandalorian counter-attack continued amidst the backdrop of landing ships and starfighters. It was turning into a slugfest out there, with the Kestrans succeeding at some points, and Sith at others, but otherwise too chaotic yet to tell which side would come out on top.

Her attention shifted next to the growths that continued to spread. Some were covered in cryo, others fed with fire from erupting factories or exploding ordnance.

Looking back at him, the half-pantoran pressed her hand to his chest, flooding him with her twisted glee. A taste of the power, the thrill, the goddessness that she felt with the Dark Side of the Force at her command.

"Let that hate drive you."

They couldn't waste time any longer, and her eyes said as much in the way they stared him down. He might've noticed, too, how her hand reached for the lightsaber. If he wanted an out... Then she'd offer one.

 

[Efret Farr]

Until today, Efret had thought the limits of her tolerance boundless.

Not out of arrogance but the gentle grace of a Jedi master who had had the opportunity to see and experience more of the galaxy firsthand than most. In that way, the assumed certainty felt well-earned—but it was just that, assumed.

Casimir would have noticed the slowing of Efret's pace the moment that they realized that they had wandered into something entirely unexpected on the outskirts of the smuggler's market. She continued to slog through the ritual grounds every step of the way, following him like a hesitant shadow, doing everything but literally dragging her feet.

Even before she saw any of the spreading biomass or associated beasts, she knew that this landscape wasn't just being used for a smattering of makeshift drop sites as she had been led to believe through radio-to-braille Sith Covenant communication. Through Force Sight, she saw the burning pyres far before Cas ahead of her did. The pungent smoke reached her nose at the same time as it did his. The darkening air grew thick the further they snuck into the area, the aerial aftermath of burning adding a sickening warmth to the dusk hour.

In each clearing, dense crowds stood gathered like kindling close the bonfires, certainly too close for comfort, restrained there by the mind control permeating the environment like a second, albeit invisible smog, or the watchful, bloodlusting eyes of their herders.

The macabrely unique smell made sense all at once. The realization grasped and twisted Efret's liver. Both of her sights faded to white hot fuzz for a moment. She was suddenly aware of all the liquid in her stomach.

She had known, but the shock had been keeping the truth distant to protect her mind.

Her new Order was burning these people alive.

What terrible arms had she walked from the Jedi into?

Somewhere at the back of her mind, between synapses that could do anything besides try to make sense of the immediate horror, she was grateful that none of the Graspborn were with her today. The scenes before overwhelmed her on their own; there was no way she would have been able to spin an acceptable explanation for why their Handmother was so distressed.

Or distressed at all—especially by the ritual.

Casimir. She reached for his arm helplessly as he moved out of cover. No, I can't.

She hoped he understood—not tactically, as he surely would through her posture and her face, but in his heart. Though, by putting one foot in front of the other, she could go to him, she couldn't bear one more step.

Tags: Casimir Thorne Vreegan Fett
Post number: 1​

 

[The Arkanian]

GODKILLER?​

THE ARKANIAN
TAG: Carduul Akahl Mercy Srina Talon
GEAR:
Mandalorian Armor + Modular Wrist Attachments (Flamethrower, Whipcord, Dart Launcher, Wrist Rocket), Jetpack (with big missile), Stouker concussion rifle + 3 power cells, Holdout Disruptor Pistol (boot), Dissuader Pistol + 2 mags (hip), Crushgaunts, Hifold Sensory Package, Cortosis Dagger (chest), 'Nades, More 'Nades, Even More 'Nades (bandolier), Raw Cortosis Dust in a Lil' Baggie (belt), 2 vials of Trihexalon (belt), aerosol canister of Droid bio-assault spray (belt), Voidstone good luck rock on a necklace.

Unit: Haran's Hounds

Named NPC Companions:
Spike and Dozer (Sukkot Force Hounds)

It was a tough job, trying to kill Sith convinced they were walking gods.

The Arkanian reflected on this as pain still screamed in his torso. One of his ribs might be busted from the shot he took, or at the very least bruising so deep it would probably look a purplish-yellow that covered his skin beneath the armor. The leg that had been covered in ice felt funny too and he wondered if that unnatural ice had left him with some sort of frostbite. Tough to tell in the armor.

That's why Haran held no punches, because in the time it took him to get out of the ice and race to snag the Sith Empress with his whipcord she had apparently already managed to level a series of attacks at one of his hounds despite the overlapping bubbles.

She held her right arm out toward one of the hounds and her thumb brushed against the ND-012 "Ri Qorit" Disabler control. The tool had been designed by her husband to deal with Ysalamiri, and these beasts were plainly something else, but the emptiness they produced was too familiar. It felt the same, and there was only one useful way to discover whether the similarity went any deeper. Try. It emitted one pulse at close range…

But she didn't stop moving. One moment she was running…and the next? She disappeared beneath the great beast. Her knees folded and silver-black nanite scales hit the pavement while momentum carried her into a low slide. The creature's considerable body passed overhead, but the maneuver brought her beneath the one place they were most vulnerable. Where claws, teeth, mane, armor, and those obscene jaws offered less of a threat.

It was powerful, that was true, but she was small, unbearably fast—And not the Sith Lord it was focused on. Her hands crossed at the wrists once more and two pressure switches depressed.

Snap-hiss.
​

Artemis and Diana ignited together. Twin lengths of light appeared beneath her forearms, and Srina opened her arms as she passed beneath the canine, driving both blades into the softer underbelly, before dragging them apart with the forward motion of her slide.

The hound, Spike, yelped again as it took the brunt of a discombobulating device primarily meant to kill Ysalamiri, but the crossbreeding meant it worked somewhat similarly.

Spike shook its big, shovel head, confused and whining.

Then the Empress attacked it with her blades, trying to slide beneath and slice it to ribbons.

It worked.

Almost.

Already injured by the earlier hurled chunk of ferrocrete and now in pain and confused by the neural disruption, the Force Hunting Voxyn-Ysalamiri monster bred to track down and kill Jedi could not simply leap out of the way as it had with the earlier attack. It tried to anyway, but could not escape. The blades plunging for its stomach tore through its foreleg instead, while the other cut a long furrow through its side, slicing through ribs.

The maimed animal collapsed to the ground for a moment, pushing itself forward along with the ground with its hind quarters and letting out an awful, high pitched shriek. The bubble it produced flickered, still suffering the effects of the neural disruptor.

But these were trained, elite hunting beasts and not so easily killed in a single blow. If given time to compose itself, Spike might reenter the fight. Minus a foreleg.

Crazy, but when facing beings so powerful they could literally drop a skyscraper on Haran without breaking a sweat crazy seemed very relative.

Srina Talon might have finished Spike off, but by then the Arkanian was on scene and - apparently - dragging her along behind him on his whipcord as he jetpacked up into the sky above.

And he'd just brought a Sith with two lightsabers into striking distance of his jetpack.

They rocketed straight up.

He let the concussion rifle drop, so that it hung from its threepoint sling. The kama of his armor flapped out behind him. Reaching into a pocket at his waist, he gripped a fistful of something that he held clutched in his gauntlet, then turned and pointed down at the Sith Empress presumably hanging from his other arm as they rocketed along and unleashed a jet of fire from his wrist-mounted flamethrower meant to immolate her.

Yeah right.

Maybe it would blind her at least.

Good luck, he thought to himself.

Things never worked out quite as planned.

Higher and higher, the Arkanian climbed up into the sky. He'd drag her into freaking orbit if she stayed attached on that line.

Above he glimpsed the arrival of their fleet. So, the trap had sprung.

Like that would work either. The Arkanian was a realist about these things. Always plan for the worst and you can never be too disappointed.

When she swung for him with those lightsabers, if she swung... he would toss his fistful of cortosis dust right into the oncoming blades and the dust should, if it worked as advertised, short them out.

How about that.

Unless... she had something to stop that too.

Kark me sideways but me ribs hurt.

 

[Allyson Locke]

//: Darth Carnifex //: Vrirrig Awaud //:
//: Attire //:
//: Equipment //:
//: Bow & Arrows //: Cybernetic Eye //: Jacket //: Arrows of Absence x 25 //: Bag of Absencite x 5ea //:

There wasn't much to Allyson Locke. She often, especially on missions, wore the same clothes. A worn leather jacket from the times she flew with whatever iteration of the Rogue Squadron it was, Corellian First Class Bloodstripes, and her bow. On paper, the girl was unimpressive, a ranger in the world of blasters and laser swords, but she did her best.

And her best often allowed her to see tomorrow.

The Corellian yawned as she waited. An old friend had summoned her to assist him with a few things. Different emotions weighed on the concept of friendship with the former Sith Emperor. He had always been a constant in her life, to the point that killing Him would only provide an emptiness in her life. What did one do when revenge was complete?

A question that often weighed on the Corellian's mind. Carnifex provided different things for her, right now? He was the one who protected something precious to her — he knew her deepest secret, and she had sold out thousands of lives for that protection. It was supposed to be a secret that was never to get back to Taiia — but Prazitus decided it was necessary. Groaning with a bit of annoyance, Allyson pushed herself off the wall and focused on the device now in her hand.

It only rang once.

"Yeah, I got here safe; it wasn't too bad." Allyson nodded as she leaned back against the wall.

It was nice to hear her voice, but Allyson could tell there was worry behind it — even though this wasn't something new. There was always another war, another fight, another thing that pulled her away from Odessen.

But there was never a time that Allyson regretted entering Taiia's life again.

"Mmm, sounds good — wish I could say I'd be home soon enough to try it." Allyson mused, her finger playing with the golden band on her ring finger.

The conversation continued to gloss over what they really wanted to say. Dinner talks, the children, who were visiting — all of it an ordinary conversation. It avoided the one thing that the other didn't want to admit.

Silence fell over the line.

"I'm —" Allyson paused, knowing that she could lie; she could say a word that wouldn't worry her wife. But she knew her wife was already worried… There was no avoiding it.

"I'm on Abregado-Rae." She let the world's name settle for a moment. They both had information that this world would become a warzone — so Taiia Locke would know why she was here.

"Whatever you feel, know that I'll be okay…" she tried to smile, but Taiia wouldn't be able to see it.

"Leave the light on for me?"

The call soon ended, and in that moment Darth Carnifex had decided to make His arrival. Allyson quickly caught His stride as she walked beside Him, her brow raising slightly at his words.

"Are you concerned for me?" the Corellian huffed. "Don't worry, old man — just keep up. It's been a while since we fought. Can you keep up?"

She laughed, drawing the bow, letting her pace move slightly in front of him. He had become a constant in her life, as much as she hated it — if He was to die, she would mourn Him like a dear friend.

"I feel bad for your wives… you do like to take your sweet time getting dressed, Carnifex."

As they walked, the Corellian faded into the Force, her presence unseen by the eyes and from the Force itself. She stalked carefully near the Dark Lord, who seemingly was alone. A ripe and dangerous target for one willing to attack. As she moved, something triggered her senses. Unlike other Force users, Allyson was attuned to machines and anything technological.

A jet back burned to life, and her eyes caught sight of a grenade being thrown. Quickly, she drew her bow and nocked a nanite arrow. There was no need to aim; the cybernetic eye did most of the work with the hip-fired shot. The arrow sailed, catching the grenade before it landed close enough to its target.

Still, the smoke lingered, but at an angle that was more of an alert to Carnifex than actually a hindrance.

The cybernetic eye quickly caught the jetpack's trajectory, and Allyson focused on the machine, the inner workings of the thrusters working in tandem with the explosion of fuel. Using the Force, the Technomancer began to throw the rhythm off, slowing the transfer of fuel to the thrusters, hoping to bring the flying gnat down to the ground.

They were being watched; now it was time to figure out how many eyes were on them.

 

[Darth Strosius]

Equipment: Lightsaber - Sword - Dagger - Robes
Tags: Madrona A’Mia / Romul Saxon / Tytos Saxon / He-Who-Walks-Between / Gel Karn
--------------------------------------------

Even far in the rear where the firefights and war machines were but echoes carried on the spore choked wind, Darth Strosius could sense the death and carnage of a world at war. A sickeningly addictive sensation really, one that was almost comforting in a very odd manner but one that He welcome amidst the tension that wracked His form as He watched the plague spread from its source. A'Mia's work was refined in the chaos that it wreaked across the battlefield yet even though He trusted her work He found little ease in His watch.

There was something pulling taut within the Force around Him, stretched far beyond His sight and even His sense yet nevertheless straining enough that He could notice it still. Whatever it was laid beneath the miasma of infection and fog of war and that in and of itself was more than enough to set Him on edge. What could possibly be kept in wait by this point that was worth withholding? The battle for the planet was already in full swing, surely everything was in play already.

"Hm?" Darth Strosius stirred from His pacing at the whisper on the wind, the unspoken words of the Neti providing a desperately needed shoreline of reprieve from the crashing waves that comprised His nerves. Revna was here, because of course she was, and evidently engaged with the enemy. For a moment He considered agreeing with A'Mia and joining her, but decided against it. "If Darth X'aviera cannot handle a handful of Mandalorians, then I have truly failed her as a teacher. This is her first outing as a Sith in her own right, she will carve her own path through it without me."

As much as He would have liked to ensure His daughter's safety and fight alongside her He also knew well enough that this was an instance where His presence would have done more harm than good. Her interactions with the Sith Covenant, of which He still wasn't quite certain on the full extent given that they had almost exclusively been behind His back thus far, were her own and this was no different. The Covenant knew her as an independent Sith and now that she had stepped beyond apprenticeship beneath Him she needed to reaffirm that view as a fact.

Besides that though, A'Mia was more vulnerable than He'd have preferred and He'd much rather her full focus be on the infestation she wove and the wards that kept it from impacting their allies. Revna was capable, she would be fine. Abregado Rae itself however might not. All at once the tension that He had sensed seemed to boil over as the sky itself tore open, heralded by the veil between the Force and the material world growing thin and almost audibly snapping as the Nether cleaved into reality high above.

Behind His mask, Darth Strosius scowled as a flash of pain flickered in His head and made His vision swim for a brief moment until the pain subsided. The pale strands that flowed from His back had lengthened without His doing, forming proper "wings" in the presence of the ripped veil. "Fething hell-Is that ours up there?!" He could only assume so, He had never known the Mandalorians to dabble in the esoteric and certainly not within the Force to this extent. Yet He struggled to see the necessity of that.

As if in response to the sky splitting the wider battle suddenly seemed to adopt a far more desperate character, fire began raining from orbit into the city and the war for control of the aerial front entered into a new cacophony. Perhaps most importantly for Him however were the dropships and droids that began joining the fray, primarily those that were beginning to rain down upon their own drop sites where He and A'Mia stood. "Ah chit, we've got inbound!"

One of the Mandalorians even had the gall to land before Him and shout some brazen war cry that made Him scoff. "Piss off buckethead!" Darth Strosius raised His free hand and loosed a storm of violet lightning towards the hammer-wielding Mandalorian, keeping His hidden gaze on a swivel for any further approaches.

 

[Darth Carnifex]

Smoke and fire reigned freely, clouding the air with choking smog. Through the hazardous haze, the line of Graug continued onward; inexorable and unyielding. Where the lesser conscripts of the Covenant wavered and hesitated, the ironclad warriors of the Dark Legion moved forward with systematic brutality endemic to the barbarous Graug. Thick armor repelled slug and laser fire, the warriors turning on their attackers with massive belt-fed slugthrowers, belching forth overlapping volleys of explosive projectiles that detonated with concussive fury upon impact. Oftentimes they punched deep into a target before exploding, ripping apart even fortified encampments and heavily armored adversaries with a shower of flame and viscera.

Broad iron-banded shields clanked together to form a wide shield wall across the breadth of a factory corridor, notched gaps in the shields bearing forth mounted slugthrowers that shredded anything and everything unfortunate enough to be caught in their line of fire. Skirmishers rushed through gaps in the Graug formations, Beskar-edged swords and polearms clutched in calloused reptilian claws, the blades biting deep where they struck. Lesser creatures derived from the Graug genome scurried about the battlefield, swarming over separated Mandalorians and ripping open their armor with billhooks and powered chisels.

All the while, Glaivewings danced and darted above. Occasionally they swooped down, reconfiguring mid-flight, and landing atop lower-lying buildings before opening fire with their powerful laser cannons. The sound of their maddening mechanical chitters filled the air with dread, just as much as the high-pitched whine of their ion engines in flight. Larger vessels loomed close to the back lines, small retrieval drones swarming about them like flies. They congregated around the bodies of slain Mandalorians, ripping away their armor and hauling it and the corpse back to these airborne ships. They would leave nothing to waste, both the flesh and the armor of their enemies put to use.

The Dark Lord of the Sith strode forth amidst the carnage, the hem of His bladed cloak carving deep furrows in the ground that passed beneath Him. His armor drew in the light around Him, photons bending as though caught in the gravitational well of a black hole. Amidst all the destruction, He was a dark horizon to which there was no end. A veritable wound in the Force, all the foundational principles of the world buckling beneath His very presence. He should not have existed, but to the detriment of all life He did.

“You get ahead of yourself, Locke. There is ritual significance in bodily purification, it cannot be expedited.” His explanation was frustratingly cryptic, but such was expected of someone as steeped in the deep mysteries of the Dark Side as He. As Allyson Locke disappeared into the Force, His gaze turned from where she had been to look to the battle ahead. The Mandalorians had drawn many Covenant forces into purposefully overextending, leaving them vulnerable to ambush and encirclement in some cases. Having fought Mandalorians for decades, such tactics were not as surprising for the Dark Lord. To compensate, the Dark Legion had advanced incrementally on purpose, advancing in methodical waves as opposed to rushing heedlessly forward.

Now their discipline had begun to reap benefits, as Mandalorian ambushers suddenly found themselves ambushed in turn. Hyal'Sethi, a horrendous blend of Graug and Yevetha, suddenly appeared from seemingly nowhere all at once. Half-a-meter long dew claws, artificially reinforced by Beskar, punctured Mandalorian armor like skewers through meat. Evisceration was their preferred method of killing, disemboweling and dismantling their prey to maximize the psychological horror on those that witnessed their brutality. Those that found their ranks broken by the Hyal’Sethi then were subsumed by the advancing Graug warriors, broken down warrior by warrior until there were none left to butcher.

Carnifex watched all of this with disinterest. He’d long become accustomed, and even numbed, to such barbarity. The Dark Legion maximized such carnage as a strategy of shock and awe. If you broke the spirit of your enemy, then they could not stand against you. Mandalorians were tougher foes than most, and their mental fortitude was greater than that of more conventional militaries, but they were above all else creatures of emotions. That sickly sweet stench of fear was intoxicating, and the Graug were drawn to it, they cultivated it with their actions. It set their hunger alight, and they fought against their prey with fanged maws overflowing with drool. Should their efforts prove fruitful, their Kha-Stymphalian would reward them to feast upon Mandalorian prisoners.

His back was turned, His gaze settled elsewhere, when the attack for Him came. The crack of a rifle, the distortion of the air as the slugs sailed through towards the gaps in His armor. Against any other, the ambush might have created an opening. Slugthrowers were a weapon sufficiently suited to fighting Force Users, at least those not yet proficient enough to stop the slugs with the Force instead of trying to deflect them. But the Dark Lord didn’t even move, never once began to turn even as it became evident He was under attack.

Because none of the slugs hit their mark.

They did come perilously close, within inches of the Dark Lord’s person. But the entire salvo stopped short of hitting, smoke still rising from each one due to the sudden stop that evaporated their kinetic energy. A shadow had risen up from Carnifex’s back, a shadow in the shape of a woman. Her arm had been thrown across the gaps in the Dark Lord’s armor, and she’d caught each and every slug in the darkness of that very arm. The wicked visage of Darth Ananta stared back at the Mandalorian with eyes of smoldering coals, the corners of her mouth twisted in a violent sneer. She flexed her arm and then swung it in a wide arc, sending each of the caught slugs careening away in a scatter-shot. They all missed their original sender, but nonetheless hit metal and fragmented in a cascade of sparks.

Allyson herself took care of the thrown grenade with one of her arrows fired from her hidden position, so the Dark Lord took no action against it. Instead, He slowly pivoted to face the Mandalorian’s location with only half of His body turned in their direction. This did make His admittedly large body a narrower target, but that was not the actual intention and was merely a consequence of the motion. He said nothing, there was nothing about a Mandalorian that could ever move the Dark Lord to waste a modicum of His breath.

His action would speak for Him.

Without raising a hand or moving a finger, a cascading sheen of diamond-shaped shards peeled away from the exterior of His armor. When attached to Him, they’d taken on the same composition and color as His armor, but now detached they assumed a more basic silver-gray. A bright crimson eye then opened across the Dark Lord’s chestplate, brimming with barely restrained hatred and vigor. The shards collected and congealed into long blades, each edge sharpened to a killing point. Then, in successive fashion, they all flew through the air towards the Mandalorian, intending on skewering him through.

It was the Dark Lord’s alchemical construct, Qabr’azm, that He utilized as an avenue for His attack. The construct stored the properties of any compound or chemical that it had ever come into contact with, even if it was just brief. It could draw upon this memory to recreate any of those stored materials, and transform its metallic shape into being composed of one or multiples of said material.

In that regard, Qabr’azm transformed itself into a being made of pure Beskar. Every piece of it became Beskar simultaneously, even those bladed instruments now hurtling towards the object of its ire.

The Mandalorian, Vrirrig Awaud.

Allyson Locke | Vrirrig Awaud ​

 

[SL-0182]

Location: Drop Sites - Abregado-rae
Thread Objective: I - Dropship Site
Mission Objective:

• Inject plague fruiting bodies with the Rampancy Serum.
• Inject plague flesh reavers with the Rampancy Serum.
• Inject the Rampancy Serum into the Heart Site.

Tag: Zandra Ruus Iris Beroya Arris Windrun

Mandalorian fighters and basilisks descended like angels of fury from the crimson-shrouded heavens, their bestial silhouttes carving through the acrid haze. SL-0182’s pupils dilated as picked out one craft in particular ( Iris Beroya ) screaming towards the office building that she was on top of at blistering speed. The Asset initially assumed that she was its intended mark. However, that supposition shifted when the craft drew closer, its shape coalescing through the miasma as its trajectory became apparent.

It was targeting the fruiting body.

SL-0182 did not hesitate for even a moment. The Ghost Link supercharged her brain with processing power from her combat skin’s integrated micro-computers, arresting time into a still-life tableau within her augmented perception. The CryoBan bomb fell, and SL-0182’s eyes tracked its descent with unerring precision as she raised her railgun SMG. Her sight picture honed in on its casing, and a mental command passed from shooter to weapon. The SMG fired by electronic impulse in lieu of manual trigger pull. A tight burst of high explosive, hypervelocity slugs stitched through the air before ripping into the bomb’s casing.

The bomb went off prematurely, shattering in a burst of pressured CryoBan gas that sucked away heat in a sudden, silent gasp to flash-chill the surrounding air. However, the freezing effect dissipated long before it could reach the fruiting body. Her helmet’s infrared sensors picked out the chilled air, which soon dispersed on the currents.

However, SL-0182 didn’t stop there.

After only a split-second break in her fire to re-acquire her target ( Iris Beroya ), the railgun SMG snapped towards the starfighter as it sped past, while it was angling in an ascent. She fired again, a trio of four round snap-bursts sending high explosive, hypervelocity slugs lancing towards the starfighter’s port side and aft from just over 200 meters away while it sought to climb away. Coated in energy-reflective ultrachrome, each projectile was capable of passing through shields by repelling away their projected energy. Should they connect, their explosive cores would go off in baradium-catalyzed fusion reactions, briefly unleashing stellar-surface temperatures that had the potential to obliterate anything caught within a half-meter radius in the manner of a tiny thermal detonator.

<:"This is Windrun to all forces - we need to regroup and rally. If anyone is on this channel... if anyone can hear me, don't let up! Regroup if you have to, but don't let them stop us. I repeat, don't--":>

It was then that a transmission cut through the chaos, a call to order from one of the Sith duumvirs. SL-0182 glanced up, briefly processing the battle outside her immediate sector. She zoomed in her helmet’s integrated optics to a spot three blocks away and caught sight of a group of armed Gado civilians turning on their Mandalorian escort. Automatic blaster fire saturated beskar armor until the material superheated, cooking the flesh of the hapless warrior inside. The lead Gado raised his blaster and shot into the air, fist raised in defiance. Elsewhere, a turbolaser bolt struck a nearby plaza, incinerating a platoon of Sith troopers who had been holding out against a tide of Mandalorian armor and basilisks.

The ground shook. A sudden wave of unexplainable dread filled her awareness, pressing against her chest like the weight of a coming storm.

“This is Saaraishash Asset SL-0182,” she replied, her voice steady despite the tremor in the air. “I am at grid reference mern-seven, six floors up, on the roof of the office building. I have a Mandalorian infantry squad underneath my position.” She paused, her gaze sweeping the smoke‑wreathed skyline as the distant flashes of battle flickered in and out like dying stars. “Where should I regroup, my Lord?”

Spoiler: Loadout

• Klase Vele Combat Skin Mk. I - Helmet Configuration
  
  • Arms
    
    • FAE/M-02 Energized Forearm Vibroblade Mk. II - L Forearm
    • LPD-38 QuietNeedle Dartcaster - R Forearm
      
      • Ammunition
        
        • Hollow Dart - Rampancy Serum Payload (18)
        • Precompessed Air Reservoir (4)
  • Energy Shield
    
    • Phase III “Force Avenger” Energy Shield
• KSMG-7 Mk. II - Kainate Submachine Gun Model Seven Second Rendition
  
  • Ammunition
    
    • Extended Magazine - CryoBan Ammunition (2)
    • Standard Magazine - Armor Penetrator Ammunition (4)
    • Standard Magazine - High Explosive Ammunition (2)
  • Attachments
    
    • 1-5x FAE/S-08 Electro-Sight
    • Phase I “Susurration” Anti-Sonic Silencer
• Siqsa-S1 Semiautonomous Seeker Obscuration Canister (2)
• FAE/MDE-01-S1 Semiautonomous Seeker Thermal Explosive (2)
• Agzonûboj-type Probe Droid

 

[Pax Velloran]

Internal Customs Archive | Western Freight Annex

Lower Levels | Open to Tags

Two levels below turned out to mean four flights of stairs, one emergency bulkhead and an increasingly unpleasant smell of wet earth. Pax noticed it again at the first landing, the same odor that had followed him through parts of the freight annex above, faint beneath the smoke and burned circuitry until the ventilation system managed to exchange one problem for another. Down here there was less smoke and considerably more of whatever was growing through the damaged portions of the port.

An emergency cabinet had been mounted beside the stairwell door. Most of the medical supplies were gone, but somebody had left an industrial respirator behind, still sealed in its packaging. Pax checked the filter indicator, decided that green was preferable to whatever color came after it and fitted the mask over his face before continuing down.

The archive level had been designed for people who preferred records to scenery. Low ceilings, administrative offices and service corridors replaced the freight infrastructure above. Half the overhead lights were out, though enough emergency power remained to illuminate directional markings along the floor. A display beside the stairwell had also changed since the directory upstairs had last updated.

CIVILIAN MOVEMENT RESTRICTED
REPORT TO DESIGNATED PROCESSING AREAS
SECURITY SCREENING REQUIRED

Pax read it once and continued in the opposite direction. Whatever force was taking control of the port had apparently discovered administration.

The customs archive occupied the end of the corridor behind a door that declined his first attempt at entry with considerably more enthusiasm than the berth terminal had. Pax tried the local access code recovered from Cresh-Seven, received the same answer and removed the compact bypass kit from beneath his coat.

"Fine."

The casing beside the lock came away after considerably less argument. A data spike and several seconds of negotiation convinced the door that it had already opened for someone more important, after which Pax replaced the panel before stepping through. There was little point leaving an advertisement behind for the next person who came looking.

The archive itself was smaller than he expected. Three clerk stations faced a bank of local storage units built into the rear wall, their hardware old enough that most of the records had probably survived several generations of software updates simply because nobody wanted to pay for replacing them. A chair had been pushed away from one terminal, and an abandoned cup sat beside it. Whatever evacuation had emptied the room had happened quickly enough that nobody had bothered shutting the systems down properly.

That saved him time.

Pax connected his datapad and entered the reference number attached to Cresh-Seven's boarding log. The archive took several seconds to respond before presenting the same departure record he had already seen upstairs: six crew, no passengers. He ignored it and requested the biometric processing record instead.

This time the system answered.

Eleven boarding validations appeared beneath the Far Wanderer's departure number. The first six matched the registered crew exactly. Pax opened the remaining five and found complete identity checks attached to each one: arrival scans, credential verification and the automated confirmation that each individual had physically crossed the boarding gantry before departure. None appeared on the manifest.

He transferred the records to his datapad and began working through them. Two were employees of Varlo Industrial Transit, a third worked private security and the fourth was a logistics specialist whose employment history included several companies associated with Abregado-rae's electrum trade. All useful people to remove from a planet about to become a battlefield, perhaps, but none immediately explained why somebody had gone to the trouble of making them disappear from the passenger record.

The fifth required a little more digging.

ELIRA VOSKEN

Deputy Financial Comptroller, Aurelian Electrum Combine.

Pax knew the company. Aurelian had appeared often enough in the shipping and ownership records he'd been working through before the invasion to become familiar without ever becoming interesting. Vosken was much the same. She wasn't a director or senior executive, and a quick search produced considerably more financial filings bearing her authorization code than photographs of her face. That was probably appropriate for a comptroller. She might not decide where a company's money went, but she was expected to know where it had gone, which made quietly putting her aboard the Far Wanderer eleven minutes before the invasion considerably harder to dismiss.


Pax opened the boarding authorization. Vosken had been processed with the other four under a private corporate-transfer designation shortly before the ship's departure slot was moved forward. All five identities remained intact in the local archive, but somewhere between boarding and publication the group had disappeared from the manifest.

He followed the alteration into the audit history, where the record became less cooperative. The change had been authorized through a Port Authority administrative credential, but the archive retained only the credential class and transaction token. Whoever approved it possessed enough access that their personal identifier had not been included in the berth-level copy. Pax saved the token anyway. A credential class and transaction number were considerably less useful than a name, but they were still something that could be traced later.

He returned to the loading record. Five additional passengers explained part of what had been hidden aboard the Far Wanderer, but they did very little for the four point three tonnes still absent from the cargo declaration. Even allowing generously for luggage and equipment, the mathematics remained unhelpful. He was left with five undeclared passengers, four point three tonnes of unexplained mass and a ship that had departed eleven minutes before anyone publicly knew there was reason to hurry. It was considerably more than he'd had when he landed, even if none of it explained the rest yet.

The archive terminal flickered while Pax was reviewing the files. A status message appeared briefly in one corner of the display before the local system disconnected, re-established itself and requested authentication against an authority it had not been using when he entered the room. Pax frowned and opened the network status instead of fighting the prompt.

Several administrative nodes elsewhere in the port had changed ownership during the few minutes he'd been sitting there. Civilian routing systems were being consolidated, access privileges rewritten and traffic information redirected through fewer control points. Somebody was no longer merely breaking the spaceport. They were organizing what remained.

Pax checked the copy running to his datapad. The Cresh-Seven files were complete, along with the boarding records, audit history and enough surrounding data to preserve their context. Copying the rest of the archive would take considerably longer. He considered it for several seconds before disconnecting.

Knowing when to stop looking was not a skill he particularly enjoyed practicing, but occasionally circumstances became persuasive.

Pax pocketed the data spike, closed the terminal session and headed back into the corridor. The display near the archive entrance had changed again while he was inside. Two additional routes were now restricted, and the nearest lift no longer responded to civilian access. The stairs remained available, though the steadily expanding list of restrictions suggested that might not remain true for long.

He had almost reached them when a door somewhere above opened. Voices carried faintly down the stairwell, followed by the sound of several people beginning to descend.

Pax stopped short of the landing and listened. The lightsaber remained where it was. His right hand settled near the opening of his coat, close enough to the blaster beneath it if the people coming downstairs proved interested in him.

// END RECORD

 

[He-Who-Walks-Between]

Greetings Ceria Kesyk | Meliant | Cruelty
Farewell Tytos Saxon | Gel Karn

Gear: Mandalorian Beskar'gam | Beskad | Alchemized Helmet | Baradium Bomb | Sonic Blaster

G̶̰̮̈́h̶̢̏͒͠ọ̵̧̿͒͂s̵̖̭̆̔t̸͈̮͊s̸̪̒̎̕ ̸̻̮͇̀o̵͈̜̍f̷͓̈́̈́ ̵̤͐͜t̴͓͂͌h̶͍̿͐̊e̴̫͑ ̶̡̭̣̽M̷̤̓͂̈́ḁ̵̡́͘n̸̗͉͉̒̇̔d̴̬̖̽a̴͉̻̲͒
​

"Come, Smith," He beckoned as He-Who-Walks-Between entered through the portal. "Our own destiny awaits."

"Goodbye, Tytos. Smith."

The words seemed final as they issued through the expressionless helm. The pair disappeared through a portal. Kade turned his attention back upon his future, his destiny, the weight of all he had foreseen flow-walking into the future shuddering through him. Making it difficult to stand.

He had thought the knowledge would have made it easier...

Strange.

It did not.

He looked to his weary officers, "Get them ready to repel boarders."

All eyes upon me.

"Ancestors, I do not know if I am ready. Please..." his fingertips pressed hard into his palms, "Please give me strength."

​

Across the void of space lit by the horrid maw of the Netherworld and flecked with exchanges of turbolaser batteries and missiles and the explosions of dying craft the spectral vessels of the Manda roared.

Pieces drifted from them and some seemed to already be disintegrating as they churned through space, leaking the echoes of atmosphere from their hulls while driven forward by engines that only existed truly in the memory that yes, they had once been engines. Memories and hate and grief and pain and sorrow and vengeance. That was all they were now.

Their batteries, those that remained, fired back but only to clear a path. Their purpose seemed singular, their route direct.

Straight for the Tyranny.

Half a league.

Half a league.

Kade sucked in a breath inside his helm. He rested a hand on the strap of the strange beskar plated backpack he wore.

Moments now. Mere moments.

One of the number already evaporated beneath concentrated fire, a vessel which might have been something resembling a Crusader-class corvette but was now so far damaged that Kade scarcely knew what it had been before. It exploded in a flash of green light and then faded away into the void, like tears in the rain.

"Go now to your eternal rest."

He wished he had known the name of the vessel, or those of its crew. Perhaps he would once... Kade's teeth clenched together and coldness constricted upon his heart.

The scion of the Rekali made his way to the hangar, the ship lurching beneath his feet as blow after blow pummeled it. Awaiting him there were supercommandos, brave vod all, who simply gave him nods.

They knew their objective. They knew the cost.

Spectral figures assembled around them, growing in number until more than a hundred stood there. Some of the stoic commandos gave cries or gasps as some long dead relatives laid hands on shoulders. A moment of reunion.

It would not last.

More vessels perished outside, but Kade needed to focus. As the Pathwalker drew close to the Tyranny and suffered withering fire, he stretched out with his mind to see the latticework woven around the Tyranny by the Sith. It seemed to only protect the minds. Not from what now came.

The Sith who had woven it had split its mind into two many pieces. Casting an entire planet into madness with a spell and protecting the Tyranny from what would now occur... the Thing could not have both.

Others of the ghost ships pulled toward the Tyranny and those which had survived disgorged their crew: hundreds, nay, thousands of ghostly Mandalorian spirits hurtled across the vacuum to board the enemy vessel, aiming to assault gun emplacements and key systems, their bodies phasing through physical walls.

He Who Walks Between did not know each of their individual destinies. He could not have seen that far. Perhaps Kjartan Hammer-Hand did, watching as the battle unfolded.

But Kade's path diverged.

Gathering up his mind, he raised a hand and a smaller netherportal shimmered to life before the force assembled in the hangar.

On the other side....

Waiting...

Were the faces of Meliant , Cruelty , and Ceria Kesyk

Alone but for his supercommandos and the ghosts of the Manda, Kade charged through the portal and onto the bridge of the Tyranny.

OOC:
original composition:
x1 actual heavily modified Kandosii-type vessel "Pathwalker"
x5 Derelict assorted equivalents of Keldabe-class Cruisers
x5 Derelict assorted equivalents of Crusader-class corvettes
x10 Derelict assorted equivalents of Assault Ships

For all intents and purposes, they take and give damage as though physical vessels. Albeit, already very damaged. Energy weapons are more effective. Kinetic weapons less so. I don't plan on writing any fleeting with them at this point, but feel free to engage.