Private Dungeons and Darksiders

[Nathan Bloodscrawl]

The Gentes Bulk Freighter had been en route to Coruscant following a field trip on Ossus, when it had been forced out of Hyperspace by an interdictor mine. The violence of which had sent it off course, the sudden stress on the vessel damaging all important systems aboard the ship. Towards an asteroid field.

It had a very very small compliment of Knights and Padawans aboard, with Nathan having hitched a ride with them because Ossus was where he had proposed to Lysandra. As much as he tried to distance himself from the past, he could not turn away fully.

He didn't dare go near the actual site where he had proposed. That would have been a dead giveaway. He had kept his distance from that beautiful tree where she had said yes, after telling her the truth.

He was an anomaly no matter which Jedi Order he served. So silent. No sense of humor. Incapable of smiling. Just a frozen, almost dull, yet grim expression constantly on his face. Movements stiff, almost mechanical. He was never rude or disobedient, yet those two facts only increased just how unsettling everything else about him was.

Nathan lay on his bed in small quarters, glancing up blankly at the ceiling. A fly landed directly on his eyeball, yet he didn't react. It just crawled around until it got bored and flew off.

When the ship had been tossed violently from Hyperspace, he had been thrown from his bed, he'd slamming against a table and disorienting him severely, blood pouring down the side of his head.

He started floating. They'd lost artificial gravity.

"ALERT. CONDITION RED. REPEAT, CONDITION RED." came the announcement over the comm system.

He flailed around, trying to right himself. But his head hurt and it was difficult to think.

He barely reached the door switch and hit it, and was greeted by the sight of multiple fires and partly collapsed passages. Dead burned crewmen floated in the chaos.

The smell of death, the sounds of chaos, roused him from his injured torpor and he floated forward, looking for injured. He grimaced when he saw the bodies of all four Knights floating in a passage. All at once. They couldn't have gotten more unlucky had they tried.

Nathan moved through dimming lights. He heard pounding from a door next to him and banged back hard with his fist.

"Help! You have to get it open, I'm trapped there's a fire inside!" screamed the voice of a woman in the other side.

"Hold on!" Nathan called back. He went for his Saberstaff .

"Stand back!" he yelled, activating the Lightsaber. He began trying to cut through it, when a nearby explosion knocked his Lightsaber out of his hand, shutting it off and sending him hurling into a wall...

He knew it was bad, because he heard a rather sickening crack and a surge of pain to his shoulder blade that left him writhing in mid air, helpless...

Shan Pavond

 

[Shan Pavond]

Shan had wanted to see more of the Galaxy. That's why he had agreed to go on this field trip. He felt like it would be a good experience for him. Seeing more of the galaxy, learning more about the people. It also indirectly would help him in finding out where his mother had been taken. Asking if people had seen a Mirialan like him. Of course, it was a fruitless venture but it was better than not trying whatsoever. The field trip was at least able to distract him slightly from the ongoing problems in the galaxy. Who knows, perhaps it would be the peaceful adventure that the young Padawan needed this entire time!

Though on the journey back, it was proven that he just couldn't be that lucky now, could he? With the ship suddenly exiting Hyperspace, Shan found himself hurtling off his bed. The Padawan threw his arms up over his face, focusing on the Force around him and reinforced his arms using the soft to solid force ability that he had been taught by Jasper Kai'el. The impact still hurt, but luckily there wasn't anything broken from the impact. He was probably going to be a bit bruised after a while but that was better than being broken and dead. The Mirialan brushed himself down, getting up to his feet rather quickly and making sure that his blaster and lightsaber were still on his person. Once he was sure they were secured, the Padawan started to swim, or at least attempted to swim through the air to get out of his room, keeping a hand on the wall to keep himself secure.

The sight he saw wasn't one that Shan hoped to see. The four knights just floating in the corridor and then the sudden explosion, which sent someone hurtling into the wall. He couldn't hear the crack, but it was clear that the man was in pain as Shan tried to propel himself forward with the Force, reaching out one hand to grab onto Nathan's saberstaff in his non-dominant hand before then using the Force to pull on the ripples of the Force, pulling Nathan over towards the Mirialan carefully, so as not to exaggerate any more injuries. "Alright. Hold this. Ignite it, keep it away from you. It'll help to deal with your pain, whilst I focus on getting her out." Shan jabbed his thumb towards the door that Nathan had been trying to carve open, before handing his lightsaber over towards the man. The Thontiin crystal should be enough to act as a painkiller and give Shan time to cut away.

So using Nathan's saberstaff, Shan went to work, kicking himself back off towards the door and focused on trying to cut through it. He couldn't afford to let his nerves get the better of him. It was an emergency, and potentially a medical one as well so he just needed to prioritise things. Get his patients, get them out of danger, and then focus on treating them properly. He just kept himself focused on cutting through the door, biting his lip in concentration, glaring at the metal as he felt the saber slicing through it.

Nathan Bloodscrawl

 

[Nathan Bloodscrawl]

Nathan floated until Shan Pavond came along.

"WARNING. STRUCTURAL INTEGRITY COMPROMISED."

A cylinder of metal was slipped into his hand and he felt the pain gradually lesson. He was able to think. Focus. He couldn't move his right shoulder.

He saw another one, far younger than he, cutting open the door with his staff.

The creaking of the Hull loosened some large power conduit that began to drift dangerously close to Shan. He lifted his good arm, the one holding the saber and pointed it at the Conduit.

The object was teleported back to where it floated away from.

"This whole deck is gonna go!" Nathan warned, driving back the flames with his Pyrokinesis. But the damage was extensive, the flames growing ever more powerful and his skill was limited. Plus, he was barely able to focus. Just teleporting that piece of debris away had taxes him greatly. Blood flowed over his eyes.

"Hurry! I can't keep the flames away from us much longer!"

 

[Shan Pavond]

Shan was focused on cutting as hard as he could. It was harder than he thought it would be, especially with all of the stress that was going on around him. Breathe. Stay calm. Don't stress out too much. But then Nathan warned that the entire deck was going to go, so he just cracked his fingers, and yelled to the woman behind the door.

"Back away from the door! I'm going to blast it!"

The Mirialan clenched his fist, focusing on the Force. This was more where his skillset lied more than physical abilities, as Shan threw the Force forward to push the remains of the door forward, trying his hardest not to go spiralling out of control. Instead he then switched his hand's position to go and grab the woman, pulling her in their relative direction. They couldn't afford to waste time having her swim over.

"Alright. Time to bail out of here." Shan prepared to push himself back in the way of Nathan, so they could focus on getting out of this compartment. Was there a point in bringing the knights' corpses with them...There wasn't a logical reason, but there was an emotional one, and that was good enough for him. He was potentially using too much of his energy already, but keeping an arm wrapped around the woman, Shan used his free hand to use the Force again to start pulling the corpses in their direction

Nathan Bloodscrawl

 

[Nathan Bloodscrawl]

Nathan sighed. The corpses moved. The fires began to grow so strong even the Pyrokinesis could not slow it.

Nathan blinked as he saw Shan Pavond waste time trying to drag the corpses. Nathan, ever the pragmatist, teleported their lightsabers to his belt, than teleported close to Shan as the fires began to creep on them ever faster and more ferociously. Soon it would be too hot to breath.

"Listen to reason. We're not this crude matter. They wouldn't want you to die dragging their literal dead weight. Emotion is not your friend in this situation. The whole ship could be on the verge of going. I have their blades. They won't die in vain but only if we leave now."

The flames intensified from a nearby explosion and the woman screamed.

 

[Shan Pavond]

Shan's hand shook for a moment as Nathan told him to listen to reason. It made sense. Of course it made sense. He just...He couldn't imagine leaving someone's body in the cold vacuum of space. A small part of him concerned that the same fate might have befallen his mother in whatever spaceship she had been dragged away in...

Damn the Force. If only he was stronger. This would be so much easier. He wouldn't be failing people like this. But then he heard the woman screaming and the Mirialan just let out a sigh. Disappointed in himself that he had to give up in his aim, but he couldn't risk letting the woman die because of his stubbornness.

"Fine." That was all the Padawan said, ripping his head away from the bodies, and just keeping a fist clenched. He needed to get better. Faster. But...no. He couldn't turn back to the anger he felt in his battle against the Sith...Was it better to fail, than to fall to the dark side? Shan wasn't sure. But if he wanted to redeem her, he couldn't fall to the same corruption she had.

Nathan Bloodscrawl

 

[Nathan Bloodscrawl]

Nathan felt the anger in Shan Pavond , hot and clear, while his own presence in the Force was a cold static, a void where his emotions should be.

Nathan managed to find the passage out of the deck. It started to close, to keep the fire from spreading.

He teleported close to the hatch and, with sheer brute strength in his remaining good arm, held it from coming down long enough for Shan and the woman he had rescued float to safety on the other side, before he got out of the way and let the hatch close, the flames just on the verge of reaching them as it sealed up.

"You did more to honor those knights by leaving than staying." he assured Shan before turning to the panicked woman. She looked like a member of the crew.

"Do you have any idea what's going on?" he asked.

"I'm with the engineering team. I was off duty when we got the message..." the woman answered as they floated due to the knocked out gravity.

"What message?"

"An interdictor mine of tremendous strength. The strain of being forced from Hyperspace like that...it tore up the hyperdrive. Damaged the engines, damaged the whole ship pretty badly." she answered blinking back panic sweat as they sent down the passage, coming across more dead, though they finally found live crewmen desperately trying to put out the flames. "Who the hell would lay an interdictor mine on our path?"

"I don't know. I suspect we will not know for certain until whoever did this arrives... which means we need to get off this ship if we can't restore it to function..." Nathan trailed.

"This ship has a few YT-1300's in the hangar..."

"There are over twenty one Padawans that came with us. I'll go find them. You..." he trailed, going to Shan, his voice eerily calm in comparison to the stresses he felt from them.. "Get to the bridge section. We don't know if the bridge crew is in any condition to steer it. I'm going to go get every Padawan I can find. You..." he said to the woman. "Find a good clear route to the hangar and get any intact crew you find to start moving the injured. Keep in contact if possible, my comlink still works. Go. Now."

Nathan floated down another passage to where he knew a lot of the Padawan's quarters were. He spotted two immediately, pulling free injured crew.

"You two, get to the hangar. The ship's been crippled and we may need to leave, fast. Take them with you..." he ordered the two younger Padawans and the injured they had rescued.

The Padawans nodded immediately and began floating away, dragging the injured with them. Nathan waved a few minor fires out of his way with the Force as he continued his search...

 

[Shan Pavond]

Shan ignored the comment about him honouring the Knights more by leaving than staying with him. It wasn't necessarily the right choice in his eyes. Abandoning people. Leaving them behind. Of course, they were in a way, not truly dead. They were part of the Force now, but that didn't comfort Shan in any way. He saw it as a failure on his part instead. A task he had set himself to do and failed at. Could he do anything right? The Mirialan wasn't sure. He knew he shouldn't be thinking like this, but he wanted to be able to help people as much as he could. He was a healer, a lover. Not a fighter. He wasn't a warrior. Abandoning people, even their corpses was something that just didn't sit right with him.

Though none of that mattered right now. He had a mission to do, and he had to get to the bridge. So still staying quiet, Shan focused on floating towards the bridge, trying to ignore the dead and damage around him. It wasn't something he enjoyed the sight of, I mean, who did enjoy the sight of innocent dead people just floating in a ship? The Mirialan tried not to focus on that as he kept swimming through the air as much as he could to get towards the bridge. He wasn't sure how trying to pilot a damaged ship like this would go. He hadn't really piloted a ship that was damaged in some way. It wasn't fun whatsoever, or at least the thought wasn't appealing to him but he just had to go forward with the mission and try to rescue as many people as they could.

Nathan Bloodscrawl

 

[Nathan Bloodscrawl]

Nathan frantically dug with his good arm past collapsed passages. He found more Padawans, some struggling to help others, while some did repairs, desperately trying to get the ship serviceable, because even they knew it was an ambush.

Nathan would interrupt them, send them in the direction of the hangar, and to take any injured they found with them. The ship shuddered occasionally. Smoke clouded some sections. More dead bodies floated by him.

Nathan found a Padawan floating in the air, bleeding. He checked. Both legs fractured. Passed out from the pain. But alive.

Nathan stopped as he saw an ancient design of Interdictor Cruiser come out of Hyperspace through a viewport.

"Chit..." Nathan hissed, pulling out his comlink to contact Shan Pavond .

"We have a serious problem..." Nathan said. "Seems our welcoming committee is here on an intercept course. What's the situation on the bridge. Is the crew there alive? Can the ship be steered?"

 

[Shan Pavond]

Shan was floating through the debris and chaos, grimacing to himself. This wasn't going well whatsoever as he saw more and more corpses on his way towards the bridge. A few crackles of electricity sparking out from exposed wiring as Shan floated on by, but the electric redirection he had learned from the Wilders was suitable enough for him to get past with only a faint amount of tingling in his finger tips.

By the time he actually managed to get to the bridge however, it wasn't a pretty sight. There just seemed to be chaos all over the place. Some crew members seemed focused on trying to steer the ship as well as they could, whilst there were a few crouched down to what he presumed was the captain...or well the remains of the Captain. It seemed he had taken a pretty bad crack to the head when the mine went off.

The Mirialan moved further into the bridge, trying to get a sit-rep from them, a frown slowly growing over his face more and more as he listened. This wasn't good. Not good at all. Though that's when Nathan Bloodscrawl came over the com-link, and Shan took in a deep breath. This wasn't going to be fun talking about but information was needed.

"There's a few survivors. Captain's gone from the looks of it. They say the ship can be steered, but that it's taken quite a bit of damage. Any strenuous movement, and it's likely that what remains might rip itself apart."

 

[Nathan Bloodscrawl]

Nathan snorted.

"Expert Ambush. Well, that settles it. We have to abandon ship. Get everyone who is still alive on your end to the hangar."

Nathan watched as the cruiser deployed it's interdiction field.

"It's hanging back. It doesn't want us able to jump to Hyperspace. Standard procedure now will be to send in starfighters to cripple our engines and life support, then send in assault teams to mop up the rest, killing or taking prisoner as they please...we have perhaps ten minutes before the starfighters, and that's a generous estimate. Everyone still alive is either all off this ship before they get here or we're never leaving. I'll get everyone I can still find on my end. May the Force be with you."

Such well wishing, understandably, sounded foreign and strange from such a humorless void of a man like Nathan, too still, too calm sounding, demeanor eerie in the midst of all this chaos and death. Like it was business as usual. In the Gulag Era, experiences like this were all too frequent for Nathan.

Nathan reached a ship intercom and put the frequency on public.

"This is Padawan Bloodscrawl. All hands abandon ship. Repeat, all hands abandon ship. Evacuate to the hangar immediately. Enemy starfighter attack imminent."

He hurried through passages, looking thoroughly in the precious minutes he had left. The ship rocked as the first wave of starfighters arrived, firing on the engines. He had had even less time than even he had estimated.

He still kept looking. Freeing people trapped by debris and sending them back where he came. He couldn't find any more Padawans. Maybe Shan Pavond had found some. But he had looked for two minutes longer than was wise. He had to leave now if he wanted to survive.

He began retreating, half blind from the blood pouring down his face. Another rocking of the ship flung him into a bulk head, knocking free Shan's Lightsaber from his grip.

Agony flooded his shoulder and he was flaying about helplessly, weakly trying to grab at the hilt before another explosion flung him further away from it.

What are the Three Directives of a Bloodscrawl? his father asked in a distant memory.

Nathan struggled to focus through the horrible pain.

Directive One: Serve The Public Trust. he answered back to his father mentally.

His arm stretched out to the floating blade.

And the second? his father asked.

Directive Two: Protect The Innocent

He steadied his breathing. Let the Force flow through him.

The third? came the question from his father.

Directive Three: Uphold The Will of The Force.

The hilt teleported back to his waiting hand and relief flooded his body and he began teleporting back through the passages, making his way to the hangar, which was partly on fire. Crewmen were still filing into the two YT-1300's, all cargo removed to fit more people. They would have no supplies, no room to really breath.

Nathan spotted the woman Shan had rescued earlier.

"The Padawan that was with us? Where is he?" Nathan asked.

"I dunno! But if you're gonna find him you need to do it now! Those people are frantic to leave! They will take off without you!" she warned, terror on her face.

Nathan immediately began scanning for Shan, waving around hoping to draw attention to him, even as the ship was rocked by another explosion.

The lights cut...

 

[Shan Pavond]

Damn the Force. This wasn't what he had signed up for whatsoever. He wanted something to distract him from his worries, but now he was practically on the edge of danger. It was working as a distraction, but it wasn't necessarily the one he needed as he focused on trying to move through the ship, getting the crew in the bridge to start evacuating before him. He had to make sure everything was alright on the bridge, trying to figure out what he could do to try and buy them some extra time. Scanning over some of the on-bridge computers, glancing through it all before starting to redirect power from other sections of the ship to the turrets, alongside the mining lasers. There wasn't exactly any need for the engines now and so he made sure to redirect their power, alongside connecting the mining lasers to the turrets targeting system. That should be enough to get them a few more minutes.

Though now he had to focus on getting through the ship to get towards the hanger. This was not going to be too fun. He wasn't sure how many survivors there were on the ship, and he wasn't even sure how much room there would be on the evacuation shuttles as he just dragged himself along the wall to make sure he was moving at a rapid pace. His eyes scanning around to see if he could find anyone else to save. It seemed some of the crew from the bridge had found some Padawans, from the looks of lightsaber scorch marks on the doors and walls surrounding him. That was good. The more Jedi there were to help, the better. Even if they were only Padawans like himself, they were still a sign of hope and morale.

On his way towards the hanger, the lights suddenly seemed to cut out on him, making it clearly much more difficult for the Padawan to make his way forward. Every sound around him making him feel like the entire thing is going to rip apart on them. It wasn't something he wanted to go through again but he didn't have a choice right now as he made his way, trying to use the flames around him to highlight his way towards the hanger. He was almost there. Eventually managing to get himself into the hanger, glancing around in the dark to try and see where he had to go, seeing the group of survivors by the YTs.

"I'm here! I'm here! Sorry for keeping you waiting. Just...wanted to leave a surprise for our friends."

Nathan Bloodscrawl

 

[Nathan Bloodscrawl]

"Get aboard, now!" the woman shouted. "The whole damned hangar is going!"

Nathan waited until Shan Pavond was aboard and, against his better judgement, waited an extra thirty seconds. Only one more person showed up, a badly injured and burned crewman limping to the ship.

Nathan stretched out his good arm and the man was teleported to the entrance of the ship, where he was hurried aboard also.

Nathan glanced at the other exits, waiting ten more seconds. No one. If they weren't here now, they weren't showing.

Reluctantly, he went up the ramp as it closed, heading towards the cockpit. He showed out the original pilot and took the controls, unwilling to trust his fate to a random NPC.

"Go! Go!" his co pilot yelled as he lifted off, blasting out the hangar, with the only other YT taking off. The Freighter they escaped was completely on fire.

But these YT-1300's were not the Millennium Falcon, and were not meant for extended combat, forcing him to use his own instincts as a Starfighter Pilot to compensate. He got scans of the fighters chasing them, some unknown model of A-Wing. They couldn't out run them. Not in the open...and they couldn't out shoot them either.

"We have to head to the Asteroid Field...its the only way we lose them!" he said on communications to the other ship as he zoomed for the field of rocks.