Junction Echoes of the Gravesong - Undeath comes to the Diarchy (DIA & ME junction of Brath Qella/Placeholder

Aether Verd · 2025-06-08T22:33:37-0400

Assets: Beskar'gam | Basilisk
Darksaber | Resolute Dawn

OBJECTIVE II - SPACE ELEVATOR DEFENSE

Aether Verd gave no reply as Jaikell's voice echoed through the comms. But he gave a nod, firm and sure, as his warrior passed. You lead. We follow. The words struck deep, not with pomp, but with faith. Trust. And for that, Aether gave him the only answer needed. A look. A certainty. They would all bleed before they bent.

He glanced to Vytal as she summoned fire to her palm, giving instruction to her spirits. The Mand’alor tilted his helm ever so slightly. A gesture of respect for the Witch who had stood with him since before Taris. She had sensed something and so had he. The dead were not merely stirred. They were being sculpted. And whatever had its hands in that grave soil was growing bold.

“Stay close,” Aether said, his voice deep and clear over the hangar's commline. “The elevator is bleeding. That’s where we make our stand.”

He climbed onto his Basilisk. Its crimson plating glinting like blood beneath the hangar lights. As its engines roared to life, the hangar deck shuddered. Warriors scattered to give him room. Cannons rotated. Rockets locked in. As the magnetic clamps released, Aether and his war mount shot like a meteor from the Resolute Dawn toward the planet below.

They descended into fire.

The sky was black with smoke and tracer rounds. The dead surged in waves, crashing against the makeshift barricades surrounding the space elevator. There were so many. Undead soldiers, ghouls, bloated things that oozed rot and bile. And beyond them, something else. Something smarter. Watching. Guiding.

The Basilisk’s cannons opened fire mid-descent. Autocannons shredded a rooftop swarm. Twin rotary blasters tore through a cordon of shambling corpses. Aether watched it all in silence, calculating, grim. As they approached the surface, his voice cut through the droid’s battle systems.

“All weapons...Fire!”

Shockwave rods detonated mid-air, flattening half a city block’s worth of cadavers. Micro-rockets screamed through alleyways, striking choke points with surgical fury. The Basilisk bellowed its rage in steel and fire. And then they landed.

Crimson plates met broken duracrete with a thunderous impact just beyond the defensive line. The shockwave from the Basilisk’s landing crushed a dozen undead outright, blasting back another score in a storm of debris.

Aether rose from the saddle. One foot on the mount, he surveyed the battlefield.

There she was. Zara Saga. The same spitfire who had snarled at him on Taris. Her golden blades tore through the rot, her fury as loud as her fethin' mouth. At least this time, she fought beside his kin.

Elsewhere, he saw the storm that was Red: a one-woman artillery barrage. Disruptor shots and flamethrowers turned the tide wherever she walked. And Sahan Dragr was already crafting a new apocalypse with toppling buildings and a vortex of flame. And still, they were only slowing the tide.

Aether lifted a hand and crackling arcs of white lightning spilled forth. The Force surged through his frame and leapt from his fingertips in violent bolts, turning scores of undead into twitching piles of ash. With his other hand, he raised his vambrace and fired a salvo of wrist rockets into the horde. Explosions rocked the ground.

“This. Line. Holds.” he growled into the Mandalorian-wide channel. “So says Mandalore!”

The Basilisk reared back, its engines flaring as it unleashed a fresh barrage. Aether stood tall atop it, the eye of a crimson hurricane.

No retreat. No surrender. Only war.

Rokul ,

Kassandra Beskar'ad

Gath · 2025-06-08T23:07:24-0400

YAGA MINOR
Objectives I & II

OBJECTIVE I

The horde grew.

They moved like water, like smoke, like purpose. The Civilian Horde, grandmothers still clinging to knitting needles, infants crawling on shattered limbs, bloodied fathers dragging toys behind them like echoes of their former lives, swarmed the defenders without hesitation. Without pain. Without mercy.

They poured from alleyways. Crashed through shopfronts. Clambered atop rooftops and leapt from balconies. They flung themselves forward with no regard for form or fear, driven by one mind, one will: His. Where one fell, two rose. Where two burned, three more staggered from the wreckage to take their place. It was not rage that moved them. It was resolve.

Kassandra would find herself tested. Surrounded suddenly. Clawed at. The biot’s strength would be met with a hundred small hands reaching up at once, tearing, slashing, and trying to pull her into the tide.

Adonis, burning bright in his defiance, had become a beacon and so the dead came. He carved them down, saber swinging in wide, desperate arcs, but every victory led him deeper in the pit. Corpses would grab at his boots and at his weapon. A child’s voice screamed without breath. A mother’s face wept without tears. Still they came.

Kandosii and Jonah, guns hot and blades sharper, would face the same tide. So many. So fast. Some still wore their wedding rings. Some still bore the scars of the last war. And now they were weapons. Puppets. Punishment.

Even Ryu, far below, felt would feel the dead's hunger. Those who fell would die screaming, their final moments ripped apart by the people they had come to protect. And through it all, one word echoed. Not spoken, not shouted, but known. GATH.

OBJECTIVE II

The first wave continued. The unarmed dead, fodder, slammed into defenders like a storm surge. Their numbers had not depleted. They had grown. Each corpse left unburned became a soldier in Gath’s army. Each hesitation in the line was met with another body, another set of teeth, another shriek of the Gravesong.

And through that ruin came the second wave.

The true warriors. The honor guard. Dead soldiers clad in rusted armor and armed with battered rifles, riot shields, and shattered blades. Gath marched with them at the center, towering above the field. His chains clanked like ceremonial drums. His breath fogged the air like the heat of a forge. Around him, his undead advanced in perfect formation: unnatural, unstoppable, undeterred.

Until the fire came. Sahan.

A spark. A flash. A blaze that roared to life around them, licking at the sky and swirling into a furious cyclone. Mandalorian fury, compressed into motion and flame, seeking to drown Gath in a whirlwind of vengeance. It was fast...faster than anything should be.

But Gath was not anything. Gath was not mortal.

His eyes tracked the golden insect with clarity born of torment. He saw Sahan. Saw the strain of speed. The burden he carried...A relic of prey masquerading as defense. A parasite that drained and dulled the Force. But the Netherworld was not so easily silenced.

Gath reached deep. Into the scars branded across his flesh. Into the grief he carried for every brother lost in chains. Into the truth he had become.

The Force roared to life.

His hand stretched forward. The flame did not consume him. It bent. It obeyed. The cyclone writhed, twisted, folded toward his palm as if drawn to a sun. Debris joined it: metal sheets, shattered droids, starship plating, shattered skulls, broken duracrete. It all swept into a singularity of power.

And then… he saw it. The elevator.

A gleaming ribbon of arrogance. Transit in motion. A chamber descending from on high, precious and unaware. He could feel the life within it: Maldor Mecetti. A name. A weight. A target.

Gath clenched his fist. And hurled the inferno. The fireball screamed through the sky like a god’s judgment, bloated with hatred and debris. It twisted through broken wind, accelerated by Gath’s unshackled rage. It struck the elevator at exactly the midpoint of its descent: exactly where Maldor rode.

The explosion was cataclysmic.

Fire erupted in all directions, tearing into the shaft’s reinforced walls. Glass burst. Metal curled. And the shockwave rippled through the surrounding city like a bell tolling the end of days. It might not have destroyed the entire tower, but it would damage it and potentially close the defenders’ lifeline.
And maybe, hopefully, erase the Chancellor from the board entirely.

Gath did not cheer. He did not gloat. He advanced.

The undead surged again, rushing forward in renewed waves. Toward the elevator. Toward the breach. Toward salvation. For them, for him. For freedom. The world would break before he did. The heavens would fall. And the living would be dragged screaming into a new order: his order.

He was not a man. He was a reckoning.

He was Gath.

Rokul ,

Sahan Dragr

Diarch Rellik · 2025-06-08T23:51:54-0400

Location: Surface of Yaga Minor, Outer Ring above Vjunhollow Medical Evac Zone

The wind howled as the shuttle doors hissed open.

Down below, Vjunhollow burned. Industrial towers wept fire from calculated attacks. Unknown to the Diarch whether Mando'a or Lilaste. Smoke spiraled in reverse, caught in the pressure shear of the orbital tether above. Rellik stood at the threshold of the ramp, cloaked in black and red, eyes narrowed against the glow of bombs and warfare. The signal from Manda'lore still echoed in his ears.

They had agreed.

The Accord was real despite the damning footing their factions had met on. The moment of acceptance had come not from Rellik, but from his brother.

"We agree," Reign had said from a forward command post, blunt, unadorned, absolute.

Rellik had smiled at that. Even now, standing amid the thrum of his droids' and the low growl of his mount, he murmured beneath his breath:

"My brother speaks like a saber. The galaxy doesn't always need poetry... sometimes, it needs to be cut raw."

Rellik had been busy calling in more reinforcements before descending unto the world. Hence his moment of being behind the rest of the active combat. He had reached out to

Tertius C. Nargath about the support of several Barragan - Class Versatile Assault Carrier's specifically he wanted their drone teams to rain fire upon the enemy from above while the ships supported with NZ RP-1CM Cluster Missile and NZ RP-3GMIM Guided Mass Incendiary Missile barrages on the outskirts of the enemy. There effect would be devastating upon open field targets. Furthermore, within his own ships crew, there were many trained soldiers ready for war.

There was a reason his personal ship was called The Vault, Its shielded cargo holds held many mysteries. Pyrrhax his crimson-scaled Adar mount uncoiled like a living siege engine beside him. Lightning scars streaked across his snout, Mounting his monster of war he prepared for descent unto the world of Yaga Minor. Calling out to his crew one last time he gave his orders before launching to battle himself.

"Ready fighters along with the M.I.S.S.M.E. and its personnel for landfall. Have them circle the tower in fast reactive positions. Be active, be ready, and support each other, the Lilaste and the Mandalorians!"

Golden eyes glowed as he stepped forward, saddle bristling with Sith runes, wings flaring once against the wind. At his sides, six RDB-01 Dra'khan Sentinel Droids moved into position, steel giants with adaptive shields and plasma-fed optics, each armed for war, each programmed to die before letting harm reach the Diarch.

Pyrrhax leapt and after him the Dra'khan droids followed. The roar of LAETs broke across the sky like a holy storm. Gunships from the Lilaste Order screamed through the black, blasters spitting radiant death into the horde below. Their doors opened mid-air, the Diarch could see their men and theirs he. Streams of bonded warriors who had fought bloody wars together. Descending into another with recognized honor.

Rellik raised a hand briefly toward them in salute.

Than with striking quickness land came into view; Pyrrhax's claws slammed into the dirt with bone-crushing force. Atop the beast sat Rellik, his blade unlit and his spear humming in readiness, his cloak cracking in the stormwinds of his landfall. the Dra'khans deployed, heavy boots striking the scorched duracrete in unison. There was no command, simply the hell fire of LO-27R LMG's firing at the waves of undead.

A medical triage tent was collapsing at the far end of the evac line. A tide of corpses poured over the barricade like a wave. An unspoken command was given. Rellik and his mount were intertwined in mind and action, with a leap into the sky their attack began. A deep crackling roar built in Pyrrhax's chest, pulsing through the air like ozone before a storm. Then with a flash of golden eyes and a thunderous exhale Pyrrhax unleashed a blast of Force lightning that tore across the landscape.

Hundreds of undead exploded with their bones erupting, their squishing flesh drowned by the roar of alchemical breath. With the descent of the monsters both mount and rider, the golden blade of the Diarch and spear like forelimbs of Pyrrhax ripped and tore through the remaining undead outside of the tent. Rellik hopped off as the medical team and the DAF soldier finished off the remaining undead and approached.

"You've held this long," He studied the face of the man, his posture, his spirit. " Zara Saga told me of your efforts on Mygeeto... Rokul It is an honor to meet you in person." The Diarch showed his understanding of those who were under him. No matter rank or creed. He listened, cared for and was as willing to die for them as they were for him. He bowed deeply before Rokul in respect.

the Dra'khans were reforming the line, Rellik speaking with Rokul for a moment before he turned toward the next wave. As he did he watched a ginormous monster of flesh hurl a ball of fire at the Dockyard Elevators.

"NO!!" He screamed before rushing to mount Pyrrhax again. Hoping to rush to the aid of those who might still live through the attack before they became decorations for the duracrete below.

Maldor Mecetti @Anyone I missed on Obj 2 lol - OPEN!! Would love to interact

Maldor Mecetti · 2025-06-09T02:30:56-0400

The Space Elevator
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Few people who rode the space elevator appreciated what a marvel of engineering it was.

That was the problem with the modern age. When you could hyperspace leap from star system to star system, what was so special about descending in an elevator through a few hundred kilometers from orbit? A shuttle could do the same job, after all.

No, people saw it as a mere feature of economy. Oh, the elevator was expensive, no doubt. But over twenty years, it would be cost-effective. It would replace a million shuttles over that time-span, carrying personnel and supplies at a fraction of the cost of a shuttle launch. And safely, too. Safer than a million piloted journeys. Sooner or later, a pilot made a mistake. But there was no mistake for an elevator to make.

It was an engineering marvel, though. A structure under incredible tension, made from materials of stupendous strength. The calculations to construct it were precise. THIS much material needed to do the job. And so that's how much was used. Just enough. Enough to last a thousand years.

Making it thicker, or more robust than it needed to be? Counter-productive. It would ruin the cost-effectiveness of the structure.

Could it withstand storms? Yes, of course. Earthquakes? Without question.

Magical exploding fireballs?

Well... no.

Maldor felt the car he was in shake violently. He felt the heat cooking the walls of his elevator car. He heard the shriek of the elevator tether ripping itself to pieces. Like a row of dominoes. Once the threshold of damage had been reached, components failed in quick succession. The entire cable snapped like an over-extended spider-silk strand.

His elevator car was thrown free of the tether. Other cars, too. Hundreds of evacuees on their way to the station spilled out in dozens of cars like blood from an open artery.

Like drops of life, they fell.

Their falling would spell certain death for their occupants, with a terrifying view all the way down.

Maldor found himself seemingly weightless. Free of the fires, now. But not free of gravity, though he felt free. It would catch up to him quite suddenly when his elevator car struck the ground.

He reached out with the Force. Not his best talent. Not by a long shot.

But his connection to the Force was driven by Fear, and for once he was grateful of that fact. The terror of the moment empowered him. He was able to slow the descent of the elevator car.

He couldn't stop it. But maybe he could slow it just enough. Enough to make survival a dim prospect.

He saw the tether drop below him. The other elevator cars with other passengers, with nothing to slow them, soared past. They peppered the city like bombs. At the speeds they were going, they didn't need explosives to be deadly. Buildings burst apart under the weight of the multi-ton cars. Under the force of terminal velocity.

The tether was an even worse destroyer. It weighed millions of tons, and it was laying down across the city, cutting a swath of ruin through everything.

Maldor's car fell. Slower than it might have, and yet not quite slow enough. Sweat poured from his skin as he concentrated. Strained.

Commanding the Force.

Begging it.

A golden statue in the city was obliterated. A statue of Maldor, as it turned out. The High Chancellor. He'd been flattered when the local population had erected it. Usually the statues were of the Diarchs.

Investing a billion credits into the local economy had probably lifted his esteem among the locals.

But now, watching the statue get destroyed was like seeing his own death a moment before it happened.

Eventually, Maldor's elevator car hit the ground.

There was a flash. The world turned over and over. The shell of the elevator car crumpled and split. Maldor was nearly concussed into unconsciousness. His legs broke. His hip. Ribs cracked. Internal organs were perforated and ripped.

It took him a moment to perceive his surroundings again. The two House Sancetti guards he'd brought with him were still in the cracked-open car with him. Moaning.

They were not as badly injured as he was. That hard-shell armor of theirs was good for something besides looking pretty. It made collisions much more survivable than his silk robes.

Maldor knew he wouldn't survive more than a minute or two. He could feel his life bleeding away under the leaky envelope of his torn-open skin.

He reached out with trembling hands. He reached out to one guard, his fingers snaking through a crack in the armor. Finding the warmth of skin.

And then the other guard.

Was he pleading for help that they couldn't give? Seeking a last gesture of comfort? A final human connection?

No...

Not quite.

Maldor felt his legs crunch back into shape. His ribs snap together. His lungs and kidneys mending their holes and tears.

He felt life come back to him.

And... he felt the guards wither and die.

The life left them at the very moment they thought they'd survived the impossible. Their joy melted into confusion. They barely had time to be horrified.

Well...

They'd done their duty of protecting their Lord.

Even if they hadn't known it.

Maldor would ensure they got medals for their sacrifice.

It was the least he could do.

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