Junction Episode I: Shadows of The Mara Corridor | RNR & BSS Junction of Mara Mega Hex & Drogheda

[Victra Rinnel]

CIB Operative Victra Rinnel
Objective I
Mos Algo | Tatooine
TAG: Eight | Ferren Vaal | Agent Damocles
GEAR: X | X

The hologram shimmered, Nihil's silhouette glitched in and out, but the menace in his voice was crystalline. Victra stood in the hold of the unmarked transport, armored shoulders squared, head tilted slightly in acknowledgment. No salute, no words. Just that slow, still nod that said: understood. burned in. sealed shut.

She didn't need to speak. He'd already said it all, and besides, Victra rarely wasted breath.

The air around her hummed with the muffled throb of repulsorlifts, and she turned away before the hologram faded, metal boots echoing as she stepped out into the Tatooine light like a shadow daring the suns to see her.

------

Now, deep beneath Mos Algo, inside the bare-bones data vault that pretended to be an office, Victra moved like a razor through silk. Her gauntlet interfaced with the mining operation's terminal, fingers moving with the detached precision of a mortician. The phrik deposits might've been buried under sand and bureaucracy, but the data that linked them to Grell Noba, and thus the Confederacy, was not nearly as well hidden.

She tore it out, root and stem. Audit logs: rewritten. Courier records: ghosted. Subterranean scans: noise-filtered and falsified. The local slicer responsible for backups? Already dead. Sloppy, but effective. Victra would've done it quieter. A static ping hit her comm. It was the external alert node, dust clouds kicked up at the edge of the compound. Incoming vessel, Naboo design. She checked her chrono.

"Eight," she hissed, her voice more blade than breath. "Party's early. Clock just jumped forward."

She glanced toward the stairwell, then back to the last few strings of exposed metadata. Still too much here. Still bleeding risk. She muttered under her breath in code-speak, a string of expletives that only slicers would find poetic. Her fingers never stopped. Neither did her paranoia.

"We need to move," Victra snapped, louder this time. "Clock's done. If we're not wheels-up in twenty, we're hitching a ride on the wrong side of a diplomatic incident."

She sealed the system with a kill-command, scorched the biosig trail with a final sweep, and turned, already walking, not looking back. Shadows don't linger.

Let the Royals dig. Let Arcadian smile and lie through his teeth. By the time they figured out where to look, she'd be halfway across the stars.
​

 

[Kesh Hevro]

SHADOWS OF THE MARA CORRIDOR
Wayward Son - Chapter 1
———
GEAR: Customized Type 76 Covert Armour | Type 73 Compact Pistol | Type 74 Assault Rifle
TAG: D-M0N | General Xor | Open

TURN ON THE LIGHTS​

GEONOSIS

The civil war has been brewing and ongoing for a while. The Stalgasin Archduke, for all the hubris that has been pouring out of that pouty mouth, hasn’t been able to end the war despite the resources advantage. The Confederacy has been called; the first stage being the droid army deployed in the trenches. The addition of Confederacy forces helped the advance tremendously. What was a stalemate is now looking like a decisive victory for the Stalgasin Hive.

That’s where Kesh and the Hellions Commando is called; to close off the war, capture or kill the leaders of the rebellion, get those insects to fly off their nest or die inside. It is as simple as it sounds, as the front has been pushed closer and closer to the rivals’ hives, the battleground is getting mapped clearer.

Right outside of Geonosis atmospheres, a single Hellions Light Cruiser entered the fray, it’s missile launchers pointed at the planet. <Smash the entire area, kill everything that looks like a bug,> the Pyke Captain wrapped up his speech in front of the Hellions Commando, those who will go with him to incapacitate the rebellious hives. As the commandos positioned themselves in their respective orbital drop pod, all they need to wait is the confirmation from the battlefield that the air cavs support has put some work on the hive’s ceiling.​

​

 

[V01D Ω (Void Omega)]

Ticket to Ride​

---

V01D Ω​

---

The being who went by Void Omega (or just "V" in some circles) lounged lazily inside the magnarail as he waited for the wannabe law enforcers to jump the train.

They approach. Scanning.

Tapping into their comms. A Jedi Master and her Padawan.

Void did not respond to the droid brains. He could hear the comms as well as they could, and he could also feel the Jedi. Jedi always made him feel... almost nostalgic, though he was not sure why. Like there were old memories tickling at the back of his mind that had been erased. He disregarded it like always. There was no use trying to remember who he had been centuries before he had awakened in the Library on Woostri. Those memories would never return. And he was quite content with who he was now.

He began nodding his head as some heavy metal began blasting through the speakers. "Hell yeah! Time to jam!" He patched into the speaker network as well, in addition into the comms of these enforcers. He certainly had a surprise for them. He climbed up to the hatch, raising his right hand. This Jedi Master would get a face full of blaster fire from his palm when she opened it.

After that, whether she was blasted back or managed to react quickly enough to get out of the way, Void would jump up from the hatchway and begin blasting the music from both his own integrated sound system and their comms as loud as possible.

He scanned their faces. "Welcome, Master Ala Quin and Apprentice Balun Dashiell. May I call you Curly and Bushy Brow? Either way, let's have some fun." He reached down with his right index finger and welded the hatch shut. "Can't have the game be too easy for you. Gotta give you a bit of a challenge." He grinned at them. He loved being able to do that.

If they scanned him with tech or used the Force, all he would show up as was a human-looking droid, a completely unregistered one at that. He had no real identity.

---

TAGS: OPEN
Ala Quin Balun Dashiell ​

 

[Avari II Avaricious]

Rik Perris Sera Rosh

The rhythmic clatter and distant hum of the magrail train, barreling through the dense, Force-saturated jungle of Monastery, was a dull, almost irritating vibration beneath Avari's custom-built seat. He sat in a luxuriously appointed carriage, specifically repurposed for the transport of the "Sacred Circle" relics a collection he found profoundly quaint.

His three ID10 Seeker Droids, circled around him, allowing him to check his appearance and ensure that not even a single strand of hair was out of place atop his perfectly round head. He tilted his head, admiring how the ambient light highlighted the intricate embroidery of his ornate armor and flowing cape on the seat.

Even on a crude rumbling voyage through the landscape, his perfection remained absolute and no Royal Nabooer would take that away from him so says Avari, Second of his Name, Prince of Ruusan and Creator of all Things.

"Such common methods," he murmured, his voice barely audible above the train's high speed, directed more at his reflection than anyone. "These 'relics,' mere fragments of the cosmic energies I wove into this very galaxy, shuttled about like common cargo." He ran a manicured finger over a particularly beautiful vein in his marble-smooth skin.

The Temple of the Sacred Circle, a minor detail in his grand design, had been plundered by the Black Sun Syndicate, and these so called "artifacts" were being relocated. A simple necessity, he mused, for lesser beings who could not simply will them into existence.

He checked his side profile, then the sweep of his golden blonde hair. The galaxy, including this rattling train, was merely a stage, and he, its divine creator, was always the star.

 

[Kudau]

Objective 3 Bastila Sal-Soren

(Dank Farrik...) He had made too much noise, and now he had company...

He heard someone talking to their communicator, but they were quiet enough that he couldn't make out what it was. Whoever was in there with him was likely someone who wanted him gone, or worse, dead. He hid in the shadows, using his dark colored fur to blend in with the shadows of the gunmetal crates. He tried to calm himself down enough to try dowsing with the force again, seeing if it could help him determine the intentions of the other person in the train car.

What he felt was someone strong in the force, and very on-edge. He managed to stalk a bit closer, utilizing the hunting techniques he had learned with his family on Uneva, and getting a glimpse at the woman in the car with him. He watched as her hand reached for her lightsaber. She was ready for an attack, and he had to be quick and unnoticeable. He knew he likely wouldn't last long in a physical altercation, and he couldn't risk her beginning the fight. His attack had to be quick, and it had to be now.

He calmed down, focusing on his emotions as one of his daggers lifted from its holster. He raised his hand with it, pulled it back, and by thrusting his palm forward, the blade rocketed towards the nape of her neck...

In a flash, the woman drew her lightsaber and sliced the blade right in half, sending a wave of panic through Kudau. He had to get rid of that feeling fast before the woman found his hiding spot. Running from his hiding spot, Kudau began to refocus himself, getting ready to try and catch her off guard again, before noticing another presence in the force on the car with them. This one was different... inanimate... he shook his head as he tried to find another spot to ambush the woman.

 

[Ferren Vaal]

​

OBJ 1
Agent Damocles | Victra Rinnel | Eight
​

The heat didn’t bother Ferren. He actually quite like it, something different then the usual sweaty interiors and cold stone walls of the inner-city underworlds. What did bother him was how quiet the mine site was. They had been assigned it as a backdoor switch group, use the diplomatic talks to get in have a proper look around and then get back out again. It just felt too quiet for this type of mission.

He stood at the edge of the operation zone, one boot up on a rust-stained outcrop of duracrete, visor tilted to block the glare of Tatooine’s suns. His assigned double was nearby, probably thinking the same thing. From this distance, the phrik extraction pit looked like nothing more than what it advertised on the tin. They had both made not of the droids moving down there. Some workers. Still it felt like too few.

Too orderly.

He adjusted the settings on his scanner, letting it hum against his hands. Vibration signatures were consistent with light excavation. But phrik veins ran deeper, and the Republic’s geological survey had flagged this spot months ago as promising enough to rival the Orvax deposits. So why wasn’t anyone digging deeper?

Ferren tapped his finger against the scanner and then spoke to the blue skinned agent, voice low and even.

“Minimal activity. No heavy drills, no deep-core rigs. Surface scrape job at best.” He sighed, “Are they sure this is the one?”

A ping in his ear made him turn his attention to a deeply distorted and clipped voice, “Team Blue. You are cleared to strike.”

“Copy Central. Team Blue moving to infil.” He put his scanner back in the pouch at his belt and gave a long glance over to Damocles. “You ready?”

It was time to see what the real deal with this mining operation was, it could indeed be legit, but Ferren doubted it. Either way, it smelled.

The wind kicked up a curl of hot dust around his boots. “Alright,” he muttered, mostly to himself.

He adjusted the holosat uplink on his belt and started moving, careful footsteps along the ridge, heading for the access in the fence they had mapped the night before, they had been told to stay away from the site until today, but Ferren had learned not to wait on paperwork when the stakes involved phrik.

Especially out here, where secrets buried in sand tended to stay buried.


The fence was an old patchwork of junk making a perimeter that felt entirely thrown up to look secure without actually keeping anyone out. Ferren crouched behind a broken sandcrawler axle half-buried in the slope, studying for motion sensors strung along the fencing, or anything to be honest. The fact that they had found none was almost disappointing.

Ferren slid through the gap first, hoping he’d be followed quickly after.

“Blue Team is in the site.”

 

[Bastila Sal-Soren]

OBJ 3
Kudau | Lorn Reingard [soon tm]​

The air still sizzled from the heat of her saber. Half a blade clattered to the floor at her feet, its metal twisted mid-flight, the edge slagged. Bastila exhaled slow through her nose, the smell of burning ozone and metal thick in the air, her eyes scanned the murky space between the stacked crates.

Someone was hunting her.

She hadn’t sensed them until the dagger moved. That wasn’t normal, not for her. Not for someone trained to feel the ripple of even a breath out of place. This one had masked themselves well. It wasn’t Sith concealment, nor a Jedi’s measured discipline. It felt… feral. Focused in a very different way, almost predatory.

She adjusted her stance, blade humming low and steady in her grip.
“Whoever you are,” she called softly, voice calm but edged like glass, “you’ve made your move. You don’t get another one.”

No response. Just a shuffle of movement—light and fast. She pivoted, but it was already gone, moving along the shadows.

Too quiet. Too clever.

Her mind brushed outward again, sifting through the surrounding tension. The attacker’s presence flickered like a hunted animal with tight coils of adrenaline and purpose.

Bastila’s grip on her lightsaber tightened.

Another flicker in the force, this time to her left. She turned sharply, blade arcing, illuminating the edges of a figure darting behind a loading strut. She saw a glint of eyes. Fur. Something animal like. Not Sith. Not Imperial. No this was different.

“Your Force-sensitive,” she said under her breath, piecing it together. “But untrained.”

There was no time to coax. No time to test, she couldn’t be delayed.

She moved suddenly, dropping into a low crouch, and throwing her hand toward the crates with Force-assisted power. If he was going to ambush her, she was going to give him a target to ambush. The crates all shot sideways and into the side of the car leaving one single long corridor in the middle down the length of the carriage. The moment he took the bait and came out to fight she’d strike, not to kill, but to subdue.

"Come and get it."
Something told her he didn’t know what he was walking into.
And worse yet neither did she.

​

 

[Kyle Torchwood]

TAG: Trajan Fett | Michael Angellus | OPEN​

GEONOSIS — ORBITAL WRECKAGE FIELD
RNR Diplomatic Escort Detail — Bravo Squadron

Torch wasn’t sure if it was the silence or the movement that set his nerves on edge.

The wreckage drifted, lifeless. Heat-scored hulls and skeletal wings cast long shadows across the crimson haze of upper orbit. Every scan came back dead. No beacons, no power signatures. But that was the problem—it was too clean. Too still.

He eased his Sablehawk around the burnt-out shell of a Geonosian barge, letting it drift past his canopy.

“Five, report,” came Bravo Lead’s voice in his ear.

“No contact. No response from surface. Still flying blind,” Kyle replied, glancing at the flickering static across his long-range bands.

Jammed. Still jammed.

And then it happened.

A red pulse blinked on his scanner. Distress signal, close. It was weak, erratic. A civilian ship, maybe. It powered up fast, burning hot from zero to full thrust as it burst from behind the wreckage.

“Wait a second…”

The ship blasted past their formation, venting distortion trails and blaring a shaky transmission.

<"Ahhh dank ferrik—uhh, this is Captain Tarvin Kast… I just got my systems back up... got hit by an ion cannon—I’m headed outta here!">

Kyle’s instincts screamed. It was too rehearsed. Too convenient.

He pulled his stick to follow the ship’s arc, then his screen lit up.

High-yield ordinance drop. Rear quadrant.

“Brace—brace—”

The seismic charge went off with a sickening delay, and then the world snapped apart. A pulse of sound and pressure crushed through the formation. Kyle’s vision blurred as alarms shrieked. One of the Bravo ships—Six or Seven—vanished in a blinding shockwave. Another spiraled, venting coolant, and began tumbling toward the planet.

“Bravo Five, evasive! Evasive now!”

Kyle jammed the throttle, thrusters flaring wide to break his vector just in time to avoid a shrapnel cloud from a shredded wing assembly. His hands moved on instinct, rebalancing shields, powering weapons.

No more guessing. No more silence. They were in a live-fire zone.

“Bravo Five to squadron, this is a coordinated strike. That distress signal was bait. Recommend engagement protocol. We are under attack.”

His targeting systems began painting returning contacts, Black Sun, had to be. They were hidden among the wrecks. Powered down until just now. They were never here to loot. They were here to kill quietly.

Kyle narrowed his eyes and looped up into a counter-roll. His ship roared back toward the wreckage, already scanning for the attacker who lit the fuse.

 

[KRONOS-555]

Trajan Fett Rojuhr Pouihl Michael Angellus Kyle Torchwood [Nearby in Space]​

​

Geonosis was a world consumed by the predictable squabble of organics. A civil war from all reports flowing into his processors though KRONOS simply registered it as a target-rich environment to test his new pilot modules. The Archduke's orbital victory had left a large debris field of derelict colony ships which would be quite the treasure trove for the Black Sun syndicate.

"Designation: KRONOS-555. Status: Engaged. Objective: Salvage derelict Geonosian vessels," its vocoder said with a flat and metallic voice devoid of inflection as it sliced through the vacuum. Its optical sensors processed the destroyed vessels, calculating optimal approach vectors.

Its enhanced targeting systems identified potential salvage hauls within the wreckage. The Republic was here, a diplomatic mission, attempting to impose their 'provisions' upon the conflict. Such trivialities did not concern KRONOS-555. Its purpose was clear, its programming absolute.

Though such programming was interrupted by the sound of cannon fire as it seemed the Republic was none to pleased to find the signature of Black Sun vessels within orbit, moving to engage them in pitched battles.

"Warning: Hostile engagement initiated by Republic Naval forces. Threat assessment: High. Protocol: Defensive posture, neutralize immediate threats, prioritize contract objective," The Droid's internal processors clicked. Its IG-2000, sleek and armed, danced through the chaos of the battlefield, its advanced piloting subroutines activating.

It was an expert, its programming flawless, its response time superior to any organic.

 

[Ariadne]

OBJECTIVE TWO: Battle of Stalgasin Hive - Plan: Steal Stuff for the Boss​

In the stale hush of the ruined chamber, his footfalls struck like accusations. Ariadne was already turning, calmly sliding the stolen datachit into the hollow of her mechanical forearm. Each movement was graceful, precise, practiced, indifferent. Her head tilted, eyes catching him in the gloom with the kind of cold that felt intimate.

"You are persistent," she murmured, as though it were a compliment.

She lifted one long leg, propping it casually against the bulkhead behind her. In her human hand, the blue plasma blade hung low, pointed in his direction like a lazy afterthought, unthreatening, and yet entirely lethal. The corner of her mouth curled just enough to be provocative.

"That usually gets people killed."

She pushed off the wall with feline ease, her body moving not with urgency, but choreography. As she walked toward a nearby console, her hips swayed, not for him, but for herself. A slow, indulgent arc of movement that dared him to flinch. She ran a fingertip along the dusty terminal, drawing a languid line through ash and memory.

Her voice, when it returned, was velvet folded over razors.

"I’m listening, Vossari. You’ve come all this way." A glance over her shoulder, too slow to be cautious. "It would be rude to make a lady wait."

| OUTFIT: Black Sun Enforcer Uniform | TAG: Roman Vossari |​

 

[U40a]

OBJECTIVE THREE: Ticket to Ride
Suggested Characters: Jedi, RIB Agents, Spacers Guild

Deep in the jungles of MONASTERY rests the TEMPLE OF THE SACRED CIRCLE, an ancient site full of valuable FORCE RELICS collected by the ORDER OF THE SACRED CIRCLE. Once protected by the Order, these artifacts are now under threat. The BLACK SUN SYNDICATE has infiltrated the temple and overwhelmed the Order. Crates and strongboxes full of Jedi and Sith relics have been moved from the temple grounds and loaded onto a MAGRAIL TRAIN barreling through the jungle to a heavily defended BLACK SUN OUTPOST. A daring HEIST is planned by the ORDER OF SHIRAYA and the REPUBLIC SPACERS GUILD to recover as many relics as possible before the train reaches its destination…

No stranger to battlefield music duties, U40a understood that the enemy would hold its efforts in derision due to enmity (or simple taste incompatibilities, Jedi being intergalactically known to prefer pop-rock billboard top 40 playlists), and felt no offense or anger at any such reactions. Instead its core algorithms doubled down on the onslaught.

Spoiler

Through every available speaker, Euphortia is playing Skagul Rides With Me by Amon Amarth.

 

[K4-ZAN]

[Obj 3] Ticket to Ride
Tags: Morex , Lorn Reingard , Bastila Sal-Soren (Soon)

Another day, another job for the droid. Alas, this one was not so much as interesting as his usual contracts—the ones where he could draw lines with blood with the world as his canvas. No, this was merely a boring transport task. Relics of monks bearing philosophies the droid couldn’t truly understand, nor fully care to. Jedi and Sith were of little concern to him—only their capabilities in combat, and the song they made in fighting them.

Little would it know, despite the obscene music that once again blared through several compartments, that would be its lucky day to encounter one.

The task was equally simple; guard the engine room, ensure no one tampered with it. A droid was easily trusted with such a security task, helpful in preventing outside forces or interests from interfering from the inside.

That did not, however, seem to stop him from being paired with the meathead once again. Black Sun truly did wish for this shipment to escape unharmed, it seemed. Leaning against a wall with its head tilted down, it hummed to itself idly. “I am surprised to see you here. I thought they would put you to better use. In your head-bashing way, of course.” Words chirp out from a metallic voice.

Whatever semblance of a conversation to be had, however, was ruined with the sound of sudden comm chatter of exclamations, and trickles of blaster fire.

Its receptor tilted upwards from the floor, shutters narrowing towards the door. It was unable to express glee; “Oh. It seems it will not be dull, after all. There is company, again.” Kayfour chimed to the other, before pushing off and moving for the door.

Compartment by compartment, whether the Commander had decided to switch from the interior or the exterior, it would not pass up the opportunity to cross blades with such a foe after so very long. After no doubt clearing a few more on the way to their goal, the door to the next compartment hissed open before he approached, as a metallic heel stepped in and a blazing red photoreceptor focused upon the figure. “I am pleased you are here.” Rang out a monotonous voice, a vibroblade sheathed at its side being gripped by the hilt. “It must be quite boring to face the lower flesh-sacks aboard here. A proper combatant will do you well.” The next moment, the blade was unsheathed, and levelled towards him. And in the motion, it may not have been alone.

 

[Mauve]

Ticket to Ride

Objective III

Just behind the engine car sat a passenger car. And in the passenger car, sat Mauve.

The Black Sun Information Broker held a glass of some sort of local wine they found on board in one hand and her other in her lap, obscured by folds of her eye-wateringly purple dress, lithe, lavender legs folded, one over the other. A jeweled girdle at her waist seemed more form than function, which would make sense unless one knew about the personal shield generator hidden inside it.

She’d a few other just-in-case gadgets, but Mauve really preferred to avoid getting her hands dirty with these types of high adrenaline heists. Still… she could not deny they had a certain allure. Besides, the wine was not half-bad. She took another sip and leaned back in the seat, trying to her enjoy herself as syndicate enforcers strolled around the car looking menacing.

Most of them were back there with the crates in the freight cars, which sounded uncomfortable and cold. Up here she at least had seats and…

U40a, known at Euphortia, was a music droid belonging to Black Sun. As Jedi began to board the train, U40a, safe-ish input on some appropriate music at maximum possiblevolume.

…music?

Mauve cocked her head at the sound of raw electric stringed instruments wailing from the engine car, trying to decide how much she hated it.

Better than jatz at least.

A guard strolled past and stopped with a slight hiccup to his step and in a strained voice, that certainly had nothing to do with the heady aroma of jasmine permeating the air of the passenger car, “Need anything?“

Plum lips curved upward coyly, “Why? Offering something in particular?”

The guard, a human man with an unfortunate black sun tattoo directly on his forehead, swallowed.

“How about more of this wine, darling. I’m running low.”

“On it,” he strode purposefully off somewhere down the car and out of view.

Mauve sighed, looked at the three relics she’d handpicked from the lot that sat in front of her on the table, and touched a data pad to check the time.

Lorn Reingard | Morex | Bastila Sal-Soren | K4-ZAN | Jerec Asyr | Atius Hanno