Kaion the very injured Padawan was disturbed, ironically, at how collected and
immaculate
Vera Mina
was as she tended to his wounds while Nathan described his plan. Really, she seemed almost
amused at the whole scenario as the strange, black garbed man coldly described his intention to have the signal jammer utterly destroyed in a massive explosion to draw as many of the guards here as possible, so Nathan could bark out orders while disguised as the hooded apprentice. This was after Nathan "pacified" the prisoner by using using a tranquilizer dart from a confiscated military gauntlet to render him unconscious, putting on his clothes while modifying his comlink to mimic the man's voice in ad-hoc voiceprint system, diving through previous recordings of his voice in various messages on a nearby terminal. The Master to this man was likely on his way back, unable to communicate directly due to the jammer, but more than likely sensing his apprentice's stress levels.
They would have to work quickly, as there was just no telling when he would arrive.
Vera's role was to be simple. After Nathan ordered most of the camp guard to search outside the perimeter. Vera was to get Kaion into one of the gunships and seal it tight. Nathan would then serve as a distraction for the pirates searching outside the perimeter while Vera picked off the stragglers left behind. For some reason the "Lawyer" had an
X-8 Night Sniper in her expensive, gem encrusted handbag. He told her to set it to stun. It would make the GADF a lot more agreeable if they came upon them early.
"Are you sure you can pull this off?" Kaion asked.
"No." Nathan answered bluntly, and said nothing else to even mildly reassure the injured Padawan as he grabbed Kaion's Lightsaber and hiding it up his sleeve, grabbing a thermal detonator and walking out of the door, where he promptly walked to the recently repaired Jammer.
Vera smiled. "Such an unabashed
Alpha, isn't he?" she joked to Kaion as he dropped the detonator in through a panel he ripped open. Kaion, who looked at her like she was a psycho, (She
is a psycho, just so we are clear) said nothing.
He got clear of the large fireball that erupted and contained itself, but completely destroyed the jammer.
Groups of pirates came running and Nathan kept the hood up, doing his best to mimic the posture and gestures of the apprentice in the few moments he had watched him speak and remain idle.
He played the voice print synthesizer Vera had created from his comlink (Yet another questionable bit of knowledge for a lawyer to have, but he figured she must have picked up a few things prosecuting murderers who had utilized similar methods) and the wireless strip she had attached to his throat began sending signals to the modified comlink.
"Fools!" Nathan snarled in the apprentice's voice, the fires spread from the explosion spreading slowly. "We have an infiltration! He's barely left the camp! Get as many as you can to search and follow
me!"
The Pirates all nodded and he began leading them out of the perimeter, leaving only a few to guard all the prisoners in cages. Vera worked with disturbing efficiency when she watched Nathan the last of all the ones that had followed outside, and escorted the boy out quickly to the nearby gunship, slightly scorched from the explosion.
"Wait here. I'll be back..." Vera said in a disturbingly playful voice as she left the Padawan, hips swaying as though it were simply a mall she walked through.
The first lone guard, guarding a set of cages filled with farmers of the three eyed gran species, spotted Vera too late as she came behind from cover, hitting him directly in the face with a silenced stun bolt before he could shout.
Her enhanced hearing and powerful optics concealed in her eyes allowed her to spot the next few guards and she began patiently making her way towards them at a casual walking pace, brain calculating trajectories as she opened fire...
Meanwhile, The pirates had barely cleared the perimeter of the camp fully, berating them using the apprentice's voice, when Nathan decided to turn on them, flashing on Kaion's Lightsaber it's green blade hissing in his hand.
Nathan had had his entire original career in the Gulag Era to understand the value of stealth. But he also knew when to go loud.
The Pirates, caught off guard, having been ordered to stick close to each other, were fish in a barrel as Nathan descended on them, his weapon passing through rifles and hands in the Form 1 style, sloppy and choppy, but otherwise well suited to multiple opponents due to the wide sweeping attacks along target zones in the style. He was forced to bat away just as many blaster bolts, and managed to surprise them all when he teleported to their left flank and resumed his assault.
By the time he was done he had a significant shoulder wound from a blaster, but not one pirate was left standing. They were alive certainly, but missing arms or legs. The pain had been enough to make them black out. The pain in his shoulder however, meant Nathan could barely focus as he staggered back to the camp, and knew he was in no condition to face the Dark Jedi Master that even he was starting to feel approach.
He saw Vera, still looking immaculate binding one of the last guards in the camp. She turned, raised an eyebrow, and casually strutted towards him.
"I see there were a few hiccups." Vera noted glibly.
"Eh,
go to hell..." Nathan grumbled. "That Dark Jedi will be here in minutes..."
"Well, then this will be a
very interesting end to the day..." Vera replied.
"Get everyone aboard the gunship. Now. Go and get the GADF. And help me get that Jedi Master aboard..."
007 Minutes Later.
The Sentinel Class Shuttle landed outside the camp and the Dark Jedi, a pale, sickly, almost emaciated man in the burnt looking remains of an NJO Jumpsuit. His brown hair was prematurely grayed on the sides as he stepped out, wielding a single red Lightsaber. He snorted as he spotted his incapacitated but still alive underlings. He would kill them for their failures later.
He spotted Nathan, arm still weak despite Vera having applied a healing Stim.
"So
you are the one I sensed. Have a little bit of a taste for deception, I see..." The Dark Jedi noted.
"And
you have a taste for killing." Nathan replied as the Dark Jedi walked into what was left of the camp. "Who are you? Why waste your power on butchering farmers?"
"Synth Crystals don't grow on trees. Armor doesn't repair itself. Starships don't buy their own fuel...take your pick..." The Dark Jedi snorted. "Besides...farmers don't fight back often. And if they do, they
suck at it."
"I mean why did you turn to the Dark Side?" Nathan asked.
The Dark Jedi narrowed poisoned yellow eyes.
"Please. Must we?" The Dark Jedi asked back. "Do I look like I care what made you break into this camp, BTFO my apprentice, turn my underlings into kebabs and free all my hostages? Can't a man just
turn because he wants to, because he
feels like it?"
"Doing it just because you can doesn't make you some kinda free spirit. It just makes you a jackass." Nathan grumbled. "You've ruined a lot of lives by what you did."
Nathan suppressed the internal wince because of what he had done to Elaine Tear.
"Believe me, I would know. All it took was one act of spite. It blew up in my face."
"That's you.
Your problem. Not mine."
"You've made your problems everyone else's..." Nathan said, internally wincing as he himself had done the same thing selling Elaine out to The Cult of The Brain Demon.
How many had died for that decision, like the farmers around him? How many families like his own died for his moment of satisfaction? Just because he had been dead a week later was no absolution.
Would his own daughter have been completely corrupted,
unsalvageable, if there had been no corrupted Elaine to seduce her further?
It troubled him that he would never know the answers, and more that such questions would haunt him to his dying breath, whenever that came again.
"That's where you're wrong, interloper..." The Dark Jedi replied with a grin, brandishing his red Lightsaber. "I haven't made my problems the problems of everyone else...I've made my
solutions the problems of everyone else..."
Nathan went into guard as the Dark Jedi pointed his blade at him.
"And right now...my solution to this little conundrum we find ourselves in...is
definitely your problem..."
Nathan only grimaced.
"Then come and get me you overcooked-looking
feth."
"With pleasure..."
The Dark Jedi gave off a Force Scream and leapt through the air in a corkscrew dive for Nathan, who barely blocked the first furious set of strikes from the Dark Jedi's Djem So style, executing a falling avalanche series of overhead blows with his Blade that it took all of Nathan's remaining strength to fend off, but he was continually being forced back, and his physical exhaustion was rapidly catching up with him. If he didn't end this in the next few minutes he was probably a dead man
again.
He rolled out of the way of a slash that chopped down a tree...and barely ducked as the Dark Jedi used Telekinesis to hurl the large trunk at him. It likely would have completely shattered his ribs on impact.
"I was expecting someone with a little more power..." The Dark Jedi remarked.
"You can talk
that kinda crap
after I'm dead." Nathan snarled.
The Dark Jedi Force Jumped for him again and Nathan on instinct managed to do something for the first time that very few Bloodscrawls were capable of.
He Force Jumped, backflipped out of the way of a heavy downward slash. He Forced Jumped again to evade the follow up horizontal slash, went into a guard, shocked he had managed that. Almost no Bloodscrawl in the family history could use body enhancing Force Powers unless they were drawn directly from the Light...or Dark, in his daughter's case.
"How come I'm not dead, Dark Sider?" Nathan asked. "I think your 'solution' so far is inefficient. Y'know what else I think?"
The Dark Jedi held the blade with both hands out to Nathan.
"No but I assume you're going to tell me."
"I think you're a lazy
coward." Nathan sneered. "I think farmers are all you're good for. Your a parasite at the bottom of the barrel...not good enough for even an established Dark Side Cult to pay any attention to. But good enough to bully around these lowlifes I cut up."
The Dark Jedi grimaced.
"And what makes your life so much better. I can
feel the guilt in you. The
failure. I suspect your hands are no more free of blood than my own. At least I do as I please. Such emptiness in you...are you sure you're even
alive?"
"Being empty is better than what you've chosen to do with the breath in your lungs." Nathan growled.
"You may not feel that way after the Galaxy turns you into it's personal chew-toy..." The Dark Jedi sneered.
"Already there, buddy." Nathan replied. "Already there..."
The Dark Jedi sprinted towards him with a slash, his swiftness aided by the Force.
Nathan leaped out of the way of the slash, no longer having the strength to parry him blade to blade. The Dark Jedi was relentless, and Nathan's blade was finally knocked free from his hands via a power slash. Nathan ducked a telekinetic Lightsaber throw from his opponent, who then snarled and clenched his fist.
Nathan found himself choking, lifted into the air.
"I don't think my solution is that inefficient...do you?" The Dark Jedi asked mockingly. Holding out his hand and telekinetically pulling Kaion's Lightsaber towards him, the blade activating as it sailed through the air, redirecting it towards Nathan as it spun violently.
Nathan, on the verge of blacking out, saw the spun saber and stretched out his hand to a piece of debris from the destroyed Jammer teleporting it above his opponent's head.
It landed with a loud crack on the skull that sent the Dark Jedi stumbling about causing the thrown Lightsaber to go wild of its target as Nathan dropped to the floor, coughing as the Dark Jedi clutched at his head, snarling in fury as he saw Nathan rise.
"Die." The Dark Jedi hissed in absolute hatred. "Die! DIEEEEEEEEE!"
Nathan grimaced as the enraged Dark Jedi hurled a mass of debris at him, and he was not fast enough to evade a piece of shrapnel burying itself in his arm and thigh. He fell down, pulling himself away to a tree as the Dark Jedi lurched towards him with a sick grin, intending to make his death slow and painful.
"Hmmm... you're about to be both dead AND empty!" The Dark Jedi chuckled.
"I've been dead before..." Nathan answered.
The Dark Jedi roared and raised his saber overhead in an act of dominance .
Nathan raised his good arm as if to protect himself...while his injured arm snapped into position.
A silvery cylinder flew out, a yellow blade activating into the Dark Jedi's chest. The Dark Jedi's mouth dropped in horror as he fell to his knees. Nathan had not just taken the Lightsaber of the Padawan, but also the master.
"...but for you...it'll be the first time..." Nathan added as the Dark Jedi fell over, dead, Lightsaber tumbling from his hand.
Nathan pulled himself up, and began heading to the cabin by the small river where Kaion and his Master had been imprisoned.
He was forced to do self surgery to remove the shrapnel with a pilfered medkit.
Then he was leaving the camp, leaving the Lightsabers behind. He staggered back through the trails, exhausted, back to his starfighter, silent, grim faced.
Nathan left Kinyen without fanfare, his fighter leaping into hyperspace. By the time the GADF arrived twenty minutes later, unable to send a team until now, led by Vera and the injured Padawan, they found only the dead Dark Jedi...
