Faction Guided Current | Crimson Dawn [ME]

[Prisoner #36929]

Tags: Sidonia | Tessa Thayne
Equipment: X​

The case was a lead weight that refused to get lighter. Every time the Prisoner adjusted his grip, the metal handle bit deeper into his palm. He watched the Warden glide through the crowds of Helix Station like a predator through tall grass. People moved for her. They didn't move for him. He was just an obstacle with a massive box.

By the time she finally stopped in a side passage, his lungs were burning. She didn't offer a greeting, just a cold remark about him being late. He wanted to point out that no normal Mandalorian could sprint with this much durasteel, but he lacked the breath to argue. She reached out, adjusting his grip on the handle with a touch that was surprisingly efficient. Her advice was quiet and sharp: blend in. Don't look like a mark. He nodded, trying to mask the tremor in his forearms as she turned and kept moving.

They descended into the lower tiers where the air grew heavy with the smell of recycled oxygen and cheap grease. The noise of the main concourse faded into the low, dangerous hum of a smuggler's den. The Warden stepped into a dim bar without slowing down. The Prisoner followed, his boots heavy on the floor as he dragged the luggage inside.

The Warden took a seat at the bar, leaving a tactical gap between herself and a woman who looked far too comfortable in a place like this. She signaled for him to take the stool on her other side. He dropped onto the seat, his muscles finally screaming in relief as he let the case rest against his leg. He didn't order a drink. Instead, he leaned in toward the Warden, his eyes scanning the woman sitting just a few feet away.

"Is she with us?" he asked quietly, his voice barely a whisper under the low chatter of the room. He kept his posture stiff, trying to look like a guard rather than a tired delivery boy.

 

[Jett Vox]

<bzzt> "Some blades can jam." She countered, illustrating by clenching her fist, which snapped a pulsing twelve-inch vibroblade from her gauntlet. The blade hummed with energy and then snapped back inside the housing. "I have this one," and then she stomped her heel, which caused a much smaller three-inch blade (which did not vibrate) to snap from the toe of her boot. "And this." A bit of pressure on her heel caused it to snap back into it's housing as well.

"My boots are also soled with Beskar, so that I don't have to worry about resoling my boots regularly, and they are strong enough to dent metal when I get a good kick against my opponent. Since it's beskar, it can dent most metals, and if I get a bit stronger, I might be able to put some damage against even a Mandalorian breastplate."

She shrugged. "I don't think I need much more than that, really. Dad said a weapon you carry can be taken away from you and used against you. A weapon attached to you can never be taken away. That's why he taught us to wrestle... and punch people in the throat." <bzzt> She sounded a little uncomfortable talking about her father -- she still had a lot of unresolved guilt and grief that she hadn't had time to process.

<bzzt> "Anyway, that's mostly it. Oh," she said with an afterthought, "...and this. I have this." She clenched her fist, a subtle difference from the first time, with her smaller fingers - the pinkie and ring-finger - putting the most pressure. With a wooooosh, flame erupted from her gauntlet, briefly blasting Korda's helmet and engulfing the air in fire. Quickly Jett released her grip and the fire dissipated. "Oh, sorry! Sorry..." she said in a slight panic, as she reached up, her gloved hands frantically patting the remaining flames away that clung to his armor and visor, the residue of the propellant. "That... wasn't supposed to happen." <bzzt>

Korda Veydran Sergeant Omen Aren D'Shade

 

[Korda Veydran]

BYYO: shopping

The flame hit him full in the faceplate.
For half a second, blue visor glass vanished behind orange.
Korda did not move.

When the fire dissipated and Jett lunged forward in flustered apology, hands batting at lingering embers across his chestplate and helmet, he caught her wrists gently but firmly.

"Enough."
Not sharp. Not irritated.
Calm.
"I am fine."

With his free hand he brushed the remaining flames from his pauldron, smothering the last of the propellant residue with slow, controlled motions. The beskar had not even discolored.
"Mistakes happen," he continued evenly. "Especially with integrated systems."
He released her hands only once she stopped swatting at him.

Then, as if the moment had not just involved him being briefly set on fire, his visor tilted slightly.
A comm icon flickered across his HUD.
He went still for half a second, listening.

Then he exhaled through his nose.
"Omen says," he began flatly, "that if we hear shooting, it is probably about them."
A faint pause.
"And he hopes you are finding lipstick that complements my eyes."

Silence.
His helmet turned slowly back toward her.
"You will inform him," Korda added dryly, "that I prefer muted tones."

Oro shifted on his shoulder, tongue flicking once as if equally unimpressed.
Then his attention returned to her weapons.
"Built-in blades," he said, nodding toward her gauntlet and boot, "have merit."

He reached down and picked up the vibro-axe again, weighing it in one hand.
"But I do not favor them."
He set the axe down and tapped his own vambrace.
"If a blade is removable, it can be lodged."

A slight tightening of his voice.
"You stab. Leave it buried. Step back. Finish the fight with something else."
Efficient. Final.
He rotated his forearm slightly and triggered another mechanism.

A compact plasma shield flared to life from his vambrace, forming a curved, translucent barrier that shimmered faintly with contained energy. It hummed softly between them.
"Defense creates opportunity," he said.

Then the shield collapsed back into its housing.
"The boots," he added, nodding once, "are smart. Beskar soles reduce maintenance and increase force transfer."
A subtle shift of tone.
"You are thinking ahead."

Then, without warning, he reached up and disengaged his helmet seal.
With a soft hiss, he removed it and hooked it onto his belt.
Seven feet of armored Mandalorian became something more human.
Up close, there was nothing polished about him.

His hair was short and coarse, brown cropped close for practicality. His skin carried the tone of someone who had spent more of his life under open suns than under ceilings. Sun-kissed once, now weathered. Hard lines at the edges of his mouth. Scars traced across his jaw, along his cheekbone, disappearing beneath the collar of his armor.

And his eyes
Red.
Not stylized. Not cosmetic.

A rare mutation that left his irises a deep, predatory crimson. They did not glow. They did not flare.
They simply watched.
Unblinking. Assessing.
He leaned down slightly, not looming but still unmistakably larger, seven feet of seasoned violence folding into a smaller space so she did not have to look up as far.

"If you are strong enough to dent a Mandalorian breastplate," he said quietly, voice unfiltered now, roughened by age and use, "you will have earned it."
The faintest curl touched one corner of his mouth. When he smiled, it revealed a missing tooth, a relic from Yaga Minor.
There was nothing glamorous about him.
He looked like someone who had survived.

And would continue to.
His red gaze shifted briefly toward the promenade.
"Omen," he said dryly, "requests lipstick."
His eyes returned to hers.

"Perhaps we should find him something flattering."
Oro shifted comfortably along his shoulder, as if this face, these scars, this presence were the most ordinary thing in the galaxy.
Korda did not rush to put the helmet back on.
He let her see him.

Aren D'Shade Sergeant Omen Jett Vox

 

[Aren D'Shade]

Objective: 1
Sergeant Omen Jett Vox Korda Veydran

Aren didn't respond to the comment in her ear, though the faintest shift in her posture suggested she had heard it and placed it exactly where it belonged, somewhere behind the work, behind the focus, where it wouldn't interfere with what mattered.

By the time the elevator doors opened, her attention had already moved ahead of them.

The room resolved in a single, quiet sweep of her gaze, not searching for threats, that was Omen's domain, but for structure, for the way things had been arranged and whether that arrangement actually made sense. Filing cabinets lined the walls in clean, deliberate rows, a desk positioned with just enough prominence to suggest authority, and a terminal that looked no different from any other surface system… which, in itself, made it more interesting.

Too clean. The same kind of clean she had seen outside. She stepped forward without hesitation, her focus settling on the desk as she spoke, her tone low and even.

"Physical records like this are usually redundant," she said, her fingers brushing lightly along the edge of the terminal before activating it, not logging in yet, just feeling how the system responded to being touched. "Or leverage. Something someone wants to be able to hold without relying on a network."

Her eyes flicked briefly toward the cabinets as Omen moved. "If anything stands out," she added, "take it. Names, routes, anything that doesn't quite line up with the flow outside."

Then her attention narrowed fully onto the system in front of her.

The interface came to life smoothly, almost too smoothly, its responsiveness slightly more controlled than that of the public terminals she had accessed earlier. It wasn't locked down in an obvious way, but it was… insulated. Designed to behave correctly, even when something beneath it wasn't.

Aren didn't push. She never did, not at first.

Instead, her input remained minimal and precise, slipping into the system rather than pressing against it, letting it respond naturally while she mapped how it handled access, how permissions layered over one another, how certain paths seemed to exist only to guide attention away from others.

That was where the resistance began to show. Not enough to stop her. Just enough to matter.

Her fingers stilled for the briefest moment as she felt it, then adjusted, not by applying more force, but by changing direction, following the resistance instead of fighting it, letting the system reveal the edges of what it was trying to conceal.

"There you are," she murmured, almost to herself. It wasn't a separate system. Not completely. It had been buried instead, nested beneath operational permissions that would look routine unless someone took the time to question why they were structured that way in the first place.

"Smart," Aren said quietly, her voice thoughtful rather than impressed. "But not invisible."

She moved again, slower now, more deliberate, aligning her access with existing pathways instead of creating new ones, letting the system accept her presence rather than reject it.

The terminal flickered, just slightly. Then shifted. It wasn't obvious. It wasn't meant to be. But the data was there now, threaded beneath the surface instead of displayed across it, requiring attention rather than inviting it. Aren exhaled softly, the smallest acknowledgment of success.

"This isn't just double-booking," she said, her gaze moving across the newly revealed structure, tracing routes against timing, matching what should have overlapped with what had been deliberately separated. "They're running parallel logistics on the same lanes, and the same windows, but only one set exists in the official record."

Her attention lingered on a cluster of entries, something about them just slightly off in a way that didn't belong to coincidence.

"The second set isn't just hidden," she continued, quieter now, more intent. "It's been designed not to exist unless you're already inside the system." Which meant whoever accessed it wasn't supposed to leave a trace.

Her fingers hovered briefly over the interface, not hesitating, just considering. "Whatever they're moving," Aren added, her voice steady, "it's not something they want tied back to the station at all."

Only then did she shift slightly, enough to acknowledge Omen's presence without looking away from the screen. "Give me a minute," she said. "I want to see where it leads before we decide what to do with it."

 

[Tessa Thayne]

Their conversation had shifted, from booth and job rights to what kind of cut he would get for ensuring she received everything she was after. “You drive a hard bargain.” he grumbled.

“I know my worth, and I can tell you without hesitation that I am the best you are going to get. These amateurs are losing you money, Jorr.”

“At fifteen percent, you’re going to lose me money.”

“I said twelve, not fifteen, and I promise you, you will not lose money.”

He let out a grunt, waving a dinner plate sized hand at her. “I would be taking you for your word, I need to know you can deliver.”

“So give me a job you know these guys can’t handle. I know you have them, I’ve been watching the docks, there’s cargo there that you can’t shift because of the people you have on your roster.”

“I’ll take fifteen percent.”

Tessa raised an eyebrow. “You’ll take twelve.”

Sidonia never entered a room without turning heads, so when she slid into a chair at the bar, Tessa’s incessant fiddling with her glass stilled momentarily. Her gaze flicked her way once before settling back on Jorr. He let out a heavy sigh.

“I maybe have something you can do…at fifteen percent.” Tessa laughed and shook her head as he moved to make Sidonia’s drink, barely looking her way as he set it on the bartop in front of her. “I’ll fetch the details.”

He ambled away towards the other side of the bar, chatting with patrons along the way, leaving them alone for the moment. Tessa shifted sapphire eyes to Sidonia and the escort at her side. “You’re not nearly as quiet as you think you are, kid.” she said with a smirk before settling her gaze on Sidonia.

“This is a pleasant surprise, Warden. To what do I owe the pleasure?"

Prisoner #36929 Sidonia

​

 

[Jett Vox]

Jett listened to his lesson intently and then eyed the axe with a bit more respect than before. Then, when he removed his helmet, she studied his face with curiosity. This had to be the first time he'd taken it off in front of her, and now she could get a good idea of his age and his battles. Her father - who also had a series of scars - often pointed out that every scar was a failure, and once told her a story of the greatest fighter he'd ever known. A Mandalorian who had never taken a scratch of damage. Who's armor was untouched, and had no scars on his body. In the end, the Mandalorian had died from old age, rather than from battle. He had even fought and won a duel days before he died in his sleep.

Her father had been trained by that warrior, and said that he had never beaten him. When he lay dying in her arms, Jett's father reminded her of that fact - that the warrior who trained him had never fought him with more than a stick in hand, and still with blaster and bomb, dagger and knife, he had never layed a strike upon him.

Her father had spoken of the warrior with awe, and Jett decided now that the reason her father had taken them away from the Mandalorians was so they could have the option to die that way instead of in battle. The second-best outcome for him would be if his last surviving daughter lost as few battles as possible, and lived on past his own age. Korda seemed suicidal in comparison. He was a warrior, one who had won and lost and learned many lessons that made him a survivor. That was the difference. A true warrior knew pain and failure.

The thought left Jett torn between admiration and sympathy. She hesitated, and then pulled off her own helmet, her orange-red hair spilling down her back. Then she hooked her own helmet to her belt and finally gave the idea of lipstick for Omen a thought. "I think a nice shade of red would do him good. Will you be modeling for comparison? I think you're more of a 'neutral' tone, though and Omen is more of a 'warm.' Maybe a sepia tone." She grinned playfully.

"Are they both here? Is Aren and Omen going to join us?"

Sergeant Omen Aren D'Shade Korda Veydran

 

[Korda Veydran]

BYYO: Shopping

Korda didn't flinch under her scrutiny.
He let her look.

Most people avoided his face once the helmet came off. The scars, the weathered skin, the red irises that never quite looked human in certain light. She didn't look away. She studied him. Measured him.
When she pulled off her own helmet and that orange-red hair spilled free, he gave a slow nod. A silent acknowledgment. Trust met with trust.

Her comment about sepia lipstick earned a low rumble of amusement from his chest, the missing tooth flashing when he smirked.
"Sepia," he repeated thoughtfully, like she'd just suggested a new weapons modification. "You've put real strategy into this."
At her question, he started walking, slowing his long stride so she didn't have to jog to keep up. The marketplace noise rose around them as they angled toward a cosmetics stall glowing with polished metal cases and rows of pigments.

"They're both here," he said. "Aren's likely doing something clever and complicated." A faint huff escaped him. "Omen's probably following her around like a lost tooka with his tail tucked."

He glanced down at her as they walked, expression shifting slightly. More thoughtful.
"You were looking at my scars like you were weighing something." His tone wasn't accusatory. Just direct. "What were you taught about them?"

A pause.
"Everyone sees scars differently. Some think they're proof of strength. Some think they're proof of failure. Some think they're just… survival."

His red gaze held steady on her, not pressing, but inviting the answer.
They reached the vendor. Korda automatically scanned exits, reflections, hands near belts. Then he picked up a small lipstick case between thick, scarred fingers.

"I was serious about this," he added, voice returning to its dry humor. "If necessary, I will restrain him. You apply with precision."
He turned the case over, examining the shade.

"And neutral tones?" He gave her a sideways look. "You're telling me I wouldn't dominate in red?"
There was a faint challenge there. Playful. Testing.
"Choose well," he said quietly. "If we're humiliating him, we do it properly."

Jett Vox Sergeant Omen Aren D'Shade

 

[Sergeant Omen]

Omen quietly moved to the files, sorting through maintenance reports and everyday records, trying to find something incriminating. Of course, they wouldn't hide something incriminating in the open, would they? Thankfully, Aren had better luck, though she managed to coerce this system. He quickly walked behind her, scanning the details. "You want to make a bet on what they're running?" It was clear that it must have been important. And Omen hoped it wouldn't be what he was thinking. "You see any arrival dates connected to this hidden lane?" If so, they might be able to stop the latest shipment from going out. With Korda and Jett on the station, they certainly had enough firepower to stop anything that got thrown their way.

"Oh, by the way, I did find this stuffed into one of the file cabinets. Guess the stationmaster was getting ready to propose to someone." The Clone put a small ringbox onto the desk in front of her. If she looked inside, she would find a small black wedding band specially crafted to look like it contained an image of the galaxy in stars across its length. The word "Cyare" would be written on the inside of the band, and if Aren turned around to look at the Clone, she could tell he was trying to be serious and was falling horribly at it. That half-smile of his always gave him away. "Guess we have to take in as evidence. Isn't that right?"

Aren D'Shade , Korda Veydran , Jett Vox

 

[Jett Vox]

"My father had scars," she said, "but his teacher - a weaponmaster - had none. Father said that he was the pinnacle of a warrior, but that when he was finally defeated, he hadn't known real pain. Dad encouraged us to know what pain was." She shuddered at the memory of her and her sister being shocked with shocklances until he was satisfied that they wouldn't fall prone every time, then the next morning doing the same. Jett could admit that she never cried at a small injury again, but she remembered crying for days after one of those lessons. Her sister cried even longer when it was her turn.

Sometimes they even hid from him when they knew what was coming. No matter how long they escaped, they couldn't escape the inevitable.

She now realized that this sort of training was probably what every Mando went through, but that her father also was much lighter on his daughters than the actual Mandalorian Empire was on it's trainees. Still, he'd wanted to prepare them for the worst even if he didn't prepare her like a true Mandalorian.

"Red is kind of an obvious choice for you," she mused as she considered. "Gold too, but that's like... a red offshoot. You could easily do gold." She perked up and smiled. "How about maroon?" She cocked her head and looked up at Korda. "We'll probably have to take him by surprise, you know." Finally reaching the obvious conclusion.

"So you tie him up and I'll apply the lipstick? ...Since... you know... I've done it before?"

Korda Veydran Sergeant Omen Aren D'Shade

 

[Aren D'Shade]

Aren didn't look away from the screen when he came up behind her. She didn't need to. Her awareness of him sharpened the moment he stepped close, just enough to register the shift in proximity without breaking the thread she was following through the system.

"Something that justifies the effort," she said quietly, her voice carrying more thought than speculation. "If they've built an entire parallel structure to hide it, it's either high value… or something they can't afford to have traced."

Her fingers moved again, slower now, deliberate, following the hidden lane he'd pointed out. She tracked not only where it led, but how it behaved over time. Patterns mattered more than isolated entries.

"There are timestamps," she murmured, narrowing her focus as the data resolved. "Not listed as arrivals. They're flagged as maintenance windows." A brief pause as she cross-referenced them against the visible schedule.

"They overlap with low-traffic cycles," she added. "Short windows. Just enough to move something without drawing attention." Her hand hovered over the interface, then shifted, isolating the most recent entry. "This one's close," Aren said. "If the pattern holds, it hasn't cleared yet."

Only then did the small box on the desk fully register. Her eyes flicked to it, then to him, catching the edge of that half-smile, before returning to the object itself. She reached for it with the same measured care she applied to everything else, opening it just enough to take in the details.

The band. The engraving. Cyare. Her expression didn't change much, but something in it eased, a subtle softening before settling back into something more neutral, more thoughtful.

"That's not evidence," she said, closing the box gently and setting it back in front of him. "That's someone's life." Another glance at the screen, already recalibrating. "Leave it."

Her attention returned fully to the system, though her tone carried a quieter undercurrent now, something steadier, more grounded. "If this goes the way it looks like it will, they're going to have bigger problems than a proposal."

Her fingers resumed their movement, already working ahead of the next step. "Focus," she added, not sharp, but enough to pull him back into the moment. "We'll decide what to do once we know exactly what we're looking at."

Korda Veydran Jett Vox Sergeant Omen

 

[Korda Veydran]

BYYO: shopping

Korda listened without interrupting.
His expression didn't shift much as she spoke of her father, of the weaponmaster with unmarked skin, of the idea of perfection without scars. But something in his gaze sharpened. Not defensive. Just thoughtful.


"No scars isn't the pinnacle of a warrior," he said at last, voice calm and grounded. "It's a clean record."
He glanced down at his own forearm, where faint lines traced under the beskar plating.
"If you don't have scars, where's the proof you tried? Where's the proof you misjudged, adapted, survived?" His red eyes lifted back to hers. "Scars are evidence. They validate the stories."


He turned a lipstick case between scarred fingers, inspecting the shade without really seeing it.
"A weaponmaster with none either spent his life training… or he chose battles carefully. Fought opponents he knew he could dominate." His jaw flexed slightly. "That's control. Not necessarily mastery."


His voice lowered just a fraction.
"Your father had the right idea in one way. You should know pain before deployment. Before a mission. So you don't freeze the first time it finds you."
A pause.
"But pain isn't only physical."
The marketplace noise continued around them, oblivious.


"I'm only just now regaining emotions I shut down when I was fourteen," he said evenly. "My clan tried to exile me. I burned the compound and every building in response. "
There was no pride in it. Just memory.
"My mother ran back into the fire to save my brother and father. I tried to stop her." His gaze didn't waver. "She didn't come back out. collapse got her... waited for two days and all hopes slowly faded"
A breath, slow and controlled.


"That was real pain."
He shifted slightly, grounding himself back in the present.
"Pain training should be paired with something after. Reassurance. Stabilization. Making sure the person is still whole." His tone was firm, not angry. "Otherwise you're not building resilience. You're just creating fractures."


Then, deliberately lighter:
"Maroon would work," he said, examining the shade again. "On me."
He gave her a sidelong look.


"As for Omen, no tying required. I'll bear hug him and hold his head still. You apply with precision."
The faintest hint of a smirk touched his weathered face.
"And since you've apparently done this before… I assume you're qualified."

Jett Vox Aren D'Shade Sergeant Omen

 

[Sergeant Omen]

Yeah, it was his fault for proposing while she was in work mode. He could acknowledge that. Omen quietly slid the ring back into one of his belt pockets, thankful that the helmet kept the hurt expression off his face. This was his fault. He had wanted to wait till a perfect time, but this feeling of wanting to declare this special woman his had gotten to much for him. He would just have to try again another time, though he did mutter, "I also have the receipt for it in my name," under his breath as he returned his focus to the consul.

Pointing to the parts numbers needed for the "maintenance", Omen said his thoughts out loud. "Maybe these are serial numbers for the real product." It was a far-flung guess, but he heard of worse systems to hide your illegal product. "Lets try to find where the store rooms for these parts are located and see what they find."

Aren D'Shade , Korda Veydran , Jett Vox