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The galaxy was a dark place. It was an old place. The ones who were here? They didn’t know the half of it. The Aing-Tii, maybe they did. The Jedi thought they did, but they half maybe half. The Sith? Honestly, probably closer. Understanding that the individual was important, but it still wasn’t the whole picture. The Fringe was upon it, they had an idea but it was always becoming more challenging the deeper they dove. And the Outer Rim? Well, they were sitting right on some answers. If only they knew the right questions.
But it wasn’t until Q had contacted Coalition Command, through some old Underground networks that they were maybe along the same lines. FarStar Initiative had been hearing murmurs, from deep within Neverwhere, out beyond the Outback, there were concerns. Murmurs, something about the Force, the living, the netherworld. All that was sent from Q was the Neverwhere was heading to an as yet uncharted system, but with the installation of one of the Merrill Lighthouses, she was broadcasting their location something fierce.
The Dawn Treader, the former Victory-class Destroyer that Starchaser had taken over decades back to turn into a more smuggler-and-rim explorer. The ship had exited to real space and Starchaser could already feel it, something dark, something deep.
“Q, situation report?” He all but demanded. The world was dark, not in the Force, but as it laid before him. A dying world around a white dwarf star. The planet had a dark shade around it, almost purple to the eye and from orbit, there were small bright pins of blue. And reaching out in the Force, Coren Starchaser could feel the darkness, and the light, in a sort of balance, but there was more to it. He could feel the netherworld. He could feel that death.
“The world is… in trouble. That dwarf is collapsin’ in on itself. You know how they go. But there is the Force here, I’m sure ya can feel.” The image of his long time friend, Jorus, flickering in and out. “I think I can hold the Neverwhere here to allow FarStar to join you.
“Reports are that there are some archaic Force traditions here, they may have inspired the Jedi for holocrons. They were able to imbue items with the Force, with power, or with personality. Seems weapons, from melee to ranged were enchanted. But there are guards down there. Ancient automatons and… spectres. We will need to tread lightly.”
Maybe late in the season but a bit of a Halloween, spooky thread. I'll be jumping into help with the atmosphere. But a dying world, ancient, nearly cursed. Ancient automated guardians, and spectres guard the temple grounds, but within the temple? Treasures.
There were few people in the galaxy with more skill and moxie than a Judge. And with the call coming through the Underground networks? That meant many Judges and Wardens alike had been hearing what was going on. The Neverwhere was broadcasting on a specific subspace frequency that the locals could hear if they knew where to look. And Franc Berger had received it. Working out of one of the larger break bulk freighters, an older model Action VI, fast enough to get around, but big enough to help carry enough cargo to the outer worlds. He wasn’t minding the vessel, good for convoys, but the one he had was modified with two turbolaser batteries to take the fight to anyone who was intercepting a convoy he was protecting.
Didn’t matter here. All he knew was that he and his crew, the Sherriff himself, and two deputies working with a handful of ex-Partisans who found their life on the space lanes a bit easier, were heading out to the world. Turning to the crew, he nodded. They had full gear, and supplies, life was going to be easy for them for a while. Having the next few months of patrol around Vestar. But for now? He was turning and the ship was already aligned for light speed.
It hadn’t been but a few moments since the Lake Jewel had arrived from Vestar’s space. But quick on its heels was another ship, a darker ship. A gunmetal gray CC-7700 entered the system. The ship was projecting a Coalition IFF calling herself the Dark Star. Not necessarily an odd name within the Coalition, but her two landing crafts were heading down to the world. The Dark Judges had heard what was on this world, and they were going to be seeking out the weapons, fabled hand cannons with the power of the Force.
As well as take out as many of those Judges and their allies as they could level their own cannons at.
Arrived in: Blessing of Loste (Dynamic class Frieghter)
Wearing: Black Knight Chitin
Armed with: Synthbreaker
Constant Gardener
Death had always been a constant in the life of Laertia Io. She had killed since she was a child, lost and alone, and had made a small mountain of corpses from the enemies of the Jedi. It was always with her. It was inside her, with all the hope, and the sorrow, and the loss.
Laertia had come to this dying planet to try and help out the Silver Jedi, even though she wasn't one of them, being more a fringe ally these days. But she did her part when she could. Her Dynamic class Frieghter, piloted by her caretaker biot Moya, had barely managed the journey down, as there had been a strange electrical interference with their systems. It would be a while before the biot could get the ship working again, so Laertia had slapped on her best armor and weapons and decided to go prospecting. The Jedi normally held an intense distaste towards anything even resembling grave robbing but this stuff was going to be destroyed anyway eventually and like it or not, Laertia personally needed a return on the investment of coming here. She would not sell the Force related objects...those would go to the shattered order or the SJO. But any tech, computer banks, weaponry, was fair game as far as she was concerned. This armor was expensive to maintain and so was the ship. Her rabbits cost credits to care for properly, as well as affording treatments to Vong diseases for Moya.
This place was as justified as a thing like tomb raiding could be.
Laertia had put on one of the wrist mounted blaster shotguns she had designed for the slender heavy armor she wore, but given how much she could carry naturally she barely noticed its weight on her cybernetic arm as she ventured outside, sense of pain heavily reduced due to the brain wave regulation in her helmet. A migraine came at that moment but it registered only as a mild headache that left her groggy. There was an ancient temple not far from here, that contained the sort of things that would make a trip like this worth it.
The white dwarf hung faintly in the sky, casting an odd twilight hue that made the landscape have a distinctive black and white tone at points. Laertia saw faint traces of plant life here and there and the faint ruins of cities. The death feeling was very pervasive. Laertia tolerated it due to a life time of exposure.
The unretired Shadow stopped, spotting another in a large red armor and cloak with helm that had goat like horns on its forehead. An active red lightsaber was out.
The Black Knight of Nar Shaddaa kept walking forward.
"I've been waiting for you, Laertia Io. We meet again, at last." The red armored figure said in a particularly electronic vocal synthesizer.
"I knowz yoo, fella?" Laertia wondered in a tone of clear disinterest.
"I am Darth Dradju, of The Seven Castles of Shien..."
"Ohhhhh...nowz I ruhmemmbuhz..." Laertia confessed, stopping in front of him. "Thoughtz I killed all sehvunn ov yooz...which wunz wuz yooz againz? I wuz a littul tyredz dhat dayy...musta gottinz sloppy wit' stickinn yooz..."
"I was the fourth! We controlled eight systems!" The Fourth Castle sputtered in outrage.
"Ohhhh, nowz I ruhmemmbuhz! Corrtosyss playte on yooz wuz a littul thickuh at duh belly. Shudda cutt deepuh..." Laertia remarked, playing the battle over in her mind. She drew Synthbreaker, its all green core and white aura sliding out of a rusty hilt.
"You won't live to regret your mistake..."
The Fourth Castle brought down an execution strike, but Laertia parried it, not even giving him the irony of killing him in his own style, instead switching to the Fast Style, holding the blade with both hands out in front of her in a nuetral guard. Fast Style wasn't just for those who lacked strength, but for those with it...
The Fourth Castle swung at her arms like a lumberjack, and Laertia calmly batted aside the strikes, keeping him directly in front and forcing him to defend against frightfully quick slices, and Laertia used the style to deftly manuver the blade around her body to parry vicious chop attempts and thrusts, but the Shadow deflected a strike, jolting her arms forward as she made her own slice and succeeded in nicking him across the shoulder, scorching his arm.
Laertia backed off as The Fourth Castle cried out in pain and humiliated rage.
"Arrogant whelp!" The Fourth Castle snarled, angling his blade at her, trying to choke her with The Force. Laertia fought the choke attempt off with the Force, but about twenty percent still got through, making it harder to breath suddenly. He tried a burst of lightning but her blade caught it and eventually the strain of trying to get through Laertia's immense Force Resistance caused him to tire out, backing off.
"I had you, at Telos. And again, at Alderaan..." The Castle growled. "Only bad luck prevented me from ending you then." He spoke, seemingly to save face, convince himself he could still win. Laertia, for her part, looked at him as just another corpse, because it was the truth. He waa dead already.
"So yoo wuz duh wun whoo sentz dhat assassinn..." Laertia mocked. "I tink I wuz uzing hiz sabuh az a papuhweight...kinda lykez howw yorr sabuh iz gonna beez a papuhweight."
He held his blade up in attack position. Laertia stuck to fast style. She normally would have used her perferred Shii-Cho, but The Seven Castles all together had barely rated the effort to remember, let alone fight. He charged, bring his blade down only to meet blocks, parries, light cutting swipes that got through his guard and scorched through his armor more and a fiendish swordfighter who had already decided how to kill him.
As he executed another swing, Laertia started letting herself enjoy the battle, channeling her knowledge of Juyo and transitioning to it mid parry, attacking him from all sides in swipes and stabs that had no rythm or connection but were very difficult to anticipate, throwing all her strength and speed as well as whatever the armor could provide into the attack, pressing him violently backward as her green blade came down on his as hard as she could, driving him to his knees and making him hold the saber over him to avoid being cleaved in two. It did not help.
Laertia's blade came down one final time, and as it was made to have a better chance at breaking lightsaber blades...that is 'exactly' what happened.
The Fourth Castle's blade flickered and shut off as Synthbreaker's blade hit itand kept going past the hilt. The Fourth Castle screamed as the green and white blade burned through his helmet, then his skull, cutting it in half.
Laertia shut off her blade, satisfied he was dead. He had trained better, was more skilled than the last time, but Laertia's body of knowledge had once more proven too difficult to overcome. She had killed so many in lightsaber duels that his technique, tactics, and flaws had all jumped out at once to her. Fighting him had been a small chore, not a challenge.
Laertia claimed his lightsaber, knowing she could already recoup some of her losses just selling that alone, and then proceeded to head to the real meat of the temple, in contemplation at killing yet one more Sith...
1. It is vital that any and all information which is available is compiled for future viewing and usage.
2. Do not allow any data to be corrupted as this could lead to inaccurate results. Prevent interference in tests.
3. Nothing comes in the way of scientific learning and understanding.
4. Where necessary, you may share scientific data with your peers in return for data of their own.
It was not typical behavior for the Intelligence to explore the outer reaches of space, especially those which had been previously uncharted. Regardless, the machine mind had been informed in a circuitous fashion; it was still listening intently to all of the messages sent upon the Underground networks, at least those it could manage to decrypt, and had recognized the possibility for greater scientific research to be conducted upon the strange world. After all, worlds being actively affected by white dwarfs were rare enough, and it was doubly unlikely to stumble upon those which were habitable by a majority of organic races.
There was an opportunity not simply to archive any archaeological findings which could be uncovered upon the supposedly abandoned world, but also a chance for the machine to observe the physiological effects associated with close proximity to a collapsing star. It assumed that both would be highly profitable in terms of knowledge, and was thus willing to allocate a fairly substantial portion of its resources towards the acquisition of new findings in accordance with its Laws.
As the artificial mind warped into the system, its sensors immediately began to register a substantially amount of information, its mind analyzing and deciphering everything its mechanical 'eyes' could observe, piling relevant data into its own separate files in the span of pico-seconds. The speed with which the mind of the computer operated put organic beings to shame, though they were still capable of operating at greater efficiency in other areas, such as in memory and creative thought.
The Intelligence acknowledged the presence of the hulking leviathan that was the Neverwhere, and without even a moment's passing, it began to direct its vessel as far away from the starship as possible. The machine mind was incapable of emotional response, and was thus completely unfamiliar with the concepts behind fear from anything more than the denotative portion of it, but it behaved in a fashion that might have convinced observers otherwise. Servant had no desire whatsoever to draw near to the artificial intelligence which operated the systems of the Neverwhere, having become familiar with its presence earlier in its discovery, and having recognized that it was substantially stronger than itself.
Elsewhere, the machine mind recognized the presence of another entity which it had aggressively encountered in the past. With care taken to ensure that the distance between the two ships would be sufficient to prevent any effective system infiltration, the Intelligence dispatched a brief burst of binary to its ship-based contemporary, revealing that it had been acknowledged, and that Servant was present primarily for the research-benefits, and would not interfere aggressively with the operations of the others so long as they would do like-wise. ([member="Coren Starchaser"])
Binary was a very effective language.
That work accomplished, the vessel of the Intelligence; the ship was a heavy freighter of the Lancer model, instantly began a descent towards the surface, angling downwards at such a speed and direction that any organic entities aboard the ship would likely have expired due to respiratory failure, or being thrashed into the walls and promptly detonated. The advantage of hosting an entirely robotic crew was that it did not need to worry about the weak flesh of organics, nor about the presence of oxygen.
Laertia patiently kept a steady pace towards the temple, watching it grow taller the closer she got, its ancient banners waving in a twilight sky.
There was obvious wreckage of ships everywhere. Planets like this were often good for desperate last stands or final refuges when all other hiding spots had been flushed out. Or for ambushing lone targets. She saw a mix of ancient and modern ships strewn about. Most of the hulls were shredded, rusted, picked clean wrecks but a few were more recent. Laertia spotted a crashed Tie Silencer that had a mostly intact hull, off the road to the temple and strolled over to it. It was unnaturally quiet. Laertia's targeting systems detected nothing.
The cockpit viewport was shattered open...no sign of the pilot. Either they had made it out or what predators remained on this world had picked the body clean. Either way, it wasn't a grave if it wasn't going to exist in a short while. Just salvage, the difference between grave robbing and salvaging could often be a murky one, but in this case it was clearly the latter.
She tore open what was left of the view port frame to look inside, inspecting everything. Nav and targeting computers were intact. Laertia took out a small homing beacon and laid it out for retrieval later, and began searching the interior for more immediately useful salvage...
The warning of death came nearly too late to be of any use, only allowing Laertia enough time to get out of the way before being totally impaled, the Vibrosword grazing open her hip, blood pouring out fast as the tip ripped through the armor. The pain regulators suppressed most of it but feeling only twenty five percent of a sword still hurt. She recognized the model to. Sith Tremor Sword. Stout, sturdy, lightweight. An excellent choice of sword. Laertia admired their construction. It was wielded by a man in tightfitting black armorweave robes with crushgaunts on his arms. Who was he working for? Was he even Sith? It didn't matter. There were three more where he came from.
Laertia barely got her lightsaber out, still bleeding and blocked the expertly delivered attacks of his compatriots who struck ruthlessly from all angles and Laertia's Shii-Cho deflected the sword strikes, caught the lightning from one and teleported with great strain due to the regulators interfering with her natural channeling of the Force to try and get behind him, but he seemed to have anticipated this move and parried her stab from behind, launching his own assault once more. As if that was not enough, a headache started, causing her to get distracted. This cost her as a sword got past her guard and bit into her shoulder in a gap between the armor plates. Adrenaline caused her to reach out and squeeze her attacker's neck so hard with her natural, organic right arm that his neck shattered, and the pressure caused one of his eyeballs to pop out and bang against her faceplate. She chucked the corpse aside, her green cored and white aura blade held to her side against the other hooded assassins, who began to circle her.
Io brandished her lightsaber with a taunting swish at them all, waiting for the violence. They sprang forward from three directions. Laertia made a more careful defense this time, even though everything hurt. Their sword strikes came as volley fire from a repeater, each striking somewhere different at Laertia's body. Deft manuevers and precisely timed parries allowed Laertia to meet all of them in Form one, wide sweeps providing a sort of shield against every attempt to penetrate her guard. Her style was one handed, a tactic barrowed from Makashi to enhance its mobility. It did not have quite the finesse of actual makashi but its slices and stabs could be deceptively simple to try and defend against.
They had always been frightened of her, on some level. Of training her. They had seen it more clearly than she had, she could admit somewhat ruefully now, even though she regretted nothing. One only had to look at the thousands she had killed to justify such worry. Laertia saw the fear, but had not understood at the time. How many people had they killed? They weren't saints. Not by any stretch of the imagination. By her estimate due to idle hours of number crunching, average Jedi had at least a hundred to two hundred and fifty people dead by their hand by the time they were considered experienced enough. Even their diplomats made corpses, if not with blade or Force, then with words.
Why did the scale of corpses made and the rate of production where their enemies were concerned matter so much? Was scale really so important a thing, if they both worked to the same goal? Someone had to kill Sith. Couldn't leave that sort of thing up to governments, no matter how just and competent. Laertia was just better at it than most. Besides...not like the followers of the Dark Side didn't have it coming. They invite horrors such as she, or invent such horrors when there are none to invite. Laertia feared this was all double thought and willful blindness from an uplifted street criminal.
The assassins struck again viciously, their blades singing through the air. Laertia met all those blades with her own, turning aside the attack and counter attacking when possible but they had trained to fight as a team, parrying or blocking also. They were good. Good enough not to be working for that fool she had killed twenty minutes prior. The headache left her woozy a little, so she backed away after deflecting their last set of slashes. They moved ghostly, their blades flashing through the air. One tried to fill her mind with fear and uncertainty with a dark side mental attack. Laertia had seen so much horror in the street what he conjured up was, at best, capable of making her blink a little bit under the helmet. She backed away from the slashes to her belly, parry very strong attacks from two different angle, redirecting them to catch the stab of the third. It was here she managed to focus enough past the pain. She focused her telekinetic ability into a field around her. Dark Adepts had abilities that could slow the reactions of an opponent, but these are usually mental in nature. Hers relied on brute force almost.
Around her it was now ideally like trying to move through mollases. The assassins were not prepared for this and only two managed to pull back in time, but the third was a victim of his own momentum, the blaster shotgun mounted to Laertia's left gauntle came on line, shooting swarms of bolts at the victim, splitting open his chest. He was dead when he hit the dirt at her feet.
A hard impact blasted Laertia to the ground, taking off a few pieces of torso armor. One pellet from the Flechette pistol, an SWG model. A smart targeter. She barely focused enough to teleport out of the way of the next few shots, and the remaining assassins fired above and behind them, only for Laertia to appear right in front of them, throwing her spare lightsaber out at one impaling him. The remaining assassin dodged her blaster shotgun zig zagging towards her. She was blocking his slashes and stabs suddenly, one of them slicing and disabling her arm mounted shotgun, retreating backward to the cockpit. In the process of performing a defensive twirl to fend off a chop, her helmet's targeting system spotted what looked like a working weapon lodged in the back of the crashed fighter.
She batted aside his strikes, finally noticing the Sith Power gauntlets he was wearing. No wonder he had been able to hold his own in a blade fight.
Laertia allowed herself to be driven backward, drawing on her makashi training to intercept his blade while not overstressing herself. Let him think he was winning. She allowed herself to be driven back to the cockpit, as his blade came down, Laertia dodged, letting it bite into the hull of the Silencer. She kicked him hard enough that she heard ribs break as he flew backward, and her cyborg arm shot out to grasp the large weapon, switching it on. Knightly virtue prompted her to allow a defeated, injured opponent one chance to surrender, even as she saw his arms arc with Force Lightning, gasping in pain and rage.
"Don'tz doo itz..." She warned, shutting off her saber, leveling the large, bulky rifle at him, not sure what it was, but not afraid to execute him with it.
He did it. He fired several bolts of lightning, but she teleported to his side with great strain, hefting the bulky weapon and firing.
Five heavy bolts came out in a row from the front, and the assassin's head and the top half of his torso away, sending his arms flying in different directions and pieces.
Laertia, wide eyed, looked down at her weapon. She fired it at a bolder and watched it explode.
"I...I've nevuh fallenz in luvz wyth a wepun..." she said quietly, almost teary eyed as she stared at her new prize. "But I tinkz I'mm in luvz wyth yooz...Let'z callz yoo...Robert."
Laertia felt her healing system kick in and gave herself a few minutes to rest, as she had been injured pretty good by them. But the day was not over yet. She used the Force to kickstart the healing a little better, trying to seperate herself emotionally from what just happened, but it wasn't easy, because all the violence came back down to The Amalgam for her. The Jedi had a point about one thing, like it or not: the killing, when it happened, was never to be personal. It was business. The Sith made it personal. Laertia usually killed for survival or ideology: She knew, and had seen, how dangerous, how incredibly unhealthy this life was when it got personal, when you let feuds start. She knew a lot of good people who had gotten destroyed when they made it personal with the Sith. Yet she was doing the same thing with The Amalgam. But no one had ever hurt her the way the Amalgam had in killing Ursula, in killing people who were the closest she ever had to brothers and sisters. She was having trouble for the first time, seperating herself entirely. With these assassins, she didn't care, because they didn't matter. They had never taken anything or anyone personal.
The Amalgam, in doing both, somehow mattered to Laertia in a very perverse way because of it. She didn't want to understand why that was. She wanted the Amalgam to only be just one more notch on her weapon, not this insidious, ever present background threat that could surge forward whenever it wanted to turn her life upside down.
Was it punishment from The Force killing so many, even if they were all jerks who brought it on themselves? Was sending this Amalgam her way The Force's idea of letting her know just how pissed it was at her for her choices? The thought frightened her, that one so dark might yet be an agent of divine retribution. If she was...was Laertia the villain somehow?
Choosing not to dwell on it, Laertia continued her journey, so unsettled by the violence and what it reminded her was still waiting off this dead, silent world she clutched her new weapon a little tighter...
(Zelda acquisition theme plays)
(New weapon acquired!)
(New Skill learned!)
Weapon: CR-1 BLASTER CANNON
Destructive Blaster Cannon infamous from even the clone wars. Heavily modifiable. Functions like a shotgun.
Skill: BLASTER CANNONS
Destructive set of heavy weapons seperate from regular blasters. Requires more and larger ammo packs, and typically possesses less ammo in a magazine, but the sheer destructive potential of such weapons makes up for its downsides.
Down on Tatooine, Darth Chekigh had recieved information on a target he was hunting. Not a Bounty, but a personal grudge. He was searching for the person who killed his parents. A shady bounty hunter, possibly a Rodian, or maybe a Twi'lek. There were clues of his whereabouts, including a possible source of information of an unnamed planet on the outer rim. He got in his ship, a refurbished ARC-170, and jumped to lightspeed. He sat back and enjoyed the ride. Jumping out of lightspeed, the planet popped in front of him, and so did a small, white star. He recieved information on the planet from his console.
"This unnamed planet is very rich in ancient Jedi Artifacts. It will likely die, or freeze over when its star collapses." His console read.
He then intercepted a transmission, detailing the FarStar initiative.
"So FarStar is here, huh? I wouldn't be surprised if that means Jedi are here too... I'll try to avoid confrontation." He said, as he acknowledged the presence of the giant starship, the Neverwhere. He flew down into the dark purple planet's atmosphere. When he touched down, he felt the atmosphere was very humid. He exited his ship, and began his trek to find this source.
Looking at the moon, then at the arrivals, he had nodded. This wasn’t going to be that bad. It seemed that a number of the Coalition and Judge vessels had arrived. He looked to his sensor’s officer and received a thumbs up. All clear. Good.
“Q, how long do we have?” The Jedi General was already making his way down to the hangar bay, he’d be taking his freighter down to the planet, the old YT-2000 could take a beating and was especially hardened for exploration in rough.. can we call space terrain? The hologram of Q was following along with Coren, a mousedroid, yes, archaic, but Starchaser didn’t care, projecting the likeness of Jorus.
“You know I’d never lead you into that much danger, Starchaser…” There was a blink of the hologram and Coren could almost hear the beat as the computer was thinking. “But, you know, faster would be better.” There was a smirk and Coren shook his head.
“Q…” He sighed as he stepped aboard the ship. “Just send the timer to me.” He tapped his head, indicating his implant as he closed the boarding ramp. Shortly the Tachyon Rising was launching out of ship. He found another freighter and was joining that as he flew down to the surface, he’d arrive at the temple he had targeted in a moment.
Dark Judges had a less than kind plan for this place. They were aware that the automated units were there and had really big idea for that. As the Dark Judges descended on the planet. They figured they had official enough ships for the Coalition, meaning the ships ran, and had a hull and engines. Several were going around the world, to smaller temples, all intent on stealing what they could, and demolishing anything so no one would be following them. It was a raid, but they were not prepared for what was around them.
As the Dark Judges landed, they were not only greeted by what they quickly termed possessed, or haunted droids, not responding to EMP pulse weaponry or ionize Force powers, these were alive in the Force. For those not greeted by the hellish automatons, they were pinned down by other Judges and Jedi, but throughout these small scale fire fights, one thing was constant, the planet was defending itself.
Either the planet or those who once called it home. Dark Star was in the same little caravan Tachyon Rising was taking to the planet’s surface, all heading for the same temple. There was a massive signature of the Force and technology there. It was luring the Judges, and anyone else. Calling to them.
Laertia was almost upon the temple grounds, carrying Robert The Blaster Cannon in her hands. She felt the power of the temple, calling to her. She resisted. She had visited such places of power before. She never opened herself to them without very good reason.
But the temple's power was so immense resisting was next to impossible. Inevitably, she questioned whether she was still going forward purely by her own will or whatever will the temple had.
Creative use of telekinesis and the tricks Jedi used to increase power efficiency in their lightsabers had restored the shotgun attachment on her arm mount to working order. Basically a cut down blast cannon. But she would have to be careful not to pulse fire it and use it only for emergencies. She had never been able to get the hang of standard blasters, and was actually pretty bad at them, because she was less reliable at long ranges. Unless it was a weapon of appropriately destructive power that had a wide radius of damage. (Such as her new blast cannon.)
Laertia had taken to shotguns and thrown weapons, or wrist mounted ones with smart targeting. These were generally close range. Ursula, her teacher, had been far from dismayed at her ranged preferences. If anything, she had encouraged her to increase her knowledge of close up warfare as much as she could. What Laertia could not kill with a saber, she had killed with buckshot, throwing knives, shuriken, flamethowers, cryosprayers--
A whistling caught her ears to the left. She turned, close to the towering, but crumbling gates of the great temple and spotted him, a man dressed in black, well built, in his early fifties with a gray, handle bar mustache and pale, clammy looking skin. His suit was pinstriped, a three piece bit of business wear with floral decorations on the red vest, the sort of thing a gambler wore. His hat was a a wide, flat brimmed white one, giving shade to sulphur colored eyes, a six point badge of black metal was pinned to his chest, the symbol of the Bogan upon it. Strapped to his legs were holsters of black leather, each holding what looked like some type of Ion pistol that Laertia had only seen in education holos given to her by Ursula and immediately grew alarmed. He had chosen his killing implements well. Ion Relics.
Comparing an Ion Relic to a regular Ion Pistol is like trying to compare a regular blaster to a Charric. The Ion Relic not only messes up electronics, it also uses its ion particles to punch through heavy armor. No question, she made a mistake while deflecting, he would shred her armor in seconds as well as shut down her cybernetics.
The man walked towards her at a calm pace, the spurs on his black boots clicking.
"Ma'am..." He said, tipping his hat to her, stopping a good forty paces from her.
"So, how'dz I piss yoo offz?" Laertia asked sarcastically, hearing the sounds of battle in the distance. "Toughz dayz att worrkz?"
"The Dark Judges can't have no killin' machines walkin' about that ain't them, claiming secrets that should be ours. I'm here to make sure Jedi like yourself don't get further. Mighty fine gun you got there. Shame I'm gonna have to part you with it."
"Don'tz holdz yer breth..." Laertia snorted, leveling the cannon at him. "One channce. Fethz offz."
"Much as I would like to oblige, the will of the Dark Side is paramount...nothing personal, you see..." The Dark Judge answered politely.
His next words were added with a chuckle however.
"But...after your skin is torn from your lifeless body to mount my trophy wall...I guess it will be personal, won't it?" he asked, the chuckle at the end of his question almost a sneer.
"So who do I have the pleasure of killin'?" The Judge asked, taking a few steps forward.
"Laertia Io." Io answered.
This caused the Dark Judge to chuckle even harder.
"Thought you retired. Well this is a pleasure. I've killed me plenty of fencers, girl. But never one with such an impressive trail of corpses behind them. Unfortunately for you, I have also left a rather impressive trail of corpses. I am Kleef. Kleef Cassidan."
Laertia took a step back in undisguised apprehension.
Kleef tipped his white hat to her. "One and the same, Miss."
She knew of this one. Kleef Cassidan The Shadowtrance Man. ORC Judge. One of the finest. Blamed The Silver Jedi for the death of his colony. A malfunctioning targeting computer on one of the cruisers of a military exercise had activated the cannons and bombarded it from orbit. One in a hundred billion chance, the after accident investigators had initially concluded, until his own investigation had uncovered sabotage of the computer, an experimental one developed by an up and coming military firm by a rival developer. The Silver Jedi had arrested the sabotuer first, a man Kleef had flagged in previous reports he had compiled of being an industrial spy. Kleef wasn't in the mood for arguing jurisdictions. He had gunned him down being transported to the courthouse. The Silver Jedi had tried to arrest him, and he had gunned them down too. The man's life had been a never ending loop of the last fifteen minutes of every gun-fu flick ever since. You name it, Kleef had shot it.
Laertia's blaster cannon was trained on him. Eight shots left.
Laertia fired but the old man moved like greased lightning, and easily dodged the first two shots his Ion Relics spraying the her direction and nailing Laertia square in the shoulder, the intense power of the dark blue bolt not only piercing the admittedly thin armor but the intense ionic power knocking out her systems, including her cybernetics. Her vision went out, her robotic arm completely limp and her shoulder wasn't going to be any good for using a lightsaber to deflect, so Laertia was forced to drop the cannon and strain with all her might to teleport out of the way of the next deadly barrage of of the Ion Relics reappearing behind the toppled statue of an old Force Sage close to the gates.
Laertia controlled her breathing and adrenaline, trying to focus through the immense pain in her natural arm.
That was when the migraine started. And since the brainwave regulators in her helmet were knocked out.
Laertia collapsed in agony as her vision went red. The pain was like her skull wanted to rip itself apart. The blasts from Kleef's pistol began to rip apart the statue as she rolled around behind it clutching her head futilely. She heard his footsteps and began to desperately crawl away to a piece of the temple's outer wall. He was getting closer, running now, sensing her pain.
Laertia, grabbed a stone in desperation, seeing only his shadow through the haze of the migraine and blindly hurled it with all her might.
Kleef smirked as he caught the stone with telekinesis, casting it aside, aiming at her head. Laertia barely rolled on the ground out of the way of the shots, the pain of the migraine and the fear of death putting her in a special level of desperation and agony as she tried to stay alive. An ion shot blasted off part of her helmet, grazing her temple and burning it, exposing her now blind cyborg eye. She hefted her robotic arm with her injured one in a last ditch attempt to stay alive, the shots ment for her face impacting not only against the arm plating and blasting it off with the armorweave but pelting and chipping away parts of her cyborg arm's plating.
The migraine was gone suddenly and Laertia felt her connection to the Force come back to her. Laertia teleported, feeling her reserves run close to out as she appeared six meters above him, hitting and sprawling them both on the desert floor. She had come up with a plan. Sort of. She had a vibrosword, a retractable model, hidden in her cyber arm. It could be triggered manually in an emergency. Still, she would have to be flawless. Kleef was deadly, and she had been too injured to use the Force in a truly offensive way...except for a momentary deception.
Kleef Force Pushed Laertia backward before she could act and she was running with the armor, strafing him as she dived behind the toppled piece of temple wall she had made a break for earlier.
Kleef snarled, drew on the Dark Side, and hurled a kinetite ball at it. Laertia barely cleared it in a rolling dive as the debris was blasted apart.
"I was expecting a lot more, to be honest!" Kleef taunted, walking through the smoke. He saw Io, bleeding, standing upright. He got confused as he felt two of her, and realized he was also staring at two of her.
The pair rain towards him in a zig zag pattern arming the mechanism on her cyborg wrist. Kleef let loose a barrage at both but Laertia ran like the wind, unsettlingly quick in the armor due to her strength, the pair zig zagging faster and faster the closer they got, refusing to drawn her lightsaber to keep him guessing. Her doppelganger gave off its own signature, like flares on a fighter craft. Kleef snarled as she got closer, watched their vibroswords come out of their robot arms. Both Laertia's forced the arm into position to run him through. At the last second, she broke into a slide fifteeen meters, giving away which was the real one and Kleef focused all his fire on her as she slid low across desert ground, aiming the blade, and clicking the mechanism.
The sword fired from the arm. Kleef held out his hand to catch it but Laertia used the absolute last of her force strength to teleport the blade behind him as his hand reached out, the fired blade still holding its momentum.
The sword went right through the back of his head and exited out his forehead, burying itself a hair's breadth from her neck. He fell dead in front of her.
Laertia lay there a few minutes, panting. Her systems flickered back on, at twenty five percent efficiency. The healing tech kicked in, and discipline made Laertia rise, turning the dead body over, taking his pistols and holsters. She was in a lot of pain. But she was still mission capable.
Laertia left the dead body of the Dark Judge where he lay, having confiscated his weapons and equipment from him, as well as his orders and then, after making sure her shotgun attachment was working again, retrieved the blaster cannon and went into the temple grounds proper, her not fully working systems intermittently detecting weapons fire ahead...
(Zelda acquisition theme plays)
(New Weapon obtained!)
(New Equipment obtained)
Weapon: ION RELIC PISTOLS
Rare Ion Pistol Variants with armor piercing capabilities as well as immense Ion damage. Can be fired in limited volleys before overheating. Useless to Laertia, but perhaps her biot could make use of them. These particular models contain fifty shots a piece, but only a limited range of twenty five meters
Equipment: MEDICAL INTERFACE VISOR
Computerized headgear containing immense medical database, allowing wearer to treat either themselves or others so long as proper equipment is available. Currently useless to Laertia as she lacks medical equipment at the moment, though it could possibly aid in her Force healing attempts on herself or others
