Im tired of these games

[Valkren Calderon]

Two armor-clad Rangers yanked a bound [member="Jethro Rekali"] down one of the many corridors of the Ranger base deep within Kashyyyk. Having been stripped of all his equipment, and fitting into a rather 'fashionable' grey jumpsuit, he was escorted against his will or not to a dull room with a single chair in it.

He'd be forcefully sat down in the chair, before being left alone. The two rangers leaving the room and letting the only point of exit shut closed.

Across from the man, was the classic one-way mirror. Behind that mirror, two Ranger officers stood present, their BDU's matching each other with their grey and black patterns.

"He's just a Merc..A soldier for hire, highest bidder B.S. kinda stuff."

"I don't care if that man is the damned messiah. He's not going to leave here looking the same as he entered."

"I can't believe your suggesting that the colonel's actually going to let him leave alive at all.."

"What? You think he'd really kill the guy?"

"You don't know the colonel like I do..He's different."

"Well, no matter. It'd just be more of a mess for the enlisted to clean up. Let's get this started."

Suddenly, the intercom within the room with the single chair buzzed to life. Starting with a rather loud and elongated ear-piercing screech as the system adjusted to being brought online suddenly. The lone door to the room opened suddenly, letting a another ranger fully-armored in the Katarn combat set stroll in. The helmeted face stared ahead as it walked to the rear of the chair, behind the captive. This only gave the man a split moment to see the grey skull painted around the blue visor of the helmet.

"What is your name?" A voice pierced through the still-buzzing intercom, waiting for an answer.

 

[Jethro Rekali]

[member="Valkren Calderon"]

The screech didn't sit well. It spoke to people who knew what they were doing. The Katarn armor didn't give Jethro much of a warm fuzzy feeling either, not for the split second he saw it and certainly not after. This room, Jethro imagined, was the kind of place where Jedi minions did things their masters didn't want to know about.

Choke? Punch? Drag-and-drop? Regardless of the specifics, something was coming. Time to earn that hazard pay.

"Lawyer."

 

[Valkren Calderon]

Silence followed, absolute silence. The buzzing stopped as the intercom cut out, and for a few moments, it seemed as if nothing at all had happened.

As if the man in the chair was the only one in the room.

Suddenly, a plated fist made contact with the back of the mercenary's head. It wasn't a soft hit, either. If the man had not been preparing himself, he could have been pushed from the chair forward, and with his hands behind his back he'd have almost no way of stopping the fall besides bracing the fall with his knees.

Then, the screech resumed and the same voice came through.

"Doesn't work that way, Mate. Your name?"

[member="Jethro Rekali"]

 

[Jethro Rekali]

[member="Valkren Calderon"]

Jethro's knees hit the floor hard enough for the permacrete to bite through the jumpsuit. Well, crap.

The seeds of options flitted around under the fear. Vahla looked human but could squirm out of anything, cuffs included. The intercom might well be linked to the soldier's comlink, possibly a subvocalization pickup.

In the meantime, though, it was clear that the Silvers' grunts had no problem beating a prisoner of war to a pulp. And Vahla bones tended to break easily.

"Jethro Rekali," he said. "I was flying with an ad hoc mercenary crew. I don't know their names."

 

[Valkren Calderon]

Beyond the one-way mirror, the two officers were at work with the name that was given.

"We got anything on this, Jethro Rekali?"

"Negative on the Jethro..But holy sithspit does the Rekali name light the boards up..Crime families, Mandalorians..They stole a damn moon by the looks of it."

"A karkin' moon?"

"Yeah, sold in an auction..Wait, hold up..One of the Rekali's was a silver?"

"You're kidding me.."

"Ember Rekali..Big man with the council back in the day..Force, would you look at what this one went through."

"Send the information to the colonel, bet he could do something with it."

Back beyond the the mirror, within the room only occupied by two people, the armored soldier was busy lifting the man back into the chair, moving back behind him once more and out of sight. The voice continued after a long period of silence.

"Nice to meet you Jethro. What was your target?"

[member="Jethro Rekali"]

 

[Jethro Rekali]

[member="Valkren Calderon"]

Jethro bit back sarcasm and settled into the chair, for as long as that might last.

"The client hired us to hit an Antarian Ranger base in the mountains. It didn't have a shield dome like the Jedi Temple. We made a precise jump from Trandosha, on the other side of the system, and wound up in the upper atmosphere. Last I saw, we did minimal damage to the base, but we flooded the lower levels in melted snow and torched maybe a dozen small ships and vehicles. That was all consistent with what the client asked for."

 

[Valkren Calderon]

Suddenly, the chair was ripped out from underneath Jethro, the back of the metal object pushing up towards him so he would fall much farther forward, hoping to give him no chance to catch himself.

It was unknown to everyone but those beyond the one-way mirror, but a nerve had been struck much before Jethro had even been escorted to the room. It was true, as for the base as a whole there was very minor damage, yet a lone round that had been 'fired from the hip' so to say before a fighter had broken from the mercenary formation had struck a drop ship deep within one of the hangars. The drop ship was destroyed, to say the least.

It had killed two rangers.

Those were Valkren's rangers.

The voice cut through soon after; unseen behind the mirror one of the officers was pinching the bridge of his nose, knowing all too well that the situation in the room before them was not good.

"The client?"

[member="Jethro Rekali"]

 

[Jethro Rekali]

[member="Valkren Calderon"]

The floor scraped Jethro's face from cheekbone on up. He didn't feel it - the impact had drowned it out. Once he rolled over, though, and got his back against the wall, the road rash drowned out everything.

"I'm cooperating, karkwit." He spat half a tooth. "Client wore a mask."

The edge of the obvious one-way mirror rested against the back of his head - a very, very bad position if he got hit again. And really, it was starting to seem a lot more like 'when.' He hunched a little lower to keep that ridge off his skull.

 

[Valkren Calderon]

The features of the Katarn armor were clear now, the skull that surrounded the visor was not only painted on, but carved into the features of the helmet ever so slightly. Across the light grey patterns on the armor rested tally-marks for confirmed kills, crude drawings of Sith-like figures being impailed by a grunt with a bayonet. On the towering figure's chest plate rested what seemed to be a 'Reaper' painted on, with the words: 'Reaper of Radama' sketched above it. On the left shoulder plate, 'The Radama Raiders.'

If anyone knew anything about the Antarian Rangers, it was that this figure was Colonel Calderon.

The figure approached, the intercom voice cutting through rather hastily yet calm by the sound of it, but the man kept approaching Jethro.

"He is cooperating, sir.."

Valkren stopped before getting any closer, crouching down in front of the mercenary pilot. A different voice emitted from behind the illuminated visor of the soldier, vocoded though, incase someone wasn't to know the familiar markings of the raiders.

"Private Jeffery Stukes and Specialist Monroe Livingston. These names mean anything to you?"

[member="Jethro Rekali"]

 

[Jethro Rekali]

[member="Valkren Calderon"]

Perspective controlled the 'verse, didn't it. Out of armor, face to face, the guy behind the mask was probably the same size as Jethro. In this particular situation, that objective fact was just plain untrue. Jethro let out a long, ragged sigh as the trooper stopped short. He got some traction and stood, back pressed to the mirror.

"I'm guessing they're about to." He rolled his shoulders and bit back a groan. Feth, but the guy had done a number, and still might. Like heck would some deferent kid elsewhere keep this man from beating him to death.

"But," he said, probing a cracked tooth with his tongue, "I think I can guess what they mean to you. They're the names you'll repeat to yourself at the court-martial, and every night in jail with a hundred guys like me."

 

[Valkren Calderon]

"Man..This guy want a death sentence or something?" One of the officers behind the mirror spoke up, his eyes that were once glued to the computer screen before him were now stuck on the scene in the next room over.

"He's just trying to push Valk's buttons." Lieutenant Konrad Harris replied to the officer across from him, still rubbing the bridge of his nose as he began to look up. Just in time to, as the armored figure on the other side of the room brought his fist about to meet with the man's lower face.

"Annndd seems like he's doing a good job of it." Harris face palmed as he leaned back in his chair. The LT was actually Valkren's XO, being a part of the elite Special forces ranger group, the 'Radama Raiders,' so the man knew him probably better than anyone else on the base.

Back within the room, blood was strewn across the top plate of the colonel's right glove, his obvious preferred hand when throwing punches. The man didn't seem to mind wether it was drawn from the scrape Jethro had received while falling, or the punch he had just delivered. In all honesty, the Lieutenant wasn't sure what the Colonel was attempting to extract at this point, as he had been going over the simple list of questions that they ask any prisoner of war.

"Private Jeffery Stukes was eighteen years old, fresh out of basic. Specialist Monroe Livingston had two little girls and a wife."

He was eighteen..He had two little girls and a wife.

"One of your people killed them"

[member="Jethro Rekali"]

 

[Jethro Rekali]

[member="Valkren Calderon"]

Something went crunch as Jethro's head rocked back against the mirror. It wasn't skull.

"...one of your people killed them," the soldier finished. Made sense, far as Jethro was concerned; he'd figured it was something like that.

"Hey, I get it. I know what it's like to lose good folks." Jethro held his hands up in a disarming kind of gesture. It might have come off as more innocuous if the cuffs hadn't been dangling from one wrist.

His elbow smacked into the mirror, weakened by impact and by some careful, quiet scoring from the cuffs. A heartbeat later, Jethro tumbled into the room with Harris and company, presaged by a shower of glass.

 

[Valkren Calderon]

The young officer's eyes went wide behind his visor as they went to the dangling cuffs, moments later the mercenary pilot was already out of the soldiers area of reach, tumbling right into the observation room. From the other side, Harris witnessed as the man easily slipped the cuffs. Making the XO realize that he might not have been so much of a 'man' as they had thought. Watching as the man reared his elbow back, he had made his best efforts to tuck himself underneath the desk that their consoles and intercom systems were atop of, shielding himself from the glass and body coming toward them.

However, the officer across from him had not been so vigilant, having to return his vision to the screen ever-so-often to fact check the prisoner and check the cameras from the angles behind the colonel. Glass showered him as he attempted to cover his face, only to be plowed over by the captive flying through. Once on the ground, the man did his best not to move after taking the impact rather roughly, glass spiking him in every area of his body, causing small splotches of blood to leak through his BDU's. If he was to move anymore, he'd only cut his body up even worse.

The colonel didn't hesitate to leap through after Jethro, his plating and underweave protecting his body easily from the remaining shards of glass around the edge of the mirror. He hoped to get a grasp on him immediately, but he knew if he couldn't the Rangers in the hall would be there any moment from the commotion.

By this moment, he only wanted to know the method of payment..Knowing mercenaries usually only got half at the start, and half when the job was done so they wouldn't just bugger off when they got their first payment. Valk' hoped to track the mercenary team to their payment location, or atleast the transfer itself to find the immediate culprit.

That, and to kill the pilot in their group that had launched a missile directly into the hangar bay and killed two of his men.

[member="Jethro Rekali"]

 

[Jethro Rekali]

[member="Valkren Calderon"]

After that many blows to the head, Jethro's balance wasn't the best. He tumbled down the monitor panel and sprawled on the floor. Glass and soldiers made that an unlucky place to be, but nothing moved like a motivated Vahla. He snatched a sidearm in passing. Bleeding in a dozen places, over and above his hamburgery face, he slipped through a barely-open door.

Luck ran out immediately. In what was becoming a habit, he cursed Ra Vizsla and the Mandalorians who'd cut him off from the Force. A couple of troopers would have been no problem at all. Now, with the colonel on his heels, they constituted an unacceptable delay.

Screw it. Time for Plan F.

Jethro flicked the blaster to stun, pointed it at his head, and pulled the trigger. He promptly collapsed in a pool of blood.

 

[Valkren Calderon]

Jethro was met with two Rangers pointing their assault rippers directly at him in the corridor outside the observation room, yelling their usual lines of commands to make the mercenary drop his respected weapon. The surprise came to the pair when the pilot turned the weapon on himself, pulling the trigger. To their relief, when they approached the mangled merc they saw that there was no fatal injuries, at least for now.

Colonel Calderon came out of the room only seconds later, blaster in hand and ready for a fight, only to see the two rangers standing over a blood soaked Jethro. With a sigh, Valkren dropped his sidearm into his drop-holster, reaching up and removing his helmet from his head to reveal his facial features finally. The voice that followed was no longer vo-coded, but his own.

"He's not dead yet, is he?"

After a brief check from one of the rangers, it was confirmed that the man was still breathing.

He'd just have one hell of a head ache when he wakes up.

Soon after the commotion, Lieutenant Harris would step out whilst brushing off glass shards out of his uniform, with the other officer limping out behind him. Harris looked to one of the rangers that was on guard, speaking up as he pulled a tiny shard out from the top layer of the skin on his hand.

"Get some medics down here, we need to patch this one up before we put him into isolation."

"I want to know just what this thing has up its sleeves, and make sure it's not an isolation unit with this karkin' one-way mirror thing. Cameras are all we need."

"What are you planning to get from this guy?" Harris questioned, placing his hands on his hips as the puddle of blood began to lick at the tips of his combat boots.

"They had to get paid somehow, and with them originating on the edge of Imperial space, I'm sure we can narrow down where the payment came from..And where his 'ad hoc' team is. Oh, and contact the grandmaster before I put a slug in his head myself." Valkren tucked the helmet underneath his arm, turning to go prepare the isolation unit. Lieutenant Harris and the officer exchanged unsure glances with one another.

"Right..Let's get this SOB up and cleaned up little before Kitra gets eyes on him. Oh, and keep a heavy guard element on him, will ya mate?" He patted the injured officer on the back, only making him wince more before he moved to catch up to Valkren.

[member="Jethro Rekali"] | [member="Valae Kitra"]

 

[Valae Heavenshield]

Following the attack on the Antarian Ranger base, Grandmaster Kitra had been briefed and given reports. Luckily, there had been forces both on the ground and in the air. From what she could gather, damage had been minimal. But… a couple of casualty reports had been given to her. In her office, she heaved quite a heavy sigh. She would need to prepare to have this sad news delivered to the families of the two fallen soldiers. The Order would see to them now, even if it was no substitute for their loved ones.

Her eyes were drawn up towards her door as it cracked open, and an aide popped her head in.

“Ma’am, Colonel Calderon would like to speak with you – at the base.”

Valae’s lips pressed together into a thin line. “Very well.” She nodded, and gathered her robes. In a matter of moments, she was on her way over towards the mountain base. There were still signs of the attack, but they were swiftly being cleaned away. The Silvers had seen their share of troubles, but they always did bounce back. Escorted inside, she soon found herself being taken down the many corridors until she reached an observation room… or what was left of it.

There was glass on the floor and there was… blood.

“What happened here?” She asked, eyes searching the faces of the soldiers that remained. None of them answered, but their eyes shifted down.

“You ought to speak with the Colonel about that.” A man answered finally.

Things between Valae and Valkren were still rather tense. It wasn’t that they disliked each other; at least Valae still liked him. But she knew that the Colonel still held some resentment towards her, feelings that had been left over from the days following Mirial. It was a friendship that needed to be repaired, but this moment was probably not the time. As the Grandmaster was brought outside the isolation chamber, she paused just before the door, where she would wait for an explanation.

[member="Valkren Calderon"], [member="Jethro Rekali"]

 

[Jethro Rekali]

[member="Valkren Calderon"] [member="Valae Kitra"]

Jethro Rekali had felt better. The isolation chamber wasn't the warmest cell he'd spent time. Bandages decorated half his face and a good fraction of his body. He'd contorted his body into a kneeling meditation posture, arms outstretched, palms up. Though he'd been cut off from the Force, the old pelko-seer Oren Beorn's lessons stayed relevant. Pain could serve to focus the mind, clear out distractions, hone purpose. Those were the principles of the Calypho school - the ones that didn't require the Force to be useful, anyway.

The isolation chamber was virtually soundproof. Still, he heard a quiet shuffle of movement outside. The colonel? A superior? Another medic? No telling.

 

[Valkren Calderon]

Colonel Calderon stepped out of the observation room across from the isolation chamber that Jethro had now been placed in, he stood tall in front of Valae as he stopped his motion. Valkren was still in his Katarn armor, and honestly it had been quite some time since Valae had seen him in anything else but this armor. With his helmet tucked underneath his arm, he'd snap off a crisp salute, blood splatters visible on the gloved hand that he presented the salute with.

This was the most formal he had been with Kitra in quite some time, considering how close they had once been. After a moment of holding it, he'd return the same hand behind his back, seemingly staring through Val rather than at her.

"Grandmaster, one of the hostile pilots that took the the skies above our base was taken down by a fighter of our own. After ranger patrols acquired him captive and secured his equipment, he was brought here to me."

Valkren paused before saying this next statement, knowing he couldn't very well lie to his old friend, but there was a look in his eye that almost made it seem like he wanted to. Yet, he couldn't.

"After going over the first rounds of questioning asked to any 'prisoner of war,' Jethro Rekali attempted to escape. It was during this escape in which he turned a weapon on himself and chose to stun himself, Ma'am." He couldn't believe the words coming out of his mouth, it sounded as if he was speaking to his drill sergeant back in the republic. How long could he keep this resentment up?

Within the observation room, Lieutenant Harris leaned back in his chair once more, now much more comfortable staring up at camera screens instead of through a one-way mirror. The officer that had previously been tackled by the pilot and a heap of glass soon entered, bandages in almost every visible spot on his hands and arms.

Harris began to say something, before the other officer just held up a hand.

"Don't you say a damn word, Lieutenant..Or else I'm throwing you in there with the mercenary."

Konrad could only produce a chuckle after this statement.

[member="Jethro Rekali"] | [member="Valae Kitra"]

 

[Valae Heavenshield]

Valae’s brows arched in what could have been a greeting, and she watched as Colonel Calderon saluted. She wasn’t a military woman, she wasn’t used to it. Giving him a small nod, she looked up to the armor-clad man before her. As she attempted to meet his gaze, she noticed that his hard stare seemed to go straight off into the space behind her. Upon hearing that one of the hostile pilots had been captured and brought here to the base, the Grandmaster chewed her cheek.

As she continued to listen, the pieces came together. The shards of glass and the blood on the floor must surely have been left over from this escape attempt. However, the red the marked the Colonel’s right glove had not gone unnoticed by Valae.

“I see,” She said, a hand rose to cradle her chin in thought. “Thank you for the information, Colonel.” She said, her voice a bit distant. “I’d like to see the man.”

Gaze shifting away from Valkren, she moved on past him and then to the door. Those standing guard saw to the locks and allowed the Grandmaster to enter. Before slipping inside, she nodded for the Colonel to come along. Her gaze found the bandaged form of their captive, the sight of him kneeling in such a way was surprising. It certainly didn’t look to be a very comfortable pose, but she shook the thought away.

“Jethro Rekali, I presume?” She spoke, the warmth in her voice likely a strong contrast to the Colonel’s. “My name is Valae Kitra, I am the Grandmaster of the Silver Jedi.” The woman gave him a nod, she figured that there was no reason to try and hide her identity – it really wasn’t her way.

Giving Jethro a once over, she could both see and feel the wounds he had suffered.

It was true that the Colonel’s ways and methods were much different from her own. After all, she was not a soldier or a fighter, but a healer at heart.

“Mr. Rekali, I’d like a word with you… if you don’t mind.” She started, “Tell me, what motivated this attack?”

She had a hunch, but she still wanted to hear the man’s answer.

[member="Valkren Calderon"] | [member="Jethro Rekali"]

 

[Jethro Rekali]

[member="Valae Kitra"]

Jethro stood, not easily, and put his back against the wall. She'd brought in the colonel, and that sent a clear message or two. Without ceremony, Jethro started removing the bandages on his face.

"I have a deal for you, Grandmaster," he said, once the air stung open wounds. "You'll probably take it, or something like it. You review the holorecordings of my interrogation and the records related to my capture. When you're done, you come back here with a small army of rangers or Jedi, whatever you need to feel secure, minus the man who tortured me for personal reasons.

"You do those two things and I'll do two things in return. I'll tell you everything there is to know, and I'll leave you, personally, out of the consequences of what happened today. That seems fair to me, and I think you'll find it fair too."