Life, The Overrated Phenomena

[Darth Ayra]

Life, The Overrated Phenomena​

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Outer Rim Territories, Kanz sector;
MZX32905 system, the Home;
Skyhook.

Releasing the docking clamps, the Initium was flung in a spearhead velocity towards the Skyhook, it's ion engines engaging and compensating for the gravitational flux created by the asteroid below, as it continued it's flight through the void of space. When the shuttle clamped onto the docking port to the Skyhook, the ship's engines died down and so too did the instruments that rested below the nefarious gaze of Darth Vupua. As the crimson hue settled over the Sith Lord, replacing the yellow artificial lights from where the ship had been active before, Vupua stood up to her feet and swept away the fatigue that had plagued her for the last few hours of the journey to the Home.

Making her way out of the cockpit, Vupua turned a corner and selected the Sith robe she had discarded upon one of the Initium's seats. Throwing the cloak back over her petite frame, the Sith then selected the tome that had been sitting beneath the robe and hooked it beneath her arm, before turning to the shuttle bay doors. Lifting her free hand to the key pad, Vupua entered her security codes and waited. A bleep and red light fired up after the code had been registered. The shuttle bay doors opened, revealing the hallway that connected the Initium to the station it had just docked onto. Lowering her head, Vupua climbed into the hallway and walked forward, approaching another set of doors.

She waited patiently, as the Skyhook scanned her. If she was an intruder, as in someone that the Skyhook did not recognize, then the blast doors that prevented her from entering the ship would remain sealed shut. Furthermore, the station was disengage it's docking procedures, consequentially retracting it's docking clamps away from the intruders ship. In such an event, the intruder would likely be exposed to the vacuum of space, if they hadn't prepared for such an eventuality by boarding with some kind of suit that could protect them from such harsh conditions. It was one of the many security perimeters Darth Ayra had thought up with, so as to protect her research into Lightsaber crystals, which she conducted on board the Skyhook.

But Darth Vupua was no intruder, and when the Skyhook registered as much, the blast doors ahead opened, retracting up and down so as to allow the Sith Lord entry into the station. Pausing at the threshold of the Skyhook, Vupua took a deep breath, readying herself for work.

 

[Darth Ayra]

The Sorcerers of Tund were a group of Pureblood Sith that had splintered and broken away from the ancient Sith Empire during a conflict known as the Great Hyperspace War. This was Darth Vupua's rudimentary understanding of how the Sorcerers had come to be, but the historical reference was lost on her simply due to the lack of information that had been saved or recorded before the Four-Hundred Year Darkness. Her knowledge of the Sorcerers brief history was due to the discovery of a library of tomes and books that the Sorcerers had left behind following their destruction. After funding the dig to unearth the library, using the funds left behind by the business machinations of her late Master, Vupua had murdered the archeologists and stole the contents of the library for her own study and use.

Vupua assumed that the library had been long lost even prior to the Gulag virus had that plagued the galaxy for over four centuries, and that whatever event that had caused the Sorcerers to disappear had been so sudden that the event had not been recorded. The historical ramifications of the Sorcerers of Tund were not what Vupua was interested in, and if she was honest, she felt that having read the brief tidbits of history that had survived the eons was a complete waste of time. After all, who cared?

What had caught Vupua's attention was the knowledge that the Sorcerers had possessed. It was why she had funded the dig in the first place. Although she cared not for their history, Vupua at least acknowledged that the Sorcerers had once been a sect of powerful dark side users, and where there were those that practiced the dark side came the freedom of knowledge and discovery. The tomes she had read revealed rudimentary understanding of the ability to cast Force Illusions on others, although in comparison to the Holocron of Heresies, the Sorcerers lacked what Andeddu had known about the dark side of the Force.

But what brought Vupua out all this way to the far reaches of the known galaxy was the formulae and calculus that the authors of some tomes and books had recorded, indicating to the discovery of a substance- a weapon- that might have proven to be quite devastating. Ayra, who had poured so much of her resources into the construction of this station, had built this place for scientific inquiry. So, her Apprentice had come here to inquire deeper into the Sorcerers great scientific discoveries.

 

[Darth Ayra]

After stealing the contents of the library on Tund, Darth Vupua had transcribed what she could translate and understand into a tome herself, cataloging the historical references that the Sorcerers had written about their formation; the instructions on how to cast a Force Illusion; and the formulae and calculus that indicated to some kind of weapon that the Sorcerers had once built. After reviewing her own tome and the transcription of the Sorcerers text, Vupua learned that the formulae and calculus she had discovered was in direct correlation to the mention of a electromagnetic torpedo, to which she interpreted to be the weapon that the Sorcerers of Tund kept referencing in their own books.

Within the span of one week, Vupua had referenced the formulae and calculus she had discovered on Tund with the leading scientific journals of the day, in combination with the notes of her own Master. It helped that she had once been trained to be a Jedi Knight, meaning that she possessed instinctive investigative qualities that were only heightened by her powers in the dark side, which reacted naturally with her instincts and emotions. After completing her research, Vupua believed that she had reached an understanding. The foundation for her own weapon was there, and she would build upon it.

 

[Darth Ayra]

The Apocrypha of the Horde was a Sith Holocron that was constructed by Cassandra Cinthra, the alias of a Sith Lord named Darth Pandeima. Pandeima had been the Sith Master to Darth Ayra, who had taught Vupua in the ways of the dark side as her own Apprentice. The contents of the Holocron detailed a complete encyclopedia on a species known as the Vong, to which Vupua understood to be an ancient race of aliens that had invaded the galaxy centuries ago, and were defeated by the Jedi.

The Holocron floated before the Sith Lord as she meditated deeply on the dark side. The gatekeeper of the Apocrypha spoke, telling Vupua of an alliance known as the Techari, a sub-sect of the Horde that believed that they could conquer life and death through their pursuits of technology. Vupua shook her head, aware that immortality was a fools errand. To believe oneself immortal is to invite their own destruction, echoed the words of Darth Ayra. It was the Technovirus, however, that had made Vupua bring the Holocron out of the hidden compartment she had been hiding it in board the Initium.

What if the scientific journals of the Sorcerers of Tund, left behind and transcribed by Darth Vupua, could be used as a platform to create a new weapon that incorporated the devastating effects of the Technovirus? A delivery system, with a yield powerful enough to spread the Technovirus across an entire world? The possibility enticed Darth Vupua, and with the Apocrypha of the Horde beside her, she endeavored to create such a weapon.

 

[Darth Ayra]

Synthesizing a sample of the Technovirus had proven to be a difficult matter, that had taken some weeks to accomplish. The Apocrypha to the Horde indicated that such a sample could be discovered on the world of Tython, found within the Deep Core region of the galaxy. Vupua knew the world well, and was shocked to discover that such a weapon could be found on a world that was so deep and rich in the history of the Jedi Order. Rather than put herself at risk, Vupua had hired a group of mercenaries in the Outer Rim World of Kessel to find, capture and bring to her a Technobeast for her to study.

Weeks later, the group had arrived at the Home with the Technobeast. Their endeavor to capture the mutant had resulted in several causalities, Vupua had learned. The leader of the group explained that because of the causalities he had endured, she would have to pay more than what had been originally agreed, so as to compensate him and his men for their losses. Vupua had agreed, an elaborate deception designed to bring the men on board her station, for the Sith Lord had never intended for the mercenaries to leave the MZX32905 system once they arrived, less she risk the location of the Home and her Skyhook being leaked to her enemies.

The scuffle that had broken out between the mercenaries and the Sith Lord had been swift. Upon arrival, the men had delivered the Technobeast inside of a laser fenced cage they had erected to hold it, safe from the contamination of the Technovirus, with thanks to the information they had been given alongside the job Vupua had hired them to do. When the Sith knew that her Technobeast had been secured on board the Skyhook, she had unhooked her Saberstaff and quickly cut down each of the men, whom were no match for her prowess. When Vupua was done with her murder, she had jettisoned the mercs out of one of the Skyhook's cargo hatches, leaving their bodies to float aimlessly through the void of space.

 

[Darth Ayra]

Having studied what the Apocrypha of the Horde had on the Technovirus, Vupua was aware that if she was exposed to the pathogen then there would be no return. She would meet a similar fate to [member="Darth Ayra"], who had been infected with the Orbalisk parasites during a expedition to discover Freedon Nadd's Sith Holocron on Dxun. There was no cure to the Technovirus, none of which she or the gatekeeper were aware of. So removing a sample of the Nanogene spore from the Technobeast she had had delivered was extremely difficult, and had required an immense amount of concentration.

In the end, Vupua had decided that she hadn't needed the mutant to be alive in order to successfully synthesize the pathogen, and had killed the Technobeast to make life easier. After successfully removing the pathogen for the dead mutant, Vupua had begun to study it and match it together with the scientific method she had learned from the Sorcerers of Tund. What followed was the beginning of a plan to create the equivalent to the electromagnetic torpedo, but instead of the "green fire" that Rokur Gepta had stored inside, the torpedo she would create would spread the Technovirus instead.

If synthesizing the Nanogene spore had been difficult, then Vupua could have only imagined how difficult it would be to replicate the gene itself. But that was the next step of her plan to create her ultimate weapon to destroy the Jedi.