Lothal's Cooking Tonight

[The Major]

Capitol City
Day 0

As with the most tragic of circumstances surrounding the struggle of survival there was always a matter of preamble —the forming of a storm as some likened it— only in this case there was no random formation of nature proceeding with the basic, compounding arithmetic that caused conjoining particles to eventually make a cyclone. Instead, the mechanical madness that rewarded such frenzied kind of individualism resulted in leaps of pragmatism whose cathartic calculus of cruelty only could be matched by its heretical hideousness.

Still, they thought it grand scheme —one that ultimately lead to the promised land of galactic freedom.

So it was that certain wheels turned in an expedited, exponential manner —for such was the design of the scheme. Capitol City’s multiple reservoirs where tainted with one half of a specific compound that would eventually ensure the doom of many.

Day 14

The Ketal strain served as an excellent template for this particular experiment. Modified and mutated while most of the civilian government and Security Bureau were distracted with the more pressing concerns provided by the Foreign Office’s mandate, this engineered monstrosity made an excellent weapon of terror. Now having spread out succificently through Capitol City’s population via means of water contamination, the brilliance of this strain relied on its nascent asymptomatic but highly infectious state; the vile thing accomplished more after being spread from its waterborne source into a host as the virus morphed to produce an excess of tiny droplets in the lungs which more easily transmitted via something as simple as speaking near another. Naturally, humans and near-human species were quite fond of breathing. Since Lothal’s forceful annexation into the First Order the city was filled with them.

Despite the virus’ ability to fly under the proverbial radar, this day marked the first day a medical professional in one of the city’s hospital made note of the strange alteration of their patient’s cells, who was released after being cleared with a case of flu. After investigating the findings late into the night the same doctor coincidentally never returned to duty the next day —crippling study into cells while the facility looked into the disappearance along with filing a missing person’s report with local police. All the while, the doctor’s last projects were sadly put aside as a painfully slow process of detective work. This, of course, was a grand waste of time.

Day 16

While it would be fantastical to imagine homegrown terrorists timing the release of the second element to their dastardly plot all to a pinpoint moment in a predetermined second, in reality they just waited for the next thunderstorm to release a number odorless canisters across the rooftops of the city. Designed to thrive in wet conditions, this second half of the strain interacted with the first to begin a hostile transformation by those under the sway of the first. The storm continued for most of the day into the night.

Day 18

The municipal police force reported a record number of call outs and sick requests for time off since the beginning of the department’s stat tracking. As was natural for the job, captains and supervisors pressed as many as could be guilted to come in for duty. After all, who was going to maintain order. Although it wasn't realized until late in the day, the rest of emergency services also suffered in the same way.

Day 23

Overwhelming numbers of citizens with extreme flu like symptoms flood the emergency rooms and clinics of the both the city and surrounding area. Low on staff as first responders also arrive sick, rooms are quickly filled close to capacity and understaffed as the virus commits to its rapacious nature. Local government is informed of the rapid escalation of the situation, but requests of support are delayed for the next day when a more accurate appraisal can be made —standard policy in most cases when dealing with something as straightforward as a spreading cold. A number of cases report patients waylaid by a high fever and hallucinations.

Day 24

First fatality as result of the virus. Patient experiences severe hemorrhaging in the throat, mouth, nose and ears. This quickly repeats in a percentage of those afflicted. A more vast percentage of the infected fall into a comatose state before the bleeding begins. A second wave of those affected by the flu arrive and swiftly overtake the remaining space.

Day 25

The situation further deteriorates: late at night a passenger ship leaving Captiol City spaceport experiences a major malfunction —causing the large vessel to turn from its outbound path and careen into a building thick in the city’s center, exploding due to the force of the impact and resulting in a large fire. A meager response team cannot contain the flames supported by superheated fuel, and thousands perish as a result. Unbeknownst to those fighting for their lives, the crash is a result sabotage.

Day 26

A state of emergency is declared. The fires spread and fill Capitol City in clouds of thick, acrid smoke, plunging the city into darkness throughout the day. Local government proves completely unable to tend or contain the citizens attempting to flee the most crowded areas close to the inferno, and assistance is requested from the First Order garrison to intervene. Oddly enough, they receive information from the Security Bureau of the pandemic and are ordered by local agents to wait for support and instead set up a quarantine zone about ground zero. They are slow to muster in the response as a result of contradictory orders from higher echelons from Dosuun and Bespin. Precious time is lost.

Day 27

Cases of flu are reported in the surrounding conurbation and towns around Captiol City.

Day 28

This day would mark the soonest day reinforcements could arrive from space to aid and regain control of the situation. The emergency response mustered from across the empire would finally arrive only to find a complete breakdown of social order as the local garrison’s attempts keep those possibly infected inside the city limits, though this results in a number of violent attempts to escape the quarantine zone. Fighting and rioting can be heard along the edges of the city; meanwhile, firefighting teams struggle to control the flames threatening to make their way to the largest hospital in the city center. Realizing the danger they were in, even the police and local troops pitched in to battle the fires —all the while contending with their own ranks thinning as they fell to the flu.

For their all the gallantry on display it did little to sway the overwhelming sights and sounds: a city reduced to a sylvatic nightmare of shrieks and moans of the diseased began to pile up in every building, to the crackling of the smoldering ashes, and nauseating shade of crimson that marked the now treacherous streets.

It would be entirely easy to describe the scene as a horrid portrait of Hell. More accurately, it was one Hell of a problem for the First Order to solve.​

​

​

 

[Elena Lowe]

​

​

Stephanie Drasmin, 16.
Capital City, Lothal.
Day 28.

The apartment was silent but for her own rattling breath. The thick noisome fumes of blood and rot mingled and mixed with the heavy silence to create a perverse and unrelenting air of death. Opening a window would do nothing but let in more of the acrid smoke that filled the narrow streets in the city centre. Or it could let in yet more of the bug that had invaded the city. Not that it would matter. Everyone was already infected, that much was clear.

Stephanie rolled over, onto her back, and slowly, agonisingly, she sat up.

The movement was enough to spur a fit of chesty coughing, going on until she had no more breath, and sending flecks of bloody spittle flying through the air. She groaned. Everything hurt. She couldn't go on like this. No way. It was hopeless. They were all going to die in a storm of blood and death and sh-

No. No. She would live.

Somehow, she got to her feet, knees trembling, and looked around the apartment that had gone from a refuge from the world to her own personal nightmare in a matter of hours. Between the kitchen and the hall was her father. Once a great, hulking man, he now lay face down in a pool of his own blood, unmoving. She didn’t look, but she knew her mother was in the bedroom, still clutching Stephanie’s baby brother, both dead. It was a scene she could not bear to take in again, so she said a silent goodbye, and took a mask from the packet on the kitchen bench.

If she stayed here, she knew she’d die, knew the disease would kill her and her body would never be found, her story never told.

She headed out to the hall, moving slowly, weak and frail. Stephanie cast a look back into the building, and walked away.

 

[Huxy]

The Thing, unknown.
Capital City, Lothal.
Day 28.

A grotesque and oily black ooze was dripping from the jagged end of a broken sewer pipe above. The same disgusting and fetid liquid had been dripping from that pipe over the past month, day by day. The small liquid droplets had been gathering into an oily puddle twenty feet below the pipe, forming together a mass of black liquid in the dreary alleyway. On the twenty-eighth day of the city-wide pandemic, the dripping of the black liquid had finally ceased at last. Once the last drop had reached the writhing mass of fetid liquid below, the oily puddle began to...move. It vibrated in place as strands reached out from it. These black strands were trying to form a shape of some sort, though they would fail again and again...and again.

The oily puddle kept at this failure of trying to form a shape for a few minutes, until finally succeeding in the formation of...a leg. It was followed by another leg and then a torso. Arms soon followed that had five clawed digits. Then their was the neck, and the angular predatory head. The 'shape' it made wasn't even a geometric vessel of any sort, but a bipedal humanoid form. Is stood there, unmoving, as black rivers of liquid traveled up and down it's body making it's 'skin' appear as if it were entirely made of liquid and yet, it appeared solid as it stood on the blood-stained cobblestone alleyway.

The 'Thing' tried to take a few steps forward, keeping it's right arm on the wall closest to it. Then it collapsed into a black puddle once more as it's bipedal form gave out in haste at the slowest of movements it had tried to take. An animalistic growl emitted from the black puddle, signifying it were of some biological origin...one of unknown source and meaning in the Galaxy. Again it tried to form it's bipedal form, and again it collapsed. It continued to try and create a physical, humanoid body and yet on every repeated attempt it failed. No success was happening at all to it's futile and idiotic efforts to try and be something more than an ooze of grotesque liquid that stank of oil and the rot of flesh.

Instead of trying to form a body, the dark midnight black liquid slithered down the alleyway towards an exit into the street. It stopped short of it's destination as a middle-aged man stumbled into the alleyway with a coughing fit. Flecks of blood flew from the man's mouth as he hacked away, leaning his back up against the dirty metal wall of the alleyway...closest to the...thing, the black liquid. "Karking hell, I can't die 'ere. I need to keep on movin' I owe them that much," the raspy voice of the man spoke in a hushed tone to himself, leaning his head against the metal wall and closing his bloodshot forest green eyes. He was dying, and he would die without treatment.

At the sight of the weakened humanoid, a hunger built within the black liquid. Though it had no organs to show for it, an unquenchable hunger built in it's 'stomach' of oil and nightmares that parents would never tell their children. The puddle witnessed the man lay there, defenseless as he slowly breathed in and out, in...and out. It could tell the male was dying, it's skin was sickly pale, it's eyes bloodshot, it's fingers shaking...and the blood it was coughing out in small flecks.

The black liquid slithered towards the weak and dying man...

 

[Luther Lewis]

​

Luther Ando.
Capitol City.
Day 28.
Investigate the Call.

​

The city was dying.

He could hear the soft thud of his footsteps through the hazmat suit. He moved quickly through the city streets, through a fall of ash that was cascading down from the sky. The fires had spread far and were approaching this district. The authorities had been torn between evacuating the locals and preventing the spread of disease. The populace decided for them, breaking through the checkpoints to safe parts of the city. Only those too weak to leave were left behind, and many would die where they lay.

It was a ghost town.

- - - - -​

​

He was sweating, breathing heavily. He had narrowly avoided a group of looters, and was now crouhed down behind a hedge as they passed by. They were hooting and hollering, having the time of their life in wake of other peoples misfortune.

- - - - -​

Luther climbed the stairs of an apartment building, pausing only to check to occupant listing board. He nodded in satisifaction. This was the right place.

The door was ajar. Dark crimson blood was smeared over the doorknob. Luther pushed it open, eliciting a loud groan from the old hinges. The room was a mess, half eaten food clogging the sink, a swathe of medicine spilled onto the floor. On the wall, opposite the entrance, a man lay propped up. A blaster rifle was held weakly in his hands, the barrel shaking.

"Nice and easy now" the man said, his voice hoarse and croaky. "Take a few steps closer, lemme see what you are". Luther step forward, out of the light, the reflection off the visor vanishing. The man breathed in quickly, prompting a bout of coughing fits.

"If it isn't Luther, bloody, Ando" the man said in near disbelief. "I must be dead. I'd never thought I'd see you again". The man dropped his gun as Luther approached. "You're not dead yet, Thomas" Luther replied. He crouched down next to the man. "I'm going to get you out of here and you're going to be okay".

Thomas chuckled. "You were always a good liar, Ando, but you could never lie to me" The man groaned as he pulled himself up. He looked directly into Luther eyes. "I know you aren't here to save an old soldier like me. Why are you really here?"

| [member="The Major"] | [member="Kirie NPCs"] | [member="Ruin"] |​

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[Seto Du Couteau]

Seto Du Couteau, Ren
Location: Lothia Capital City
Objective: Explore and Search Hospital for Data

Equipment: FO-07K Multi-purpose Assault Armor | TCB-42 Infiltration Droid "Spot" | Two Light Sabers​

Perhaps at some point, Seto would write a complaint about his mission briefing for they either understate or oversell specific points of a mission detail. And for this one, it's the state of the city. Words such as "Manageable" and "Small Set-backs" made it sound something far below the young Du Couteau's qualifications. The sheer amount of dead too. Seto had not realized the staggering amount of deceased and the suffering ongoing within the city.

Seto stood several meters from the main entrance of the quarantine zone, his helmet sealed tightly and Seto's eyes kept a constant read on any breeches within his suit. Eyes narrowed, he watched the movements of the Garrison forces patrolling the outer zones of the quarantine as sounds of distant battle and clashes could be heard. Such attempts of armed retaliation had not been the greatest thing to attempt against the First Order, Seto had participated with the planet's invasion months ago. But, this place certainly had its issues.

If recalled correctly, there had been a very strong residence group, even with the extermination of the majority of the major cells and leaders. Seto mused that the planet presented itself as a nasty thorn for the First Order. Trim the thorn and simply watch it grow back, but Seto had very little desire to be the one to trim away this thorn. Reports continued to flood the Comm Officers, and it had been a miracle to even get some semblance of control over the city.

This plague, Seto now referred the sickness as, unnerved him greatly as its diagnosis worried him, while its prognosis showed a rather grotesque fate. His feet moved Seto towards the entrance, the guards nodded and allowed Seto to enter the city through the checkpoint.

The rioters and infected had slowly moved away this point, the scores of dead that littered the fierce defense told a rather grim tale. The young Du Couteau continued on his way, a few teams had been sent ahead of him, and it would do no good if any of them died before they both completed and debriefed their mission.

Spot, his droid, floated up ahead and engaged its scanners and Data relay tool, while important to subdue the citizens of Lothal's capital city, Seto for the most part wished to avoid as many rioters and criminals as possible. Comms traffic flooded into his droid's systems, and quickly it ciphered anything of importance and relayed it to its master. Seto kept his Force sense as close to himself, the sheer amount of sick and dead proved a tad nauseating.

Seto moved across the street and dodged the occasional group of hostiles, for the moment his target was a hospital, even if it came to pass that it's a looted graveyard with the infected dead, Seto tasked himself to find information.

The deeper he moved into the city, Seto felt more people and he attempted to ignore as much of them as possible. Never trained to seal off his connection to the Force, in fact he trained the opposite. He needed to sense the emotions of those around, for either at a Sabacc table or if he needed to weed out potential traitors and enemies.

A father looked downwards to the street, several stories up as he felt the loss of his family grow heavy on his shoulders.

A woman slowly allowed herself to fade away, as gentle as her death could be with her illness forcing her into unconsciousness.

A pair of young children wondered when their parents would wake up from inside the bedroom and tell them they aren't sick anymore.

Stopped for a moment, Seto breathed deeply and scanned around, he felt determination from somewhere, a reprieve from his relentless search with the Force. With a city gone to chaos, those with determination or drive, in Seto's opinion either wished to save the city or wishes to take advantage. And I wonder what is driving this individual. He had a bit a ways before he reached the hospital, but he needed to divert his attention towards something else.

[member="The Major"] | [member="Kirie NPCs"] | [member="Ruin"] | [member="Luther Ando"]

 

[Prennis Keeoli]

Aes’ona Terrani, 34.
Capitol City.
Day 28.
Contain and treat.

Spoiler

| Code: Black [hospital overflow] |
| Team Status |
Terrani - Healthy
Launderslaug - Healthy
Madine - Healthy
Haasan - Healthy
Rudmo - Healthy
Laurent - Healthy

Theme: Heart of a Volunteer​

/ [member="The Major"] | [member="Kirie NPCs"] | [member="Ruin"] | [member="Luther Ando"] | [member="Seto Du Couteau"] \​

†††​

Doctor Terrani jogged down the overcrowded hall toward the barricaded main hospital pharmacy. At the door, she flashed her identification card and the riot troopers let her in.

“Oral drugs, oral drugs, oral drugs…” she thought aloud as she scanned over shelf labels. The large repository was almost as overflowed as the wards because all of the hospital’s medications being moved here. It had been a tactical move carried out by the troopers, but it was good for the remaining doctors too. Easy to guard and easy to locate. Plus the troopers had actually kept everything relatively organized. A win-win.

Finally, she found the designated area and exclaimed, “A-ha!” Now just to find fludrocortisone, and some sort of antifibrinolytic from the injection section. Those took longer to find. She only grabbed one bottle of each to conduct this experiment of sorts. Was it malpractice? Probably. Did she care? Not particularly, in this situation, no. There wasn’t enough staff or enough time to run all the preliminary tests that she would like to.

A makeshift cure was all she could manage while Madine saw to the possibility of a vaccine.

Was it really makeshift, though? A blood pressure stabilizer and clot-promoter seemed to be a perfect concoction.

Wait. Maybe a cough tropical. To combat the coughing fits. Where’s external use?

She placed the drugs into the pockets of her lab coat hanging over her Nehemiah decontamination suit and hurried back to the ICU where she had left Launderslaug treating Jit Lurechia. Upon entering, she nodded at her assistant who had furrowed his brow at her behind the visor of his helmet. He didn’t look at all confident--in the overall situation, not necessarily in regards to her plan.

“Do...c?" the sickly man struggled to ask.

Terrani paused, slowly letting go of the pill bottle and removing her hand from her coat. She bit her lip and glanced over at Launderslaug again. This time it was him who gave a nod, sympathetic rather than hopeful.

Now it was clearer to her. Not that Jit had worsened considerably in the minutes that she was gone, but something clicked in Terrani now that she had returned. Her fantastical delusion that she could, not save everyone, but at least offer them all some comfort before they passed suddenly gave way to sobering reality:

Jit was too far gone. His skin was ghostly pale, his eyes glossed over. His chin and cheeks were covered in his own blood, dried and fresh. He wouldn't make it, no matter how hard Terrani tried to ward off the inevitable.

"A word," she muttered before stepping out of the room, followed grimly by the male doctor.

"Terr--"

Terrani cut him off, turning around. "Find a bottle of iodine. Assess pronounced symptoms and mark the intakes with the highest chances of survival." She pointed behind him. "Start over there. Work towards me. Go!"

 

[Eisenweber]

TK-0023, "Lothia"
Lothal Surface, Capitol City, Near Capitol Hospital
Day #: 29

Heaving the coughs violently out from lungs with crimson blood spluttering against helmet's interior while desperately struggling with a Citizen for her weapon, Lothia successfully throws the Blaster Rifle straight into the man's face causing him to stagger rearwards with his hands around what had been but a few seconds earlier the Stormtrooper's principle weapon giving her enough time to produce a service pistol from right thigh rig and threatening the rabid Human Man with its' barrel. "I will shoot you!" It was half-warning half-plea to the heavens for a semblance of sanity. Surrounded by a circle of Lothal natives brandishing all manner of melee weapons the woman has found herself cornered trapped with a horrifying choice; shoot her countrymen and live or hesitate and be grievously injured or worse, killed.

"Come ere' love, try it!" The man moved to turn the rifle back against its' master Lothia and she swiftly placed three shots precisely onto his body; two straight over the heart that forced him to recoil back with a blood-curdling raspy shriek before the final shot silences the man after whistling out the back of his throat. Throwing the depleted Blaster Pistol clear of her hands while pivoting gracefully on her heels, Lothia delivers a swift punch to the first would be attacker's jaw forcing him to recoil back collapsing down onto the crimson-painted street clenching at his chin in shock at it felt like it hung loosely from his face. "Gah!" Lothia's knuckles cracked under the strike opting to smash her boot into the temple of that next assailant.

A weight pushes down across her abdomen and hips feeling her body rise high into the air before being brought down and smashing down into a large pothole pushing the air straight out of Lothia's lungs, instinctively she raises right-knee up obstructing the man from securing a firm grip down over her throat. "You're killing your own!?" Lothia appeals to the man's sense of community with her plea, feeling the man drop his weight down atop her knee in an attempt to overcome it and secure a hold over the woman's lifeline. The homicidal and desperate gaze cast down from beige eyes remains unflinchingly focused on their task, in a painstakingly slow speed she struggles to secure a grip around a screwdriver with a bent proboscis from the ashphalt road before placing one hand on the man's nape so he couldn't pull away before burying the acute steel rod into his muddy lense down to the azure-coloured handle.

Bestial is the howl that rolls down the debris, corpse and blood covered street as the man jolts up and back clasping at his face prompting those compatriots to lunge forward furiously brandishing all manner of melee instruments as the crater's occupant rises, a steel Spade slams straight into Lothia's ribs and her body bends over it barely managing to bury her Vibroknife into the man's femoral artery as he strikes. A sanguine stream begins squirting viscerally against the sylvanic street's surface with Lothia falling atop the street, clutching her abdomen loosely panting and out of options or ideas with only Satyek left to chance she manages to release a sharp whistle just before a foot slams down over clavicle obstructing the Sergeant's desperate and sickly rasps that brought air in and out of lungs, instinctively her hands clutch immediately at the fetid running shoe that all but closed off her connection to life with her short fingers trying precariously to raise that masculine weight. "You'll beg to die before the end, witch!" He curses the Stormtrooper woman for his dying comrades, glancing over towards two corpses and the third victim of that preturnatural display of relaxes who lay helpless as the men absent first aid or any medical training try to help in vain as his circulatory system empties its' contents over the street's canvas.

[member="Dr. Aes'ona Terrani"], [member="Seto Du Couteau"], [member="Luther Ando"], [member="Ruin"], [member="Kirie NPCs"]

 

[Huxy]

[member="TK-0023"] | [member="Dr. Aes'ona Terrani"] | [member="Seto Du Couteau"] | [member="Luther Ando"] | [member="Kirie NPCs"] |[member="The Major"]

The Thing, unknown.
Capital City, Lothal.
Day 28.

The oily black liquid creeped slowly towards the man, slithering across the hills and valleys of the cobblestone that made up the ground of the alleyway. It's onyx surface grew and then contracted in on it's self as it moved among the rough cobblestone, propelling it's 'body' of liquid forwards through the contraction and extension of it's body. The biological creature stopped abruptly when the man sat up against the wall, hesitating as it's body flattened against the cobblestone. When it's oily body flattened against the rocks, it gave a shiny black sheen to the ground like a blanket made of blank, voidless fabric had been laid across it. The middle-aged man, however didn't even notice the creature. He was too preoccupied with resting his eyes and holding a hand to his nose from where small droplets of crimson fell onto the man's moon-white skin.

The man had made his death certain when the hand which had gone to his nose fell onto the cobblestone closest to the black mass of creeping, oily liquid. Warm blood dripped from the male's fingertips and palm, splashing onto the cobblestone below. The black sheet against the ground jerked forwards out of a predatory need to feed due to the close presence of blood. Gathering it's self together once more, the black mass inched forwards and seemed to 'suck' up the man's blood instantly as it glided over it. It's body convulsed and vibrated once the blood had entered it's body, it moved suddenly and quickly towards the man at the first taste of the blood. Although disease, the blood filled the puddle's aching need to feed on a biological source of food. And it wasn't done feeding yet.

The man unleashed a loud scream of pure adrenaline filled fear and prevalence of the soul and his life as soon as he felt and then saw the black liquid move up his hand and then his arm. The oily substance of apparent living origin clenched to the man's skin as it rode up it's fingers and forearm though it left no marks in it's wake. The sporadic movements it made didn't cause harm to the man's physical body, let it taxed his mind heavily on the verge of insanity and pure, adulterated tension for his own life. The sickly pale man swatted at the black creature with his left hand, but nothing came of it. When his fingers came down on the black mass, the liquid just seeped through the opening between his knuckles and fingers to travel up his arm at a breakneck pace. Nothing was stopping this creature, it's need to feed at this most precious and prevalent moment in it's 'life' was unmatched and immovable even by the frantic movements of a man who was dying.

In an instant, however, the creature had reached the man's face. A guttural scream launched from the man...as the liquid seeped into the man's mouth, throat and then into his entire being. The man's hands shot to his throat as he began to choke on something, though the he was ensuring himself and repeating to himself that the illness was just clogging up his throat and causing random bleeding. It wasn't a comforting thought, though it gave the man an excuse to explain what had happened. At that, however, all panic was lost. The man was traumatized by the sheer thing that the...thing had done. Yet, he denied it had ever happened. He was just seeing things due to the illness, of course. Any sign of that black liquid mass was gone now, though the middle-aged male didn't want to stay in the alleyway any longer. He stood up on shaking and aching knees before going back out into the street with puffy, blood-shot eyes and beady droplets of sweat gathering on his forehead. He felt a weight in his body, one that made it harder for him to walk and made each step take more effort than the previous...though he just told himself it was...the illness. Then, he began to walk down the street...

 

[Sor-Jan Xantha]

Location: Capital City Spaceport
Gear: Sith Spellbook | Lightsaber | Robes | Howlys
Objective: Obtain a sample of the virus for the Sith Empire

[ Darth Lolcat's Theme ]​

​

The Sith vessel descended through the clouds, an ill omen among an already ominous situation.

Ostensibly, the Sith-Imperial courier arrived bearing additional supplies and medical equipment on behalf of the Sith Empire for use in aiding the First Order through the present crisis, but few would believe such a thin narrative.

To be certain, the courier was packed with medical supplies. An infusion of opiates to help numb the effects of the disease and apply an analgesic to the hysteria gripping the masses as death swept like a modern plague across the planet. Which is what made it interesting.

Interesting enough to attract the attention of his masters, which is why the young acolyte was here. Meanwhile, at the Legion of Doom, Jorah was off on Tython providing support to the Sith interests there. And no doubt having a great deal of fun hacking and slashing about with his lightsaber.

As the loading ramp lowered, the cat-eared figure in the distinctive dark robe of the Sith emerged. The youngling was flanked on either side by Prophets of the Dark Side, adherents of the cult that formed the fanatical base of the Sith Empire's power. A large, silver cylinder bounced against the child's hip as he walked out from under the shadow of the raptor-like courier.

From beneath the cowl of the hood, amber catseye pupils gazed like a solitary predator across the Lothal skyline. A smoky, raven-like creature was perched atop the youngling's shoulder -- a being neither alive nor dead, nor of the natural world. It was a creation of Sith alchemy. A fact that only served to underscore the unnatural aura that radiated from the otherwise innocent looking youth.

The boy's arm extended forward. The Dark Side of the Force seemed to swirl around the child, as a mosquito like insect became trapped in the air just above the child's outstretched palm. Bringing the insect closer for inspection, the boy turned to pass the bug off to one of the adherents in his entourage. "Some form of bloodfly," the young acolyte noted coldly.

"They may be part of how the disease is spreading."

Sometimes the smallest things were the source of the greatest evil...