Faction Mission to Tython (THR/TJO)

[Jared Starchaser]

Jedi in barely a name. Jared knew what he was, but to the rest of the galaxy, he sometimes came across as a Jedi. Shadow, or Sentinel, at best. He was definitely his father’s son. That was why he was out here. Coming to help the Jedi take back what was theirs on Tython. Starchasers were explorers, tomb raiders, fortune finders, after all. A bit of relic reclamation? That was just a normal day.

Landing the Pulsar he just was hoping to stay off the radar for a long enough time to get some leg room from the ship. He had arranged to meet with Aiden Porte here, and whoever else the High Republic would send. He was all for helping other Jedi. He wasn’t quite a Jedi, but based on his skills? He was somewhere near Master, he’d say.

But who was asking him?

Looking to the droid, Hopper confirmed he was at the rendezvous point, and that the temple was over the next rise. Survey droids had been moving through this path, but it wasn’t a true concern of Jared’s he’d been the type to sneak around.

 

[Korda Veydran]

(wrong thread mb)

 

[Kael Varnok]

The gunship, an old LAAT/I, shuddered as it broke atmosphere, the roar of its engines fading beneath the weight of wind and heat. Inside, the troop bay was empty but for one man — scarred, silent, and stripped down to the barest semblance of armor.


Kael stood in the red emergency glow, sweat clinging to skin marked by old burns and blade lines. His boots, belt, and wrapped forearms were all that remained of a soldier's kit; everything else had been left behind. His lightsabers hung from his belt, twin weights of memory and purpose. The only thing that still resembled protection was the helmet — old, pitted, its surface etched with carbon scoring and war dust that never quite washed off.

The pilot's voice cracked through the static. "We're over the ridge. Signal puts your contact down there, west of the old temple. Weather's eating the sensors alive."

"Doesn't matter," Kael said, his tone quiet, like he was answering himself. "I'll find him."

He stepped toward the open ramp. No harness. No repulsor gear. Just the storm — and gravity waiting like an old friend.

For a long moment, he stood there, looking down through the haze. Tython's surface stretched beneath him — ancient, scarred, familiar in a way that made his chest ache. A thousand worlds, a thousand drops, and yet this one felt heavier.

He didn't jump. He just leaned forward, and let the planet take him.

Wind tore at his skin, flattening breath against his chest as the ground rushed up to meet him. He didn't fight it. The years of war had already stripped away the fear of falling — this was just another descent into the unknown.

At the last heartbeat, his hand came up, palm open. The Force rose with him — a soft, invisible pressure slowing his plunge until he struck the earth with a whisper instead of a scream. Dust billowed around him, curling away from the invisible field that faded as he straightened.

Kael stood still, letting the world settle. His body ached, his scars burned, and somewhere deep in the Force, he felt the echo of something old watching.

He exhaled, low and even, before thumbing his comm. "Starchaser, this is Kael. You're off-course. I'm groundside. If you can hear me — light a beacon."

Static. Then silence.


He turned toward the ridge, toward the temple half-lost to the mist, and began to walk — a solitary figure in the ruins of a faith that had never quite forgiven him.

Aiden Porte Jared Starchaser

 

[Aiden Porte]

Jared Starchaser Kael Varnok
​

Aiden felt the air before he saw the ship.

Tython's wind carried memory of temples reborn and long-silent stones that hummed faintly with the Force. His boots pressed into the ochre dust, soft beneath the roots of ancient trees, while the horizon shimmered with heat. The Pulse of the world was quiet, but alive. It recognized the presence of those who still listened.

He stood with his cloak drawn close, hand resting lightly against the pommel of his saber, not from fear but reverence. It was strange, standing once again where the Order had first taken shape where Jedi had wrestled with balance before the word even meant what it did now. He could feel them, faint echoes of the first Masters, drifting through the canyons and ruins like the remnants of an old hymn.

Then came the sound a familiar thrum of a freighter's engines throttling down. Aiden turned toward the clearing as the Pulsar settled through the haze.

Aiden smiled faintly. "Starchaser." he said, the name carrying both greeting and recognition. "It's good to see you."

Aiden took a few steps closer, the Force stirring between them like a silent exchange. Jared wasn't Jedi, not in the traditional sense—but the current around him carried that same quiet intensity, a sense of purpose forged through instinct and grit rather than doctrine.

" The Force here… it remembers everything. Every triumph. Every failure. It will test us both."

"Who else is coming?" Aiden inquired, just then he heard the voice of Kael Varnok through their comms.

"Starchaser, this is Kael. You're off-course. I'm groundside. If you can hear me — light a beacon."

 

[Renn Vizsla]

H U N T

Tag: Jared Starchaser | Aiden Porte | Kael Varnok



The faint crackle of static was enough. To most, it would’ve been dismissed as interference, Tython’s storms chewing through open channels, the mist playing tricks on long-range sensors. But Renn knew better. A hunter learned to listen for the things others ignored, and in that broken whisper of comm chatter, he heard a lead.

He had arranged to meet with Aiden Porte Aiden Porte here

Renn’s HUD locked onto the trace, mapping it across the jagged terrain. Each spike of distortion painted a breadcrumb trail leading toward the temple ruins. It wasn’t clean, the kind of sloppy broadcast that came from an improvised rendezvous. Starchaser wasn’t broadcasting to be found. But Renn wasn’t “most.”

He tapped the side of his helmet, cycling through filters until the ghost of Jared’s voice replayed in his ear. Words fractured by static, but enough to confirm the target.

“Got you,” Renn muttered, voice a low growl through the vocoder.

He checked his rifle, the weight familiar, steady. Then the vambrace, cycling through dart and net settings. Jared had a reputation for slipping away, for being more shadow than soldier. That was fine. Renn was bred in shadow, too, and the hunt was where Vizslas thrived.

With the signal locked, Renn moved, each step a predator’s patience, following the comm echoes to where Jared had landed the Pulsar

Time to Hunt.​

 

[Kael Varnok]

The temple rose out of the fog like the bones of something ancient and half-remembered.

Kael's boots sank into the wet soil as he stepped out from the treeline, the pale light of Tython breaking across his bare shoulders. His breath came slow, deliberate — every inhale drawing in the scent of dust, rain, and the faint, electric tang of ozone. The planet's storms had teeth, and so did its beasts. His ribs still burned from the last one that had found him.

The deep cut along his flank was already crusted with blood, a memory from a creature that had charged him not long after the drop — all scales, teeth, and the echo of something old in its hunger. The Force had warned him, but not soon enough. It never did these days.

He pressed a hand against the wound and kept walking.

"—chhk—Starchaser, this is Kael," his voice rasped through the comm, the helmet's vocoder warping it into something mechanical and distant. "Made it to the temple's outer ridge. Got… delayed. This planet's got a few surprises left."

Only static answered him.

He could feel it, though — the familiar, tempered pulse of a Jedi's presence nearby. Calm, deliberate. Older than most. Aiden, it had to be. Jared wasn't here yet. His signal was still too faint, drifting somewhere below the horizon.

Kael reached the temple steps, pausing beneath the carved archway where moss clung to the stone. The air shimmered faintly with residual energy — centuries of meditation and memory trapped in the rock. He could almost hear it: whispers of battles fought here long before the galaxy learned to speak the word "Jedi."

He tilted his head, scanning through the haze until he saw movement — a figure standing before the temple's entrance, cloaked and still.

Kael slowed, his voice low as he approached. "Aiden Porte, I presume."

His hand rested near the hilt of one saber, not in threat but habit — the reflex of a man who'd forgotten how to let his guard down.

"Starchaser's lagging behind," Kael muttered, eyes flicking to the distant ridge as if tracking invisible markers. "Beacon shows him two klicks south, maybe more if the terrain's chewing his signal. We'll need to hold position and secure the LZ until he's boots-on-ground."

He stopped, realizing how easily the old soldier's tone had crept back in — terse, automatic, the language of command. A dry exhale left his chest, halfway between a sigh and a laugh. "Force help me, I forget not everything's a warzone."

The wind changed. A whisper through the ruins. The faint hum of life and danger tangled together.

Kael turned back to Aiden, visor glinting. "You feel it too, don't you?"


For the first time in hours, his voice wasn't cold — it carried a weary sort of reverence, the kind soldiers gave only to those who might understand.

Aiden Porte Jared Starchaser Renn Vizsla

 

[Jared Starchaser]

Being this close to the enemy was not something Jared was worried on. He was used to it. He could blend into nearly any group, and if he couldn’t? The man had enough skill in the Force to make himself virtually disappear, and await the proper moment to strike. That was what he was here for, to wait for the right time, to take the strike to Tython and either liberate the relics, or make it so that the Empire can’t get them. Already in place, where he was meeting Aiden.

As Aiden showed up, Jared smiled. He and his family were close to the Portes, and it was great to work with his counterpart in that same family. “Welcome back to Tython, Aiden.” Jared held out a hand and grabbed Aiden’s, greeting the other Jedi. Well, true Jedi, as Jared was whatever the Starchaser evolved into, as close and far to the Jedi as any family really could be, at both times.

“I sent out the message through the normal channels. Resistance, Jedi Underground…” And that was when the comms popped up.

Hopper was forwarding it and presenting it to Jared as he looked on.

He was in the wrong place? Looking at his wrist-top datapad, that was linked to his ship, he shook his head. He didn’t think he was, Jared Starchaer very rarely got himself lost. And that Aiden was here too? They weren’t the ones off.

Looking to Aiden, Jared shrugged. He had an idea. Focusing on the Force, Jared summoned a bit of light to him, and threw a green beam up into the air, hoping that it was fast enough to not get noticed but provided enough of a Force beacon to give Kael something to seek.

“Lets get to him.”


Aiden Porte Kael Varnok Renn Vizsla

 

[Aiden Porte]

Jared Starchaser Kael Varnok Renn Vizsla
​

The green flare arced skyward, dissolving into the haze like a wound sealing itself in the Force. For a heartbeat, Aiden watched it fade, the emerald afterglow reflecting in his eyes. He could feel the current ripple outward quiet, disciplined, purposeful. Starchaser's work.

He turned his gaze toward Jared, studying the man beside him. Aiden had met many who carried the Force like a weapon or a burden. Jared wore it like a second skin, fluid, instinctive, untethered. Not bound by the strictures of the Temple, not weighed down by the Council's shadows. In another life, he might've envied that kind of freedom. But here, on Tython, freedom and discipline were threads of the same weave.

"Thank you Jared." Aiden said with a small smile after thyr exchanged greetings. "It's good to see you."

He rose, his gaze cutting toward the direction Jared faced. "Kael's close, I think he landed not to far from here" Aiden said quietly, though he hadn't checked any scanner. The Force spoke more clearly than any readout ever could. "But something else is moving with him. The flow is... disrupted. Like the world itself's holding its breath."

He adjusted the clasp of his cloak and started forward, every step measured, deliberate. "We must find Kael before we proceed any further."

The wind pressed against his cloak and armor as he walked, and the sound of the old Tythonian ruins ahead carried like a memory through the stone. The Force pressed tighter now, warning and familiar all at once. Whatever awaited them beyond that ridge wasn't just another relic of the past it was the reason the light had called them here.

It was then he could see Kael in the distance, Aiden waved him down from where he was as they met up. "Glad you could make it Kael. Keep your eyes open, there's something out there."

 

[Kael Varnok]

Dust hissed under his boots as Kael crested the rise, the LAAT/I now just a fading silhouette in the sky behind him. No cloak, no armor — only the bare essentials: boots, belt, weathered arm-wraps, and the helmet that had seen more wars than most soldiers survived. Twin sabers hung at his hips, scuffed but well-maintained. He looked more like a ghost than a Jedi — one the battlefield had forgotten to bury.

"Porte. Starchaser." His modulated voice crackled from the helm, a mix of relief and that low, gravel-edged calm only soldiers carried. "Good to see both of you made it planetside."

He stopped beside them, scanning the horizon — not with the Force, but with the habitual precision of a man who'd cleared too many kill zones by eye alone.

"Briefing before drop said Imperial survey teams were combing these ruins," Kael continued, tone clipped and military. "Orders were to link up with you both and secure the relic site before they could haul anything off-world. My gunship took flak on entry — hull was venting before I was halfway down. Had to bail while we still had altitude."


He looked to Jared, a faint nod following. "Saw your beacon on descent. kept me from overshooting the AO. Thought I'd landed in the wrong grid for a moment."

There was a pause — the kind that carried years of campaigns and more ghosts than he'd ever name. "Starchaser," Kael added, his tone almost habitual. "Next time, keep your signal tight. You'd light up every sensor in a three-click radius if they're watching. We're not on a parade ground here."

Then, softer, almost as if realizing he'd slipped into command tone: "No offense meant. Old habits."

He adjusted the strap of his belt and exhaled through the helm. "If the Empire's still sniffing around, we'll have company soon. Recommend we move quick, set up a secure perimeter before the next patrol swings by."


His gaze shifted between the two Jedi. "You've got your plan. I'll hold the flank until you call it. Let's make this count."

Jared Starchaser Aiden Porte Renn Vizsla

 

[Renn Vizsla]

T Y T H O N

Tag: Aiden Porte | Jared Starchaser | Kael Varnok




The flare cut through the clouds like a blade through fog, a thin streak of light, too deliberate to be anything but a signal. Renn’s visor polarized automatically, the HUD tracing the flare’s descent across the canyon ridge. There was no mistaking it. Jared Starchaser had finally broken stealth. Whether it was a call for allies or a beacon for rescue didn’t matter; to Renn Vizsla, it was an invitation.

His ship hummed to life with a low growl as he rose from the basin, skimming above the treetops where Tython’s wilderness swallowed sound and light alike. He glided into the shadow of an ancient ridge before setting down. From here, his armor’s dampeners kept his signature off most sensors. He moved low and silent, every step practiced, methodical, predatory. Renn moved through it with the practiced grace of a wolf among ruins, each step silent despite the weight of his armor. He’d hunted in cities and in the void, but there was something about the stillness of living worlds that sharpened the instincts. Here, the jungle itself seemed to test him.

Renn adjusted the rangefinder’s feed, locking onto the faint trail of residual energy left by the comm flare. The signature pulsed faintly through the undergrowth, a beacon to anyone patient enough to track its rhythm. The further he went, the quieter the world became, only the whisper of leaves brushing against beskar, only the low hum of the hunter’s breath inside his helmet. He caught signs of passage: crushed foliage, displaced soil, a recent disturbance in the Force itself. They were close.

A soft chirp came from his gauntlet, a micro-drone relaying data from above. Thermal scans rippled across the visor, sketching faint shapes moving beyond the treeline ahead. Two warm bodies, steady in pace but unaware of the predator behind them. Renn paused, lowering into a crouch beside a fallen tree half-consumed by moss. Through the gaps in the leaves, he caught a glimpse of them.

Renn’s grip tightened around the haft of his rifle, but he didn’t raise it. Not yet. Patience was a weapon too, one his kind had learned to master. The comm in his helmet whispered with faint static, carrying what sounded like Kael Varnok voice in the distance, distorted and fading in and out of range. The third piece of the board was moving. Renn exhaled, the sound muffled within the helm. “Three in the field. No sentries. Perfect.” His visor flickered as he engaged the low-light mode, the jungle glowing in pale green. The hunt was no longer a pursuit; it was a countdown.

And he was already within striking distance.

 

[Jared Starchaser]

The Force had many a trick to use. He really wished he could have kept to the tools he was given to use by hand, but they never quite got the job done to the expectation he could on his own, with the Force. Plus, there were so many times where he was without access to them. The amount of times Jared was too far from a ship to carry everything he needed? Learning to use the Force as it presented itself was what kept him alive.

Of course a lightsaber and a blaster definitely helped too.

“I agree, no good in us being split from one another.” As he saw the other man approaching them. Good, good.

“Good to see you too, Kael. And I heard that. We haven’t had much listening on this side from my contacts.” His ship gone? Not a good thing. “We need anything from the wreck? You can fly out with me.” If all went according to plan.

Which it rarely did.

When Kael gave him the warning, Jared could only smirk. “Yeah, I been used to just hunting monsters and signalling for rescue, out of practice.” Looking between the group. “Aiden and I go in, you got it all out here?” Smash and grab.

Just like he was used to.

Kael Varnok Renn Vizsla Aiden Porte

 

[Kael Varnok]

Kael's helm inclined slightly, that same low rasp in his tone. "Copy that. I'll hold position here — keep your comms open. If anything moves that shouldn't, you'll know before it breathes twice."

He gave a brief glance toward the ridge, eyes narrowing behind the visor. "I'll sweep the perimeter, set a few early warnings. Last thing we need is some buckethead scout walking up our six while you're spelunking for relics."

For a moment, the helmet stayed on, angled toward the horizon like he was reading something written in the air. Then, with a slow hiss of seals breaking, Kael reached up and unlatched it.


The helmet came off, revealing the man beneath — scarred, sweat-sheened, and marked by years that armor couldn't protect him from. He set the helm down beside a weathered stone, drew a small cigar from the pouch at his belt, and bit down on it before sparking it to life with a faint click of a lighter he had pulled from the pouch also.

Smoke curled through the still air, pale ribbons catching the fading light.

"Starchaser, Porte," he said quietly, voice rough but steady. "You get pinned, you call. I'll bring the thunder."

He took a slow drag, eyes still on the mist-choked horizon. The jungle whispered around him, the ruins groaned with age, and beneath it all, the Force stirred — warning, restless.

Kael exhaled through his nose, watching the smoke drift. "Feels like this world's holding its breath," he muttered to no one in particular. "Never a good sign."


Then, softer, almost amused: "Good hunting, gentlemen."

Renn Vizsla Jared Starchaser Aiden Porte

 

[Aiden Porte]

Jared Starchaser Kael Varnok Renn Vizsla

​

The world narrowed to the rhythm of movement and breath. Aiden's senses stretched outward, brushing through the air, the trees, the shallow hum of the land itself. The planet had not forgotten what war felt like it whispered of it in every gust. He didn't need to see the dark shapes at the periphery to know they were there, waiting.

"Not our first time walking into a storm." he said quietly, stepping forward beside Jared. The other man's smirk told him everything confidence, calculation, the familiar edge of someone who trusted instinct above all else. Aiden respected that. But Tython demanded more than reflexes; it demanded restraint.

The Force shifted, cool and electric, threading through Aiden's fingers as he reached toward the ruins ahead. "The disturbance hasn't settled." he murmured, half to himself.

"Starchaser, Porte,"

"You get pinned, you call. I'll bring the thunder."

"Thank you Kael."

He glanced toward Kael, his expression calm and steady "Hold your ground. If you feel the current change, signal us. We'll move fast."

The saber at his belt stayed silent, though he could feel the crystal inside stir with quiet anticipation. The hum of potential filled the air blasters, metal, dust, and the low thrum of danger.

Turning to Jared, Aiden nodded once. "In and out. No wasted motion. We move like the wind, not the storm."

He stepped forward, cloak drawn close, vanishing into the half-light beneath the ruins. The sound of the Force filled the silence around him not words, not commands, but the steady pulse of something old and waiting. It wasn't fear that gripped him, but recognition.

Tython was watching.

 

[Renn Vizsla]

C O I L S

Tag: Aiden Porte | Jared Starchaser | Kael Varnok




Kael didn’t follow.

Renn caught the shift the moment it happened. The other two moved toward the temple ruins, but the third heat-signature peeled away, lingering at the edge of the treeline like a sentry… or a survivor waiting on ghosts. The micro-drone’s feed zoomed in, the outline of Kael's resolving through mist and foliage. Alone. Separated. Vulnerable in a way only isolation makes a warrior.

Perfect.

Renn disengaged pursuit of the pair without hesitation, veering wide through the undergrowth as a predator does when it knows the herd is not the first prey, the stray is. His footfalls were ghosts on the mossbed, beskar brushing aside low ferns without so much as a tremor. Every trained instinct sharpened to a razor edge: breathing, heartbeat, angle of approach, wind direction. He hunted warriors, not cattle. Men like Kael died only when taken with precision.

He slid behind a stone outcrop half-swallowed by vines, optics narrowing on the lone figure now scanning the horizon for his allies. Varnok’s posture was heavy, not sloppy. He stood the way veterans did before the killing started: braced, but not yet certain who the gun was pointed at.

Renn toggled the vambrace quietly, dart launcher armed, plasma cord ready, rifle mag cycling. He did not yet reveal himself. Not until the strike was assured. The jungle dripped with slow humidity around him, every sound pulled taut across silence like a wire.

“Always separate the blade from the shield.”
His own mentor’s words, spoken long ago on Concordia.

Jared and Aiden had each other.
Kael had only the quiet… and Renn in it.

From the dark boughs, his visor tracked the man’s every subtle shift, calculating range, timing, and the heartbeat in which the ambush would begin.

The hunt was no longer closing in.

It was coiled.​

 

[Kael Varnok]

Kael exhaled slowly, the smoke from his cigar curling in the still, misted air. He let the embers glow faintly, eyes scanning the tree line beyond the ruins. The jungle pressed close, shadows and whispers brushing against his awareness, and the Force stirred like distant thunder.

Something was off. Not the ruins, not the wind, not even the Empire's usual scavengers. There was another presence — subtle, disciplined, watching. He didn't know its nature yet, but the rhythm of its breathing was too deliberate, too controlled.

Kael adjusted the strap of his belt, fingers brushing against the hilt of his saber without drawing it. "Not alone," he muttered to himself, voice low, gravel-edged. "Something's moving… staying just out of reach."

He leaned back against the rough stone, taking another drag from the cigar. The smoke masked his breath as he centered himself, half-listening to the heartbeat of the Force. "Signal if you need me, Starchaser. Don't get caught in the open."

Kael's gaze never left the treeline. The air shifted, imperceptible, and he tightened his stance, aware that the hunter and the hunted weren't always who they seemed. Isolation was a weapon, and for now, he held the line alone — patient, watchful, ready.

Jared Starchaser Aiden Porte Renn Vizsla

 

[Jared Starchaser]

He had to get to work here, the fact that there were others already here, and they were this deep in? It meant it was time to move, and to move fast. Jared looked to Kael. “Yeah we can handle inside, but if we get stuck you better come running.” He didn’t have quite the catalog of Force tricks that his father had but he did have quite a few.

“There is still something here. We need to be careful, unless we want to be swallowed by the storm.” Jared nodded in agreement with Aiden. “We ride it, but yeah, if we see things we can’t carry we need to make sure they can’t get used against us. Maybe bury it so we can get back here one day.”

He didn’t want to lose all that history.

His lightsaber was at the ready. What was he expecting? Wasn’t certain. Sithspawn most likely. There wouldn’t be some dark sider hanging out here if they weren’t actually doing a dig.

But he wasn’t certain just how well he hid his trip here.

Kael Varnok Aiden Porte Renn Vizsla

 

[Aiden Porte]

Jared Starchaser Kael Varnok Renn Vizsla
​

The path into the ruins narrowed until the light began to change softening, dimming, bending itself around broken pillars that still bore the scars of ages. Aiden could feel it, the tension in the air coiling tighter with every step. The Force here wasn't passive. It watched. It judged.

He kept his pace steady beside Jared, eyes sweeping across the stone. The etchings along the walls pulsed faintly when he passed, not with light, but with memory. Echoes of chants long gone. Of lessons once whispered in these halls before war had buried them.

Jared's words pulled him from the trance. "Bury what can't be carried." Aiden repeated, voice low, measured. "Agreed. This place has lost enough to fire and greed. We won't add to that."

He glanced sideways at the Starchaser. There was something about the man too pragmatic to be a monk, too intuitive to be a mercenary. But the Force flowed through him with purpose all the same. "Whatever's left here, it doesn't want to be found easily, and I'm sure it will have its protectors." Aiden said, more to the ruins than to Jared.

He exhaled, drawing on the stillness beneath his ribs. The hum of his lightsaber filled the air for only a moment as he unclipped it, thumb hovering near the switch. Not ignited yet, just ready. A dark presence pierced through the air, a vicious sound could be heard, followed soon by others, and soon the darkness was sweeping over them. The Jedi Knight ignited his blade, as he stared down the path before them, sithspawn, slowly, steady, coming there way.

"How did they get here...." he murmured.