Campaign Pain in the Arm Part 1: Summons (OPA)

[Kimiko Taiyou]

Akarui
Palace Council Chambers

A meeting had been called by the Empress of Akarui, sent out to all corners of the Alliance for them to come and heed the warning she was about to address.

Disturbing reports on the borders of her territory, Alliance territory, had caused her great alarm in the recent weeks, and it needed to be dealt with.​

Her short heels clicked against the marbled floor of the palace, echoing in the unusually quiet halls. A hush whisper followed her and her guards as they preceded to the meeting chambers. Thoughts raced through her mind as she approached the chamber doors, thoughts of recent events that had brought about these actions.

A mysterious enemy had appeared and began to raid Sakuran and Alliance assets across the region. Without warning, and without provocation. Very few survivors were ever left, and those that were rescued had disturbing tales of a bloodthirsty and ruthless enemy. An enemy that was coordinated, well equipped and ruthless. They had given reports of entire crews being forced to watch as their senior ranking officers were torn apart before them among other chilling atrocities. These actions disturbed Kimiko and her military leaders to their core, and after frustration after frustration in their attempts to get to bottom of these actions, Ki's patience had run out.

She had called any and all of her fellow Alliance leaders here today to share this information and ask for any help in dealing with this growing threat.

She and her entourage entered the chamber, Ki quickly taking a place in the center of the rounded terrace. She took a moment to take a mental role call of those that had accepted her summons before speaking,"Fellow leaders of the Alliance, thank you first and foremost for accepting my summons and coming all this way on such short notice. I do not want to waste any time, nor beat around the bush, so I will get straight to the business at hand." she paused, allowing a thin projector screen to deploy behind her as the room darkened,"As some of you may know, recently, my forces have encountered an unknown enemy on the borders of Alliance territory. These attacks are ruthless, without warning and rarely leave any survivors. At first, we believed these were well coordinated pirate raids on our convoys, but with their increasing frequency and the trickle of information we have been able to gather, this does not seem to be the case." as she spoke, a series of images would be projected behind her, showing the aftermath of these attacks, the damaged ships and utter destruction left in their wake.

The pictures stopped before Ki spoke again, facing the gathered audience,"We never had any solid evidence of these attacks...until we recovered the following video..."

A holorecording played on the screen, showing a ship's bridge, seemingly going about their normal routines on their current patrol. The captain stood at the bridge's view port, looking out at the vastness of space before them. Suddenly, three massive vessels appeared, barely out of view, and opened fire on the ship. The captain scrambled back to his station,"Fleetcom, this is SIN Shimatsuki, we are under attack by unknown enemy! Requesting immediate supp-"

The transmission cut and the video cut to black before rewound the footage back to when the three ships first appeared. They appeared Imperial in design, large hulking triangular ships. Two of the ships looked to be the same class of vessel, while the third was much larger and had a more pronounced super structure.

Ki looked back at the gathered audience,"This does not appear to be just another group of pirates. I ask you, no plead you, fellow leaders, to help me and our people get to the bottom of these heinous attacks. Find out who these people are and put an end to their rampage of destruction once and for all."

 

[Eldin Daine]

Judges HQ on Bespin received a message, open channel from from Akarui. “The Empress”, Eldin rubbed his chin as he spoke softly to himself. He did not really take much notice of the chat around the room, other Judges and Marshalls debating what to do with the information. Akarui was a long way from Bespin, there would be people closer that could go and see what this was all about.

He left them to their argument and indecision, and not one of them noticed him leaving.

Eldin had grown fond of Kimiko, he had spent some time with her of late and she was nice, good people. And she was joint partner in Whistler’s Hole, that amounted to something. He headed straight for the starport, and found the Rusty Bucket exactly where he had left it. Good thing about being one of the local authorities, you can get by check points without much fuss, no questions asked and for the right amount of Talons, your departure deleted. Eldin handed over the Talons with a wink.

Arriving to Akarui sober, a habit he was starting to form, and gaining control over his drinking had been hard but worth it. He still drank, just not as much, he was finding he didn’t need to. That damn old Jedi Master had gotten into his head, made him think about the ghosts that haunt him, who would have thought doing so would start to make them fade away.

He was late to the meeting, Kimiko already on her feet and giving her briefing. From what she informed them of, this did not sound like pirates, this was far more organised and by the looks of the ships, they had a bigger bank roll.

“The Judges of the OPA will give ya assistance”, he leaned into the conversation before the others, well at least he would. “..err, ya majesty”. He corrected his faux pas.


Kimiko Taiyou