Administrator
LOCATION: Humbarine City [Belltower]
SITH ALLIES:
Mercy
SITH ENEMIES: Imperial Scum/Faithless - Iron Covenant?
Remnants of the Galactic Empire had buried themselves beneath new banners and were deeply embedded in the day-to-day activities of Humbarine. Former Imperials, intelligence officers, and key military personnel had survived the ill-fated collapse of their nation only to scatter to the bones of the Core. It was in this capacity that they thought paying “tax” to the Sith Covenant would spare them and allow their political games to continue in quieter rooms. They bartered with their enemies. Paid for protection and anonymity, offered loyalty, only when watched.
And somehow, after all that, they still believed that no one was looking for them.
Right.
Humbarine was beautiful, she supposed, when squinting at it from a distance.
A fortress world could only be so attractive, but it was industrial, with towering districts that rose endlessly upward. Shipyards wrapped around entire sectors like giant mechanical ribs while military checkpoints and garrisons ensured that the newly declared Martial Law was upheld. From her lofty perch in an old belltower, it was difficult to see the rot caused by an Imperial presence. Harder still, to track the tension winding itself through the city. Humbarine had closed down too quickly, though; she didn’t think it was because her Order had descended.
Transit routes were redirected within hours, and the “secret” gathering for the Imperial Bloc they had come to crash—Cancelled. Emergency broadcasts replaced civilian frequencies with an efficiency that bordered on suggesting it had been rehearsed. Something had happened that was severe enough that Sith Covenant had closed its fist around the planet before the populace even understood there was danger.
Srina frowned.
It was interesting, but it went against her plans. She had intended to attack known Imperial cells…But now they seemed scattered. It was never going to be a bloodless endeavor, but rather than a river, there would be oceans. The wind moved through the exposed arches of the bell tower in long breaths that carried distant noises upward in fragments. Chatter that turned into muddy white noise.
Sirens.
Marching Stormtrooper boots.
“Didn’t you tell Arris the plan?”
Her question was barely a whisper for the woman at her side, but she knew from experience that Mercy would have no trouble hearing her. The ivory-haired Echani remained still as stone, perched precariously on the narrow railing, while the great bell loomed silent overhead. Black shimmer-silk draped over one crossed leg that stirred faintly in a frigid wind. The rest of her disappeared into matte armor weave dark enough to consume any light that remained. “It will make our work…Difficult. This martial law. Our people are mixed with the Faithess…”
Flaxen strands of moonlit hair escaped the sheer hood that had gathered around her shoulders, silver-white against a darkening sky. One hand was on the railing to keep her balance while the other sat in her lap, still healing, with blood-covered fingertips and a wicked gash across her palm. The occasional humming sound escaped her, an old tune, but it was also something Mercy might find painfully familiar. Not because she had heard it before, but because it was filled to the brim with all the power the Blackwall Empress had to bear. It would seem like a simple cradle-hymn that was stripped down to singular notes…But nothing was ever simple, with Srina. It drifted through the tower with a haunting cadence that threaded itself through stone before pressing out into the ether.
A song for her children, protection, and strength.
A mother’s love sharpened into something monstrous that promised care and death in equal amounts.
She shifted slightly, and it gave the appearance of a statue coming to life. Her temple found its place against Mercy’s arm, and she could already imagine that her battle-sister would wrap an arm around her waist. To keep her from falling, or perhaps, to lend her the strength that she had so much of. The flame-haired woman was made even more enormous against the narrow architecture of the tower, the Titan, who had crushed the best the Galactic Empire had to dust. Srina could feel the might she offered without looking.
She was steady, violent, and all too familiar.
This position should have made her think twice, considering how many ways Mercy could hurt her. Push her off the edge. Reach up and snap her neck…It wouldn’t have been all that hard.
But…It didn’t.
Her battle-sister had become the shore to the madness left behind by Sith Ritual and war. Mercy was an anchor. A constant that let her breathe when the galaxy became too full of ghosts. It let her relax against the side of the larger woman without fear. They did not take from one another nor covet what the other had…It was not the Sith way—But it was their way.
Her eyes drifted upward, suddenly, as if something in the sky called her.
An eclipse was coming.
A rogue moon crawled slowly across Humbarine’s sun, swallowing the light piece by piece, while the city below began to almost vibrate with growing apprehensions. Fear always traveled faster in the Core.
Especially among Imperials.
Her eyes closed for a moment before luminous golden eyes, half-lidded, traced the line of the moon cutting across the sun while she listened to people she shouldn’t have been able to hear descend into controlled panic. Controlled, for now. “Do you hear them, sestra…?”
The words were achingly gentle, but coldly observant. As if she were a scientist staring down a microscope at some newfound species of bacterium. Taking notes.
“They already know something is wrong.”
And they did.
The Force bent strangely during moments like this. Not stronger, but thinner. Boundaries loosened from their moorings in reality, while thought and emotion stopped moving cleanly. Even a non-sensitive flatscan could feel it pressing against their skin, though they might not realize why. Might not understand.
The Imperials would call it unrest.
Civil instability during a celestial event…Anything, but what it truly was.
War. Dread…And War.
Because before the throne, before the Order, before the endless machinations of a Sith Empress…She had first been the Dread Queen. That was what she would bring to this battle, and very few could do it better than she could without losing their minds.
She resumed her small song, an insignificant and quiet battle cry. For the Order. For the Sith Covenant…For all the creatures that would descend on this world bearing proverbial banners of black and crimson. The stairwell behind them was quiet, save for the echoing lilt of her voice.
Things had been different earlier. Noisy. Full of screaming… Now?
Gray bodies, still and unmoving, littered the narrow spiral steps in twisted stages of collapse. Uniforms were wrinkled and loose, trying to cover skin stretched a little too thin across matchstick bones. It would seem as if something vital, more than their lives, had been taken from them. Imperial officers, security personnel, and one communications administrator who was still clutching a sidearm he had never managed to fire. Their eyes remained open, hollow, caught in one last moment of horror and oblivion. These men would never see, never exalt their filth. Never harm her children.
Never again.
| Armour Saber Ring Ring Terentatek Body Gloves HG-54 "The Vora" Class Hand Cannon Holding Aces Popper NPC Units (On Standby) Drake "Vaelcryx" (On Standby) |
