Star Wars Roleplay: Chaos

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Sojourn Ends

Private Coxley's boots clacked all too loudly on the hard duracrete slabs. The facility had never been made with comfort in mind, after all. Right now, however, he wished the place had some nice thick carpets. He approached the next intersection slowly. As he turned the corner in one smooth step, he rifle clacked against his shoulder plate. He twisted back and forth, the light on his rifle illuminating another empty corridor.

He heart was racing now, in the deathly silence it was as conspicuous as his footsteps. Coxley was certain any hostiles would hear each breath and heartbeat long before he found them.

At the end of the next corridor he realised he had swept the entire floor. Just the cell block below to go. At the top of the stairs he paused knuckles whitening on the grip of his carbine.

The silent alarm had been triggered just ten minutes ago. That meant a skiff of soldiers would be here within another ten. If he was lucky, local law enforcement night even be here sooner. Just a few systems back from the warfront, man power was thin. In this military prison complex just thirty soldiers had guarded over a hundred prisoners of war.

Coxley and his two companions had manned the gate, up above on the surface. When the silent alarm had been triggered, his companions had rushed below. Radio silence after just two minutes.

Perhaps he could just wait here. After all, this was the only staircase up from the cells wasn't it? The silence was unnatural. If the prisoners had escaped there would have been noise: shouts, blaster fire, screams. Instead there was nothing.

Steeling himself, Coxley took his first tentative step. The first one was the hardest, the others came more easily. A few moments later and he was approaching the prison control room. In a well practised motion he rounded the corner, blaster raised.


It took just a fraction of a second to take in the scene before him. Bodies littered the floor, but he immediately focussed on the small man standing beside a terminal. He tapped quietly on the screen.

“Hands up!” Coxley screeched, trying to keep his voice calm. His attempt at an authoritative tone was undermined by his voice breaking on the 'up'.

The man was dressed in civilian clothing. For a moment he carried on, but then he stepped calmly away from the console.

“Keep your hands where I can see them,” Coxley instructed.

The man cocked his head to one side, before replying: “Why? You have no weapon to threaten me with.”

Coxley's traitorous eyes darted down. To his astonishment his hands were holding nothing but thin air. He looked back up. There was a hint of motion from the man.

Coxley didn't see the blade, but he felt it as it thudded home. Pain beyond anything he had experiences blossomed out from his chest. He looked down in surprise at the knife hilt lodged in his chest. He also saw that the carbine was back in his hands again. His mind didn't have time to puzzle that out.

He didn't feel the blaster slip from his hands; they were too numb. He heard it hit the floor. He wasn't even aware of himself falling to his knees, but the impact went straight to the blade, sending fresh waves of pain outwards.

Looking up he saw his opponent was back at the console. “Aha!” he exclaimed after a few moments. He stepped away from the console and headed down towards the cells.

Coxley tried as much as he could to focus. Black tendrils were creeping into his vision from either side. There was the sound of conversation, then shouting, followed by two flashes of red light punctuated by the sound of blaster bolts. The last helped him focus, keeping him from going under.

His attacker returned. He was screwing a vial of something into a small device. Was that blood?.

“Are you actually still alive?” The man asked with surprise. Coxley tried to reply, but couldn't find the breath. A green light appeared on the device, but it emitted a negative sounding beep.

“Ah, no signal under five metres of duracrete it seems. Still, I'm sure I'll get paid soon.” The man walked forwards, gracefully settling down on his haunches before Coxley. Oddly he found his pain starting to recede. His mind sharpened. He knew his rifle was just a few inches from his hand.

“I'm impressed and disappointed,” the man continued. “I must be getting rusty,” he said, waving vaguely to the hilt. “But I admire your determination.”

Coxley's hand betrayed him yet again, he just didn't have the strength to pull at the blaster. When did that blaster appear in his hand? he thought to himself. It hadn't been there a moment ago.

“Whilst we have...approximately two minutes,” the dark haired man said, looking at a device on his wrist. “Do you happen to know what the good Colonel told his interrogators?” He shook the small vial, before pocketing it. Was that the blood of one of the prisoners?

“Ah you don't, what a pity.” He said without Coxley responding. The soldier tried again to reply, but it just came out as a raspy breath. “It seems the interview tapes were taken offsite, which is a shame. It seems the Colonel had a lot of Imperial secrets tucked away in that brain of his. That's why this is such sloppy work, for which I can only apologise. Time was of the essence you see. A shame we don't know how much the old man talked.”

Coxley felt a wave of nausea threaten to pull him under.

“You're a tough one. I respect that. If it helps, I hope you survive. I wonder, do we cling to life because we really want to continue, or is it just instinct?” The killer raised an eyebrow quizzically. He genuinely seemed to be waiting for a response. When Coxley did not reply, an expression of anger flitted across his face, but serenity returned almost immediately.

“Well, time to go. Good luck Private.”

As the man walked away, some part of Coxley's mind raised a query that he could hear no footsteps. But the concrete? Odd what the mind turned to in a crisis. The pain seemed to be returning now. Darkness was coming. He thought of his fiance, they had a table booked for tonight, it was going to be a special occasion. Coxley didn't want to die, he desperately wanted to carry on. His thoughts were drowned in pain, and he felt the ground rushing up to meet him.




The starship snapped back into realspace; a dark smudge framed against the stars. Out in the blackness of deep space a pilot had to rely on instruments alone. Raziel checked his own. His ship scanned on passive mode for a moment. Once he was satisfied that nothing out there was actively tracking his vessel he allowed the ships active sensors to send out a probing burst of signals.
These deep space refuelling stations were always a risk, they made excellent ambush opportunities for pirates. It was for this reason that Raziel had dropped out of hyperspace from a good distance and approached cautiously. The scanners came back negative on all counts. Deciding to forego a more thorough sensor sweep to avoid drawing attention if something was waiting out there, he powered down most non essential systems and cruised towards the refuelling station.

It had been quite a long journey and his rented courier ship came under the heading of ‘medium range.’ After the refuel one more jump would complete his voyage.

His one-sided conversation with the soldier back on the mission had left him in an even darker mood. He had been highly connected to the soldier, and had sensed his desperate wish for life. Why couldn't he feel the same? How was he supposed to disentangle his own thoughts and emotions from those he had felt from a thousand others. There was so much anger, so much fear. There had been so many times when he had latched onto the fears of others as they fell before him.

Still at least he had been paid once the DNA scanner had connected to a network. Not that he needed the credits, but it had been an expensive job. Ensuring a highly ranked prisoner of war was prevented from speaking within weeks of his capture...almost impossible. It was the challenges that kept him going.

His eyes flicked to the console on his right, still displaying his destination. Something had called him from across the void. He could sense something momentous in his future. A nexus where all future paths led, but many possibilities led from.
His period of self exile had been long and he held much trepidation about a return to his own kind. That was what he expected anyway. More Dark Jedi out to bring him to their cause – at least he hoped he wasn't just a target.

It was why he had already starting off an internal process he felt would be necessary for his survival. Over the past few years his work - initially as a freelance agent had not entailed the same physical requirements as being in a viper's nest of Sith.

Currently he was at his lightest weight for years, exceptionally lithe, agile and still capable of incredible exertion but for very limited periods. Now he would require much greater strength and stamina, he wasn’t enamoured with the concept of dying for nothing more than a lack of fitness.
His heart rate was very slow now and his breathing shallow as he descended into the trance. One by one he had been disconnecting himself from his external senses and now as his ship approached the relative safety of the refuelling station he completed the process. With one slow diaphragmatic exhalation he entered a state of internal contemplation.

When he roused himself nearly thirty minutes later he had made the necessary, if minor, internal chemistry changes that were required of the process. What he had set in motion could not be stopped now, but would end in a few days time. During that period his body would prioritise increasing muscle mass over all other activities. The same effect could be achieved with various drugs, but this ancient technique he had studied accelerated process that carried much fewer side effects.

He would now require triple his normal calorific intake, as much physical exercise as he could get and nearly sixteen hours of sleep per day. That was not all, his greatest physical characteristic was not his strength; and left unchecked his body would just pile on muscle mass across his whole body leaving him unbalanced and slow. When not eating every minute would be spent undertaking an intense physical regime so that muscle fibres were laid down in the correct places and he maintained a degree of flexibility. The process would be hard and painful, but most importantly it would be over fast.

He disengaged his ship from the fuelling station and activated an impulse from his engines to start moving away.
It was not just reprisal from his peers that concerned him. The dark Jedi followed some degree or organisational structure, but they coveted power above all else. Displaying weakness in front of a subordinate was never advisable. He already drew enough attention with his failings in affecting the physical world with the Force. Minor illusions and given time, mind reading and control were about all he could muster. Still, what he lacked in controlling the Force he made up for in his sensitivities to it. He was certain that with his keen senses and foresight nothing would catch him unawares. Like many Jedi his abilities in the Force reflected those he had possessed before initiation. His philosophy had always been about gathering information and then quick decisive action to end an encounter over brute force and martial prowess.

A beep indicated that the ship was ready to make the jump to hyperspace. With the press of a button he sent the ship on its course.
 

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