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The Federal District is home to the Imperial Palace and much of Coruscant's critical military infrastructure. As such, it has become a prime target for the Covenant's assault on the Deep Core's jewel world. Their goal is to take control of the District's defenses and seat Mercy on the Emperor's Throne, thus tangibly turning the battle into the Covenant's favor and shattering Imperial fervor in one stroke, should they be allowed to succeed.
Two of the Covenant's Triumvirs, Mercy Star-Arm and Arris Windrun, lead the assault with among the galaxy's greatest Sith behind them, drawing the Empire's own elite defenders to safeguard it, lest they lose the nucleus of imperial morale and the planet's defenses.
Summary: Whoever controls the Imperial Palace controls the Planetary Shield Generator and other defenses, and that may very well be what decides the Battle for Coruscant.
Large slabs of corroded metal were shaved off from its corpus as the anti-air emplacements lashed through it. All in an attempt to stop the coming tide. It would be for nought, because there was no stopping something that had been started such a long time ago.
All the way at the Conclave an Emperor came bearing challenges. He claimed that he was the Sith’ari and that every other Sith in that gathering was nothing but dust under his heels.
One stepped forward to challenge him and declared a Kaggath.
Only she remained in the aftermath of that battle. Battered, bruised, bleeding but walking back into the gathering of Sith alive. Having declared the most holy ritual the Sith possessed and walked away uncowed.
Then again during the fierce battle of Atrisia.
While others tried to make sense of what was happening, she came bearing a challenge (link to Atrisia). Fight, show your words are more than bluster. Yet again she walked away unpunished, but this time around the woman would not wait for the next opportunity to spit in the self-declared Sith’ari’s eye.
She saw wealth and decadence the Empire had annexed from the Alliance and realized a simple truth.
If Solipsis could not defend his own claim… then there was nothing stopping her from taking anything she wished from his Empire.
And Mercy was here to collect.
The fleets and armies of the Covenant, bolstered by her own Graspborn, were waging war in the skies and on the ground. And the Siegemother had crushed through the blockade, taking severe damage and potentially preventing it from ever flying again.
But as the behemoth of iron and war descended down on the Palace, as its shadow loomed, Mercy did not care.
At that moment as they came into view, Mercy was standing at the hangar bay. Her allies either near or farther away and she smirked. The smirk of a psychopathic madman. Hungry, the Warlord had come for Coruscant.
And she would not leave until she had her pound of flesh.
“The Palace is where I end this depressingly one-sided conflict.” Mercy said over her shoulder to them. “Follow me, if you desire, or find your own battles. All I care about… is that you make them bleed.”
And then Mercy stepped off of the edge.
Dropping down, like a boulder, towards the courtyard of the Imperial Palace. There was no statue anymore. Which was an oddity, she had been told there was supposed to be a huge statue of two Imperial figures shaking hands.
She would have loved to smash it to pieces with her approach.
Instead she drew on the Force, claiming its power, wrapping herself in its might. Speeding up her velocity, her mass, until the boulder turned into an asteroid that smashed right into the middle of the courtyard. It fractured the duracrete under her fist as a riptide of webbing fractures unleashed with her in the epicenter of it.
The quake would rip through stone, metal, causing chaos and destruction as the minor seismic event continued its path towards the palace proper.
Making it clear to all: Mercy had arrived and she wouldn’t leave before she got her pound of flesh.
The buzz in the control room was palpable, storied veterans and heroic figures all, each cut in their finest Imperial uniforms. Banks of hololithic displays threw cold light across faces etched with decades of command, rank insignia glinting as officers leaned in toward their stations.
“Assault on Sector Eighty-Six. Defence wings holding.”
A few had been caught unaware, as the entire planet had been, and were dressed in fatigue, their adjutant and support staff likely desperately trying to find uniforms appropriate. The contrast was visible even at a glance, ceremonial precision set against hastily secured kit and scorched field harnesses.
“Collapse of initial defences on surface north of the western extremity. Deploying Eighteenth Armoured Battalion in response.”
Shannic inwardly prayed for deliverance and yet a tinge of doubt began to form in her mind. She stood motionless at the central dais, hands clasped behind her back, posture immaculate, eyes never leaving the rotating tactical projection of Imperial Centre and its layered defence rings.
“All civilian traffic is grounded. Any outliers will be treated as a combatant.”
Orders moved faster than thought now, relayed through vox-channels and encrypted bursts, flags flipping from amber to red to black as thresholds were crossed and contingencies exhausted. The machinery of empire did not hesitate, but neither did it reassure. The assault on the Imperial Capital had come without warning, without overture. Without a hope.
Why had the Emperor forsaken them?
“High Command is assembled. All stations set to Black. Response fleets from the Core Defence are en route.”
The words echoed through the chamber with the weight of finality, protocols reserved for extinction-level threat scenarios and doctrinal absolutes. Shannic felt the room subtly reorient around her, every senior officer aware that this was no longer a matter of suppression or deterrence.
Why had his ritual above Atrisia taken such a toll on him?
The question lingered unspoken as fresh data scrolled in, casualty projections updating in ruthless increments. Whatever price had been paid above Atrisia, whatever bargain had been struck or failed, its consequences were now arriving in force at the heart of the Empire.
And the Empire would answer.
A warm foul stench fills the air, rot and decay clinging thick to every breath.
Above, the moons of Coruscant shone cold and brilliant over the garden complex crowning the Imperial Palace.
He had made pilgrimage across the stars Corellia, Cademimu V, Sev Tok and now he stood where he had once stood before. Yet it could not have been more different from how it once was.
They had murdered destiny on this planet, strangled it with their bare hands, wrung the final breath from its corpse, and atop its grave erected their altar. They defiled fate itself and wove their own strand into the tapestry in its place.
The Saint sat stripped of his ultrachrome casing, the artificial dermal layers, the scaffolding of flesh and sealant, what remained of him was scarcely human. A limping corpse. A skinless, gelatinous mass slick with bacta residue, veins grotesquely prominent, lit from within like violet and cobalt auroras.
A hand without fingers.
A leg severed at the ankle.
The remaining limbs reduced to stumps, just enough left to anchor him to the intricate geometry of the Furnace bulwark, a wonder work of war and worship.
Empty, burned-out eye sockets filled with synthetic golden orbs.
A nose reduced to twin hollows.
A mouth that was little more than a third gaping maw, his fanged teeth a stark white contrast against the pallor of his gore coloured skin.
Two acolytes, marked by ritual burns, stood beside him. Their faces hidden beneath crude interpretations of Saudian masks: eye-slits only. One bore a single vertical glow. The other, a a thin cross upon his metal helm.
Karsta Raka, fire-born, supported their flame father, who was lowered and submerged into a shallow basin of bacta fluids, raised upon a pedestal. They carried him as one would a casket, his artificial eyes feeding his brain vivid impressions of the night above the palace.
He drew breath.
A whimpering, sucking lurch at life as synthetic lungs stretched and arched, forced open by the cool Coruscanti air.
Every moment was agony.
Leathery, naked flesh burned at the touch of nothing, the breeze, the moonlight, existence itself.
The massive corpse chuckled.
A barely audible, crackling rumble echoed from deep within his ruined frame.
In his excitement, the temperature shifted suddenly, the cool night breeze turning dry and hot but his slow, choked laughter did not cease.
"Master?"
"Dearest Saint!"
The Karsta Raka hurried to lower the open container in which they bore their master.
Da'Razel's golden gaze reflected the white-silver-blue glow of the lunar bodies shining back at him, casting the ghastly figure in a divine illumination.
"Master, please, let us return to the chambers!"
"No… no…"
His voice sounded like the last crackling of embers, brittle and breaking.
Every nerve and sinew writhed in pain. But the Saint stared into the hell-illuminated night, towards that horizon of iron, past brutalist mega structures, and neo gothic spires, into an army of a billion lights that defiled Coruscant. Thousands of windows, pinpricks of flimsy variations of white, like reflections of starlit water. Silent, stationary sentinels. Keepers of the skyline.
Even in the dead of night, the scene drowns in color. Neon crimson. Toxic green. Deep violet. Flickering cobalt.
"I wish to etch this sight into my soul" he whispered, each words like the snapping of brittle bones, "For Coruscant will never be the same"
"Per the God-Emperor's last decree"
A stark red Imperial banner, the size of city blocks, unfurled above the peak of the Imperial Palace, curled and flowed, like the ebb and tide of the high Coruscanti winds.
Da'Razel, the Saint of Fire, stood sentinel at the vast steps leading from the Grand Plaza to the megastructure that dominated the skyline.
His gore-red gaze lingered on the shattered golden forms that had once displayed the Grand Vizier and the legendary Korvan. He had watched them crumble, Meliant
had ordered it. Whether it had been meant to hinder the insurgents' charge or merely to satisfy taste and wounded ego no longer mattered. The changing of the guard had been enacted. The ringleaders executed. A new law of the land established, one the Saint wholeheartedly agreed with.
The statues that still mattered stood sentinel as he did.
Five immense cloaked figures, silhouettes of old gods, loomed at the far end of the plaza, unmoving and eternal.
To his left stood the Furnace of Enlightenment, a mass grave for the dreams and futures of Jedi and light-bearers alike. There, their blades were offered in requiem for their sins, dissolved down into a molten gold-red ichor.
Guards hurried past him, the 551st Legion.
Anti-air defense batteries came online.
Frequency jammers and CRI scanners snapped awake.
TIE fighter patrols carved sharp lines across the clouded heavens.
Sith runes etched into the ground shimmered in a daunting crimson.
Weapons of annihilation were locked and loaded.
And deep beneath it all, something far more vile still, stirred.
The Empire readied itself for total and absolute war.
A city-planet drew its blades and licked its lips in anticipation of bloodshed.
They had dangled the jewel of the galaxy before foes and allies alike, and at last, someone had swallowed the bait.
The Empire was not Coruscant.
The Empire was no place at all.
It was an eclectic force of nature, an idea, a belief, a faith that had been murdered and resurrected a hundred times over.
The difference between the Sith deities laying siege upon them today and the Sith they now laid siege to was simple: the former believed only in themselves, while the latter believed in something far greater yet.
The colossus stirred as location beacons registered along the inside of his combat helm and vox channels auto-loaded mesh keys, opening encrypted lines.
At the speed of thought, he filtered the traffic down to the only beings that mattered. Vireth
and Kelig Ward
.
He did not know where they were. Tagging either of them risked endangering their mission, especially should he be compromised. He prayed for them.
Alas the Saint's gilded, metallic chest swelled with pride.
Gears spun on silent, powerful motors, whirring to life as he set Kotjontû, his massive burning war-hammer, upon the vast marble that would soon be no more. He felt the kindling anticipation of the Karsta Raka in his back.
An eerie, stifled silence settled over the scene like freshly fallen snow, muffling sound and thought alike, as all beings sharpened their senses for the conflict to come.
"What a glorious day to pray at the altar of war"
Name: Khar-Vorn Health: 100% ██████████
Force User: No
Appearance: Devaronian male, heavily scarred, lower jaw replaced with a brass restraint frame, back and shoulders branded into overlapping furnace sigils
Appearance: Human female with vitrified burn-scarred skin, and iron nails driven through spine and collarbones; wears a scorched modular assault cuirass with ritual markings
Strengths: Jet-assisted close-quarters executioner, fearless under fire, highly mobile ritual enforcer
Weaknesses: Short-burst jet systems strain her damaged body, armor inferior to true Mandalorian gear
Meliant was sick. Not an easy thing for a spirit bound to armor to become, but the phantom sensations plagued him anyway. Churning where his guts should have been, tension along the surface of a long-gone forehead. He was sick with disgust and anticipation and dread.
He knew what was coming. He knew what he would become. But as all slaves to all higher powers, he could only make peace with his chains.
The heart of the Imperial palace was nearly as quiet as any tomb. Only the footsteps of the command staff and the soft hum of the tactical holo-map disturbed it.
The Federal District was rendered in miniature for Meliant's gaze. Soldiers of the Empire swarmed through it. His shock troopers, reinforced by army troopers and local storm trooper divisions. All brought to his thrall. They hid in their bunkers and trenches, their nests and encampments, and waited for the onslaught brought by the Sith Covenant.
They would not have to endure long.
Eventually Meliant tired of the silence. "Start a transmission. All frequencies."
Some underling or another affirmed the transmission was started. Meliant proceeded in his usual fashion: scowling and bitter.
"This is Lord Meliant of the Dark Side Elite," he hissed, and his voice carried to every dutiful Imperial stationed within the Federal District. There was no avoiding Meliant. "I have command of the Palace and this district. My orders will be heeded. Hesitation is treason. There is no debate in this matter. I will hear your reports.."
He would discourse with them individually as was necessary. Let his compeers make themselves known first. For now, he waved a hand and the broadcast terminated. Maybe they expected a speech. Meliant was in no mood to give one.
"The Covenant fleet is making its approach."
"I sense my brother," Meliant's hand absently curled into a fist. "Spin up the hypervelocity cannons. Target his battle dragons first."
How he detested that Hapan filth. Let them die first and set the mood.
His little holographic diorama showed him the great hypervelocity cannons that ringed the Federal District. Slowly they rotated and presented themselves, calibrating targeting solutions.
Srina descended through the air like a controlled falling star, bright and immense. She had chosen restraint instead of fire for her arrival. After all…She had Mercy, for that. The Echani warrior followed in the wake of the Lord of War without much thought toward what might lie in wait for them below. She could feel the impact reverberate outward from Mercy, making her entrance, and her fall slowed of its own accord, so the aftershock didn't slam into her. Black and silver armor caught the glare of orbital fires with alchemical runes drinking in the light rather than reflecting it. A dark cloak floated with her, weightless, almost, like the gravity of the city-planet had begun to lose its authority over her.
If it had ever had any at all.
The Force folded around her body in silent sheets, bending smoke, throwing debris aside as she lowered toward the Imperial Courtyard near the flaming impact of the Siegemother. Just below her, too close for comfort, the area had seemingly exploded from either Mercy or the ship making landfall. Probably, both. She mused that Lord of War was a fitting enough title for the leader of the Graspborn, but from her perspective…
God of Ruin would have been more accurate.
The courtyard looked like a meteor hit it. There was a statue missing that would have been pleasing to destroy...But pillars were shattered. Stone cracked all the way down, through the foundations, so thoroughly vicious that the destruction had likely made the festering Underworld tremble.
It was an immediate warzone.
Srina did not hesitate. She reached up and touched the phylactery that always and forever sat around her neck. It allowed silent communication, informing Darth Carnifex
that she hadn't perished breaking atmosphere. She did not fear combat or war, but she did feel it deep in her bones. A constant thrum…A drum beat, always waiting.
As an Echani, the platinum-haired woman was more at home here than anywhere else. As the Empress of the Sith Order, recently attacked during the Atrisian event, she had plenty of vengeance to spare for this resurgence of the Galactic Empire. They had crashed thoughtlessly against the Black Wall and found the storm barrier too much for chanting and weak rituals. The former Emperor had cultivated the seeds that kept it running, and it would take more than a bit of bluster to bring it down without her consent. Her people had by and large been unaffected…But an insult was an insult.
Srina was not in the habit of turning the other cheek. She was known for seemingly endless patience. For her rational, pragmatic mind, for walking softly while carrying a nuke in her pocket. She was not, however, known to forgive. The Faithless had chosen their fate.
No one else.
She lifted one hand.
Everything that Mercy had broken, columns, small edificies, walkways, duracrete slabs, shattered shield pylons, and anything not tied down rose back into the air around her in a slow, terrible spiral. "Mercy…Why do you leave me to clean up your mess?", she called down to the monstrous woman, waiting, while the debris formed a crown of wreckage.
Eyes of metallic gold began to burn, corrupted, and luminescent.
Then she hurled everything forward.
A courtyard's worth of debris and then some was flung ahead of their troops like a tidal wave into the Palace's outer bastions. It sought to pulverize anything it could, punching deep into the Imperial superstructure. Srina would target any defenses that she could see, but she was not intimately familiar with the building plans. It was chaotic—And it brutally, efficiently, spared nothing.
She was not trying to win.
She wanted this Jewel of the Coreto fail in its entirety.
Srina drifted down beside Mercy at last, boots touching shattered stone, while her presence turned the air cold and heavy around them. The destruction and mayhem bent away from them with unwilling reverence. Her shoulders rolled for a moment, and metaphysical fingers splayed out from her epicenter, rippling toward invisible fault-lines beneath the Imperial Palace. It would be so easy…Just to pull. To pull with everything she had and turn this land of ineptitude into rubble. Her voice was soft when she spoke, full of air, and something forbidden. It was a mixture that was both angelic and violent.
"Burning this world…Is not enough."
She wanted it to fall in on itself. Collapse, like a dying star. There had never been anything redeemable about the ecumenopolis, no matter who held it, and every fiber of her being wanted this Force-Forsaken place compressed into something that could no longer sustain life. How things had changed. Once, decades ago, she had tried to save this cesspool from itself. From the Lady of Secrets…
Sometimes, there were people you swore to follow to the Netherworld and back. Usually, it was just poetic camaraderie and that nonsense, but for Arris, that literally happened on their way to Chandrila... Leave it to the Sith Covenant to have a warship that ferried whole fleets across the realm of death just to avoid interdiction and hyperlane traffic. Suffice it to say, it didn't take much thought for Arris to jump out of the hangar, falling at Mercy's side through the Coruscant air as anti-air fire cut around them.
The cyborg watched Mercy plummet faster than she, a benefit of the Titan's mass, no doubt, and saw the Triumvir transformed into a human asteroid and smashed right through duracrete as if nothing. She wasn't far behind, though her landing had no impact, literally or figuratively, in the same way. The Talusian rolled out of her fall and carried herself in an awkward sprint just to keep herself close to Mercy's side.
Though already her presence, and any banter she might've had, was overshadowed by the presence of another: The Sith Empress.
Metal fingers anxiously groped the grip of two revolvers, each holstered at Windrun's hip. Her hands wouldn't leave them. Not as Arris experienced her true taste of a battlefield. It was different from their raids on Kattada or Chandrila. Different in that this wasn't some massacre where they meant to loot and leave; they were to stay, if they could help it, and met the Empire's forces by a factor of well... a whole damn many more than what the Covenant brought to sack Hanna City.
She remembered what Arris asked of her. To 'remove' any obstacles that Mercy didn't want to take for herself. While she was up to the task, Arris quietly hoped Star-Arm's other companions would handle that for her.
The blonde gunslinger broke off from the group a little to find some privacy (or at least, what counted for privacy in the middle of a heated deathmatch) away from the others.
With that space, she linked up with Acier Moonbound
via her encrypted comlink. Implanted, of course, subvocal.
"Remember," she said to him, "No interference from anyone. You do this, and I let you in on everything."
The control room thrummed with restrained urgency.
Veterans of a hundred campaigns stood shoulder to shoulder in immaculate Imperial uniforms, hololithic displays washing their faces in pale tactical light. Rank insignia caught and reflected it like shards of ice. ISB Director Noda observed in silence.
Noise did not concern him. Nor did speed. Both were common in crisis. What mattered was deviation. Who reached too quickly for certainty, who hesitated when doctrine narrowed.
Several officers wore field fatigues rather than ceremonial cut, the evidence of a planet taken by surprise. Noda catalogued them without judgement. Improvisation revealed more than pageantry ever could.
At the central dais, Shannic stood rigid, hands clasped behind her back, eyes fixed on the rotating projection of Imperial Centre and its collapsing defence rings. To the room, she was command incarnate. To Noda, she was a variable under stress.
Orders flowed cleanly now, protocols cascading with mechanical efficiency as thresholds were crossed and options burned away. Civilian protections were stripped back to necessity. Ambiguity was excised. The machinery of Empire moved as designed.
Yet Noda saw what the displays did not show. The slight delays in response. The tightening expressions when casualty projections refreshed. Panic lived not in chaos, but in restraint stretched too far. This enemy force had achieved what only they had in the past; surprise.
The Emperor’s absence hung over the chamber like a missing limb.
Noda did not indulge the question of abandonment. Faith was not his instrument. Power demanded explanation, and explanation demanded evidence. Atrisia troubled him. The loss of the Death Star had signalled weakness. Here their enemies were to collect on it.
Too many sealed reports. Too much silence for an operation of that scale. Rituals left traces. Exhaustion left patterns. What did not leave traces had been deliberately erased.
As fresh data scrolled in and projections climbed with ruthless indifference, Noda began assembling a different map than the one hovering above the dais. Not of fleets or battalions, but of motive, foreknowledge, and intent.
Whatever had been attempted above Atrisia, whatever bargain had failed or fractured, its consequences were no longer distant.
They had arrived. The Empire would answer. Not with prayer. With defiance.
"Sir, the message is ready to be relayed. Encryption is level Auresh." "Very good" answered Noda, keying his authorisation into the console in the corner. It was to be sent to the entire Imperial dominion and beyond. Traced would be picked up in every corner of the galaxy, the Imperial relay set to channel it to every capital that the Galaxy claimed to have. It would be a message of warning, should the Empire fall here today. He read it one more time.
This is Imperial Center. We are besieged by forces allied to the Sith. They have attacked Imperial Center. The Sith have betrayed and attacked us without warning, without overture. Be wary. We will do our best to protect the billions who call the planet home. The Sith have turned against us
The iconic blinked twice, showing that the transmission had begun. It would be propelled across the galaxy now, in vain hope that it would be heard by those that might notice it. The galaxy must know.
Krasskorr stood on one of the elevated terraces of the Imperial Palace, his pupils narrowing into thin slits against the harsh brightness of the distant skyscrapers as the artificial clouds dispersed, driven by the external pressure from the transports. Once proud vessels of the Imperial Fleet or the daring vanguard of the Sith Covenant were stripped of their hulls before crashing with a gratifying explosion.
Had he not been ordered to safeguard the Imperial Palace from intruders, he would have descended to evaluate the damage and salvage any remaining meat from the deceased troopers within. There was no reason to squander valuable organic rations, especially while the planet was under siege by an enemy intent on their annihilation.
A snarl emerged from the hybrid's throat.
"It has been to long since the Emperor has called a hunt. It seems he has answered my beseechment." His left claw tightened around the railing of the terrace, the reinforced metal groaning and buckling under his immense strength. He didn't need a briefing from Imperial Command or from that witless welp Meliant
to understand the stakes, as if the Imperial Palace were to fall it would mean the end of the Galactic Empire.
Krasskorr reached for the massive hilt at his hip. The lightclub felt heavy, a comforting weight that promised a violent end to any sorcerer bold enough to cross the palace threshold. He felt the Dark Side roiling through the district, not the cold, calculated chill of the Emperor, but a frantic, hungry tide of ambition.
Someone powerful was coming, an entourage of shadows aiming for the throne, and they were cutting a bloody swathe through the security sectors to get there. The Saurton shifted his weight, his armor clanking as he turned toward the primary entrance of the Palace.
The hunt was coming to him. He ignited the lightclub, the massive crimson blade snapping into existence, casting a long, monstrous shadow against the palace walls.
The Fate of Coruscant The Chiss Woman vol. 1 |:|Issue #2: Defending the Capital w/
Standing on the landing platform of the Imperial Palace, Remowa observed the battle for Imperial Center with an expression of emptiness. The atmosphere was tinged with betrayal as whispers spread that one of their own Meliant
had conveniently assumed control of the Palace's defenses, replacing the Galactic Emperor.
Such gossip did not unsettle her or the Dark Side Elite, for their loyalty lay with their true master, regardless of which power-hungry fool attempted to seize his throne. The silence was disrupted by the thunderous roar of incoming engines and the distant impact of heavy ordnance striking the planetary shield.
A transport, marked with the insignia of the invaders, made a sharp turn toward the palace district.
Remowa's hand fell to her hip, her fingers gripping a hilt that resembled a lash more than a saber. With a sharp hiss, the lightwhip unfurled, crackling with amethyst energy that sizzled as it struck the stone of the platform. It lacked the steady hum of a conventional blade, instead emitting an erratic thrum that echoed the turmoil within her own mind.
"Only a fool would dare to assault Imperial Center," she said, her voice surprisingly clear above the howling wind. Her eyes appeared to shine brightly red, reflecting the fiery skies overhead. "But do not worry, the Dark Side Elite is more than ready to deal with unruly jesters on the Palace grounds."
As the first wave of attackers jumped from their hovering craft, Remowa sprang into action. The lightwhip lashed out with a fluid motion, a crack of thunder that sliced through the air to incinerate flesh and bone.
The silence of the landing craft was deafening, punctuated only by the steady rhythm of the occupant's breathing and the groan of the metal hull around them. The man looked down at his hands, flexing each gloved digit as though looking at them with new eyes. Perhaps that was more true than he'd care to realize, the taste of his new name still hot and fresh on his tongue.
Vornskr.
It was a name not of his own invention, but one bestowed upon him by the Dark Lord. He could still remember descending into those decrepit depths, wandering through endless catacombs of ancient horror. Standing before the Dark Lord of the One Sith, made to wither in the presence of power he'd once believed was only myth and fairy tale. He'd been humbled then, so thoroughly humbled that he devoted himself body and soul to the Dark Lord.
The figure had risen, smaller than the man who had once been Emperor, and with a single finger anointed him in the darkness of the One. He'd called him Vornskr then, the Hound of the One Sith. A disgraced Emperor plucked from the jaws of humiliation and death, and now reborn in the hallowed depths of Prakith. He was to join four others as the Voices of the One Sith, charged with dominion over one-fifth of the known galaxy.
In the time since, he'd made himself useful. The Unknown Regions was to be his domain, and he made the greatest use of that untamed, untapped stretch of space. The red-skinned priests of Tantorus bowed before him, bestowing upon him an ancient sextant that led to the dead world of Exegol. Csilla was consumed by the Sith's advance, as was the entirety of the Ascendancy soon after. None could withstand their power, and with more worlds consumed the greater that power grew.
It had all culminated here, on the eve of their great attack.
Vornskr looked around him, to the forms of his new comrades. The towering Maelibus, Darth Shara, paced hungrily from one end of the cabin to the other. His hide a rippling tapestry of scintillating silver, almost metallic. By comparison, Darth Nephthys looked like a doll. Porcelain skin, hair blacker than deepest ebony, and eyes as bright as fresh blood bound in slender form. Every time she moved, the Skerr Kyrric affixed to her body peaked out from behind the voluminous cloak bound around her.
But it was the one nearest to him that he could not look away from. Eyes like reflective silver pools, seeing things far beyond the purview of mortal eyes such as his. Raven black hair framed a face of stunning beauty, radiant as though a fire had been lit beneath her skin and allowed to smolder to dull embers. Darth Isolda was the Eye of the One, their foremost prophet and scryer. It was her divinations that had led them to this moment, the threads of fate all converging to this singular spot.
Coruscant, jewel of the Galactic Republic.
Soon to fall, soon to burn.
The warning came, they were about to exit hyperspace. Soon they would crash into the Jedi Temple itself, and a tide of doom would wash out across the whole world. Vornskr reached down and found the horned skull of his battle helmet slipping into his grasp. As he brought it down upon his head, the voice of the prophet rang out through the ship, followed shortly by the rattle of anti-air as the temple defenses opened fire.
Lo, the Nightmare Lands. Kinslayer arises. For strife and chaos come upon the galaxy.
The memories came in the throes of euphoric revelation, always unbidden. Perhaps it was more fitting that such a specific memory resurfaced in this moment, considering what now loomed on the horizon.
He wanted to scream, He wanted to cry out, but He held His voice. The pain which surged through Him now was nothing compared to the agony of total oblivion, that which He knew awaited Him beyond the veil of death. This pain, this racking agony, grounded Him, reminded Him that He was real. This was the world of flesh and bone, not the world of spirit and consciousness. He swallowed whole this terrible suffering, greedily devouring every sensation in its excess.
Eyes snapped open, molten pupils dilated with a sight beyond that of mortal men. The Embrace relented, tendrils unraveling as the bonds which held Him fast grew slack and disappeared altogether. He sank to the floor, coming to rest on His knees upon a circular metal dais. He'd been shorn of modesty, His olive skin kissed with dewdrops of sweat at every conceivable angle. He rightfully smelled, stinking of exertion and pain, but never of fear.
Darth Isolda watched as the Dark Lord was released from the Embrace, silver eyes like mirrors drinking in the glory that was His physical form. Her own body was awash in the regality of a prophet, metallic ornamentation interwoven with finest silk. She approached slowly, carefully, knowing it was unwise to so swiftly come near a beast like the Butcher King as the throes of euphoria melted away, replaced by the aching lust of departed agony. She had been to one to first impart this lesson upon Him, when He went by a different name; a lesser name.
Pain is revelation.
Dripping from the shadows came five spindly priestesses, their emaciated bodies clad in shimmering samite, eyes and mouths sown shut with golden thread. Their long, wiry fingers submerged in clay pots of threnic unction, proceeding to then meticulously smear it across His bare skin. The oil was viscous, partially opaque, and the color of mourning dusk; neither black nor gray, but something in-between. Flecks of silver and gold, swirling whispers of alchemical memory, caught the sterile light from the recessed luminpanels in the vaulted ceiling above.
They began all at once, pressing their long fingers into the contours of His physical form. Though they could not see, though they could not speak, they moved with calculated precision. The oil clung to His skin like a shadow, sanctifying Him with the power of sacred ritual. One of the priestesses anointed His chest, each pectoral like a slab of sculpted dusk. Her hands followed the contours of the engraved Sith runes that crossed His sternum, feeling the power humming just beneath the skin like an active reactor.
It was the most devoted of them all that was granted the privilege of anointing His head, her fingers working slowly to apply the unction to His brow; bright red Sith seal like a crowning jewel set squarely in His forehead. From her bowl, she poured the remaining unction down upon His scalp, letting it sluice through His long dark hair in thick rivulets. The oil coated His head, dripped along the sides of His face, trailed down His throat, and vanished between the valleys of His scarred and tattooed chest.
They circled Him, hands pressed to His body as the final rites were prepared. The oil was no longer just coating Him, it was sinking into Him; quickening like a second skin. It clung to His musculature like a lover's embrace, outlining every ridge, every scar, every brand. The scent of the unction thickened now, ripened by warmth and time, hanging in the chamber like a fugue. The priestesses bowed their heads and slipped back into the shadows, their task complete.
It did not take long for them to be replaced, as new figures slid out from the darkness. Faded ash-gray robes cloaked their bodies, their faces obscured by masks of bone and ivory. In their near-skeletal hands they held new censure basins, filled with flecks of crushed bone and powdered ash. As one they surrounded Him, and gingerly lifted and then tipped the contents of their basins over His head. The powdered mixture fell like atomic snow, drifting through the warm incense haze to kiss His oiled skin with a dry whisper, clinging to the unction, forming an uneven crust.
Where the oil was thickest, the dust stuck in broad strokes. Where thinner, it painted Him in streaks of mottled death. Where bone met rune, it sank into the engraved flesh, filling the grooves like mortar in a tombstone's etchings. They set aside their basins and began to dust away the excess with careful gestures, starting at His chest and then moving to the extremities. No word was said, nothing needed to be. All was achieved in reverent silence, the only sound made was the rustling of fabric and the soft step of those who acted in worship.
Then they too departed, and then the final stage began.
With a tremor like the slow grind of a tectonic plate, the circular platform He stood upon sank a meter into the floor, locking into place with a resonant clang of magnetic anchors. From the circumference, apertures in the walls, floor, and ceiling slid open, revealing nested claws, braces, and armatures of alchemized machinery. Glowing red conduits pulsed like veins, illuminating the girding mechanism with sacrificial light.
Black spider-like constructs woven with alchemical threads and ceremonial programming reached out for His flesh, each limb bore carefully folded textiles. Not of silk, nor mere synthweave, but of death-spun cloth. The inner cassock came first, hemmed in blood-glyphs and lined with fine threads of Shikkari death-weave. It tightly clung to His body, slicking over the still-glimmering unction and sealing the oil and bone dust beneath its embrace.
Next came the crimson inner drape, torn at the hem by design, its fabric threaded with ritual ash and fragments of battlefield banners. This cloth bore no symbols, for it was a symbol in itself. It wrapped around His waist and chest, then across one shoulder in the style of a funerary shroud. Final was the girding cincture, a thick belt of terentatek leather and dark metallic buckles. Each metal piece was etched in the sharp, angular language of the ancient Sith. The cincture locked the vestments in place, each rune hissing as it aligned, reacting with His natural heat and the unction sealed beneath the cassock.
Now came the true armor.
With a hiss of steam and a sibilant chant of servo-runes, the first component descended from above, a massive backplate, shaped like a flayed spinal column forged from Zîrkaris and blood-forged aurodium. It hovered for a heartbeat, suspended by magnetic manipulation, then slammed onto His back, each vertebral ridge aligning perfectly with His own. The runic anchors bit into his skin, merging not merely to bone, but soul.
From the walls, gauntlet-bearing limbs extended, each joint inscribed with Sith incantations and powered by archaic Rakatan gravity cores. They moved with ritualistic slowness, offering up the next pieces in deliberate order. Sabatons clamped around His feet, sealing with a pulse of red light; greaves, reinforced with Terentatek hide and Shikkari death-weave, curled around His legs, binding tightly with alchemical sinew; gauntlets and vambraces surged over His hands and forearms, fusing with wrist and tendon; and finally, twin pauldrons locked onto His shoulders with immense concussive force.
From beneath, articulated arms rose bearing the cuirass, wrought from blackened Zîrkaris and veined with silver script. The moment it approached, the threnic unction still coating His flesh boiled, reacting to the armor's proximity. It latched with a shudder, expelling a wave of compressed Force pressure through the chamber. Runes along the seams ignited, sealed the armor tightly to His flesh. Only ritual could remove it now, nothing else would suffice.
From above came His cloak, a long, heavy mantle of black sable spooled from darkness itself. Interlocking along every square inch of its exterior surface were diamond-shaped scales of Mandalorian Beskar, each one a trophy wrought from a clan or family He'd murdered. There were thousands of them, each stamped with the symbol of their clan. No two were exactly alike. They shimmered like dragon scales as the cloak descended from the ceiling, carried on twin claws like those of a carrion bird. It draped over His back, clasping at the pauldrons with magnetic certainty, its serrated edge just barely brushing the floor.
The sunken dais now rose again, returning Him to where He'd started. With one deliberate step He descended the dais, now fully clad in the regalia of war. Awaiting Him beyond was a smaller chamber, His lightsaber seated upon a silken pillow. He called it to His hand with a faint gesture, the weapon flying forward and slipping into His palm. Fingers coiled around the leather-bound hilt, snapping the weapon to His waist with a magnetic thunk.
He then looked to Isolda for the first time, molten eyes reflected in her silver mirrors. She'd been quiet all this time, silently observing her Lord's blessed rituals. It was not the first, nor would it be the last. Though once before she had been the master and He the student, that dynamic no longer applied. He was the Master of many things now, and though she had never become the student as He had, she nonetheless deferred to Him in all things.
His hand uncurled, extended towards Isolda expectantly. Her own slender hand slipped into His own, and He led her out of the chamber and towards the awaiting scarlet dawn.
The Axiom's sleek silhouette cut through the cerulean tumult of hyperspace like a predatory fin. As the first of its kind, the Axiom had been given the prestigious duty of deploying directly into battle against the Faithless. An entire regiment of elite Blackblade Guard was carried in its belly, along with an assortment of rapid maneuver vehicles and aerial assault craft, all of which was meticulously chosen for this specific engagement zone.
Coruscant, a world of steel and stone.
A robust complement of superiority fighters, heavy fighters, and tactical bombers had also been allotted, carefully nestled in the Axiom's launch trench located along the ventral keel. Grav-assisted catapults would allow the Axiom to disgorge most of its fighter escort within the first few moments of engagement, while the larger ships could be deployed from recessed launch galleries adjacent to the primary trench. Beyond that, over two dozen landers and assault shuttles were made ready to bring about the swift deployment of the Blackblade Guard to the planet's surface.
It was in the middle of these preparations that the Dark Lord and Darth Isolda emerged, both engorged with the virulent power of the Dark Side of the Force. Before them was the assembled throng of Blackblade Guard, resplendent in their gleaming black regalia. They formed two large columns, each flanking a central thoroughfare down which the Dark Lord and His Prophet both traversed. Descending from the upper levels of the launch bay came nine winged warrior women, their black feathered wings creating a mighty gust of wind as they landed.
They were the Dark Valkyries, the Kintek'Krataa, elite warriors under the direct command of Darth Carnifex. Both had been augmented through Sith Alchemy and Magic into the ferocious warriors that now assembled before the Dark Lord, falling to one knee in reverence and worship of their God. They would follow their Lord and His Prophet into battle once again, as they had countless times before. Alongside them were the 23rd Blackened Valkyrie Regiment, an elite unit formed by the Dark Lord's wife Teresa Zambrano | Darth Pellax
, which He had loaned from her for this specific engagement.
In total, the Dark Lord had assembled some two-thousand elite soldiers to charge into the gaping maw of Coruscant, and that would be more than enough in His estimation. The Covenant would pick up the slack, it was officially their assault anyways.
As the Dark Lord surveyed His soldiers, the Axiom broke out of hyperspace into a battle already underway. The Covenant had arrived well before the Dark Lord, as was His intention. With the Faithless' forces distracted, the Axiom had little issue in slipping in among the chaos and maneuvering close enough to disgorge it's complement of landers and shuttles. Carnifex and Isolda rode in the same shuttle, as did their nine Valkyrie escort. The rest of the Blackblades and Blackened Valkyrie Regiment was spread out among the other landing vessels.
Flak and anti-air bursts bracketed their descent, the shuttle's shields and hull integrity being put to the ultimate test as it descended through kilometers and kilometers of harrowing crossfire and debris. Before them loomed the Imperial Palace, an edifice of rot and sin jutting up from the bloated cityscape like a gangrenous tumor. The Faithless' penchant for vulgarity was enough to drive a lesser being to sickness, but the Dark Lord could only witness it with scornful derision.
Nonetheless, it was their destination.
The first landers made planetfall under a hail of blasterfire and rockets, Blackblade Guard and Valkyrie soldiers maneuvering out in coordinated cells despite the heavy fire. The Blackblades were the most well-equipped and resilient of the combined forces, so they were the ones who charged headlong into enemy fire to establish multiple anchor points for the other troops to latch onto. Cybernetically enhanced, the Blackblades knew neither fatigue or fear, and the combined forces of the Faithless did nothing to make them hesitate.
Into this, the Dark Lord descended. His shuttle had assumed a holding position several tens of meters above the combat zone, and from there He'd launched Himself out to strike at the heart of the enemy defenses. His coming heralded fire and wrath, His monstrous ferocity unfettered as He tore through several squadrons of Stormtroopers like they had been fashioned from crude flimsiplast. No mere acolyte of the Faithless could ever hope to staunch His violence, and so they died in droves.
Leaving only blood and cracked plastoid in His wake.
The Dark Lord could sense the other Sith in the vicinity, each of them having chosen their own vector of attacking the Palace. Moreover, Carnifex could feel the presence of the Empress, and knew that she had arrived without difficulty. He could then proceed along His own path, the Prophet Isolda following at His back with all the powers of foresight at her fingertips.
Eurydice could not recall the sequence of events that had lead her into this hellscape.
So often she'd done as she'd been told, that having a semblance of choice wouldn't registered to her - because, truly, there was never a choice for the weak. Not in the world of the Sith.
Somehow, cutting into the heart of the Galactic Empire, flanked by these terrifying titans in humanoid form, seemed like the more survivable option.
Eurydice shuffled to the hangar, her diminutive presence dwarfed by the shadows of greater women. Unaccustomed to war, she'd been sick twice upon the Siegemother's tumultuous descent. It would have been embarrassing if she hadn't been so panicked.
With her pallid face still tinted by a faint green hue, the Seer waited until the ramp touched down before scurrying behind the cadre of dark-side goliaths.
Mercy, terrifying and as utterly dauntless as a ravaging storm. The Empress, whose presence hung so heavily in the Force that Eurydice could barely draw breath. The Princess, who seemed to float through life like a deity. The others accompanying them were just as intense, just as fatal-
Monsters, all of them.
Head down and hood drawn, a trembling Eurydice contracted her own presence in on itself. Made herself small and meek, more than she already was, and tried to block out the cacophony of death and power that churned all around her.
Quinn's presence was never loud. It never needed to be. She moved quietly, concealed beneath the habits drilled into her since childhood. Protection didn't mean armor or guards; it meant not being noticed at all. Not in the Force. Not by instinct. Not by accident. That was how she survived — and how those around her stayed sane.
Bound to her soul, stitched into the core of what she was, the Phobis Core pulsed.
Sometimes she wondered whether anything was left beneath it. A heart, maybe. Something organic. Other times, she suspected she was just… animated by it. Kept upright by whatever horrors churned inside that thing, waiting for permission to breathe.
What would happen if it were removed? Would she unravel? Would she finally be free — or would she scatter, broken apart and carried off by the current of the Force?
Quinn asked herself those questions before battles. Before moments where death felt close enough to touch.
…Even when it found her, it never stayed.
The Princess exhaled slowly. She had been crowned Queen and Warden of Eshan not long ago, and still here she stood, boots ready to descend onto Coruscant. Her people were safe. She'd made sure of that. Advisors she trusted watched over them now — the same ones who once guided her sister and answered to her mother. They followed Quinn's will these days, whether they enjoyed it or not.
She was part of a legacy. She just didn't feel like she belonged to it.
Her mothers were absent. Again. Probably with Noelle, soothing the elder twin, helping her mourn what had been taken. The thought twisted something sour in Quinn's gut. Power had shifted in ways that felt wrong, like betrayal. Even if she hated her sister, she thought it wasn't right.
And still, she found herself wanting their approval.
<"Princess.">
The voice in her ear cut cleanly through the spiral.
She'd never admit it, but CT-312 grounded her. It was a rare strength anyone had with the Princess. But the clone had long since become something solid in her life — a constant. She wasn't just security anymore. She was the spine of it.
"I'll be fine," Quinn murmured, touching the comm. The reply came quickly, edged with concern, enough to tug a faint smile from her. "It's Coruscant. If things go bad, I'll call it in. Stay on the perimeter with the others."
The others. DeathDrop. A mercenary group she'd acquired the moment CT-312
proved herself indispensable. Quinn told herself it was practical. She knew better.
The channel went dead.
Quinn leaned back, eyes drifting over the city below. Coruscant burned — not literally, not yet — but the Devastator's presence throbbed through the Force like a second heartbeat. Mercy fed on that kind of power. Drew followers to her like gravity. The devotion she commanded reminded Quinn uncomfortably of Srina. Of her parents.
To be worshipped like that was rare.
It also made Quinn feel small.
She wrinkled her nose and turned away from the sight, pulling herself inward. Unlike Mercy — unlike her mother — Quinn didn't dominate the Force by presence alone. She slipped beneath it. A whisper under a scream. With a subtle twist of will, space folded, the Force tearing open just enough for her to step through. She exhaled once and reappeared near the others.
And then came the part she hated.
Her mind turned inward, slow and deliberate, like a key sinking into a lock she wished she didn't own. Whatever held her together loosened its grip.
Quinn stopped being distant.
She stopped being subtle.
She became the nightmare that bled into the Force.
Her senses opened violently. Barriers gave way. Something starved and patient surged forward, eager for anything it could touch. Fear rolled outward from her like heat. Her throat tightened as the feedback hit — too many emotions, too raw, too close.
Terror spilled from the acolyte, unguarded and raw — the darkness lunged for it. It pressed closer, tasting it, wanting more. Quinn felt it pull, felt it try to anchor itself there.
Anxiety flared — sharp, defensive, familiar. Quinn's lips pressed together as curiosity nudged at her. Was the cyborg afraid? She'd learned long ago that survival often bred fear in the end.
Even in herself.
The emotions tangled in the Force thickened and amplified by the Phobis Core's hunger. Quinn's presence spread (force horror) across the battlefield, lingering where it could strengthen those reckless enough to draw from it. Her mind reached outward, probing, searching for cracks.
Weakness.
Panic.
The moment where fear tipped into something worse.
Any of it would do.
All of it only made her stronger.
Her eyes lingered on Mercy, hearing the words that poured from her lips. They were a simple command, but one that placed the woman on a throne -- one that Quinn had figured Mercy didn't ever want. Maybe the power she saw the Sith Empress command had changed her mind?
Mercy was unpredictable... maybe that's what made her so addicting.
Peace was set to be ushered in. At last they had defeated the Sith Empire, and with their fall, the Jedi could turn towards the work of rebuilding the Galactic Republic after the Four-Hundred Year Darkness. Ella had been quietly happy that her time as an apprentice had coincided throughout the duration of the war. Sochi Ru had not taken her with them towards the front less she risked putting her Padawan in harms way. They were meant to meet with each other on the outskirts of the Jedi Temple and discuss the vibrant future ahead. Celebrations were to be mixed in as Sochi congratulated her student on passing the trials to become a Jedi Knight as they both entered a new era as peacekeepers just as it was supposed to have always been.
Word had come in from the Outer Rim systems that the last Sith Emperor had been defeated on Mon Cala by members of the Jedi Council. Zambrano had survived the war, Ella heard. Still, him and the other last surviving Sith were to be held at trial for war crimes against the Galactic Republic. It was the right thing to do. The Jedi were not tyrants or conquerors. Peace was their verse, and this show of mercy would put things right. Law, order and civilization had to return to the stars as it had been for several millennia with Jedi, such as Ella Nova, there to make sure that the likes of the Sith would never rise up again. Whether the Senate elected to destroy the Sith Emperor and his cohorts as punishment for their crimes was another matter. It was a decision that the Jedi would leave to the people.
Democracy had won over tyranny. Balance had been returned to the Force. The Sith were no-more.
Flashes of red peeling across an iron-grey Coruscanti sky destroyed any semblance of hope. Master Ru never made it to speak with their Padawan learner ever again, and in almost no-time at all, the Galactic Republic was no-more.
There is a certain allure to being home. Ayra had traversed the hallways of the Imperial Palace several times since the fall of the Galactic Alliance. She had grown up here in another life. Memories that had been forgotten resurfaced to remind the Dark Lord of the past, and served to embolden the conspiracy Ayra had created to ascertain revenge against the dark masters of the Stygian Caldera. One of them, in particular, served to kept her tethered to this life. She had even taken the name of one of His former followers to fit with the likes of the New Sith Order so that Darth Ayra could join the Galactic Emperor's reign. Such was Her cunning.
There has been a disturbance in the Force.
Wind swept through the black robes of Darth Ayra as she stood upon the balcony overlooking the city while Sith warships emerged from the void to remind her of that dark day when civilization fell. Arms were folded into either sleeve as Ayra watched red peel across Coruscanti skies again and felt the scales of war threatening to tip over. Her cunning mind raced. On the one hand this attack by the Sith would assist in expediting her goals to turn the Dark-Imperial bloc away from war with the likes of The Diarchy or the High Republic to favour targeting the barbarians who were now at their door-step. That would be most useful to the Grand Plan, Ayra thought.
But fate could be unkind. A true master knows when to adapt to the transient. When events arise to make one question what is the right thing to do for them. On the other Ayra considered that if Imperial Centre fell today then it would would be the final death blow to a movement which had seen to the rise of the Great Core Wars and end of the Galactic Alliance. Perhaps the successors to the New Imperial Order, whom Ayra had long sought since to covet and turn them upon the Dark Lords of the Sith, were set to die here today and with them the dream that was the Galactic Empire. She considered a retreat. Nearby the Initium laid in wait to take Ayra far from the Core Worlds out into the Outer Rim systems to join her apprentice as their conspiracy drew closer towards the ultimate goal. She needn't die with the sycophants and cultists who had joined Solipsis. Not when there were other places to go where the Grand Plan could blossom in the dark.
From her vantage point Ayra could see the Sith landing at her doorstep as the Imperial Palace became one of their targets. There is also a significant allure to keeping her life which moved Ayra to consider abandoning the former Jedi Temple. A return to Lianna was wanting. There Ayra could continue evading detection from those villains of the eleventh Sith dynasty (and their new cohorts from the Sith Covenant) so that she could continue to attack them from the dark and erode them over time. Ayra had shed her weapons and armour in favour of her cloak for a reason. War was a useful tool to complete her goals, but perhaps, after Atrisia, and the loss of the Death Star, the Dark-Imperials had lost their usefulness to her.
Ayra turned to leave but found a pause in her step as she her senses brought clarity to erase doubt. It was the same presence that Ayra had last felt on New Alderaan a long time ago. It belonged to a man- neigh, a being- who had deceived the Jedi and went onto to conquer the Old Republic. A stalwart some referred to as the Eternal Father in Sith circles; the Sith Emperor, and Dark Lord of the Kainite. Her old friends, and family, knew him once as Kaine Zambrano, and then later, Vornskr of the One Sith. He who who had descended from the heavens to avenge what had happened to Him on Mon Cala.
Darth Carnifex.
Ayra lowered a palm into her robes and took a Lightsaber to wield in her left hand. A thumb pressed upon the ignition button and the sizzle of crimson light became a comfortable weight at the advent of the Sith Covenant-Galactic Empire War. Perhaps Ayra would not need the Imperial Confederation to finish what He had started after-all. Two years of conspiring to turn the Imperial remnants to target His holdings, where His strongholds could be found, could prove to have been for nothing, for their master could be crushed by her powers in the Dark-side of the Force tonight...
Lord Meliant stood hunched over the tactical table, watching the lines of combatants wiggle and writhe like dying serpents. The main event was already here: two meteors struck the middle of the courtyard, and it turned out those meteors were two people very good at killing. And they had bypassed most of his defenses, tearing the rearguard to ribbons.
Instead she drew on the Force, claiming its power, wrapping herself in its might. Speeding up her velocity, her mass, until the boulder turned into an asteroid that smashed right into the middle of the courtyard. It fractured the duracrete under her fist as a riptide of webbing fractures unleashed with her in the epicenter of it.
The quake would rip through stone, metal, causing chaos and destruction as the minor seismic event continued its path towards the palace proper.
Eyes of metallic gold began to burn, corrupted, and luminescent.
Then she hurled everything forward.
A courtyard's worth of debris and then some was flung ahead of their troops like a tidal wave into the Palace's outer bastions. It sought to pulverize anything it could, punching deep into the Imperial superstructure. Srina would target any defenses that she could see, but she was not intimately familiar with the building plans. It was chaotic—And it brutally, efficiently, spared nothing.
She was not trying to win.
She wanted this Jewel of the Coreto fail in its entirety.
Already great swathes of soldiery were passing away from seismic events and lobbed debris. Meliant felt each and every death personally, through the bonds he shared with his Tribunes and those... Other volunteers.
He did not expect the minions of the Empire to put a stop to the heroes of the Sith Covenant. They were only there to bog down their troops. Among other things, of course. But to fulfill that purpose, he yet needed them alive.
Meliant keyed himself over to Da'Razel's frequency.His voice crackled into the Fire Saint's ear. He did not expect anyone else would be able to put up a good fight.
"Hello, Golden Boy. Be a good Saint and kill the Blackwall Empress. That's the blonde, in case it wasn't obvious."
No sooner had he said those were did he mutter some exclamation in ancient Sith and the line went dead.
The Blackblades were the most well-equipped and resilient of the combined forces, so they were the ones who charged headlong into enemy fire to establish multiple anchor points for the other troops to latch onto. Cybernetically enhanced, the Blackblades knew neither fatigue or fear, and the combined forces of the Faithless did nothing to make them hesitate.
Into this, the Dark Lord descended. His shuttle had assumed a holding position several tens of meters above the combat zone, and from there He'd launched Himself out to strike at the heart of the enemy defenses. His coming heralded fire and wrath, His monstrous ferocity unfettered as He tore through several squadrons of Stormtroopers like they had been fashioned from crude flimsiplast. No mere acolyte of the Faithless could ever hope to staunch His violence, and so they died in droves.
"I don't believe it," he hissed, and pounded the holo-table with both fists, "Are those fucking Blackblades?"
Meliant almost wished the Emperor were still here. Truly. If there was anyone who deserved to deal with a dread host that had Darth-Goddamn-Carnifex at the helm, it was him. But Solipsis was conveniently absent. Out for a pack of deathsticks, as the story goes. Maybe even milk.
There was little recourse to be had fighting toe-to-toe with the Kainate on the frontlines. The Graspborn, the rag-tag troopers of the Sith Covenant, those could be dealt with. Not these freaks.
Meliant let the fodder die en masse - the army troopers and civilian conscripts. Down to the last man, they died with no credit to their names. All that could be said was that they were barely worth the ammunition and calories Carnifex and his minions expended to kill them.
The stormtroopers and slightly more useful units were ordered into a fighting retreat - to draw Kainate forces into a pre-arranged killzone. The rest of the district was still at Meliant's disposal, and there were many artillery emplacements he had set in the surrounding area.
There was a certain level of firepower that no level of elite conditioning could withstand. Meliant brought all of it to bear on the Blackblades and Valkyries - perhaps to the detriment of other theatres. No matter. He wanted the thumb of God brought down, and so it was.
Great blossoming explosions erupted along the Kainate lines, swallowing straggling Imperial soldiers as easily as the enemy. Anything to shatter the momentum of their advance. Anything to stem the tide.
No pause nor reprieve was in sight. Not until every last one of them were converted into pulp.
Something moved out of the corner of Meliant's eye, and he turned to look. A man was sitting on the edge of the table, dressed up in the dark raiment of the Gûdjoti. Perfectly bald and perfectly pale as all umbarans were.
"'lo there, Amoun Tel Khos," he said. "How are we feeling today?"
Meliant wanted to vomit, but found he still lacked the physiology for it. Nightmares and doubts. Always knocking at the worst of times.
The courtyard of the Imperial Palace lay in ruins, utterly devastated by the overwhelming might of the Sith Empress Srina Talon
The surface of the entrance groaned as banners were torn asunder and fell to the ground, serving as a poetic reminder of the Empire's potential collapse after the battle. Beneath him he could feel the foundations themselves shift from the structural damage though the Emperor's dark power was acting like a ward to keep the place from being completely obliterated.
Krasskorr deactivated his lightclub, the red illumination fading as he faced the ruined grand foyer. His golden eyes fixated on a colossal, headless bust of a past Grand Vizier and several broken pieces of reinforced marble that had been distorted by the previous shockwaves. With a deep grunt, he infused the Dark Side into his muscles, his scales undulating as he lifted the heavy slabs.
He forcefully positioned them under the main archways, crafting temporary buttresses to support the soon to be crumbling structure while sending a message to Lord Meliant
.
"I have reinforced the ground floor with extra buttresses. I am now redirecting to the landing zone to confront the invading force outside." With the ceiling temporarily secured and transmissions dispatched, Krasskorr pivoted sharply and leaped back toward the landing platform. As his feet struck the ground close to the grand steps, the hybrid was nearly engulfed by the immense energy emanating from below.
These beings were formidable, capable of standing against the Emperor himself, yet instead of fear, he felt thrill at the prospect of pursuing them. He turned his body, slamming his massive, spiked tail deep into the cracked duracrete, anchoring himself like a living mountain.
He drew a deep, rattling breath, reaching into the roiling darkness of the district to Enhance his voice. He felt the Force swell within his lungs, expanding his chest until his armor plates strained at the seams as he screamed.....
"LEAVE OR DIE!"
The Force Bellow burst forth from his mouth, creating a visible distortion of devastating kinetic energy in waves that crashed into the smoke and rubble. The noise was a tangible impact on the ears, a sonic barrier designed to disorient the approaching army and disperse the invading force.
It was not clear whether this was a statement of dissatisfaction or merely an observation. Either was plausible.
Their disguises had worked so far -- the sanitation workers' jumpsuit, the officious little clipboard she carried, the toolbelt with the right kinds of wrenches -- to get them where they needed to go. The wastewater treatment plant was one of many in the district. If one looked at it closely enough, the signs were obvious that it was an important one. A smart security operation wouldn't advertise it with hundreds of guards or fancy laser-gates. It would simply be hardened.
If any of the security team at Waste Water Treatment Plant 0091 survived the day, there would be soul-searching. But how there they to know? Everything was in order.
So the team -- Vesper Thrace, her First Officer Tavi Corvask
, and a dozen of the crew of the Sirenjack -- having donned their hopefully imperious hazmat suits, stood ankle-deep in what might once have been, and might one day again be, water. But currently it was -- well. You know.
"Remember," Vesper said quietly, the comlinks that connected them carrying her voice without it being audible outside the suits. "No blasters. The deeper we get, the more methane will be present, and damned if I'm going to die scrambling through the Emperor's shit without seeing the first void-damned piece of loot."
She had a phrik weapon slung over her back, somewhere between quarterstaff and club, with the very top filed into a fine blade. That wouldn't do anything for the grates they were likely to face as they delved deeper into the sewer.
NOW
"Back way," Vesper muttered under her voice as she watched some sort of half-digested vegetable wriggle on the shin of her hazmat suit. "Next time I take a lightsaber to the face instead. Die like a man, smelling like fresh air."
She was standing by as one of the engineers on the team produced his magnum opus: some kind of acid cloth. He had tied one around the base of one the vertical bars -- at least, close enough to the base as it emerged from the, uh, water -- that separated them from the sewer they were in from the sewer that would, according to maps old enough to be legend, take them to what was now the Imperial Palace. Presently, the engineer tied another one tightly around a spot a few feet above the first one. "Is it working?" Vesper demanded. "Damned war be over by the time we get out of this muck. Move."
Shouldering the engineer aside, she bent at the waist to examine the piece at the bottom. To her delight, the acid was eating through the metal -- not quickly, but steadily. The cloth held it in place with minimal dripping. She grinned and straightened, clapping the engineer on the back. "Don't believe it. It actually is working. Remind me to give you a raise." Glancing over at Tavi, she raised a hand. "Come on. Might need to give it a little push."
The Blackblade Guard advanced, smashing into army troopers and civilian conscripts with methodical savagery. What Stormtrooper companies they did face fared only slightly better, in that they weren't rent to shreds as swiftly as their less trained counterparts. Few, however, could contend might-to-might with the Blackblade Guard. Advanced cybernetic warriors, augmented through dark science and Sith Magic to be tireless, fearless, and pitiless warriors who knew naught but violence in the worship of their God.
Veterans of a hundred conquered worlds, the Blackblades recognized a deliberate withdrawal. In the rough, blasphemous ghoul-speak of the Kainate, the Blackblades reorganized their vanguard units in preparation for the enemy counter. When the first artillery rounds began to fall down on their forward positions, the Blackblades moved without the urgency of panic, but with the tightly trained motions of elite soldiery.
First, positions of natural shelter were readily identified. Fallen statues, crumbling infrastructure, fallen starships, anything within reach that would provide a modicum of protection. Naturally, such ad hoc positions were untenable, and the Blackblades deployed small, but remarkably resilient, bubble shields to further insulate their positions. Yet, even so, under such directed and sustained bombardment, even soldiers of the vaunted Blackblade Guard could fall.
The dead would have to be recovered later, there was no time.
Second, identify enemy artillery. Long-range scanning and recon drones were the most optimal, deployed from rear units to maintain a tactical overview of the entire engagement zone through multiple vectors. Avenues of greatest opportunity were flagged and distributed through the insular communications network shared between the Kainate forces. As enemy points were marked, specialized jet-units moved to decapitate the enemy's counterattack.
Specialized Blackblades, equipped with lightweight and versatile jetpacks, rapidly moved from one position to the next; never flying out in open air where they were most vulnerable to enemy fire. Armed with the Model Sixty-Two combat rifle, they got as close to the enemy artillery positions as they could without further putting themselves into greater risk. Hidden behind adequate cover, the Blackblades coordinated with aerial drones to launch their assault on the enemy artillery.
Rather than a direct assault, they'd instead fire salvos of their rifle's self-targeting projectiles. These hyper-agile missiles could weave around terrain and perform complex aerial maneuvers to hit their target, even when that target was fully obscured from the initial firing point. Each missile carried a high-yield, and would expel clouds of high-velocity proton particles to devastatingly destructive effect. The standard ammunition of each Model Sixty-Two rifle was in the same category of destructive as well, as each rifle fired tightly wound, but highly volatile, energy bolts that detonated on contact with any solid material.
All the while, the Dark Lord and His entourage continued to press on where the fighting was thickest. Carnifex assumed most of the responsibility as a magnet for enemy attention, wading directly through overlapping fields of fire, letting multiple artillery bombardments drop right on His head, and engaging anything and anyone closest to Him in close quarters combat. His lightsaber blazed a brilliant scarlet sunfire, crackling angrily as it sliced through enemy troops and deflected their own firepower back at them in equal measure.
Behind Him, Darth Isolda floated two meters off the ground, encased in a scintillating sphere of powerful Force energy. Through her power of Foresight and Darksight, she could interpret the twisting tapestries of the immediate future. Her bond with the Dark Lord was so strong that she could even transmit these sensations to Him through the Dark Side, allowing Him to immediately act upon them with frightening adaptability. Perhaps just as formidable was her power of Battle Meditation, which she used in full conjuncture with her prophetic powers, emboldening not only the Dark Lord, but the entire Kainate force simultaneously.
Darth Carnifex moved inexorably, His indomitable will leading the advance forward. The Scourge of a Hundred Worlds seemed otherworldly in the eyes of His foes, a monolith that butchered indiscriminately and with such mechanical movements He might have been mistaken for an automaton. The eye of the storm was tranquil within the maelstrom of His hatred, His emotions controlled and directed with the mastery granted to Him over many long decades of immersion in the Dark Side.
Stretching forth His hand, fingers splayed wide, the Dark Lord seemed to be waiting in anticipation. The reason unfolded moments later, as a wall of kinetic distortion washed over His position. Upon meeting His outstretched hand, the energy flowed up and over the Dark Lord, redirected out and away. The words which accompanied the sonic wall did little to move the Dark Lord, as if screaming at the enemies of the Faithless would be enough to turn them back. He did not know how the Covenant forces would fare, they did not possess the Dark Lord's advantage of Isolda's foresight.
With hand still extended, the Dark Lord then exerted His will upon the Aperion, the aspect of the Force which included and united all matter, giving it shape and cohesion. With a sudden twist of His hand, He influenced the gravitational forces around the enemy soldiers. In an instant, it was as though they were standing on a totally vertical surface, the direction of gravity turning a complete ninety degrees. Everything not affixed to the ground began to slide leftwards, and even tumble away from the ground and soar through the air as if falling straight down.
Only the Dark Lord and His minions were purposefully unaffected, passing through the afflicted zone without suffering the consequences of the gravitic alteration. However, some paces into His advance, the Dark Lord stopped and turned His head.
As though listening.
"Come on out," His booming, resonant voice echoing across the palace grounds, cutting through and briefly deafening all other sound. "I grow weary of errant skulkers scurrying about in my midst."
Mercy
Arris Windrun
Srina Talon
Quinn Varanin
Vesper Thrace
Aelissandre
Darth Carnifex
Eurydice
| OPEN
Krasskorr the Maw
Remowa
Da'Razel
Meliant
Thorn
Darth Ayra
| OPEN
