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Viscount-class Mon Calamari Battlecruiser
HRNS GRACE OF THEED
The deck bucked beneath Tiberius' feet as the Grace of Theed, moored now in the great mass of the Republic fleet, continued to be struck by a handful of hostile starfighters before those starfighters were themselves subsequently engulfed in the vast armada of inter-locking point defense, fighter screens, and tractor beams of the Republic's response fleet.
Amidst the chaos of the battle, Tiberius listened grimly to the Chancellor's speech as her words went out to all Republic forces.
They all knew what awaited them if the Sith won today: butchery and enslavement.
Tiberius glanced at the King of Naboo, who seemed uncharacteristically quiet as he held the artifact. The Commodore's permanent frown deepened at the sight of blood trickling from Veruna's nose. Tiberius opened his mouth.
The blast door, defying its very name, blew inward. The concussive force slammed Tiberius into the console behind him and he felt something in his back pop. He collapsed to his hands and knees, groaning. The sound of the charges blasting was deafening. Smoke filled the forefront of the bridge, then shapes moved through the smoke with one at their lead.
Through the din and his own pain and the ringing in his ears, Tiberius heard the Sith's words, and he let out a snarl of defiance.
He answered the Sith not with words, but with a blaster bolt aimed for her center mass, followed by a chorus of such from the rest of the armed bridged crew. Tiberius could not spare a glance to see if the Kingsguard or the Chancellor's own followed suit.
Kneeling behind a console, Tiberius poured on shot after shot. Without the Force, the Sith should not be able to deflect blaster bolts. Should being the operative word.
"KILL THEM ALL!" Tiberius roared into the din, knowing that General Vornak was but moments behind the Sith and her forces.
Separated from further Sith reinforcements and trapped aboard the Grace, which sat squarely within the Republic fleet, time was not the ally of this Sith. She had been brave to get this far with her forces, but bravery did not always carry the day as the Republic knew only too well.
The blast door had been wide enough for four to enter abreast, but the opening became chokepoint for the Sith forces attempting to storm inside only to be met with a hailstorm of blasterfire from the Republic forces.
Consoles blew apart. Tactical feeds shattered from errant bolts of plasma. Smoke and the smell of tibanna discharge and burning hair and meat grew thick in the air.
Reaching into the cache he'd opened earlier in the nearby captain's console, Tiberius winced as pain spiked up his spine. Gritting his teeth and fighting through it, he hauled out a thermal detonator, armed it, then lobbed it into the chokepoint where the blast doors used to be, right into the midst of the Sith forces.
"DOWN!"
The thermal detonator smacked right into the sidewall of the bridge's entrance where the blast door had once been, adhering to the metal with a soft, innocuous thunk. Tiberius ducked behind the console.
Then a six-meter wide miniature thermonuclear fusion reaction went off, atomizing anything in its path.
His words pulled sobs from her aching form. The small, battered Jedi elf hunched over him and rocked him back and forth for a moment while she grieved the dreams and the love that was lost, but mostly the soul of her dear Lorn.
More than a few tears were shed for what she must do next.
A final tear streaked kiss was pressed against his forehead. "I will never stop loving you," she muttered through messy, ugly grief.
And then she gently rested his head back on the floor, moved to fold his arms over his chest, and hunted about the space for her belongings. Every movement was pain. Something was broken, beyond just her spirits. Ribs, maybe? Internal bleeding, likely. More than once, Ala stumbled and had to pull herself back to her feet.
Satchel and sabers returned to their proper homes, over shoulder and on hips respectively, Ala set about laying a detonator in the engine room. Through the fog that had descended on her thoughts, she fought to calculate the time needed to get off the ship.
For a moment, she leaned over and whispered a final prayer in Lorn's ear, asked his forgiveness, and understanding that she could not let him fall into the hands of the Sith again — and she started the timer.
Scrambling in a fumbling mess of limbs that seemed to not respond as they ought to, Ala leveraged herself back up on to the damaged observation platform. As she rolled, the jagged, saber-torn edge of the grated floor snagged on her suit, tearing a hole. The suit responded with a subtle alert — one that Ala did not see.
With some effort, Ala groaned as she pushed back up to her feet, stumbling towards the engineering terminal. Heart thumping in her chest, the pain spiked in her chest. She knew she was holding the dataspike. She could see it between her fingers. She simply could not properly feel that she was holding it. She took to leaning against the terminal so that her more useful hand could pull the satchel in front of her, and pull it free.
A few moments later the program on the spike was interacting with the ship's internal systems, finding the system not immediately accessible due to the dark one's droid's efforts.
Ala blinked, clearing blood...sweat...whatever...from her eyes. The readout refused to make sense at first, but when it did Ala set the countdown to match what she thought she could make out on the display of the detonator some distance below.
Turning unsteadily, Ala took one last look below at the charred face of the fallen leader of the Vanguard, before limping out of the room.
Movement was a cumbersome, painful process, punctuated by pauses to plant trip mines at intersections along her path. The battle between Republic and Sith forces could be heard in the distance, maybe even different floors of the vessel, but Ala sought only one location. The starboard airlock.
Her comm device, battered by Lorn's unyielding attacks, had barely survived. Slumping down at the edge of an intersection, Ala scratched out a message to all Republic forces — the new boarding party, and the remnants of her shuttle crew — "Abandon ship. Immediately.".
The Message Sent readout on the cracked screen was met with a cough, and a splash of blood from the Grandmaster's mouth.
This wasn't her first time seeing that. Her breathing became ragged, a sharp pain in her chest like someone was running her through with a lance.
But she pushed up, dragging herself down the hallway. Rounding the corner towards her destination.
The timers ticked down. Her readout said mere moments remained.
Footsteps could be heard behind, something moving fast towards her position.
Ala turned, pressed the button on the side of her retractable helm — which expanded out over her head with a little complaining wheeze. And her HUD displayed a single, depressing revelation.
Feet glued to the palace stairs, Aurelian fought to pull his legs upward, to flee into the security of his home as the horde of blood-drenched Sith beasts surged across the quiet plaza toward him. He could not move. Paralyzed in the dreamlike state just as he was in the real world, absolute terror consumed him, multiplying with every agonizing second. The advancing monsters seemed to delight in the scent of his panic, drawing strength from the horror radiating through his mind. Aurelian closed his eyes, forcing his chest to rise and fall, desperately trying to control his breathing and will himself out of the nightmare.
A sudden and deadening quiet swept across the plaza.
Eyes snapping open, he watched the feral march come to a complete halt. The horde parted, making way for a single figure to step through their ranks. Aurelian's heart sank into a cold abyss as his eyes locked onto the familiar face. It was his father. The sight unnerved him to his very core, sending a violent chill cascading down his spine. The man was dead; Aurelian had personally ensured his end. Yet there he stood, wearing the same arrogant, rogue smirk that had haunted Aurelian's youth, a look that promised absolute ruin.
What followed shattered whatever fragile composure remained.
"AURELIAN!"
A desperate scream tore through the courtyard, a voice he held dearer than life itself. Monsters dragged the lithe form of Sibylla through the crowd, her body thrashing as she kicked and pleaded for help, her terrified eyes locking onto his. Aurelian tried to leap forward, to tear the horde apart with his bare hands, but his limbs remained frozen in place. Agony and helpless fury coiled together into an unbearable knot inside his chest.
His father stepped behind Sibylla, pulling her back by the hair and forcing her to her knees. A wicked blade slid from his sheath, pressing directly against her throat. Her tear-filled gaze pleaded with Aurelian to do something, anything, but he was powerless.
Aurelian opened his mouth and screamed. He screamed with everything left in his soul, a raw, gut-wrenching howl meant to shatter the illusion and rip him back to reality.
Aboard the HRNS Grace of Theed, amidst the blinding flash of Tiberius' detonator, the roar of blasterfire, and the smell of ozone and burning bulkheads, that same horrific scream bellowed from the King's throat. It was a sound of absolute, excruciating torment that cut cleanly through the chaos of battle, freezing the blood of those close enough to hear it.
Just as abruptly as the screaming began, it stopped.
The whites of Aurelian's eyes rolled forward, darkening rapidly until his irises vanished, replaced entirely by pitch-black voids. His head snapped sideways toward Verity, moving with a sharp, unnatural jerk that no human neck should make.
"Death draws its breath upon your collar, Senator," a voice rasped from his throat, layered with a sickening, dual-toned resonance that was not his own. "When the sun of the deep is swallowed in ash, your skin will burn, and your blood will sing for the grave. You cannot run from the eclipse."
Without waiting for a response, his head jerked back toward the bridge's blasted entrance, black eyes fixating directly on Taeli Raaf as she stepped through the clearing smoke.
The entity puppeteering his vocal cords let out a low, mocking laugh that echoed coldly over the blaring red alarms.
"Look at the little shadow crawling through the wreckage," the voice hissed, mocking the Sith Lord's presence with dark delight. "You bring blades to a tomb, dark one. Come then. Step into the mouth of the void and see what remains when your precious sparks are snuffed out forever."
As the unnatural threat hung in the thick air, the Kinsguard moved as one. Ignoring the blinding heat of the detonator's afterglow and the rain of plasma, the armored guards shifted their perimeter, stepping past the paralyzed King to form an unyielding wall of steel directly between the entity possessing Aurelian and the Sith infiltrators.
Darth Carnifex strode down the corridor with the confident gait of a sovereign lord, stepping over the fallen bodies of Republic soldiers without even a moment's hesitation. His servants had tracked the Jedi to the starboard outer passageway, the corridor closest to the freighter's exterior hull. She was undoubtedly seeking a means of escape, and despite being hobbled she had the advantage of a head start over her hunters. But it wouldn't be long before they closed in.
As He walked, He held in His hand a new holocommunicator to replace the one He'd inadvertently crushed earlier. The communicator stirred to life, a haze of luminous particles spilling upwards until an image was formed from innumerable turquoise motes. The coalesced hologram shimmered like a person fashioned from illuminated dust, perpetually threatening to disperse back into the cloud from which it had formed. The Blackblade commander stood unnaturally still, the only evidence that he was a living creature came from when he spoke.
"We have her, Supreme Excellency. She attempted to flee through the airlock."
"Keep her detained, I am nearly upon you."
The commander inclined his head, and the motes dispersed and faded into nothing. When the Dark Lord reached them, the Jedi had been seized by the arms by two of the Guard. They held her on either side, forcing her to her knees, making her pay obeisance to their Dark Master. "Fall upon your knees in supplication, galère. Bow before your new master." They cared not for her pained cries, nor for the blood which spilled from her body to stain the metal beneath them a deep crimson.
Carnifex strode until He was a meter away from her, towering above her like some hateful god. "You surprise me, Jedi. Perhaps you are not as spineless as I have been led to believe. Your compatriots must not have the full measure of you, so it pleases me to see a side of you that your friends have not seen. A little secret between us fellow murderers."
Dominique didn't have the luxury of watching Aurelian. The realities of war were you only controlled what was within your grasp, and even then as Aurelian himself discovered not even that at times. That he was suffering under the influence of the device had gone unnoticed. Boarding parties were already on the ship. They meant to strike. Given the mental intrusion earlier they meant to strike there and soon. Her message had to go out now. To remind those fighting they hadn't been abandoned. To prepare the people of the Republic for the struggle to follow. The Republic would go on without her. It had survived the loss of Kalantha, it would survive the loss of Dominique Vexx. But only if they knew now was the time to fight. Despite the horrors that would come now was that moment all dreamed of and quietly feared. Now they had to step forward, or be forever lost in darkness.
The camera hadn't even turned off when the concussive force of the explosion crashed upon them as a swell upon the shore. It came with the clap of thunder and the lance of a star's unvarnished light. The Chancellor bent to the side. The muscles of her arms strained. The tendons in her fingers yowled in pain from her grip on the table's edge. Her head rung, but she took a page from Carnifex's book and used the anger of indignity and the promise of recompense to school her features.
The fingers of her right hand were not protesting near so much as the left, and they left the table only long enough to wrap themselves about something else. Dominique pulled the holdout blaster free from beneath the table before she flung it around toward the blast doors. "The Republic stands."
Declaration made, the video feed flickered and cut out. Benefits of being something of a Slicer herself -- this was one Chancellor that knew how to use technology.
While her ears rang and her head throbbed, Dominique's eyes were not half as blinded as others. There were benefits to never taking one's glareshades off. Its built in database and ability to record being above and beyond, but the simple capability of dulling intense lights could not go unremarked. So, she would gladly let loose a volley on the Sith forces that had breached the bridge. ( Taeli Raaf
)
As would the forces from CTRLd that she'd called to the bridge in a stand off against Aurelian earlier. They wouldn't wait for Dominique to command their every move. They were trained by the best money could buy. Drilled daily they were the people she trusted to clean up the most dangerous sections of Denon. No order was necessary to open fire on the intruders. A time for words had long since passed.
Tiberius Rath
had the same thought. A wise commander of the ship, and someone not about to bow because the enemy had closed the distance. Dominique was not one to enjoy butchering others with her own hands, but if matters had come to this... she was prepared to march into the jaws of the Nether along side him.
If there was one thing the Chancellor -- not yet a Chancellor at the time -- had learned defending the Senate Chamber against the invasion by the Black Sun, it was to take cover. After her first bolt, Dominique ducked down to use the table as cover as she drew deeper into the bridge until she was at the end opposite of Taeli and her forces.
Sith spit. Dominique's lilac hair disappeared behind the table as Tiberius roared for them to get down. That'd been a thermal detonator he'd thrown at the enemy. Her hands clapped over her ears in an effort to spare them even more trauma. Perhaps Aurelian had been right. Maybe the bridge did need more softer surfaces... to dampen the sounds of explosions.
Her heart raced, but Dominique tried to follow the combat breathing techniques CTRLd taught. Control your breathing, control your heart rate; control your heart, control the adrenaline. Pressed against the end of the table, Dominique's brow furrowed at the sight of Aurelian Veruna
and Verity Stuyveris
facing off in the middle of all this. Something would need to be done about all this later. If they survived.
The arrogant swagger of Aurelian wasn't on full display, however. Even his voice wasn't full of the haughty confidence, nor his lips twisted in a demeaning smirk to keep everyone looking in the wrong place.
Dominique had half a mind to tell Verity to get down, but she held her tongue. She stayed crouched out of sight from the Sith and watched as Aurelian stepped toward them. There certainly was a great deal of arrogance and disdain to his voice now, but it wasn't Aurelian. The artifact, then. Which meant there'd only be one chance. Any shout she gave, any move she made might draw its attention toward her. No, leave him to focus on Taeli and the intruders. Let his mind-numberingly stupid guard bear the brunt of what would inevitably follow. Wait, and make her move when the time was right as she always did. As Aurelian counted on her to do as Chancellor.
That word lingered inside CT-312’s mind after Eira had finished speaking. She had heard of the Apprentice's warning about the Force disappearing, heard the concern when Quinn was mentioned, but her thoughts kept circling back to that single choice of address. Eira had once been the first person to call her a friend and now, she had reduced CT-312 back to the simplest thing she could be.
Perhaps that was all Eira had ever really seen and thought of CT-312 all along.
The Scout stood quietly. It was difficult not to hear the word expressed as something lesser and the word friend had been convenient until CT-312 became unwilling to agree. The threats that were thrown at her did little to move her. What did catch her attention was how quickly the Apprentice returned to using her designation the moment the Force disappeared and the Queen became vulnerable. A quiet and humorless breath escaped through the helmet’s modulator.
“Ha.”
Pathetic.
How both Eira and herself were. If this is what friendship amounted to, CT-312 had no use for it. Somewhere along the way, she had grown complacent enough to believe that a “clone” like her could occupy a role she had never been designed to fill. Something more than just a number attached to a military designation and a set of orders. To think she even allowed herself to consider the possibility of something beyond what she was made for… now CT-312 realized that it had wishful thinking.
Would Quinn have kept her close if the bond between them had never formed by accident? Would she still be standing beside the Queen at all, or would someone else have filled the position without anyone noticing the difference? Memories of the Eshan Coronation surfaced, followed by everything and everyone that had come after... It would only be a matter of time, if anything. Did Quinn believe CT-312 could not complete the mission alone, that Eira had to be alongside to chaperone her? The questions came up easily once they started.
The rage that had previously colored every word was gone from her voice. Stripped of anything personal, what remained was a cold flat tone devoid of emotions.
“You're right. I am a soldier.”
CT-312 walked past Eira without waiting for a response. One of the Sith Troopers had finished securing the corridor beyond the hanger and was preparing to move deeper into the transport toward the control bridge. The Scout stopped beside them and pulled several slicer droids from the pouches along her armor, placing the machines into their hands. “Take these to the bridge. Get them into anything tied into command authorization. Once they’re inside BARCA, I will handle the rest.” The Trooper acknowledged the order and hurried off.
She did not look toward Eira or ask her to help. At that moment, CT-312 trusted the Trooper to follow a straightforward instruction without debating whether it was worth doing. Her visor settled on a rifle lying beside one of the dead Republic soldiers. Taking a couple steps, CT-312 crouched, taking the weapon and several spare magazines. “I don’t need the Force to keep doing what I was designed to do.” She slid one of the magazines against the rifle and checked it. “And wouldn’t want a Soldier to hold you back by making you do anything unnecessary, especially after you took it upon yourself. You have no problem doing that without orders from the Princess.’”
BARCA interrupted before CT-312 could finish. On all Sith channels a familiar voice was heard. [ INCOMING TRANSMISSION — QUINN VARANIN ]
"Attention all Sith Order Forces, the Republic has done something against the natural order of our galaxy, against Jedi and Sith and those that fall in between. ALL of our lives are in danger." She paused, exhaling as she could feel the wound pulsating, blood drying as the burns cracked against the entry and exit point.
"You have one order." Another deep exhale as she did her best to sound fine, uninjured despite the dread that began to gather in her stomach, the damage from the wound and her body beginning to shut down without the Force keeping it stitched together.
"Find the source, destroy it with extreme prejudice along with any of those involved. They are to be executed for their crime and stupidty."
Another pause as her eye looked to Sibylla; her expression softened as the final words slipped from her lips.
"No High Republic forces… Jedi… and anyone associated with their government are to be allowed to leave Thyferra… alive."
She looked away from the woman, knowing she had just unleashed the monsters, the rabid beasts of the Order.
CT-312’s visor slowly returned to Eira once the message ended. “It seems you know less about what your Master actually wants than you thought.” The Scout stared back towards the hangar. She began walking back toward where they entered. Passing close enough to Eira that CT-312 shoved the recovered rifle and magazines at the apprentice’s chest. Whether she grabbed it or it fell on the floor, it no longer mattered to her. She continued walking past the Apprentice. “And ‘you let me die?’, Maybe you should examine your own shortcomings before trying to use mine against me. At least I know where I stand with my role and my actions.”
Another transmission appeared across the HUD. This time it was to Eira and herself. [ INCOMING TRANSMISSION — QUINN VARANIN ]
CT-312 stopped just beyond the hangar doorway while listening. Her hand tightened around the grip of her carbine, hard enough for the glove to creak beneath the strain. When the transmission ended she looked back at Eira. “What will you do now, Apprentice of Quinn?” The question did not carry the same challenge as before, CT-312 was no longer trying to convince her of anything. She had already stopped listening to whatever Eira might have to say. “I don’t take orders from you.” She looked over her shoulder at the remnants of the earlier altercation with the intruders. Recalling how one of the Republic soldier (Taera 'Calypso'
) who intercepted the whistling birds earlier on had been sucked into open space from when the ray shields went down.
“Death is part of the job.” CT-312 struck the hangar control panel. “It’s the only thing I get to look forward to.” The heavy interior doors slid shut between them. She raised her rifle and fired once into the panel. Sparks burst as the locking mechanism jammed, sealing herself alone.
She turned away from the door, lowering her weapon. The hangar seemed enormous now. For all the chaos surrounding the transport, the chamber itself felt hollow. Separated from everything. CT-312 understood the feeling... BARCA refused to allow the quiet to last. Notifications continued stacking across the HUD. Tactical information constantly rearranging itself. Another transmission appeared from the surface of Thyferra.
:"I need immediate reinforcements and transport, we haven't even made it to the refinery yet.": A refinery which was quickly starting to become one of the few left it seemed, if the explosions in the distance were any sign. Darth Strosius wasn't certain whether to blame the Sith forces or the Republic ones for their destruction but it hardly mattered. He didn't care who won Thyferra, it wouldn't be in any state to supply the wider galaxy and more importantly His own people with Bacta in the aftermath regardless.
There was too much that still needed to be done, and CT-312 had no intention of letting Eira become another distraction. Whatever else was happening inside her could wait. “Send it.” BARCA immediately relayed the command.
Deployment vessels still positioned above Thyferra, launch indicators changed from red to green. The drop pods CT-312 had inspected before the battle were filled with packs of War-X and Pred-X battle droids. The first group of pods fired toward Darth Strosius
’s position. Followed by additional deployments redirected toward other Sith Formations. (Tobias Dib
) CT-312 watched as the icons on her HUD descended toward the planet. “Find Quinn.” Another smaller collection of drop pods separated from the rest.
One contained a War-X CT-312 knew immediately from its identification profile alone. Its armor was weathered and scarred, marked by deployments stretching far back from Thyferra. Quinn Varanin
would hopefully recognize this familiar looking War-X as it accompanied her before. Several familiar Pred-X droids occupied the surrounding pods, dropping alongside the War-X. Their coordinates were with the Princess’s last known position.
Another series of feeds began appearing across CT-312’s HUD as BARCA’s attention shifted back toward the orbital battle. The compromised shuttles and starfighters scattered throughout the Republic formations were transmitting their own perspectives now. One showed Republic-marked fighters opening fire on vessels that still recognized them as friendly. Another captured evacuation traffic dissolving into confusion while identification codes contradicted what terrified crews could see happening outside their viewports.
Another transmission was being relayed.
[ DISTRESS REQUEST — SPECIALIZED BACTA RESEARCH TRANSPORT ] [ REQUESTING ASSISTANCE — MUTUAL LIBERTY ]
The vessel had apparently remained near Thyferra until the last possible opportunity to evacuate. It was carrying the specialized bacta research that its crew had been unwilling to abandon. Damaged and now seeking protection, it was approaching the Mutual Liberty, requesting permission to settle alongside the larger transport.
CT-312 crossed towards the hangar’s surviving control system and released another slicer droid against the terminal. Waiting for the uplink, she rested one hand against the console.
Was everything a lie?
Her eyes drifted upward. BARCA changed the HUD display followed by a slow series of unusual lowbeepsand chimes. Large text appeared at the center of her vision.
[ ARE YOU STILL THERE? ]
CT-312 blinked. Her attention moved immediately toward Caligo’s status. The Dûr'ashaarai remained visible throughout the telemetry near the Grace of Theed.Something was wrong. The fighter’s movement had seized. BARCA still maintained remote access, yet without the bond between pilot and machine, controlling the Sith Fighter had become increasingly difficult. The Scout stared at the motionless marker.
That’s right.
Caligo had been there first.
Before Eira had called her a friend. Before Quinn had become something CT-312 could no longer easily define. She looked at her gloved hand, her expression softened for a moment as she curled her fingers into a fist.
Caligo, BARCA, The War-X and Pred-X pack were there before anyone had suggested she was supposed to want more than orders and survival. Following her from one battlefield to another. CT-312 felt an odd solace with the machines. It understood her intent without words, while she could almost sense its own wants answering back. Even now, Caligo was still there. Waiting.
CT-312 could no longer feel the fighter’s rage through the severed bond, but she knew the machine well enough to imagine it being angry and confused. Something had taken its pilot away from its senses without explanation, leaving the Dûr'ashaarai in the middle of a battlefield surrounded by enemies, unable to understand where she had gone.
“I’m here.”
The words came quietly through the helmet. Her eyes never left the status of the fighter on the HUD. Shield output fluctuated while engine responses were still silent. BARCA issued repeated corrections, trying to force the Dûr'ashaarai back into motion while hostile contacts steadily closed around it. “Cut the shields.” BARCA obeyed.
The Aegis system dropped offline and redirected the freed power elsewhere. Caligo’s condition continued deteriorating, but the decline slowed. Still, the fighter did not move. CT-312 watched for several seconds, feeling strangely calm about the possibility that neither of them might leave Thyferra alive. “The Grace of Theed is responsible. That ship is why you can’t feel me anymore.” She drew a slow breath beneath the helmet and let her grip loosen around the rifle.
“So stop looking for me and finish the job.” Her eyes remained fixed on Caligo’s signature while hostile contacts continued closing around the fighter. “Whatever they activated aboard the Grace took the bond away. Destroy it, or destroy enough of that ship that someone else can reach it.” There was a quiet acceptance beneath the order that CT-312 did not bother disguising. “When you’re finished, come back here and pick me up. You know where I’ll be.” She watched Caligo’s motionless marker for another moment before a breathy humorless chuckle escaped her. “I told you not to get distracted.”
BARCA had preserved the final recordings from each of the compromised shuttles before their feeds were lost or interrupted. External cameras had captured the same scene from several different angles: civilian shuttles and bacta transports struggling toward the hyperspace corridor while a squadron of X-Wings moved to intercept them.
The recordings did not show the context behind the Republic response nor did it show BARCA buried within its systems. It did not explain why the X-Wings had begun firing around the vessels or why precision shots had been directed toward their engines and hyperdrives. The footage was cut together almost immediately and released across whatever open frequencies: Civilian networks, emergency channels, and unsecured communications.
<//: See what the High Republic has done. ://>
<//: Even your saviors will turn against each other. ://>
Republic fighters swept across the screen, firing upon their own starfighters carrying their own transponder codes. The editing showed the friendly marked craft being shot down before going after the evacuation vessels trying to reach the hyperlane. There was only the sight of the supposed rescuers blocking the path toward safety and firing close enough to make every missed shot look deliberate as if they were playing a cruel game of cat and mouse.
<//: The High Republic only want to place you beneath a new oppression. ://>
<//: They paint themselves as saviors so that you will becomeindebtedto them. ://>
<//: Trust only in yourself. ://>
The words spread through the surviving convoys while the footage continued on repeat. They were watching what appeared to be their rescuers turning their weapons upon them. The effect would be gradual at first, one bacta hauler broke from the Republic-directed evacuations route moving away. Followed by another, several civilian transports would stop answering the Republic navigation instructions all together. Their captains unwilling to commit themselves toward ships they had just watched open fire on vessels carrying the same markings as their own. If they cannot trust which High Republic starfighter is a friendly or a hostile who could they trust?
BARCA had given the frightened civilians something far more dangerous than another enemy fleet. It had given them reason to doubt the people who had come to save them. The SIth had already shown everyone what happened to those who continued resisting. That fate was terrible, but it was understood. Surrender requests spread to the Sith Fleets, as they witnessed the ones near the CommonWealth fleets were already being evacuated to safety. None of their own forces shoot upon each other.
BARCA compiled the footage from the compromised shuttles and starfighters, stitching them together before broadcasting them through open communications. Recordings of the X-wings firing on their own and civilian transports. To anyone receiving the transmission, it appeared as though Republic pilots had begun hunting the very people they had arrived to protect. Caligo offered no resistance to that particular instruction.
The fighter’s controls remained another issue. BARCA continued to attempt to force movement through the Dûr'ashaarai’s systems, but without the bond between pilot and machine… every command met reluctance. Caligo remained suspended amid the chaos surrounded the HRNS GRACE OF THEED, barely responding while the group that engaged it earlier on started to close on it.
BARCA finally reached back towards CT-312. Her voice came quietly through the cockpit’s internal speakers.
“I’m here.”
An ion bolts struck. The Aegis shield erupted around the Dûr'ashaarai in blue-white ripples. Energy raced across the protective field in opposing waves before converging along the point of impact, the entire silhouette of the Sith Fighter became more visible under the electrical flare. Then the haptic return system answered, redirecting the captured energy back along the incoming trajectories. Another concentrated bolts snapped away from the fighter back toward the Republic starfighters.Another impact hit before the shields could fully stabilize. The field convulsed again, its surface started to strobe as overloaded energy crawled along in jagged streaks.
[ —WARNING— ] [ AEGIS SHIELDS — 46% ]
Another impact hit before the shields could fully stabilize. The field convulsed again, its surface started to strobe as overloaded energy crawled along in jagged streaks. Warning immediately filled the cockpit.
[ —WARNING— ] [ AEGIS SHIELDS — 14% ]
“Cut the shields.”
BARCA overrode Caligo’s resistance and forced the Aegis offline, preserving what remained of the generator. Rather than allowing the next ion barrage to collapse it entirely, the protective shimmer vanished around the Dûr'ashaarai. Its armor was exposed as power began cycling back into the depleted system.
Thunk. An ion bolt slammed into the hull, scorching the plating but its impact proved far less damaging against the reinforced plating than it had been against the shields. The discharge washed across Caligo’s plating, thin tears began appearing along the already stressed sections of armor.
[ —WARNING— ]
[ STRUCTURAL INTEGRITY — 92% ]
Caligo remained still.Thunk. The machine spirit did not understand what was happening. CT-312 was present in the speakers and in BARCA’s commands, yet the place she had always occupied in the bond remained completely empty. Its pilot was there and somehow not there at the same time.
[ —WARNING— ] [ STRUCTURAL INTEGRITY — 87% ]
The fighters that continued to shoot at it were close and every bit of rage within the semi-sentient machine demanded it turn around and tear through them. They were close and hurting.
Yet CT-312 was speaking. Explaining. Thunk. Giving it something, a reason to hate.
[ —WARNING— ]
[ STRUCTURAL INTEGRITY — 76% ]
The cockpit went completely dark. For several seconds, nothing remained except the faint illumination of the Mowef crammed inside. Its optics glowed steadily in the blackness as the enormous battle droid tilted its head, apparently just as confused by the sudden silence as the fighter itself—Then every display returned at once. CT-312’s explanation settled through Caligo’s systems.
It was HRNS Grace of Theed. That ship was responsible and the reason why its pilot had vanished from the bond. The machine spirit’s wrath erupted, it no longer needed to decide where to turn its teeth.
“I told you not to get distracted.”
Carligo’s targeting system began shifting, power rerouted towards Perses. [ FIRING MODE — SUPER HEAVY ] [ DAMAGE OUTPUT — EXTREME ] [ CHARGING ]
Energy accumulated over several long seconds, once more steadily climbing toward maximum discharge. The growing charge vibrated throughout Caligo’s structure, causing already damaged plating to tremble as a fierce glow intensified beneath the weapon housing. Information from the Commonwealth pointed out the location of the anomaly on HRNS Grace of Theed.
[ TARGET SOLUTION — CENTRAL SUPERSTRUCTURE ]
Artemis immediately isolated an incoming projectile signature. Its radiation signature it had with it was different from the ships ion fire, considerably slower than the discord missiles Caligo had fired earlier. The Sith reinforcement fighters arrived intercepting the other barrages of ion fire and the bomblet that was fired. One support fight crossed directly into the path of it. The explosion swallowed it whole.
A violent sphere of electromagnetic energy and fire expanded, tearing and catching nearby Sith reinforcements. Fragments scattered outward as the surviving ships broke formation, systems flickering under the EMP wash before they regrouped and converged upon the Republic starfighters responsible for the attack. Caligo caught at the edge of the pulse, electrical distortion raced through the cockpit.
[ —WARNING—]
[ STRUCTURAL INTEGRITY — 69% ]
Another tremor passed through the frame. Displays sputtered again and navigation vanished for a fraction of a second. Weapons telemetry scrambled before BARCA forced it back into place.
[ STRUCTURAL INTEGRITY — 62% ]
Caligo’s ion drives were properly ignited. Bright light erupted behind the Dûr'ashaarai. Its plasma-burst acceleration hurled the fighter forward as it climbed its maximum output. Lateral thrusts and maneuvering jets fired off, returning the fighter into its unpredictable patterns of movement and speed.
Ion bolts and bomblets crossed through the space Caligo had occupied. The Dûr'ashaarai continued its burst of hard acceleration above the Republic starfighters' attack pattern. Artemis detected another squadron descending from HRNS Grace of Theed.A-wings. As those fighters began to rapidly converge towards Caligo, Commonwealth fighter under Kurayami Bloodborn
and Domar
swept into the engagement, forcing the A-wings to break formation and answer the new threat.
For once, the Sith fighter stopped caring about all the preys and potential kills crossing its path. It wanted its pilot back. Incoming transmissions continued feeding through BARCA, including reports of HRNS Grace of Theed’s shields had been compromised beneath the combined pressure of the Sith and Commonwealth fleets.
Caligo accelerated again, this time its wraithphase cloaking mantle activated. A ghostly distortion of a stealth field that phase-shifted the fighter into partial dimensional bleed, making it shimmer and vanish, to ensure a surgical ambush strike. The Dûr'ashaarai slipped between intersecting weapon fire and the overlapping engagement of the massive ships. Its cloak concealed the approach long enough for Caligo to cross deeper into the defensive perimeter of the HRNS Grace of Theed’sshields, following the gaps created by Commonwealth attackers and the pressure already being applied.
Artemis and BACA were aiming directly at the center of the HRNS Grace of Theed'shull.
[ CHARGE COMPLETE ]
“Give me back my fucking ship.”
Caligo fired.
At such close range, there would be almost no darkness or shadow between the Dûr'ashaarai and the HRNS GRACE OF THEED. The Perses turbolaser erupted in a tremendous torrent of concentrated energy, the discharge would punch a hole directly through the ship. Armor plating would vaporize beneath the sustained discharge as molten metal would bend, melting over, and erupt outward into space.
—
BARCA uses the Sith fighters communications to send out footage of the space battle and one of the squadron of X-wings, turning on itself on the civilians evacuees and starfighters.
Caligo's system stuttered from the ion barrages it took while trying to figure out what happened to its pilot.
Finally realizing its true target, Charging up its turbo laser.
A squad of Sith Fighters incepted the continuous shots of ion shots and bomblet detonated near Caligo, its shockwave washed through the ship, causing the engine to stall for a moment.
Before another string of barrages, the ion engine finally ignites and Caligo rolls out of the way.
Grace of Theeds sends in A-Wings to intercept, fighters from the Commonwealth engaged.
Caligo uses its wraith phase cloaking to slip through the on going firefight, defenses, and attention.
Perses - heavy turbo laser - fired directly at the Hull off the Grace of Theeds
Give me like an hour, I'll find some kind of grammar or spelling to correct
Lancel swore. He swore more than any of his years in the Guard. He swore like only a Navy man could, but never this Navy man.
One of the guards tried to pull him away from the fray. He tore his shirt out of the man's hand before firing off a couple of sting-sounding chirps from his small holdout blaster. One Sith trooper fell to the ground, only wounded though, with a shot to his thigh.
The guard tugged on his shirt again. "Gods damn you, man, let me fight," he spat out.
But the guard was insistent. "My Lord. There is nothing you can do..."
"I will not leave her!" He spat, but his words were drowned out by the creaking and groaning overhead.
He flinched, the imminence of death slashing like a blade through his awareness. And when he looked up he saw the impossible. Calypso used the Force to brush the metal aside. "Witchblood," he escaped from his lips but he was cut short of calling back to her again, when the guard tugged on his shirt.
"My Lord..."
"Yeah...yeah..." Lancel didn't argue this time. He understood the stage was one of gods and monsters — and he was neither. And he could no longer be sure of Calypso.
Cal gave the order to get him out, even as he was already being pulled in the direction of the shuttle. For just a moment, Lancel pulled himself free — instinct demanding that he protect her — only to stop, question answered as he saw her brandishing a Sith's weapon.
A cold wash of horror swept over him. All this time. Had she been playing him as a fool? Had she been manipulating even him? Using her hidden powers to alter his mind in some way?
Every decision, every moment, every glance, and heated exchange that felt as though it could fall into something else...all of it...could have been a lie.
He was pulled backwards, away from her and towards the shuttle. He felt numb, even when he saw her hit on the thigh as she tried to join him. Perhaps it was better that way?
The thought lingered even as the door to the shuttle closed, the airlock sealing behind them. Lancel ran to the cockpit, pushing the pilot out of the way before he could sit down. The ship's preflight was a hinderance, especially as the hangar vented and the ship took impacts in multiple points while debris rushed past.
As the shuttle lifted off the hangar, and was violently ripped out into space, Lancel had only one thought in mind — Cal was out there.
"Kark..." He spat, desperately gaining control of the shuttle as it spun chaotically through the vacuum. "...take the controls..."
The ship, barely stabilised, saw Lord Atria buffeted about by the sudden shifts in inertia. He slammed into the wall, more than once, each one cursing a different family of Epica. Every movement he made was encountered with the same rebuttal — "Let the Sith die" — but there was another truth that pushed him past each demand of his subconcious.
"Do you see her?" He yelled, "any transponder signal?"
"Nothing..."
"Damn it, Cal..." He muttered as he pulled an airtight helmet over his quickly pulled on space suit.
"Wait...there!"
The news was like a gasp of air upon reaching the water's surface. Lancel clicked the helmet in place, and moved to the air lock with a second, emergency helmet under his arm.
"Sir...we have to check your suit..." One of the guard's demanded procedure — at a time like this.
Lancel did nothing but push the man's hands away, even as the airlock slammed shut between them. "Check it when I get back."
Depressurisation took a moment, even as the back of the shuttle swung around towards where Cal drifted through the debris. Lancel too a moment to hook a line to his belt, and to the inside of the shuttle. The moment the door opened enough for him to move...he pushed out in the the debris field, and toward the silhouette of a woman he should probably not be saving.
The lift settled at the bottom of its shaft with a shudder, and for a moment nothing moved but the smoke.
The doors dragged open on tortured mechanisms, revealing the Grace of Theed's engineering deck in the throes of dying power—overhead lumina stuttering, flickering, fighting for their own small lives and losing. Smoke rolled into the lift in slow grey coils, pooling around his boots, and beyond it the vast cathedral of the engineering bay opened up: gantries and coolant towers and the great caged heart of the vessel throbbing at its center.
For a moment there was silence. Only silence.
Then, from within the dark of the lift, the rebreather, hssssk-haaa. A single slow rasp, mechanical and patient, the only sound in all that quiet. Hssssk-haaa. The engineers and defenders who had turned toward the opening doors saw, at first, nothing at all. Just the black of the lift and the smoke curling out of it, and that sound. That breathing.
Then the dim yellow of the deck lights went red.
Kai's blade woke in the dark, and the whole of the lift bled crimson around him, and he took one step forward into the light of his own saber so that they could finally see the thing that had come down to them. He let them look. He let the silence and the breathing and the red do their work, because he understood now, the way his grandmother understood, the way he had watched her understand from the inside of a hundred minds that fear did most of a battle's labor before a single blow was struck. He did not need the Force to make them afraid. He only needed to stand in the doorway and let them imagine.
He surveyed the deck. Then he gave the order.
"Destroy it all. Kill them, all of them. No one lives."His voice did not rise; it did not need to. "And if they beg you for mercy," a breath, the red catching the edge of his rebreather, his eyes, "you may send them to Darth Carnifex
himself."
The bay erupted.
Grenadiers surged from the lift at his back, heavy flamers spilling gouts of fire across the gantries; from the branching access halls came the others, the squads he'd sent ahead, converging on the engineering deck from every seam at once. Screams and firelight and the shriek of tearing metal filled the cathedral. And into the heart of it walked Kai, toward the beating core of the Grace, toward the thing he had been sent to unmake.
He might not have had the Force. He found, to his own dark surprise, that he did not want it.
Because there was something underneath it something the current had always been laid over top of, smoothing it, mediating it, keeping it at the polite remove of the conductor's podium. Anger. Old and cold and his, the anger of a boy who had been taken and caged and hunted and made small, who had spent years on a quiet island learning to be powerful precisely so that it would never happen again. The Force was gone. The anger was not. And it turned out the anger did not need the Force at all. He no longer was that boy that Darth Strosius
had taken so long ago, no... that boy was gone, dead.
His saber found the first coolant conduit and he did not cut it so much as savage it, the blade tearing through in a spray of venting gas and sparks. He wheeled and struck the next, and the next, not the clean, careful unmaking of the panels above, but something wilder, hungrier, a young man taking a lifetime of held and swallowed rage and pouring all of it through a length of burning plasma into the guts of an enemy ship. Every strike landed harder than it needed to. Every one felt good. He hacked at the housing of the primary generator like it had wronged him, sparks sheeting over his armor, the red of the blade throwing his shadow enormous and violent across the smoke, and somewhere in the thrashing chaos of it the last careful, frightened, apologetic thing in him went quiet...
... and something else, something that had been waiting a very long time under all that composure, finally stood up.
Kai did not feel like a boy with a vibroblade following a legend into a wall of fire anymore. He was becoming more, and perhaps now he thought, now he was truly ready to become Sith.
The generator screamed under his blade. He kept striking until it stopped, and moved onto the next conducting his own symphony of violence. Power to the Grace of Theed would become increasingly difficult to maintain, or so this was the goal; and inevitably the Grace herself could quite possibly become as silent as the black sea around her.
[[::R6, let's make sure that Avril gets rid of those tractor beams. Lb-14 turrets on fighters and point defense. Composite beam cannon turrets on the tractor beam emplacements. Do not reduce any countermeasures.::]] The droid gave a happy whistle in the affirmative as Kurayami continued to utilize what amount of precognition and reflexes afforded by the unique attribute of his armor to weave impossibly close to the hull of the Grace while still making the minute adjustments needed at the exact moment necessary to keep any stray shots from being any more than a glancing blow to the molecular shields.
A sharp pull to the vertical while rotating the craft before dropping the nose back level, allowing the wingtip cannons to blaze a path of hellacious destruction in concert with the turreted cannons, as well as vaping a few more fighters that were searching for the ghost of a fighter harassing the Grace as he closed ever closer to the bridge. Then almost in unison two message pings came through the comms. Chances are they had been received and he was simply caught up in the battle. One from Quinn and one from Gerwald. Same basic idea No mercy, no quarter, kill everything. He sent back a ping letting them know he was following the directive. [[::R6 target power relays to the bridge, both primary and auxiliary. We are going to make them wish they had taken this seriously from the start. We leave no Republic forces alive. No more escape. Understood?::]] Silence for a beat. Then had he been able to see, the droid was rocking side to side in place behind the pilot seat, whirring and beeping excitedly. [[::I know you little psycho, that mean no more playing nice. Every shot is a kill shot. Don't hold back, slag every emplacement and vape every fighter. No exceptions.::]] As the order was given a lone pair of A-wings dropped down in front of him, looking to set up a patrol near the bridge to prevent any enemy fighters from reaching that far. Before the two even fully settled into their formation the lead fighter was gone. A single shot from the four wingtip mounted kyber enhanced SJFS L-7.5 heavy laser cannons was more than enough to send the other fighter scurrying, looking for the source. As the wingman completed their double back they were met with the same blinding flash and then oblivion.
A smirk played on his face as he closed the distance to the primary and secondary power relays, unleashing on them. Ten heavy laser cannons, fourteen barrels of kyber-enhanced hell blazing through them in short order. As he turned for another pass to confirm destruction of the relays, a turbolaser shot lanced through the void, causing him to roll violently to the left to dodge the blast, shifting his trajectory by just a few degrees as the shot passed beneath him. [[::Caligo got pissed off it seems. That was too close to be any of our boats.::]] He smiled beneath his helmet his cybernetic eye logging the trajectory of the shot, giving a basic idea of where it was, as he continued to assault defenses before turning for another strafing run against the power relays. He'd cut the bridge off the damnable ship if he had to.
She didn't move when the dark one's henchmen rounded the corner. And when they took her by the arms, dragging her forward a few steps, she complied, while dropping a small roll of tape from her hands. It bounced across to the side of the hallway, and came to rest after spinning for just a moment.
The tape across the hole in her suit tugged at the gash below, giving her what was likely the twentieth reason to wince in pain. She said nothing, even as the ominous physical presence of the dark one approached. The demand to bow was met with no physical resistance, but even in the fading gleam of her eyes, the spark of resistance still shone.
No matter where he took her, no matter what he did. What glimmer of vibrancy was left in her eyes told the truth. They could force her to her knees, but hey could never make Ala Quin bow.
"We are no kin..." Ala said, blood pooling in mouth. A cough tore at her chest, sending blades of pain through her ribs. "...whatever you did to Lorn...you killed him on that day, not me."
A long, ragged breath inward saw more wincing from the Jedi Master.
"And the mercy I offered..."
She gasped, the breath catching halfway into her lungs.
"...will be the last you get from me."
Every word was a dagger through her chest, bought with excruciating pain that she fought through.
"You will find...I am rather persistent...and I am very hard to kill."
Nothing happened. She looked down at her wrist mounted comm device. The timer had ticked down to zero.
"Shit...I thought I had timed that right..."
Even before she could feel embarrassed about swearing in front of royalty, the detonator in the engine room reached zero. The ship lurched violently in what felt like three directions at once. Ala's shoulder slammed into the commander that held onto her, and bounced back into the middle of the room.
"Damn...that timing would have been..." A cough of blood splatter against the inside of her helmet. And at that very moment the dataspike's purpose became known. Some ten meters down the hall behind the Grandmaster, both doors of the airlock immediately opened to the vacuum of space.
Like someone had just pulled a rope tied to her waist, Ala was ripped backwards and through the airlock in less than a blink. The two warriors of the Sith that had held her down, collided with either side of the airlock door, giving a sickening crack as their bodies shattered.
All sense of up, down, left or right was lost as Ala spun erratically on multiple axes.
Focusing her eyes on the visor in front of her, Ala made out the words on the HUD. There were warnings of potential collisions, but more importantly air loss from the tear in her suit. She clamped down on the taped area with a free hand, satisfying the HUDs need for just a moment.
But the number of breaths she had left mattered rather less when breathing at all had become the more immediate problem.
Location: Orbit of Thyferra, Grace of Theed
Equipment: Camlann, one LORAN recon drone, Aurelia in pistol configuration, rest in signature
Sith Troopers in Barbazu armor with LORAN drones with some, Sidhe Jetpacks with others
A blaster bolt aimed at her chest immediately ripped out from the crew, from the man she had sensed at the beginning of the battle as the commander of the ship. She didn't even bother to try and deflect it with her saber or the shield on her gauntlet, letting the laser-reflective songsteel plates of her armor take the bolt and deflect it away.
Her helmeted head would turn towards him, "Really?"
Then the officer yelled to kill them all, and bedlam erupted on the bridge as her own soldiers and the bridge crew, the marines, and the special forces brought by the politicians began firing on each other. Shields caught bolts as they advanced, more troopers, four by four, marching in as they steadily filled the bridge. Her saber and shield rose as she started her own advance towards where the King, one of the Senators, and the Kinsguard stood to defend their king.
"Grenade! Thermal detonator!"
Behind her, near the empty door where more of her troopers were trying to join the battle, the white flash and concussive force of the thermal detonator went off. The force of it staggered her forward, and she was rewarded with that by one of the Kinsguard trying to blast her. The bolt caught her right pauldron, then another struck her armor's left knee.
A notification on her HUD informed her that reinforcements were on the way from the Kainate forces, and the Commonwealth ships were firing into the Republic formation to try and continue damaging the Grace. Another notification showed her grandson and his troops had reached engineering. And then Aurelian spoke...
"Death draws its breath upon your collar, Senator," a voice rasped from his throat, layered with a sickening, dual-toned resonance that was not his own. "When the sun of the deep is swallowed in ash, your skin will burn, and your blood will sing for the grave. You cannot run from the eclipse."
"Look at the little shadow crawling through the wreckage," the voice hissed, mocking the Sith Lord's presence with dark delight. "You bring blades to a tomb, dark one. Come then. Step into the mouth of the void and see what remains when your precious sparks are snuffed out forever."
"You fools," she hissed, her voice carrying to the bridge from her helmet's vocabulator. "Did you even run any tests before trying to turn this thing into a weapon?"
The answer was obvious if they were allowing a head of state hold the damn thing. Indignation and anger rose up fresh and hot within her. They didn't deserve to wield the obsidian sphere fueling the void around Thyferra. She needed to study this thing, to properly examine it, but there would be no time. Not in an active war zone, but there would be a point in the future... until then.
Shut it down.
The sphere was connected to the console, and she suspected that the console was the way the Republic was amplifying the signal across local space and to the planet below.
"Did you even think about the lives you may have sacrificed needlessly by using this thing?" she asked. "Your allies on the surface or within this fleet that are in danger because of your shortsighted desire to rob of us of the Force?" Then the lights flickered from the efforts of her grandson, from his attack upon the ship's power systems. Her helmet HUD shifted as it reacted to the lights...
And then she was among the Kinsguard, her saber flashing in quick stabs with its extended reach, her shield raised. One man went down, then another, but they were protecting their king and slowing her down. A vibroblade slipped under her shield, striking the gap between armor plates and scoring a hit. Blood trickled down her leg, but the soldier paid with his life as her saber took him through the heart.
In one smooth motion, she would pivot from the last thrust, leaving the saberpike buried in the chest of the Kinsguard and retrieving the shoto blade held in her back holster. A blade of amethyst would ignite, in a motion practiced more times than she could count, over a career of war that spanned over sixty years, she threw the blade at her target. She didn't have the Force to guide its trajectory or return the weapon to her hand. There was a good chance that she was about to lose the blade, one she had carried with her since the time of the first Republic of this era of Chaos, forever. But it was a price she was willing to pay as the blade traveled the short distance towards where the King of Naboo and his hands were placed upon the artifact and its command console.
Beneath the bridge, squads Three and Four would meet the ferocity of the Besalisk Jedi with their own. His fragmentation grenade took out three of them, shrapnel tearing through bodies where the armor was weak. The powerful Jedi took out another with his saber, knocking their shield out of the way before the follow through thrust took the trooper under the chin. But they were fulfilling the mission their Mistress had sent them on, and in that warrior way, the remaining soldiers spread out and fired at the Jedi from as many angles as they could from behind shields.
They would die to keep the Jedi here.
And a grenade would fall from lifeless hands, prime and ready.
The faintest of smiles graced His lips, an ugly and monstrous expression. "Very good, Jedi, very good. I look forward to testing the limits of your resolve." He was set to approach closer, but her last words gave the Dark Lord pause. She looked to her wrist-comm and His eyes mirrored her gaze, understanding dawning on the Dark Lord just as the mistimed explosion finally made itself known.
The freighter buckled forward, propelled by the explosion that now ripped through the aft engines. Flames leapt up through the fuel lines, rupturing the cells and causing a cascade of explosions to tear through more portions of the ship. Carnifex crouched for balance as the corridor's geometry was thrown askew, His foot bracing against a section of wall that was now pitched further down than the actual floor. His minions scrambled for purchase, some managing to right themselves just in the nick of time.
Only for both of the airlock doors to snap wide open. The horrendous pull of the vacuum of space tore at the Dark Lord, pulling Him forward against His will. Those closest to the doors had already been expelled, the Jedi included. Rather than share their fate, Carnifex reached out and caught the frame of the open airlock before He could be fully pulled out. His hands dug into the metal, the material bending and warping beneath His grip. He then reached for the airlock controls and struck the emergency seal.
The intense depressurization began to subside as the outer airlock began to seal shut, Carnifex catching Himself before He could collapse to the deck. Those that accompanied Him that had also prevented themselves from being ejected rose to their feet with Him. He turned to look out the airlock viewport, seeing the reflective glimmers of light off of the Jedi's suit and the armor of His minions as they floated away into the void. Without the Force, He could not sense whether she lived or died, but something instinctual led Him to believe that she had survived.
"Relay this command to all forces present on this vessel. Prepare for extraction and departure, take what is useful and leave behind what is not. This vessel will be lost to the void."
Her breathing was loud in her own ears. Cal tried to keep herself still and calm. While the suit sealed itself in vacuum and had an oxygen supply, it was only enough for rescue. Unnecessary movement would deplete it faster. A fighter streaked over her soundlessly, narrowly avoiding the debris that had been sucked out with her. Cal turned the startled inhale into a slow, deep breath, forcing her body to stay calm. The HUD was barebones but it did have two very important pieces of information on it.
Distress beacon active.
Oxygen remaining: 94%
Time remaining: 9:26
9:25
9:24
Right. Not a lot of time to try and figure out how she was going to survive this. Between the starfighters, drop pods, shuttles, and crossfire, it was going to be a hell of a job.
And the Force remained nauseatingly silent. If she thought about it for too long, she would panic.
Cal drifted along with the cloud of debris from the Mutual Liberty, turning her head slightly to see where she was. The velocity she’d been ejected with had carried her far from the Republic vessel and continued to move her in the same direction. The debris around her was too small for her to use to change her inertia. And she’d lost sight of the shuttle Lancel had been in.
Lancel.
Red light caught her eyes. The two lightsabers she’d stolen from her old Master and fellow Apprentice. She’d had to use them. Had Lancel seen? Probably. They’d both been soldiers in the Aurodium Guard. He wouldn’t have been content to just sit back behind others and let them do the fighting. It had always been one of the things she appreciated about him. Cal extinguished the lightsabers and carefully put the hilts back on the maglock at the small of her back. Lancel was Epican and Republican. The Ashlan religion was prominent on Epica and the Blackwall just beyond their system loomed in everyone’s minds. Using the Force marked her as Jedi or Sith. A red lightsaber doomed her as Sith.
The odds of Lancel and the surviving Guard coming for her were low.
8:58
8:57
8:56
Cal looked ahead of her on the path she’d been set on. Debris and crossfire filled the space between distant ships. If she was lucky, the destroyed chassis of a starfighter would cross her path and she could use it to change directions to a closer ship. More likely, a starfighter would careen into her, setting her spinning uncontrollably in a new direction. She could survive a hit like that—probably—but the helmet might not.
A turbolaser shot streaked dangerously close. Close enough she could feel heat from the bolt of energy through the armor. As quickly as it had flared, it had disappeared, streaking towards its target, and the icy vacuum pressed in again.
This would be much easier to manage with the Force. Nausea and panic pushed against her mind but she shoved it down, swallowed it. She still had to get out of this.
8:31
8:30
8:29
Oxygen remaining: 85% > 84%
Cal turned her head, looking for something to grab and change her trajectory. What she saw made her breath catch in her throat. A Republic shuttle hovered not terribly far from where she floated, thrusters keeping its position static a little ahead of her. Had they seen her suit’s distress beacon? The relief she felt should have made her ashamed of how weak-kneed it made her.
She remembered the sting of a backhand for showing such weakness.
An airlock door opened and someone in an enviro-suit stepped out, a cable trailing behind them like a tail as they moved to intercept her path. It was a rescue. An alert flashed on her HUD.
WARNING
INCREASED OXYGEN INTAKE
Oxygen remaining: 78%
Time remaining: 7:48
7:47
7:46
Cal swore silently and focused on keeping her breathing slow and steady. Her rescuer slowly crossed the distance as she kept floating closer. She ground her teeth together as she kept nearing where the intercept point would be. The rate of her drift looked like she was going to pass her would-be rescuer before they could reach her. It was going to be close.
As she neared, she slowly reached out a hand, careful not to send herself spinning uncontrollably. Cal could just barely make out the face of her would-be savior behind the helmet. The one she reached for.
