Private The Crystal Grimoire

[Kassogtha Cthylla]

“You won’t get far, Jedi. There’s nothing but ice and blood outside. This will all go much smoother if you give up the holocron...”

Kass kept going, leaving a trail of blood everywhere she went. The pain was bad, very bad, but if she stopped, she feared she wouldn’t be able to move again.

Staggering out into the blindingly bright world of white outside the craft, she was greeted by the sounds of gunfire and explosions. The House Io mercenaries and the Alliance troops were still locked in a bitter battle.

In the sky above, ships were dropping out of hyperspace. Shuttles bearing the insignia of a Mawite cult, and an Alliance corvette diverted to the planet to rescue the survivors of the Silent Vigil.

Kass’ numerous eyes watched them Arc toward her position. Then, as the snow around her began to turn green, she suddenly collapsed…

Alessandra Io​

 

[Alessandra Io]

Location: Ice Planet
Objective: Capture the Holocron
Dialogue Legend: <<Technopathy Link>> │ “Verbal”
Tags: Kassogtha Cthylla

In spite of the heavy bandolier of thermal detonators over her shoulder, it didn’t take long for Alessandra to reach the ship’s reactor room. Her plan was simple: she intended to root the Jedi out by blowing up the ship and thereby, forcing her out into the brutal elements so that she could be finished off in an environment that might prove far more difficult for her to exploit.

Floating towards the center of the room, Alessandra quickly began the process of setting charges around the reactor housing. All the while, now spared from the demands of combat, the Chaplain’s features flushed with delight at the prospect of spilling more of the Jedi’s greenish blood. She hadn’t been able to revel in her victory then, but she could do so now and it elicited an almost primal sense of ecstasy, coaxing a small giggle out from her lips. It felt as if nothing could stop her and driven by that sensation, Alessandra only laughed louder, her girlish giggles echoing across the cavernous chamber as she worked.

And yet, something did stop her.

No, someone.

A diminutive mouse droid prodded at her foot, sirens crying out in warning. More emerged from the corridors leading into the reactor chamber, chittering in their high-pitched droidspeak. Alessandra fell silent, her digital-biological cognition systems briefly frozen as she took in the innocent, chittering mouse droids, who were soon followed by a lone BB-series astromech, who screamed in panic upon seeing her, before speeding away.

They were terrified.

Alessandra glanced at the charges she had already placed on the reactor housing, then back towards the droids. While it took only a millisecond in real time for her to come to a decision, the coolant slipping out from her photoreceptors indicated a choice that was far more demanding. As much as she despised their corrupt order, the life of a Jedi wasn’t worth the lives of those who might one day become family, especially when the consequences of a wrong decision would be all too apparent.

Now with a flat, unreadable expression borne across her features, Alessandra took what charges she had already set off of the reactor. She’d have to kill the Jedi and recover the holocron another way. If anything, the prospect of a fight to the death only strengthened her resolve as she floated out of the reactor room and began to search for her target.

Disembarking from their shuttles, the Omnist cultists advanced with inhuman tenacity on the wrecked corvette, sustaining appalling losses reminiscent of the Maw’s tactics during its heyday. Seemingly inhuman with their cybernetics and heavy powersuits, the cultists, much like the Alliance soldiers they fought, bled. When it came to knowledge so powerful that might allow them to reemerge from the shadows of the Unknown Regions with a hyper-advanced droid army to herald their awakening, there was no price they were not willing to pay.

Before long, a squad of cultists recovered the holocron from the unconscious form of the Jedi, before calling in for extraction. However, before they could leave, a pair of pink beams lanced out from the distance, turning two of the cultists into four as the beams sliced their cybernetic forms in twain across their torsos. As their charred forms fell into the snow, coruscating streams of electricity incinerated two more, their organic insides boiling them from within. Nevertheless, it didn’t take long for the marauders to counterattack, their electrostaffs igniting as they rushed the bloodthirsty gynoid. The air shifted around three cultists as they closed the distance, generating an area of low gravity that caused them to leap much further than they had intended, their bodies floating aimlessly through the air as Alessandra shifted her burning pink gaze in their direction. Once more, twin particle beams shot out from her photoreceptors in brief, yet surgical pulses, boring charred holes through each of her targets’ skulls. Even so, the remaining Omnists were undeterred. As a pair of marauders swung their crackling electrostaffs in crosswise strikes to cut the Chaplain open from shoulder to hip, Alessandra ducked beneath their swings and willed her plasma blade organs to life, igniting them as she flew forward and slashed the cyborgs through their torsos, bisecting the warriors in brutal fashion.

Soon, a barrage of blaster fire rained down on her from above—Omnists flying in on jetpacks. With her energy shield compromised, the Chaplain dashed forward via her repulsors in an attempt to make herself a harder target to hit. As she did, a terrible, ear splitting scream tore free from her mouth, the powerful shockwaves physically tearing apart a pair of the flying cultists.

Unfortunately, with her attention split among so many threats, the Chaplain didn’t see the massive, armored form of the lieutenant flying in from behind until it was too late, his electrostaff crackling as the weapon cleaved through both of her legs, unleashing a spray of silver blood as the Chaplain suddenly found herself on the ground, unable to move. The gynoid’s senses blurred as warnings screamed across her awareness, but the damage to her body was too extensive for her to react as a barrage of stun bolts overloaded her systems, lulling her into unconsciousness.

“Take these two prisoner and get them medical as soon as possible.” The lieutenant said as he shook the silver blood off his electrostaff, before pointing to the unmoving forms of the Chaplain and the Jedi. While the fighting was still ongoing, the Omnists were slowly disengaging, now that they had achieved their objectives. Before long, a large shuttle touched down in the ice and the two prisoners were loaded aboard. Then, the depleted, but ultimately victorious corps of marauders and cultist warriors boarded the shuttle as well, before the hatch closed and the vessel took off.

A moment later, a flicker of light manifested in the sky, marking the translation of the shuttle into hyperspace.

Final Post.​