Public The Danger of Silence

[Willow & Ivy]

It was quiet on one of the many settlements on Xolu . Too quiet. Almost deathly so. Especially after it happened. So much death, and yet there were no screams, no cries out in pain as death swept the majority of people in the settlement. They all just....dropped dead. It was almost as though a signal had gone off in their brains, much like a light switch. One second they were alive and the next....gone. Lights out. Their hearts no longer beat and their lungs no longer took in breath. Even their eyes were left open, except for among those that were lucky enough to have been sleeping at the time that it happened.

There were very little survivors. Those that did survive happened to do so by mere luck. Some were encased in an elevator shaft, while some were deep underground working away in the mines. Others were encased in cell blocks. You see Xolu wasn't exactly a free planet. It was still heavily influenced by the Hutts and the Black Sun. Not yet under the restrictive rules of the SJC, slavery was still very prominent here. And more importantly slave labour. Mining and manufacturing were the key industries here, whose items filled the black markets.

Willow and Ivy had arrived with their bodyguard Vyn Daldoure , set to attend a meeting that Broka the Hutt himself could not attend because of politics. They were in an elevator shaft when it happened. And along with the sudden deaths of anyone not fully encased in metal at the time, the power supplies of the settlement also was cut off. One could suspect that it was the result of an EMP, but it wasn't. Something else was afoot here.

The siamese twins held onto eachother in the dark as the elevator stopped working. And of course they were frightened. "Vyn? What's going on?"

"What's happened?"

None of them could guess just yet. All that they knew was that they needed to get out of that elevator.

BB-610 Kuxirra Tano-Bonteri Argos Xalen

 

[Ashin Cardé Varanin]

A flicker of precognition was all the warning Ashin received. Between one heartbeat and the next, she wrapped the Force around herself with brutal strength, shattering the bar, the stool, and the drink in her hand. Something unfamiliar and terribly strong - maybe a weapon, maybe the Force - crashed against her expert defenses.

Then everyone else in the dusty cantina dropped like someone cut their strings.

She knew death when she saw and felt it, and the massacre wasn't limited to this backwater cantina. The disturbance struck hard, a nasty aftershock: thousands of nearby lives, silenced.

She'd been waiting for a contact who'd promised a lead on something that might help resurrect Spencer Varanin . She saw the contact now, right by the door, dead as everyone else. That made this entire trip obsolete.

Cracking her neck, she let go of the Force shields and stretched out less aggressively for any sense of what had happened.

Willow & Ivy

 

[Vyn Daldoure]

He didn't care for slavery, it was a nasty trade, but it wasn't his job to care, his job was to make sure the twins stayed safe. He had been alerted by them and they had made their way to Xolu for a meeting as stand-ins for their employer.

Vyn leaned against the wall of the elevator, and up until that point he had been rather relaxed, after all they were on a Hutt world in Hutt space, he imagined Willow & Ivy would get the most use out of him as someone with a gun strapped to their hip, a scare tactic, his attitude changed greatly when the durasteel coffin they currently sat aboard stopped dead in its tracks and went dark. His reaction to the event left him with a blaster in hand, using his training his eyes almost immediately adjusted to the dark he relaxed when he saw the girls and no signs of any other life, even before then he could tell the girls were unharmed by their voice, but precautions might save their life.

"The elevator turned off, I'm not exactly sure why, the fuse might've blown"

Reaching in the hip satchel under his jacket he pulled out his lightstick and hit the switch with seemingly no result

"well, so much for bringing that along. Hang on I'll try and get the fuse to reset, but if my suspicions are right I don't have much hope for that" he handed Willow the lightstick "keep futzing with that see if you can't get it workin' "

He calmly reached to the fuse box and started prying it open the smell of heated plastic filled the room, it wasn't just one fuse that went, it was all of them, He started re-wiring it attempting to bypass the fuse function by plugging the power cell of his blaster into the panel, and with luck, it would start moving when he pressed the button.

 

[BB-610]

​

There were many benefits (and countless disbenefits) of being an astromech droid. Yes, there was the obvious access of varied tools, but one thing that BB-610 loved in particular... was that nobody paid him any mind. Why would they? He was but a simple droid, designed for repairs. And that made him an excellent spy for the Agents. A planet with prominent slavery had been eyebrow raising, and he was an unsuspecting target to send in order to record data.

When he arrived at one of several settlements, he expected a bit of resistance. Perhaps some authorisation. He got none of that - able to roll right on past without concern. What he hadn't expected, however, was for his systems to go offline for what seemed like a mere second, before rebooting in the dark. It took him minutes to roll forth to come across a body. Oh. There's a worried whirr from his vocal processor, and the astromech carries forth.

His cyan flashlight activates, illuminating the path as BB-610 navigates the halls. His lifeform scanner emerges from atop his head, twirling idly while he rolls. A handful of organics... and ones with heat signatures he's familiar with.

BB-610 hurriedly zips by, arriving at a nearby elevator. His optic narrows, photoreceptors scanning briefly through the wall, head inching downwards as he spots the silhouettes of three figures. The twins [ Willow & Ivy ] and their bodyguard [ Vyn Daldoure ].

' Willow? Ivy? ' he calls out, binary muffled behind the elevator shaft's walls. Not even waiting for a response, he opens his tool-bay disk, data probe emerging, and it's socketed into the elevator's port. The lack of power throughout the settlement has taken its toll. ' Give me a second, please, I can help-! ' he cries out, and he sounds almost... desperate.

With the thunk of his twisting probe, BB-610 follows the line of binary flooding his senses, perfect and precise. It takes a few minutes, longer than he'd have liked, but it earns them results. Another final twist, and BB-610 manages to get the elevator operational, and the three are lifted up, and the astromech promptly opens the door.

' Please... please tell me you're unscathed. '

 

[Mauve Vayern]

Mauve exited hyperspace in her XS freighter. "Take us in, Jethro," she commanded her droid. The OOM pilot/battle droid behind the controls started to take the ship into the atmosphere. Mauve had been contracted by her company to deliver some mining equipment to some settlement on the planet.

Mauve felt uneasy. She couldnt place her finger on the reason, but she just felt like something was wrong. Her feelings intensified when she got no response from ground control. She ordered Jethro to land on a vacant pad and grabbed her A280 Blaster Rifle.

Once the ship landed, she ordered her battle/pilot droid to come with her as she disembarked. "Hello," Mauve shouted once on the ground. No response came. Where was everybody? There must be somebody around here, Mauve thought to herself.

She gripped her A280 tightly. She had never really fired it before, except at stationary targets. She hoped she wouldn't have to use it, but the uneasy feeling in the pit of her stomach was only getting stronger.

"Keep an eye out Jethro," she told the droid. "This might be trouble."

"Affirmative," the droid responded and drew it's E5 blaster. Mauve and Jethro continued into the settlement, looking for someone or some sign of what had happened.

 

[Kardek Alpha]

Kardek stared at the display before him, observant but also mentally distracted as he had been sitting there for a few hours now. He was observing life signatures in the settlement below... one specifically... His target. He was in the cockpit of The Harbinger, his modified Dynamic-Class Freighter, stationed right outside the atmosphere of the planet.

Suddenly Kardek snapped back to attention. The screen seemed to be malfunctioning as most of the life signatures were suddenly gone. He reached out and hit the desk with his fist. Nothing. Kardek pulled his feet off the desk and leaned forward, squinting at the display.

"Alpha!" He yelled as he began typing in commands and running diagnostics. The doors slid open as Alpha, an IG-88 Assassin Droid, walked in and sat in the pilot seat, preparing to enter the atmosphere. Kardek had a neural link with the droid, essentially making Alpha an extension of himself, meaning he didn't need to give vocal commands as the droid could literally read his mind.

Despite this, Kardek often talked to the droid. I guess that means that he likes to talk to himself? Anyways...

"Lets get down there and see what's going on." Kardek stated as he jumped to his feet and began to gather his equipment as The Harbinger descended to the planet surface. They set the ship down right outside the settlement perimeter, not wanting any attention of any kind.

The port-side cargo bay door lowered, revealing Kardek and Alpha, fully armed and ready for anything. They stepped off the lift and began to make their way towards the settlement.

 

[Kuxirra Tano-Bonteri]

Kuxirra sensed the disturbance keenly, and wrapped the Force around herself before whatever it was could kill her. Even so, the disturbance itself nearly dropped her, and she leaned against a nearby building, gasping for air. A few minutes later, she recovered, and sensed something—survivors. She made her way to the elevator shaft

 

[Argos Xalen]

Argos steadied his aim, ready to take out his slave master target. Just a little..... Bu the ancestors?! He just... dropped. They... they all did. Argos quickly looked himself over. Was he.... His sandy body was ok, but what just happened. Organics didn’t just drop dead. At least not all at once. He slid the blaster back into his body before walking down. They were all dead. The Force was different around them. He continued walking, hardly able to handle the sight. Was this what it was like on his homeworld now. His people just....

Then he turned into a building, and was surprised by one thing. An active droid?! He’d walk up, speaking in his monotone.

“Droid. What happen....” Then the door opened. There were three individuals in there. A pair of twins.... Wait. Organic twins weren’t like Lervon twins. Well... at least he’d never met any like the twins of his own species. It reminded him of.... He just shook his head, looking at the larger individual too. They were alive. But how?

“I see now,” he said to the droid before looking at the others. “You’re... you’re lucky. It’s not a pretty sight out here.” Something about the twins made him nervous, but it wasn’t unease, or fear. It was memories, and war. Things that he was still working through now.

Willow & Ivy BB-610 Kuxirra Tano-Bonteri Kardek Alpha Mauve Vayern Vyn Daldoure Ashin Cardé Varanin

 

[Ashin Cardé Varanin]

EDGE OF SETTLEMENT
Kardek Alpha

A ship coming down right after a massacre had a decent chance of being connected to said massacre. With Jentaral on her hip and a Dire Wolves M-114 DMR in hand, she felt reasonably comfortable with any coming firefight. She blessed The Monster for that gun. Out of all her marksman rifles - she owned twenty-one and counting - it was fast becoming a favorite for everyday carry.

Right at the edge of town, near some fallen bodies, she met the ship's delegation: a bounty hunter and a serious assassin droid. She kept her barrel pointed down, but not that far down.

"You have anything to do with this?" she called over the dusty wind.

 

[Willow & Ivy]

Willow took the lightstick. She wasn't sure exactly how to fiddle with it though, especially as they were in the dark. Not even the emergency lights had come on, which was odd. But then again, they weren't used to what was supposed to be common.

"What do you think happened?" Vyn Daldoure said he had a hunch and it was quite fortunate that he knew his way around fuses and elevator shafts. He was a good man to protect the twins. Especially at this given moment.

Sudden excited beeps coming from the other side of the doors and up high. They knew those chirps! Was BB-610 really there? "BB! Is that you?!" No doubt their own calls out to him were muffled and probably sounding a bit far away. That is until the droid had managed to get the elevator working again enough to bring them back up and open the door.

Seeing their little friend, the twins rushed to him, kneeling down and wrapping their arms around him in a big hug. "We're okay. The elevator just broke, that's all."

"I can't believe you're here! Such a wonderful surprise!"

Their attention was turned to Argos Xalen as he appeared. He was a strange being, unlike anything they had seen before. "What do you mean it's not pretty? Is there a storm outside?" That could explain the elevator malfunctioning. Or so what they figured at least. Kuxirra Tano-Bonteri also approached the group. It was rather odd that the group of them had convened on the elevator. Willow was getting a bad feeling about this, with Ivy soon following thereafter.

Outside Mauve Vayern was greeted with silence. It was as though she had landed in a ghost settlement. However there were bodies strewn everywhere. Some of them were slaves, others were their owners or goons hired to keep them in line. Some of them were customers at the various establishments on the Hutt world. And they all dropped dead where they were. A few were crumpled in speeders which oddly enough didn't even crash. They just stopped moving.

Just beyond the settlement where Kardek Alpha had landed and Ashin Cardé Varanin approached, there lay a few bodies as well in the dusty outskirts. Yet beyond even that where metal spheres partly buried in the dirt. They were about the size of a human head, dull in their colour which helped them to be easily overlooked. What they were doing there and just what exactly the spheres were for was anyone's guess. They were just another oddity to add to the strangeness that engulfed this settlement. One of many.

 

[Kuxirra Tano-Bonteri]

"What do you think happened?" Kuxirra asked the group. "Name's Kuxirra, by the way." She shivered at the amount of death around them. It was horrible, and clearly disturbed her. The Togruta obviously had a high level of compassion and empathy for others.

 

[Mauve Vayern]

Mauve started to check the bodies to see if anyone was alive. They were not. "Yep Jethro," she said to her OOM series pilot/battle droid. "It's going to be trouble." Mauve entered the nearest building.

"Hello?" She questioned the room. Mauve wasnt sure what to expect. Maybe she didnt want an answer. There were a lot of dead people here. If anyone was left alive, perhaps they'd be the ones who killed all these people.

Mauve felt very uncomfortable. "I could use a drink," she said to no one in particular. Mauve didn't really drink anymore, not since the thing happened. However, she said that phrase when she felt sad or scared. This time it was scared.

Mauve and her droid began to search the room, looking for survivors.

Willow & Ivy

 

[BB-610]

​

Relief filled his circuits as the twins wrap their arms around him. Thank the stars they're okay, BB-610 lets out a metallic whirr of happiness. The droid's head nuzzles gently into Ivy's palm - and despite the fact that his optic is but a mere cyan circle, capable of expressing no emotion, he seems to stare up at Willow & Ivy with reassurance, the softest gaze he could muster.

' I don't know what you're doing here... but I'm so glad you're not hurt. ' he bweeps, binary slow, coated in sombre undertone. ' I have no idea what has happened. One minute I'm analysing data, the next I reboot in utter chaos. '

His head swirls behind him, sending a glare to Argos Xalen , optic narrowing. A stranger, it seems. BB-610 stares in silence. He remembers the obscene amount of bodies. The cut lights. The broken elevator. The droid takes no time at all to bring everything together toward the only other person he's seen.

A compartment in his tool-bay disk slides open, his electro shock prod emerging, aimed directly at the the sandy creature. ' Do not even so much as attempt to move closer to them. ' A metallic shriek. Possessive, fierce. Loyal. ' You're going to tell me your designation. And you're going to explain why you're here. '

There's a crack of hot electricity through the air, bolts of energy sizzling the ground inches away from Argos' feet. Truthfully, he had no idea if his shock could even work against the being's peculiar body, nor did he know if he even understood droidspeak. The sight of such a small droid acting so aggressive could have been seen as cute to some, but BB-610 wasn't ready to lose the newest friends he's made.

And then Kuxirra Tano-Bonteri approaches, and the droid's attitude changes immediately. With one glance to her, he's reminded... of his owner. Of his togruta, his partner, his master. BB-610 offers nothing as a response, and while he doesn't retract his electro shock prod, he does lower it, and the astromech's glare softens.

 

[Vyn Daldoure]

"Possibly an EMP, that or it's quite the coincidence both the elevator and my lightstick stopped working" He was about to get the power cell hooked up when several beeps and whirs came from outside the elevator, and about the time Willow & Ivy reacted he also called out "Six-Ten?" and the elevator started moving, so much for his intervention, loading his A-180 and holstering it as the Elevator doors opened.

Vyn watched as the twins ran to the BB unit while he scanned the room, it seemed everyone had left and the power went out, no that's not quite right, the stench of death lingered in the air, whatever was responsible for the lights wasn't just electrical, he looked back into the elevator then down at their little metal friend. Saying the elevator broke was an understatement, more like the settlement had.

he heard Argos Xalen begin to open the door as he twisted his torso holding himself back from drawing the pistol, he moved in between himself and Willow & Ivy , not as he needed to draw watching BB-610 threaten the creature with the shock prod. "Calm down Six-ten. You see friend we still don't know what's going on, seems the power went out." Vyn looked past Argos and saw several bodies In the street but by the question just asked he had nothing to do with it, that's probably what he meant by pretty sight.

"well, it seems you know about as much as we do... how about we-" before he could finish he noticed the Togruta walk-in, this was becoming an issue, there were too many variables in the equation that was quickly building, he even caught the sound of ships in the distance, at least two or three

Vyn watched Kuxirra Tano-Bonteri ask her questions but he once again stated "Now as I was saying, it seems we all don't know that much about what was going on, so how about we go find out" He looked at the twins for approval.

 

[Kardek Alpha]

Kardek and Alpha both stopped immediately upon hearing Ashin Cardé Varanin 's question. Kardek took an offensive stance, with feet spread and hands resting on both NN-14 Blasters. Alpha's optics assessed that she had a sniper rifle, and from such a distance, it made their odds in a fight pretty low.

"Well this ain't good." Kardek sighed under his breath, seeing the bodies that lay close to the woman's feet. Chances are, if she is still alive, that she had something to do with all this. Guess his display wasn't glitching after all.

He finally raised his voice to address Ashin Cardé Varanin .

"Nope." He called back simply. "...But it looks like you might." He motioned with his head to the dead bodies that surrounded her. As Kardek spoke, Alpha began to slowly pull away from Kardek, creating more space between the two of them. If she was hostile, then she would have to choose which one to target while the other could have a fighting chance... although that still wasn't an ideal scenario due to their neural connection. If one of them was truly killed, the other would not be able to survive for very long.

 

[Kuxirra Tano-Bonteri]

Kuxirra looked at Kardek Alpha , realization dawning on her face, which broke into a grin. "Kardek? Alpha? Is that you?"

 

[Ashin Cardé Varanin]

EDGE OF TOWN
Kardek Alpha and Kuxirra Tano-Bonteri

Ashin shook her head. "If I did, would I be asking you? Near everyone in this town dropped dead, not a mark on them."

Now ignoring the bounty hunter, the droid, and the young Togruta who'd just showed up, she slung her rifle over her shoulder. She moved to kneel beside one of the dull, head-sized metal spheres half-buried in the dirt. The outstanding question in her mind was whether the sphere looked like it had been there a long time - natural accumulation of dirt - or not. She also looked around for vehicle tracks, footprints, scorch marks - anything out of the ordinary. She didn't touch the sphere, but she stretched out to get a careful sense of it in the Force.

Willow & Ivy

 

[Argos Xalen]

Argos looked at the droid, then the larger sentient. He took a quick step back, a feeling of fear slightly coming off of him, even if his voice didn’t show it.

“I didn’t mean to alarm you. My... designation as you put it, is Argos Xalen. I was here hunting a slave driver with a price on his head when.... Let’s just say I didn’t take the shot before he fell.” He then looked over to the outer areas, not sure what happened. He looked at himself, trying to think.

“Don’t ask me how anyone here’s still standing. Me and the droid aren’t organic, but you three.... What are your names anyway?”

Willow & Ivy BB-610 Vyn Daldoure Kuxirra Tano-Bonteri

 

[Kuxirra Tano-Bonteri]

"I'm Kuxirra." Kuxirra said to Argos Xalen . "I'm a Jedi Padawan."

 

[Kardek Alpha]

EDGE OF TOWN
Ashin Cardé Varanin

Kardek relaxed from his readied state as Ashin Cardé Varanin shared about what happened. So very strange, people just dropping dead like that. They both began to walk towards Ashin Cardé Varanin as she began to observe a metal sphere in the ground.

"Are you the law around here then?" He asked loudly as he began to approach her, his eyes still taking in the scene, the dead bodies, the death. His stomach turned at the idea that this was the fate for this entire settlement. From his experience, he was willing to bet that this was the handiwork of either Imperials or Sith... or both. He finally reached the woman and stopped.

"How are you still alive?" Kardek solemnly asked Ashin Cardé Varanin as she studied the sphere. He directed Alpha mentally to begin to analyze the sphere with his sensors, hoping to learn more about these strange objects. Suddenly, he heard a faint yet familiar voice calling his name. Is that...

"Mini?" He shouted out in response, his eyes looking towards the town where the voice had come from. "Is that you girl? Are you ok?" His sense of concern for Kuxirra Tano-Bonteri was strong, remembering the first time they had met... remembering her story. He had always felt a deep desire to protect her... almost like a big brother... ever since.