Location: Space above Azure; On board the Terror Australis
Objective: Shine bright.
Tagging:
Allies: [member="Amon Vizsla"] | [member="Setter Ryburn"] | [member="Scherezade deWinter"] | [member="Bushi Nadora"] | [member="Mariel Dawnrider"] | [member="Kat Decoria"] | @Wilhelm von Reinherdt | [member="Laira Darkhold"] | [member="Caedyn Arenais"] | [member="Veiere Arenais"] | [member="Gir Quee"]
Enemies: @Kahlil Zambrano
| [member="Kaine Australis"] | [member="Darth Carnifex"] | [member="Ronan Vizsla"]
Gear:
It was surreal, almost as if she were living outside of her body right now. Asaraa could see everyone, all of the boarders as they dispersed across the ship, each of them focused on their missions. It wasn’t just the boarders though, she could see the crew working diligently away to try to fight their ship, to hold off the Silver Jedi forces now engaging them. She couldn’t just see them though, she could
see them, their motivation, their hope’s and thoughts, their desire to live. It was almost voyeurism, this ability to plumb the depths of their minds, to know what was driving someone so intimately. For a moment it felt unfair, it didn’t feel right what she was about to do to them. The Jedi knew that the force gave you abilities far above those that could be understood by others, that a normal human was capable of. It wasn’t the speed though, it wasn’t the ability to lift objects with your mind, she’d seen all those reproduced by technology before. It was this, this ability to reach out to others and wrap herself up in their thoughts to influence it.
She knew that it was a worry all Jedi had to deal with, using their abilities in such a way as to not control others, to show some restraint. But was that the right thing to do? If she could take control of a pilot a gunner then how many lives could she save? How many of her allies would be able to go home to their families, to their loved ones. All at the cost of someone who was probably going to die anyway. She could do it too, she could reach out through the force, seize control of the ship’s gunner, of their engineer. All it would take was a little touch, a tug on the force.
In the world of energy she was inhabiting the Jedi Knight reached out, letting ethereal fingers caress the tendril of the force that she’d wrapped around the ship’s gunner. She wouldn’t make it hurt, it’s be merciful, fast and would give her allies the breathing space that they needed, would save so many lives on Admiral Quee’s ships. Her grasp on the thread tightened, all it would take was that one little pull, no-one would ever know after all. How could they? Besides it wasn’t like her hands weren’t already stained with blood, the people she’d killed, that she’d left to die. How was this any different? How was it any different from sitting on the bridge of a ship, pressing the button that launched the torpedo, the turbolasers that would kill a ship and send it to its death along with all the souls onboard.
Except it was.
To kill someone face to face, to kill them by outflying them, by outfighting them was one thing. This though, this was something they couldn’t see coming, she’d pluck the life right out of them but worse than that they had no way to know it was coming. Her fingers let go of the threads, a faint strumming the only sign that she’d ever been considering snapping out their lives like that. Reaching out over the distance to play with someone’s mind, that was what had happened to her, and here she was thinking about doing it to someone else. There was no way she could justify that, not after the way it had destroyed her life. Yet…yet it would be the safest path.
As she pondered Asaraa’s doubts, her confusion and fears seemed to flow down the connection to the force, infecting the crew of the Terror Australis. Hesitant fingers reached out again, the lure of the easy victory still there, singing a song in her mind, a lure that was hard for her to avoid. Back and forth the fingers swung, the strings playing like a harp as her thoughts swirled back and forth like a metronome. Temptation warring with what she knew was the Jedi thing to do.
It was a debate that could have gone on forever, for what seemed like millena until something changed, the flow of the force around her shifting as all of a sudden everything changed. It started with a sharp spike of pain, as if someone had stabbed her through the heart. Only absorbed in the force as she was there was no threat, no-one near her who could offer that kind of threat to her. She flipped around, floating on the force, staring down at the inhabitants of the ship. There was only one person, one person her eyes settled on. Caedyn.
Asaraa could see the turmoil troubling her boyfriend’s thoughts, the shock working through his system. Taking a life was never easy, she could remember the first time she had, she’d been 6 and…no that wasn’t her memory, it hadn’t been till she had become a Padawan. Asaraa knew what this was, the memories of the Sith had been coming more often, spilling past her defences more and more regularly now. She could feel them like a block of ice, just sitting there waiting, always sitting there, Pandora’s box she knew she shouldn’t open but sat there always drawing her attention back in. The pink-haired Jedi took a deep breath, imagining her hands reaching forward towards the boy, smoothing his brow as she wrapped him in a hug
. ‘I’m right here, you’ll be ok. Just keep pushing forward.’ She couldn’t take everyone’s pain, that was too much for her, but for him…she could handle that much.
The girl’s fingers ran through his hair as she leaned forward, ethereal lips brushing against Caedyn’s forehead as she pulled at the grief she could feel, not taking it all, but taking on enough to subdue it, letting her love and confidence flow back to him. The grief was his, it was important to face it, but not yet, not in the middle of a fight, that was what could get you killed. The last thing she ever wanted to deal with.
A last lingering touch of her fingers brushed his cheek before she turned her attention away, to the rest of the boarding party. As much as she wanted to spend all day making sure he was ok she couldn’t afford to give him her fullest attention. She could feel the Songwing and her Padawan, feel Mariel’s concern, sending comfort her way. She could understand the Jedi’s concern at her situation but if the Assembly had put them together then she had confidence in that, until then…she could only support them as best she could.
The rest of the party…was gone.
Panic coloured the ocean of the force around Asaraa as she span around, her face twitching in concern. She hadn’t sensed them die, hadn’t sensed any pain or hurt from them, they were just not there anymore…an entire section of the ship that seemed to be covered in a fog she couldn’t see through. She’d heard about the Ysalamir before, which Jedi hadn’t? The lizards that could cut you off from the force were a recurring nightmare of hers, she’d just never experienced them before. Steeped in the force as she was Asaraa had never felt more powerful, more capable before but as she threw herself at the fog it didn’t seem to give an inch. The Jedi shaped the force into a weapon, striking again and again as if she could shatter the fog, pierce it to reach her allies beneath it…but nothing. The sun she’d became burnt brighter, a beacon calling out to space, but the people who most needed her, well she couldn’t reach them.
Frustration and anger flitted across her mind, for a moment painted her beacon red as she took a deep breath, banishing the emotions for now as she turned her attention to the Mandalorian crew, they she could still touch. They were apparently running away, abandoning ship…it took Asaraa a moment to realise what was going on, the Mandalorian’s were actually running away leaving the ship in the hands of the automated systems.
‘Admiral,’ Asaraa’s mind flew across the void, reaching out for Gir Quee’s, the legendary Admiral who had taken command of the Silver Jedi in the theatre,
‘the Mandalorian’s are abandoning the Terror Australis, it’s being run by an AI. The boarding crew are going after their communications, hyperdrive and General Australis himself.’ As she started to withdrawn she sensed another mind, a presence bursting with light as she reached out again, a briefest touch on Veiere’s mind.
‘I’m watching him.’
Then she withdrew, focusing on the ship, on the fighters around her and the capital ships, settling back into the trance. She just had one more thing she needed to do, ‘Kat,’ Her throughts touched her friend waiting nearby,
‘Caedyn’s going for the hyperdrive, protect him, please.’ Her thought coloured with her need to make sure he was ok, that nothing bad would happen. The briefest feeling of reassurance as Asaraa sank back into the force, reaching out for the fighters and ships, the Mandalorian, Chiss and Sith contending with the Jedi crews.
Leave now, you’re not wanted, you’re not trusted. You can’t stand against the Jedi, wouldn’t it be better to survive, to fight another day.
