First Reply The Galaxy's a big place

[Itzhal Volkihar]

​

| Location | Gorse, Inner Rim Territories

Piles of scrap lay discarded in disorderly rows, where their sheer presence marked the boundaries of makeshift paths. Ruined trails smothered in a thick layer of fallen debris, remnants of a time when the earth beneath was hard-packed and solid, now transformed into a rough, uneven surface, marred by years of relentless erosion. Pools of stagnant water formed precariously alongside ominous chemical slurries, seeping from fissures in the towering mountains of refuse.

In the distance, a faint, almost resonant hum of a magnetic clamp travelled through the stacks, its sound warped and twisted until it appeared to originate from every direction, a sound without a source. Against the eerie backdrop, Itzhal's inlaid boots—the underlay designed for an optimal blend of traction and discretion—made scarcely a sound as he cautiously stepped deeper into the labyrinth of civilisation's trash.

Dalvos trailed behind, a quiet spectre when he deemed it best to keep his mouth quiet—though that was admittedly rare. Most of the time, he preferred to break the silence with soft-spoken words, his voice muffled by the dense layers of scrap surrounding them.

In fact, one of the rare moments that the mercenary dared not speak was when words seemed to escape him as he released his hand from the sling strapped to his chest and extended his arm towards Itzhal's beskar-clad form. The expression on Dalvos's face was a complex blend of admiration and sheer desire—a striking look of envy that nonetheless filled Itzhal with a strange sense of nostalgia—as he continued their silent assessment of the Mandalorian's capabilities, or at least the arsenal he was packing.

Itzhal couldn't blame them.

Even without his skills and experience, Beskar'gam was something of a force multiplier; against a gang of scrappers it was positively overkill. It was amusing enough to almost elicit a chuckle, emotion bubbling up from somewhere in Itzhal's chest, before it was strangled back into place.

Crouched low to the ground, Itzhal halted as they arrived at a fork in their path. Before them, the mountains of scrap fractured into three uneven lines, forming a sequence of two distinct pathways that distorted into a couple of dozen side-lanes and dead-ends that would have left the two stumbling in the general direction of their target, if not for their previous eagle-eye view of the area.

"This way, right?"

In the shroud of the mountain, the Mandalorian nodded—sharp and swiftly—his steps confident as they moved down the left passage.

Ahead of them, the winding passage sprawled into a disorienting mess of dizzying twists and unexpected turns; vile lakes of unrecognisable chemicals that bubbled and roiled above the surface, uneven piles of debris that swayed in a non-existent wind, and the pitter-patter of multiple footsteps that would only endanger their mission, leaving the two men to divert around.

Itzhal's steps carried him around one turn after another, his eyes searching for threats, even as the sensors in his Buy'ce reduced the likelihood of an unexpected appearance to near-nothing. Until finally, with another turn that skittered around the ruined nosecone of a rusted starfighter, Itzhal slowed to a halt.

Tags: Dalvos Thrakan​

 

[Dalvos Thrakan]

Dalvos eased up beside Itzhal as the Mandalorian came to a halt, the rusted nosecone of the old starfighter framing a gap in the scrap that finally gave them a clean line of sight. The hangar sat maybe forty meters ahead—two big bay doors, one already cracked open, the skeletal shape of a freighter inside catching the low industrial glow. Scrappy didn't begin to cover it. Patchwork plating, mismatched thruster housings, and a dozen jury-rigged antennae stuck out at odd angles like the ship had been assembled from three different wrecks and a prayer.


He didn't need Itzhal's sensors to feel the shift in the air. The distant magnetic-clamp hum was being swallowed by something deeper, a rising turbine growl that made the piles of scrap around them vibrate. Engines spooling.


"Kriff," Dalvos muttered under his breath. He unclipped the demo charge Itzhal had handed him earlier and primed the remote detonator, thumb resting lightly on the trigger. A likely-looking ruin of stacked hull plating and crumpled bulkheads sat off to the right of the open runway path—unstable enough that one solid blast could bring half of it down across the launch corridor. He pitched the charge in a tight underhand arc. It disappeared into the debris with a soft clatter. The moment the freighter's engines climbed into a sharper, more urgent roar, Dalvos squeezed the detonator.


A muffled whump rolled through the yard, followed by the long, grinding collapse of metal. Scrap thundered down in a cascade of sparks and dust, spilling across the open ground like a deliberate landslide. Not a perfect seal, but enough to make a clean takeoff a lot uglier.


The engines inside the hangar answered with an even higher pitch.


Dalvos was already moving. "They're lighting it up. Let's go!"


They closed the last stretch at a low run, boots skidding across chemical-slick ground. The hangar's side access door loomed—thin sheet metal, the kind of thing that would fold if you looked at it wrong. Dalvos swung the sonic rifle up from its sling, braced, and triggered a concentrated pulse straight into the lock plate. The weapon's thrum was swallowed almost completely by the rising scream of the freighter's engines. The door crumpled inward with a dull metallic cough.


He slammed his shoulder into it to knock the bent metal plate out of the way, then shoved himself backward out of the way as he saw how many people there were inside. He gave Itzhal's pauldron a light slap as if to say 'Go get 'em Tiger!'


The hangar interior hit them like a wall of heat and noise. The freighter sat in the center of the bay, landing gear still down but the repulsors already beginning to hum. Crew in mismatched coveralls and scavenged armor scrambled around it—two of them yanking the last wheel chocks free, another sealing a panel on the port-side hull with a sputtering welder, a fourth hauling a crate up a half-deployed cargo ramp that still hadn't fully retracted. The ship looked like it had been mid-repair when the alarm went up; a maintenance scaffold still leaned against the starboard side, and one of the secondary boarding ramps hung at an awkward angle, not fully locked and still partially extended.


For a heartbeat the scene held—men working, engines climbing, the open bay doors framing the night beyond.


Then the floodlights outside slammed on.


Harsh white light flooded the yard, cutting through the scrap mountains and turning every shadow into a hard-edged silhouette. Inside the hangar the sudden glare bounced off the freighter's scarred hull and lit Dalvos and Itzhal standing in the ruined doorway like they'd been staged for a holo-drama.


A couple of the workers closest to the ramp turned. Their eyes widened. One reached for a sidearm. Another shouted something that was lost under the engines.


No one had fired yet. But the moment stretched thin as wire.


Dalvos's grip tightened on the sonic rifle. The half-extended cargo ramp and that crooked secondary boarding ramp both still offered a path—if they moved now, before the ship lifted and those openings sealed for flight. He shot Itzhal a quick sideways glance, the jovial edge completely gone, replaced by sharp, focused urgency.


"Ramp's still open. We take it before they button up." A moment later he added, "Gonna be a sith of a run."


Outside, the collapsed scrap pile continued to settle with metallic groans. Inside, the freighter's engines hit a higher pitch. The whole hangar seemed to hold its breath for one last second—


—and then, like a severed wire, the tension broke all at once.

Itzhal Volkihar

 

[Itzhal Volkihar]

​

| Location | Gorse, Inner Rim Territories

In the corner of his eye, Itzhal caught a sudden glint of silver—the thermal detonator he'd handed Dalvos arcing through the smoky air, its red glare hazy, as it hurtled past him, so fast he barely registered it before it landed less than a second later with a dull, muted thump. His boots hammered against the makeshift runway, each stride echoing among the skeletal remains of twisted vessels and shattered machinery. Acrid pools of iridescent chemicals shimmered and rippled beneath his passing, bubbles erupting with a poisonous hiss, releasing clouds of vapour that expanded outwards, growing larger and larger as the wind battered them down into something resembling their original shape.

With another step, a vivid green stream of hissing fluids spurted across the field—snaking towards the Beskar-clad frame—from the remnants of an old engine block. Itzhal pivoted sharply, muscles straining as he twisted mid-sprint; the acidic runoff missed him by mere inches, splattering across a heap of scrap metal, where it sizzled and spat, black wisps of smoke curling up towards the sky. In the distance, the low hum of sublight engines flickered to life, a slow rumbling that grew louder with every successful cycle. The Mandalorian pressed on, urgency mounting with each step, feet pounding faster and faster across the treacherous surface, the world narrowing to a single imperative: Forward, always forward.
From behind, the click of the detonator was soft, almost gentle as the command was followed through. In a split second, the invisible reach of the transmitter stretched out, fingers wrapping around the silver gleam of the thermal detonator, nestled amongst the pile of scrap. An ominous red hue blossomed across the interior of Itzhal's visor, mere milliseconds before the explosion; a blooming globe of orange, highlighted by the shadows that crept within, metal bent, twisted and shrieked underneath the muffled thump of expanding gases.

Itzhal did not slow. His visor blazed to life with a cascade of digital warnings and dynamic calculations; red and amber icons creeping in across the edges of his peripheral vision, mapping the shifting geometry of the collapsing debris. Trajectories, threat vectors, and time-to-impact estimates flickered in rapid succession, each threat tagged and measured by his buy'ce onboard systems.

Ahead of him, the collapse hastened, mass and momentum, carrying the toppling structure onwards towards its target; gouging through acid-stained plates, trailing fire and smoke, toppling the central doors with a screech, and burying the entrance in a stretch of shattered scrap metal.

Undaunted, Itzhal stepped forward, through the side entrance into the hangar itself.

His boots clacked against the surface, slowing as his buy'ce panned across the room flooded in a stark white light, over the dozens of workers spread around the room; a four-armed figure stood beside one of the extended landing struts, their arms prying the seals close as they turned to face him, their green eyes narrowed in a wary glare that sharpened the three claw-like scars that marred their headcrest. Another rain-cloaked figure in the distance wore a whistling rebreather, their every breath transcribed with a blistering cloud of vapour, as their hands wrapped around the battered and worn frame of an old blaster rifle. Out of the corner of his eye, Itzhal noticed another mechanic, barely twice his size and covered in black-matted fur that ended in sharp claws, tucked around a hydrospanner.

"Mandalorian Protectorate, hands in the air," he announced, his voice filtered through the buy'ce's vocoder, metallic and clipped, with an undercurrent of cold authority.

But these were not the type of people that cared for authority.

In a split second, the figure beside him pounced, their hands clenched around the hydrospanner as it swung towards Itzhal's head; in turn, Itzhal leaned back, the sound of air parting mere inches above the protective layer of transparisteel, before he surged forward, his knee driving through the fur and finding bone as cartilage cracked and snapped. His shoulder twisted, pivoting around the crumpled figure, screaming in pain as a blazing bolt of red skittered over the beskar plates.

Without even a second of hesitation, Itzhal finished his step, his boot landing with a harsh thump as his arm raised and pointed towards the rain-cloak-covered rifleman, the frame of their weapon pressed firmly against the side of their cheek and the hissing rebreather. Then, the Mandalorian pulled the trigger, his blaster pistol warm against his hand as a yellow bolt covered the distance in less than a blink.

Dozens more scavengers poured from the sides of the hangar, appearing from behind fuel containers and access routes, blasters raised and charged, bolts crisscrossed the battlefield from left to right, then back again as the Mandalorian returned fire. His boots clattered against the metal, a thump, then another, building momentum like the thunderous sound of war drums, accompanied by the sound of falling bodies in a torrential wave of death.

In a flare of heat and fire, his jetpack activated, cutting the distance between himself and the freighter as he lowered his shoulder and carried straight into one of the two guarding the cargo ramp. Scavenged scrap metal bent, twisted, and shrieked underneath the impact, driving the two figures up into the ship, where the scavenger's body bent, twisted, and shrieked against the bulkhead.

Itzhal rolled his shoulder in a practised motion, a faint warble of the impact gel accompanying the gesture as he worked out the lingering tension from the impact—then, he pressed onward. His steps carried him away from the crumpled remains of the bulkhead and deeper into the ship, as a door hissed open, and a vibroblade skittered over his raised gauntlet, before a sequence of six bolts fired from the hip blasted through the latest in a long line of desperate fighters.

Tags: Dalvos Thrakan​

 

[Dalvos Thrakan]

"Mandalorian Protectorate, hands in the air."
"Well, it was a good effort," Dalvos muttered in reply as blaster bolts began to whine across the hangar. Dalvos turned the corner just in time to see the mechanic with the hydrospanner hit a pile of wreckage like he'd been hit by a shotgun. He threw himself aside a couple of steps as the jetpack ignited, carrying the Mandalorian forward upon a pillar of smoky red flame. "Never too late for a career change," he told himself jealously as he ran diagonally toward the front of the hangar, using stacked pallets for cover and weaving between the hulk of a disassembled engine; enough rust coated the inner surfaces that it was clear this engine wasn't going anywhere soon, so he dipped into the heat-scorched shroud at the thruster's back end, trusting the hardened material to resist blaster fire. He shifted around the corner, switched his sonic rifle to a moderate bore, and fired a conical spray of sound, blasted forth with such intensity that the air visibly rippled and shimmered, coruscating as it sped across the short distance to the scavengers hiding behind an inert autodroid. A few of them dropped, clutching at their heads and faces as the rifle's impact mauled their soft tissue.

He twitched back and forth thoughtfully for a moment before he fired a second blast, waiting out the nearly two full second recharge cycle of a full-power blast, then charging toward the ship's cargo ramp. Itzhal was already on the ramp, tangling with the two men inside, even as the small starship's nose began to rise up off the floor, repulsors straining with the shrill pitch of an emergency start. The ship bucked and trembled, the end of the ramp lifting up a few inches before slamming back down to the hangar floor with a resounding clang.

Slowly, ponderously, the nose was swinging around toward the partially blocked front doors, wobbling up and down slightly... until Dalvos spotted the reason for its' careful movements.

A nearly solid line of ruby light slashed out and began chewing into the doors where they hung partially across the entrance to the hangar, pulverizing the wreckage and sending red-hot shrapnel spewing outward. With a painful thump, Dalvos slammed his shoulder into a chunk of metal that resembled the scarred nose of a fighter, dropping his rifle across the sloped front, and narrowing the aperture back down to its long range setting. He gritted his teeth as a shrill screech built up, released in a tumultuous wave of tempestuous energy, slamming into the side of the cockpit like a giant rubber mallet. The ship skewed over a handful of degrees, repulsors juggling it around for a moment before it could steady itself. In the cockpit, Dalvos could see the moment the pilot spotted him - and sent the blaster cannon slewing around toward him.

In a way, this was positive. The less time they could spend blowing a path out through the wreckage, the longer it would take for them to get free and escape. Of course, the downside here was that he wasn't confident there was anything nearby that was dense enough to survive the sweeping teeth of the blaster cannon for more than an instant; it would only take a near miss to cook him alive.

Assuming he wasn't first killed by either shrapnel or an explosion from any of the poorly-marked barrels of likely very hazardous materials scattered around.

"Hey Coppertop!" He shouted, desperately, "Distraction please!"

Itzhal Volkihar

 

[Itzhal Volkihar]

​

| Location | Gorse, Inner Rim Territories

Itzhal's bones thrummed with the resonant waves of the sonic rifle, a low hum that pulsed—not unlike a heartbeat—building in frequency as his call for surrender crescendoed into a wave of violence and death. Strands of heat and fire lashed out, burning a path forward, away from his ally and the fluctuating sound waves, carried upon wings of flame that led him deeper into the heart of this madness.

As he continued forward through the corridors with purpose, the sound of his sturdy boots echoed against the metal grates beneath him, a rhythmic clatter that mingled with the churning grumble of machinery. Wisps of steam escaped from the gaps in the grates, curling upwards in ghostly tendrils towards the arching walls, where they skittered onwards, over the tarnished plates and the emitters of lighting rigs.

Overhead, fluorescent lights bathed the beskar'gam in a harsh glow, the darkness of the abyss painted against the stark lines of crimson, while errant speckles of red, which shimmered like polished rubies, dripped down his armour—a nightmarish sight for those foolish enough to confront him.

Not that many did; most were occupied outside, their pained screams blending with the harsh, warbling screech of Dalvos's rifle, a sound that rippled through the harshly lit corridors, even reduced as they were to a mere echo of its true power. The filters in Itzhal's buy'ce tempered the deafening noise to a bearable level, yet the same relief was denied to those who stepped in his way, scrap metal pieces and wielding masks faltering against the devastation of a true battle. Those unfortunate few, he left in his wake, bodies cloying the corridors.

An energy cell attached to his pistol clicked dry, the last of the power pulsing through the systems before he disengaged the lock. Underneath the clack of a new cell, the discarded battery fell to the ground with a skittering clank that followed the tilt of the ship, an unexpected adjustment that sent Itzhal stumbling sideways before he slammed his boot to the surface. His next step clanked into place, the magnetic locks engaged, and then the next as he made his way towards the cockpit.

"Hey Coppertop! Distraction please!"

With another clanking step that brought him to the door, he pressed the control switch on the door.

Bleep. Bleep.

Above the panel, the display flickered in a vivid shade of red.

Itzhal hissed into his vocalizer, sharp and focused; a slender shard of metal extended from his right gauntlet, straight into a jab that speared the security spike into place. On the inside of his visor, the haze of information flickered, a progress bar that had barely appeared before it phased out with another flash of green over the display.

Reinforced metal plates shifted with the screech of pistons, and the door flew open.

Sat in the co-pilot seat, a figure draped in robes twisted towards the entrance, their hands still attached to the control system of the blaster cannon as crimson bolts flew across the hangar. Itzhal pulled the trigger, no hesitation. In a flash of light, the tightly contained thermal envelope shattered on impact, searing through fabric, flesh and bone as the co-pilot slumped sideways, their wielding goggles splattered against the side panels, not that Itzhal had the time to focus on that.

He was rather preoccupied with the blazing sword of crimson light that flew for his neck.

Sparks crackled between the surface of his visor and the shadowed contours of his shun'bure, the onyx-coated metal, illuminated in the flash of vivid, bleeding red.

Tags: Dalvos Thrakan​

 

[Dalvos Thrakan]

Dalvos ran like he'd never run before. Crates and parts disintegrated around him, pummeled with high energy blasts. He vaulted over a half-stripped engine block and nearly ran straight into a stream of regular blaster fire that he'd completely overlooked in the struggle to escape the much more powerful torrent. Suddenly, the marching line of sizzling blaster cannon shots jerked upward at a sharp angle, the copilot's body slumped over the controls. "Good distraction!" He called out, a brief grin on his face.

The ship hung like that for a moment, and Dalvos could see through the glass canopy: The Sith battled with the Mandalorian inside, the pilot hunched at his console trying desperately to keep the ship from careening into any walls, half-blinded by the hail of cannon shots burning holes in the walls and blowing up starship parts and barrels of hazardous materials. A particularly bright greenish flare erupted from a ruptured tank, sending a shockwave through the hangar that buffeted the ship backward with a forceful lurch, knocking Dalvos half off his feet.

The remaining thugs were thrown around like ragdolls, tumbling away from the massive eruption of energy and plume of flame that rose up in its wake.

Seizing on this opportunity, Dalvos ran forward, dropped to a knee, as he saw the Sith rearing back for another strike at Itzhal...

And fired another full-power blast at the cockpit glass, focused down to its narrowest aperture to turn the blast into a semi-visible line of shimmering heat-haze, crazing the glass all across the center pane, and knocking Dalvos - the weapon braced only against his shoulder - onto his ass.

Bucking under the hit, the shuttle wavered, sliding on its repulsors like slippery ice, and hit one of the support pillars, snapping it in half; a chunk of the ceiling began to sway precariously.

Over his comms, Dalvos shouted - louder than he intended, half-deafened by the roaring explosions and the rising shriek of the engines in a confined space - "Get them to hit it again and it'll bring the roof down! They won't be going anywhere! Uhh, left side of the ship, straight left!"

Already, some of the scavengers were regaining their footing, even as more spilled in from the entrances, drawn by the clamor and bright burning lines tearing their way through the thin corrugated walls of the hangar. Some fell back to escape the now wildly flailing torrent of blasterfire emerging from the red-hot barrel of the chin-mounted cannon, others were struck even glancingly by it and killed or severely injured, while others began pouring frantic blaster fire toward the corner of the hangar where the Arkanian man hunkered down for cover.

Itzhal Volkihar

 

[Itzhal Volkihar]

| Location | Gorse, Inner Rim Territories

Itzhal's muscles screamed in protest as he strained against the relentless force of the blade pressed against his beskar'gam. Armour plates, decorated in dull shades of black and crimson, evaporated, leaving the charred mark of the blade and a faint silver sheen behind as he continued to struggle, the veins in his arms bulging from the effort. Intense heat seeped through the gaps in his armour, boiling the kinetic gel, which began to bubble against his bodysuit, searing through to the skin with an unpleasant warmth that was just barely tolerable.

With a deep grunt of effort, he strained to push himself upright, his visor angled towards the leering mask of the Sith. The silver base of the mask was adorned with intricately carved engravings—twisting spirals and sharp lines that carved the outline of a face and depicted a chilling visage of malice.

Minuscule slits carved into the metal on either side served as eyeholes, which, at first glance, might have appeared to be a vulnerability. However, from his angle below, a closer look revealed the unforgiving glare of the transparisteel concealed beneath. Amber eyes glowed like molten gold, sealed behind the glinting layer as they bore down upon him with a predatory intensity.

His other hand shifted, the arm pulled low to his side, with a finger on the trigger. In a flash, a brilliant golden bolt burst forth from the barrel of his blaster, bathing the cockpit in a radiant glow as it raced towards the masked figure, their grip on the blade shifting as latent heat left a scorch mark in their robes before shooting past, towards the cockpit window that whined under the blow. Another shot was deflected into the roof, building into the next which had to be hastily slapped aside; a hail of bolts launched one after another in the close confines without success, until one slammed into the Sith's chestplate, sending them stumbling back towards the pilot seat.

From beneath the mask, an enormous and distorted roar erupted from Darth Soulh—visible in the expanding outpour of rage, the controls around him crackled and warped, bending inwards with a squeal accompanied by the sparks of ruined electronics and the squelch of compressed corpses embedded in what remained of the chairs.

With his boots firmly planted against the floor, Itzhal braced himself for impact.

It mattered not in the end; with little more effort than the blow that had warped the rest of the cockpit, he was forcefully propelled backwards, the weight of the blow sending him crashing into the door. The solid thud of his jetpack echoed through the air as it slammed into the metal, reverberating long enough to backtrack the sound of his boots clamping down upon the floor.

Then the cockpit shattered under a wave of vibrations, showering the two fighters with glass shards.

Under the glow of ruined, flickering lights, the sleek frame of the Mandalorian's blaster pistol was raised into the air, pointed straight at the figure of Darth Soulh. His fingers wrapped around the trigger, the lightest of touch pulling down as energy was pumped into the Xciter, and the weapon roared with the sudden blaze of energy.

Only for the entire ship to tilt; his bolt sent sideways, over the Sith's shoulder as they stumbled past, throwing out a lash of their lightsaber that should have decapitated Itzhal, if not for the way he ducked, narrowly avoiding the crimson glare. In response, he raised his arm and pointed, not with the lightsaber, but instead with the blaze of fire that roared out from his gauntlet.

"A little preoccupied," he responded, moments before the black-robed figure cloaked in fire carved a line in his chestplate from left shoulder to right hip.

Tags: Dalvos Thrakan​

 

[Dalvos Thrakan]

"Yeah yeah yeah," Dalvos called back, "Preoccupied, gotcha! Fine! Backup plan!"

He looked down at the low charge counter on his sonic rifle, the heat pouring off of the barrel; the overpower shots had damaged the emitter, and now it was emitting a shrill whine that seemed more likely to shake it apart than perform usefully.

With a muttered curse, he threw the rifle away, drawing out the blaster that rode at his hip, and thumbing the activator on his wrist-mounted energy shield. The battery wouldn't stand up to the ship's cannon, but - judging by the smoking, sparking ruin on the front of the ship - it didn't need to anymore. A hemisphere of energy crackled to life over his forearm, and he began a low, crouching jog toward something he had spotted earlier, before the fur started flying in earnest. He returned a scattering of blaster shots, nothing well-aimed, just suppressing fire, but nonetheless it either struck someone or close enough to them that they shouted and cursed. He staggered as a bolt struck near center of the shield, blue flashing to crimson for a moment, the air heating as it dissipated the energetic impact into heat and force.

He paused to duck behind a stand of toppled barrels, and pressed the barrel of the blaster across the metal, firing a couple more precise bursts back at the regrouping scavengers where they quickly leapt from cover to avoid the violently wobbling sweep of the small ship, spinning like an unbalanced top from the varied forms of damage it had taken. A handful of the gangers fell, struck or almost struck, and Dalvos sprinted the last distance, leaping a short distance up to grab for his prize:

A cargo hook attached to the end of a heavy-duty crane intended for lifting ship parts. It had a surprisingly long spool of heavy duty wire on a spindle mounted underneath, and the remains of a harness hung from the hook at the end. There were lots of hooks and joins still intact, but most importantly, there was an energizing wire hooked up to a magnetic grapnel that could be mounted onto the end. Hunkering behind the bulk of the crane, he worked quickly, turning it on and snagging the remote, before throwing the heavy-duty hook over his shoulder and running (a moderate jog, given the resistance of the unspooling cable) toward the ship.

"Hold onto something!"

He twisted and heaved, launching the mess of netting, hooks, and magnet up toward the blown-out ruins of the cockpit, then hit the activator to turn on the industrial-strength salvaging magnet, hoping it would snare on something important in the metallic ruins of the cockpit. A moment after, he hit the button to retract the cable and locked it so it would keep pulling all the way back to the crane.

And then he turned, ducked his head, and ran like the Sith himself pursued.

Beskar isn't magnetic, right? Right?

He arrowed toward a dead Scavenger and his heavy blaster rifle where they lay next to a ruined pile of crates, still smoldering from the ship's chin-mounted cannon. With an effort he heaved it onto the remains of cover, and waited for the ship's swaying, twirling movement to slow, hoping for an angle on the cockpit and the figures fighting inside, the barrel of his borrowed weapon wavering as he waited for his moment to unleash a hail of ruby bolts.

Itzhal Volkihar

 

[Itzhal Volkihar]

| Location | Gorse, Inner Rim Territories

Seething with the wrath of a thousand suns, the pulsating crimson glow of the Sith's lightsaber moulded against the Mandalorian's chest plate, the black paint sizzling and peeling away under the intense heat. The blade's wicked radiance swept across his body, starting from his left shoulder and creating a vivid arc that cascaded down towards his right hip, leaving behind a trail of scorched metal.

With a pivot that twisted around the strike, his gauntlet-encased hand darted forward, wrapping around their wrist; mechanical servos whirled in a sudden buildup of pressure, accompanied by natural strength—Itzhal squeezed, and bone shattered beneath his fingers. Darth Soulh screamed, pain rippling through his vocal cords, an assault on the senses that had only one response due.

In his other hand, Itzhal raised Oath.

Then, the world erupted, a shockwave radiating outward from the epicentre. Ruined panels that had been warped and tarnished by lesser waves shattered into a million irretrievable shards, their purpose little more than a memory. The cockpit window didn't shatter into fragments; it dissolved in a flash, leaving behind only a fine mist that bloomed outwards. Over the armoured frame of Itzhal, his body braced for impact, beskar whined and rippled, but didn't yield. This time he wasn't launched backwards, but still the blaster bolt that should have ended it all flew over Darth Soulh's head, as his crushgaunts flickered with warnings.

The second bolt slammed into their shoulder, a flare of light that vanished between one moment and the next.

Then, the world yanked to the side, a lurch that sent the lightsaber on the floor skittering beneath the remnants of a control panel.

A third bolt, the colour of gold, hurtled towards their chest and the black heart of the monster they'd come to slay. Cruel fingers, wrapped in black gloves, stretched outwards, cradling the light and crushing it with an outpour of power that slammed into the Mandalorian once more, the panels beneath their feet stretching with the wave of force that rippled out beyond them. His bones creaked beneath the pressure.

His armour groaned and creaked as it struggled under the weight of displeasure, a rage that bit into his skin, searching for a weakness in his soul. With laboured movements, Itzhal drew his arm back, the heavy gauntlet emitting a low, menacing whine that rattled against the shifting plates and crumpled cables. In that moment of steely determination, a powerful surge of force erupted from his arm, a wave of pressure so intense it sent the Sith hurtling through the vacant cockpit window, out into the hangar below.

Tags: Dalvos Thrakan​