The Last Stand (Underground/ORC)

[Zark San Tekka]

​

There was no place in the verse quite like the Outer Rim.

Despite unknowable and incalculable dangers at almost every turn, there was nothing that made Mynock feel more at peace then when he was drifting out here in the black. Master and commander of his own destiny. Galactic powers rose and fell all around them, each seeking to enforce order as they saw it. All his life he had tried to document the absurdity of it all, to hold these great men of civilization's faces up to the mirror so they could see what fools they were.

When that had inevitably failed, Dubrillion had fallen in with a far more radical crowd than he was used to, and now he found himself out here babysitting supply runs. The work was that of a glorified transport hauler, but his destination was what made this task so special. Few knew of the modest Temple that stood on Binaros, an otherwise unremarkable world near the galaxy's southern spiral arm. Even fewer knew of the Underground base that operated there, monitoring for pirate activity or worse.

The worst part of the job was traveling in such an unremarkable freighter, but for obvious reasons it wouldn't do to fly anything registered under his real name out to a secret rebel base. Unfamiliar with the layout of the cockpit display before him, Mynock didn't immediately notice the flashing alert emanating from the comms panel.

"J57, check it out," he called over to his droid companion, "A message from Binaros. Must be good, if they're breaking comm silence."

He played the transmission, and his eyes widened in horror and fear.

"Jay, frame me up."

J57 was a simple cam droid, a relic from his time as a civilian correspondent, but over the years Mynock had modified it, adding new capabilities and upgrading its cognitive matrix. He needed to warn the others, and J57 would make sure that whatever message he recorded was sent in code through the proper Underground frequencies.

Binaros was under attack.

 

[Griet van Vliet]

Location: Akarui -> Binaros

Even though Griet was an equity partner in one of the major accounting firms of the galaxy, she knew she owed it all to her contributions in ORC service. Although she was a Jedi accountant, she knew that, these days, the Coalition had to be all hands on deck for it to survive. She was unhappy with this state of affairs but Binaros, of all locations, being under attack forced her to be away from the office on Akarui. Yet, that message, relayed by [member="Mynock Dubrillion"], was awfully vague: was it under attack from the air, from the ground or both? She just wouldn't be of the same use in a ground defense than in an airborne one. Even then she would need to carry her lightsaber; after all, it's still of use should she be shot down in atmo somehow. All that she needed to consider was that she was more likely to be dogfighting or strafing so she doesn't feel the need to load stuff other than run-of-the-mill concussion missiles for this sortie. Plus this time around she knew she would need to be on the lookout for hostiles and engage them as she could. Hopefully there would be backup that could be deployed on short order on-site...

 

[Kaia Starchaser]

The space-faring Starchaser was doing her best lately to get herself out there again. However, she was supposed to be a Jedi. And with so much trouble in the galaxy, she couldn’t afford to just be a Warden, she had to be more. The Outer Rim here though, this was where life was something else. She knew that the First Order had its problem with the controlled chaos that was this realm, and they were ont eh side opposite of the Sith, but still worked to oppose it.

What was needed though, was a way for the Underground to get out of Coalition space and help take the fight to… whoever. First Order, Sith Empire, Jenny Empire. Tyranny. She just didn’t like the idea of people not able to go their own way. Was one of those painful thoughts, that people had to be kept under the boot of someone else.

She didn’t do that. Hell, today? Today she was actually planet side. She debated going to D’Qar, but wasn’t sure if her father would be there, or off running something with the Jedi Underground. Here she was, though, in a spaceport on Kesh. Eating noodles. In a bowl. The dark haired girl was in a pair of jeans, and a surplus Resistance jacket over her tanktop. Eating and just kind of taking in the general vibe of the place. But the call came through.

Drifter had received a message through the HoloNet. Something bad was going down.

She couldn’t quite get it but she shook her head. One day she would finish a whole serving of noodles without getting interrupted.

One day.

 

[Veino Garn]

Binaros? Veino sifted through the report that had come in through the Underground channels. A distress signal had been launched, received, and forwarded. It was a listening post, and they’d been targeted by something. Details unknown. But the fact the message had gone through was enough for him to be siting in the back of Aeshi’s ship as they headed towards Binaros.

Not directly to Binaros. They would hang back outside the system and try to gauge the situation first before heading in. “This is Veino Garb. Establishing a rendezvous point at the Binaros system. Relay any data as it is received.”

The message flickered through the relay beacons around the Outback to those who listened to Underground channels. Or Coalition channels. Either way, they would know and it would be received by freedom fighters, scoundrels, and rebels across the Outer Rim. It would take time for them to arrive and the last thing Veino wanted was for them to get picked off as they arrived, alone and unaware.

 

[Eliza Steele]

Sapella System, Kathol Outback​

Kathol Sector, Outer Rim Terriories​

________________________________________​

​

Captain Eliza Steele was just waiting for the nav-computer to countdown to make the jump back to Timbra Ott after dropping off supplies on Sapella when an encrypted message came through on one of the Underground frequencies used in an emergency.

"Stand by on that jump, huh Rahl. Let's see what's going on first. Been quite sometime since we've been pinged. Must be big," the petite smuggler said to her longtime Wookiee co-pilot.

The Corellisi played the rather vague message twice, then the two sat for a moment in contemplation. A growl rang out in the YT-1930's cockpit.

"Yep, my thoughts exactly... Go ahead and bring the ol' girl around, buddy, and I'll program the nav-computer to bring us out just outside the Binaros system. Don't want to go in guns a blazing until we get a better sitrep on this here attack reported," she nodded in agreement, then the brunette slipped out of the captain's chair to move over to the navigation station.

With the Corellian Dawn's fast hyperdrive unit, it wouldn't take quite the normal hyperspace travel time of six days and four hours to reach Binaros from their present location. Hopefully the bad feeling in Eliza's gut was just the food from last night catching up with her and not of things to come.

[member="Narayan the Unslaver"] [member="Veino Garn"] [member="Kaia Starchaser"] [member="Griet van Vliet"] [member="Mynock Dubrillion"]

 

[Light Rises]

Corey's dumb

 

[Veino Garn]

[member="Eliza Steele"] [member="Narayan the Unslaver"] [member="Kaia Starchaser"] [member="Griet van Vliet"] [member="Mynock Dubrillion"]

"Coming out of hyperspace," Aeshi called from the front of the ship. "Just when I said we would. Reversion in three...two...one..." With barely a shift, the ship stopped moving and Veino swayed with the movement as he picked up his helmet and strode to the cockpit. "Long range sensors activated."

These were the best sensors they could find, capable of reading clear across the system.

"Underground personnel. Forward rendezvous point established. Coordinates 9-3-7-5, thirteen degrees." Veino sent the brief message through the channels as a follow-up to the distress call. "Reversion location secure. Nothing certain beyond that. Still analyzing data."

"Suit up," Veino replied to Aeshi, "Things might get hairy."

The woman grinned and cracked her knuckles before patting the pistols that hung from her belt. "Got all I need."

"Good. Get ready."

 

[Janick Beauchamp]

"Good. Get ready" [member="Veino Garn"] responded to Aeshi.

What did I do to land myself here? I hope I can manage without the repulsor-broom, Janick thought, while Veino's voice awoke her; perhaps it was an attempt by someone else in the Circle at using a spell that went awry that led her onboard. Here she would be, armed with her lightsaber as a sidearm; she had the Force for her ranged battle needs. She could also feel that other responders, such as [member="Eliza Steele"], [member="Kaia Starchaser"], [member="Mynock Dubrillion"] and, of course, [member="Griet van Vliet"] (for airborne cover, but she had some clear memories of the accountant helping her out of a tight spot on Shusugaunt), were making their approach towards a planet they all called Binaros. For now, anyway, the witch was alone, without her apprentice and without the others from the Circle. Hopefully there would be some ranged weapon as a hand-me-down from a fallen enemy or some such thing. Or so she would hope, especially since the possibility was very real that there would be some ysalamir or void stone somewhere out there. They all seemed to be responding to some distress signal...

"It seems that I'm here because some spell went awry; what's going on here?" Janick asked, while yawning at the end of the question.

 

[Zark San Tekka]

Rivulets of sweat poured down Mynock's face, a damp pool already turning his shirt several shades darker. The heat here was oppressive, and signs of primitive life all around him teemed throughout the Binarian tropical rainforest, keeping him permanently on edge. They had spotted smoke rising from the temple on approach, so rather than risk setting his transport down on the camouflaged landing field nearby, he had chosen a clearing several kilometers away instead. It had seemed tactically shrewd at the time now, but before the logistics agent had gotten even fifty meters he was beginning to seriously regret not taking the risk.

That feeling evaporated when he saw the first of the bodies.

The first two he hadn't recognized, but he remembered the third from his last supply run. She was the Underground's logistics officer on base, a colleague of his after a fashion. By now any sane man would have drawn a sidearm, but Dubrillion had always despised guns. He had never run into anything before he couldn't handle with some quick thinking, but for the first time he was starting to second guess that conviction. Putting his modified holocam droid into sentry mode, he knelt closer to inspect their wounds. They resembled lightsaber slashes. Ren or Sith, he could not tell.

"You recording this, Jay?" he whispered hoarsely, jumping at every wilderness sound now for fear that whoever done this was still out there somewhere, "Stream it, same frequency as before. The others need to see this."

A video transmission sprang to life, gaining and losing focus as J57 adjusted its hololens to capture Mynock rise from his kneeling position. Adrenaline kicking in, the video feed hovered after him as he began walking towards the temple's scorched outer walls. The journalist in him took over, and he began to narrate his account of arriving on Binaros, describing his surroundings so as to give as complete a report as possible. The closest signals were a still few hours behind him. He stuck with the facts at first, Binaros had definitely been hit, so far there were no signs of survivors, wounds indicative of lightsaber blows. But eventually the poet in him began to veer into more speculative territory.

"It's quiet out here. Seems like this just happened, but there's no sign of anybody. All the bodies look like our people. I'm headed inside..."

Mynock stood nervously outside the yawning portal of the unlit temple mouth before him for a good half minute before finally cracking a flare and proceeding forward. The holocam followed, and in the darkness the footage took on a more grayscale appearance. There were more bodies ahead, one of them was a Jedi Knight.

[member="Griet van Vliet"] | [member="Kaia Starchaser"] | [member="Narayan the Unslaver"] | [member="Veino Garn"] | [member="Eliza Steele"]​

 

[Griet van Vliet]

Griet's feed from [member="Mynock Dubrillion"] was, simply put, troubling, very troubling. She arrived after the attack began, and the first casualties carry some traces of lightsabers. It could be Ren, Sith or some other entity that used Force-cloak and lightsabers. And that would mean the airborne elements may as well be under cloak, too. Thus she initiated scans not so much for the craft themselves, but for stuff such as magnetic signatures, thrust trace damping, standing by to lock on to those suspicious magnetic signatures. But while she would be ready to fire at cloaked enemy starships, it was not quite all that it seemed to be. Acquiring targets was one thing, but then weapons tight would imply that they are not to open fire until hostility is confirmed, regardless of affiliation. She thus transmitted to interested parties, such as [member="Veino Garn"], [member="Eliza Steele"], Kaia Starchaser and [member="Narayan the Unslaver"], new information that would help them in battle, should the enemy decide to remain under cloak. And, even if the remaining suspect units were not under cloak, they would know how to recognize them on sensors.

"Stand by for transmission of magnetic signatures of suspicious craft, weapons tight recommended"

 

[Veino Garn]

[member="Janick Beauchamp"] [member="Narayan the Unslaver"] [member="Mynock Dubrillion"] [member="Kaia Starchaser"] [member="Eliza Steele"]

"Outpost got hit," Veino called back to their passenger. Spell, overconsumption, he couldn't remember how she had gotten aboard, but she was. More importantly however, they were getting a data feed from the ground. He studied it and eyes darted over the details. Powerful, strong. Bladed weapons of some sort. Maybe lightsabers, maybe not. Ren? He shook his head at the thought. This wasn't the First Order's style. There would have been a proclamation and a massive armada. Not a strike.

"Bring us in to land, Aeshi. Keep an eye out on the surrounding area. Transmitting feed through the ship to inbound allies." Veino spun in the chair and synced the feed with the ships's transmitter before broadcasting it to the Underground assets.

Something rippled in the Force, something strong and unusual. Veino paused and looked up, but there was nothing he could see or sense. Not that it was hostile either, but it was... different. That much was clear.

As the ship came in to hover above the temple, Veino let himself drop from the landing ramp and land lightly on the ground. "Moving in on suspected location. Initial landing uncontested. Come in at my coordinates."

 

[Janick Beauchamp]

To insinuate that I was there because I drank too much of this azeotropic goodness I called the Asobi 95% tihaar, might have meant that the tihaar was part of the malfunction's cause; Tamana cast the spell when I was drinking that stuff, she thought, while [member="Veino Garn"] told her the basic situation: the outpost was hit. True, it wasn't as showy as the First Order may have been, but perhaps there were some Sith Assassins involved, in which case they'd have no incentive to use ysalamirs. She could always try to track the traces aerodynamic drag left behind in the Force when someone was walking, but she knew that sort of thing was faint at best, and she could try to lock on to that sort of signature for spellcasting, much like one would lock on to a magnetic signature of a ship equipped with a cloaking device. Or perhaps the magnetic signature of a lightsaber, generated by the blade, or some other energy weapon, in that case she would be casting Force-lightning, chained or not. But [member="Eliza Steele"], [member="Narayan the Unslaver"] or [member="Kaia Starchaser"] would potentially have other methods to find and fight the enemy as Janick disembarked.

"Initial landing uncontested. Come in at my coordinates" Veino reported.

"Be on the lookout for potential traps, Force-based or not. It's too quiet for my own comfort" Janick added to [member="Mynock Dubrillion"], while keeping an eye open in the Force for those magnetic signatures belonging to energy weapons, such as blasters, lightsabers and so on, so forth, standing ready to cast Force-lightning if their owners were hostile.

 

[Jada Raxis]

[member="Kaia Starchaser"] [member="Janick Beauchamp"] [member="Veino Garn"] [member="Narayan the Unslaver"] [member="Griet van Vliet"] [member="Mynock Dubrillion"]

TEMPLE GROUNDS\
FRESH ARRIVAL

Much as she hated going to land she was here and uncomfortable. Whereas Dubrillon had landed in the clearing, Jada had taken the more direct route, setting down just Kilometers from the station. After gearing up in her Spacers Armor and tucking her small light-saber away in a concealed pocket, she headed out on foot, shock gloves buzzing with electrical current.

The first set of bodies she found was weird.

"X go ahead and link me to the Coalition channel. Underground too."

A local burst broadcast went out from her armor, as her disc like slicer droid on her back whirred to life.

Everyone within 2 kilos would hear her whisper inside her helmet. The Coalition folks could hear her rattle off symptoms as she knelt down to examine the corpses for wounds.

"Hello? Anybody home?"

She glanced them over, and rolled them onto her knees, swiping with her gloved hands down their backs and in the creases.

​

"No blood. No burns. No direct cuaterizations. Whatever we are dealing with here seems to have killed the perimeter folks through some unseen means."​

Still don't rule out Sith though.

She perked her body up a little more, and rose from her knees back to a crouch, hands to the ground. Force energy raced from the earthy stone into her, grounding her solid to the Temple. She began to expand her sense, trying to capture any missed details....

 

[Jada Raxis]

Jada is dumb and double posts.

 

[Veino Garn]

Veino took a deep breath and rolled his shoulders, striding towards the temple, listening to the information as it came in through the channels.

"Jada, good to have you back from wherever you've been." He tapped the comm, unclipping the lightsaber and shattergun from his belt. He paused for a moment and clicked off the safety on the gun. "You're right. Nothing I've seen before."

"Let's not push too far forward without support. Nothing like recklessness to cause things to get ugly fast." He'd already strapped on some of the body armor. But from the sound of the wounds, it would make no difference. No weapon marks that he recognized. Some sort of new sonic weapon? Gas or chemical?

"Gas or chemical signature readings? Checked for anything like that yet?"

 

[Janick Beauchamp]

"Gas or chemical signature readings? Checked for anything like that yet?" [member="Veino Garn"] asked.

"Looks like some chemical that has some corrosive effects on biomatter, perhaps an alien chemical-imbued melee weapon"

It couldn't simply be a regular alchemized sword doing this: if it was, in fact, an alchemized sword doing this, it needed to carry some sort of alien contaminant during the alchemical process, Janick thought, knowing that poisonous alchemized swords tended to bleed without giving a semblance of anything remotely resembling cauterization upon contact with blood. Or at least not without using some sort of alien toxin that may have been native to the homeworld of the attackers. She was realizing as much upon gently hovering the hand over a cut on the corpse without actually touching it. Hopefully [member="Jada Raxis"] may be on to some psychometric detail that she would find by performing it on something other than what Janick did it to. Another object that was present in the Temple when the attack was underway. If only Janick could get some sample of the toxin today, perhaps she could keep some in reserve for future alchemical products, for further analysis or maybe both. But it was not the time to collect such items just yet. Not when the real threat may come into range soon enough.

 

[Jada Raxis]

[member="Janick Beauchamp"] [member="Veino Garn"]

TEMPLE GROUNDS


"Toxins? Nah aint even scanned for em. I'll work that angle."

She moved closer to where Veinos beacon was on her HUD.

"Kinda reminds me of Ssi-Ruvi tech. Like a paddle beamer. Not sure if those leave any scars or burns but."

She pulled a small sensor out and held it up in the air.

"Weird Readings. You guys might be on to something with the Chem-Toxin Route."

 

[Zark San Tekka]

Power to the Binaros facility had been cut and this deep inside the air was only marginally cooler, slowing the cascade of jungle sweat from Mynock's face but doing nothing to provide any real comfort for a species such as his adapted for more temperate climates. His glow torch's dim green glow did not flicker in the same way as a naked flame, but rather cast a pervasive, almost ghostly pallor over pitch dark stonework. Navigating around the carnage of such a grisly massacre reminded the agent how out of his element he truly was, and not for the first time today he wished he had some death sticks handy.

By now Dubrillion had recovered enough of his senses to produce a small handheld sensor designed to pick up lifesigns. For a time he despaired as his own heartbeat bleeped out at lonely intervals, but after moving deep enough into the Underground base he caught the dimmest flicker at the edges of his sensor's detection radius. Locking onto this final hope, he snaked his way through all the way to the command nexus at its heart.

Master Nima was a male Cerean, and had made Binaros his sometimes home for half a decade. This modest temple was more of a waystation for Jedi with wanderlust in their hearts, but even underneath all the maverick bravado Mynock had known the one time they had met before that Nima was one of the wisest and most revered of them all. Like a true Jedi, he had seemed larger than life. Now, his body broken and bleeding all over, appearing almost as a withered husk compared to his once youthful vitality, for the first time the spacer's illusions were shattered and he realized that even the most powerful masters were really just people, after all.

"F...forgive me..." the Cerean impossibly managed through cracked lips and between ragged breaths, "No...choice at all...none at all...."

Dubrillion hardly had time to ponder what Nima had meant before, to both of their horror, the Jedi Master's body was torn apart on a molecular level. Nima's agonized expression contorted and then unraveled along with the rest of his body before Mynock's very eyes. Out of the shadows behind what was now simply a modest pile of ash, stepped an exotic looking alien in hulking power armor that he did not recognize. Mynock had been living in the Outer Rim for a long time now, and he knew most.

"He was a good man. An honest man," when it spoke, it did so in perfect Basic, enunciation far more refined even than his own, "I was sorry to have to kill him. To kill all of them. But the point needed to be made, the Empire will no longer tolerate such wanton disorder."

The alien lazily aimed its equally exotic looking rifle in Mynock's direction, and his hands were raised almost immediately.

"That gesture...what is that?" the alien asked, pausing to tilt his head, "Many here simply raised their hands and allowed us to eliminate them as well."

"Its...a gesture of surrender," Mynock explained, realizing that quite possibly the only thing keeping him alive was this creature's curiosity.

"Ah, now I understand. Despicable."

It raised the weapon and fired. The life signs scanner clattered to the stone temple floor, now singing out a growing chorus of beeps as more and more aliens suddenly materialized throughout the facility grounds. A warfleet of grim looking cruisers bristling with weaponry, jumped into the system as if on signal, protecting a smaller frigate sized vessel which began powering up an artificial gravity well generator.

[member="Griet van Vliet"] | [member="Kaia Starchaser"] | [member="Narayan the Unslaver"] | [member="Veino Garn"] | [member="Eliza Steele"] | [member="Jada Raxis"]​

 

[Jada Raxis]

[member="Mynock Dubrillion"] [member="Janick Beauchamp"] [member="Veino Garn"] [member="Griet van Vliet"] [member="Narayan the Unslaver"]

Facility
Planet Side


She felt them as they appeared. Jada raised both forearms, clicking her Ancille shields on. Energy bucklers appeared on both gauntlets, just as a smattering of disruptor fire came in. She was surrounded, and the enemy was closing fast.

"I'm under attack! Aliens or something!"

​

But what was it?​

​

She was unsure.​

For extra measure the Warden clicked on her personal deflector shield with a few blinks into her HUD.

Now fully shielded she charged, coming in fast to those that stood between her and the facility. It was easier to fight CQB in a confined space, where she could choke them down and hold out. Her shields would not hold forever.

"Heading towards the building!" She growled.

The first Ancille Shield slammed into a Sharukans throat, flooring him and crushing his wind pipe.

She stepped forwards, right foot back, left foot forwards and transitioned her punch into a closed fist backhand that smashed another in the face. The force of the impact staggered him, and her Shock Gloves released hundreds of volts, cooking through his very conductive armor.

The third was dispatched with a spinning kick to the helm. She landed, bringing her left glove down hard, with all the force of the impact channeled into it. It struck the fallen Alien first, pulverizing his insides and then the rest of her body made contact with the ground.

From the crouch she rose, and bolted for the door....

Meanwhile the force began to feed her, drawing into the hexagonal molecular structures of her bones, fortifying flesh and bone alike against breaks or fractures....

 

[Janick Beauchamp]

So [member="Jada Raxis"] already started fighting. After accumulating ambient hatred for these... unseen enemies emanating from the dead, hatred of being killed by enemies they couldn't see, it was time for Janick to cast bolts of hatred, with each bolt, taking the form of a radiant sphere, being akin to a guided missile. Guided by, well, hatred of disorder to be more accurate; she knew that hatred tended to attract each other. But she knew that such a spell that promised weaponized hatred needed a source of hatred as a payload. Fortunately, she knew that casting this spell would start a vicious cycle of hatred: hatred of being killed by unseen enemies, which, in turn, killed people out of hatred for disorder, and then hatred of being killed by disorderly enemies... her brain started absorbing all the Force-signatures of hatred from nearby sources, so that she could turn the enemy hatred of disorder against them somehow. Once the spell was cast, however, she would need to move to another position, not only because casting a bolt of a hatred could give her position away, but also because hatred was in finite supply at a location. And, upon hitting any Shakuran combatant, these bolts of hatred were individually strong enough to detonate in a small blast radius, catching off-guard neighbors of the targeted people. As for [member="Mynock Dubrillion"] and the others, such as [member="Narayan the Unslaver"], [member="Eliza Steele"] and [member="Veino Garn"], maybe they will start engaging soon enough.