Annihilation The Shatterlight of Ka’thaa’rahn

[Parvati]

Objective 4
Aboard Ambition's Reach​

The thunder of cannon fire sang against the mountain's flank, each bolt Parvati loosed carving streaks of light through the airless void. Precision. Purpose. The few misses were theatrical, blasts cracking stone, shaking the fortress as if to remind it who had come to claim it.

For a moment, their enemies rallied, returning fire with enough concentrated heat to nearly seize the cannon's mechanisms. A calculated risk. Parvati didn't flinch. She drew a ragged line through their defenses and tore it open, blistering steel and shattered courage erupting in her wake. Close. But not costly. She would not be denied today.

Then the world shifted.

The hyperspace jump bled into reality like a wound torn through physics. The mountain city didn't vanish, it lurched. Time fractured. Air fled. All around them, rock and snow and debris scattered like seeds caught in a storm of stars. Thaal'quorr was no longer on Ka'thaa'rahn. It was theirs, and it was adrift.

Parvati rose from the gunnery platform like a queen leaving her throne. Her boots clicked with purpose along the metal walkway of Ambition's Reach, each step a decree. She did not stumble in the zero-G shift. She glided, poised even amid the chaos of stolen gravity.

She tapped her commlink. "Excellent work, Mr. Tezhyn," she said smoothly, her voice like silk over steel. "Try not to die before the credits clear."

She moved deeper into the ship, hand brushing the grip of her sidearm. Not from fear, no. It was anticipation. Her pulse quickened with the thrill of the unknown.

This was the part she relished.

Beyond those bulkheads waited cyborgs and secrets. Augments unlike any the Core's surgeons had ever dared attempt. If she could get her hands on the designs, the implants, the ideology, she wouldn't just expand her empire. She would evolve it. Vice and velvet would always have their place, but this?

This was ascension.

Her smile returned, slow and serpentine. There were toys to collect. And monsters to tame.

Razmir Tezhyn Jerec Asyr Kinley Pryse K4-ZAN Zayah Bane

 

[Bastila Sal-Soren]

The Vault’s pulse lingered in the air like a second heartbeat, heavy and rhythmic. Bastila felt it through the arches of her feet, through the stones beneath her boots, through the breath she didn’t realize that she was holding.

She had come when she felt the tremor, not in the ground, but in the Force. A tug, unmistakable, like the brush of a familiar hand reaching through a storm. Brandyn.

Now, standing at the edge of the narrow path, she could see him, his silhouette tensed, one arm instinctively outstretched toward her, the other braced against the trembling wall. Beside him, Jhoren, shoulders tight and Jaw clenched. That ever-present edge of grief sharpening into something unspoken.

She stepped closer.

"Of course you didn’t stay put," Brandyn said, glancing back. There was the shadow of a smile there, but it was fleeting. Beneath it all she sensed, relief? A quiet, unguarded note she hadn’t expected. She let it sit between them without comment.

Instead, she took in the Vault. Its presence pressed at the edges of her mind, not violent, not overt—but vast. Old. Not empty, but listening. She let her senses skim across it, sifting through its texture, the silence behind the sound.

“What did you feel?” Brandyn asked.

She hesitated. Not because she didn’t know, but because putting it into words felt like giving it form.

“It’s not waiting to be opened,” she murmured. “It’s waiting to be answered.”

Jhoren scoffed softly. Not disagreement. Deflection. “This place isn’t waiting to be understood. It’s waiting to be ended.”

That was when she looked at him.

Really looked.

The lines of his face hadn’t changed. But the way he stood; weight slightly off-balance, as if caught between staying and fleeing. The satchel clutched too tightly to his chest. The flicker in his eyes when the Vault pulsed again, casting faint, shifting shadows.

Brandyn turned toward him then, saying something about the Council. But Bastila wasn’t listening to the words anymore.

She felt a flicker, like hesitation buried under duty. Fear dressed in purpose.

He brought something here. The thought slid into her mind with terrifying clarity. Or it followed him.

The quake came then; abrupt and unnatural. The ground twisted beneath them, a grinding sound from deep within the stone. Bastila caught herself with one hand, riding the tremor like a breath caught mid-inhale. Brandyn’s hand grazed her arm, steadying. She nodded once, brief, grateful.

And Jhoren, he snapped.

“Sith are here!” he shouted, eyes too wide. “We cannot let the Vault fall to them!”

But she felt no other presence.

No Sith nearby. No distant dark signatures. Just the Vault. Just them.

And the thing clawing at Jhoren’s spine.

"Jhoren," she said, quietly, but he didn’t look at her. “There’s no one else here.” Or was there? Something had started to feel at the edge of her mind.

His knuckles whitened around the satchel.

Brandyn stepped forward, commanding. "Bastila! There is something vile at play. Do not let it take hold. Jhoren... give me the bag!"

But Bastila already knew he wouldn’t.

Not without breaking.

Her voice was soft, barely more than a breath: “He doesn’t know who he’s protecting anymore.”

For a heartbeat, the Vault answered her. A deep, resonant hum; like approval. Or grief.

And Bastila understood: this place didn’t house a secret.

It was the secret.

Brandyn Sal-Soren

​

 

[Kinley Pryse]

You've been hit by... you've been struck by...

O B J E C T I V E - 4
OPERATION KANDOR: MOUNTAIN HEIST​

"This is Delivery Bird Ambition's Reach, Ganker Limpet in position. Sound off, scoundrels, how's it looking out there?"

Kinley slammed her response switch, a sharp beep confirming she was locked in for whatever madness they were hurtling toward. As the button clicked, she gritted her teeth. Then, all at once, the ragtag fleet of scoundrel ships jumped to hyperspace in unison.

The jolt of the transition snapped everyone to full alert. Kinley's jaw literally dropped as the stars warped around them and unbelievably there it was. A mountain. A mountain, floating in the void of hyperspace like some ancient, defiant relic.

"What the frak…" she breathed.

Then, her comm crackled:

"Alright, you know the drill! Let 'em in."

She was already moving, springing from the pilot's seat and striding toward the airlock. Time for some... aggressive negotiations.

Razmir Tezhyn Parvati K4-ZAN Zayah Bane Jerec Asyr

A Smooth Criminal