Junction The Sundering Dawn | Act II: Galaxy in Crisis (Chapter 3 | Mirror's Edge)

[Darth Empyrean]

Objective III | Mirror's Edge
Silent Mirror Pocket, Mid‑Rim

Jump‑beacons flickered and died the instant the strike flotilla slipped from realspace. Stars doubled—ghostly twins hovering half a breath out of phase—and the nav‑computers’ chronometers disagreed by three exact minutes. Here, in the Silent Mirror, even time lost its bearings. Ahead loomed the lost convoy: thirty hulks frozen mid‑formation, plating shredded, drive cones yawning open like ruptured lungs. The lead freighter’s name—Chemra’s Hope—floated across the viewscreen twice, the second echo chasing the first by a heartbeat.

Boarding craft launched in pairs. Tractor beams had no purchase; pilots feathered thrusters to drift alongside rent airlocks while Starweird silhouettes flickered at the edge of running‑lights, watching with unblinking hollows. The void was silent until an unexpected ping tremored along hull plates—one note, metallic and lonely, repeating at odd intervals. Every second ping preceded the first, a sound arriving before it was struck. Familiar déjà vu vertigo washed over boarding teams; some muted audio feeds to keep their own hearts from racing three beats ahead.

Inside, the corridors were littered with flash‑frozen crew still strapped to crash webbing, faces frozen mid‑scream. Emergency lighting cycled forward, then rewound. Each bulkhead carried a stencilled beacon code—N‑57, K‑12, D‑34—letters shimmering in reverse order each time the lights hiccupped. Data‑tabs clamped to permafrosted consoles showed corrupted cargo manifests: the final entry on every ship read simply ΔT = –3 min.

At the convoy’s core lay Hold Sigma, once a secure vault for Celestial salvage. Its blast door was half‑sheared, mauled by Starweird claws. Within, the Echo Resonator floated in zero‑G: a lattice of shattered transmitter rings still sparking with impossible fore‑signals. Touching it without stabilizing the cracked focus lens would dump boarding parties into 60‑second recursion loops—time folding, events re‑playing, casualties un‑dying and re‑dying in sickening cascades. But capture it intact and a fleet could read hyperspace threats three minutes before they happen—or spoof a rival’s lane echoes to vanish entire armadas.

The hull ping reverberated again, second note first. Boarding lights flickered out of sequence. Somewhere beyond the viewport, moth‑white figures converged on the breach like dust drawn into a lung. Teams fixed mag‑boots to deck plating and readied grav‑anchors; in the Silent Mirror, the future approached you before you stepped into it, and every breath might be one you’d already taken.

 

[Darth Strosius]

Objective: 3 Mirror's Edge
Equipment: Lightsaber - Sword - Dagger - Robes
Tags: Open!
--------------------------------------------

"Well, this certainly looks like a fine place to get lost." A place where once lost one would never be found again. Yet here they were, treading into a grim floating mausoleum that seemed to still house the very creatures that had made the convoy a wreck to begin with. Starweirds were supposed to be simple legends. Ghost stories that spacers and ship crews would regale one another with over some stagnant drinks at a run down cantina on the edge of nowhere and somewhere.

They were creatures that had no business existing at all, adrift in the gaps between the stars to prey upon ships that had lost their way or suffered hyperdrive malfunctions and were cast into the void as a result. Yet here they were as well. Darth Strosius felt something within Himself recoil the moment the strike flotilla had found the lost convoy, a deep primal instinct that urged Him to turn and flee or to slaughter whatever it was causing it with extreme prejudice and efficiency. But neither course of action were what He had come here for.

Hold Sigma lay within the mess of rended metal and floating corpses, inside of it was once contained a tool of divine beings that had long since passed into the Force. A tool not fit to be wielded by mortal hands yet had been stolen in order to make use of it regardless. And now the folly of such blasphemous disrespect had come down upon the ill-fated convoy, with them here to pick up the pieces. That was why He had come. For while the damned souls that had driven this lost convoy onward were already sealed in their fate He could still ensure that Hold Sigma's cargo wasn't desecrated any further.

He felt the pale tendrils leaking from His robes coil and lengthen against themselves in something of a nervous twitch as the boarding craft He sat in made its way towards the wreckage of the convoy, the movement largely hidden behind His back as He pressed Himself into the seat. And resisted the strange urge to bite through His own tongue with His fangs.

 

[Merion Oreno]

HOLD SIGMA
CENTRE OF CONVOY
REPRESENTING: DIARCHY CHANCELLERY OF COMMERCE
Nearby: Darth Strosius

Various coalition people were coming in now. Merion's mag boots clicked to the deck. Between the vision and the stress of astronavigating here, Merion knew he was having a bad day. He could not shake this knowledge. It felt overbearing and like predestination and he hated both of those things. With his space suit's clumsy fingers, he scribbled on a note tablet.

N‑57 K‑12 D‑34
D-34 K-12 N-57
43D21K75N
432175
571234
Missing digit six?

Recombining the bulkhead markings grounded him. He needed, he really needed, to be somewhere that wasn't here.

 

[Kaila Irons]

Location: Boarding
Wearing: Armor + XMSS + Circlet + Headset + Amulet(hidden)
Allies: Sith | Darth Strosius Tamsin Graves | TBA
Enemies: TBA
Nearby: Merion Oreno

"Hmh. Always meeting on a complaint, us two." Anathemous chuckled dryly.

It was not meant to insult Darth Strosius , just mutual humor, she hoped, to stave off the creeping dread.

She sat nestled into a dim corner of the boarding craft, oxen arms crossed over her armored chest as she peered at the others through a crimson slit-visor. The young Darth was equally unhappy with the situation even if she showed it differently from the Wanosan prophet. She was there when Ashin Cardé Varanin unlocked the prophecy which triggered the very visions that led the sith here. She'd seen it too, and her visions had never been wrong before.

That terrified her.

"I don't like it either." she admitted, wringing hands which still stung with a phantom frostbite.

"Tamsin," she turned to her "apprentice", "Stay very close. Once aboard, we separate for nothing."

The knight had made that mistake before, not this time.

As they neared the ghost ship she began affixing tubes into the underside of her mask, feeding oxygen from somewhere inside her armor with a pressurized hiss. A few twists to screw it in place and a glance at her wrist computer prepared her for the void outside, or so she wished to believe.

Finally she stood, footfalls unnaturally heavy even for a woman of her size, made louder by magno-boots, as she approached Tamsin Graves to look over her equipment for a second, or perhaps third time.

"Diagnostics still check out?"

​

 

[Tamsin Graves]

Theme: Devil Devil
Location: Boarding
Equipment: Twin Omens | DE-10 | Combat Knife | Multi-Tool | Circlet of Projection | Stars Enchained
Tags: Kaila Irons | Darth Strosius | Merion Oreno

Tamsin stood quietly at her master's side as she listened to the hissing sounds of the ships connecting. She just listened with her eyes closed, she felt her surroundings, an unease washing over her as her master spoke to the others gathered for this mission. Tamsin didn't know what to think of the others that had come here.

Darth Strosius an enigmatic figure she and her master had run into a couple of times now. If the rumors were true a man who had died and come back to life. It reminded her of the demon inside her and what it was trying to birth itself back into this existence through her. It wasn't the same but still made her thoughts drift to the demon, who had been oddly quiet as of late, but she knew it was listening.

Then there was the other person near them that she did not know at all Merion Oreno , something about that one seemed strange and off. She wasn't sure what it was, maybe it was the strange robes he wore. Yet she suspected something deeper, darker. He spoke strangely as well, and there was a sense of fear in him.

No there was a strange sense of fear all around them, it wasn't just him. Her eyes opened as Kaila Irons spoke to her. "Yes, Master." She answered and gave a slight head nod as Kaila started looked over the equipment she was wearing like a motherly figure. "I will stay close, just look down every once awhile you will see me." She said with a little cheeky smirk.

Tamsin looked at her wrist pad on her spacesuit. "Everything looks good." As they began to move forward their mag boots clanking loudly against the flooring of the derelict ship. As they stepped into the tomb ship, corpses of the past floating in there graveyard.

 

[Merion Oreno]

HOLD SIGMA
CENTRE OF CONVOY
REPRESENTING: DIARCHY CHANCELLERY OF COMMERCE
GEAR: Space suit, Cult of the Central Isopter robes, SMB-01
Darth Strosius Kaila Irons Tamsin Graves
"Lord Strosius," said Merion deferentially, adjusting his cultic robes over his space suit with limited success. "I wanted to introduce myself. I'm Merion Oreno Varanin, one of the navigators. I was aboard your ship on the Aing-Tii expedition."

He raised the notepad and stylus and tapped his helmet flashlight with the latter. The beam caught an inquisitive starweird, which flinched back out of sight in a way it absolutely wouldn't have done if Merion were alone.

"I've been compiling details from the vision and comparing them against this ship. I'm eager to unravel this place."

He'd meant to ask to travel with the Sith group, but then again he could move faster alone, solve the puzzle faster, if it was a puzzle.

So he bobbed a little bow as befitted the worst prince of Eshan and decided to head farther into the ship as soon as practical and probably sooner than polite. Matter of seconds, really.

 

[The King in Red]

Summary Report - 04/19

In the Mid-Rim's spectral recess known as the Silent Mirror, a Sith strike flotilla emerged from realspace—and reality itself bent underfoot. Time faltered. Chronometers desynchronized. Stars shimmered with doubled light, and the deadlight convoy of Chemra's Hope appeared before them: thirty derelict vessels suspended in unnatural stillness, hulls torn open like burst lungs, their crews frozen in death mid-scream.

The flotilla's objective: Hold Sigma, a secure vault buried at the convoy's heart. It once housed the Echo Resonator—a Celestial relic capable of forecasting hyperspace echoes, predicting fleet movements by minutes, even manipulating them to erase ships from existence. But the artifact had fractured, warping time within the wreck. Boarding teams risked being caught in recursion loops—death and resurrection repeating in sickening waves—unless the Resonator could be stabilized.

Among the Sith dispatched were Darth Strosius, revenant and prophet of the Bogan Flame; Darth Anathemous, armored and unshaken, guiding her apprentice Tamsin Graves with a fierce maternal vigilance; and Merion Oreno Varanin, a strange-eyed navigator of Echani descent, muttering equations and prophecy fragments alike. Each felt the dread pulsing from the wreckage—not mere fear, but the signature of something watching from beyond. Starweirds—mythic predators of the void—moved at the edge of lights, their forms pale and insubstantial, reacting not to presence, but to intent.

The corridor walls bore shifting codes—N-57, K-12, D-34—their sequences reversing with the emergency lighting's stutter, challenging Merion to decode the logic of the place. His notes hinted at a deeper pattern, one tied to the vision that had brought them all here. Anathemous, haunted by prophecy, demanded her apprentice stay close, for separation would mean oblivion. Tamsin, touched by an inner demon of her own, tread softly, the silence amplifying the gnawing awareness of other presences—both without, and within.

No orders had yet been given to breach the Resonator chamber. Not while the future continued to arrive ahead of the present. In the Mirror, a man could take a breath he hadn't yet drawn. A ship could scream before it was struck. And whatever haunted the graveyard of Chemra's Hope was not finished.

The mission proceeds. Outcome uncertain. Echoes growing louder.

 

[Zanami]

Mirror's Edge

"The Key to Joy is Disobedience"
- Aleister Crowley -

Location: Boarding
Gear: In Sig
Tags: Darth Strosius / Kaila Irons / Tamsin Graves / Merion Oreno

They're Coming to Take Me Away​

Deep in the bowels of the transporting vessel, away from the prying eyes of the others, and engulfed by utter darkness Zanami sat on the cold floor, legs folded over one another; a blank stare twirling majestically in her eyes. Collectively, her mind was focused, and void of those whispering voices who sought her mental ruination, to take control of her faculties.

This was a different mission than the usual dispatches, and one rumored with monsters. Starweirds, she thought they were called. But she, too, was a monster and briefly she wondered if they would accept her, where others mocked her existence for being different. No, they would not accept her. They were the enemy, her enemy because They said so. And she would kill them, because that's all she was, all she would ever be: a killer.

Chattering voices rang from up above, drifting down through the slotted vents to her perked ears. It was time. Reaching down, Zanami plucked the femur bone that laid next to her; draining the skeletal remain of its last drop of marrow before casting it aside. Slowly she uncoiled herself, stood up proudly, and stretched to complete the three-prong process. With the Force, she called her hilt and daggers to herself, placing the hilt and one dagger appropriately to their designation areas: sliding down the mask to cover her facial, yet abomination in form, features; holding the other dagger in her right hand.

Emerging from a mythical Underworld, the young Sithspawn began twirling the lone dagger in her hand as she passed by those mocking figures, who she knew where silently cursing her existence. Smiling, she began twirling the dagger in her palm, as if she was foreshadowing to those men she was passing, they were not beneath gelding. And to the women, a far cruder castration awaiting them. She had snapped, lost something of her morality back in a Temple on Dathomir during a mission; she had changed, sinisterly.

Zanami arrived at the others, just as the beginning sounds of one ship connecting to another promptly began. She stood there; quiet, focused, and unnerving. The last of her fears, abolished in that Temple. She no longer held the fears of a teenage girl, nor did she allow herself to be subjugated by those ghostly voices in her head; she was in control, and when she wanted playtime, she relinquished control of her mental state to them. Zanami fully embraced her re-creation, accepting the girl she once was now lay dead, rotting in a ground of dead memories.

 

[Yolaghun]

A figure soared through the vacuum of space -- a figure sporting scales that were a brownish color now turning black, adorned by a metal plating. If a starweird could think, it surely would not have expected the sight of a reptilian Duinuogwuin decked in Mandalorian beskar'gam.

Yolaghun bore down upon the unsuspecting starweird and chomped it in half. Or, he tried to, but the creature let out a piercing screech, causing the dragon to recoil with a headache. The starweird turn to him and let out another screech. Yolaghun instinctively threw up his arm to activate his shield to block the incoming sonic attack, but it hit him regardless. Right, he thought, it's a fething telepathic scream.

"The stars are mine, apparition. Your kind is not welcome." Yolaghun roared at the creature, spitting a ball of superheated gas that was much more powerful than a turbolaser. The starweird's shrieks vanished as it ceased to exist.

The star dragon swept around, sensing where living people were. Well, more or less living. Instead of looking for a nearby opening, he made one, carving through the hull with his beskar-reinforced claws. He dropped down to the floor and made his way toward the Sith. The phrase No Sith, No Exceptions sounded in his mind. But for the sake of the entire Galaxy, he did not mind teaming up with them. As long as they behaved and played nicely. Walking on his hind legs like a humanoid and standing at three meters not including his tail, the armored dragon would be quite the sight indeed.

Spoiler: GEAR

Armor: Drahr'gam, Krayt Round Shield
Weapon: Drahr'kad​

 

[Cato Demora]

Tag | Open
Objective | Retrieve the Echo Resonator

Starweirds and a dead fleet.

"Boots... locked... awaiting orders...."

Cato watched from inside the sealed suit of his S-6 with the soft hiss of air bursts and hover boots keeping him stabilized - jumping from hull to hull in the hopes of reaching the core before the rest of them. There was already diplomatic agents warning the First Legion to not involve themselves in any open firefights, but the Emperor wanted success - and if the time anomalies were anything to go by, this wasn't going to be easy.

If Cato had to kill an Alliance son-of-a-dog, then he would do so without hesitation. Diplo be damned - the better question was how they were going to get it. Initial reports showed that anything that touched the Echo Resonator was repeating in time, over and over. Get too close, and you were only going to get stuck yourself. It was times like this he wish he had a direct uplink to Taeli Raaf - at least she could tell him what the best avenue for approach was.

So instead he locked his boots to the nearest hull, near the bulkhead N-57. He motioned for the others to take overwatch, their weapons specially augmented to shoot starweirds. The last thing they wanted was for those freak things to realize where they were and swarm them. The main fleet needed to run interference before his men could get closer.

"Boots locked. Awaiting orders.", he said as he pressed the temple of his helmet. It zoomed in on the Echo Resonator, and he sighed as he looked around for some clue of what was going to happen. Then he paused, realizing his own comms had played in his head only a moment before. He glanced to one of the others, and they offered him a confirmation of a nod.

At least he knew he wasn't crazy then.

A ping from one of the dead ships overtook his comms with a harsh squeel. He slapped his wrist against his helmet, muting his comms for a moment, but he could feel the ping working through his very body. Damned graveyard of a fleet.

"Need men... N-57... other uplinks...", he heard crackle through even his muted headpiece.

"Shit.", he said as he realized what it meant.

"I need men on N-57. The other uplinks from the vision, the numbers, they're alignment arrays. We need to reach them and activate them at the same time. Get ahold of the main fleet, let them know we're moving towards the N-57 array."

With a motion of his fingers, the others nodded, pulled a cutting torch, and began to cut into the vessel. Somewhere inside here was the key to their problem. Yet as the sparks began to fly, the starweirds began to smell them...

And they began to move towards their location.

 

[Jacen Breska 'TK-710']

OBJ3: MIRROR'S EDGE​

WEARING:: Jacen’s Second Legion Armor
EQUIPMENT: DC-902d
LOCATION: Boarding
TAG: Darth Strosius Merion Oreno Kaila Irons Tamsin Graves Zanami Cato Demora Yolaghun
SQUAD: TK-1983 ‘Marc’ | TK-1441 ‘Huck’ | TK-9999 ‘Niner’

Jacen and his team prepped quietly, staying out of everyone else’s way on the Dropship and as they connected, each marked their ready with attached oxygen and life support systems reading green.
The ship made contact, and Jacen and his team, his new ‘D’ Squad, connected magboots to the outer hull of the ship and began a quick scan of the area. Silent husks of dead ships floated in the abyss around them. Looking out far enough, just beyond what he ‘thought’ he could see, he saw vague silhouettes. Things that seemed to be watching him.
‘Starweirds’ the briefing had said.
Freaks. To be ignored, or killed, nothing else, he thought to himself. Trying to fill the fear in his heart to subside, focus on the mission at hand. “D-34?” he asked as he looked over at the new blood of the group, TK-9999, who they all called Niner, and tilted his head. The young trooper turned and pointed to a ship in the distance. Thankfully not too far from their location. Jacen nodded, and spoke quietly.
“From this point on, we’re running silent,” he whispered, “communicate only with HUD signals.” Three flashing red lights appeared on his HUD and he nodded. The team quietly began moving, metal boots clanging silently reverberating off of the hulls of the derelict craft they came into contact with as the team maneuvered through space.

Arriving at the Bulkhead the team took up positioning, Jacen, Marc, and Niner grabbed defensive positions as TK-1441, Huck, waited near the bulkhead door.

Jacen was about to key his comm, report their ready, when a single red light flicked on his HUD. Confused, he turned around to see Huck was already cutting through the door, the light from the torch almosta blinding compared to the darkness around them.

“Huck what the hell are you doing?!” he quietly scolded. Huck looked up, taken aback, “You said cut the door?”
Jacen shook his head, about to respond when a whispered sound came over his headset.
“Cut….the….door…”
He pointed to his ear. “Was it that you heard? That whisper?” Huck shrugged his shoulders and nodded.
Jacen sighed and keyed his comm, “Report: This is ‘D’ Squad. We’ve already cut the door, proceeding on mission.” He looked at Huck, who stopped cutting, staring at him. Jacen gestured with his hand, “Well don’t stop now chithead you already started.” Huck nodded and returned to cutting through the bulkhead and Jacen returned to a defensive position when his headset keyed again, whispering an ominous promise in Jacen's own voice.

“Star…weirds…incoming…”

​

 

[Darth Strosius]

Objective: 3 Mirror's Edge
Equipment: Lightsaber - Sword - Dagger - Robes
Tags: Merion Oreno / Kaila Irons / Tamsin Graves / Zanami / Yolaghun / Cato Demora / Jacen Breska 'TK-710'
--------------------------------------------

Darth Strosius cast a glance at the Sith that He had come to learn was called Lady Kaila, offering a small hum as a first response as He idly checked over His mask with His fingers for a moment. "Someone always has to clean up the messes, but it's more interesting than sitting through one of those awful meetings." Thankfully His normal attire hadn't needed all that many alterations to account for the environment, or lack thereof rather, but even He did need some additional equipment so that He wouldn't suffocate halfway through their little venture into the convoy.

He set foot onto the wreckage without hesitation, His normal heavy stride keeping Him firmly attached given His boots. Trudging away from the boarding craft He paused only when He noticed that there was already a figure awaiting them it seemed, one that was somewhat familiar. Something about his last name was familiar as well but He couldn't put His finger on it.

"Yes, I recall your unique style." He gestured to the robes that had been stretched over the spacesuit that the navigator wore with an appreciative not. "I see you keep finding yourself in odd places even more so than myself." He considered mentioning that they should probably stick close together in order to avoid the...creatures that were flittering about but He bit His tongue and simply watched the eccentric navigator walk away. A distant scream, one that He unfortunately knew to be that of a Starweird, had rang out and had stolen His attention.

The rending of metal as something tore through the hull was concerning but thankfully it proved to be something far more physical than one of those abhorrent Starweirds. Still He wisely chose not to address the winged and armored individual, instead trudging forward and deeper into the barely illuminated halls that bore the scars of the vessel's assailants. He'd never seen so many Starweirds in one place and frankly He'd rather not be here to see them at all. Duty called however, no matter how wretched their foes might be.

A report from some 'D' Squad crackled over His commlink and He reached up to tap on it in silent confirmation but the moment He pressed a finger against His mask He heard a new response. :"Affirmative, moving towards Sigma Hold now.": His voice but not a sentence that He had spoken. Darth Strosius slowly clicked His commlink's receiver off with one hand while the other pulled His lightsaber from His belt. Barely ten steps from the boarding craft and already odd occurrences were happening far too frequently for His liking.

Perhaps slaying a few of those Starweirds would solve it, if nothing else it would ease the hairs that were standing up on the back of His neck. The occasional movement from beyond the viewport of the wreck that He was traipsing through was more than enough to set Him off, His finger resting on the activation switch of His weapon as He strode through the ruined ship. The sooner they reached the Hold and got rid of that Resonator the quicker that this accursed wreck would return to normal.

 

[Merion Oreno]

HOLD SIGMA
CENTRE OF CONVOY
MOVING AHEAD OF: Darth Strosius Kaila Irons Tamsin Graves Zanami Yolaghun

Merion moved away from the knot of Sith and strange hangers-on, as well as what appeared to be a Duinuogwuin in plate armour. Looking back out from where he and the other pilots had left the dropships, he zoomed in on through his helmet HUD and noted forces working on specific ships. As shared and Diarchy comms feeds whispered in his ear, he decided someone needed to be the first wave toward the middle thingy.

No orders had yet been given to breach the Resonator chamber. Not while the future continued to arrive ahead of the present.

-but such a breach probably would be attempted, Merion realized as he passed his own Starweird-torn dead body, which vanished in a phenomenon that neither he nor his helmet instrumentation could parse other than the Celestial machine did it, probably. He regretfully put away his notebook and unslung the big Starweird-zapper on his back.

Then a Starweird was on him, shrieking despite the vacuum, clawing at his suit, and he zapped it good and moved ahead rapidly. He'd come here for a decent puzzle, and survival counted as that, didn't it?

Another couple of zaps, delivered at good speed, got him to the compromised resonator chamber door, first to arrive.

At the convoy’s core lay Hold Sigma, once a secure vault for Celestial salvage. Its blast door was half‑sheared, mauled by Starweird claws. Within, the Echo Resonator floated in zero‑G

This was apparently where he would die/had died, except the dead version of himself he'd seen had been clutching the notebook and still had the zapper on its back, so that future was obsolete now, right?

Zapper in one hand, he got out his yellow lightsaber and started carving into the mauled door for ease of access. It seemed the thing to do. Staying alive, he'd heard, was a matter of being sensible, and right now he was being as sensible as his personal predispositions allowed.

 

[Lorn Reingard]

@OPEN
Boarding

​

Lorn felt the cold before the seal even hissed open.

He stood at the edge of the boarding tube, breath tight behind his mask, watching a frost spider run across the durasteel as the airlock pressurized. The corridor beyond was half-lit, half-dead, and utterly wrong. A low hum crawled along the plating beneath his boots, pulsing in reverse rhythm with his heartbeat, like something large was breathing beneath the ship's skin, but backward.

He didn't flinch. Just stared into it.

Behind him, the Shirayan Vanguard readied their gear. Eight of them, disciplined and silent. No chatter. They could feel it too. The dread here didn't come from enemy fire or hostile terrain. It came from the way the stars didn't sit right outside the viewport. The way their own ship's reflection had arrived before they did. The way Lorn's chronometer had ticked backwards for half a second before correcting itself, as if deciding which timeline to trust.

He stepped through the threshold.

His boots clunked softly onto the convoy's ruined deck, which had been peeled open like a tin flower. Above him, the starfield shimmered, fractured, twinned stars hung in the void, just slightly misaligned, like a memory someone tried to rewrite. It was beautiful, if you didn't think about it too hard. He didn't have that luxury.

They were here for the Resonator.

Lorn remembered his dream, where Isla had shown him the vision. She'd shown him how she perceived it, with her palm scarred by a chalk-white glyph that pulsed against starcharts like a tuning fork struck against the future. She'd seen this ship. This place. The corridors like mirrored mazes, the frozen bodies caught in final gestures of terror. She'd whispered beacon codes: N‑57, K‑12, D‑34. Lorn hadn't asked how she'd known. He trusted her. Or at least, he trusted the Force moving through her.

Now he saw the same branching corridors.

Three doors, scorched with registry tags half-burned into steel. A soft metallic ping echoed along the bulkheads - quiet, but not natural. It felt like a dropped wrench echoing in a dream. The first note hadn't finished before the second began. The Vanguard shifted, their posture sharp but wary, as if they could brace against time itself.

Lorn's fingers brushed his saber hilt. Cold metal. Familiar weight. A reminder that he was still anchored to now, whatever that meant in this place. He felt something pull across the edge of his consciousness, like someone stepping into a room before their footsteps caught up.

"Movement." one man said quietly. He nodded toward a glitched bulkhead readout, where a shadow passed once, then again, just slightly ahead of itself.

Starweirds.

Lorn didn't need to see the whole figure to know. The Force twisted slightly, like water recoiling from poison. Their presence had that uncanny before feeling, as if they'd already arrived, already attacked, already left a memory of violence behind.

He reached out, not with his eyes, but deeper. The Force here was warped, pulled into tight spirals around the Resonator's wake. Like trying to feel the shape of a scream held in a clenched throat. It was screaming about what hadn't happened yet.

But he stepped forward anyway. Because someone had to walk into the fracture.

Behind him, the Vanguard followed. Unflinching. Professional. Maybe even brave.

Lorn didn't feel brave.

He felt seen.

The stars were watching, mirrored and reversed. The future was whispering. And every breath he took tasted like one he might have already drawn… just before dying.

 

[GM Account]

GM RESPONSE FOR Darth Strosius

As Strosius moved through the corridor, his boots began to emit echoed pings—ones that rang far too loudly for the silence of space. The sound was hypnotic. Too in-sync. Too patterned. Too… perfect. Ping. Ping. Ping. Each metallic note bounced off the derelict walls in near-sacred rhythm, as if the ship itself were listening. Then, with a blink He was back.

The boarding ramp groaned beneath his weight once more, his heel pressing down on the same scorched durasteel he'd already crossed. Familiar shadows stretched down the corridor ahead, identical in every way. The sharp tang of scorched wiring. The static hum from flickering lights. All of it—unchanged. Merion stood before him, again. teh man went through teh same greeting, the same motions The same words. The same tilt of the head. The same bow. And then he was gone again walking away, lost to the corridor's curve. And yet This time, something lingered. Strosius's commlink clicked softly, a broken sputter of static. Then, his own voice crackled through " this feels Familiar"

The voice was not merely familiar it was perfectly timed, perfectly matched, perfectly him. From the shadows where Merion had passed, a faint glimmer reflected back at him from a shattered viewport. His own form not mirrored, but watching. Silent. Still. And then… gone. The echo of footsteps continued behind him. The exact same pace as his own.

---

The corridor groaned faintly as Merion advanced, each step echoing just a little too long in the stillness. He glanced down. His notepad flickered. Words appeared on the screen before he could write them entire observations, fully formed hypotheses, even speculative diagrams... all scrawled in his own style, but arriving before his thoughts had solidified. When he frowned at one line of reasoning, it was already crossed out. When he reached for a new insight, it blinked into place and then struck itself through as if reconsidered from some future he hadn't reached yet. An idea bloomed. Already recorded. A mistake occurred. Already corrected. The tablet was thinking faster than he was or someone else was. Up ahead, the corridor split and narrowed. The emergency lights flickered and between the pulses, he saw it: A body. His body.

Slumped against the wall, clad in an EVA suit with unfamiliar robes draped over the plating. A lightsaber scorch bloomed across the stomach, burned deep through synthweave and flesh. He blinked. The light flickered. Flash. The same corpse different now. Winter gear, thick gloves, and a rebreather cracked open. A vibroblade jutted from his chest, its handle etched with looping alien runes that shimmered faintly, even in death. Flash. A third version. This one writhed alive, but not for long. His mouth opened in a silent scream, eyes wide in horror as a Starweird hunched over his body, translucent jaws latched onto his skull. It fed on thought and memory, mouth blooming like cracked porcelain as its gaze suddenly snapped upward directly at him.

The Starweird lunged. There was no time to react. Flash. It was gone. The hallway was empty once more. His tablet buzzed again. A single line now filled the screen, blinking softly: "Are you ahead of yourself, or already behind?" And beneath it, three icons appeared in sequence Each shaped like a digit. Each incomplete. Each pulsing with light from a timeline that might never happen.

---

GM RESPONSE FOR Kaila Irons
As Kaila leaned in to inspect Tamsin's equipment, something felt off. The girl's voice rang in her ears bright, steady, familiar but her lips hadn't moved. She was still staring at her wristpad, silent. A second later, Tamsin spoke again, this time with perfect sync. The same words. Same tone. As if time had coughed and played the moment twice. Then she was gone.

Not with a blink, not with a shimmerjust absence. Kaila's breath hitched as her eyes darted to the hallway beyond, just in time to catch a glimpse of dragging boot tracks skidding across the durasteel. Tamsin's legs her whole body was being hauled around the corner, violently, as if some unseen hand had claimed her. The sound of her scream echoed a moment too late, warped, like it had gotten lost and looped back in.

And then she was back. Standing beside Kaila exactly as she had been. Smiling. Steady. But the HUD scan didn't lie. Vitals: zero. Oxygen: depleted. Neural function: terminated. Time of death: fourteen minutes ago. The readout blinked red across every axis, flickering static across her visor. as fear and, panic began spiking the screen blinked again. Everything green. All readings nominal. No sign of error. As if the system had simply... misfired.

Tamsin looked up at her once more and her eyes had turned ghost-white, pupiless, glowing with that unnatural sheen of the void. Her form shifted. Limbs stretched. Skin rippled and peeled, replaced by glistening, translucent flesh. A Starweird stood before her now, shape-wrapped in Tamsin's frame, its presence a mockery of humanity. But when it opened its mouth, Tamsin's voice still spilled out.

"You are not here to protect her. You are here to watch what she becomes." And then just as suddenlyit was over. Tamsin blinked, her expression soft, unaware. The color in her eyes returned. The strange shape was gone. Her diagnostics read clean. As if nothing had happened at all.

---

GM RESPONSE FOR Tamsin Graves
As Tamsin walked beside Kaila, mag-boots thudding in rhythm with her guardian's, the corridor grew colder not in temperature, but in spirit. The bodies began to appear. At first, they were just husks: frozen crew, still strapped to crash webbing or drifting in the stale air. But then the faces started to change. She saw her own among the dead. Over and over. Each corpse bore her likeness twisted in agony, frozen mid-scream, some clawing at their own throat, others locked in silent struggle, pain etched into their final moments.

Horror. Sorrow. Regret. They stared back at her through iced-over visors or glassy white eyes, reflections of her own fate written across the hall. Then she saw it. Ahead in the corridor, another version of herself kneeling over Kaila's body. The corpse was motionless, sprawled unnaturally, armor cracked. This other Tamsin drove her hand again and again into Kaila's chest each strike dull, brutal, final.

A blink.And that version of her now stood directly in front of her. Knife in hand. Blood dripping steadily from the tip onto the metal floor, each drop landing just out of sync with reality. Her face was blank eerily calm but her eyes glowed with a sickly, familiar hue. Not her own. The demon's eyes. Then came the smile. Slow, deliberate. It stretched far too wide, lips tearing slightly at the edges in silence. Her own voice didn't follow.

Kaila's did. "Stay very close. Once aboard, we separate for nothing." For a moment, the corridor went silent. Even the low thrum of the ship's power died away. Then the vision burst apart in a swirl of inky black smoke—tendrils spiraling up and around her, trailing like ash in reverse. When the smoke cleared, she was alone again. Kaila beside her. Intact. Alive. As if nothing had happened at all. And when she looked down There was still a drop of blood on her glove.

---

GM RESPONSE FOR Zanami
The air around Zanami shifted though no breeze stirred, no vent hissed. Still, something in the pressure of the corridor warped, as if the ship was suddenly watching her. She walked alone for a moment. Or so she thought. Her footfalls echoed louder than before, clipping out of sync. Every second step lagged, repeating back half a beat too late. Then she heard a second pair entirely. Same weight. Same stride. Just behind her. Matching her tempo with perfect mimicry. She turned.No one there.

Until she looked again and saw herself. A second Zanami. Standing several meters down the corridor, just where the shadows thickened. The copy's body was wrapped in armor identical but blood-soaked. Her mask was cracked down the middle, barely clinging to her face. Beneath it, the lower half revealed her twisted jawline and exposed cheekbone gnarled and seeping marrow. The double raised a hand slowly. In its fingers was her own mask, removed. The bloody grin beneath didn't belong to either woman or monster. It belonged to them. To the voices.

From behind the cracked visor, they whispered in chorus—twelve overlapping tones, some male, some childlike, some whispering the same phrase over and over: "She let us out." The air curdled. Her dagger hand ached with sudden cold. The femur she'd drained before boarding now lay at her feet intact, uncracked, untouched yet still slick with blood. And just as the other Zanami took a step forward, the lights snapped everything dimmed to red emergency glow. When the lights returned, she was alone again. Except her mask. It was back on her face but slightly turned. As if someone else had adjusted it.

---

GM RESPONSE FOR Yolaghun
As Yolaghun stood in the corridor, the ship seemed to turn against him. The longer he remained still, the tighter the space became walls groaning inward, the floor creaking beneath his feet. The air itself felt dense, constricting. When he moved, even slightly, the pressure relented. The corridor would still. The bulkheads would breathe. But if he stopped if even a moment passed too long things began to twist. Pipes bent and tore through the durasteel hull like veins through flesh, slithering downward in slow, deliberate arcs. They reached for him, curling with intent, trying to press him down… to compress him into something smaller. Something less. Then came the corrosion.

A soft hiss echoed in his ears as flakes of beskar began to fall from his armor. First a single plate. Then another. What was sacred, eternal his armor began to rust and crumble in real-time, rotting off his body like dried scabs. A low laugh echoed through the ship, followed by familiar voices, all speaking in chorus.

They were Sith voices. Strosius. Kaila. Tamsin. Even Merion. Mocking."You thought you could trust us?" The laughter rose, a psychic needle boring deep into his skull an artificial betrayal stitched into perfect, synchronized derision. Then the corridor pulsed blinked. And farther down its length, he saw himself. Or rather, a version of himself. Wingless. Armorless. Diminished.

In one clawed hand, the shattered remnant of his helmet. In the other, nothing but clenched hatred. This version wore Sith armor then. It raised its head -his head-and barked at him with fire behind its eyes: "You never belonged." And then it turned its back… and walked away. Leaving behind a blood-smear trail where the wings had once been.

---

GM RESPONSE FOR Cato Demora
The metal groaned beneath his boots not from pressure, but protest. Something deeper. Wrong. As Cato stood at N-57, watching his men work, a second ping echoed through his comms. Not the mechanical kind this time. A heartbeat. His. Played back. Amplified. Out of sync.

Then came the third. "Awaiting orders…" His voice. Playing again.But he hadn't spoken.

The HUD blinked. Flickered. And now showed three Cato Demoras one crouched by the torches, one at overwatch, and one still standing where he was. All in sync for a breath. Then they desynced. Twitching. Acting out motions he hadn't made yet. One aimed a rifle at a squadmate. Another backed away, helmet cracking with age. He blinked and they vanished. Static screamed. His suit clamped tight across his chest, compressing for just a moment before releasing then again. The pressure was real. Like it was trying to warn him he didn't belong in this moment. His vitals spiked. Readouts now flashed red for him alone.


[CRITICAL ERROR: YOU ARE OUT OF TIME]

One of his men called out except his helmet showed no open comms. Cato turned. The squad was gone. Only one remained, standing at the edge of the hull breach, faceplate dark, unmoving. And then it spoke. Not aloud. But inwardly. Through every speaker. Every echo in the helmet. "You won't win this time, Cato. You already failed. You just haven't watched it happen yet." His visor filled with a recording. His own death. He stood alone, chest armor melted, surrounded by Starweirds. Not fighting. Not resisting. Just watching. Staring into the dark with a blank expression, as if he'd accepted something long before it arrived.

And then came the final whisper. A voice not his. Not quite. But wearing his voice like a mask. "Even the Emperor won't remember your name." Behind him, the torches sputtered and died. All comms dropped to static. And in the silence, boots echoed toward him from the hull his own. Closer. Getting louder. several Starwierds contorted, taking the shape of him and his men

---

GM RESPONSE FOR Jacen Breska 'TK-710'
The hiss of Huck's cutting torch was the only sound for a while until it wasn't. First, came the static. A low, rhythmic hum pulsing through Jacen's helmet, syncing with his heartbeat. At first, it seemed like interference until the pitch changed, aligning to the sound of breathing. Not his own. Slow. Labored. Familiar. Then came a voice. Clearer than it had any right to be in vacuum. "You should've pulled him back."

Jat first there was nothing except out of teh ordinary nothing to be seen except for Huck's silhouette in the torchlight. "You left them to burn." Out past the edge of his HUD's illumination, D3 knelt in the open void. Head down. Chest cracked open like a discarded ration pack. Smoke curling from his helmet vents. D4 beside him no longer detonating, just watching Jacen with a Cracked visor that exposed thier face and left eye. And then the air shifted.

Suddenly, the corridor was Serenno. Ash in the air. Blaster fire crackling in the distance. Heat pressing down like a planetary shield about to fail. The Chaos of Mystril canyon loomed around him. His HUD scrambled, glitching in and out overlays flickering from real-time to archived data. And in the center stood Commander Tarain. Just as he remembered. Armored. Massive. and wielding the firiey sword from before

"You think survival makes you worthy?" Tarain asked, voice devoid of anger just tired. "You walked away. They didn't." Tarians voiced reverberated from his helmets modulator that same father like dissapointment laced with every word. "They died buying you time… and this is what you do with it?" D4's voice cut in flat and echoing from behind. "Were all Disposable even you." D3's head twitched, mechanical. "you let me die. you could have saved me but you didnt was i not worth the effort?"

Tarain took a step forward. The light from the cutting torch behind Jacen vanished. The air chilled. "can you save these new troopers, or will you lead them to thier deaths to?." around Jacen. His squad was gone. Only shadows remained. His armor now bore the same scorched marks D4 had died wearing. Another message flickered across his HUD: [D1: LEADERS SURVIVE. SOLDIERS DIE.] [ARE YOU A LEADER?] [OR JUST WHAT'S LEFT BEHIND?]

A distorted reflection shimmered on his visor his own face, but twisted, younger, helmet off, from Woostri. Just before everything went wrong. And over it all, a single voice. His own. "Who do you think dies this time?" with a glow A Starweird's silhouette slithered in the zero-G shadow behind him growing closer to Jacen and his men and then suddenly as if nothing ever happened he was looking at huck cutting through the door again

 

[Cali Ziiva]

Friends! Lorn Reingard | Open
Not Friends? Who? Why?!
Objective: Investigate Spooky Things
Equipment of Note: Mobile Workshop, Lightsaber + Focusing Lens Modulator, Bubblegum Popper Gloves, Bacta, Glitz, Suit

​

If someone expected a Zeltron to be discrete when wearing an EVA/Environmental suit that someone would be disappointed. It wasn't transparent. One might expect that from Cali Ziiva, the Incorrigible Engineer, with it appearing as little more than some sort of field or transparent film. She had humored the thought once, but work was still progressing on a material thin, flexible, and strong enough. So, she wore her usual attire: a pink suit with cat or fox-ears. Why was it pink? She was pink. Why did it have cat or fox ears? You'll understand when she blasts some killer music from them.

She wasn't at the fore of the party, of course. As a cutey whose fixation in life was love not war it didn't make any sense for a Zeltron to be on the front-lines. Well, at least she didn't think so, but she'd seen or heard of a few kin that were a bit more, uh, hands-on with galactic affairs? And here she thought she was the adventuresome type! Her people weren't terribly good at this whole heroism thing, in general. It was emotionally draining; and they were emotionally sensitive.

Normally Cali would be extraordinarily chatty, but she could read the room. Emotionally sensitive, remember? Then tension was insane. Gave a Pink One Rodian (goose) bumps. She reached out to retrieve a tracker-scanner from her mobile workshop that floated behind her. It'd give her something to focus on and do to keep from chatting away.

Ordinarily, she really liked to talk. A lot.

At least everyone else could deal with the security aspects though. It'd leave her to do engineering or mechanic type stuff with this Resonator they were after. They had needed someone capable in that field hadn't they? It might also help that she was "Force sensitive" and even "Jedi trained." That last bit was entirely true, but not in your traditional sense. Long story, but she knew how to use the lightsaber disguised as a blaster holstered at her hip. Best if they didn't expect her to move a mountain or conjure a wall of light or whatever though. Her "power" seemed to be in intuition and talking with tech-stuff. Maybe in dodging too. She was surprisingly adept at surviving under dangerous conditions.

Hopefully adept enough for this place too.

Cali's bright eyes lifted briefly at the single spoken word. More Rodian bumps! Did they have to say something like that? Just that. Like, the minimalism itself was terrifying.

Her eyes dropped back to the device in her hands as she tried making sense of the mess displayed there. Were the signals overlapping or were effects happening before their causes? Wait, was it overlapping or repeating? If only there were a frame of reference... she might just have to pick one and designate it the 'start' to make sense of its pattern.

Tap. Tap. A soft huff. Cali peered at the stencils and then stared at a nearby control. Lorn seemed to be moving though, so now wasn't time to try jacking in to the ship's systems. Assuming they'd respond. The damage was "extensive." Yeah, sure, extensive. Ship was barely a ship any longer. Certainly wasn't even getting into Hyperspace, and even attempting relativistic speed would probably tear it to pieces. If there were any engines left.

And what was with those pings anyway? That was definitely backwards. Whole situation basically said they shouldn't be there. Would be better to just-- No, no blowing it up wouldn't be better. If this really was some kind of temporal tangle then the explosion might never happen, or the energy might just be sucked in to its source. They could make the problem worse. They needed more data to figure out how to deal with the situation before hastily taking action.

With a shake of her helmet, Cali moved ahead to get closer to Lorn -- not that she wanted to. The Pink One extended her device forward and pointed at the map displayed on it. All the readings seemed to point in one direction to where the source of whatever this was might be. Logical place to look for trouble, right? They should all be thrilled, Cali was an expert at finding trouble.

 

[Yolaghun]

TAGS: OPEN​

Yolaghun strolled toward the Sith he sensed. He knew the wretch could see him, yet he did not seem to react, not outwardly. "Careful, Sith. The Gaaf especially hate those strong in the Force most of all." Not that he cared if the lanky. mindless creatures tore all the Sith to shreds. He turned from the Sith, heading deeper, towards where he felt the warping the most. That had to be the Celestial device. If only more of his kind were here. The Duinuogwuin, not Mandalorians, though they would have been welcome as well. The star dragons would have known what to do proper. But in all honestly, Yolaghun was still just a child, and he had never even known his parents. They were both dead by the time he had hatched, forcing him to wonder the stars alone until he was adopted into a Mandalorian clan. He was grateful to have a family, for sure, but sometimes he still wished for the wisdom and guidance of his race.

He paused, listening and feeling. This place was weird, but it was somewhat similar to the "physical" presence of hyperspace, something these humans and humanoids would never know, not being able to traverse it without their unreliable machinery. There were more of the starweirds. He loathed them, probably a natural part of his lineage, but none seemed interested in him at the moment. Likely after someone with a larger Force signature. Then suddenly, it hit him...

As Yolaghun stood in the corridor, the ship seemed to turn against him. The longer he remained still, the tighter the space became walls groaning inward, the floor creaking beneath his feet. The air itself felt dense, constricting. When he moved, even slightly, the pressure relented. The corridor would still. The bulkheads would breathe. But if he stopped if even a moment passed too long things began to twist. Pipes bent and tore through the durasteel hull like veins through flesh, slithering downward in slow, deliberate arcs. They reached for him, curling with intent, trying to press him down… to compress him into something smaller. Something less. Then came the corrosion.

A soft hiss echoed in his ears as flakes of beskar began to fall from his armor. First a single plate. Then another. What was sacred, eternal his armor began to rust and crumble in real-time, rotting off his body like dried scabs. A low laugh echoed through the ship, followed by familiar voices, all speaking in chorus.

They were Sith voices. Strosius. Kaila. Tamsin. Even Merion. Mocking. "You thought you could trust us?" The laughter rose, a psychic needle boring deep into his skull an artificial betrayal stitched into perfect, synchronized derision. Then the corridor pulsed blinked. And farther down its length, he saw himself. Or rather, a version of himself. Wingless. Armorless. Diminished.

In one clawed hand, the shattered remnant of his helmet. In the other, nothing but clenched hatred. This version wore Sith armor then. It raised its head -his head-and barked at him with fire behind its eyes: "You never belonged." And then it turned its back… and walked away. Leaving behind a blood-smear trail where the wings had once been.

The dragon reeled back, feeling as if the space was closing in on him. He reached out to claw away the walls... only to touch nothing. He slammed his claws down into the floor, this time making purchase as gashes were rent all in the metal as he heard a massive roar echo through the corridor and felt the heat. As the metal around him bent to reach for him, he let out his own roar -- realizing that he had heard his own before it had even happened -- and spat out massive walls of plasma, churning through the ship like ten turbolasers.

More visions struck. His armor impossibly rusting off, the voices of Sith he had not even heard. "Zuu'neh'ov'Vol'Kro!" It had been a while since he had slipped back into his native tongue. Upon seeing himself -- a different version of himself -- he realized something. Something his real parents probably could have told him, had they been alive to be here. What he was seeing was possibilities. There was, in an alternate timeline, a version of him that had not landed on Rishi that fateful day but had instead traveled on and been taken in by a different kind of family. He had become a Sith. "Thank the Manda I ended up where I did. You're right. I never belonged. That is why I am a Mando'ade." He could not see it, but he felt his beskar'gam begin to glow with a gentle warmth. He had not known, as the Forgemaster who made the armor had not told him, but he could tell it now. Part of the metal that had gone into the armor had been forged using Force Alchemy, and it was resonating with his will. His Mandalorian will.

But now, had a new problem. A horde of starweird had zeroed in on his beacon of a Force signature and were headed straight towards him. He grinned, willing and ready for battle, a learned trait from his adopted people. Before he could say anything, he could hear his own battle shout:

Kote!
Kandosii sa ka'rta, Vode an.​

Spoiler: GEAR

Armor: Drahr'gam, Krayt Round Shield
Weapon: Drahr'kad​

 

[Tamsin Graves]

Theme: Devil Devil
Location: Boarding
Equipment: Twin Omens | DE-10 | Combat Knife | Multi-Tool | Circlet of Projection | Stars Enchained
Tags: Kaila Irons | Darth Strosius | Merion Oreno | Yolaghun | Zanami

When the vision struck, there were of three minds in Tamsin's mind. There was the scared little girl, Tamsin not sure what to think of the faces looking back at her horrified at the being that was supposed to be her or version of her kneeling over her sister's dead body with menace in her eyes. The scared girl trembled as she read her fate upon the wall becoming the monster that was the demon with in. She wanted nothing more then to run from what she was seeing, her mind cracking under the weight of the fate she feared the most harming or killing those she cared about.

The demon was capable of this kind of mental torture, but something was off about it. Something inside Tamsin told her it was wrong no matter how scared she was of this fate. She couldn't figure it out exactly as the demon was capable of all of this and a lot more. She stood petrified as the doppelganger approached her with the blooded knife. Those eyes staring back into hers, that's where she saw it the replication of the demon's eyes. It couldn't show the same Destructive Chaotic nature of the Demon. It was feeling as she looked into hose eyes they were not the same.

The second mind that stared back and saw the world around Tamsin was that of a Sith sorceress, a guardian given too Tamsin by Kaila Irons . Her name was Darth Nyto and as she looked on the vision in front of them, she thought it was a bit amateurish. Though she could sense the girl was afraid, she did not she was sure it was illusion a harmless one at that meant to frighten. Yet whoever had done it didn't realize there were supposedly three minds in one body. Well, she was technically in the necklace, being used as a lookout for the girl at the moment. "I wonder what the other one is thinking of all this?" She Whisper into the girls mind that had been opened by fear.

The demon saw it, she looked at the thing that was supposed to be her. The Demon hated things inside her head. She stared back at the creature that walked up to them with a blooded knife. Into those false eyes she stared, the Demon let her own eyes show back the deep abyss the endless pit of destruction. Worlds breaking and lives screaming out through force in their final moments of life before they were wiped out by the demon's cataclysms. The worlds the demon had destroyed, the lives uncountable at this point it had snuffed out, and the deepest part of the abyssal well it had touched. Those eyes stared back into the vision of herself's eyes, stared right through the thing trying to scare the girl that was Tamsin like this thing was nothing. Then it spoke to the illusionary image. "I would have eaten her heart." Was all it said as the vision ended.

Tamsin found herself snapping back to reality, a moment of fear in her eyes as she looked up at her sister her breath growing heavy and panicked for but a moment. Yet before her trembling lips could speak in stuttered questions of what the hell just happened; they clinched tight. Her fists then clinched together, and her eyes closed for a minute as her breath went back to even. Then she took in a deep breath of the stale air of the space suit and her eyes opened still dark like Tamsin but the ones staring back at Kaila were not Tamsin's she was a passenger now, Darth Sokar the God of Destruction.

Her eyes peeled away from Kaila and looked around at all those around, with a stare like they were lifeless walking corpses. Rat's in a maze to be fed to the monster at the center, and she was here to be the monster's nightmare. She saw a Star weird looming off down a corridor when she had looked around. "What the hell was that?" Sokar asked in her near perfect impression of Tamsin, playing along for the moment.

 

[Merion Oreno]

The corridor groaned faintly as Merion advanced, each step echoing just a little too long in the stillness. He glanced down. His notepad flickered. Words appeared on the screen before he could write them entire observations, fully formed hypotheses, even speculative diagrams... all scrawled in his own style, but arriving before his thoughts had solidified. When he frowned at one line of reasoning, it was already crossed out. When he reached for a new insight, it blinked into place and then struck itself through as if reconsidered from some future he hadn't reached yet. An idea bloomed. Already recorded. A mistake occurred. Already corrected. The tablet was thinking faster than he was or someone else was. Up ahead, the corridor split and narrowed. The emergency lights flickered and between the pulses, he saw it: A body. His body.

Slumped against the wall, clad in an EVA suit with unfamiliar robes draped over the plating. A lightsaber scorch bloomed across the stomach, burned deep through synthweave and flesh. He blinked. The light flickered. Flash. The same corpse different now. Winter gear, thick gloves, and a rebreather cracked open. A vibroblade jutted from his chest, its handle etched with looping alien runes that shimmered faintly, even in death. Flash. A third version. This one writhed alive, but not for long. His mouth opened in a silent scream, eyes wide in horror as a Starweird hunched over his body, translucent jaws latched onto his skull. It fed on thought and memory, mouth blooming like cracked porcelain as its gaze suddenly snapped upward directly at him.

The Starweird lunged. There was no time to react. Flash. It was gone. The hallway was empty once more. His tablet buzzed again. A single line now filled the screen, blinking softly: "Are you ahead of yourself, or already behind?" And beneath it, three icons appeared in sequence Each shaped like a digit. Each incomplete. Each pulsing with light from a timeline that might never happen.

Between heartbeats, Merion was no longer cutting into the resonator chamber's clawed-up door, holding his weapons, he was back in the hallway with his notepad, and the visions hit hard. He was struck by powerful impressions of himself taking actions, and giving reactions, that he hadn't taken or given, and he felt his body wanting to synchronize with those impressions, that frown, that blink, that silent scream. Despite the obvious fear response, or behind it, he felt primarily glee. He'd learned something new about this place. It probably did not want him here.

"If there might be an illusion play it back," he mumbled to himself singsong, unshouldering the Starweird zapper again, "if you might have seen a vision, play it back, if there might be an illusion and you get prone to confusion, if there might be an illusion play it back."

(Merion's childhood had not been normal. One of his grandmothers was a short-term memory-enhancement specialist whose book he'd read repeatedly. The other, kinder, and more accessible one had a long and successful career as a Phobis Device.)

The two systems he used most often in his cultic helmet, and retained in his current space suit, were a basic audiovisual recorder (so as to better contemplate vistas of destruction among his Central Isopter kindred) and a Bard/Silk Dreamscape headset. Keeping an eye on the hallway around him, not far from the resonator chamber, he replayed clips of both in the HUD from the last few seconds side by side.

The entirety of the stunning visions showed up just fine in the Dreamscape footage. The mundane video recording showed the abrupt transition between him hacking at the door and then being back in the hall with his notepad. The clear inference was that the shift in location and gear were tangibly real, a three-minute bump back of some kind — and at least one of his deaths, but he'd already seen one of those; he still wasn't sure how he felt about that; he'd probably break down sobbing tonight — and the other elements were visionary or illusory, solely in his head.

The meanness of it was of interest, the sense of cruel exaggeration. But on balance, he was leaning toward those visions being legitimate solely-mental glimpses of weirdly unravelled futures, unmade or still potential, and he was leaning that way because, when he played back the Dreamscape footage again to look at his own dead bodies, each one had a marking on the deck by its right hand, scrawled messily in blood.

• The one killed by a lightsaber: MV 41
• The one killed by a vibroblade: MV 97
• The one killed by a Starweird had been writing until death: MV 3 (smudge)

And come to think of it, he replayed footage of that first dead Starweird-clawed self he'd envisioned several minutes ago, and there it was: MV 83

The obvious conclusion was that he'd found, multiple times or at some crux point much like this, a way to signal to past selves — prompted by unknown experiences — whether visions of his death were real and not spurious. His own initials — presumably to ensure he'd recognize the number as self-generated rather than something from this environment or from the illusion — plus a two-digit random number.

Real risks, then. Lightsaber, blade, Starweird times two. He cracked his neck and tried to ride the exhilaration.

The bump-back mid-cleave had taken him a bit back through the corridor. He checked the charge on his big zapper. He went back around the next couple turns and found the door as he'd left it: Starweird-clawed, but also partially breached by his lightsaber work. It didn't show all the damage he'd inflicted, but some. That made no sense the more he chewed on it. He finished cutting a breach big enough to fit through. He did not, for the moment, go inside the resonator's chamber. He just got a good look and started stretching, because he had the distinct feeling things were about to get weirder.

Within, the Echo Resonator floated in zero‑G: a lattice of shattered transmitter rings still sparking with impossible fore‑signals. Touching it without stabilizing the cracked focus lens would dump boarding parties into 60‑second recursion loops—time folding, events re‑playing, casualties un‑dying and re‑dying in sickening cascades.

"There you are, you sonofabitch..."

 

[Zanami]

Mirror's Edge

"The Key to Joy is Disobedience"
- Aleister Crowley -

Location: Boarding
Gear: In Sig
Tags: Darth Strosius / Kaila Irons / Tamsin Graves / Merion Oreno

They're Coming to Take Me Away​

Her predatorial instincts kicked in, briefly, until the realization she was alone; and her mask resting askew on her face. Cautiously, still trying to put the jigsaw puzzle pieces together of what she witnessed, touched her mask, running her fingers downward. It was cold to the touch, yet almost pleasant to feel. Her eyes darted around the corridor whilst she adjusted her mask. Unsure of what had transpired.

Zanami looked down at her hand, the dagger specifically, and felt as if it was foreign to her, almost as if the weapon was placed in her hand by another. Again, she looked around. She was alone, but the sensation of being watched put her on edge; adding a dash of danger to the situation. For her. For whatever sought to play childish games with the Sithspawn.

Then she recalled that four letter phrase, "She let us out", repeated over and over in a way that was projected upon her as the nature of this She was known to her. Or, Zanami pondered, perhaps a warning. Zanami was baffled. However, the vision was real; this much she knew. Whatever the game, she was interested in playing.

Turning around, Zanami began moving deeper into the ship via the corridor, never shaking that watchful feeling still washing over her. Attempting to reach out to those voices, she called them out by name one at a time. Silence. Had they eventually found cowardice, abandoning her in the eleventh hour? "Good riddance," she whispered to herself, taking notification of the lack of an echo bouncing down the quiet, deserted corridor.

"Whomever, whatever you are I am not impressed. I've long conquered my nightmares. I will conquer you too", she said mocking the fading residents of that vision whilst she continued her way.