Dominion Unnatural Selection | THR Dominion of Setron

[Cordal Renth]

​

TITLE: Unnatural Selection
OBJECTIVE: Mission 2: Extraction (Laboratory Facility)
INVENTORY: Republic Commando Armour, Republic Service Rifle, Republic Service Pistol, Medikit, medical backpack
LOCATION: Approaching the lab/ medical facility
TAGS: The High Republic / The Jedi Order.


The shuttle's landing struts touched down against the rocky platform outside the facility with a dull metallic thud.
Cold mountain wind swept across the plateau, carrying with it the faint smell of burned circuitry and something else Cordal Renth couldn't quite place. Something biological.
Lieutenant Cordal Renth adjusted the medical pack secured over his shoulders and stepped down the ramp behind the first squad of Republic troopers. The new rank bars on his armor still felt unfamiliar. Only a few weeks earlier, he'd been Sergeant Renth—the medic everyone called when things went bad.
Now he was responsible for the entire medical response of the mission.
Not exactly the promotion he'd imagined.
Ahead of them, the entrance to the old Imperial facility carved into the mountainside of Setron loomed like a wound in the rock. The structure had once been a black-site laboratory, one of many the Empire had quietly abandoned during its collapse.
Officially abandoned, anyway.
The flickering lights inside the entry corridor suggested otherwise.
"Lieutenant," one of the scouts said, lowering his macrobinoculars as the rest of the squad fanned out around the entrance. "Power readings are unstable. Something's still drawing energy from the main grid."
Cordal nodded slightly.
"Meaning someone's been here recently."
The scout gave a grim nod.
"Looks that way."
Cordal glanced toward the dark corridor beyond the blast doors. The interior lights flickered weakly, revealing cables hanging from the ceiling and blast scoring along the walls.
Signs of fighting.
Not old fighting either.
His mind ran through the mission brief again.
Imperial warlord hardware.
Unblessed involvement.
And anti-Force experiments that had gone very, very wrong.
The newly promoted lieutenant keyed his helmet comm.
"Medical teams, stay close to the squads," Cordal said calmly. "If there are survivors in there, they're going to need help fast."
He paused for a moment before adding quietly.
"And if the briefings are accurate… we may not be the only living things in the facility."
The squad leader beside him checked the charge on his blaster rifle.
"Creatures bred to hunt Force users," the trooper muttered. "And they can't be sensed through the Force."
Cordal didn't respond immediately.
He'd treated enough battlefield wounds to know what happened when soldiers walked into a fight they didn't understand.
That was why he was here.
"Remember the objective," Cordal said. "We're here to extract survivors and secure whatever data's left. Not chase monsters."
The blast doors groaned open with a grinding shriek of old machinery.
Darkness spilled out from within.
A mountain-top laboratory turned into a labyrinth of caverns and tunnels, carved deep beneath Setron's stone.
And somewhere down there—
Anti-Force experiments had escaped containment.
Cordal stepped forward with the rest of the Republic team, the beam of his helmet light cutting into the darkness.
"Mission Two," he said over the squad channel.
"Extraction."
The troopers moved inside.
Behind them, the wind howled across the mountain.
And far below the facility…
Something moved in the dark.

Connel Vanagor Solene Beroya

 

[Resh]

"Seems everyone's flocking to the Republic these days. Can't blame them, given the state of… things." Resh shrugged.

“What about you? Did you join the Republic?”

"Sort of. I'm training with the Jedi Order now. The Vonnuvi is my home, but I wanted to gain some new perspective, be where the action was, you know?" Seeing Inanna had caused the padawan to drop his guard, which left him little chance to defend himself against a creature masked from the Force. Resh yelled in pain as the creature struck him in the back, causing the Pureblood to topple over onto his knees. With surprising strength, he reached behind and tore the monster away. It landed in front of Inanna, scrambling to get back into an attack-ready position.

Inanna Harth - Open​

 

[Joren Kayde]

TITLE: Unnatural Selection.
OBJECTIVE: Containment.
INVENTORY: NDH Armour | PHC-55 | VF-23.
SQUAD: Task-Force Sentinel Dawn.
LOCATION: Decommissioned Imperial science facility on Setron.
TAGS: The High Republic / The Jedi Order.

​

The team were moving through the ground floor, blaster-rifles sweeping left and right, checking for signs of hostiles as they sought out the stairwell to descend further down into the basement levels. While there were turbo-lifts, taking them would be too compromising if the enemy were following them on a security feed.

As they moved into yet another corridor of the maze-like building, Whitley automatically dropped to his knees; "Contact!" he shouted with Joren Kayde and Oscar Buckley joining behind the Lieutenant. Further down the hallway, two men armed with blasters also spotted them and quickly ducked to either side of cover.

"Drop your blasters and surrender yourselves peacefully!" Captain Beiran shouted in the enemy's direction, while Joren Kayde and Isabella Johnson slowly moved to the left and took up position to cover one side, the three aiming towards the other.

The response was predictable: the two men who looked like private security broke cover and fired back at Joren and his team. Every member of Sentinel-Dawn opened up in return, firing stun rounds as Kayde had ordered prior to their infiltration. The screaming of plasma fired with every pull of the trigger rang out, echoing through the ground floor. The element of surprise had been lost, and Kayde knew others would soon join the first two in a bid to expel the invaders.

"Dig in! Covering fire!" Joren ordered, quickly moving up to duck into the nearest doorway in the side of the corridor, soon signalling to the captain before leaning out and firing again, keeping the pressure up so that his squad could fortify their positions, using whatever cover they could to hold their end of the hallway.

The New Way, these extremists-whatever they were - presented the first contact. Adrenaline coursed through Joren's veins as his blasterifle recoiled against his shoulder. Stepping back behind cover, he looked back at the squad. They all moved efficiently, experience showing in their reaction time, covering each other as they gradually pushed the offensive.

They were Joren's first charge as a squad leader, and in the chaos, he reaffirmed his dedication to keeping them alive and seeing them through the mission.

 

[Cordal Renth]

TITLE: Unnatural Selection
OBJECTIVE: Mission 2: Extraction (Laboratory Facility)
INVENTORY: Republic Commando Armour, Republic Service Rifle, Republic Service Pistol, Medikit, medical backpack
LOCATION: Approaching the lab/ medical facility
TAGS: The High Republic / The Jedi Order.

​

The corridor swallowed them quickly.


The deeper the Republic team pushed into the facility beneath Setron's mountains, the more the place looked less like a laboratory and more like a battlefield that had been abandoned mid-fight. Broken equipment littered the halls. Burned wiring hung from the ceilings. Emergency lights pulsed dimly in long intervals, bathing the corridor in alternating red shadows.


Cordal Renth moved in the center of the formation, his helmet lamp sweeping across the walls while his medical scanner ran passive sweeps for life signs.


Nothing stable.


Just faint signals… and a lot of static.


"Lieutenant," one of the troopers whispered over comms. "Picking up something ahead."


Cordal paused, raising a hand for the squad to slow.


Then he heard it.


Blaster fire.

Not the scattered echoes they'd heard earlier. This was sustained—rapid, controlled volleys ricocheting through the cavern corridors.


Republic blasters.

"Move," Cordal said immediately.


The squad advanced quickly down the corridor, rounding a bend where the tunnel widened into a partially collapsed research chamber. The sight that greeted them confirmed what the scanner had hinted at.


A Republic squad was pinned down behind overturned laboratory tables and shattered equipment racks.


Blue blaster bolts streaked across the chamber while several troopers fired back toward a dark tunnel branching deeper into the facility.


"Contact front!" someone shouted.


Cordal dropped beside the nearest wounded trooper as his squad joined the fight, spreading out along the chamber wall.

"What happened?" Cordal asked quickly, pulling a trauma scanner from his kit.


The injured trooper winced, clutching his side armor where a deep gouge had split the plating.

"Not droids," the trooper gasped. "Something… fast."


Another volley of blaster fire lit the chamber.


From the tunnel ahead came a guttural shriek that echoed through the cavern.


Cordal froze for half a second.


That wasn't human.

The squad leader of the pinned unit crawled over beside him, helmet scorched and armor splattered with something dark.


"Lieutenant?" the trooper said with visible relief. "Thank the stars."


Cordal sealed the wounded soldier's armor seam with a quick bacta patch and injector.


"You've got med support now," Cordal replied calmly.


"Report."


The trooper nodded toward the dark tunnel.


"We entered the lower containment levels about ten minutes ago," he said. "Found signs of Unblessed activity. Then the vats started cracking open."


Another shriek echoed from the darkness.


Closer this time.


The trooper's voice dropped.

"They're Serracan prototypes. Imperial anti-Force hunting organisms."


Cordal's grip tightened slightly on the scanner.


Creatures bred specifically to hunt Force-sensitive targets.


Which meant they were fast.


Predatory.


And impossible for Jedi to sense.


Another trooper fired three quick shots down the corridor.


Something moved just beyond the light.


Fast enough that the bolts barely missed it.


Cordal rose to one knee and looked toward the squad leader.

"How many wounded?"

"Three."

Cordal nodded.

"Get them ready to move."

Another guttural screech erupted from the tunnel as something slammed against the far wall with enough force to shake loose dust from the ceiling.

One of the Republic troopers cursed.

Cordal stood fully now, drawing the compact blaster from his hip.

His voice remained steady.

"Alright," the newly promoted lieutenant said over the squad channel.

"Extraction just became priority."

He looked down the corridor into the darkness.

"Because whatever those things are…"

Another shadow flashed through the tunnel.

"…they're coming."

And this time—

They weren't hunting Jedi.

They were hunting everyone.