What is Dead May Never Die (Resistance)

[Khindys Kaai]

Without air to bear heat or sound, all of space was silent and cold. Yet somehow that silence felt deeper, and the chill harsher, in the Dead Nebula.

General Khindys Kaai, aboard the blockade runner Fate's Fool, stared out of the viewport as he took in the desolate region. Once this place had been called the Oasis Nebula, a beacon of civilization in the far reaches of the galaxy. But the Gulag Plague had seen an end to that, with frantic efforts to eradicate the disease doing as much to destroy these worlds as the sickness itself. A once-thriving society of billions could now be counted in the thousands, their cities in ruin, their technologies lost. Those who remained drifted among the worlds they had once controlled, salvaging what life they could.

But there was one place even these desperate scavengers avoided: the graveyard world of Virsol. Once the planet had been a refuge from the hustle and bustle of the capital, home to students, artists, poets, and gardeners. Now the plague had wiped out its people and gravitational stress had torn away its atmosphere, leaving its splendid silver towers to stand silent and abandoned against a sky perpetually full of stars. Local taboo, and the difficulties of salvage operations in gravity-complicated vacuum, kept the planet off-limits, preserved just as it had been on the final day of the cataclysm.

It was the perfect place for a movement built on secrecy to hide.

Khin knew the area from his time with the Sector Rangers, when he'd chased the Barab Butcher through the nebula before cornering him on Lanteeb. After the loss of the Resistance base on Skye, along with far too many good soldiers, he had immediately begun considering more secure options. Presently their command center was set up on Hoth, but even that lonely iceball was not unknown enough for him to feel safe. And if the First Order struck there, he would know for certain that no precaution was too great in keeping each base secret and isolated. Hence the nebula.

"Helm," he said into his wrist comm, "bring us in." Fate's Fool drifted down toward the dusty surface of Virsol, jerking and listing oddly as the uneven gravitational pull of the planet's four moons tugged on it. They would have to calculate smoother approach and departure patterns once the base was operational, he mused, filing the information away for a later stage of the project. Below them, the surface was a mass of undisturbed grey dust where gardens had once grown. The skeletal husks of dead trees, unable to rot in the vacuum, twisted up from the long-dead soil.

Fate's Fool skimmed over the surface, bypassing the clusters of workshops and university campuses. Those ancient structures would be the first to show up on sensor scans, providing cover for the base's real location: the former seabed, surrounded by dense rock to further defeat hostile scans. Reaching the coordinates indicated in the scouting reports, the blockade runner gently landed among ice and stone. The area had once been a shallow basin, and remained somewhat bowl-shaped, though meteorite impacts had carved new trenches and furrows into it.

"We've made planetfall," Khin reported to the materials transports waiting above as he prepped his environment suit. "Bring in the drill."

 

[Nara Basaar]

Today was a huge day for The Resistance. Today was the day that their small company of rag tag heroes hurried to depths of the Galaxy in order to form a new base. Their current base on Hoth for the moment was a good choice, who would hunt for them on a planet that can pretty much be described as a floating glacier? But that's what the Rebellion thought all those years ago wasn't it? It was always better to be safe than sorry so this meant a backup base had to be established. A group of the Resistances members were mostly unaware of the place they were scouting out, but they heard about from [member="Khindys Kaai"] who was one of the most trusted members in the group so they all had his back. Nara was not one to normally be sent on these kind of things, but this time the situation was different. Nara stood not far from Khindys looking out into the void as well. Her body was adorned with a white jumpsuit and her soft long black hair was put into a popular braided hairstyle to keep it out of her face.

Spoiler

Nara continued to look out into the void. Her attention was grabbed by Khindys instructing the crew to make their descent. Nara's brown eyes fixed onto Khindys for a moment then back out the window, there was no turning back now. Nara would be lying if she said the descent did not make her feel nervous or give her butterflies but she knew she had to look past that, so much was at stake. Nara's mission was more of safety minded one. The medic had been sent with the crew to make sure there were not any signs of the plague or any other lingering disease in their settlement location. And in the unfavorable event of a crew member contracting anything, she was there to help them.

When the Fate's Fool reached the surface, Nara was drawn closer to the observation window out of amazement. One look at what was left the architecture and you could tell this was once a beautiful metropolis. "Unbelievable...." Nara uttered to her self. The slight shaking of the blockade runners touchdown quickly snapped Nara out of her euphoric daze. Nara also went to prep her environmental and her scanner that was designed to detect any signs of hostile bacteria on anything from buildings to fauna. Nara looked up to [member="Khindys Kaai"] "I will stick by you and follow your lead Khindys. Here's hoping the place is relatively free from hostile bacteria" Nara said as she eased her way into her environmental suit.

 

[Z'Zharen]

Zhar had recently joined the Resistance, not too long after he escaped Nar Shadda. Fellow rebel and rescuer, Zamza had informed the young Whipid of this rag tag group desperately indeed of fighters and not long after Z'zharen managed to find and join them. A fighter, the 6'6 ft Whipid was, but this mission aboard the blockade runner would not require his warrior's instinct. Instead it needed surveillance and his climbing skills were valued, but also to Zhar's mind, those going on this mission still needed protection.

The Cathar general, could most likely defend himself with need of little assistance. However other crew members, such as the healer [member="Nara Basaar"] appeared too delicate for combat. Zhar respected her medical knowledge, but he was new to this group of sentients, and based on what he saw so far he would need to keep an extra eye out for everyone. A little over protective by nature, but Zhar was skeptical that this world was not entirely abandoned.

Zhar lumbered towards the others preparing to make the expedition. The Whipid was already in his suit, it was a bit tight, but he knew the Resistance was short on supplies as it was members so he did not complain. The helmet he found was a bit...odd. He was not sure what race it was designed for, it did fit him however it had extra space in the back as if the intended wearer had a sloped cranium. He looked out the view port and though the architecture was beautiful, it still looked so very "Sad." The young Whipid said aloud.

He pulled his electrostaff off his back strap, holding it in both large hands and presenting it to [member="Khindys Kaai"] for inspection. "If needed will this staff be suitable for this mission, General?" The Whipid spoke in a rough voice, he was not familiar with this world, let alone this entire sector. The changed atmosphere could have been combustible from the slightest spark off his electrostaff for all the young Whipid knew. He hoped it wasn't the case, this staff not only served as a weapon, but a reminder of how the Whipid overcame his suppressors on Nar Shadda. To use it to fight along side the Resistance, gave the staff even more purpose as it would help to liberate others. Leaving it behind on the mission would unnerve the young warrior a bit.

Zhar stole a glance to the view port again, the many pale and ruined structures jutted from the ground. They reminded him of spears stuck in the ice on his homeworld of Toola. He wondered if he would need to climb the architectural spears or if the general needed them to climb lower beneath the planet since he heard mention of a drill.

 

[Khindys Kaai]

The helmet fit snugly over Khin's furred face, a snap-hiss and a gust of cold, slightly-stale air over his nose and lips indicating that the environment suit was sealed. He tugged his crimson and black duster over the nondescript grey life support garment, its blast-resistant fabric a battered splash of color that accompanied him wherever he went. It was time to take his first steps on the surface of Virsol, a planet that almost no one else on the ship even knew the name of. It wasn't easy to keep secrets from good people, all of them as dedicated to overthrowing tyranny as he was, but it was for the movement's safety. And, frankly, their own.

The Princess had organized (and, to his continued concern, personally led) a commando force on a secret mission into occupied territory, leaving him in sole command of the construction effort. He wasn't alone, however. The Resistance's medical and logistics expert, [member="Nara Basaar"], stood beside him, prepping her own environment suit. "Bacteria could be a concern in any structures still maintaining a partial atmosphere," he replied, taking note of the information as it occurred to him. "We'll have to be careful to keep our suits sealed and undamaged during any salvage efforts." There was no telling what might survive in the ruins of this broken place.

So it was a good thing they had a warrior @Z'Zharen to accompany them. The Whipid's suit was a tight squeeze for him, designed to be comfortable for for someone at least two inches shorter; Khin added larger life support units to the list of things he would buy, barter for, or steal at the next opportunity. But he still had the alertness of a seasoned hunter and the swiftness of youth, two things that were faded in the general as he aged. "It'll work," he said, nodding at the electrostaff. Even in a vacuum a heavy metal pole with an electrical charge could be deadly, especially in the hands of a skilled user. Khin didn't expect to need it, but it paid to be careful.

Once everyone had their suits ready, the general cycled the airlock and stepped out onto the desolate surface. Apart from his own breathing, loud in his ears, there was perfect silence; no wind, no water, not even air to carry the hum of Fate's Fool's engines. Hard rock, once the seafloor, met his feet; around him, nothing but dust and ice. Brushing aside the eeriness, he surveyed the basin with a tactician's eye. Caves at the edges would make good repair bays for frigate-sized craft, which would not fit in the hangars. The lip of the depression would hide them from surface-level scans. It was perfect, or at least it appeared so.

Above them, borne by tethers between four dropships, a massive asteroid drill began its slow descent to the middle of the basin. They'd bought it from other inhabitants of the Dead Nebula as part of their cover, claiming to be an independent mining concern looking to get cheap, secondhand equipment. That would, at least for now, explain any salvage efforts they undertook on the surrounding planets, and it had provided them with an avenue to get the drill without having to repair it themselves. As it hit the ground, its simple droid brain kicked in, warming up servos to begin twisting down into the hole in which the lower levels of the base would be housed.

"We'll need to sweep the area," Khin said, his voice made oddly metallic by interference on the comm channel. "Nara, Z'Zharen, you're with me. We'll check the caves for vacuum-capable wildlife, make sure there aren't any mynocks. If there are, we'll need to run them off before they start eating the drill's power couplings." No native life could survive on Virsol now, but all sorts of strange creatures were known to drift along spacelanes or hitch rides on starships to reach exotic planets. It wouldn't do to be taken by surprise about anything in their primary base. Drawing his blaster, the general set off for the nearest cave.

 

[Z'Zharen]

[member="Khindys Kaai"]

The Whipid bowed his head in thanks to the general's approval of his weapon. Zhar placed it on his back strap, his reflexes were quick enough to unsheathe it should he need to in a moment's notice. Once again the Whipid thought, he would be traveling into yet another cave with a group of people he did not fully know. The Whipid doubted that they would encounter Force sensitives or cultists on this world, but like the general said, extraterrestrial wildlife could have migrated to this planet. The general said to "run them off" should they encounter any mynocks...was he being polite, but really referring to killing the pests?

Zhar found it hard that even Mynocks could survive here, not because of the lack of oxygen, but lack of any life really. Though it would make sense for the First Order to not think their enemies would install a base here...was it really worth it, to potentially endanger all Resistance members here. The slightest malfunction could wipe out the rebel group, if a small weapons malfunction punctured the hull of the base. Or what if an electrical storm hit this area, if the base lost power it would no doubt loose life support....The Whipid imagined what last resorts the base would have to take. Those who could survive would flee in the nearest ships or...those less fortunate would give into panic and or be stranded in life support suits such as the ones they wore now...lost and forgotten on this abandoned world until their corpses match the statuette display of death frozen in time like the trees and buildings of this world.

Needing to distract his thoughts from such dark fantasies, Zhar asked [member="Nara Basaar"] for insight. "Doctor," The Whipid started, he was not sure if she was a fully graduated doctor, but he did not know her official title or rank. "Do you think it's possible to restore life to this world? I heard of things such as terra forming, if not the entire planet then perhaps the small portion that our base would reside in?"