First Reply Where the Echoes End

[Liin Terallo]

The first collapse had been dismissed as exhaustion. The second became rumor. By the third, people had stopped discussing it openly and instead began exchanging information in quieter conversations, spoken behind closed doors and lowered voices. Fear among Force Users rarely spread loudly. More often it moved this way instead; carefully, cautiously, as though naming a thing too clearly might somehow invite it closer.

The stories differed in detail, but not in feeling. A Jedi Knight meditating within a temple enclave had abruptly collapsed mid-trance, striking the stone floor hard enough to fracture it beneath them. A Sith traveling the Outer Rim reportedly lost all connection to the Force in the middle of combat, the interruption so sudden that witnesses initially mistook it for injury rather than absence. Others described lesser effects. Disorientation. Nausea. Panic severe enough to leave even experienced Force Users visibly shaken.

One account, however, lingered longer than the others. “It felt like reaching outward and finding there was nothing there to reach toward.” Not suppression. Not resistance. Not the familiar void created by ysalamiri or known forms of interference. But something else. Something quieter. The Force had not felt blocked. It had simply....not been there.

Speculation spread naturally after that. Ancient weapons. Sith experiments. Jedi failures. Forgotten artifacts uncovered where they should not have been. Every theory carried conviction for a few hours before giving way to another. What mattered more was the pattern beneath the noise. Every reported incident had occurred within the same region of space. And those affected did not emerge unchanged.

Liin ignored the reports at first. Not because she found them unbelievable, but because they aligned too closely with something she had spent too long trying to leave behind. Even so, she read every account she could obtain, quietly cross-referencing locations and testimony until the inconsistencies began to fall away and a far more uncomfortable shape revealed itself beneath them. The descriptions were imprecise, distorted by fear and imperfect recollection, but the sensation preceding each collapse remained disturbingly consistent. The moment the connection ceased. Cleanly, completely and as though it had never existed at all.

Her serum had once produced something not entirely unlike it during terminal degradation. Not identical. Smaller, temporary, and artificial. But close enough to leave an uneasy stillness settled beneath her ribs long after she had closed the reports.

The request for her involvement arrived shortly afterward. Anonymous. Brief. Devoid of introduction or explanation. Only a set of coordinates accompanied by a single line: You understand what this might become.

For several long moments, Liin simply stared at the message in silence. Then her gaze drifted toward the storage case resting untouched near the far wall of her quarters. Biomolecular samples. Research fragments. Remnants of work she had once sworn would go no further than it already had.

She almost deleted the message. But instead, sometime later, she found herself preparing for departure without fully remembering when the decision had been made....

The region itself appeared unremarkable upon arrival. No visible instability scarred the landscape. No signs of conflict or environmental collapse lingered among the canyon shelves and weathered stone. Only silence stretched across the abandoned monitoring outpost built into the rock itself, half-buried by years of drifting sand and neglect. There was too much silence. Even the wind seemed quieter here.

Liin moved carefully through the dim corridor beyond the entrance, her gloved fingers brushing lightly across dust-coated control panels while weak emergency lights flickered somewhere deeper within the structure. The air carried the stale scent of disuse, but the dust along the floor told a different story. Someone had passed through recently not long ago. A disturbed layer of sand near the threshold. A maintenance hatch left partially open. Footprints softened, but not yet erased by time.

Liin slowed near the entrance to the central chamber, her attention settling not on the room itself, but on the faint sound of movement somewhere beyond it. Deliberate. Not environmental. Someone else was already here. For a moment she said nothing, simply listening while the dim light cast shifting shadows against the old walls around her. Then, at last she spoke: “You are either very informed,” Liin said calmly into the silence ahead, “or very irresponsible.” A quiet pause followed before she continued, her ears and eyes on full alert. “But you are not lost.”

 

[T'zarna Khab]

Location: Unnamed outpost, Murkhana
Objective: Outreach
Tag: Liin Terallo

The planet of Murkhana had a unique serenity to it, a cool breeze blew across the grassy field just north of a black rock beach. On the surface the whole planet seemed like a perfect resort world. However, deep below the surface there was a corruption. It was the taint of The Dark Side, like cancerous tumors festering under healthy skin.

T'zarna had appropriated an old Imperial research station, using it to learn secrets the Imperials once kept safe from prying eyes. She was particularly interested in information regarding reports of an anti-force drug. If these reports were true, then the drug could be a great weapon against their enemies, or a poison that could crumble T'zarna's hive...

One name seemed to come up in records revolving around the mysterious drug, Liin Terallo. She was not an Imperial sympathizer, but spies from within The Empire had found she'd been involved in similar research. Whether or not she was the source of the sudden deaths of Force Sensitives was unkown.

As a person of interest though, she was near tops of the list. T'zarna had used the old spy connections to send Liin a message, keeping her own identity far away from the message. If there was anything that might scare the human away, it would be the involvement of Dark Jedi. Soon enough though, the woman would know. And with any luck she would be able to shed light on this drug.

Whether that was to control the destructive serum, or destroy it was yet to be seen...

 

[Liin Terallo]

For a moment, only the low mechanical hum of the aging facility answered her. Then came the quieter sounds beneath it. Movement. It was measured and controlled enough to suggest intention rather than surprise.

Liin remained still within the corridor’s dim emergency lighting, her gaze fixed toward the darkness ahead while old systems flickered weakly along the walls around her. Dust rested thick upon most untouched surfaces, but not evenly. Too many recent disturbances. Too many signs of selective use within a station that should have been abandoned years ago. Whoever was here had not stumbled upon the place accidentally.....

Which meant that neither had she. The realization settled unpleasantly. Not because she disliked being manipulated. She had long since accepted that intelligence, curiosity, and secrecy tended to attract that sort of attention eventually. But because of what had drawn her specifically. Her work.

Even now, long after she had buried most traces of it, the shape of those old experiments continued moving through systems and conversations she no longer controlled. Rumors had simplified it already. Distorted it. Turned something complex and deeply dangerous into phrases like anti-force drug whispered by people who understood neither the science nor the consequences beneath it. That unsettled her more than she cared to admit.

“You knew enough to contact me anonymously,” Liin continued at last, her voice calm as it carried into the corridor ahead. “Which suggests this was never simply an investigation.” A faint pause followed while her attention shifted briefly toward one of the nearby terminals, its fractured display still pulsing weakly beneath layers of dust and age. Imperial research facilities rarely held just one secret. “And yet,” she said more quietly now, “you still chose to remain here.”

Only then did her gaze lift fully back toward the unseen figure beyond the chamber. “That suggests you are either very confident....” The flickering lights shifted once against the walls between them. “....or very concerned.”

Tag: T'zarna Khab

 

[T'zarna Khab]

Location: Unnamed outpost, Murkhana
Objective: Outreach
Tag: Liin Terallo

Liin was not met with a group of stormtroopers, nor the sight of a pompous Moff, rather it was a single hooded being. At first the thin hooded figure was nothing more than a quasi-formed shadow, but slowly those shadows fell away. Left behind was a golden carapace graced with trappings of leather and cloth.

Her hands shot up quickly, removing the hood on her head. Her hairless head and lidless eyes staring back at the human woman. Liin was already proving to be interesting sport. She had an intelligence to her which couldn't be undervalued. It wasn't often that an ordinary human spoke to T'zarna in such a way.

"I believe intrigued is the best word for it," T'zarna said, making a clear attempt to sound amused by the other woman. "It is an interesting proposition, to be able to remove the force in such a way. As unnatural as it is..."

She paused there, scanning Liin to see how she reacted. It was hard for the hybrid to read the emotions of humans, they were such funny things. Their brash displays dumbfounded her. Such fragile creatures, yet such showy expressions...

"It is a danger to my hive, but also, it is a weapon that could help us greatly. We seek to bring all together as one, and some may wish to destroy us. Removing them from the force is an asset we must look into! Don't you agree?"

 

[Liin Terallo]

Liin regarded the figure in silence for a long moment after the hood fell away. She was not startled, but attentive in the particular way she became whenever something unfamiliar aligned too closely with intention.

The dim emergency lighting caught strangely against the golden surface of the woman’s carapace, reflecting fractured bands of pale light against the old Imperial walls around them. Organic and artificial all at once. Purpose-built. Structured.

A hive. That word lingered more than the rest. Not because it frightened her, but because it explained the perspective almost immediately. Collective thinking. Collective vulnerability. The instinct to view threats not as individuals, but as existential risks to a larger whole. Liin understood that sort of logic better than she wished that she did.

She was silent for a moment after T’zarna finished speaking, her gaze steady but increasingly distant in the way it often became whenever memory and calculation began overlapping behind her eyes. “Not remove,” Liin said at last; calm but precise. “That was never the original function.”

The flickering emergency lights shifted softly across the old corridor walls as she continued. “My research artificially induced Force sensitivity in non-sensitive subjects for limited periods of time.” Her attention drifted briefly toward one of the dim terminals nearby, though it was clear she was no longer truly seeing it. “And in those already connected to the Force, it amplified that connection temporarily beyond natural thresholds.”

A faint pause followed as the memories of her work rose to the surface. “The degradation came afterward.” Those words were quietly spoken. And carefully. “As the biomolecular structures destabilized, the connection began collapsing in on itself. Non-sensitive subjects returned to their original state once the serum fully broke down.” Her gaze returned to T’zarna then. “Force sensitives did not.”

No emotion visibly surfaced as she said it, though something about her stillness tightened almost imperceptibly. “The stronger the amplification became, the more violent the eventual severance tended to be.” And sometimes far worse than severance. The thought lingered unspoken between them.

Liin’s eyes shifted briefly toward the deeper sections of the facility again, her attention momentarily caught by the low hum resonating somewhere beneath the structure itself. “When instability reached critical thresholds, the surrounding environment began reacting as well.” Her voice had grown quieter now. More thoughtful. “Localized anomalies. Spatial inconsistencies. Temporal displacement events radiating outward from the epicenter.”

The memory settled unpleasantly in the silence that followed. Places where time had slipped. Rooms larger inside than their exterior dimensions allowed. Moments repeating themselves half a second out of sequence. Reality itself struggling to reconcile what the serum had forced into existence.

“It was never stable,” Liin said softly. "And whatever is happening here....” Her gaze narrowed slightly as the unnatural stillness within the station pressed subtly at the edges of perception once more. “It resembles the terminal phase without the preceding induction.”

That, more than anything, unsettled her. Because it implied something impossible. Or something learning.

Finally, her attention settled fully back upon T’zarna. “So no,” she said evenly. “I do not agree that this should be viewed as a weapon. I think that it should concern you far more than that.”

Tag: T'zarna Khab

 

[T'zarna Khab]

Location: Unnamed outpost, Murkhana
Objective: Outreach
Tag: Liin Terallo

T'zarna's lidless eyes became expressive as she heard Liin's story. This was all a side effect of some greater experiment? She was stunned by this revelation. Could it be done, to give force sensitivity to those born without it? Common knowledge said this was impossible, but then again, so was cloning force sensitives. The Empire of the Lost had made fools of those who believed that. Ergo, so could Liin...

"I see, so all of this... These stories, they are all the result of an attempt to give the Force Sensitivity to those born without?" Many would be disgusted by the attempts to pervert nature in such a way. For fairly obvious reasons though, such things only made T'zarna more interested.

Making such advances in bioengineering could have far reaching implications. However, the biggest implication for T'zarna was her goals to control The Force. As the force wound it's way through all life, to control it was to control all it touches. That was the theory that became the framework for all The Fallen Order stood for.

"You speak of these things as if they are failures. When in truth they are a key, one that could open the path to so much more," T'zarna said, stepping forward a few paces. She made circles around Liin, a knowing smirk on her lips. "It was minds like yours which created me, and I believe you could create so much more. Yours would be the name spoken about for generations in my hive. The one who allowed us to stretch our reach across the stars..."

 

[Liin Terallo]

Liin did not move as T’zarna circled her. The old facility hummed softly around them, dim emergency lighting tracing fractured shadows across rusted walls while the distant vibration beneath the station continued it's low, almost imperceptible pulse. Somewhere deeper within the structure, ancient systems still lived just enough to remind them both that the place had not yet fully died.

Her gaze followed T’zarna only briefly before settling forward once more. She was not intimidated. Not flattered. But simply listening. The praise had landed strangely after everything that had come before it. Not because Liin had never heard versions of it before; when she had. Scientists. Intelligence divisions. Sith. Corporations. Governments. They all eventually arrived at the same conclusion once they glimpsed the possibilities hidden within her work. Potential eclipsed consequence very quickly in the minds of ambitious people.

“It always begins that way,” Liin said quietly. Her voice remained calm, though something more tired had settled beneath it now. “A breakthrough. A solution. A door no one else believed that could be opened.” Her eyes drifted briefly toward one of the flickering terminals nearby. “And then, eventually, someone decides the risks are acceptable because the rewards sound important enough.” The words were not directed solely at T’zarna. Some of them belonged to herself.

Liin’s expression stilled slightly as the other woman spoke of hives stretching across stars and names remembered for generations. Legacy. Reverence. Purpose. Once, perhaps, those things might have reached her differently. Now they mostly sounded like chains with more elegant presentation.

“You misunderstand me,” she said softly. Only then did her gaze fully return to T’zarna again. “I do not describe them as failures because they lacked potential. I describe them as failures because people suffered.” Force sensitives stripped permanently from something fundamental to their existence. Subjects destabilized beyond recovery. Anomalies spreading outward in ways even she had failed to fully predict. And afterward? The hunting began. Not for the serum alone. But for her. Liin had spent too long surviving the interest of powerful people to romanticize it anymore.

Her attention shifted subtly toward the deeper portions of the station once more, thoughtful again now rather than defensive. “What concerns me,” she continued quietly, “is that I ended my research. I destroyed what I could. Fragmented the remainder. Buried the work across systems that no longer speak to one another.” Her eyes narrowed faintly. “Yet this phenomenon continues evolving anyway.”

That was the part she could not reconcile. Because if no one had replicated her work... Then something else had learned from it. The thought settled coldly into the silence between them.

Finally, Liin looked back toward T’zarna again, calm and careful as ever. “You speak as though your hive could protect me,” she said. “Others once believed the same.....They are gone now.” She was not being dramatic. Just truthful. “And I survived precisely because I never allowed myself to become something stationary enough to possess.”

Tag: T'zarna Khab

 

[T'zarna Khab]

Location: Unnamed outpost, Murkhana
Objective: Outreach
Tag: Liin Terallo

For a moment T'zarna became still, she listened to Liin speak with the utmost interest. It was rare for her to give such respect to someone, but Liin was an exception! Her intellect was staggering, but her concern for curbing the strange anomalies of her experiment was a weakness. T'zarna believed the experiments hadn't gone far enough, so much more could be done!

"I believe I understand now, you wish to protect the galaxy from your work. You believe that the anomalies you've caused must be stopped." A small smirk crept up T'zarna's lips. It was an expression which seemed especially wrong on the insectoid's face.

There was work to be done, The Order could do much to further Miss Terallo's aims. It was no longer about simple manipulation, but a unique symbiosis. If Liin's experiments could aide them, then she would do what was necessary, even if she believed it a waste of potential. "I do not wish to cage you Miss Terallo, in fact, I believe you should be allowed to move freely."

With a sudden stroke of keys, an old screen started to whirr to life. It showed one planet, the planet of Ossus, then another, and another. Soon the entire Auril Sector was in view on a map. Red links connected them in a sort of web, scan lines pulsating across the screen added an almost living quality to them.

"You see these planets? Soon they will all be ours, they grow closer every day. Before long, they shall all be as one, one mind, one purpose. A hive that will grow until it encompasses all! Within them, a place where you can research the anomalies. So tell me, shall you seize this opportunity?"

 

[Liin Terallo]

Liin's eyes settled upon the illuminated map without changing expression. Worlds that were connected by red lines. Expansion. Assimilation. Purpose.

She had encountered enough governments, corporations, religions, and ideologies throughout her life to recognize the pattern beneath the presentation. The language changed. The banners changed. The promises changed. The certainty never did.

For several moments she simply studied the display while the old terminal hummed softly in the darkness. Then her gaze returned to T'zarna. "You are asking the wrong question." Her voice remained calm and measured while she continued. "The opportunity is irrelevant." The red lines continued pulsing across the screen behind them. "What matters is whether the phenomenon can be understood before it becomes something worse." Liin folded her arms lightly. "The incidents I have reviewed are already diverging from the behavior of my original research. If what I am seeing is accurate, then this is no longer a degradation event....Something has changed." That thought settled heavily between them. "Perhaps someone reconstructed portions of my work. Perhaps they improved it. Perhaps they misunderstood it." Her gaze narrowed slightly. "Or perhaps something emerged from it that neither of us currently understands." That possibility bothered her far more than anything displayed on the map.

Only then did she glance briefly toward the worlds connected by T'zarna's growing web. "If this spreads into your hive, your expansion becomes irrelevant." That statement was delivered without hostility, only stated as simply fact. "If Force-sensitive individuals are collapsing across multiple systems already, then eventually this reaches one of your worlds as well."

Her attention returned fully to T'zarna now. "You speak of protection. I speak of containment." The distinction there was deliberate. "And before I agree to anything, I would need answers." Her gaze shifted toward the deeper sections of the facility. "Access to your data regarding these incidents." Another condition. "Freedom to leave." And another. "No restrictions on my findings."

A final silence followed as Liin's expression remained unreadable. "I will investigate the anomalies." It was not an acceptance. But not a refusal. It was instead a narrow path between the two. "But if your intention is to continue the research that created them..." And for the first time, something colder entered her voice. "...then we are discussing two very different projects."

Tag: T'zarna Khab