I spent several days farming a Voidrig in Warframe to do The New War only to wake up and find an inbox message giving me the blueprints for basically free right after I started assembling the components. Cool, great, awesome, love it.
Anyways, read and review.
Kyra crawled through the thick underbrush, still soaking wet, and, as she had found out shortly after nearly drowning, was currently being hunted. Normally she would just run away as fast as she could, but this wasn't just one or two measly patrols of soldiers meandering about – this was an entire platoon, and they had the area on lockdown. Kyra obviously had a significant advantage thanks to the Force effectively showing her where they were, and she could mostly plan a route away from them accordingly, but it was a test of patience, as the soldiers tended to so very often check the many nooks and crannies the area had to offer. Kyra even had a few close calls that she was afraid would turn out very badly for all involved.
Crawling on her stomach, Kyra pushed some branches out of the way to reveal a small clearing, in the middle of which was a barebones command post. Some temporary tables and communications equipment, with what she assumed to be either the platoon's officer, or the XO, manning it all. Then, Kyra sensed another presence approaching. "Shingu, ve to'al har." the second presence said, slightly out of Kyra's line of sight, and the officer turned to the source of the voice, while Kyra quickly remembered that she couldn't actually understand the language without her translator. An armored Rakata approached the officer, carrying… something in his off-hand. Kyra couldn't tell what it was, though.
"Har rez vin?" the officer questioned, and the second Rakata raised his off-hand to give the officer the item, which was dripping wet and covered in grass and dirt. "Shak!" the officer cursed, taking the item and brushing it off. It was when the debris was removed that Kyra realized it wasn't just some random item he had picked off the ground – it was her helmet, still in fairly good condition. The officer made a somewhat dismissive gesture to the Rakata, and he saluted, before meandering off out of Kyra's vision. The officer, meanwhile, set Kyra's helmet on the table that was directly across from her, peering into it with intent. "Shak, shak, shak!" he repeated, a worried expression growing on his face.
Reaching out with the Force, Kyra moved some of the equipment around as a strong gust of wind blew through the area, causing enough of a commotion that the officer took his attention from the helmet to the equipment behind him. "Hom vak ne..." he muttered under his breath as he uprighted some of the equipment that had fallen over. Kyra took the opportunity to pick her helmet up from the table and pull it over to herself relatively quickly, before using the Force to empty the helmet of anything that was stuck inside, which wasn't much beyond a few rocks, which she quickly threw over the officer's head to distract him further. Kyra then put the helmet back on, engaging the seals so it wouldn't fall off again, and she waited to see what the officer did when he turned back around.
Once the equipment was set, the officer turned back to see the helmet gone from its spot. Flabbergasted at its sudden disappearance, the officer frantically looked around for it, checking everything, even looking down at the grass to see if maybe the wind had knocked it over, but still, he found nothing. For a moment, the officer appeared to doubt himself, wondering if he had really even had the helmet in the first place, before wandering off in search of the Rakata who had given him it.
Now free to move around, Kyra began to creep around the clearing, slowly and deliberately so as to not make too much noise. That was until she heard the high pitched chirping and barking of Compdogs, rapidly closing in on her, and Kyra shut her eyes momentarily.
Pack of five – no, six Compdogs, three handlers. Somehow, the Compdogs had sniffed her out – they were bearing down right on top of her, the handlers clumsily following behind the pursuing creatures. Her cover blown, Kyra leapt out of the bush and jumped over the animals, who to their credit, reacted remarkably quickly, growling and trilling as they readied their shockwaves. The handlers, however, were not so lucky – Kyra avoided the first handler, punched the second in the face with enough strength that she actually heard a sharp crack!, and the third she ducked under, before throwing him into the pack of Compdogs, right as their shockwaves were coming out.
Kyra made a run for it, and the commotion brought everybody's attention directly to her. Fireteams began to come out of the brush, slugthrowers trained on Kyra the second they saw her. Shots were fired at her, and the Rakata managed to actually score a few hits, but none actually hurt Kyra, just pinging impotently off the armor plating. Kyra jumped into some particularly thick vegetation to break their line of sight, and then jumped up into the trees. From there, she moved from tree to tree with incredible speed, managing to lose the few Rakata that saw her go up into the canopy, though the Compdogs were still on her. Kyra jumped to a relatively open spot, and kept track of the Compdogs trailing her. Then, she drew her blaster, and fired six shots, one for each animal, hitting all of them in the eye, practically blinding them and sending them off running into the jungle, and then Kyra resumed her escape, heading as far downspin as she could go.
It wasn't long before Kyra began to feel exhaustion setting in, but it didn't matter. She just had to keep running, no matter how much her body screamed at her to stop jumping from branch to branch. Eventually, though, it caught up with her, and she messed up a jump, slipping up on the landing and nearly falling to the jungle floor, though her reflexes were still on point, and she grabbed the branch, stopping the fall and letting her climb down to a slightly lower, thicker branch to take a second and collect herself.
Searching with the Force, she found that, for the time being, she was alone. Nothing nearby save for some small animals and birds. Once her body had calmed down from the exertion, Kyra climbed up the tree to get a vantage point. Surprisingly, it was actually fairly easy to pinpoint where she was – the waterfall she had fallen down was off in the distance, so the river had taken her farther upspin than she had anticipated.
Kyra decided to try her luck with the commlink. Tuning it to the correct channel, she pressed it on. "Hinj, can you hear me?" she questioned, looking over at the waterfall. "Come in, Hinj." she tried again, getting no response whatsoever. "Stop pissing around and pick up the commlink, suns damnit! I know you can hear me!" she hissed, getting a brief burst of static over the commlink. Momentarily, Kyra was hopeful that Hinj would respond, only for the commlink to totally short out, and no amount of beating on it would get it to turn back on. "Sithspit!" Kyra cursed, before leaning back against the tree, trying to figure out her next move.
Suddenly, Kyra's stomach growled, and she reached for her bag to grab a ration pack, only for her to paw at nothing, and come to the realization that her bag had slipped off somewhere in the water. Kyra then did an immediate gear check – her blaster and lightsaber were still with her, obviously, her pack was missing, she still had her canteen and her knife, and her datapad was still with her, though it was realistically waterlogged and probably destroyed as a result. Kyra still had most of her ammo on her, too, but some was missing.
Not exactly the best outcome, all things considered. Still, pressed with hunger, Kyra would have to catch and cook something to eat if she wanted to keep her pace up for much longer. At least she had plenty of choice as far as potential meals went, what with the small animals nearby, as well as another nearby stream, separate from the one she had been drifting in. Deciding to act now before this came to bite her later, Kyra got down from the tree, mentally rolled the dice on which to go for, and then started heading for the stream. Fish it was, then.
Lexi and the rest of the partisans had been running for their lives from Noridar. At the moment, they were several klicks outside the city walls, hiding in some emergency safehouse built inside of a cave. While most of the partisans were grouped together and were planning their next move, Lexi was separate from them, writing out an addendum to her report to Blackwall. Venta, though, took the opportunity to come over and sit next to her. "So," Venta started giving Lexi an unsure look. "'Clihx', huh?" she inquired.
"It's my old slicer name." Lexi explained, continuing the report. "I didn't know if I could fully trust you, and I didn't want the risk of this going back to blow up in Nax's face. The three of us are friends, after all, though obviously that plan has gone out the window." she went on, while Venta listened.
"...You're really not lying about the Dreamer, are you?" Venta eventually questioned, to which Lexi shook her head. "...When did you first meet?"
Lexi breathed deep and laid her head back. "...A while back. It's been about half a year since we first met." she answered, mentally trying to pick up the pieces of what had happened. "We were both slaves waiting to be sold. Our… 'owner'," Lexi said, visibly cringing at the idea. "...had owed a lot of money to very powerful people with a lot of influence. I had already been on his ship for a few months by that point, but the Dreamer was incredibly new, and was very valuable. She ended up being my cellmate – bastards beat her so bad that she became amnesiac. Could remember her first name, and knew most of the goings-on of the galaxy, but she had no idea who she was before she was captured." Lexi explained, gaining a surprised gasp from Venta. "Anyways, I helped her escape the ship, but I stayed behind to take the heat. Didn't see her for a while after that until I got sent down to the planet to use my natural talents to extract information about her, with the target ending up being Nax."
Venta was, again, confused. "'Were they involved with each other back then?" she questioned, before deciding to tack on another question. "...And, what do you mean by 'natural talents', Lexi?" she pressed, unsure of what she was referring to.
Lexi blinked a few times. "You mean, romantically involved?" she specified, and Venta nodded. "No. They've only been that way since we got here, but anyone who watched them for long enough would have been able to tell that they were into each other. I was honestly surprised it took as long as it did for them to commit to it." she admitted, before shaking her head to focus on the other question. "As for my 'natural talents' - I'm a Zeltron. We can sense feelings and use pheromones to influence others to an extent. Their idea was to use me to coax the Dreamer's location out of him by basically seducing him. It didn't work, and, surprisingly, when he and his friend broke out, they spared me, letting me stay with the friend. After that, it's kind of a blur, but the three of us – me, him, and the Dreamer – all ended up sticking together once we got offworld. Wouldn't trade them for anybody else in the galaxy, and it's part of why I want him out of there."
Venta took the story in, giving it momentary pause. "...You know, for someone as important to us as the Dreamer, I expected something… grander." Venta admitted, surprised at Kyra's origin. "Like, arriving with a full fleet as support, though then again, maybe it's for the better she didn't." Venta added, gesturing upwards, clearly referring to the graveyard of ships around the rings.
"Not everyone important is going to have their arrival announced by an entire orchestra, Venta." Lexi countered, to which Venta nodded in agreement. "A lot of the time, you get people like her out of normal, everyday people. Hell, you've probably even got some of them in your rank and file." she suggested, and Venta cast a glance over at the partisans, thinking about where some of them had come from for a moment.
Then, Venta turned back to Lexi. "Have you made any progress with what you pulled from the drone?" she asked, hoping Lexi had at least done something with it in the little time that they had to catch a breather.
"Not much. Translating the data related to the caches is a massive pain, and for whatever inane reason, it's all in riddles." Lexi answered, pulling up a hologram of her completed work so far. "Riddles that I have no answer to, because they're so completely specific to the Rakata that I wouldn't even know where to start." she continued, and Venta gave her a look, imploring her to go on. "...Uh… 'I am of the Homeworld's final curse, yet I do not destroy. The refuge prospers under my watchful gaze, for the benefit of all.' is one of them." Lexi quoted.
Venta pondered the riddle momentarily. "It sounds like it's referring to the Overseer, but the Homeworld's last 'curse' was the Star Forge, which caused the Empire to collapse. Then again, it might be some kind of manufactory, probably for the maintenance drones and specialized subsystems of the rings..." she wondered aloud, before remembering that Lexi was the one that needed help. "Just translate the riddles and show them to us. We've got a few flatheads around who might be able to offer input before we find Kintik." she said, before double checking the partisans to make sure she wasn't mistaken, even visibly counting them for a few moments.
Lexi nodded, and Venta left to return to plan their next move, while Lexi resumed her report. Then, something hit her – she had gone way off her assignment, and, in fact, was doing the exact opposite of what she had been told to do by Blackwall. Lexi bit her lip, pondering momentarily what kind of punishment was waiting for her. Brig time? Exile? Execution, maybe?
Though, Kyra would likely step in if it were the last one. Still, she was helping the war effort – everything she had been tasked with could be uncovered with probe droids. Finding and preventing Dantinian from using the Worldshaper, in Lexi's mind at least, took a bigger priority than something literal droids could do.
Catching a fish without proper equipment would normally be quite a challenge. Fortunately, the Force completely trivialized the process – all Kyra had to do was sit by a river, focus with the Force, and yank a big enough fish out of the water. Kyra killed it, bled it, gutted it, and cleaned it in short order, before cooking it in a small campfire she had managed to get going.
Obviously, the smoke trail would be a signal beacon for her presence - 'The Dreamer is right here! Please swarm her with everything you have!' - but she had no intention of staying for long once the fish was cooked. Kyra maintained constant vigilance as she waited for her meal to finish, a vigilance that was rewarded when Kyra sensed another member of the Hand approaching rapidly behind her. Maintaining the illusion that she had not detected him, Kyra continued to watch her fish, letting the pursuer get close before she jumped into action, lightsaber ignited, and met him head on in the trees.
This Rakata, or at least, what was once a Rakata, did not move around on two legs, instead, he had six legs and four arms, with two of those arms sprouting out of his back. His tongue was hanging loose out of his mouth, flopping around as he jumped from tree to tree. He evidently had his wits about him, as one of the back arms aimed a crossbow pistol at her and shot a bolt at her. Kyra moved to melt the bolt with her lightsaber and evade the slag, but the bolt fragmented, making it impossible to completely defend against, and some of the fragments got past her, hitting her in the left arm, penetrating the rather thick material the undersuit was made out of, and breaking the skin.
Both Kyra and the assassin hit the ground at the same time, with the assassin growing a wicked grin. "I am Vu'Shol, and that bolt was coated in the venom of the Lehon pod spider." he revealed in a thin, raspy voice as he loaded a fresh bolt into the crossbow, while Kyra pushed the flechettes out of her arm. "Soon, a most incredible pain will engulf your entire body." he warned, and Kyra could already feel some of the effects setting in, namely a numbness from the site where she was hit. "By the time that fish is cooked, your limbs will be paralyzed, your body will shut down and betray you, leaving you trapped as a prisoner of your own mind, helpless as our Master uses you to revive our Empire."
Kyra's vision began to blur, and she staggered. The venom was fast acting, and potent, too, considering only a few flechettes from the bolt managed to actually hit her. If she had been hit by all of them, she likely wouldn't even be standing right now.
Vu'Shol reeled his tongue back in and stood up straight. "Ah, but that would not be a fitting end for the mighty Dreamer, to be felled by a mere poison!" he tacked on, before reaching into a pouch attached to his belt and pulling out a small vial. "This is the antivenom – in the unlikely event you-" he tried to say, before Kyra immediately moved for an attack, tired of the delaying tactic to let the venom do its work. Vu'Shol, however, jumped backwards onto a tree, his wicked grin growing wider now that he knew Kyra was on to him. "Aha! Very well, Dreamer!" he congratulated, before he climbed further up the tree, disappearing into the leaves as his limbs made a sickening crunch with every movement. "Come into my web, if you dare!"
Kyra's vision blurred further, but she managed to catch the tree violently shaking, and tracked Vu'Shol as having flown somewhere overhead. She tried to jump up to where he was and follow him there, but her ability with the Force had already been dulled by the poison, rendering her unable to jump as high. Instead, she tried to track him through the Force and follow him on the ground, but even that was rapidly losing its effectiveness, and Kyra quickly realized just how blind she was now that the sense she had come to rely on the most had been cut off. "Come and find me, if you can!" Vu'Shol taunted
However, she still had a backup – flicking her helmet's low light mode on, Kyra's vision was swamped by a blurred mess of blue, mixed with occasional red and orange heatspots. Drawing her '44, she kept her head on a swivel, pointing it at the slightest sound, fighting to even stay conscious. Then, Vu'Shol moved to another tree, right in Kyra's view, and she drew the blaster on him and fired, hitting him mid jump. Vu'Shol let out a howl of pain, and there was a small mist of blood that flew out from the wound, turning the heatspots a lighter shade of blue momentarily. Still tracking him as best she could, Kyra did a follow up shot and narrowly missed. Vu'Shol jumped trees again, and while Kyra missed his heatblur moving, she did hear him go somewhere behind her and to the left.
Kyra took off after Vu'Shol, keeping her vision focused on the trees, which burned her when she stepped into a trap – a rope trap that Vu'Shol had prepared for her, which wrapped around her shin and launched her up into the trees, hanging there. Absolutely aware that Vu'Shol was going to exploit this, Kyra pulled out her lightsaber, activated it, and cut herself down, and she fell flat on her back. Struggling to get back to her feet, Kyra heard Vu'Shol rushing her from behind. Flipping over with her lightsaber still active, she took a swipe to fend Vu'Shol away, before getting up fully and readying herself.
Now that the adrenaline was flowing, Kyra could actually effectively resist the poison. Obviously, if the flow stopped, she'd probably drop like a rock, but for now, she had to keep the momentum up. It was a race against time, and she was certainly on the backfoot.
Sawei awoke to the feeling of bacta on her skin, along with a mask over her mouth. Through the thick liquid, she could make out figures moving around. One of them looked to her and moved to the tank's console, and the liquid went downwards into the tank's drain for cleaning and reuse. The mask popped off, and the tank opened, while the two medics in the tent helped her out of the tank. "How long was I out?" Sawei questioned as she dried herself off with a nearby towel, before slipping into her robes.
"About two days." one of the medics answered as he handed over her gear, which she took.
"...And what of Kyra?" Sawei asked further. Then, the medics shared an unsure look.
"Hinj, our commanding officer, had her sent out to do artillery spotting." the other medic piped up, and Sawei took a minute to process what she just heard. The fact that Kyra apparently knowingly agreed to the order in spite of the very obvious danger posed by the Hand immediately infuriated her. "...We also haven't heard from her after she called in the artillery strikes, but the Rakatan comm networks have apparently been going crazy the past few hours, so..."
Showing no outward emotion, Sawei calmly collected the rest of her stuff, and after making sure everything was in order, looked the second medic square in the eyes. "Thank you for the information. If you'd rather not hear me proverbially tear out your commanding officer's throat, I think now would be an excellent time for a smoke." she ominously warned, before marching out of the tent. The two medics quickly followed behind her, before disappearing into the camp to do as was suggested.
Hinj's tent wasn't exactly hard to find, considering it was the only one with any significant number of communications equipment attached to it. Sawei went up to it and pulled the flap aside, letting herself in. Hinj immediately turned his attention to her and saluted. "Master Klorr, it's good to see you-" he said as Sawei approached him menacingly, and it wasn't until the full force slap hit that Hinj realized she was not in a good mood.
"Is there something wrong with your brain, Hinj?" Sawei accused, a scowl making its mark upon her face. Hinj gave her a confused, sideways glance as he nursed the cheek he had been slapped on. "You send our most valuable asset, the entire reason we're even fighting this war in the first place, behind enemy lines, unsupported, to perform artillery spotting?!" she began to rant, her temper flaring out of control. "And then on top of all that, you lose contact with her!?"
"...Well, my spotters were killed, and she seemed fit for the job-" he tried to excuse.
Sawei backhanded him immediately. "What do you think droids are for?!" she shouted, furious. "You basically handed the main Rakatan objective over to them because you were too incompetent to use a probe droid to spot for you!" she continued, resisting the urge to smack him again. "I'll be able to track her down, and I'm taking one of your speeders to do it, so if you're lucky, you'll only lose your rank when I report this blunder to Blackwall." she threatened, her tone venomous, before Sawei stormed out of the tent and headed to the hoverpool to grab a BARC. Quite a few of the soldiers and droids who were near the command tent had heard Sawei tearing into Hinj, and while most were snickering at the beatdown she had just given him, a few were disturbed by the fact that they may have just lost the war because Hinj didn't bother using a droid.
Sawei quickly found the hoverpool, and the droid stationed outside let her in. "Who the frak-" the mechanic slurred slightly from underneath an MPLV that was undergoing repairs, before pulling herself out and flipping her welder mask up to see Sawei looking down at her. Then, her eyes drifted to the lightsabers at Sawei's belt, and the mechanic connected the dots. "...Oh, you're that Jedi. The ones the Clones've been harping on about for years, uh… Klorr, right?" she asked, and a nod satisfied the mechanic. "Name's Imi. You need something, or…?" Imi trailed.
"I need one of your BARCS. Urgently."
Imi gave an annoyed shrug. "You've got the last one, then. That white haired girl took one of the others, and the rest have been out on patrol and harassment duty. It's three vehicles behind me, on the rack." Imi said, before getting a slight look in her eye. "Real quick, can you hand me that lubricant gun behind you?" she requested, and Sawei turned her head to see what she was talking about. Reaching out with the Force, Sawei grabbed the tool and floated it over to Imi's open hand. "Wiz." she said under her breath, before laying back and rolling under the MPLV to resume her work.
Sawei moved three vehicles down the row, passing another MPLV, a Saber tank, and a folded AT-RT, to find the storage rack where the BARCs would go. Like Imi had said, it was completely empty save for one. Walking up and grabbing the handlebars, Sawei activated the repulsors and pulled the speeder from its storage slot, before guiding it out of the hoverpool. She then mounted the bike, activated the engines, and sped off out of the camp at full speed, having a very general idea of where Kyra was. Of course, there were probably about a thousand Rakata between the two of them, along with who knows how many members of the Hand, but that wasn't exactly her concern considering she wasn't going to fight all of them.
Hinj, who had been outside the hoverpool waiting for her to leave, signaled for one of his subordinates to come to him. "Send a probe droid after her. Losing one Jedi is bad enough – I'm not losing a second."
The subordinate saluted. "Yessir." he responded, before heading to the droid storage to grab a probe droid for the task.
Strike, strike, defend.
Strike, strike, strike, weapon lock.
Kyra had fallen into something resembling a rhythm in her fight against Vu'Shol. Given Vu'Shol's so far unpredictable nature, this was not a good sign. A rhythm could be recognized and exploited, but Kyra ultimately had little choice. Any break in flow to think and formulate a new strategy, even for a moment, could mean a stop in the adrenaline and the poison dropping her to the ground, and that would be that.
Kyra took another strike, and Vu'Shol crossed his back arms in front of himself to defend. Surprisingly, the lightsaber caught on his own skin, rather than any armor plating, and sparked incessantly without properly cutting through. Vu'Shol's grin only grew. "The clock is ticking, Dreamer..." he taunted.
Taken aback by the fact that Vu'Shol basically ignored her lightsaber, Kyra picked up the pace of her blows, trying to outmatch him in speed. Vu'Shol, with his ace revealed, saw no need to dodge anymore, and used all of his arms to block, creating a whirlwind as he blunted every single strike with little effort. To an outside observer, the engagement would have appeared to be so fast that they physically would not be able to keep up with the fight. To Kyra and Vu'Shol, however, every strike and every block was seen as clear as day, and they were both keeping up with each other, which was especially surprising considering Kyra's situation.
Then, suddenly, a blast from the Force hit Vu'Shol, and he stumbled backwards, momentarily unshielding his body, before being back into his ready stance in the blink of an eye, only to see Kyra had ceased her assault, and in fact, had jumped several meters backwards. Initially, Vu'Shol was confused – she had seemed so intent on continuing her attack, why did she stop now?
And then, he saw her pull out a vial, unscrew the cap, lift her helmet slightly, and down the contents, before looking him square in the eye. Then, he blinked, and she was gone, leaving only grass swaying in the wind where she once stood. "Clever girl." he remarked, before using the Force to pinpoint her location and give chase.
Kyra didn't get very far before Vu'Shol caught up to her, but now with the antidote administered and Kyra on to his tricks, it was a much more even fight. Readying his crossbow to re-poison her, he lined up the shot and pulled the trigger, only for the bolt to immediately be forced into the dirt and be left behind. There was no doubt that Kyra was watching his every movement, even with her back turned to him and the both of them running at speeds that would put landspeeders to shame. Vu'Shol, understanding that his crossbow trick wouldn't work twice, attempted to holster it, only for it to be ripped from his hands and thrown into the foliage. Vu'Shol then drew his swords, flicking them forwards to draw the blades out from the hilt and locking them into place.
Vu'Shol picked up the pace, and was very clearly slowly gaining ground over Kyra, but every time he would prepare to cripple her at close range, she would do something to throw him completely off, and he would have to reconsider his approach. Usually, this came in the form of a large amount of heavy stones being thrown back towards him as a delaying tactic, though larger objects, typically tree stumps or full on boulders gradually grew more common. "You can't run forever, Dreamer!" he shouted, before sensing large groups of incoming friendlies, most of them mounted up on a vehicle. "...Especially not with what's about to come down on top of you." Vu'Shol muttered.
The chase continued, and sure enough, the friendlies showed up on an intercept course for Kyra. The time they had to engage was merely a fraction of a second due to the speed they were running at, and most missed the chance anyways. A few did actually get shots off from their speederbikes, but still missed. The groups then went back into the jungle and circled around for another pass. Kyra, having been aware of their presence since they began their approach, readied her lightsaber to cut into the speeders whenever they got close. Coming in waves, those that would get close to her ended up moving away in multiple flaming pieces, usually into a tree. Those who tried to keep their distance, meanwhile, had their bolts deflected back at them provided Kyra wasn't preoccupied with those getting near.
The officer in charge of the reinforcements likely realized this wasn't going to work at its current rate, before calling for further backup over the vox and ordering his soldiers to keep pace with Vu'Shol. "We've mobilized just about everything in the region, so she won't be able to escape, but do you have any idea where she's running?" he asked, glancing back and forth between Vu'Shol and the path ahead.
"Back to her friends, Captain." Vu'Shol remarked. "She knows she stands no chance against all of us, so she's doing the only thing she can do – run until her lungs burst."
The captain looked at Kyra again, and then back to Vu'Shol. "Is there any way to slow her down, short of intercepting and boxing her in?" he questioned, ducking as she threw something overhead.
"No. She's very… perceptive of incoming attacks, as your men so clearly demonstrated. I can't even poison her again – she just throws the bolts into the dirt the instant they leave my crossbow." Vu'Shol revealed, surprising the Captain considerably.
The Captain then pulled out his vox again. "Attention, all units actively hunting for the Dreamer, lock onto my IFF tracker and set an intercept course. We need to box the Dreamer in and cut off her escape. Those found not in compliance with this order will be shot." he hissed, underlying the threat to get as many of them out here as he could.
The chase continued, with the remaining speeders falling in behind Vu'Shol and the Captain. Meanwhile, the Captain, who was remaining vigilant for any change in Kyra's tactics, kept an eye on his speeder's built-in tracker system, watching as additional manpower approached their signal. The ones closest were, naturally, other speeders, which would replace the ones lost in the fatal attack on Kyra. Behind those were several platoons of Ralends loaded with infantry, supported by Radle fighting vehicles, and behind those were Dolifa tanks – heavily armored multi-turreted monsters that could clear an entrenched position on their own. There were even a few fast-movers being scrambled to assist, mostly Foran gunships and Hylto fighters. With the numbers pouring in, the Dreamer's capture was all but assured.
Eventually, the thick jungle gave way to a wide open clearing, and Kyra was given the opportunity to visually confirm just how many Rakata were bearing down on her. In terms of vehicles alone, it was approaching the hundreds, and the aircraft constantly flying overhead didn't exactly help matters. By the time she realized there was no way out, and that every single gun was trained on her, she had been boxed in, with the speeders circling around her like a shark, forcing the pursuit to a dead stop.
Vu'Shol, meanwhile, calmly approached Kyra from behind. "It seems that our game has come to an end, Dreamer." he noted, holding back his satisfaction from the well-executed maneuver. "You have two choices – either you lay down your arms and surrender, or all that remains of you will be a bloody mist." he threatened, his grin growing. "It's your choice."
Kyra remained silent, watching the vehicles keep their turrets trained on her, and casting glances at the aircraft banking overhead. Considering the situation, she was remarkably calm. Then, she sensed someone approaching in the distance – someone familiar. Being made aware of the imminent turn of events emboldened Kyra, and she turned around, looking Vu'Shol square in the eye. "No." she said with utter confidence.
To say Vu'Shol was taken aback by her defiance would be an understatement. "...You have two divisions worth of weaponry pointed directly at your head, plus an entire wing of aircraft circling over our heads, Dreamer. It would be wise to reconsider." Vu'Shol pointed out, before motioning for a few of the overexcited soldiers to calm down.
"I don't care." Kyra replied nonchalantly, further flabbergasting Vu'Shol. "'Oh, if you don't comply we're going to shoot you!'" Kyra mocked, deepening her voice to further agitate Vu'Shol. "Piss off. You and I both know I'm going to die either way, it's just a matter of whether or not you want to upset Dantinian when you have to report that you killed the essential part of his plan to restore your Empire."
Vu'Shol gritted his teeth. She was calling his bluff, and just about everyone there who could hear and understand her was aware of that. What was he to do, just stare at her impotently and let men get killed while she ran free? He had to do something.
"So be it." Vu'Shol growled, and he raised his original left hand into the air, signaling the vehicle crews to prepare to fire. The Captain, who was hovering close by, gave him a worried look, and with his mutated left hand, Vu'Shol signed for him to stay quiet and let him do his work. Then, the signal to prepare to fire turned into a fist, before Vu'Shol yanked it downwards.
The sound of tank guns and autocannons firing drowned out all else, and where Kyra once stood there was nothing but smoke as rounds ripped through the air and hit the dirt around where she once stood. The Captain seemed like he was about to have a stroke, and after several seconds of continuous fire, Vu'Shol gave the order to hold fire. When the guns fell silent, Vu'Shol brushed the dust and debris away to reveal… nothing. No critically injured Dreamer, no body, not even as much as a blood splatter. Nothing.
Which could only mean-
"I'm surprised you actually gave the order!" Kyra yelled from behind, and Vu'Shol turned to see not only Kyra standing on top of a Dolifa, but another hostile was with her. A brief look with the Force revealed that this second hostile was rather powerful – about on the same level as his quarry.
Sawei cast a scowl to her Padawan. "How in the name of the Force did you get conned into doing artillery spotting of all things?" she questioned, clearly intent on tearing into Kyra when she could.
As Kyra moved to respond, the turrets began to adjust as the commanders ordered the gunners to aim at the pair. "Can we talk about this later?" Kyra requested, getting antsy. "If you haven't noticed, we're still surrounded." she pointed out, before cutting off the barrel of the tank she was standing on, and it hit the driver's hatch with a heavy thunk.
Sawei narrowed her gaze at her Padawan, before activating her lightsabers and running down one side of the encirclement, cutting the barrels off tanks and fighting vehicles alike to disable them, occasionally driving one saber into the driver hatch or the commander sights, netting a quick kill on that unfortunate crew member.
Kyra quickly proceeded to do the same, and they each started moving in a half-circle, turning every vehicle they came across into a useless hunk of scrap. Vu'Shol, to his credit, was quick to respond, and he signaled for the regulars to go for Sawei, while he handled Kyra. Jumping atop the closest Dolifa, he entered pursuit across the damaged hulls, heading straight for her, fangs bared and ready to kill.
She seemed slower now – much slower. She must have burned herself out with how fast she had been running before the encirclement, making herself easy prey. "I told you, running would only prolong the inevitable!" he shouted, practically behind her by this point. Kyra wasn't paying attention, and Vu'Shol lunged for her legs to hamstring her.
Only, the blades never connected, and Kyra was no longer in front of him. She had faked being slower to bait him, a fact only realized when Vu'Shol felt Kyra's beskar-tipped boot kick him in the back of the head with the force of a cargo speeder. She had timed and positioned her kick just right so that Vu'Shol would fall face first onto the step for the tank crew, smashing his head into it enough to at least cause several fractures, knock out his teeth, and maybe even kill him outright.
Kyra stood above Vu'Shol for a moment, waiting to see if he was going to get back up or not. Unfortunately for her, he was still drawing breath, but it seemed like he was out of the fight for now. "Really?" Kyra said, unimpressed with the display. "All that bluster – that entire show you put on, and you go down to a kick?" she continued, before shaking her head in disappointment.
With the primary threat down and out, Kyra resumed her task of disabling the armored vehicles. Sawei had actually finished her half, and she was now running over onto Kyra's half of the encirclement, making sure to keep the infantry down and prevent suppression. By this point, the few vehicles that still had an entire crew that could actually operate under pressure had begun to move, and rotated their turrets to target the two Jedi, firing the coaxial autoslugs at them and forcing them to seek cover behind the engine deck of two separate Dolifas that had been disabled. "That's great! Real fantastic!" Kyra hissed as slugs sparked and ricocheted off the vehicle's armor plating. "You got any idea how to take those things out without getting shot to bits?"
Sawei momentarily poked her head out the side of her Dolifa, before quickly ducking back in right before a slug hit where her face was just a moment ago. Then, she looked up at the Hyltos and Forans flying overhead, and quickly formed a plan. "Yeah, I've got something alright!" Sawei shouted back, before using the Force to throw back a grenade one of the riflemen had chucked at her. Sawei then raised her hand towards one Foran, focused with the Force, and made a kind of dismissive gesture with her hand, muttering something under her breath, before doing it to another Foran, and another, and another, until she had done this to all of the gunships. For a moment, they simply hovered in place, before ceasing their engagement with the Jedi, and instead turning their considerable armament on their former allies. Rocket salvos were unloaded onto groups of infantry, causing mass chaos instantaneously, while air to ground missiles were fired at Dolifas, Ralends, and Radles indiscriminately, regardless of whether they had already been disabled or not. The few Hyltos in the airspace quickly caught on to what was going on, and lined up for strafing runs to take down the Forans. Despite the impressive lightshow offered by the rotating laser pylons on the Hylto, they failed to take down most of the Forans, the survivors of whom promptly returned in kind with missile fire, shooting down all of the Hyltos, scattering the field with pylons and other debris. The Forans then resumed their assault on the ground forces, who were now returning fire, with their small arms simply being ignored by the armored underbelly of the Foran. Though, a few members of the infantry had picked up anti-vehicle launchers, mostly dumb-fire rockets, but there were a few MANPADS as well, and began firing them at the gunships, bringing quite a few of them down, but by this point most of the infantry was already dead, dying, or fleeing. With most of their targets gone, the Forans turned on each other, firing their remaining arsenals into each other, or just outright ramming each other and exploding midair, crashing down to the ground in fiery balls of metal.
When the last of the Forans crashed due to engine failure, Kyra and Sawei came out from their hiding places, watching the aftermath of the destruction like one would a twenty-speeder pileup on a Coruscant skyway. For Kyra, it surpassed even the destruction the artillery barrages had inflicted, simply due to how close she was to the damage. "...What did you…?" Kyra trailed, looking over to the Twi'lek.
"Jedi Mind Trick. I convinced the pilots and gunners that Dantinian had ordered them to kill everybody else and bring us to him." Sawei answered bluntly, before looking around. "Now, we just need to-" she started, before being interrupted by Vu'Shol, clawing his way out of the wreckage. The Jedi readied their lightsabers as Vu'Shol took a moment to survey the damage, before locating the pair. His expression turned to one of intense hatred, and he leapt forward towards the two.
"Careful, I can't cut his limbs with my lightsaber!" Kyra called out as Vu'Shol focused on her, leaving his rear exposed to Sawei, who took advantage of the opening. Despite his secondary set of limbs being unarmed, Vu'Shol still raised both of them to defend against lightsaber strikes, proving that yes, he was theoretically invulnerable to their weapons, as both of Sawei's sabers hit and sparked, but didn't cut through. However, that didn't discourage Sawei – quite the opposite, in fact. It challenged her to think beyond just utilizing the lightsaber forms in actual combat, and to her, something about that was invigorating. Kyra had basically his full attention, so Sawei was free to pry at his defenses. Focusing on the arm attached to his right shoulder, she struck it with one saber. Naturally, the arm blocked the attack, while the other waited patiently for a follow-up strike that would never come. Sawei, still focusing on the one arm, moved to strike at the joint, however, mid-swing, Vu'Shol suddenly jerked around, kicking Kyra away to bear down on Sawei with his weapons. Ducking underneath the blades, Sawei popped back up to take advantage of her opening, and she brought both of her sabers down onto Vu'Shol's elbow joint, and he was unable to correct his momentum in time. When the blades connected, they had much more give than when they hit his actual arm, and she increased the downward force. Little by little, her lightsabers began to cut through his flesh, locking Vu'Shol down into where he stood. "Hit the joints!" Sawei called out, and Kyra jumped back in right as Sawei removed Vu'Shol's natural left arm.
To his credit, Vu'Shol didn't immediately crumple when he lost the arm – he simply used his mutated left arm to grab his sword back, only for Sawei to use the momentum gained from the downward blow to angle her lightsabers upwards, catching the other arm between them, and Sawei cut the joint like she was using a pair of scissors. Kyra, meanwhile, did an overhead swing curving from Vu'Shol's natural right arm, to his artificial one, before pivoting downwards and cutting off his legs at the kneecap, effectively ending him as a threat. Then, Kyra, sensing what was about to happen, dropped her saber, grabbed him mid-fall, and held his mouth open as he desperately tried to crack his suicide pill. In the time it took for Kyra to grab him, she realized that there was no distinct crack of the pill being broken open. By some stroke of luck, the tooth with the suicide pill in it had been knocked out when she kicked him in the back of the head. Vu'Shol eventually came to realize this, and let out a final howl of pain as the shock claimed him.
With the entire encirclement broken, and a brand new high-value prisoner in hand, the Jedi looked at each other. "Kyra, what are you doing?" Sawei inquired, confused with the display.
"The hand use suicide pills to evade capture." she stated bluntly. "I fought another one earlier, and he popped one of these before I could interrogate him." Kyra explained, before flicking the tooth away. "I was going to rip out his teeth so he couldn't pop his, but it seems like he lost it when I kicked him into a tank."
Sawei was about to respond, when suddenly her eyes went wide. "We've got incoming." she called out, looking in the direction of the Rakatan bases. "Fast movers, loaded to the brim with infantry." she continued to note, before starting to try and get out of the encirclement. "Come on!"
The rumbling of the aircraft was fast approaching, and by the time Kyra and Sawei got away from the tanks with Vu'Shol, they were right on top of them. Ten – fifteen – twenty transports were circling them, and the side doors opened to reveal the armed and angry squads within, ready to open fire on the Jedi. Then, something else cut through the rumbling – some sort of obnoxiously loud, fast paced and high energy xantha music being blasted at full volume. The infantry, or at least, those who could hear the music over the roar of their transports, were somewhat confused. The officers, probably commissars, naturally attempted to restore their focus on the task at hand, but unfortunately for them, the confusion grew as the source of the music grew closer, and cohesion fell apart. A few of the pilots spotted the source, and tried to break off, but for them, it was too late.
Kyra and Sawei couldn't see what was coming in, but they heard what was definitely missiles being ripple fired. A scant few seconds later, they made impact with the transports, lighting up the area with bright orange explosions, followed by a few instances of blue and purple secondaries as several transports detonated. Others had their pilots lose control, entering into a flatspin before colliding with the ground. Not all of the transports had been hit, however, and those that survived expedited their attempts to get away, only to get shot down with bursts of cannon fire. Two pairs of Thundercats flew overhead at nearly the speed of sound, the noise of their afterburners momentarily drowning out the music. Kyra and Sawei were vigilant about debris falling on top of their heads, and made great effort to guide anything that fell too close away. When the transports and bodies stopped falling out of the sky, their mysterious savior made himself known - a LAAT came in to land at high speed, doing a 180-degree turn right as it got into the clearing. Inside was Hinj, with a full complement of B1As ready to shoot at anything else that moved. "Get in!" he yelled towards them.
They didn't need to be told twice.
Kyra and Sawei booked it to the LAAT with Vu'Shol being dragged along, and the moment they jumped in, the side door slammed shut, and they nearly fell over from the force of it taking off so suddenly. Sawei, being the less exhausted of the two, helped Kyra stay standing. Then, she looked at Hinj. "...Perhaps my report to Blackwall will not be as… negative as I had anticipated." she said, seemingly taking quite a lot of stress off of Hinj.
Kyra raised an eyebrow. "What happened to your assault?" she questioned, momentarily losing her balance, before quickly correcting herself
Hinj simply shrugged in response. "I'm not in charge of it, that's the guy running Camp Falk's job. Didn't stop me from dragging some friends along to correct a mistake." he noted, gesturing to the droids. Hinj then looked to Vu'Shol. "Who's the Rakk?"
"Our new best friend." Kyra said ominously. "He's a member of the Hand, and is practically a goldmine of information for us on their operations." she continued. "Managed to knock his suicide pill out of his mouth, so he's stuck with us." she said, before starting to wobble where she was standing. "Woah, I don't feel so..." she muttered, trying to first lean on a B1A for support, and then on the interior walls of the LAAT, before slumping to the floor, slipping in and out of consciousness. Sawei immediately went to her side to attend to her, along with two B1Ds, who immediately began administering whatever medical attention they could.
Hinj, meanwhile, immediately got on comms to the pilot and co-pilot. "Double time it back to the Dropstorm! Now!" he shouted, and the LAAT picked up speed, soaring even faster towards friendly lines. Hinj then pressed a different button on his commlink to switch frequencies. "Melsh flight, continue providing CAP. Splash any Rakk that gets too close to us!" he continued, before shutting it off and looking to the small crowd around Kyra, worried that she may not make it even after this laserbrained rescue operation.
Lexi, Venta, and the others had made the trek to the safehouse in the wilds by nightfall, where they were supposed to meet up with the rest of the partisans who were still in Noridar. Only, instead of the area being abandoned save for the partisans and any animals, it was currently being scoured by Dantinian's soldiers, the size and number of glowrods indicating that a full company was currently there, searching for even the slightest sign of their presence. "Shak..." Venta hissed quietly, looking through her macrobinoculars at the predicament. "Why are they out here? We had no leaks, no snitches. We were airtight." she wondered aloud.
"They're on high alert. Remember, we did kinda kick the hornet's nest with that drone." Lexi pointed out. "They're probably giving anything they find a lot more scrutiny then they normally do, and, well, then you get things like this." she postulated, disappointed that the trip had, basically, been for nothing.
Venta gave off a sigh of frustration. "If they found this one, then we have to assume all our other safehouses are compromised now." she went on, mentally crossing out all of the known safehouses they had set up outside of Noridar. "It looks like they just got here, so I don't think we were followed from the last one..."
Lexi cracked her fingers in anticipation. "I hope you planned for something like this happening, Venta." she remarked, looking to the Rakata.
"Can't lead a resistance if you're not five steps ahead on every possible outcome." she commented, putting the macros down. "Our backup plan is to join with another cell and go from there. From what I can recall, the one that is closest to where we are now is the..." she trailed, tapping her finger against a rock as she thought. "...the Tetrarch's cell. Which is, uh, going to be harder than it sounds."
"Why's that?"
"Bad blood. They aren't too keen on our group, but hopefully they'll be willing to listen to reason, or at least, let us regroup with the others." Venta answered, before getting up. "If we start moving now, we'll make it there by midday. Come on."
Just want to point out, the high speed LAAT landing was inspired by me having played Metal Gear Solid 5 again and finally finishing my save. For those unaware, when you upgrade the helicopter to its maximum possible speed, Pequod goes STUPID fast when you call him in, and I changed the loudspeaker on him to play 'The Front Line' from Air Combat, and it was really cool to just have him around since softshred is a fucking awesome genre, so I figured I'd have Hinj roll up like Pequod was doing for me, down to the same music.
Also, I'm looking to commission artists for a variety of things related to Pulsar Company when my financial situation is less horrific (protip: never work for Dollar General, fucking horrible company), so if anyone knows any artists that take commission, feel free to give me their twitter handle so I can add them to my list.
Until next time.
-Tweak