STAR WARS

THE CRIMSON BLIGHT

Episode 5: A Mind from the Unknown

DROMUND KAAS: The Office of Law and Order

"Tell me. Who was this procurer of jedi, and how did you escape." Imperious politely asked the three bounty hunters.

The three bounty hunters had already been interrogated once before and sentenced to prison, but Imperious wanted to hear their testimonies personally, before they were sent to the nearest penal labor camp, to spend the remainder of their lives in shock collars, performing slave labor in the pestilent jungles of Dromund Kaas.

It was Okan who spoke for them all. "A tall, dark, cloaked figure, no more was visible in the dimly lit room. I presumed he was a Darth, or some other kind of a sith lord." He took a deep breath before continuing. "Both Zugi and I have chips implanted in our heads, which emits shock waves if we are attempted mind-controlled or otherwise. That's what saved us, even though they malfunctioned in the process, brought on by overheating. An overwhelming migraine is a small price to pay, compared to what befell the others."

Imperious listened carefully. "Yes… I was told that the some of your comrades were lost to this being's mind-control abilities, before you even arrived to deliver, this jedi master of yours?"

Now it was Zugi's turn to speak. "Yes, not everyone cared to protect themselves. They paid the price and became slaves to that psycho."

"I can arrange for your damaged chips to be replaced and make your criminal records... go away. That is, if you in turn, would work exclusively for me." Imperious politely presented them the unrefusable offer.

"We gladly accept." Okan was quick to accept on everyone's behalf. The thought of becoming slave labor in one of the numerous imperial labor camps, where all rights were stript from you, along with your dignity, and torture was commonplace, was terrifying.

He quickly gazed to his comrade and found her nodding, accepting the offer completely. On Okan's other side, Zac nodded frantically, despite having been ignored since he entered the room, no one caring to look his way.

"Very good, you are dismissed." Imperious smiled thinly, pleased with their compliance, and gesturing for them to leave.

Only Okan showed the curtsy to bow before exiting, with the rest in tow.

As the doors slidt shot Imperious returned his attention to the holographicly projected data in front of him, and without much thought, pushed a button and spoke absentmindedly into the microphone. "Lord Deedrah, have the Twi'lek transferred to a penal camp, and once you're done, I would see you in my office." And released the button.

A little later, Deedrah entered the office. "You wanted to see me, my lord?"

"Yes. I assume you have already integrated our new bounty hunter assets into our portfolio." Imperious repiled.

"Yes I have. I've also read the syndicate's file on this 'Jedi procurer' out of known space - so far I've yet find any trace of this beings origins." Deedrah informed in a very formal and polite tone.

"I don't believe this being can be located in our archives, nor through imperial intelligence... A more direct approach is needed here." Imperious concluded in a thoughtful, but determined tone.

"Do we sent Lord Briza and her team? They are ready to depart at a moments notice." Deedrah asked slightly puzzled, as they were the only ones that weren't occupied at them moment.

"No." Imperious spoke in a deep voice. "Enough of my subordinates have been killed, and these particular operatives are questionable as of now. I will handle this matter personally."

Deedrah was a bit surprised, her superior's decision to take on the investigation in person. She did however see the value in sending the strongest willed to deal with an enemy, specializing in assaulting the mind. "As you wish my lord. I'll order your ship to be prepared for launch immediately, and inform your imperial guard and your apprentice to await you outside your ship."

"Very good. I'll leave Kaas City in your hands for the time being." Imperious informed, and rose from his chair, left his office to enter the elevator, heading toward the hangar.


Briza's Skyscraper: Training room.

The sound of blades clashing and colliding in a storm of slashes and parries. The Xastra siblings were playing a game of battle-royal, in which everyone were against each other, as well as constantly swishing opponent.

While Briza and Mathorn were somewhat comparable in a straight up fight, Briza won out with her dual wielding skills and superior force abilities. Tikala on the other hand had her speed advantage, as well as a far more advanced mastery of the force, which made her the dominant player.

This was taking place all the while Terrow and a dozen battle droids, at random, were shooting stun bolts at them from every angle in the training hall, all to make everything as chaotic as possible, simulating a war zone battle scenario.

Briza used her dual blades to deflect stun bolts with one blade, while using the other in melee. It was a daunting task, as even with the force to spot danger at any angle, she still had to direct much attention to the laser fire, for her to maximize her combat skills in the more aggressive fighting style as Juyo.

Mathorn focused solely on the melee department and had as a result been shut several times already, as force enhanced multitasking was clearly still one of his weak points. He was far better with Djem-so, the more blade focused style, than Shien, the more deflection focused style.

Tikala was fast enough to both dodge the barrage of stun bolts, as well as block or redirect any slashes coming her way, by utilizing the all-in-one fighting style of niman. Before the battle training began, Tikala had glued two sith training sabers together, which, while not even remotely as elegant as her own twin bladed weapon, was funktional enough for training purposes. Even though she still was slightly weakened from coping with the planets massive darkside interference, she was still more than a match for her siblings.

The stun bolts were making Mathorn numb and he had increasingly difficulty to moving properly, while Briza was getting worn down, after having her left arm hit... she began waging her options. She noticed Mathorn glancing at her, like he wanted suggest something, she smiled sinisterly and nodded in return.

The two older siblings suddenly turned and focused all their attacks against the younger, smaller sibling, with hammering overhead strikes.

This caught Tikala off guard, as she now had to fight two, fast, as well as heavy fighters all at once. She had to give ground as the incoming slashes quickly were becoming too hard for her defensive skills to keep up pace with. She delved deeper into the force, until she could sync her movements with her siblings, whereafter she knew all their actions in advance.

In just a moment the fight went from the elder siblings having the advantage, pushing Tikala to the limit, to them fighting something that could out fence them both at the same time with precision and ease. Briza unleashed the fury of her Jar'Kai combing with her Juyo fencing skills, stabbing and slashing with milliseconds in between each session, as Mathorn made use of his acrobatic Ataru, combining jumping, kicking and slashing... all to no avail. The assault proved costly, as they were hit by stun bolt after stun bolt, while risking it all on taking down the little girl. Tikala continued to guard herself from all sides and even counter, as she used the force to alter their the saber swings to collide with each other, bruising themselves on each others weapons.

Mathorn and Briza began to improve they cooperation, by making sure one of them always were deflecting the incoming stun bolts, while the other kept up attacking Tikala uninterrupted. This unfortunately also meant that Tikala had less to fight at once, which in turn meant that she had the opportunity to go on the offensive, which she took. First she marked Briza's right arm with a lighting quick jab, next she marked Mathorn on the shoulder. Tikala did her best only to mark her opponents carefully, as the sith training blades still hurt significantly upon impact with skin.

Realizing they needed a new plan, Briza and Mathorn began to implement force pushes as well as pulls in their attack secessions, to thrown Tikala off balance. However, the slight delay in their force combinations/coordination, gave Tikala more than enough time to summon force of her own. She throw them back across the training chamber, with Briza smashing into one of the many pillars. Briza barely had time to cushion the impact with her own force power.

Tikala was about to call to them if they had been hurt, but she sensed both her siblings had used the force to cushion the impact, and had only received minor superficial injuries.

As Briza got back up, she mutter to herself. "This training battle is getting all too familiar." As it mirrored the battle on the space station, only three standard circles ago, with a frustratingly fast enemy, like a blur in the wind. This reminded her of what Tikala had said earlier, that she could feel all of Briza's moments as if they were her own, which got Briza thinking. "Worth a shoot." Briza thought to herself as she reached out with the force, scanning first herself then Mathorn, and lastly Tikala. And indeed it was as if Tikala had absorbed small traces of the force from Briza herself and Mathorn, and used them.

"Mathorn! Keep attacking on your own! I have an idea." Briza ordered and halted her own attack.

Mathorn returned a quick confused look, but did what he was told nonetheless. "If you say so sis." He replied and attacked head on against his much nimbler and much faster little sister, like he had no accuracy whatsoever. He did however succeed in keeping Tikala momentarily distracted, so she couldn't disrupt Briza's concentration.

Briza reached out with the force, focusing intently on those threads that bound them together with the intent of breaking them, but what happened instead was that, the more she focused on them, the more power she accidentally feed them, thereby making them that much stronger. Recognizing the futility of this approach she changed her tactic to only use the darkside, to observe if it's destructive nature were able to corrupted or damage the strange threads.

She unleashed a surge of darkside energy, only to receive a sudden jolt herself, resulting in her losing her concentration and nearly losing her balance as well. Looking up, she noticed Mathorn and Tikala had stopped fencing and was looking at her in surprise and confusion. Terrow and all the droids had also stopped firing. "What was that pain?!" Terrow called in a weakened tone.

Briza suddenly realized that she had sent a darkside shock wave through the threads, thereby hurting all her siblings, as well as herself. "I'm sorry. It was not my intention of bringing you all pain." She apologized, looking mostly over at Terrow.

"What did you do?" Tikala asked with a puzzled expression. "I felt the darkside surge into me, as if it was there for me to use, without directly being a part of me."

"I was trying to disrupted your connection to us, to give us the advantage." Briza tried to explain. "But I see, I don't really understand how it works yet."

"I'll live. For a second there, I remembered my elder sis is an evil sith lord." Mathorn joked as he regained his balance.

"You don't want to see me when I am evil." Briza muttered sarcastically in return.

"Should I hold back next time, just to make it more fair?" Tikala asked, as it apparently seemed to be an issue.

"Seriously! You are normally such a sweet little sister, but you fight like raging krayt dragon." Mathorn commented with a few bruises to show for.

Tikala bowed her head in apology. "I'm sorry, if I was a bit hard on you."

"Please don't apologize for giving a realistic showcasing of your abilities. If anything, I'm glad that you showed us how capable you are, without losing control." Briza complemented, the few siths lord she knew with comparable power and skill, would have lost control over their darkside energy by this point, going into frenzy, killing friend and foe alike.

"But that begs the question, how do we use your talent in a fight, without revealing you." Terrow pondered as he reloaded his rifle.

"I'm sorry to disturb your training mistress, but you have a call from mistress Donira Wirano." One of the service droids interrupted over the speakers in the room.

"I'll be back in a moment." Briza announced and left the training room with hast.

"Let's take a break until she gets back." Tikala suggested openly, as two trained fighters against her at once was taxing on her energy.

"Sure, let's have a breather." Mathorn muttered and sat down with his back against one of the many pillars.

Briza returned a little later. "I've just spoken to our mother. She is coming over within the hour." Briza informed, looking mostly at Terrow.

It had been several years, since he had seen his mother. She still looked at him as a failure, as if he could not live up to his sister's prowess, but she had after all helped him by creating a new identity for him, so he still could be of service to the empire. Obviously he had mixed feelings about seeing his mother again, but at least this time he could say he was helping Briza and their family to greater heights than ever before.

Tikala knew her roll in their family matters, "I'll keep out of sight, and in the meantime I'll teach the twi'leks some history." She added the last part mostly because reading history was one of her favored pass times.

Briza nodded in agreement. "That's still the safest, just to be sure... and do me favor and teach them basic." She added as a personal favor to her.

"We asked one of the Twi'leks to teach them earlier, since he spoke it fluently and Terrow even programmed one of the droids to help with exact translations." Tikala reported happily.

Briza smiled at hearing the wonderful news, "Excellent, inform me when I can finally ban huttess altogether from my home."

"Many of them have known no other language their whole life, don't be so harsh on them," Tikala spoke softly, trying to make her sister understand their situation.

"If they are not slaves, they shouldn't sound like they are." Briza counter argued, turned around and walked to the turbo lift, to get herself ready.

"I'll clean up this mess. You can go up and get ready." Tikala told them, while she used the force to gather all equipment and went to work.

"Well I guess that was the training for today," Mathorn muttered, and handed his blade to his little sister, whereafter he looked over at Terrow who too was disarming himself. "Kinda curious to see what this mother of yours looks like." Mathorn smiled at him.

"You properly are." Terrow responded coldly as they entered the turbo lift together. "I can tell you however, that she is an Imperial agent like I am, so she may already know about our current situation." He informed.

"Ah, so she infiltrated the republic's ranks and made out with dad." Mathorn fired out for the fun of it.

Terrow shook his head. "Sometimes I wonder how you, a jedi, can have this kind of thought process."

"So does the council." Mathorn grinned as the turbo lift reached its destination.