The Clouds Align For Battle

Chapter 24: The Art of the Shield

I own not those situations I borrow from Disney Properties, Lucas, Mechalich or Thomas Benjamin DeMayo. This is a dramatization from my mind on a character created from the meld of table gaming and so on. Special thanks to ideas Drew Karpyshyn and Tim Lebbon fermented. Special thanks to Morihei Ushiba who formed Petre with his wisdom. Like any mind construct this is an exercise and my own work building on other ideas from the past.

This is a Zeison Sha story, set in what is known as the Star Wars EU.

Jannma liked to hunt, always had, always will. Her senses were just attuned for it. Ni'ko's nannay's little game had revealed about where they should be. Now it was time for the stalk. She motioned with her eyes to the triple canopy. Higher ground was a hunting and battle staple as the swirl of her asawa ko had turned into a slower, unconcentrated world wide span.

"He is ok you know." Ni'ko signed to her.

"But of course!" she signed back "With Jahn though expect the unexpected."

"You have not one clue just what he will do, do you." He signed.

"I am sure it will be a trap. One that plays to his strengths." She thought for a second "Look for heavy objects, vines and a box canyon to trap himself in." She paused before continuing "He will be his bait." She signed motioning to head on a tangent vector.

Shay and Kae were getting frustrated. The AT AT walkers blowing a path through the forest were immune to their ship's canons. Shay gained altitude to intercept a pair of space jockeys chasing Shandra as she flew to aid the formation. "S Form up with K, truder 2 goin cat." She transmitted before flipping switches to "stall" and fired on the lead pilot chasing Shandra clipping the enemy craft before she fired her "booster 2" to regain atmo air flight control. She slightly rolled watching the pilot spin out of control and pancake into the side of an AT toppling it over, followed by the trees falling on it from the sides before it exploded knocking down more trees, tipping over another in a short chain.

"Seems to be easier to beat them when they turn turtle." Starkey 4 said in the copee seat, in Jahn's tenor before she felt his presence lessen.

"You Son of A Bitch!" she shouted then hit coms "use secondaries to trip or flip em flight, I am on cap!" The queen of the sky gathered her suit of armor as she thought of her ship and wore it with pride as the junior space jocky who was chasing Shandra got caught and steered by her blaster fire to "tip" another AT AT.

Akumi led the Kadiliman, Inquisitors and Kadil Sha into the mists that were forming a creeping fog that was moving their way. She liked the extra cover to stalk her prey as water started to slowly saturate the cloth in her gear. A predator, feline, yeowled in frustration as it lost prey nearby and the insects of the forest were the only other sounds as they searched for their quarry. She felt the watchful eyes of night birds in the trees and glanced upward to barely make out the movement. For many minutes time seemed slowed as they crept forward toward what they could sense was a place they could trap the Sha.

Then overlapping voices surrounded the wet loose formation.

"There is no emotion, there is peace." "Peace is a lie, there is only passion." "I am never defenseless because the Force is my shield" "Emotion, yet calm. Passion, yet mindful." As the opening lines of varying Force traditions were uttered seven times in the round before they silenced. It was in what she could only describe as Jahn's voice.

"I feel I am the hunted and not this Sha warrior." Said one inquisitor "Me too and it is pissing me off." Another said as he fed the dark side on the anger within him.

"Fan out, an attack could come soon." As the darksiders steeled themselves moving deeper into the bowl the mists were fanning out from.

As the fog got deeper the next lines sounded around them "There is no passion there is serenity, there is no chaos there is harmony" "Through Passion I gain strength" "I am never helpless because the Force is my tool" "The armor and weapon of emotion focuses the Force" echoed around them for a minute or two.

"This is getting old." Said one female inquisitor who lit her lightsaber slashing a mouse to feel it die.

"Fool! You will reveal us!" Spat a male across the wooded grove.

Laughter pealed in the Force and in sound around them. Akumi became mindful of the fact the boy had CHOSE this spot a deep wooded bowl with a spring…. Mists WATER…..

"He could not have chosen a better place if he tried. Welcome Water maestro, this is a fitting place for you to die alone."

The Voices returned "There is no Death, there is the Force" "Through victory my chains are broken" "I am never alone because the Force is my Ally" "The Force is real, all else is immaterial"

From the trees Ni'ko and Jannma listened and watched as Jahn's trap formed and his interruptions and eerie parlor tricks concealed the two Sha warriors moving in the trees.

"He is good but where is he?" Ni'ko thought as one inquisitor after another lit lightsabers and one called out "show yourself coward."

I am everywhere and nowhere rang laughing in the Force and a repulsor drone zipped out with a blade exposed from behind a tree as two others fired weapons. The lightsabers swung, deflecting but not perfectly the blasts which seemed to have a kinetic energy, cutting the blade drone down and one scream as an inquisitor lost his arm from a swing from the woman next to him. Rather than be sorry for the accident she finished him off relishing his death and turned to face his seething brother with a snarl.

"This is why you fail" echoed from hidden speakers nearby and the vines near their feet became alive and grasping as the winds became a howling gale.

Jannma's Attack signal was unneeded as Ni'ko swooped down and two figures on the ground leaped out with electrostaves.