Onslaught of the Empire

[Skyeborne]

"I thank you for your trust, and will endeavor to be more worthy of it in the future. Krosis was right about one thing, however. I have chased him almost single-mindedly for the past year, while the rest of the galaxy has been falling apart around me. I have been selfish. I am a Jedi, and my first duty is to the Republic and it's people."

Khyber stepped forward as he spoke, examining the inscriptions along with Caisar.

"Such power would be most useful, if it could be properly harnessed. Though given the chaotic nature of the power's source, it could potentially be equally damaging to user if not channeled properly. Can you find any safeguards the ancients might have used to counter this?"  

[Des Voh]

"We are not only protectors of the peoples of the Republic, Brother Strife, but peacekeepers and protectors for all the people of the Galaxy, whether they see us as it or not. Remember that we are not to be distinctive in our efforts. War has a way of complicating such matters, which is why many of our Order do not involve themselves outside of diplomacy. Though such deliberation is what drove Revan and his followers in the Mandalorian Wars so many centuries ago. We must learn from the Jedi of that time and their reasoning." Caisar replied as he continued to study the pictographs and carvings. He crossed the chamber to another wall and was silent for a few minutes.

"The fury of the Storm is not for Jedi to wield, Brother. It is chaos and passion, things these ones thought they could control, but that is foolhearty to believe. But the weather that makes the Storm... There are old ways devoted to understanding and manipulating that, they attempted to learn from those ways in order to adapt to controlling the storm's wraith." He replied, then pointed up to the pictograph on this wall."Here, look here, it shows this Jedi preventing the storm from harming him, this protection from the lightning as it attempts to strike at him. They were also practicing ways to shield themselves from the destructive energies."

Caisar stepped back and looked around the chamber, to the three other corridors that led into it after Krosis had destroyed his."There must be a records room... Something left. The Archives have nothing on what happened to this conclave, contact was lost eventually, and with few enough visitors as it was, one day someone arrived and no-one was here. Everything was left as it was. No sign of damage. The Order left it still, the council believing there was a reason. No contact with any of its members had ever been noted after. I believe this was sometime around the Hyperspace Wars..."  

[Miss-Pandemica]

They arrived in the Regellia System in no time and all and were able to locate the Cobra within the system station. During the trip Nova sat quietly meditating on her thoughts and keeping a calm demeanor lest her true feelings were sensed by her mistress. It's hard not to feel a little bit anxious when one was going to visit such a Sith Lord like Cinn.

Gathering their things she departed from their shuttle with Lady Nightwind and followed behind her as they were escorted through the ship.  

[Sayla-girl]

"Both hands where I can see them." Qaina demanded, gesturing with her gun. "Now, how many other beings have you killed in cold blood? Guessing by that pile of loot in the back it's quite a few for this planet. So that, coupled with how you stupidly shot a man with oppfor-colored lasers in the middle of the night suggests to me you're lacking in brains and morals, just the sort of being who might just shoot me for my gear the second we land. I've already shot my way through droids, jedi, and troopers to get my mission done and I'll be damned if I'm going to let some backwater scum like you put an end to my career. Keep flying until you see a clear patch, then land."
 

[Darth Fury]

"The way I see it, is you've got two choices," said Dixie, keeping her hand at her side and angling the airspeeder slightly upward as she flew along. "You can shoot me, but since I'm a vindictive b***h that would mean I'd try and crash this baby in the worst possible way to take you down with me. Or you could get that piece of trash out of my face and we can discuss this like civilized folk.

Now you're a real pretty piece of work, and if half of what you've said is true then you've got enough raw talent to maybe make something of yourself one day. But if that iron ain't put away by the time we break the tree line, you never will live long enough to find out..."  

[Sayla-girl]

"See, I'm not as stupid as you." Qaina retorted. "As a professional, I don't enjoy collateral damage. Gets in the way of good business. That means the only things that get a taste of my blaster bolts are targets and whatever gets in the way of me finishing a hunt. Right now, you're leaning towards that second one. So here's what's going to happen. You're going to land this crate in the first available spot of ground, I'm going to take my target, and we're going to go our separate ways. You can go back to brainlessly killing Republic and Imp alike and stealing their worthless crap and I'm going to get off world to finish my job."
 

[Darth Fury]

"That suits me just fine," said Dixie. "Once that Manhunter goes bye-bye I'll be happy to land you on whatever piece of dirt seems agreeable.

And you may be a professional, darlin', but you sure as hell ain't never been a soldier. I got dropped feet first into this Force-forsaken backwater without a friend in the galaxy to watch my back. Every man I've killed today was merely a means to an end, and you can bet your pretty little butt that most of em' were shooting back."  

[Skyeborne]

For hours the two Jedi picked through the ruins, reading the carvings and pictograms on the walls and searching the rooms for any recordings left by the ancient Jedi. They found a few ruined books, but little to shed further illumination on the exact methods used by the Jedi to both harness and withstand the fury of the storm.

Khyber had seldom been more glad for a distraction. His mind was buzzing with the implications of what Krosis had said, and with his abject failure in defeating his nemesis. So he threw himself into the search, forgetting these heavier problems for a time in this academic study.

After much study and searching, Khyber noticed a thin line separating the stone blocks on one of the walls, buried in a pile of rubble. He looked all around it, clearing away the loose stone, but could find no way to open the concealed door. Then Khyber closed his eyes, reaching out with the Force to sense what he could not see. A small crystal, identical to the many surrounding it in a mosaic design on the floor, pulsed slightly.

Pressing the Force crystal caused the panel to open, and behind it lay a small shelved compartment. A few lightsaber crystals lay scattered on the shelves, but the center held a much greater prize. A small dodecahedral holocron...  

[Des Voh]

Caisar and Khyber searched through the massive mountain-top complex that called itself home to Jedi hundreds of years before. Regular updates with the RFF marines expanded his perspectives of how large it really was. Tunnels that led deeper into the mountain, far-out natural caverns, dormitories and eating halls. Even had Krosis not collapsed the tunnel he escaped through, with prior knowledge of this place, he could have disappeared just as quickly.

Torch in hand, Caisar dropped glow-sticks in their wake as they searched, the emergency lighting not dependable enough in some sections, and it allowed them to mark their passage. Now and then as they searched a room, Caisar would take a moment to touch a surface, reaching out to it with the Force, and through the mists of ages and dust, he saw the past as it was. Brief glimpses of once-was, sometimes he caught hints the Jedi that had dwelt here, their singular peace in a Storm of Chaos, some broken. Not all the Jedi here sought to harness it, some where little different than other Jedi in ideal and devotion. Others dangerously close to being overwhelmed by the Storm and its passion. He shook this emotional fragment off with his steeled discipline.

The thunder echoed through the tunnels faintly at times, reminding them constantly that the Storm was out there, while overloading circuits and lights displayed the power that it brought down through overtaxed power converters. Their passing was silent for the most part, aside from academic exchange the times when Caisar would speak allowed as though he had an audience.

At last, they came to a room filled with great shelves which would have once held a vast repository of data-cards on any number of points of knowledge, even some crumbling, age-decayed books stacked beside another remained. Nothing viable remained. The chamber was a nearly great as the meditation chamber the two had faced the Sith in at the complex's center, though it was decorated in beautiful crystal mosaics. Stepping into the room's center, Caisar reached down to press his fingertips against the floor, channeling the Force, whipping the ages away from his prospective of the room. He saw the theft of the library by scavengers, something he had noted previous times while practicing his psychometry, but there was something his visions showed him that he had hoped. Specially attuned crystals reacting to the Force to reveal a hidden alcove with the greatest of the conclave's knowledge sealed within... A holocron, dodecahedral and the color of lightning. As Caisar exited his trance, he peered across the way to see that through his own keen perceptions, Khyber had discovered just that as well. The false-wall slid open and revealed the treasure. Caisar smiled very brightly as he approached.

"By the Grandmasters... I had hoped, but not imagined to acquire such a find. This is marvelous." he spoke in a soft tone, his azure eyes wide and blinking rapidly. "To think they left such a thing behind, these ancients... It gives much to the theory of their disappearance, but if this has what we believe... It could be monumental. The Grand Archives would be very appreciative of its retrieval."

"Do not touch it yet, Brother. Holocrons are not so easy to access as an uncoded data-card. They have Gatekeepers, and oftentimes those Gatekeepers require particular prerequisites from those who would learn from them."  

[lady_skuld]

“I got myself in deep this time,” Kira said to herself. She had been given a hovertruck by the guerillas and told to go to this spot. A sith convoy was supposed to be driving through here with high profile prisoners. Only one of the three were important for the people holding her paycheck. Kira didn’t really appreciate the sudden change from pilot to common thug. Wiping her brow she put the shovel on her shoulders with a smirk. “All this digging is ruining my nails. I became a captain so I wouldn’t have to be a construction worker.”

A loud whine came from the horizon. Kira gave a smile as she threw the shovel down into the dirt to lean against it. The convoy approached while the green woman threw a piece of chewstim into her mouth, blowing a large pink bubble till it popped while she waited. The group of vehicles slowed to a stop. Light infantry hopped out with rifles slung in their offhand. Kira casually popped a bubble as they walked forward looking at her.

“Road’s closed boys. Can’t you read?” Kira shouted, pointing to a sign to her left. The guards looked and noticed the official sign sitting there.

“We were not notified of this…” the first guard said. His companion interrupted by lifting his rifle up and pointing it at Kira.

“This isn’t an official road, you idiot. There’s no machines or other workers. She’s with the Republic, or at least the resistance.”

Kira raised her hands and blew another bubble. “Good job, you’ve got me.” In Kira’s left hand was a small box shaped device made obvious to the convoy’s escort. She listened to them ask the standard things, like “what is that thing”, “Hold it”, and her personal favorite, “drop it”. She shrugged her shoulders with a smile, taking one step back as she let go of the remote. The deadman switch she had been holding down sprang up with a small click. A puff of smoke to the right drew the guard’s attention away. Their attention would go to the convoy next when the magnetic mines sucked the hovervehicles down to the ground with large metallic clangs. Then with a small explosion, the rear vehicles erupted into flames. By now, the guards had turned back to Kira, who still had her hands raised. They tried to sound off the alert only to find a pair of blasterbolts fired at them, dead accurate to their chest and knocking them down to the ground in pain. A few seconds later another few blasterbolts echoed across the valley with them dead.

Several vehicles back, the driver of the truck could see that the front vehicles were immobilized. As the drivers in front of him scrambled to grab their weapons and attack the person, he searched for a radio inside the armored vehicle. Only managing to relay back to the central command his location and that they were under attack the comm would have the sound of a blaster followed by a hiss come across it. The three prisoners in the back heard the clink of the lock opening up. Kira had her hands on her hips and a grin on her face as she looked at the trio.

“They’re paying me good money to fetch you guys, so come on.” She waved the three men out and up and into the bushes, where the hovertruck sat. Kira and the prisoners sped off along the road in no time. She had driven several kilometers before coming to a parting in the jungle, where the road had been hastily plowed down before stopping the truck and putting it to a stop.

“What are you doing?” one of the escapees said as she parked.

“The driver managed to radio his location. This truck isn’t that fast, and they’ll be sending something to try to retrieve you. So, we have to cause a diversion that will give us enough time to get away,” she said. “Help me out, and we’ll get a show.” She pointed to the side where a pile of brush sat, as the troops looked at her with curiousity. “Trust me, it’ll work.” The four of them pushed the prefab disguise up, a tree and foliage to hide the main road, before setting up a small device along the side of the road. Kira pulled a small box out of the brush and opened it up to reveal weapons for the group. “Your friends were more than kind enough to give me a little help with setting this up while I dug the mines for your escape. They said we’d run into problems, and that you were to have these.”

The three escapees took the weapons as Kira pulled the hovertruck into the brush. She heard the whine of speederbikes coming, as the four of them hid in the fresh disguise.

“This will never work,” one of them said in back. Kira swatted him with a backhand.

“Shut up. Even if it doesn’t, they’ll speed past us and we’ll be free to take the next junction behind them. Remember, I’m the smuggler. Let me smuggle.” Just as Kira finished her sentence she watched the speeder troops turn along the new path. She gave a grin as she watched them race along the road towards a tunnel in the mountain wall. As if by magic the speeders quickly exploded in series as soon as they reached the tunnel. Kira turned the truck on and hit the horn twice quickly, laughing as it made a high “beep” noise each time.

“I love that trick. Nobody expects a holographic tunnel,” she said. Her comment wasn’t heard by the guerillas since they were laughing and cheering. The hovertruck pulled out and drove along, taking a turn off the road and headed back up towards the city she had come from. Her fingers relaxed on the wheel as she took a deep breath and watched her knuckles turn from white to green.  

[Sayla-girl]

"They don't pay me enough to die for my planet." Qaina quipped back at Dixie. "And the gun stays, because you've given me no reason to believe you won't try something. I've asked you twice to put that hand up, but you seem to have selective hearing."
 

[Darth Fury]

"No reason? Doll, if I was gonna blast you for your loot I would've done it when I had the drop on you back there, with two inches of armor-plating between you and me. But no, I was feeling generous and figured I'd help a sister out. And how do you thank me? By drawing down on me without any provocation whatsoever!

Now I don't respond well to orders from people with no right to be giving them, and I don't like my hospitality being taken advantage of in such a rude fashion. So my hand is gonna stay right where it is until I either let you off of my ride, or we both die in a fiery crash. I have been staring death in the face since before I was crawlin', so it don't matter to me much which way the wind blows.

But if you'd like to see that bright and shiny sunrise, then that gun better disappear in a hurry. That tree line ain't that far off, and I'm done talkin'. Time to make a choice, sugarbutt."  

[ElladanKenet]

The small shuttle sped past the Cobra and onto Regallia Station. There were dozens of other ships, some full fledged destroyers, others smaller escort vessels, and literally hundreds of fightercraft and shuttles on standby.

After being directed to a landing bay, the shuttle put down and released it's hatch. Down strode Lady Nightwind, followed by Nova. There was only one officer to greet her, a lowly ensign. Ilia wasn't surprised, considering there were dozens of guest, many of which were higher ranked than herself. Grunting, she followed the young man to the gala. "Come Nova, keep up."  

[Miss-Pandemica]

Nova said nothing in regards to Nightwinds remark and continued at a steady, silence pace behind the older woman. While they walked she kept her hand poised over the saber at her waist. This was Cinn’s ship after all and Nova wasn’t sure if the people onboard could be trusted. When their escort stopped them in front of a large set of doors, she assumed they had finally arrived to the party...