Star Wars: Eradication

[Marcao]

The trip to the grey zone had occurred without incident which had both surprised and disappointed him. The journey had proven to be fruitful however not in payment but in the understanding that he had achieved with his latest passenger. It had taken several hours but in the end, the logic behind Kio Joon's argument had proven difficult to overcome. He had come to a dead end in his search it was time for a new approach and a fresh perspective. It was with that in mind that an agreement was struck.

His eyes settled on Kio Joon as he spoke. The Jedi appeared to be in tune with abilities that he himself had not yet mastered. Kio Joon appeared to have far more skill focused outward than he seemed to possess inward. It was part of the reason why his aid had proven to be so attractive.

"I am armed Kio Joon. I have everything I may need." His head turned and he glanced towards See Too. "I expect to find this ship in the same or better shape that how I left her." His left hand moved as he opened a channel to his protocol droid. "V1, you will have a guest while I am gone." The droid answer in binary and he smiled briefly.

Kio Joon left the landing bay and he followed a short if discrete distance behind. Eventually, when they came across the others he adopted a neutral posture and watched. He did not recognize any of these people and as such he decided that he would not intervene unless more aggressive negotiations were necessary. He took a deep breath and allowed his senses to spread. He had little interest in being caught unaware in the middle of the grey zone.

[LadyTevar]

"There are complications regarding the transfer of the cargo," he said simply. "There will be a hold while the local situation is assessed and compensated for. Your payment will be accordingly adjusted as per your previously-negotiated daily rate."

This, Trysana thought, was not good. She leaned back in the booth, as if relaxing, as she focused on the dead-eye stare of the being with her. While he was offering more pay-by-day, there were other expenses, like rental of what was laughably called a hangar. "Complications are never a good sign, and can get quite expensive to clear," Trysana had to watch her tone and her steps here. "I am not that up on the situation locally, so a delay in loading leaves me concerned. Especially is the cargo is something that someone won't like leaving. Twenty-five percent adjustment, since it may take time for this to settle, as you say."

[Josh]

One slow blink. "Ten percent."

[LadyTevar]

One slow blink. "Ten percent."

Ahh, the fine art of negotiation. "Twenty-three," Trysana replied. Bargaining was nearly expected in these circumstances, and it all came down to how fast the cargo needed moved. She was fishing for twenty percent, but the client might only go as far as fifteen. Either way, it was bonus to her.

[General Havoc]

Something was wrong.

Actually a number of things were wrong, but they were all derived from the same source, specifically that this Jedi was not acting the way he had expected. Alone that was neither an issue nor very much of a surprise. Ryassek was not fool enough to assume that the whispered tales traded among Sith acolytes regarding the nature of the Jedi would match perfectly with reality, nor was every Jedi the same, even if they had.

But still there was something wrong, and that something centered on the Jedi's answer. That he was surprised to see Ryassek was hardly shocking, but his imperious command was to lower one saber. The trophy. He did not command him to disarm entirely, but merely to lay that one saber aside. Why? Was it because the Jedi assumed (correctly) that no Sith would ever fully disarm himself? Was it because he wished to duel, and was appealing to his sense of honor to do so with one saber against another? Or was there something particular about this saber? This blood-red, Sith-saber that could not possibly have come from anything but a vanquished enemy, for what other reason was there for a Jedi to have one. Plainly it was not the Jedi's weapon for he had been concealing that beneath his pillow, and it was red besides, though on reflection there was nothing preventing a Jedi from using a red saber. After all, Miralukans were blind. It was entirely possible he didn't even know its color.

All these thoughts and more pulsed through Ryassek's head as he faced the armed Jedi Miralukan, and considered his reply carefully.

"It is not yours either," he said, as evenly as he could, nurturing his rage and holding it in abeyance should it be required. He did not extinguish the mystery saber, but he did lower it a fraction, shifting his stance to bring his own saber up as the primary one in his Makeshi stance. "This is a Sith's weapon, and valuable besides. Why should I put it on the ground, Jedi? Is it haunted by the one to whom it once belonged? Will you threaten me for it?"

He allowed a very soft smile to cross his features, one that no doubt was unsettling to any Jedi, but would re-enforce the point. "Or perhaps I can trade it for something?"

[Josh]

One slow blink. "Ten percent."

Ahh, the fine art of negotiation. "Twenty-three," Trysana replied. Bargaining was nearly expected in these circumstances, and it all came down to how fast the cargo needed moved. She was fishing for twenty percent, but the client might only go as far as fifteen. Either way, it was bonus to her.

Another slow blink. "Twelve percent and we'll cover the hangar fee as well as a core charge for the link motivator that you're having replaced. That would come to seventeen percent additional."

[LadyTevar]

Blink.

Negotiation was one thing. Having the person spit out details about your ship that were none of their business was off-putting, and made Trysana very -VERY- wary. She kept the wariness hidden, covering it with surprise. "You are very well-informed, I see," she said simply. "Done. Tell me the cargo, and I will wait as long as you need."

[Josh]

"The cargo is certain antique items that have been retrieved from local sources," he said. "I won't bore you by claiming it's utterly mundane. There are few unique items that one can possess that no other will covet. Such is the case here."

[LadyTevar]

The planet wasn't much to look at before, but the War had left more than one Grey Zone planet with valuable wreckable left behind. "There's a lot of hard radiation out there," Trysana replied nonchalantly. "I hope the cargo is properly shielded." While that could easily be a straight sentence on its own, 'shielded cargo' could also mean stuff that would not make authorities take notice.

[Cynical Cat]

Mylus turned his back on the Jedi and vanished into the maze of debris and junk. He had said what conscience required of him. The Jedi would listen or not. If they left, good for them. If not, he had bait.

[Josh]

The planet wasn't much to look at before, but the War had left more than one Grey Zone planet with valuable wreckable left behind. "There's a lot of hard radiation out there," Trysana replied nonchalantly. "I hope the cargo is properly shielded." While that could easily be a straight sentence on its own, 'shielded cargo' could also mean stuff that would not make authorities take notice.

"All necessary precautions have been taken," he assured her. He slid a digital card across the table. "My direct contact information. Utilize if necessary, particularly if there are any breaches in the necessary discretion of transportation. I will be in contact with you as we conclude our business on this world."

[LadyTevar]

Trysana took the card and pocketed it away. "My reputation should reassure you." Part of her reputation Trysana had struggled to build was her discretion, as it was the hardest to gain and the easiest to lose in the circles she moved within. An indiscrete pilot did not last long -- if the authorities didn't get him, those he'd wronged did.
"It's been a pleasure doing business with you," she added with a sincere bow of her head. For all that he'd unnerved her with the knowledge of Orduin's engine, the client was reasonable, had a backup plan for problems, and knew his end of the business. If only all clients were that competent.

[Josh]

He rose and offered her a polite gesture of the hand, overturned with the fingers partly curled in the Benethan fashion of parting.

*******************************************
Elsewhere
*******************************************

AD-4K0 received the signals and passed them along its network of being. Transfer was ready as soon as the package could be extracted.

With the infinite patience of a machine, it continuously monitored the process of removing the package from its long-held containment. It was a delicate matter, the shielding of the priceless relic powered by geothermal vents providing an endless supply of energy. The trickiest part would be transferring the arcane shielding technology to its new power source.

Even at its slightly disturbed state, it had obviously had a beacon effect, luring multiple force users to this world. These and more would likely come.

Ultimately, its draw would be for the benefit, but not before the plan was fully in place.

Mechanical arms carefully functioned, loosening fasteners, transferring cables. AD-4K0 monitored the activity of hundreds of servo arms as they maneuvered around the container and its shielding system. The container itself was no bigger than a meter across, while the shielding system took up the better part of a room, and the power systems extended multiple stories down into the ground.

Unbeknownst to the hyper-vigilant droid, one of the servo arms had developed a series of faults between its actuators and diagnostics. Each rotation it gave to one small fastener was a fractional amount longer than ordered, creating the smallest of gaps.

And through that gap, the hunger of the Devourer flowed.

[Cynical Cat]

Mylus breathed slowly, bending the flow of the Force around him and through him. He banked the fires of his hatred down to a cool ember and drew in the misery, frustration, and despair of the wretched and desperate. He was now one ember among many, much harder to find and certainly less visible through the Force than the Jedi were now. He had warned them to leave. Now they were bait for the Sith.

He gasped as the Force flowed back through him, bringing with it not the local misery but the a terrible hunger that fueled his desire for slaughter. The banked ember blazed back, a pyre of hate and murder-lust.

[White Haven]

Silence stretched out between the two figures again, a gulf of words permeated by the warning purr of lit sabers. The Jedi's expression remained a mask, not displaying a proper Jedi lack of emotion, but rather a very obvious suppression of the expression of some level of visible emotion. Occasionally, the mask twitched or shifted, revealing that something was occurring beneath it, but it remained more or less in place.

Another Jedi, most other Jedi would have attacked by now, if only out of the expectation that the unknown Sith would no doubt do so at the worst possible time. Corac's sight, however, revealed the undulating blur of past and future all boiling around the figure and its two lit sabers, the lack of movement, the absence of the advance that would force a response. Finally, he began to speak again.

"You are not here to fight me." A simple statement of fact, but at the same time a challenge, something that invited, almost demanded a reply without being aggressive in its own right.


Ryassek studied the Jedi's reaction with as much care as he could, certain as he did so that he was being subjected to an even more intensive study. Such was the reputation of the Jedi for studiousness and calm that it could be no other way, not even if half the stories told were lies, which Ryassek conservatively assumed they were.

Still he did not attack. Not yet at least. There were many possible explanations for why not, some of which corresponded with what he had been taught of Jedi and some of which did not. There was no purpose in playing guessing games as to which one was actually the case. Chaos was a source of strength. It honed one’s ability to improvise.

“I am not here to fight you,” repeated Ryassek in the same flat tone that the Jedi had said it. How the Jedi could discern that was perhaps best left un-asked. He did not let fall his sabres as he said this thing, out of elementary precaution if nothing else, and if the Jedi was stupid enough to read more than that into it, then Ryassek would deal with the consequences. Jedi too needed testing before they could be found worthy. Not every fool with a lightsabre was what he claimed to be, not even among the enemies of the Sith.

“I am searching for a Jedi,” he said. “For a singular purpose. One that is my own until I choose to reveal it. And before I do so, I would know if I have found one. This is not the front lines of the Republic’s armies, nor the Temple of Dantooine. Why should a Jedi be found here?”


This was, without a doubt, the strangest encounter with a Sith that Corac had ever participated in, on either side of the war. Not even the Gelatin Incident could compare. He watched the currents of the future with rapt attention, but as yet, they remained… not tranquil, that word would never fully apply to a Sith under any circumstances, but at least not openly confrontational, and so he continued to stay his hand, hiding away his own gratitude at not being forced into a fight for the moment. Behind the mask of his expression, thoughts flickered, doubts, fears, the continued sparking anger at the Sith holding that particular lightsaber, the sight of the familiar blade lit.

Overlaid across those emotions laid calculation, a connection between two things said by the other figure, and so he again spoke up, his saber blade again gesturing at the stolen hilt.

“You suggested a trade? Extinguish that saber and place it on the floor and I will answer one question of your choosing. From there...we shall see.”


The Jedi gave very little away. This was probably to be expected, given everything, but it made his job more difficult, he realized. When dealing with other Sith, it required no work at all to suss intention and emotional state, for Sith radiated such things like a star. Jedi, he was coming to realize did not, and he was left with nothing to look for but the outward physical appearance, which was of little help when the Jedi in question had no eyes.

He regarded the Jedi’s trophy sabre for a moment, the blood red of it a similar shade to his own. He could feel some form of connection between it and the Jedi, which was puzzling. Perhaps it was latent fear that he was now outnumbered two blades to one, or perhaps it had belonged to a Sith of importance, even a former Jedi? Jedi were, it was said, often tasked with hunting down their fallen brethren, the closer the better. He did not know why.

“A lightsabre for a question?” he asked, permitting himself a smirk. “That is a steep price indeed, Jedi. Are you in possession of wisdom sufficient to render it worthwhile, I wonder?”

He thumbed the toggle on the sabre in question, extinguishing it, though he did not lower it to the ground. Instead he shifted subtly around to present his proper blade forward. He was more comfortable with his own sword in any event, and he could always switch it back on if it came to that.

“My name is Ryassek,” he said. “And I am Sith.” That much the Jedi already knew, but he felt it was best to announce it regardless. “I have come in search of a Jedi for the purposes of determining the answer to a riddle that none have ever answered, and that few enough even possess the wit to ask. I do not believe you know the answer to this riddle, Jedi. But you may have the key to solving it.”

He paused. “But before I can seek this, I must know what will happen if I should choose to drop this sabre? Will you snatch it from the ground and then strike at me with two blades against one?” His smirk became an unsettling smile. “It is not as though we have nothing to concern ourselves with in your presence, Jedi, whatever you may think of us.”

A Sith. To be expected, given...well, a whole host of factors. But a Sith on a journey of personal enlightenment? The Gelatin Incident was, indeed, surpassed by a substantial number of degrees. Corac’s mask slipped enough to show a streak of simple incredulity at the claim for a few seconds before slamming down into place once more.

The Sith’s own question, however, served to focus Corac’s attention on the matter at hand once again. His mouth opened for a moment...and then twisted into the fleeting shadow of a smile for a moment after a brief hesitation before replying, “I have already told you that. You will get to ask a question and receive an answer, and then we will see from there where things go. For someone who believes that ‘Peace is a lie,’ you seem quite...eager to avoid conflict.”

The opening words of the Sith Code...it might be nothing, but they fall a bit too easily from the Jedi’s lips.

“Peace is a lie, Jedi, make no mistake,” said Ryassek, uncertain if the Jedi believed him or not, but at least glad that he hadn’t been laughed out of the room. In the back of his mind had always been the concern that perhaps this wasn’t quite as revolutionary a step as he had thought. Perhaps many Sith got the notion to seek out Jedi and demand answers. Perhaps it was routine.

It did not seem routine. That was good. It meant he was not foreordained to fail, nor to learn things everyone already knew.

“But there are many kinds of un-peace,” he continued. “And only some of them involve the use of sabres. I am not here to avoid conflict, but to test myself by it. There are no shortage of those I can pit my lightsabre against if I should wish, but I am here to hone a different blade entirely, if it can be arranged.”

He looked over the sabre once more, the one taken from Force-knew-what Sith, no longer in existence no doubt. There was no gain without risk.

With one, apparently unconcerned gesture, Ryassek tossed the extinguished sabre down, watching as it rolled to a stop at the Jedi’s feet. His own sabre he kept level, ready for all comers, even as he looked the Miralukan in what would normally be the eye.

“The Jedi have ever defeated the Sith,” said Ryassek with as much steel-concentration as he could. “Since time immemorial, it has been so. Though opposed by passion, rage, and hatred, they have always returned to purge us from the galaxy. And I am here, Jedi, to discover why this is so.”

Tension began to drain from Corac’s body language slightly before the extinguished hilt hit the floor, a distinctly odd reaction to still being in the same room as an armed Sith. The mask slipped again, allowing relief, even a trace of gratefulness to show before the Jedi was able to reestablish its tight, walled control. The blue blade in his own hand moved again, slowly so as not to risk looking like an attack, shifting from an aggressive, pointed pose to a more defensive guard. His head inclined in silent thanks even as the Sith continued to speak.

After the Sith fell silent, the wordless interplay of humming blades stretched out again to fill the pause as the Jedi’s brow furrowed. Seconds passed.

“That...is a question many Jedi Masters would have answered, if only to keep you Sith from killing quite so many of us before failing.” Again, that tick of amusement, even as his voice remained more-or-less even. It was easier, now, with at least one source of tension and conflicting emotion removed from play. “That said, I promised you an ans--”

The light shifted, just slightly. Someone with actual eyes might have called it sunset, or perhaps a redshift if there were near-superluminal velocities involved. Of course someone with actual eyes wouldn't have been able to see it at all, because the merciless flail of Vaganus's sun remained unchanged. To Corac, however, the world around him was suddenly and unceremoniously filmed over in a tone, a color, a suggestion that was new, strange, and not at all welcome. It suggested consumption, the hunt, even a hint of blood...but it was none of those things on its own, and yet drew elements from all of them.

Tension returned, knuckles clenching around the hilt of his own lightsaber, muscles singing with a sudden, renewed flood of adrenaline. The first, the obvious thought, that it was something done by the Sith...no. He would have seen that coming.

This was something new.

[hr]
Ryassek written by Havoc, of course.

[Comrade Tortoise]

Aserak had exited his combat position by the time the Sith spoke his warning. But then, the Sith left abruptly before there could be a response. He considered going after the human, but decided against it. A fight was something he did not need, and it was plain that this individual had no love for his fellow Sith/Dark Jedi whatsoever. Not that they ever really had that, but the tended to work toward their own interests within an organizational hierarchy which tended thus to mean working toward the interests of the Sith Empire. This one had no interest in that conflict. No inclination toward harming innocent people. Why take the risk? One ought pick their battles.

So Aserak backed away. He did not turn his back to the Sith until he was around a corner, at which point he allowed the currents of the force to move around him and through him. Clamping down on his own thoughts and emotions so as not to reflect, project, or perturb anything and thus avoid detection.

Then he felt it. A major disturbance in The Force. A perturbation of the same sort that he had been feeling for days, and he could finally figure out what it was.

Hunger.

[General Havoc]

Ryassek was watching every movement the Miralukan made. He did not presume to think that he was doing so with more of a comprehensive eye than the Jedi, but he was watching nonetheless. The situation was not out of danger, but it was proceeding well. The Jedi seemed at least to be reasonably inclined to fulfill his promise. Yielding the Sabre was worth it if only to put that particular facet of Jedi behavior to a test. He was in unknown territory here after all, and the only people who could have provided him a map actively wanted him dead.

And then, mid-word, something went terribly, terribly wrong.

A massive burst of sensation, an overwhelming feeling of hunger, of desire to feed and consume, a yawning, gaping hole, a singularity drawing all matter in towards it, all this erupted into his head like a volcano touched off by the gyrations of a tectonic plate. He stumbled, staggered, reached out and caught himself on a dresser lest he fall to the ground. The wave hit him with such force that for an unforgivably long time he lay utterly helpless before the twice-armed Jedi before him, his compound eyes unfocused, his mind reeling from a blow that left him unable to speak in coherent sentences. His lightsabre remained lit, but held uselessly to one side, all but forgotten. It was all Ryassek could do to not drop it right through the floor.

Gradually, he pulled himself together by main force, relying on his other emotions to beat back the overwhelming hunger, piling rage on top of rage at having been flattened by such a thing. His eyes went wild and fierce, but only briefly, for whatever the Jedi was, there was no conceivable way that he was the architect of this. Not without every single thing he'd ever known about the Jedi being a grotesque lie.

Which meant, in turn, that something... else was.

He lifted his head, recovering his balance and standing up straight, and there was fear in his red, compound eyes, as he ran through the possibilities of what might be going on here. He prepped his emotions for weaponization, though this time for reasons other than the Jedi he had been stalking. There were a distressingly small number of possibilities as to what had just happened, and he liked the prospect of precisely none of them. That the Jedi had not detected a burst of Dark Side energy this strong was a notion he did not even stoop to consider. If the Jedi was incapable of sensing that, then he was not a Jedi at all.

"What, in all the hells of the galaxy," asked Ryassek directly in a quiet voice edged with fear and desperation, "was that?"

[rhoenix]

Corvin took a slow, deep breath from his vantage point, watching the goings-on of both Jedi, and suspected Sith. He'd miscalculated, and badly - there was no way around that.

The entire situation could have gone much better. Worse, true, but still quite a bit better.

He took another slow, deep breath.

It was when he began to exhale that he felt it - a slow, sinuous, shadowy hunger that seemed to be both everywhere and nowhere around him. It wanted to eat. It wanted to consume. It wanted to devour, and leave nothing but dust and fading echoes of horror in its wake.

Well - it seems the Force wanted him to learn a bit more humility before this happened, so he was at least grateful that he'd made his rather impressive mistake before, and not after this... whatever this was had made itself known.

He felt the presences of the Jedi around him, and sobered. From the way they all seemed slightly taken aback by the sensation, he knew he wasn't the only one who had felt it. Moreover, he felt some indistinct pulses from further away, suggesting that not only was this small group not the only Force-users on this small, formerly-unremarkable world, but that they had felt it too.

For now, he would wait. As he now saw things, the Force had been kind enough to poke him with a needle directly in his ego before this happened, and he would be grateful to the Force for it, and would do his best to not let his attention, or his ego, be a detriment going forward.

He had never felt a thing such as this from the darker days of his youth, or ever seen or saw referenced such a thing after he had begun the path of the Jedi. Hasty action would only bring calamity.

[White Haven]

Any other Jedi would probably have suspected the Sith standing in front of him, at least for a moment. Which Corac's confidence in many arenas can be described as shaky at best, his prescient sight is one of the few aspects of his own abilities that he still has absolute faith in, and thus he stood still, watching the shifting currents pulsating around the poleaxed Sith. A wobble in one direction, the body moving to match, the lit sabre-blade describing a complicated, swirling shape through the past to the future. Corac's own saber stayed still, lit but barely moving, as motionless as the Jedi as his mind raced.

Hunger and blood and need, dark-side without question, but something that took the Sith by storm as well. Unless it was a fake? Unlikely: that moment of distracted stumbling and staggering represented an all-too-real weakness, something no Sith would choose as the starting position for a duel. So, dark-site, but not attached to this Sith, at any rate. His eyes narrowed at the Rodian's question, the sound subtly different than his earlier voice, filtered as it is through the layer of clinging film overlaid on Corac's senses.

"Dark-side. Like nothing I've ever felt from a Sith before. I can't sense a source, a point, it's...everywhere."

The Jedi trailed off for a few moments, a frown on his face both from the situation and from the fact that he's let his guard down and actually answered a Sith openly. The frown deepens...only to be dispelled, or at least forced into abeyance, by a sudden snort.

"And I won't even charge that as your one question."

[LadyTevar]

Down below in the bar beneath Ryassek and Corac's feet, the bar patrons were getting edgy. Some were ordering more food, others giving the barmaids and dancers move of their attention. Even Trysana was starting to look around the bar, to see if there were any males worthy of her time.

It was all unplanned, unconscious, a reaction to something that moved through all beings to a greater or lesser degree.