Apogee, Part III
Posted on Sun Aug 4th, 2019 @ 9:20pm by Nala Sao & Mange & Kalen "Rex" Vickers & Thane & Bomoor Thort & Amare & Rynseh Lahan & Reave & Zenarrah Sozo & Mentis & Tolmin Voq & Kelderesh jai Nektus
Edited on on Thu Oct 3rd, 2019 @ 11:29pm
2,861 words; about a 14 minute read
Chapter:
Chapter V: Unbound
Location: Valley of the Dark Lords, Korriban
Timeline: Late Day 4, After "Apogee, Part II"
OLD
"You are with us for now," Thane said simply, either aggressively nor kindly, but more an observation of fact. Since Morgo and Bería, as well as that of Sev's unreliable allegiance to the crew of the Red Raptor, the former Jedi had grown increasingly wary of allies that stood so close to them, threatening to invade their limited coterie, especially in these dark times of inquisition from the Jedi Council.
With only a momentary hand placed upon Amare's shoulder for encouragement and a burst of endowment from the Force, he encouraged the apprentice forward and once more took himself to the front of the group at an accelerated pace, now almost jogging. A dark cult awaited them upon the darkening horizon of the ancient Sith homeworld, and Thane had no intention of their remarkable achievement being undone by haphazard followers.
"Make haste," he warned to the newcomers. "If you fall behind, you will be left behind."
NEW
In the distance, the ancient star of Horuset was beginning its final descent behind the craggy horizon of Korriban. Obscured though it was by fallen temples, abyss-riddled ravines and angular mountains that spiked at the darkening skies of the near-forgotten world of the Sith, the sun still lit the Valley of the Dark Lords brightly, but cast increasingly long shadows across its stony and broken paths.
Their tired feet pounding heavily on the orange stone, there was to be no concealing the rapid arrival of the mismatched group of travellers carving their way to the Red Raptor, which was nestled now not too far from where the weary wanderers now found themselves. No foes had yet presented themselves during their arduous trek back, aside from the occasional and disturbing howl being carried along the wind, and none had surrendered to their fatigue during the final stretch of their trials upon Korriban.
Remarkably, the group had remained almost entirely silent during the journey, despite the mystery surrounding their rushed alliance and hasty return to the Raptor. The Force users had worked together to speed along the grav sled and, for their part, Reave and Rex had managed to keep apace with their more preternaturally-gifted companions, although both had uttered the occasional curse during the final adventure.
Still at the vanguard of their little troupe, Thane finally brought their pace down to a rapid stride. Before them and in the near distance, having now moved past a large outcropping of jagged stone and rock, was the scarred and battered Corellian YX-1980 that served as his trio's mobile home.
Whilst no sweat beaded upon the aspirant Sith warrior's forehead (unlike the heavily-panting Captain Vickers), he seemed ill at ease as he now turned back to the others. As had happened when he had first sighted Mentis, his lightsaber appeared once more in his hand, although it remained deactivated.
Whilst the near-deafening, and almost certainly intoxicating, dark side aura of Korriban had been overwhelming to his senses, Thane did not struggle to discern the beacon of light that shone so close to the familiar structure of the Red Raptor. Just as the orbital station had been a shimmering marker against the grim and brilliant fire of the Sith homeworld during their approach prior to the use of the ysalamiri, so too did the bastion of light side energy so close at hand appear to be a tear in Korriban's macabre tapestry of darkness.
"Jedi," Thane stated, the grip on his hilt growing tighter as he looked across the open space to the Raptor.
"That yer ship?" Rex asked almost incredulously between heavy pants, pointing ahead with one hand as if he had not heard Thane, the other resting heavily on his thigh as he regained his breath.
Bomoor nodded, "The Red Raptor is our ship and, for the moment, our home."
At any other time, it would be a relief to see it, but Thane's anxiety about the Jedi presence was hard to flood from the Ithorian's mind and he had to admit to himself that whatever member of the Order lay before them, they were undoubtedly here to cause trouble for them.
Mentis looked down at the old Corellian Engineering Corporation vessel; he had not properly seen the ship but it seemed familiar. He had perhaps spied it in the hangar on Jericho as he and his fellow cultists had hurriedly fled from their failed negotiations with the Mandalorian Exiles. Or perhaps something else made it distinctive to him, despite its obvious age.
He too, however, began to sense the presence of the light side somewhere ahead; before his confrontation with Thane and Bomoor, he had never properly fought members of the Reborn Order. He thought that other Jedi would feel somewhat the same but whatever lay ahead of them was another foreign entity. It was undoubtedly powerful, however.
"These Jedi," Mentis questioned, "are not friends of yours, I presume?"
"Yet to be determined," Thane said evenly, his eyes not wavering from the two figures beside their vessel. "If some tragedy has indeed befallen the Jedi Shadow station above, or if these Jedi are Shadows themselves, and they hold us responsible as outlaws upon the surface of Korriban, then it is unlikely they will let us leave without some... preamble."
The senior Sith within their group then looked to the bruised Rattataki warrior, his face half pulled in one of his typical grimaces. "And if they find us in company with a known associate of a Dark Jedi Master..." Thane wondered in that moment if the aura of Korriban would conceal his burgeoning dark nature, but quickly dismissed the notion. Confusion was their best hope, in that instance, and they were long past that.
Amare squinted her weary eyes at the two robed figures in the distance ahead, and was positive whom she saw was one of her kind.
"The blue one over there," she pointed out to the Jedi. "If that's not a Nautolan, then I'm a Twi'lek. It's gotta be the one I sensed just now." She tried extending her senses out to who Mentis thought was Nala, but it was almost impossible to get a read on her. Nala must've been walling off her thoughts and presence somehow.
Although he did not activate his weapon yet, and fully appreciated the impression sighting him with his hilt clasped in his gloved hand would give, Thane wondered at how this situation was going to develop. He had, naturally, envisioned an occasion when they - or, perhaps more appropriately in some regard, he or Amare - would have to face their former Jedi comrades in some sort of showdown, physical or philosophical.
Having been located on Korriban, their presence an absolute confirmation of their flouting of some of the Reborn Order's principle rules, he knew there was unlikely to be any bargaining with these Knights, beyond agreement to return to Coruscant as indicted vassals. Of course, if these were not survivors of the orbital station, then this pair would be something else; the Jedi High Council had already dispatched one Jedi to surveil the Red Raptor crew, so it was not beyond the realms of belief that would have sent more, following the untimely death of Loren.
In fact, it was almost a certainty.
Whilst Loren's death at his hands had been a tragic act, one that he had struggled to reconcile and justify in some way during his own dark internal debates, Thane had not yet resigned himself to open conflict with his former brothers and sisters within the Order - and he was fairly certain it was not a resignation that Bomoor would have yet made with himself. If he was to be accused, as he expected, as being the malignant influence that had drawn the Ithorian Consular into his web of darkness, Thane did not know if he was content to let Bomoor go saber-to-saber with old friends for his apparent misdeeds.
The pursuit of knowledge and power, for some, had limits. Thane was beginning to learn his; he was not so sure of his companions'.
Regardless, he placed one foot in front of the other, his boots scraping against the sand and stone, and the others followed suite.
Rynseh Lahan spied upon the faces that were his ultimate objectives through his macrobionculars, the reason for daring to come so far just to end up on Korriban of all places in the galaxy. He adjusted the zoom in and focus to get as clear and up close a clear image of Thane's face, then to his inseparable Ithorian friend, Bomoor. There was no doubt at all; it was them clear as day, but then they weren't alone as he had hoped.
"Our mission has just grown even more complex," he said to Zen Sozo standing by his side who was working on a datapad.
"If you mean the armed bogey descending almost directly above us, then you're not kidding," Zen reported, her large dark eyes transfixed on her hand-held flat screen. "I have a lock on them."
She was controlling the Descent remotely, relying mostly on the ship's tactical autopilot system, but giving it broad pre-programmed directives to follow and minor course corrections to maintain a tight patrol pattern over the Red Raptor's landing site. Damask Hul and his people had poured considerable state-of-the-art tech into the ship, even going as far as enabling it to act as an oversized remote-operated recon drone if desired. It was easily one of the most versatile and impressive ships she had ever worked with, possibly one of the most advanced in the galaxy. She wondered if the Republic had more ships of its kind, or if the Descent was a unique pet project for the Duros politician.
"Maintain defensive overwatch," Ryn calmly ordered, his concern almost entirely fixed on the youths he had come to retrieve. "If they open fire, the Descent will neutralize them. Allow them to land unimpeded; I want to see their faces up close before I pass judgment on them."
"Is Zara over there?" Zen asked looking up at him after transmitting the commands, her voice rife with anxious anticipation. "Can you see her?"
"See for yourself," Ryn said as he exchanged the macrobinoculars with her for the datapad. "I sense the dark side has most definitely bent them, but they are not broken yet. I have a hunch they didn't attack the station." His voice then slipped to a murmur as he pondered the possibilities to himself, "They slipped by it somehow. An illegal cloaking device perhaps? Hmm...but the Shadows would've seen past it. How did they do it, I wonder?"
A soft audible gasp blew from Zen's blue lips as she saw... "Zara!" she exclaimed with deep elation. "Goddess and fates...she's still alive! Oh my beautiful child." Zen struggled to hold back her tears of pure motherly joy. "She looks so utterly worn down; so tired and sad. And she's...she..."
"Not alone, yes," Ryn said with a nod. "I don't recognize those three. A human, a Jawa, and a Ratattaki armed with a lightsaber." Just saying the words sounded to him almost like the beginning of a terrible cantina joke.
"Not them," Zen retorted sharply. "It's Zara. She's...different. I can feel her aura exactly as I remember, but...there's more. I've not felt the Force like this from her before."
"Korriban has likely pushed some dark side influence into her mind," Ryn deduced. "It is inevitable. Even I would succumb to it if I stayed here long enough."
"It's not just that," Zen noted as she lowered the lenses. "There's something else...a presence of such a kind I've never sensed before. Not someone...something. Something inside of her."
"We'll deal with that when this is over," Ryn said as he gazed skyward in time to see the heavily-armed yacht begin to make landfall a short distance away. "Right now, a bigger fish is landing on our plate. Stand ready."
Ryn kept calm and did not reach for his weathered old lightsaber. He instead folded his arms against his chest, standing tall and proud in front of the Red Raptor. If anyone was going to set foot on that ship again this day, they would only do so with his approval as a Jedi Master, or over his dead body.
Zen kept her hands by her side after putting away the macrobinocular. The moment to act on her plan was almost upon her as she keenly felt the palms of her hands itching, reminding herself of what she needed to do when the opportunity presented itself.
"So, we're just gonna walk straight towards them?" Rex asked Mentis incredulously, gesturing at the two figures that were growing increasingly larger with each step the mismatched group took towards the Red Raptor. Beside him, Reave had hauled his heavy repeating carbine in front of him, and his eyes had begun glinting in that menacing way that usually foreshadowed a Jawa-led bloodbath.
“Well, that is not Nala down there,” the Rattataki breathed a sigh of relief, “But the cult is still close. Better to try our luck with these Jedi than avoid them and risk confronting Axion’s followers.”
Thane made no comment to the newcomers, his gaze focused on the two Jedi standing between them and their goal. Their proximity now afforded him a better view of their potential foes; one was very much a Nautolan, her amphibian features the same light blue complexion as his own apprentice's, whilst the other was a striking sight. Of a remarkably imposing height and broad build, with an irregular mane of brilliant hair streaming down from his stern visage and garbed in peculiar red Jedi garments, Thane struggled to place the hulking man's species. Equally, Thane failed to identify either Jedi, which bothered him in new and different ways, reducing his tactical advantage, as they would undoubtedly know who he and Bomoor were, at least.
Conversely, it meant he was not likely to kill any old friends.
"Say little or nothing," he warned Amare as they continued closing the distance to the two Knights, who had not made any show of arming themselves as of yet. From his connection to Bomoor, he felt confident that he had also not recognised either Jedi.
Amare gave a curt, yet nervous nod to her master. The possibility of fighting a Jedi, let alone two gave her reason to be afraid. She defeated two Jedi before, but succeeded only because she had the element of surprise and clever traps prepared, not to mention she was on friendly terms with them prior to her treacherous ambush. A straight fight with experienced Jedi, however...it was like nothing she had ever been prepared for. Her lightsaber training was very limited, and her powers still had a long way yet to mature.
“I don’t think these Jedi are from the station,” Bomoor added to anyone that was following the conversation, “But there is a good chance they are still trained as Shadows if they have been sent for us. That makes them dangerous and, from our point of view, untrustworthy. We must be cautious.”
The peculiar septet of mixed skills and species drew to a stop a good number of metres from the Jedi pair and the Red Raptor, the open space between them crowned at either side by the looming mountains of the ancient Valley, as well as steep ridges that collapsed in dark and unknown abysses below. As they stood, both groups were of little threat to one another; it would take a mighty Force leap to close the distance quickly, leaving the jumper dangerously exposed to whichever foe they might be foolish enough to target.
"Oh, we're stopping now," Rex mumbled to himself, taking one small step behind, putting him the furthest backwards from the cluster of Force users.
Although he was conscious of the likely looming threat of Axion's cultists, Thane understood the delicate balance and litany of interests that was now confronting them. He was careful to reduce his feelings of fear and antipathy in the face of this unknown Jedi threat, and instead focused on the mundane and physical, picturing his position within the Valley against the two Knights facing them down. He knew that their actions here - regardless of whether they were his or not - would shape the manner of the interactions to come. A misstep here, and the vision could die.
Once upon a time, to address elder Jedi so brazenly would have offended every sentiment within the young Caanan. Now, he felt the manner of address only appropriate to their relative positions.
"Master Jedi," the fallen knight opened politely, projecting his voice through the power of the Force in his first conversation with a Jedi since Loren's demise, "you are a long way from Coruscant. It appears a good many of us might be losing our way, of late."
TBC
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