Contingency

Posted on Tue Jul 2nd, 2013 @ 2:05am by Loren†
Edited on on Tue May 29th, 2018 @ 3:41pm

2,820 words; about a 14 minute read

Chapter: Chapter IV: Rezer's Edge
Location: Sotah's Woe, Jedi Knight Loren's personal vessel
Timeline: Concurrent with "Captivated Audience"

There were numerous times in a Jedi Shadow's professional life in which they questioned their assignments and objectives, or felt deeply and personally uncomfortable with that with which they had been assigned. It was during those times that those who were so deeply compromised by their orders that many Jedi shifted their focus, opting instead for alternative, more standard duties within the Reborn Jedi Order. More often than not, most learnt from the experience, analysing the conflict before fulfilling their duties to the best of their abilities.

These were usually the Sentinels within that particular branch of the Order, whilst the less common Consular membership sometimes tended to fit the rarest category of Shadows: those that did not question their duty, but gave themselves over to it in their undying and unyielding hunt for the dark side and the people and objects affiliated to it. In truth, they were a different sort of Jedi Shadow, so determinedly committed to their particular, crusader-like goal that they were something else.

Jedi such as those were incredibly rare, and were often handpicked by the Jedi Council to, surprisingly, serve in more particular roles - often senior roles. Loren did not count herself amongst their number with pride, inwardly having a slightly fear of their passions and assignments. They were assigned to worlds known to be rich in the dark side or to have a history of Sith or Dark Jedi, made to hunt down and destroy any relics they could discover, as befitted one so knowledgeable and in tune with the Force as a Consular - a fact which also bothered Loren, considering their usually calm, collected and wise exterior, rarely quick to inflame or challenge brashly or so eagerly.

However, her current assignment had most certainly been one of those that concerned her, causing her to question the Jedi High Council and her role. The man Jedi Knight Loren had been sent to follow, after all, was someone she would always remember as a headstrong teenage Jedi Padawan, who strongly believed in the rights of all and equality, whilst balancing a very determined streak of imposition upon others. Ultimately, she saw him as a very much younger brother, who had become her own master's apprentice following her ascendency to Knighthood - a very hard-earned ascendency, she would always think.

Whilst she had not been truly shocked by Thane's resignation from the Jedi Order, knowing and sympathising all too well with his disagreements and grievances with the Jedi and particularly the Council, she had been surprised by how cleanly he had cut himself off from them, bar Bomoor Thort, of course. Having been a very aggressive Padawan herself, passed from master to master during her earlier years, Loren had been very impressed by Thane's maturity and development during his apprenticeship, not lashing out without provocation or ever suggesting hedonistic or hateful tendencies, but whilst she had come to embrace the differences she had with the Order to assist in her own way - particularly after being forced to mature and face facts during the Second Outer Rim Conflict - Thane, apparently, had not.

And, as such, the Jedi High Council had deemed it necessary to send her, one of the more capable Jedi Shadows and trackers in their organisation, to discretely follow him and his exploits alongside the crew he had become a part of on board the Red Raptor in their search for the Kaiburr crystal shards to defeat the Cult of Axion - which was an objective Loren felt he could fulfil only too well, and something she would have preferred to join him on, in truth. But she knew her duties and responsibilities, and even though Sotah had made it clear he also did not approve of the assignment, Loren had accepted the mission, mainly to avoid any overzealous Shadows who knew not Thane's nature from making the affair any worse than it had to be.

In the modern day of the Jedi Order, whilst often necessary, there was no denying the level of fear and suspicion that permeated so many of their ranks. Clearly, they deemed Thane to be some source of danger, and obviously no longer had full faith in Bomoor, either, a Jedi Loren knew to be honourable and full of integrity. It was enough of a troubling situation for her to not dismiss it all out of hand, but to instead take it seriously; to pursue the Red Raptor, document their travels and whatever else she could learn, hopefully to discover there was no truth to the Council's concerns and put this matter to rest, to leave them to stop the Cult of Axion - the true threat - without being impeded by nosy, fearful Jedi.

To be truthful, little had truly happened to document since she had received her assignment, just after their largely-unknown time on Tython. Mostly, they had traversed quite standard planets in search of information (unsuccessfully, she had noted), with Loren only receiving a handful of opportunities to physically follow them, using her own Force talents to conceal her presence to them, although she noted how the young woman accompanying them - the one she had also discovered they were training - had twitched a couple of times when Loren had acted.

That Near-Human had some odd Force latency, but not one she could quite describe, or quite trust, either. Beria, as she discovered her name was, had been a difficult one to read, and she inwardly wondered how long either Thane or Bomoor would put up with her, despite the goodwill she sensed they shared towards her. The most troubling discovery had been, however, the presence of wanted criminal Morgo Le'Shaad amongst them. It had been a rumour since she had been secreted away by a Jedi from a Coruscanti opera house that Thane was responsible - with many HoloNet pieces definitely believing it to be him and making up some fantastical stories she knew he would appreciate - but she had corroborated that most recently in her assignment.

Of course, it was not something that confirmed Thane was indeed that "rogue" or a dark-sider, but it had left a sour taste in Loren's mouth. It was not enough to confront them about, either, and doing so too early would definitely compromise her position and any hope the Council had of shadowing him. That reveal would only push him further away from any of the Jedi ideals that were worth keeping, and most certainly make him more of a hostile entity. Even so, she had carefully been thinking of manufacturing a situation in which the Dromachean could be apprehended without revealing her own involvement, to serve justice and her duties simultaneously.

The most dangerous of their party, however, was the Mandalorian. Sev Rezer, a Jedi killer-cum-bounty hunter, was definitely the one she had been most wary of. Even with no Force sensitivity, his years of training and work in his particular field had made him an expert in tracking Jedi and, of course, avoiding being tracked by them in turn. Luckily, he seemed rather preoccupied with his ongoing bounties, often drawing him away from the Raptor to make ends meet and put what he could towards their shared goal. There was no doubt that he had his own hate for this Axion.

Knowing all of this and having grown used to observing the crew's disjointed routines, Loren had at first been unsurprised when Thane and Bomoor had departed from the ship to hire a small vessel. The vessel they had chosen, by all accounts, was very high-tech and specially-designed for stealth objectives, presumably an expensive venture but one they must have deemed worthy. With the access Loren had to Thane's accounts, she knew he had been tapping in to some of the large reserves of credits set aside by his father, the Archae of Caanus, from when he was born.

In addition to the rudimentary and unalarming findings she had gathered about him, his apparently-growing comfort with his noble heritage had been one of the more interesting ones, given how much he had once distanced himself from that fact. Whilst she remained undisturbed by the character he was growing into, she could not deny her 'brother' was indeed changing in some ways. Still, she did not believe it was enough to warrant this undue extra attention.

With the bug she had deftly planted on their vessel, Loren had directed Sotah's Woe to follow a good half a day later when it was apparent they were not leaving that particular system, but had grown concerned when she could find very few details about this system, only that it was once a penal colony belonging to the Bastion Moff Empire, lost during the Fourth Bastion War to Manda'toma, who had in turn shown no interest in maintaining it, preferring to use it purely to spite the Imperials.

Her contact in the Third Republic Intelligence Office had explained the prison, named Jericho, had recently come under the control of a sect of the Mandalorian Exiles who used it as a base of operations in this region of space. Their leader was a notorious Manda'toma defector and - which was of great interest to Loren - was a cousin of Sev: Zrad Rezer.

Of him, TRIO had been unable to provide much information, largely because he had massacred almost every opponent in the field, building up an enigmatic reputation as a fierce and powerful warrior, well-respected and feared by Mandalorians and not alike. Evidently, Thane and Bomoor had come into some information linking Zrad to the Kaiburr shards or the Cult of Axion and come searching.

Knowing and trusting in the abilities of both Thane and Bomoor (who had become famous in the Order for getting out of more precarious situations than those involving Mandalorian Exiles), Loren had expected them to make short work of whatever misadventure they ended up collapsing into, and so it was obviously of great concern they had been there for this long with no obvious attempt to make communication with the outside world or leave.

It was for that reason, and the sick and worrisome rumours she had heard about Zrad Rezer and his particular Exile faction (more devoted to their interpretation of the 'Mandalorian way' than most), she had elected to bring the Woe into the Jericho system. Security was incredibly tight, proving particularly difficult even for a well-experienced pilot such as Loren who had the distinct advantage of a vessel designed specifically for these purposes, outfitted with the latest in TRIO technology as well as her own upgrades.

For the usually very barbaric and scattered nomadic Mandalorian Exiles, who - despite naming themselves the 'True Mandalorians' - were only allied with one another in name alone, Zrad's followers were incredibly well-drilled and regimental, using tactics and vessels not common to the Exiles. Given his background, Loren deduced he had brought a great many of the battle-hardened Fifth Bastion War veterans along with him during his defection, as well as a great many who had joined him in the subsequent years, all of which were far better trained and more capable than the usual Exile stock.

Even so, she sat now in the cockpit of her vessel, marvelling at the beauty of the system's bright star in the distance, the window's protective devices saving her retinas from permanent damage. Her eyes drifting, she spotted the three large interconnected asteroids that had served as the penal colony. Debris and smaller asteroids littered the surrounding space, and a few small salvage vessels were busy at work finding anything of worth, simultaneously making a profit and protecting the facility from any undue damage.

Visually, Sotah's Woe wasn't invisible, its cloaking device bending light imperfectly to help it blend in whilst its sensors did an adequate job of disguising its presence, and so an observant Exile would be able to spot her ship in the stars. Luckily, such a thing had rarely happened, but landing on one of Jericho's various bays would certainly garner someone's attention. Like Thane and Bomoor, however, she had been in trickier situations, and they, after all, had managed to get in.

But, she reminded herself, they haven't left, have they?

Loren's eyes narrowed before she made her decision. Entering commands into the console, the Woe shifted itself about and made towards one of the small rogue asteroids near Jericho, approaching at an angle to allow the vessel to land safely on its rocky surface, activating all of the usual devices to ensure it remained in place.

Leaving the computer to automatically handle the manoeuvre, the Shadow began getting into one of the three "all-purpose" environmental suits in the rear of the ship, securely attaching each necessary component and placing her lightsaber in its own allotted area. Whilst not equipped with any stealth technology of its own, its design blended in well and it was her hope she would not be noticed amongst the debris surrounding Jericho on her approach, so long as she timed everything appropriately.

Of course, when going up against Mandalorians, one could never be take too much for granted.

Feeling the Woe land and secure itself, Loren bunched up her rich brown hair behind her head, brushing away the loose Jedi braids so they would not get in the way before lifting the helmet over her head and carefully dropping it down. Hisses and beeps that could only be heard within the helmet announced the process was complete, and a heads-up display shot across the faceplate.

For a brief second, Loren saw her reflection in the helmet, and noted that bar a few smile lines beginning to crease either side of her mouth, she was ultimately pleased with how she had aged for a forty-seven year old woman. For just a moment, she mused how life could have been entirely different if left an orphan in Coruscant's gritty underworld, if she had lived this long to have even aged gracefully in any way at all. That, however, was the last thing she now needed to consider.

After locking everything down bar the stealth and security systems, Loren made her way to the hatch. She recognised that by doing what she was about to do, she may well endanger her assignment from the Council, finding Thane and Bomoor perfectly well and in the middle of some beneficial deal, or perhaps just about to depart from cutting down the gang of renegades and bandits, but it was not a risk she was going to take.

She had loathed this assignment from the off, and whilst she would attempt to keep a low profile whilst prowling Jericho for some clue as to the two Jedi's well-being, their survival was paramount. Thinking now of the man she had been sent to stalk but was now intent on saving, she concluded that - even should she get away without revealing anything - she was going to declare her refusal to continue this any further, and would actively resist any further attempts from the Council to send Shadows after the Red Raptor and her crew. In fact, she considered offering to join that very crew in their quest.

At least there is some honour in what they are doing, she relented, envisioning the expression that would darken Master Sotah's face. He would understand.

Once the environmental controls of the Woe cleared her, she stepped out into the weightlessness of space. Her suit immediately adjusted and her body physically jolted within at the peculiar - and unwelcome - sensation, but it was something she had long grown used to.

Not looking at the sun as the faceplate was not designed to handle such intensity, she instead focused directly on Jericho itself, planning where she would target and examining the other small bits of asteroid and debris she could use for cover. It would be difficult, but with her training and the Force, she would guide herself.

Before launching, she tried now to reach out to either Thane or Bomoor. Not enough to alert them, but enough to perhaps brush past their existence, to help in her search for them. To her worry, she felt nothing, almost like a selection of black holes within the otherwise Force-thick location. Undoubtedly, it was the Mandalorians' penchant for training their mind against the Force, closing themselves off and making them tougher opponents, but it was still worrying she could not detect either of the Jedi, and worrying more that these were most certainly professionals.

Putting such concerns as aside as best she could, she readied herself and prepared the suit's systems. Within a few seconds, Jedi Shadow Loren was lunging head first into the Mandalorian mire of Jericho.

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