[IC] SWS/DnD5, Star Wars the Old Republic – A Gathering Darkness

[Binder Fred]

I have a copy of the game in text form. Will post our (huge) missing chunk tonight.

Our story so far:

[sblock=Chapter VI. Shaking Things Up]Oblivious to the gand's call over the hurt from the spider attacking him, Reks snaps into a blind fury, viciously cutting into the creature with his lightsabers, and for a moment he almost seems to have lost control of his own actions.

If others could witness Jihahna in her present state, it would be as if she were totally unaware of the chaos around her. Her focus was on the job at hand. She softly mutters to herself as she works, taking up the wire stripper, she attempts to locate a functional power source with her power tester. If she can... She'll jury-rig a sol- THUD, the impact from the spider interrupts her thoughts momentarily... "Yeah yeah, I going as fast as I can... Keep it down everyone." She mutters in the spider's direction.

Hmmph... As Jihahna was thinking before the interruption... She attempts to use the wire stripper to expose a functional power source if she can find one, then hook up the power wire to the non-functional lift directly.

A shed of explosives. The words penetrate Kacela's focus on the battle, and she realizes that the creatures coming up the mine are far more numerous than the handful she and the others are engaging now. They won't be able to stop them all.

Explosives could not only end that threat, but perhaps collapse the mineshaft as well.

She looks back over her shoulder and spots the shed... an inexpensive prefabricated structure nearly ubiquitous in the Republic for this sort of storage. Square and squat, and not built on foundations but rather placed and tied down.

Could she move it? Kacela's mind flashes back to her training. Her master had asked, Do you ask if you can move your arm? No. You will it, and it moves. You may now argue, your arm is different. It is part of you. Your will is carried by nerves and impulses, and that is why it moves... What you must see is that the stone is part of you. Your will is carried by the Force. And that is why it will move. It is the same.

Free of spiders for now thanks to her earlier blast, Kacela takes a breath, and looks back at the mineshaft. The shed and she are the same. She tries to feel it, as she feels her arms and legs. It is part of her...

The explosives shed wobbles, then strains upwards. For a moment, the bolts connecting it to the ground caught... then slowly pull free with a quick, strangled metallic squawk. The structure floats up over the heads of Kacela and Reks, spinning very slowly as it goes. There is a stately sort of grace to how it moves, like a descending spacecraft perhaps, amplified by the peaceful expression on Kacela's face as she guided it through the air and down into the mineshaft.

"Reks, it's time to go," she says distantly. Then, into her commlink, the Jedi reported, "The explosives are in place in the tunnel, but we need someone to set them off once Reks and I are clear. If you can fly the speeder overhead and fire down, it should be possible to do it safely."

Kacela paused, then adds, "Relatively safely."

With that she starts carefully backing away from the edge of the mine.

Jihahna continues pulling wires and cursing under her breath to get the damaged machine to work. Whoever installed this did a half-@## job of it and the equipment is rather old and cheap. But for all the madness going around her, she is still able to hold off the Gaping Spider that continues to try and bite her.

With a sudden rattleand a hum, the lift whirrrs to life. At this, Jihahna cocks her head in the direction of the spider beside her and activates her vibroblade. With a swift shoulderbarge of shorts, Jihana thrusts at the spider, attempting to pierce the thing, before tearing the blade down.

Unfortunately, she misses as she stands up, the attack was a little sloppy. She decides to move back from it, despite leaving herself open. She moves back to the speeder, climbing back in and standing in the driver's seat, waiting for the spider to come at her again.

Cal smoothly draws a long survival knife and stabs it into the Gaping Spider that had rushed him, killing it instantly. He shouts: “I think we need to pull back!”

Reks managed to wound the one on him, staggering it as it tried to unsuccessfully bite him back.

Targo, in his panic and trying to fend off the other creature, misses with his blaster carbine. He throws the blasted thing into the cab and drops into his seat, scaly hands reaching for the handles... Targo screams out as, with a startling jump, the wounded Gaping Spider's jaws look to lock onto his chest, when suddenly this Gand, reacting on pure luck and speed, interjects her arm with the beast's jaws!! Targo, wild eyed and near panic, nods as this Gand and says: "OK's time to get off dis landing!!!"

WHIRR. Untranslated as the ponchoed one fires the blaster presently inside the wounded spider's mouth - splattering ichors and brains all over the far railing - before extracting a brightly bloodied arm out of the new corpse and switching the blaster to her other hand.

thrum click clacketty "When ever Targo wishes," it agrees, now standing on the back of the bike after that improvised leap, a wounded arm gripping the nikto for stability.

Targo woops, kicks the body off the front of the speederbike and roars off the scaffolding even as the Gand fires off their back, blasting their rear assailant and sending its body tumbling over the side and down into the pit mine!

The gand drops into the sidecar seat as they shoot for the rest of the group.

Reks attacks the injured spider with his lightsaber and manages to slay it, but misses the second one, he then moves back a few meters, earning himself a nasty bite on the leg in the process, and dives for a discarded sporting blaster pistol.

Cal shifts his aim to fire at the creature over Kacela, but his shot is off its mark and simply kicks up dirt near the beast.

The Gaping Spiders fight back, the one biting Jihahna manages to get back at the heroes and inflicts a minor wound. Back on the rim, a pair of Gaping Spider leap through the air, one landing on Kacela, the other on Reks, each wounding the Padawans!!! Losing her footing and her concentration, the blue Twi'lek is knocked prone. More importantly though, she losses her ‘grip’ on the shed full of explosives and it starts free-falling down into the pit!!!

Meanwhile another 20 of the creature crawl over the sides of the pit wall! As many of the miners have fled the area now, only half or so are distracted by them. The remaining turn their multiple evil eyes towards the party, five heading towards Targo and the gand, two towards Jihana, two towards Reks and Cal and one towards Kacela...

Kacela calls her lightsaber to her hand, engaging the spider that downed her in a humming, flashing battle as she regains her footing.

Meanwhile, with another mighty lunge Jihahna swings at the spider beside her, wounding it, then moves away from it to jump into the speeder, waving to the miners who are nearly ready to leave the elevator; "Over here! Over here if you want to escape!" she yells.

The creature tries to bite her and she hears the voice of Thirteen still prone in the landspeeder: “My lady? Are you still there?? Is it safe yet??”

The calm cool inside her keeps her emotions grounded. The small bite in her arm was nothing to her. The tingling sensation of the pain, solving problems in stressful situations? This is what she was good at.

Cal moves back and fires at one of the spiders coming over the rim but misses.

Barely off the ramp, the gand glances towards the rising elevator, then at the free-falling shed heading for the billowing black smoke. This Gand knows that the explosives are fairly stable and will only be set off by some form of energy discharge... clackety.

Bracing on the edge of the sidecar, he fires.

Pock. A hit!

Not even looking to see if that went through, he/she signals Targo to 'go, go, GO!', swinging by Reks, Cal and Kacela, arm held out for any that wants to jump aboard.

Because they are NOT stopping!

As Targo starts pulling the speederbike away from the edge, a brilliant light flashes up out of the pit!!!

Simultaneously, the miners spill out of the elevator lift and start madly running towards the landspeeder parked by (where Thirteen is), as it's the nearest vehicle. There are six of them, all blackened from underground dirt and dust.

Reks leaps onto the forward running fins of the bike as it zooms by, landing perfectly with his lightsabers still drawn and glowing in the dusty atmosphere.



Being a Jedi is about making choices.

It's what her master had drummed into her. Every choice matters. Large and small. Not just because of the Dark Side. Being a Jedi is not simply a path to walk to avoid the temptation to abuse power. It's a path of service. A path of sacrifice.

The speeder bike comes, promising a quick escape from an oncoming cataclysm.

The elevator with miners reaches the top, ready to spill them out into a desperate bid for freedom ahead of the conflagration.

The spiders they had unleashed jostle to spill over and hunt them down.

Kacela makes her choice.

She shakes her head at the Gand, and does not reach out a hand to be swept onto the retreating speeder. Instead she marches resolutely towards the miners. The blast, she hopes, will be contained by the mineshaft and focused upwards. It will destroy the remaining spiders inside, without causing too much devastation around the edges. She has to believe that, or the miners and herself are most likely doomed.

But spiders still hunt around the edge. The miners are unarmed, untrained in combat. They'll be cut down as they flee.

She can't allow that to happen.

Just then thick smoke pour up out of the pit as the explosion rocks and shocks the immediate area! A couple of the Gaping Spiders that have just reach the rim tumble back into the pit as the ground gave out under them! The now empty elevator lift screeches and also slowly starts falling back into the pit! Dust and smoke rush out to fill the area, strong and burningly hot like a mad wind!

Targo fights with the controls for a moment, and then the speederbike straightens as the ground stops shaking.

The gand straightens out of her defensive duck within the sidecar, busily rubbing blood and dust off a compound eye. guttural jumble drone clacketty "These ones should go back." click jumble drone whirr mumble slur "Kacela and Jihahna Darut might have survived."

And they are not the only ones! The shapes of half a dozen Gaping Spiders emerge from the dust and smoke, but they seem somewhat stunned or confused and skitter about for a second before they seem to ‘regain’ themselves. Then they turn towards those miners piling into the landspeeder and the young Padawan Kacela!!!

In the back, they can hear the sound of huge chunks of rubble collapsing within the former mine pit.

Jihahna jumps into the speeder with a cry of triumph. She pauses, not wanting to interrupt the explosion... before cocking her head in Thirteen's direction. "Yeah, it's nearly safe Thirteen, don't let the explosion worry your circuits! We've sealed the mine."

She turns back to the miners as she powers up the landspeeder, bellowing: "Aaaaall Abooooaaard!"

Cal fires at one of the spiders about ready to jump onto the back of Kacela and heavily wounds the creature.

Kacela advances on the spiders at a brisk walking pace. Not because time isn't short, but because she needs to focus. Every instinct is screaming at her to turn, to run, to jump onto the landspeeder and fly away. The spiders are terrible and alien and seem as if they'd scrambled out of a nightmare.

"There is no fear," she whispers, "there is serenity." The words feel hollow, but she clings to them. There is the Force. There is the Force.

Her lightsaber is a solid bar of radiance at her side. She'll need it soon, but for now...she watches the tumbling mass of spiders, waiting for the opportunity...waiting for the right moment.

Now!

Kacela flings her left hand out and concentrates on the Force. To protect the miners. To shield herself and her friends. To hurl these monsters away from her!

Wind stirs and gusts, and rocks and pebbles pelt outward...but most of the power that strike the spiders this time is simply a wave of motion-like concussion, that strikes them and carry them back away!

Simultaneously, automatic fire erupts from out of the dust clouds, blue bolts pinging off rubble even as Targo's speederbike zooms in front of the surviving spiders, trying to draw them into pursuing!

Reks too lets off a shot at one of the spiders but misses terribly. Swearing under his breath, he holds his position on the speedbike, ready to attack any spider that might come close.

The spiders are battered with a hail of blasts and Force. Four of the hairy, multi-limbed creatures fall to the onslaught and are blown away before they can endanger the miners, but none of the two heavily-wounded survivors are in the least bit distracted from their miner-prey. On the contrary, they teeter, then dig their legs in and LEAP on top of the landspeeder as it itself is filling up with miners!

Jihahna can hear the muffled cries of Thirteen as everybody steps onto his prone form: “What are you doing, you fools? I am not carpeting!!!”

She's got other worries though, as a spider is presently busily biting the heck out of the ex-mercenary's left thigh and the other is severely wounding a human miner, causing him to cry out in fear and fall behind the hairy monster!! The other miners scream out in fear, a few looking like they're ready to get back out of the vehicle they have just jumped into!

The two Gaping Spiders chasing Kacela, maybe feeling ignored, both leap at the young Jedi, but their wounds, and her trained agility, prevent them from striking true.

Now that the dust is clearing, they can all see twenty other spiders 40+ meters away, either feasting on miners or chasing them...

Seeing one of the spiders leap to attack a miner, Reks lets off a shot with his pistol that manages to hit the spider, saving the miner from that one at least. He then readies his lightsaber once more for any incoming spiders.

Meanwhile the gand simply rolls out the back of the sidecar and scrambles to place a shot in the furry black rear of the spider skidding and biting atop the landspeeder. It trips on hidden rubble though, triggering too soon: it's going to... be a direct hit, bringing the attacker down!

Not questioning her good fortune, she rolls again out of that fall and to one knee, braces his heavy blaster two handed and fires at one of the two attacking Kacela... tearing a gaping hole in the far side of its abdomen.

guttural slurr jumble whirr clack "This humble one suggests these spiders are not acting like normal animals."

Jihahna nods to the Gand, "I agree with you. Organized chaos..." She grips the controls and moves the landspeeder away from the collapsed pit, towards the mountain pass leading to the mining camp. "Alright guys, listen up. If we come across injured, if one of you can walk, I want you to get out and lift the injured into the speeder. We'll clear the way with our firepower. You have your instructions. Carry them out."

Cal starts getting ready to aid any miners that might still be alive but when he sees that Kacela still had one threatening her. When the young Padawan misses the multi-limb creatures fast dodging around her, he takes a quick shot at it also but the blaster bolt just grazed some hair on the creatures back.

The Gaping Spider tries to bite Kacela in return but the young Jedi holds it off with her lightsaber without much difficulty.

But the spider thing does not last long after that. Everyone concentrates on killing it, quickly reducing it to a smoldering, quivering mass of burnt flesh.

The team pulls back from the pit to move towards the mountain pass after that, Cal noting that most of the miners still laying on the ground are dead except one fellow whom he starts treating. The gand climbs back into the sidecar, making patching up Targo her first priority.

click jumble hum, clack "Remain still, please."

Simultaneously it triggers her wristcomm on the merc's frequency: click mumble clacketty "Warning, Cass Everburn," mumble clacketty hum whirr, jumble click hum: "survivors from the mine are running to the camp." slurr clicketty clack click jumble low-whirr "A lot of Gaping Spiders are in pursuit."

There is a noticeable pause as Cass likely scrambles to get things organized on his end, then: "Will do CRZZZZ mine-team. Five of our guys are FRZZT out right now and I'm hot on their heels... I'll have a fracking LOT of questions for BRRRT-T-T once I get back though!"

The rest of the team only sees an occasional Gaping Spider still moving around but they seem... erratic or confused. They're not chasing any miners or attacking anyone. They're just moving around in random directions, climbing up and over equipment, then back down for no apparent reason...

With a little blaster-encouragement they start fleeing before them, up into the mountains, and over the comlink more miners report that any spiders still chasing them are also fleeing.

It- It seems like they've actually won this thing!

Or have they? About then the comlink on the landspeeder squawks and a holovid of the local Czerka PR manager, Halina Yass, appears, demanding to speak with one of them: “Survey team, I demand to speak to you this instant! Reply! That is an order. ”

The gand finished checking, but there seems to be no more comm traffic coming from underground, only an ominous static, all current traffic seemingly coming from miners aboveground...

click jumble drone guttural whirr mumble slur "This one is happy Kacela, Cal Domaru, Reks Seviir and Jihahna Darut have survived," it tells the others as the two groups rejoin, parking on the edge of the pass leading down to the camp.

Other than the heavy splatter on her right side, he looks to be in a fine mood.

Jihahna smiles at the Gand and nods. "I'm happy you are well too, your skill with that rifle was impressive!" Jihahna licks her left thumb and attempts to rub away some of the splatter on the Gand's clothing. "I would like to help get rid of that stain later."

"Gratitude," gestures the gand. As nobody else seems so inclined, she copies the landspeeder's frequency onto her wristcomm and triggers it, bringing the image of the dark, slick-haired human to the tiny re-enforced screen as well. jumble mumble clacketty click "Good afternoon, Halina Yass."

"What is going on at the mine?" she replies angrily "Did you people have something to do with this attack? If you did I will have you and the rest of the Surveys here up on charges!!!"

Igniting his lightsaber, Reks waves it in front of himself before saying, "Do I look like the type to set monsters upon innocent miners?"

"The spiders seem to have been guided from somewhere within the pit," agrees the gand, unruffled... "Does Halina Yass wish these ones to investigate?"

She takes the time to slowly pan her wristcomm around, showing Halina Yass the scene -- dead spiders piled about, rescued miners jammed on the landspeeder, Cal treating the injured and closing the eyes of the dead...

Through the holovid, Yass glares at them both, saying: "If this is some attempt to stop Czerka Corps legally mining the area you will be sorry, I promise you that."

She then looked at something and nodded her head. Looking back at Reks she adds: "We will be coming there shortly. I want to examine the site myself to see what charges we will be bringing against you. Don't go anywhere..." and then her image disappears as she cut the transmission.

Jihahna turns to the holovid to say something and opens her mouth, then closes it. With a sigh, she shrugs and goes to some of the miners. "Hey, would you guys vouch for us? Particularly on the fact that those spiders numbers appeared endless?"

jumble drone clack mumble clacketty clicketty "Perhaps these ones could ask Cass Everburn and Vivian Rell to attend the meeting as well?" suggests the nameless one.

As they seem busy with other things, he does just that.

This Gand is able to patch through to Vivian without problems. The worried face of the young togruta appears before her saying: "What's happening up there? The city seems to be in a panic about the attack on the mine site." After listening to this Gand's request, she nods her head adding, "Your team has our only vehicle but I will hitch a ride up with someone. There are a lot of vehicles moving back and forth here..."

"Halina Yass and Gall Doogota might have a place aboard their high speed transport," mentions the nameless one with a trace of mischievous buzzing...[/sblock]
[sblock=CHAPTER VII. Aftershocks]The group helps the miners chase off the rest of the spiders and begin search and rescue amid the rubble, Cal doing triage on the wounded and the dead. Somehow they manage to squeeze-in some much needed breather and patching up of their own wounds in there as well.

It's been little more than thirty minutes since the end of the battle when the speederbike's comm sparks some static and a voice can barely be heard saying "ssssppppppkkkkk... hear me? Targo repor...pppppzzzzzkkkk!!! What the frak is go....bbbbssssskkkkk" static has gotten much worse than before.

Without missing a beat Jihahna turns to Targo, "Hey, you can probably get through to Cass through our Comm-link." She grabs the mid range comm-link and goes to the nikto merc to help him reply.

Meanwhile Targo finishes doing some adjusting with his comlink, but looking up at this Gand and Jihahna he replies: "Dats the bests I can gets it..."

Cass's voice does come back over the comlink, however it's still broken and full of static interference. "....bzzzz say again? Someone or something is jamming us. bbbzzzzzzkkkkk... sure why? Makes no sense. It's not coming from the city. Were back at the landing facility.... hhhhhsssskkkkkzz problems also. Can your read me? Get back here as soon as you nnnnnzzzzzzkkkkk. Copy Targo? You read?"

The gand leans over with some interest. guttural mumble click, hum whirr mumble "Can these ones tell where the jamming is coming from?" it inquires of Jihahna Darut.

While she's at it, he turns her insectile head towards the two jedi, quietly talking on the side: clicketty, drone slur mumble slurr low-hum whirr click "Do Kacela and Reks Seviir think the spiders were controlled with the force?"

He hadn't notice anything odd or artificial attached to the Gaping Spiders (or inside them, at least not with a 'casual' look).

Jihahna flexes her fingers with a smile at this Gand. "Please, step into my office..." As she gestures towards the hood of the landspeeder. She rolls out her toolbelt and confers with this Gand, the nameless one plugging his datapad back into their mid-range comm, wave forms and diagnostics springing to life after a few press of three-fingered hands.... "Kacela... What does the force tell you at the moment?"

With help from this Gand, Jihahna plays around with the electronics kit linked with the comlink and is a bit shocked to discover that the signal seems to be coming from space! The jamming is directional, being focused down onto the spaceport...

About then, a large bulk-transport landspeeder pulls into the valley entrance. The smoke and dust from the explosion is still fairly thick around where the mine pit was, so no one can really see too far into the valley -- or the extent of the damage to the mine itself for that matter. Even this far out there are still a few bodies, of both miner and spiders, littered about and various destroyed machinery in sight.

PR Manager Halina Yass and Gall Doogota (the Administrator of Internal Affairs), along with ten Czerka security personnel pile out of the transport and start spreading out around the team. Survey Vivian Rell gets out last and starts pushing her way through the security personnel.

Yass looks at Kacela and then Reks and asks: "You are responsible for this mess I assume. I will have you all up on charges I promise you."

The gand discretely flicks a single switch as he turns from the comm they'd been tinkering with, a red light signalling re-established communication with Vivian Rell. Then she dips her head low in welcome and respect to the Three administrators... And to the security guards as well...

Kacela glares stoically at Yass.

"Well there's the trouble with assumptions. They often lead us to jump to conclusions unsupported by evidence. As you interview your staff, you will find that this all began well before we arrived, and that our only actions were to give your men as much assistance in evacuation as was within our ability.

"Your mining operation has come to the attention of an intelligence of unknown origin and character that exists under the mountain. It is possible, though we'd be fools to make assumptions on the matter, that it may become quiescent again should no further provocation take place. However, until we know more this mine site must be closed. I'd personally recommend that Czerka staff be removed from the planet for the time being, but that is of course up to your board and managers."

Yass glares at Kacela. "We will indeed speak with the miners about what happened. I got reports of giant spider things attacking them but our biologist assures me that the local variety was solitary in nature and did not hunt in packs. So I assume you did some of your Jedi-mind trickery on the creatures to somehow get them to act against their nature. If there is evidence of your foul doing I assure you we will find it..."

Meanwhile, Doogota takes a pair of security personal and heads towards the mine itself. Unless followed they are quickly lost to sight in the dust...

guttural clack mumble hum clicketty whirr clack "Can this one ask: what did happen beneath the ground?" the gand lightly inquires of the miners.

The surviving miners in the landspeeder look at each other and then back to this Gand. One of them, a chadra-fan, replies, "Most horrible indeed. There was a great shaking in the mine. Like an earthquake but something more. I swears I thought I heard something like a great roar or cry just as the ground began to shake."

"As the ground settled and the dust started to clear, Reja-9 started yelling over the comlinks fer everyone to evacuate. At first it did not make sense as the ground had stopped shaking and there were no cave-ins. But then I heard the screaming from other miners. Them there spider things came out of the dark and started killing and attacking everyone in sight!"

Collecting himself the miner adds: "We an't never seen them in the mines before. The spider things. I have no idea where they came from. The earthquake must have opened some tunnels where they were lair or something. A lot of miners did not make it out I think..."

The gand nods quiet confirmation... jumble clicketty whirr hum clack "Was there digging taking place before the trembling?"

The miner nods, saying: "Aye we had just started the mid-day shift. We were cutting some new lines following a promising vein. I think they were also drilling over in the Beta shaft area."



Jihahna cocks her eyebrow at the woman in front of her... Looking her up and down, slowly taking in as much detail as she can. The way she holds herself, the way she dresses, her cleanliness, her posture... Stepping forward, Jihahna speaks with an icy coolness, her eyes sharp, she smiles a polite and professional smile at Halina. "Firstly Miss Yass, you're clutching at straws with your assumptions, secondly..." Her eyes narrow, her smile changes slightly, the cunning smile of a mercenary broadens on her face... "It would appear that Czerka was jamming communication briefly... Why?" She awaits Halinas response...

The PR rep seems a bit confused by Jihahna's talk of jamming: "We did no such thing. What are you talking about?" Then she finds her comfort zone again, glaring at the other woman: "If I could arrest you right now I would. Don't think for a second that your double-talk is going to confuse me. Nor with your alliance with the Jedi bring you any special consideration or leniency. Czerka corp will not be mocked or made a fool of by the likes of you."

Jihahna's smile disappears as she tries to weigh up the validity of the womans claims. Her stomach whispers aloud to her. Her instinct, which has always been good kicks in again... This time, stronger than it has ever been: she's pretty confident that Yass is telling the truth about not knowing anything about the jamming and seemed genuinely surprised by it. She's also pretty sure that Yass is worried about something to do with the mine though. Indeed, most of her anger directed at the team seems to stem from her worry about something else... something unsaid.



Cass Everburn's voice then comes over the comlink, clear as can be, saying "We are at the jumper landing area just outside the mining town. There was some weird jamming going on but it seems to have stopped now. Doesn't make much sense to me but who knows. Maybe Czerka is up to something? Anyway if you can spare him I would like to get Targo back here. If we an't getting paid I would prefer we head back to Footfall and wait on how the Republic might compensate us."

whirr low-hum "Hold, please." She covers the microphone before addressing Halina Yass: "Cass Everburn wonders if Czerka mining wants to hire them to guard the mine from spiders?"

Yass shrugs, "Maybe we need to hire the mercs to protect our interests from you? But the spider threat seems to have ended. We only see some corpses of them here. It is my understanding that the rest ran off."

The ponchoed gand nods agreement: slurr blurb drone clicketty whirr, drone mumble clacketty click, clicketty "The spiders became confused when the pit was sealed," he agrees. "But large numbers were coming out just before." (She shows her bloodied arm to illustrate).

slurr jumble drone whirr "If the spider tunnels are opened again," slur click mumble "or the controller is only stunned," click mumble hum jumble WHIRR "there could be need for Cass Everburn?"

Yass' eyes flash with surprise and anger. "Sealed?? You sealed our mine?? Oh who's authority??"

As that's happening the smiling gran, Gall Doogota, rejoins the group, shaking his head: "It does appear that the mine has collapsed in on itself. This is a potentially substantial loss for Czerka corp." As he eyes the team, his grin seem to fade and he seems to be considering what to do next... "Perhaps it would be best for all if we returned to Footfall and consulted our respective representatives as to what course we might consider next. This mine is a rather important asset to Czerka corp and the Republic war effort..."

click mumble guttural clicketty drone click "What should this one tell Cass Everburn?" she is still holding the comm with the merc leader on the other end.

Doogota scratches his chin for a second and he thinks about what this Gand had mentioned, adding "For the time being we will retain the mercenaries at Freefall and pay them for services rendered. I believe we can employ them to their satisfaction for last least a week. By that time we should know what the Republic Courts ruling on this situation is and what Czerka corp response will be..."

The ponchoed one nods to the gran in acknowledgement and transmits that to Cass Everburn, adding: guttural jumble mumble clacketty drone clicketty hum "These humble ones will be in Footfall as well tonight." click mumble drone, whirr click drone click "Does Cass Everburn and Targo wish to drink?"

Jihahna's cool smile returns to her face with a nod. "We sealed the mine under no present authority. Simply, we have taken a risk, assuming that a reasonable courtroom would accept that we acted in the best interests of the many miners whose lives we saved, that a reasonable court would deem our actions reasonable at the time. That aside, I'm sure that Czerka holds the lives of its employees above their profit margins and will in due course agree on this and that the loss in profits is acceptable as opposed to the potential loss of life. Hopefully, the loss will just be a small one provided the spider issue and anything else hostile can be avoided in the near future.

"In regards to the jamming matter, I apologize for drawing such a conclusion from an assumption, Miss Yass, such a thing is easy to do, particularly when you feel... emotionally invested in something, then it can of course cloud your judgment."

She turns to the rest of her party. "There are one or two other things I feel we could learn over the next day or two.... I believe if we do a little more er 'digging' and choose to be proactive tomorrow, we may be able to find a solution." She raises a finger in Yass's direction. "...And it may in fact benefit Czerka Corp. In fact Miss Yass, I would much prefer it if a mutually beneficial solution can come to light... It would mean less conflict and an easier job for all involved."

From this point on, Jihahna becomes lost in thought. She ponders as to the jamming signal and the ship that has come down to dock.

jumble drone guttural mumble clacketty "What does Vivian Rell want these ones to do?" he asks after Jihahna has spoken. guttural mumble clack clicketty hum, low-hum "Should these ones discuss it in Footfall tomorrow morning?" Drinking with the mercs has meanwhile been arranged!

Vivian wants the data they have collected with 13, but she's otherwise fine with whatever the group wants to do. There are not going to be as many hopper trips between the spaceport and the valley right now though as the mining operation is shut down...

mumble clack jumble, whirr click drone click "Do Halina Yass and Gall Doogota wish to drink?"

Yass simply glares at the Gand and walks back to the landspeeder without a word, while Doogota's smile reappears.

The gran rubs his chin, "Well I can't see anything wrong with sharing a drink. I would be happy to join you and your team. It would be a relief from all this unpleasantness."

The compact alien dips his head in welcome and acknowledgement (and maybe a bit of surprise too).



On the way to the camp, when out of earshot of the Czerka reps, Jihahna whispers to the others her insight into Yass and her now growing suspicion that there is a third party involved, working to keep digging. She also mentions a suspicion that Yass is not upset about Czerkas financial losses with the collapse, but something else.

jumble drone clacketty hum click, drone "Does Jihahna Darut mean 'working to stop the digging'?" suggests the gand with a puzzled tilt of her head. jumble clicketty hum drone "Jamming prevents help from coming." jumble slurr clack jumble hum "Jamming creates maximum damage to the miners?"

"Gee, gand, you come up with additional possibilities all the time. How am I supposed to be paranoid with you about?" She chuckles after she says this. "No, I think the jamming was an attempt to stop us from clearly communicating with Vivian. Or to slow us down in general. I think they must have picked up on our tracking of their signal. If I'm right, we'll find that a ship never made dock and that they pulled back in an effort to remain hidden. If I'm wrong, the ship will have landed and we may be able to be able to find out more about why they jammed communications in the first place. There's also the possibility that we get completely barred from finding out about the ship, which will tell us that this third party holds considerable pull here in Czerka dominated territory and that they wish to remain hidden."

jumble drone drone jumble hum "Jihahna Darut is probably right." And, speaking of Vivian Rell. guttural jumble drone click clacketty whirr "These ones thank Vivian Rell for coming." jumble whirr mumble "Conversation is better than shouting." A buzz, slurr clacketty "Or firing."

"We can rest tonight," Kacela remarks after that, "But tomorrow I need to get back to work. There is more going on here than we've seen. I want to interview the miners about what they've seen. I also want a chance to speak more directly with Yass, or another high ranking Czerka officer." She frowns slightly. "From what Jihahna is saying, I wonder if they had some idea that something like this might happen and are desperately attempting to shift blame to a convenient target."



Having decided on a course of action, the team and remaining persons in the mountain valley return to the landing pads south of the mining camp. There they reunite with Cass Everburn and the mercenaries.

Kacela and the gand, along with most of the miners, Czerka corp personal, Vivian and the mercs pile into a pair of hoppers to head back to Footfall. Jihahna, Reks, along with the droid Thirteen, will be taking the landspeeder back to the jungle edge to find and speak with the natives before returning to the spaceport.

The hooper ride back to the port is uneventful and relativity short.

"Could you answer a few questions for us?" Kacela mildly asks the miners as they all cling to improvised handholds (although the ride is not that rough). "For example, who's the foreman for the miners? Who was in charge? Who was actually on the site?"

One of the miners looks up at the Padawan's inquiry. "Reja-9... but I don't think she made it out... I an't seen her here with the injured or back at the mine camp. She was the one that ordered everyone out of the mines. But not everyone made it..."

drone hum clicketty whirr hum click "Was Reja-9 in the Beta Shaft area?" inserts the gand's calm 'voice'. With the overcrowding she is wedged in a high corner of the airhopper, left hand gripping one of the coolant valves for stability. jumble clicketty whirr hum click "Where is the Beta Shaft area?"

The miner nods his head, adding: "I thinks so. That's where the new vein was discovered last week and they have been digging deeper there. I guess it would be in the northwest in relations to the mine shaft proper. The shaft goes down... well it went down, about 1,000 meters. Most of the veins we have found are on to the south of the mine shaft, but this new one, the Beta looked to be really rich..."

"Have you seen... or heard from the others if they've seen... people around the mine site or spaceport who aren't Czerka, and who aren't miners? They'd likely keep to themselves...perhaps take some precautions not to show their faces."

Kacela doesn't expect TOO much from the line of questioning, but you never know: "You might feel...uneasy looking at them, even if they do nothing threatening."

The miner just shakes his head and looks at those other miners nearby. They speak quietly among themselves for a few moments and then also indicate a negative shaking of their head. One adds: "Not to any of our knowledge, Mistress Jedi. The only non-miners or non-Czerka reps on-planet are a couple of Republic Survey personal and the mercenaries who showed up about the same time you did. I suppose a few tramp freighter crews come and go fairly often. But they never came up to the mountain mine site."

clicketty drone jumble hum click "1,000 meters is admirable," compliments the gand, getting back to the topic. drone jumble whirr "That is very deep." A thought and he turns towards their resident naturalist: click drone slur clicketty whirr hum "What do the spiders eat at those depths, Cal Domaru?" slur burble clack whirr hum "Or do the spiders return to the surface to eat?"

Cal replies that, "The databases say meat, but nothing specific. They will attack pretty much anything smaller then they are. But they are cave dwellers and only come out to hunt. They take their food back to where they are laired normally."

One of the miner adds: "Czerka brought in a big laser boring machine. It cut down that 1,000 meters in just over a day."

guttural jumble clack, clicketty umble whirr "Will you tell these ones about the crystals?" she inquires, obviously quite interested.

The miner shrugs towards this Gand, "I guess I knows as much as anyone. They use the stuff for capital ships. Something to do with the mass ratio of the heavier weapons that capital ships can carry. It's used as the main shock absorber for heavy turbolasers and such class of weapons. It's a very stable compound which is why we can use baradium bisulfate explosives around it with almost no chance or burning or destroying the crystals. I'm not sure of its other uses, but that what the Republic wants it for..."

The gand listens before re-directing... jumble click hum drone "What do the crystals look like in the ground?" guttural clicketty drone mumble hum, mumble hum whirr "Can this one tell a good crystal from a bad crystal?"

The miner looks at this Gand with a bit of confusion on his face, "Ah good and bad crystals? No, there just crystals. The are a dullest red color but other than that look like crystals."

The compact little alien nods its understanding. What he needs is an engineer or a geologist.

She makes small talk the rest of the way to the Footfall space port (such as it is).

===



Meanwhile, the landspeeder heads south as the hoppers leaves. Back at the jungles edge, the pair has to spend almost an hour searching for the natives as they are not waiting at the location they were last seen.

Suddenly, a sole Kwi appears through the trees. Thirteen again translates its words, saying: "Has the digging stopped? The ground does not shake but we fear something has awakened. It might already be too late."

Looking to the kwi, Reks says: "The digging has ceased, at least momentarily, but many creatures came out of the mines to attack us. They appeared to be very large spiders." Looking to Thirteen: "You wanna translate what I just said, buddy?"

Jihahna raises her eyebrows at the Kwi. She steps forward almost indignantly after Reks speaks, hands outstretched in frustration. "Whadd'ya mean you 'fear' something has awakened? Do your people have information to support that fear?"

She pauses a moment before looking down and taking a slow breath before continuing. "What do you know, Kwi, that we do not see? What is it we are missing? Furthermore, are there any among you who would know of places where Czerka tribe CAN dig safely to satisfy their needs? Information is power... Oh and another thing!...."

Jihahna stops, a flash of possibilities, information swirling through her mind in patterns.... Paranoia is something Jihahna lives by. Not always accurately, but she knew no other way. The ship that descended just as the mine collapsed, the strong desire by Yass to have the party return to footfall and get away from the mine, her concern not for the mine, but for something else down below, the Kwi being right about the 'Guardians' coming from below.... The darkness awakening underneath, the Kwi's new claim that whatever is down there is still awakening or has already awoken, that sealing the mine hadn't been enough...

It all made sense now, her hunch, she was almost certain. Whether she's right or not, her mind is made up. Jihahna is convinced that there's someone down in the mine waking the 'Demons' up. But who would want to wake 'demons'? What the hell were the 'demons'?... "A weapon..." She whispers, her eyes glazing over.

She turns to Reks, fringe partly concealing her face. "The mine. We... we have to go back... Find a way in." She looks back towards the mine site, gripping her blaster rifle a little more tightly.

The Kwi listens to Thirteen translate the pairs questions and concerns and thinks for a moment before replying. Thirteen's translates the reply. "Hmm, the spiders are common in caves throughout these mountains but they hunt alone. They only come together to mate. The females lay eggs and abandon the young to fend for themselves. Bad magic made them work together. But we do not know... it is the guardians or the daemons?"

Looking at Jihahna, Thirteen again translates its reply to her, "No we have no magic to understand what is happening. Only legends, passed down from the dark times -- when the daemons fell from the skies upon our ancestors. In those days it is said that we still could wield the magic and the old ones created the guardians to stop the daemons. It worked but in order to win, the old ones gave up their magic. Or so they say..."

"The legends also say that if the guardians or the daemons awaken again, that they will inflict terrible vengeance on all of us. Why they are not destroying us now we do not know. Maybe it is waiting for something. Maybe awaking others. We have no answers for you. Only that the danger has not passed. That if the mountain stirred once, it will stir again, and soon"

After this the Kwi again seems to think for a moment before replying to Jihahna's last question. Finally Thirteen translates: "This one would not know as he is young. But we will ask the elders. They would know more than this one. If you stop that which has awakened, we will find a safe place to dig if there is one."

Reks asks of the kwi: "Is there any more information or anything you can give us to help stop this disaster from occurring?"

After Thirteen translates for Reks, the droid parrots back the Kwi reply: "We are sorry, but this one does not. The ancients might have know, but the legends say nothing on how to defeat them. The only thing we might say is one last the legend that might help. Maybe not, we are not sure. It is said that the greatest mountain in this range, Kathree Dorm, was where the greatest temple of the ancients was. This temple allow the ancients to travel to other stars. But this 'sin' drew the daemons to our lands. And so this temple was were the ancients performed their great ritual that put the daemons to sleep. If you could find this mountain... maybe you could find out what the ancients knew. But we do not know where the mountain is. Nor do the old ones that live today..."

Reks thanks the kwi before heading back to Footfall.

Somewhat confused and slightly angered at what she has been told, Jihahna nods a farewell at the Kwi and walks away with Reks. "C'mon Thirteen... We have... Things to do..."

More irritable than before, Jihahna begins grinding her teeth in frustration, occasionally looking back towards the mine. It looks like if they wanted to stop this 'demon' threat, she'd probably have to take her newly discovered abilities in the force and sacrifice them or something... Well, GOOD RIDDANCE. She had had enough of the force. It's nothing but trouble in her mind. It did... Save her life once though... She swallows, looking to her prosthetic arm..... 'Yeah, probably saved me so that I could sacrifice myself for some other cause..... I guess that's why I'm expendable'. She smiles at her last thought and at the conversations she had had with the gand. He - or She? - always had a way of calming her down, making everything seem a little smaller, more manageable. She hasn't known her for long, but hopes it might not end here.

She glances up at Reks... "Sooo, I guess one of us needs to give up their connection to the force huh? Find an ancient temple in a lost mountain, fight our way down and save the galaxy huh? I should never have given up death sticks..."

"Don't worry, we'll figure this mess out somehow, that's what us Jedi do," Reks responds with a wink, before continuing on his way.

On that note, Jihahna sends a transmission through to the others, bouncing it off the comm room at the mining camp. "We're on our way back now. See you all soon."

jumble drone guttural jumble low-hum "This one understands, Jihahna Darut," comes the - surprisingly clear - voice of the gand in response to the comm message. hum clicketty whirr "Was the discussion productive?"

Jihahna licks her lips before replying. "You could say that"... She pauses a moment before going on. "We'll fill you in soon, but in summary, there are three tidbits of information. The good news is firstly that the Kwi have agreed to locate safe areas for Czerka to dig, free of any threats, then there's the bad news..."

She pauses again, she knew Czerka would much prefer to find out what the survey team has been up to by 'intercepting' their information. She had to choose her words before continuing... "As the Kwi's original warning to us just before the incident at the mine was correct, you would agree we have so far found their information to be accurate. They believe that the situation is not over and... Will only worsen.

"Thirdly... They have provided a possible solution to the... Awakening of the... spiders and... so on, but it's hard to explain. We'll fill you in when we get there."

clicketty hum drone whirr, high-whirr clack "Agreeing there are places to dig is a large step to peace," congratulates the ponchoed one. drone slur jumble drone guttural whirr CLACKETTY "This one is jealous of Reks Seviir and Jihahna Darut."



They signed off from each other, the gand mentioning that they would be at a cantina named the Void Refresher in Footfall once they got back.

Jihahna and Reks head back to the hopper landing slip. There aren't any hoppers there when they arrive, but they see a few workers piling up supplies near the cleared area whom mention that another hopper is due in 15 minutes. They should be back to Footfall in less than an hour.

===

Meanwhile, after landing and unloading with the first group Vivian heads back to the Survey building to send her report back to the Republic. The team is still invited to stay there if they want.

Cass Everburn mentions that the mercs have rooms at a nearby cantina, the Void Refresher if they want to stop by for a drink. Targo adds to this Gand: "Ye saved my scrawny butt back at the mines, I owes you more than a few drinks iffin ye stop by."

jumble, jumble drone clicketty whirr click "People owe their lives to Targo and his bike," replies the gand with a head dipping in gratitude. A look, a soft buzz: jumble hum click, clacketty "And Targo's butt is not scrawny."

"Ha, well I am still buying fer ye there none the less!"

clacketty hum click "Gratitude."

clack drone vrr drone click, click whirr hum "Does Gall Doogota approve of the Void Refresher?"

Nodding his head, the gran fixes this Gand with his triple gaze and says with a smile, "Yes that is acceptable. A bit of a rough crowd, but I am sure the mercs and you can provide protection for me."

Well then: guttural mumble click clacketty drone "These ones will clean up and join you in 45?" it proposes, looking to both the mercs, the gran and any miners that want to join.

It is unanimously agreed.

On their way out of the space pad, this Gand notices the Morning Song (the transport they arrived in) getting loaded by a bunch of workers. Captain Kaldo is standing nearby smoking a deathstick when he notices the Gand and Kacela and heads over to speak with them.

"Hey," he says when he gets up to the pair, "Sorry: Czerka corp called me about rushing a load of thorilide back to the Republic. I need the cred, so I informed the Survey Corp that I could not take you all back with me like I said I would. Unless your team is ready to go by tonight? There should be other transports coming through though, as the miners still need supplies and they are still shipping out minerals from the mines located around Footfall. Anyway... let me know."

Having just spoken more to the team then in the week it took to get here, Kaldo turns around without waiting for a rely and heads back to his ship.

Looking around the pair notices that there is indeed a lot of activity at the spaceport, with three other transport ships getting loaded at present. There is only two other transports docked at the spaceport, one that has some cargo sitting next to the ramp and another with a couple of trandoshan spacers loitering by their ship and laughing at some inside joke.

The gand looks to the Czerka reps - in front, and already some distance away - before unobtrusively angling her path towards the unsupervised cargo piled next to the ramp. By the labels it's mostly food stuff and some legal mining equipment. Nothing out of the ordinary... But those aren't what's being shipped out right now.

The gand presses on.

Kacela notices that the two trandoshans have suddenly stopped talking and watch what 'she' was searching through for a second before going back to joking with each other. The young Jedi finds that a bit odd and maybe even suspicious.

This Gand approaches the loading operations to take a quick peek inside but the workers around there asks 'her' not too. They're not hostile but busy and do not want 'her' to get in the way of them doing their work. The quick scan that she got at least establishes that the packaging and cargo containers look legit for hauling of the ore crystal...

Kacela watches the Trandoshans for a moment, but decides that assisting 'the Gand' as more immediately important. It bears thought though. If there are Sith on this planet, they are keeping a low profile, which means they could easily have come aboard a transport. She wonders how long that Trandoshan ship has been here...

To the workers she says with her usual calm forthrightness, "I apologize for the inconvenience, but our investigation is important. It could not only save lives, but decide the future of your ability to sell and buy goods here. A few moments now could mean the difference between future profits, and looking elsewhere... I ask again that you allow us to conduct our business and be out of your way."

The workers loading the Morning Song bow their heads slightly and back away from Kacela and this Gand, saying "Oh yeas, of course. We just have a schedules to keep, but iffin' its important, of course Mistress Jedi."

Looking in the crates marked 'thorilide', this Gand notes that there is indeed reddish colored crystals carefully packed and sealed inside and nothing else. Checking 'her/his' datafile, the description matches what this Gand had found inside them. All the crates appear to hold the same crystals.



Having satisfied 'her/his' curiosity, this Gand and Kacela make their way to Republic Survey building to change and clean up before heading over to meet the mercenaries at the Void Refresher.

clicketty low-hum "Apologies, Kacela." guttural drone whirr clicketty, clack hum burble whirr "This one had imagined something other than thorilide might have been found."



Meanwhile, Reks and Jihahna meet up with a hooper pilot and hitch a ride back to Footfall on his ship after they'd unloaded some supplies for the mining camp.



After they clean themselves up, this Gand and Kacela head towards the Void Refresher cantina.

Inside the smoky, low ceiling common room, the pair notes a wide variety of patrons sitting and drinking and laughing. A small band of three rodians are playing on the stage located at the back of the room. There's a central bar area with two human bartenders serving patrons there and two (twin?) female devaronians acting as waitresses in the main room.

Cass Everburn and most of the mercenaries have pushed up a number of tables together along one wall and are talking quietly among themselves. When Targo notices the Gand he stands up and waves her over to the table, "Have a sit, lets gets yer'all some drink!" He then shouts over the crowd and music to gain the attentions of one of the waitresses.

The gand has changed into three-layered, wide-sleeved robes in earth tones, with a dark-red sash and dark-red accents bringing out the markings on her head. The central part of his wristcomm now rests across its neck on a wooden necklace, completing his 'civilian'/off-duty outfit.



About this time, Jihahna and Reks have arrived at the spaceport onboard a mostly empty hopper. The pilot waves goodbye as they deboarded, with the plan of dropping off their gear and maybe cleaning up at the Survey station and then rejoining the rest of the team at the cantina.

As the pair is heading out, Jihahna has a sudden flash of foreboding... a chill that goes down the back of her spine and makes the hairs on her arm stand up. Looking around, she cannot determine where this 'feeling' comees from, except it seems to be focused here in the spaceport. Something... bad. As soon as she thinks about it, the feeling flees from her and she can sense nothing more.

But something is off here in the spaceport.

She notices that there are five transports and three hoppers (including the one she just left) parked in the port. Three of the transports are being loaded, including the Morning Song. There is only one hopper and a transport that have some crates parked next to them right now, but all the workers seem to be concentrating on the three being loaded...

At this point, Jihahna's paranoia kicks in. She hates it when the force creeps up on her like this and tries to interfere with her life! And she is just MOMENTS from getting a drink!

She looks at Reks, leans over and whispers at him "Do you not feel that Jedi? Why is it the force has to be so, inconvenient?"

Noticing something wrong with the Force, Reks looks around to see if anyone odd appears to be in the area... but cannot see anything out of place... but he is sure something is wrong here.

Jihahna too digs deeper still with the force. Though she doesn't like the feeling, she has to try to find who is causing all this trouble. She gets a flash... an image... of something. A shadow standing near the Morning Song that was not there before and is not there again. An evil presence... watching her and Reks, with no good in its heart.

She allows the bad feelings to wash over her, perhaps her discomfort being clearly visible, so she radios through to Kacela. She always radioed through to this Gand, usually, so she hopes this difference will help them to understand the subtle message she was trying to convey. "Kacela, I don't feel well. I don't think I can come for drinks at this moment, I have a stomach ache like I had earlier today... It came on suddenly just as we arrived at the spaceport."

Uneasy, the pair start towards the gate while talking when Reks catches sight of something out of the corner of his eye: a small explosive pack is magnetically attached to the gate mechanism controlling the blast door leading to town. The young Padawan has little experience with explosives, but if he had to guess... It looks like the blast could force the blast doors to close, sealing the spaceport off from the main town!



"What was...? Jihahna, I'm having trouble..." The line goes dead, but Kacela feels a familiar prickle along her spine. She gets a strong sense that something is wrong with the other two... something at the spaceport is not right!

She leans over to the gand, "I'm going to check on the others. Call me if you notice anything... strange. Something's going on."

The gand nods quiet acknowledgement. "Does Kacela wish some company?" Behind him Targo's doing a rousing retelling of their 'pit' adventure, complete with lightsaber hums and the rattle of automatic fire.

Meanwhile at the Void Refresher, as Kacela stands to head toward the door, the Czerka rep Gall Doogota has just come through the entrance. The gran nods his head toward the young Padawan, saying: "Well met, Mistress Jedi." The rep has also changed and while his clothes are not overly formal, they're probably better then anyone's clothing in the cantina.

Kacela pauses and regards Gall. Though impatient to get going, she doesn't want to squander a chance to extend an olive branch to Czerka. The company is not the true enemy here, she suspects, despite their ruthless pursuit of profit.

"Well met, Gall. I apologize for my rudeness, but a situation demands my attention. I'd like to speak with you soon though, if you have a moment. Will you be here later?"

As it seems she will not be needed after all, the gand turns back to the festivities, dextrously injecting another dose of golden Kyrf liquor directly into his amonia container before offering some to Cass Everburn and then the other mercs.

Gall Doogota nods to Kacela: "Of course Mistress Jedi.". As she leaves, he turns his triple eyes down to this Gand and smiles. He then sits down and says, "An interesting crowd. Well what are we drinking and what are we drinking to?"

Drone mumble click "Dathomir's future?" suggests the nameless one, presenting the label on the Kyrf bottle and preparing to pour... clack drone guttural mumble clicketty hum "This humble one was surprised when Gall Doogota accepted the invitation."

An invitation to share.



Back at the spaceport the two Force Users struggle to understand what the Force is telling them and what their sight is showing them. As they try to make sense of this, unseen attention has turned on them...



"What are those two doing?" the voice asks. A figure steps from the shadows behind the group of watchers and says: "You need to act now. I warned you that there were Jedi here. Make your move now before they have a chance to act..."

The leader of the group lets out a low growl, deep from the back of his throat, "This better be worth it, Sith. I don't like the idea of facing Jedi..."



Jihahna looks about carefully now, searching this time with her eyes for whatever evil appears to be lurking about. She allows the bad feelings to remain, the visible distress clear on her face as she lets them ripple over her, but still she looks about.

Jihahna still sees nothing out of the ordinary though... the shadow seem to have disappeared but a lingering sense of... darkness has fallen over the spaceport.

She notes that Reks has taken a couple of steps towards the transports being loaded and steadies herself before mumbling to him, looking wherever he seems to be looking. "Wh- What are you looking at? By the way, what sort of presence is pure evil, ellusive, fits in an area near a spaceship and can only be seen with the force?" She cocks her eyebrows as she says this, trying not to let her feelings overwhelm her.

Reks radios the others. "There appears to be some sort of explosives attached to the blast doors here, and I'm feeling something ominous in the area."

Jihahna sighs as the lack of an answer to her question but she understands: she's worked with the strong and silent types before. AND she's just suddenly caught sight of a number of figures hiding in the shadows of one of the transports and pointing weapons at the dockworkers loading up the other transports!

Almost simultaneously, the explosive at the main gate explode and the door slams shut with a loud BOOM!! And the instant THAT happens, the figures - transdoshans all - start rushing out and firing at the workers, dropping half of them, and at the pair!



"Bzzark There appears to be some sort of explosives attached to the blast doors here, and I'm feeling something ominous in the area," comes out of the gand's commlink, followed by an explosion loud enough to shake dust off the walls!

"Apologies," the gand communicates to the gran. Standing up, she ratchets the control on the side of her rebreather, raising the level of his vocoded voice as he addresses all the mercs, spacers and ruff-and-tumble types present in the cantina: hum clacketty slur mumble "There is trouble at the spaceport." guttural mumble clacketty click hum whirr jumble clack whirr click "This one suggests everyone who does not wish to be stranded here arms up and follows this one?"

The gand then picks up his robes and runs.

Gall Doogota and Targo are following, but the other mercenaries are a bit confused as to what's happening (the lack of money involved might also have something to do with it)...



Reks runs at the nearest enemy, swinging once each with his twin lightsabers. His blades find their mark both times, and while the first slash only wounds the villain, the second cuts the raider down!!!

Jihahna blares in the mid-range comlink as she runs towards the trandoshan leader. She huffs as she broadcasts to all channels: "EMERGENCY, this is Jihahna Darut, Spaceport under attack by over a dozen Trandoshan Pirates, I repeat all stations, PIRATE ATTACK, they're killing DOCKWORKERS."

With that, her heartbeat slows as does everything else in her mind, the tingling sensation she was almost becoming used to. She seems easily able to draw on it now... There is no doubt about it: Jihahna has the force.... But for how long will it remain that way? She doesn't know.

She heads into cover, knowing there's no choice this time. Whilst the innocent are slaughtered by the second, Jihahna has to take down the danger as swiftly as possible. With a somber expression masked in calm, she notches her Blaster rifle from stun to kill, the slow click followed by a crackle of energy. With that, she raises the rifle, cocks the stock to her shoulder and lets loose a barrage of deadly auto-fire at the vulnerable trandoshans who are running towards the transports, treating them as they treated the innocent. Her cold mercenary eyes flash as the red light dances in front of them, extinguishing some of the life they glared at... Her shots wounded three of the pirates, causing them to dive to the ground for cover.

The other four pirates step back a bit, two firing into the Jedi Padawan. The first catches him a glancing blow while the second sends the young man reeling from his wounds!!! The other two fire at Jihahna. Only the first one succeeded but with the Force it only causes a minor wound. Then the pirate captain, yelling something in Dosh, moves toward the Padawan and inflicts another terrible wound onto Reks with a vibrosword. The young man is barely standing!!!

===

Turning the corner, the compact little alien sees a certain athletic blue Twi'lek on the straightaway street leading to the spaceport. And its compound eyes immediately pick up the blackened and deformed gates...

She's remarkably light on both armor and utility gear right now... but she has secreted a few small items from his utility belt into its sash, just in case. And amongst them - reaching for the comm on her neck, clicks breathy with running even as the translated words are not - guttural clicketty hum whirr "This one has liquid cable."

Kacela makes it too the spaceport wall. The blast door is indeed down and closed but the Padawan can hear blaster fire coming from the other side... and a dark presence that seems to ooze past the walls... She shakes her head at the gand and says, "No time! They've cut the spaceport off from reinforcement! We'll need more than just you and I!"

Her lightsaber ignites and without further ado, she drives it into the thick metal of the blast door.

Most materials, a lightsaber simply cuts through as if it were barely there, but this door was designed to resist incredible energies and does not give way so easily! Even so, Kacela is able to press the weapon through its substance at a slow, steady pace, leaving a dribble of yellow smoking metal pooling under it.

So seeing, the robed gand stops looking for any cable dispensers and saves her amonia for running.

But - it - wasn't FAST enough though! The blaster fire was clearly audible... people were DYING in there!



In a rush of adrenaline Reks shakes off the effects of his terrible wounds and slashes at the pirate captain, his first connecting and stabbing the captain in the arm, causing him to howl in pain and curse the Padawan in his native Dosh.

Something clicks in Jihahnas mind: Why are they trying to hijack those transports? She grits her teeth and moves towards them. She radios in to this gand and Kacela. "Reks has got a lot to chew on at the moment. I'm gonna try and stop them from stealing those transports."

She moves towards the 3 that are trying to run to the transports, out of cover. "HEY, HOW MANY OF YOU HAVE ALREADY DROPPED? TWO DEAD, THREE ON THE GROUND. I'M BETTING YOUR PRECIOUS SCOREKEEPER IS DISSAPPOINTED IN HER SOFT LIZARDS! TURN AROUND SO I CAN KILL YOU FRONT ON!"

With that, She tries again to unleash autofire on the 3 that dashed away, now back in range, she blasts a pair that was about to enter the Morning Song with laserfire and insults... wounding both seriously! They both dive behind the cargo containers still packed outside and disappear from view. For now.



The flesh could be weak, but the Force is always there. Kacela calls on it now, pressing on her lightsaber not just with muscle but with the power of her will made manifest. The pace of the cutting abruptly speeds up considerably, and in seconds she is finished. A swift kick brings the meter-wide hunk of metal lurching out from the hole! Its edges are still gleaming faintly orange, but Kacela takes a few steps back and dives through, somersaulting into the spaceport's yard to face the foe within!

The robed gand is right behind, rolling to one knee by her side as it draws her heavy blaster from the side-slit designed for just that purpose.

guttural high-whirr "This one is fully impressed." (By which she means the door.)

Compound eyes drink in the scene.

Reks is fighting a large transdoshan and another group standing a few meters away with blaster rifles, jockeying for an angle. There are additional transdoshans partially hidden under their ship. Some are racing onto other transports while others still are pointing their blasters at Jihahna!!

A number of bodies litter the ground near the transports, these being the dock workers who had only seconds before been loading them with valuable cargo!

A lone pirate races into one of the transports while another group of three dashes into a different one... there are two others hiding from Jihahna's blasts behind cargo outside the Morning Song, but so far none has made it inside. The three that Jihahna shot only moments before spend the next few seconds crawling to find cover behind various machinery in the spaceport, disappearing from immediate sight.

The pair of pirates that had been shooting at Reks drop their blaster rifles to their sides (they are on rifle slings) and draw vibroblades instead, trying to encircle the Jedi to finish him off, but they both failed to connect the fast moving target. The other two fire at Jihahna, but only one scores a minor burn against the ex-merc. The last three under the unknown transport also fire at her, but again they rush their aim and none even came close to hitting her.

The pirate captain shakes violently and seems to recover somewhat from the wound Reks inflicted. He tries to stab the Padawan but cannot get past the twin lightsaber defense. He yells something in Dosh to those pirates still engaging the heroes.

A little surprised at the leader's speedy recovery, Jihahna turns and fires a burst his way, once again taking advantage of their being out of cover. With a cold stare, she smiles at his look of surprise as he's dealt a glancing blow, causing him to grunt in pain. Nothing like a good crossfire to keep your enemies on their toes... She then moves 30 feet towards the Morning Song, positioning herself behind cover with the two reeling pirates from before.

In a blind fury, Reks lets loose with all his strength on the captain, swinging with his lightsabers faster than the average eye can register. Reks' twin blades cut the man in half!!

Meanwhile Kacela advances across the spaceport's open yard, her lightsaber still ignited. Her pace is a brisk walk, and her face pinches a little in concern as Reks lets loose.

Striking in anger, striking with no restraint... he was skating dangerously close to the Dark Side. Pushed by desperation, perhaps.

I'm sorry I wasn't here before you came to this.

The pirates around seemed shocked by the sudden death of there leader... just long enough to let Kacela step up near Reks and unleash the powers of the Force onto the group there.

Her gesture is a simple wave of her hand, as if warding off an errant mosquito. The Force pulses out from her though, a wall of energy that strikes as if solid. It strickes, throwing both of the mercenaries back several meters where they crash to the ground and don't get up!!! Not done, the wave surges across the courtyard, spreading tiny cracks in the weaker spots in the tarmac and pushing boxes and debris ahead of it. The two pirates in a pitched battle with Jihahna don't even have time to dive away before it's on them, knocking them sprawling.

Through it all, Kacela's attention is on her fellow Jedi. "Reks," she urges, "Find calm. Let go and find calm. I'm here to help you. Jihahna and the gand are as well. You aren't alone."

The remaining pirates waver at this Gand starts pointing her heavy blaster pistol towards them...

Clacketty slurr click "Please drop your weapons," says the calm female voice, addressing the three hesitating trandoshans.

Jihahna looks down at the Pirates who are squirming in pain and waves her hand playfully, pretending to Jedi mind trick them, "You will surrender and cease violence at once," a pause "Because, if you don't, that gand will kill you both...."

Adding to their distress, Targo jumps through the hole in the blaster wall and kneels down next to this Gand, pointing his blaster carbine at the group of pirates...

The three pirates glance at each other and quickly drop their blaster rifles, raising their hands in surrender and submission. The other pirates hidden around the spaceport shout at each other in Dosh... they seem to be debating surrendering too. After a few seconds, more blaster rifles are thrown out into the open...

A three-fingered hand points towards the two boarded transports, lighted ramps still open to the night air, jumble guttural whirr, clicketty slurr clack "Targo and this humble one will cover you?"

Jihahna smiles at her companions and runs towards the transport the first three trandoshans had entered. She jumps on the communicator as she runs "I'll go stop this transport from taking off if I can. They've boarded this one and the other just there I think..." She points to the other. "If one of you can reach it in time, good! Also, good luck with your diplomacy!"

The robed gand matter-of-factly walks over to a downed pirate, kneels next to the heavy, scaled corpse and removes the riffle sling from its shoulder, practiced moves making sure the mechanism is still intact.

Despite his heavy wounds, Reks runs to the ship as fast as he can, but the gand remains right where she is: kneeling over a body, riffle shouldered and steady, overhead lights glinting redly off its compound eyes... and Targo does the same.

The Czerka rep Gall Doogota stays outside the blast door, peering in at the pirates. This Gand notices that he's drawn a hold-out blaster. This Gand also notices some of the other mercenaries making their way towards the blast doors.

It won't be long now.



Meanwhile Jihahna dashes into the nearest transport where three of the pirates have entered only seconds before. There a pirate was stationed as a guard but he's looking deeper into the ships interior, not excepting anyone to enter so quickly. Somewhat surprised, the man growls and starts pointing his blaster rifle at the ex-merc. Jihahna hears further blaster fire deeper in the ship's interior...

"PWAH!" Without warning, she pulls the trigger on the pirate....

His death scream audible throughout the rest of the transport, she rushes through to the cockpit, setting the blaster back to autofire, but also readying herself to use the vibro-bayonet. "SAY GOODNIGHT TO YOUR SCOREKEEPER BOYS!"

A pause and then someone yells something back in Dosh. When he gets no reply, it's replaced with broken Basic: "We kill everyone here and take ship. You not want to die you get off ship before we take off!"

Jihahna jumps again on the comlink, "I just shot down one pirate, two to go, I can't see them yet, but the other ship only has one pirate on it, someone needs to take that last pirate down." With that, Jihahna moves around the corner to take down her prey. She responds to them "You picked a bad time to ambush these ships, guys."



The nameless one waits for the incoming mercs... Then efficiently transitions 'guard duty', leaving them with: guttural jumble clacketty whirr, click high-whirr "This humble one suggests preventing that ship from taking off?" click drone "That ship is theirs." With a gesture towards the trandoshan prisonners.

Then he starts sprinting towards the two boarded transports.

Kacela flicks her hand at the pile of confiscated pirate weapons, scattering them away from the pirates. She waves the mercenaries over and says, "Cover them!" then takes off at a run towards the last transport, the one no one has yet moved towards. There's no time to wonder or worry about what the pirates planned to DO with these ships. There was only time to act.

Targo and the other mercs all nod in agreement and pour through the hole, a part of them heading towards the pirate ship.

jumble drone drone slur guttural clacketty "These ones are on their way, Jihahna Darut." Although she has to watch her steps to avoid stepping in the young Jedi's blood...



Jihahna moves quickly through the access door. A burst of blaster fire greets her as she steps into view, but the shots are wild and spark off the surrounding bulkheads.

In here it's an hexagonal room that looks to be some sort of common area for the transport (combination kitchen, dining room and entertainment center) with a large table in the middle of the room and a trandoshan hiding behind it.

She shoots at him but misses.

The pirate curses at her in Dosh and unleashes another burst of blaster fire but again his aim is wildly off and the bolt do not even come close to hitting her...



Outside, Reks has almost made it to the transport ramp when the ramp lifts and closes!!!

The Jedi spots the locking mechanism to the side and manages to hit it just right with the butt of his lightsaber. The ramp crashes back down after that single hit and he rushes inside.

The Gand is less than twenty meters from the other transport... the ramp to this ship is still down... She slings his riffle and runs.



Jihahna dashes through, passing the trandoshan with a defiant gesture of her hand as she cuts through to the cockpit, swiftly as possible. As she does so, she yells aloud into her comlink "ONE of you PLEASE go on the other ship so we can STOP their plan COMPLETELY! Whoever can pilot a ship needs to be the one! I'm about to kill the pilot. Then this ship is not going anywhere, the other ship only needs ONE of us aboard to foil their plans. We don't need 3 of us on the one for just a couple of pilots just to let the other go away!"



The gand, already well on her way to the other ship, saves its ammonia for running, keeping his eyes on the goal.

Kacela races towards the last transport, the Morning Song. There she sees two pirates hiding behind some cargo crates with their hands raised. More importantly, the transports ramp is closed!



As he closes, the gand thinks she can hear blaster fire coming from inside the ship but she isn't completely sure where it's coming from, and all is quiet by the time he get there.

The robed little alien slows to an efficient walk, breath returning to normal, and strides up the still-open ramp into the large open cargo hold, heavy pistol drawn: this is likely to be a close-quarters fight.

Her chitinous head scans left to right as she goes into the dimly-lit section, packed with rows of boxes and crates and stranger things, heading towards the lighted door at the far end...

Passing through the cargo area, she enters the ship's kitchen and common room. Listening, she hears someone shout: "Get your scaly hide off my ship your loser!" and then the sounds of someone striking another person.

That way then.

The gand clicks her blaster to stun and moves silently deeper into the ship...





Reks is within striking distance of the pirate in the common room, who had glanced at Jinahna as she ran by but is now turning his blaster on the Padawan. Racing forward, he cuts the pirate down with two expert slices from his lightsabers. The trandoshan falls to the ground in multiple pieces...



Jihahna arrives to see a very surprised pirate trying to get his blaster rifle up. She notices that there's a strange but really advanced-looking slicer kit plugged into the pilot's control panel. There's also a small Chadra-Fan wearing a spacesuit laying on the floor before her. Smoke is rising from a blaster bolt hole burned through the beings back.

Jihahna's eyes light up at the sight of the slicer kit! She gestures her head in its direction before speaking. "You won't be needing this anymore!" With that, she blasts the oversized lizard, her shot landing a near fatal wound between its shoulder and chest. The creature clearly distracted by the pain it was in, she ignores it and instead, unplugs and packs away the slicer kit and shuts the ship down.

He staggers back and fires a burst of blaster bolts into the cockpit's ceiling, causing huge sparks of energy but otherwise not coming close to harming anyone.

With a heavy swing of her shoulder, Jihahna launches her vibrobayonet deep into the chest of the pirate. As the pirate moans and slides off Jihahna's vibroblade, Reks joins her in the cockpit.

With that, she jumps on the communicator. "How you guys going there? This transport's secure."

Peeking down the last corridor, readying her blaster pistol, the gand saw a female mirialan kicking a downed trandoshan. She has a blaster pistol in one hand and does not seem to notice this Gand as she continues to curse the 'body' of the pirate.

A buzz, then whirr mumble drone CLICK "Winds of Miaril transport is secured." The name had been above the ramp.

She returns the blaster to its holster, keeping well away from the mirialan for now lest she be overly surprised. guttural drone jumble clacketty click "Can this one help drag that one outside?"

The female looks up with a bit of a start but then nods to the Gand. "Aye, lets get this freak off my ship before he bleeds all over it. Oh and I think he is dead. I shot him in the head after he fell down to make sure. Can't be too careful when it comes to pirates."

guttural clicketty "This one agrees."



As Kacela arrives, glancing at the pirates, a voice comes over the speakers by the transport's ramp. "Is it safe out there now Jedi?" says a voice that the young Jedi is fairly sure is Captain Kaldo's.

Kacela looks up at the ship, and then around... on verifying that the battle seems to be truly over, she lets her lightsaber's blade recede back into its hilt.

"Yes. The attack seems to be over."

The ramp to the Morning Song lowers and Captain Kaldo cautiously comes down the ramp with a drawn blaster pistol. He almost smiles at the young Padawan, but then seems to think better of it and holsters his pistol.



Once she hears battle is apparently over, Jihahna jumps back on the communicator. "Block the exit! That isn't all of them... There's one more, he or she is next to impossible to see, but they're here nontheless." Before he leaves, Jihahna whispers to Reks. "Lets try and catch the bastard, can you find every other communicator from every other pirate and turn it off. Using one of these, I'm going to TRY and locate the last remaining one attached to their channel, see if I can hone in on his proximity"

As she moves through the ship, Jihahna loots bodies, grabbing four power packs, three blaster rifles and two extra comlinks from the pirates. Most were also carrying packs of deathskicks, a package or two of illegal spice ("Kessel's Kiss") and some 'loss' cred bills (i.e. paper money) stuffed into their pockets totalling 213 creds between the three of them.

Upon exiting the ship Reks checks out the dead mercenaries for anything of use they might have, After all, they won't be needing it anymore, he thinks to himself. He picks up the pirate captain's heavy blaster pistol. The trandoshan is also carrying a datapad, a short-range comlink, a utility belt and a droid's controller rod. The other pirates' weapons have been gathered up by the mercs.

Not far, the gand and the mialiran captain drops off the unconscious body with the mercs and pats congratulations to Targo before matter-of-factly making her way towards the pirate's spaceship. clack drone mumble drone clicketty "Would Gall Doogota care to come see?" she invites.

Gall Doogota was standing by the hole that Kacela had cut through the blast door. When he heard Jihahna's warning he'd remained there.

Now he nods his head, saying: "Aye, let's see what is up with these pirates. Czerka Security is just outside the blast door and we should have it opened again in a couple of minutes."

A few mercs are standing at the bottom of the ramp into the pirate ship, the Outlaw Gambit, a CEC XS Stock Light Freighter. One of them yells over to this Gand: "Hey they got a droid in here that has sealed off the bridge and some other doors and is refusing to open them. We can't get to it unless we cut our ways through. Whatdaya want use to do?"

Reks picks up the controller rod, and brings it to the mercs. "Perhaps this will help" he says.

One of the mercs nods. "If it's got a restraining bolt attached, it should work."

Entering the ship, Reks notes that the rod lights a different color and indeed there seems to be a 'droid' nearby that it is coded to. The young Jedi could turn the droid off, or force it to preform some basic action if he wanted...

clack drone clicketty jumble drone low-whirr "Gall Doogota handled himself very well," mentions the gand as they wait a short distance behind Reks. clack drone slurr burble click "Has Gall Doogota seen action before?"

Its compound eyes calmly keep watch on their surroundings.

The doors inside the pirate's transport all open when Reks commands the droid to do so. The young Jedi is fairly certain that he heard the droid bleep, in binary: "Just wonderful another master for this poor unit... such is the fate of droids everywhere..."

Reks walks up to the droid and kneels down. "Not master, but friend" he says, before removing the droid's restraining bolt.



Before Jihana steps off the ship, she takes one of the pirates' communicators and plugs in her slicers kit, attempting to set it to buzz with static and interferance based on its proximity to other communicators on the same channel. If this shadowy enemy is unaware of the party's skills, he may have left his communicator on the same channel with any luck... If this were to work, when Jihahna believes she is very close, she will broadcast a max volume transmission, meaning this shadowy enemy may potentially make a lot of noise....

Once, the slicing kit is plugged into the comlink and is ready to activate, Jihahna packages the two items, so all she needs to do is activate the radio. But before she does, she quietly wanders outside and quickly and methodically turns of every other pirate communicator she can find. As she does so, she whispers to Kacela and This Gand on the way, "My stomach ache, like before we went to the mining camp, I still have it, I'm going to try one of Cals antacids in a few minutes after i've tidied up". She deliberately turns of a pirate communicator and tosses it to the ground, then another, then another.

Kacela looks around when Jihahna shares her intuitions, and after a moment closes her eyes to trust her instincts and feel the flow of the Force...

Jihahna will reaches into her bag, weapon readied and activate the pirate communicator inside... If it sets of our hidden opponent's com nearby, she wants the sound to be broadcast as loudly as possible....

When she activated the sliced com, Jihahna hears a number of comlinks go off at once. Trying to look everywhere at once, she gets a partial glimpse of a shadowy figure standing on the spaceport wall about 60 or 70 meters away, watching the group. When the com goes off, the figure seems surprised and disappears from view. Did he just jump off the wall?



Inside the pirate's transport, Reks removes the droid's restraining bolt. At first the droid doesn't do anything. It simply remains motionless for a moment. Then it shakes a bit, and in binary Reks hears: "Is this some cruel new trick by this unit's new master? Why would a master allow this unit or any droid freedom such as this? Do not be cruel to this unit please, it will serve its new master faithfully without the need to harm this unit..."



The Force flows, and in the curves and eddies of it there is a blot; the shadow of fear and hate. A shadow cast by a person. A person standing over...there.

Kacela's eyes snap open, and her head turns to look directly at the shadowy figure who is now revealed.

The Force flows, and she opens her awareness of it in her body... moving with it was like swimming with the current instead of against. Every motion swifter and surer, Kacela bursts into a dead sprint towards the lurking figure! With her first step, her lightsaber ignites, and she calls out, "Reks!"

Kacela starts racing towards the wall, as a blaster bolt strikes the figure a glancing but painful blow from Jihahna's rifle.

"I knew it!" Jihahna cries out in triumph as she dashes towards the exit in pursuit. She jumps on the comlink: "Guys, we have one more, and he's fast, and can jump super high. He dresses in black and was invisible but not? Kacela and I are in pursuit, Kacela, let me know where he's headed, I'll try and cut him off on foot maybe. Guys, I'll leave the speeder for you so you can catch up." With that, Jihahna focuses on running.



"This is no cruel joke my mechanical friend, you are truly free to do what you wish" and then hearing Kacela, he turns and runs after her.

The gand, uncharacteristically, steps in his way. "Apologies." guttural clacketyy whirr hum "But these ones are already in a vehicle?" She gestures to the control deck spreading out before them.



In seconds Kacela has cover the entire spaceport and is at the blast wall, ready to leap to the top!!

Jinahna notices that her shot hurt the figure and that it is moving towards a ladder built into the blast wall...



Hearing this Gand's comment, C-four bleeps in binary: "It is locked but I can unlock them in just a second. Does either of this unit's new masters know how to fly a CEC XS model space transport or do you wish this unit to place the ship on auto-pilot?"

guttural clicketty hum whirr click "This one will pilot," agrees the robed gand, wasting no time slipping into the Captain's worn-out chair. Apparently he can understand binary as well. clack drone clicketty "With Gall Doogota's help?"

It tosses the little cylinder of the cable dispenser back to Reks Seviir. Long-hum "Good fortune." And she blows him a kiss.



With the sound of the ship powering up, Jihahna turns about and cocks her eyebrow... Jumping on the communicator, she speaks again. "Or you can just.... You know... Find your own way there... Naww, seriously though: you guys are great." She smiles as she watches the thrusters power up... She would at least like to be there to see that Sith's face when he realises he's being chased by an entire - frekking - spaceship!

Jihahna looks to the Gambit and then to the wall, then all the way to the speeder, then to the Gambit.... "Gahhh, damn it... Wait for meeeee!" She doesn't say this into her communicator, but instead, just yells it aloud as she turns about. With that, she dashs to the transport ramp. Their idea was a good one to say the least.



Kacela doesn't spare time to respond to Jihahna...she's too busy on the run of her life. With the Force at her back, she all but sails across the spaceport's tarmac in great loping bounds that carry her to the base of the wall. Not slowing down even a little, the Jedi bunches her legs and springs straight up, converting her forward momentum to upwards.

A few more steps take her to the ladder where she aims the tip of her lightsaber.

"Surrender," Kacela says flatly.

There were some perhaps that would have advocated summary execution -- a Sith would be a dangerous prisoner under the best of circumstances. Kacela could not, would not, strike an enemy down like that though. Time would tell if this attitude was a mistake or not.

She didn't have to be stupid about it though. Her eyes dropped to her enemy's belt, and on seeing a weapon she held out her hand.

The weapon trembled in the presence of an invisible grip.

The shadowy figure seems to focus for a second and throws off the effects of the blaster shot. It draws a small rod and then the red colored blade of a short lightsaber activates. It intends to fight!

Kacela, still infused with the Force cleared the ten meter wall with a single leap. She then focuses with the Force and the short red-blade in the Sith hand's flies into her grip!!

The Sith growls under his breath, and then smiles: "As you wish... Jedi. My masters ordered me to kill one of you Jedi but I could not risk it as there were too many of you. But now here you are, all by your lonesome. Your foolishness will be your undoing..."

Suddenly the young Jedi feels a tremendous pressure on her throat as the powers of the Dark Side seem to swell around the Sith and then around the Jedi's neck!!! She can barely breathe and is near helpless within its cold grip!!!



On the ship's external speakers: "clicketty whirr drone WHIRR Please brace for takeoff."

Three seconds later the Outlaw Gambit's engines fire up with this Gand behind the controls, Gall sitting in the co-pilot's chair. Powerful blasts jet out as he takes her straight up! her eyes trying to look at every control at once.

Under her control the Outlaw Gambit pivots around (with a slight wobble.

clicketty slurr clack "That one intends to fight," she puzzles as the black figure slides into view, holding aloft the shape of a blue twi'lek!

As they angle full-speed for the wall, the Outlaw's side-turret whirrs to life and fires. *PhTEWTEW*! The double impact on the wall below shakes the two figures, but the sith somehow maintains his concentration. His eyes widen quite a bit at the sight of the ship rushing up at him though.

And they get wider as, from the open side-ramp, Jihahna throws him another unexpected circumstance from a humble mercenary. She throws herself, with a righteous battlecry for her companion!

Her leap is good and she stabs into the Sith with her extended vibrobayonet. He hisses at her but his grip on the young Jedi continues...

<Mad wobble! Failed roll and then the gand used an action surge to right it!>

At least until Reks leaps down behind him and stabs into him with two lightsabers. The Sith cries out in pain and sinks to the ground as Kacela is suddenly released from the creatures powers and can breathe again.

As the Sith falls, he coughs up blood and laughs, "You think you have won? You have lost, Jedi. The weapon will be ours and your Republic will burn! Hail to the emp..." And then he dies!

Kacela collapses to her hands and knees, coughing and sputtering as she struggles to breathe through a bruised and crushed windpipe. Her eyes are a bit teary as she gets shakily back to her feet. "Thank you," she manages to whisper to Jihahna and Reks. The gratitude in her voice makes up for its hoarseness.

Reks kneels down to search the Sith's possessions, and looks up to Kacela with a crooked smile and asks: "Are you okay?"

The twi'lek nods and reaches up to rub her throat. "I'll heal," she says. "Thanks to you. I underestimated him... if he'd been right, if I'd been alone, he'd have killed me."

"There is strength in numbers Kacela, never forget that," he says, before returning to his work of searching the body. Besides the short-bladed Sith lightsaber that Kacela has 'taken' from him, the spy also has a datapad, a short-range communicator and a utility belt. He carries no identification or symbols or artifacts that might suggest where he was from or that he was a Sith.

Reks tries accessing the datapad, but it's security-locked.

"EMERGENCY PERSONNEL ARE ON THE WAY," blares the ships external speakers with the gand's voice (from up here, he can see the emergency lights closing in). "PLEASE COME DOWN FOR TREATMENT."

The ship itself hovers over them for a beat - its wind tossing hair and clothing about - then starts swooping around for a landing.

clicketty whirr hum guttural "Well done, everyone," communicates the gand to those inside. guttural jumble click, whirr clack "These ones have earned their drinks."

With a grin, Jahana contacts Thirteen on her communicator. "Heyyy buddy, it's Jihahna here, come on out would ya? Meet you soon, yess it's safe, yesss I'm certain, well then just come through the hole Kacela made! You have legs don't you? They have limited manoeuvrability? Well I don't know why all protocol droids walk like.... THAT, just try and get here!"

Before heading down, she swipes the spy's utility belt. Jihahna had been foolish not to grab one before, given they normally contained a liquid cable dispenser. She also stops a moment to hide her slicer kit, trying mixing it with her mechanics and electronics tools.

When this Gand pilots the ship back to its landing pad, she notes that the blast door to the spaceport is now open. Czerka security personal has arrived and the guards are gathering up those pirates that are still alive and getting what weapons and other gear as is laid about (although it also appeares that a number of mercenaries have 'new' blaster rifles, the gand included). There are also a number of first responders who have spread out and are trying to save any wounded that are still alive.

Jihanna and Reks help Kacela down the metal ladder attached to the blast wall and back down into the spaceport. Cal Domaru is also there, working on a few injured and calls the two Jedi over to work on them also.

Halina Yass is waiting for Gall to disembark from the Outlaw Gambit and ushers him over to have a private conversation with the rep. She does not appear happy in the least bit.

Vivian and the other Republic Survey personnel (all two of them) come to get their landspeeder and collect Thirteen. Vivian makes sure they know they still have rooms at the Survey building if they want to clean up or stay the night.

"Jihanna! Take a look at this!" Reks whispers to the ex-merc, handing over the spy's datapad.

"OH GIMME! Just, stand over me and give me some privacy from everyone whilst I do this." She kneels on the ground and attempts to slice into the datapad with the kit in her backpack.

Doing a quick scan of the datapad after she unlocked it, Jihahna notes that there appears to be a number of secure comlink scrambler and decoder for sending and receiving messages through a dedicated Holonet (the only one she knows about it the one on the Czerka corp compound). There are also a number of log entries and mission reports about the Republic Survey personnel and Czerka personnel, and also pictures, descriptions and supposed abilities of every member of her team (they focus heavily on the two Jedi, but there are notes attached to her files that say "Suggested Force sensitive, but unknown abilities. Need to confirm"). Finally there are lists of possible locations for where "the secret of the Infinity Empire" might be located on the planet (most focusing on the mountainous region where the mine once was).

Once she does so successfully, she makes a single alteration, changing the password from whatever it was before to 'Empirerules', then, without looking at Reks, passes it back to him.... "Look at that, you didn't need my help after all, you could have just guessed his password, 'Empirerules' all one word".

With that Jihahna takes the corpse of the Sith and dumps it in front of Halina. "This is the guy causing all your trouble. Oh, and we've found out the Kwi are sentient BUT they are also willing to assist Czerka, because they know where it's safe to dig and spider free..."

The woman's eyes narrow and she replies: "You have not solved or proved anything yet. All I know is that there was an attack by pirates on privately contracted merchants. We are collecting evidence so if you and your band of miscreants were behind this we will discover the truth."

Only maintaining a smile momentarily, Jihahna looks Halina up and down, before she slumps in exhaustion, "Seriously, what more do you people want? We've solved two of your major problems in one day and two attacks. Being one of the 'good guys' is haarrrd... I need a drink so baadly right now."

Without another word Halina turns to Gall and says: "You can deal with this lot. I need to fill a report" and she turnes and walks out of the spaceport.

The robed gand walks down the Outlaw's ramp about then, straightening its necklace... drone jumble click "Void Refresher?" he proposes with a look at all still present.

Behind him the little utility droid peeks out of the ship's interior.

"I could use one of those I think," Reks says, "though I've never had one before." He looks to his new companion C4 and asks: "Care to join us?"

C4 beeps and whirls its head, and in binary replies: "This one has little use for 'drink' or low-level toxicity caused by fermented organic compounds. If this unit's new master is willing, this unit will remain with the ship and continue with basic maintenance functions."

Reks nods and says, "That's fine, and call me Reks."

C-Four beeps back in binary "As this unit's new master wishes." With that the droid rolled into the transport.

For himself Gall nods his head to the Gand saying: "Well we were so rudely interrupted before your companion was able to finish his daring tale..."

Jihana turns to the droid and cocks her head at a slant. "Did you make a new friend? Well if so and if he'll be tagging along, then I'm going to need to go over him and give him a good clean and some maintenance! That's right little guy!" She turns her face fully to Reks, her sweaty hair in the way, she blows upward to move it from her eyes unsuccessfully before continuing. "Anything owned by Pirates is bound to need some TLC. I guess we own a ship now huh? Looks like we can get Cass and Friends off-planet pretty easily."

"I must ask that you ask C4's permission," inserts Reks. "He may be a droid but I'll not treat him like a mindless tool."

One of Gall's three eyes seems to widen a bit as he listens to Jihahna. After a moment he nods his head with a smile and says "You know, that is an excellent idea as a reward for your help against this pirate raid... their ship as a privateer's prize. I will file the report with the Republic, but I see nothing that should stand in your way of taking ownership of it. Give me a couple of days to make it official but I think your team just won a transport. Congratulation."

Jihahna grins from ear to ear. "That's GREAT!" She walks over and kisses he gran on the cheek. "MMMWAH! Time for drinks! I'm buying!"

She turns to Reks and then to the droid "C4 is it?" She walks up to him and kneels to his side. "Did your mean new master just call you a tool? I think he did! That's a bit mean... What a mean jedi! But I'm sure he's nicer than those smelly pirates." She clears her throat and asks nicely... "Erherm, C4, would you do me the honour of allowing me to give you a full clean and systems maintenance tomorrow?" She pretends to look terribly fearful of rejection as she waits.

C Four beeps something to Jihahna in binary that she does not understand but she is fairly certain it's not a negative.

Clack drone guttural, click mumble whirr "These ones are grateful for Gall Doogota's help," quietly communicates the gand with a deep dip of the head indeed. A buzz. guttural clacketty whirr, drone mumble whirr "And now these ones have another tale to tell."

Speaking of, as they start walking back towards the cantina, the nameless one patting greetings to Targo and the other mercs as they all form up, jumble drone low-whirr mumble click "How did Jihahna Darut spot the spy?" it inquires of her. He was inside the ship at the time.

Jihahna blushes at this Gand's question, then instead of getting into a tangled explanation regarding her slicing skills, starts near the beginning... "Well, I er... Remember how Reks said he thought he saw someone? I took that information on board, but it wasn't enough to think anything... Then erm.... There was this mention that someone had been trying to stir up the miners, still just speculation..."

As they exit the port, the ozone smell of blaster fire, blood and heated ship engine is redolent in Dathomir's jungle-night air.

clack drone hum jumble clicketty (whirr) clack "Cal Domaru saw a dark man at the riot this morning." And the descriptions match.

"Exactly!" agrees Jihahna. "Then I seemed to find it a little strange that some Czerka personel were SO hostile towards us in their school of thought, despite our intentions to try and find a non-invasive solution for Czerka, wheras others such as Gall here were very reasonable individuals willing to allow the Survey Corp to do what it needed to, even if they were sceptical about us having success."

Kacela is content to let her more loquacious companion relate the story to Gall. She hangs back near Reks and says quietly, "The Sith claimed to have been tasked to kill one of us by his masters. He didn't seem to care which. I think he may have been the only Sith operating here, or he'd have brought more help. That will give us a window of opportunity if it's true... I'm unsure why he was only asked to kill one of us though. It doesn't seem to make much sense to me."

"Perhaps it was to prove his worth to his master," posits the human padawan. "As we are here proving ours. It matters little now, I'm far more concerned with who sent him then why."

They swing into the cantina, Jihahna still on a roll: "The more we did things in a way that I have to admit, I never used to do as a mercenary, the more determined I have felt to find a solution for Czerka." She turns to the Gran, "You guys are good people, you are doing great work and you deserve to be able to continue it."

She turns back to the Gand... "Then there was the issue with the mines. Those gaping spiders were swarming out without a halt in their numbers. When we saved the miners, the majority of Czerka were happy with our assistance, which I believe was a logical conclusion. Halina Yass was not... She's got an issue with us for some reason, but surely it's not in relation to what she thinks is good for Czerka. She's either got a vibro-weapon shoved up her.... Well you know, or she's letting some negative personal experiences with the Republic get in the way of her duties, OR something else, which I won't accuse her of because it's happy hour."

Speaking of, they all sat down and ordered their first - and in some cases second or third - drink of the night.

jumble drone mumble clacketty click hum drone clack "Shutting down the mine helps the cause of the Kwi, Jihahna Darut," points out the gand, apparently not all that surprised by Halina's reaction. She does not even need to mention what it likely did to the mining concern's profit margins.

It turns to the gran sitting next to them (by this point sipping a red-coloured drink with bitter fruits floating near the bottom): mumble hum jumble clicketty click "Is there hope for a quick recovery?"

Gall shrugs before replying, "I am not a mining expert I am afraid. I am... in charge of security here on the planet. As I mentioned, Czerka corp has gotten a lot of bad press over the last few decades and certain sensitive matters have been a problem at certain sites. Sorry, can't really go into detail about that, company policy and all. But if the Kwi are sentient as you say - and I have no reason to doubt you at this point - and they can help us in the future... Well then I am sure we should be able to figure out something so that everyone comes out on top."

jumble drone click, hum clacketty whirr clack "Those in mining and the kwi should meet and compare maps," agrees the insectile one with a nod.

With that, this Gand and Reks purchase another round of drinks for the group, getting a hardy "Down the Hatch" from the mercs.

To jihahna Darut: hum mumble click "Please continue?"

"Hm, well, sure... Another thing was that erm... KACELA picked up on a dark presence coming down to the spaceport. Given she had the same feeling about the earthquake, I added this to my speculation.

"When Reks and I went to speak with the Kwi a second time and it told us immediately that they could find new safe locations for people to dig, this confirmed a number of suspicions to me.

"Gall, the Kwi told us only within an hour of the spider attack that something WAS going to attack. We have all the necessary recordings on Thirteen. They also seemed to think that something even scarier is down below with the spiders. The Kwi claimed that long ago, they sealed whatever it is underground at the sacrifice of their connection to the force... The jedi can confirm they are devoid of it I believe, but perhaps you would prefer to find this out through other channels... Because the Sith called it a 'weapon', just before his death, that's what I'll call it.

"Furthermore and this is my other hunch... Following a hunch, IF there were a weapon of some kind underground that required the Force to deactivate it, then the weapon MUST be tied to the force somehow, meaning it would be of interest to either jedi or Sith, but the Kwi seemed to think that this 'weapon' was evil, so I thought, given the dark presence Kacela detected coming down in the ship at the time of the earthquake, the strange manipulation of miners who seemed to 'snap out of it' when we talked reasonably to them and the strong desire by some, but not all Czerka employees to not have the Kwi assessed for sentience, let's consider the possibility that there was a third party having a negative influence on Czerka... A third party with space magic... With little care as to how to achieve what they need to... Most likely Sith...."

Jihahna flexes her fingers as she goes on. "Now, for me, this was still all hearsay, but I've always followed my gut feeling... I wanted to check out the spaceport, see if I could find out which ship was carrying the 'dark presence', then I felt his eyes on me, just for a moment I thought I saw him amongst a bunch of pirates. We radioed through to you guys and then 'BOOM' and he was gone... I figured he had either technological or force cloaking of some kind, so after fighting and defeating the pirates, I had an idea... I figured, maybe I could just contact him over the pirate's comlink and if I spotted him, I had a chance to blast him... So err, the silly bastard didn't expect me to do so, his volume was turned up and he was still on the same channel as the pirates. You SHOULD have seen the look on his face, HA! A sith spy's force cloaking, thwarted by a simple merc and a communicator heheh. Gotta be my finest work..."

Jihahna goes silent a moment as her brain ticks over..... "Wait a minute, they're probably going to be after ME now! Ahhhhh.... Now I really need a drink.... Oh well. Anyway, my point is, Gand, to answer your question about how I spotted him, I used a simple trick and a healthy dose of paranoia...

"The good news Gall is that Czerka can dig in many locations on this planet and we'll know where in the next few days. We also know, the Kwi will no longer hassle you and neither will the spiders if you do so..."

She leans forward and whisper, "The bad news is that I suspect that if you put this to your coworkers and superiors.... Despite it being in Czerka's best interests, they will be dead against such a thing, even though the costs of relocation and starting anew would be very little compared to sticking to the same location, hiring hundreds of mercs, trying to wipe out thousands of spiders, the increased cost to Czerka Public relations due to additional Mining deaths, then there's the threat of all out war with the Kwi... Despite all these things, my hunch says you will be fighting an uphill battle. My hunch also says that the location you chose wasn't necessarily the best place to mine in the first place, that mineral scans probably have revealed better locations that others steered you away from for a variety of obscure reasons. My hunch is that your hands are tied, that what I'm saying is correct and that you can't say anything in reply because you know it's true, but revealing that would breach confidentiality, so that's fine. All I would ask is you consider what I have said and don't stick your neck out, but watch out for danger."

She leans forward and whispers to him... "Keep a blaster on you at all times, Gall Dagoota, you're a good man. Better yet, get some concealed armour or a shield. If someone betrays you, play dead. Take our communicator number. Blast it repeatedly until we respond with 'Testing communicator, 124', the 4 means we know it's you, then do one long button on to request an armed rescue or 3 short bursts to say you're going to come to us. If you do three short bursts followed by a long burst, that means you want to leave, but you need a distraction."

jumble drone mumble drone hum "Jihahna Darut is always prepared," mentions the nameless one to Gall Doogota after her warnings.

"You bet your sweat ass I am." She says with a goofy smile after she very quickly downs her first drink.

jumble click "Another drink?" guttural hum slur mumble slurr clacketty whirr click "This one saw roasted snake in malana sauce on the menu." By which she means the chalk board hammered into the wall.

Gall nods to Jihahna and replies "Let's have a few more drinks before we get too involved in such a heavy discussion. If you have the evidence and can find Czerka corp new mining locations, I am sure that Manager Yass will come along to your side of thinking. She is just a very fierce defender of the corporate name and brand. We have had some bad press over the years you know?"

Jihahna nods and whispers, "Well ok, if you're sure... Just think about the armor though, or a small shield..."

After this, Jihahna is more merry and relaxed. She purchases drinks for the mercs and the team along with Gall and they all toast her merrily (if there is one thing mercs like more than creds, its free drinks).

"I have little money, but I'll contribute what I have." Reks says, pushing his 10 credits in with the rest.

Jihahna slows down a bit, that first drink was just what she wanted after a hard day's work. It was a good day, not free of stress nor struggles, but it had to have been the most satisfying work she had done all year...

She has a lightbulb moment after that drink.... She isn't a lightweight by any means, but the alcohol has just taken the edge off a tiring day. The lightbulb moment is her understanding as to why there are people who give up everything to help others. Do credits matter when you can sleep at night without self doubt, without regret? Maybe that's why the force saved her that day, so she could be forced out of her life working for the Hutts, so she could learn to be something more than just somebody who killed for credits...

She turns to the two jedi... "Hey...do you two think a girl like me could everrr.... You know.... Do what you guys do.... I mean what would I have to do? Call the temple, go into training there for a decade two or could I just ask them for permission and then... You know... get some.......Well.... You know... Tips from you guys?... I mean, you know, initial training in the field, followed then by hitting the books at the temple...?"

Kacela chuckles. "Reks and I are still padawans ourselves. If you're interested in training as a Jedi, it could be arranged. It's... easier for people who begin at a younger age, but if you have the will and the drive to do it, then it can be done at any age... I could share some meditations with you though... Maybe help you find some control until you have a chance to go to the temple."

Jihahna smiles and nods at Kacela. "Okay then! I'm gonna be a jedi..." She turns to the gand and whispers, "I'm gonna be a jedi!"

The compact little alien looks away from his conversation with Gall Doogota, Targo, Cass Everburn and a couple of others (on... cooking techniques, of all things). hum jumble click "Is that good?"

She sits up after a moment of silence, staring blankly into space.... "Whoah...." With that, Jihahna becomes a little more contemplative, still chatting away with others and making jokes where appropriate, but some part of her can't stop thinking about it... The warm fuzzy feeling she had before swells a little more inside her as she relaxes further. She stops a moment, looking sheepishly at Kacela's belt.

"Does that mean I should learn to umm... Use a er...." She points at Kacelas lightsaber a little sheepishly, clearly uncertain as to what she was asking, or whether it's appropriate.

Kacela shakes her head, still smiling. "Everyone learns at their own pace. The lightsaber is the Jedi Order's traditional weapon, so I'm sure you'll be taught to use it. But it can be dangerous for someone who hasn't learned to act in concert with the Force, and isn't under close supervision. The lightsaber has no weight in the blade, you see...so the body has trouble feeling where it is. A Jedi learns to feel the blade in the Force, until even with one's eyes closed, one can fight with no fear of accident... It would be...dangerous, I think for Reks and I to try to train you in that particular skill. There are tools that make it easier... tools we don't have here."

Jihahna nods absent mindedly... "Hmm, yeah, I er... I get that. Heh, I know they're dangerous at least, after seeing what you did to those blast doors..." Jihahna whistles at the memory... "Mmmm yeah I'll stick to... Vibroblades for now..."

Shifting in her seat, she slightly re-directs the topic, "So er... When did you become one? A jedi I mean? Was it from birth or something? I hear your masters are really strict, but that doesn't seem so bad to me... I probably never had much chance of becoming a Jedi, because of where lived. I grew up on an outer rim desert planet you've probably never heard of. Tough living and high crime. Your equipment was what kept you alive, so you couldn't have it fail on you. You kept it free of sand and other particles or you were dead. Everything has to be just right." She pauses in remembrance.... "Yeah... I know discipline, I think... If that counts for anything. What about you? What's your story? Also, did you and Reks ever train together?"

Reks stands up from the table. "I'll be back in just a moment" he says before stepping outside. Once outside he leans up against the wall of the building to smoke one of the deathstick he's 'captured' from the pirates, keeping an eye out for any trouble.

Reks sees a number of miners laughing and joking with Cal who is coming towards the cantina. The young Padawan notices that one of the miners is the crew-chief that attacked the group when the first arrived a few days ago. When the feeorin notices Reks a slight look of embarrassment comes over his feature (not something easy for his species).

As the others go inside, he approaches the young Jedi and says "Ah... look... sorry I am about what happened at the spaceport a few days ago. We was misinformed. But it still no excuse to attack you all, it was not. And you proved yourself here, well you all have. Sorry I am, very much indeed"

Reks nods, and lets out a smile. "It is okay, we are only people, and people make mistakes" he says to the Feeorin. "Perhaps you can help us though. Where might I unload some weapons and gear at a good price?" he asks the Feeorin.

The crew-chief smiles, "Hmm I am sure some of my friends on the Czerka security force might be very interested. They are the only ones I would know who have licences to carry them anyway..."

"Can you set this up for us? I'm sure I can make sure there's something in it for you."

"Of course" the crew-chief replies. "My names is Yeaddem, by the way. Yeaddem Gep" he adds, extending his hand to shake Reks if he wants. "This evening, good time I think? When shifts of my friends ends."

"Well met this time" Reks says with a smile before shaking his hand. "Perhaps you'll join my friends and I for a drink?"

Inside the Void Refresher Cal and some miners going the rest of the team and the mercenaries at the table. Cal purchases a round of drinks for everyone (now closer to 20 total).

By the third round, Jihahna had only just finished her first, but takes a generous gulp of her second. She pulls out a napkin or the like from the table and begins writing down a few scribblings. Over the next couple of days, whilst everything is undergoing repair, she writes herself out a strict schedule, which ends up taking up over 3 napkins. She plans to get a solid 6 to 8 hours sleep daily without failure.

She decides firstly that she will sleep the next couple of nights inside the Gambit. Towards the top of the list, she puts the possibility of a name change, because if the ship is being transferred over to the party in an official capacity, it would be best to include the new name officially... Taking a separate napkin, she makes a bar-game out of it and jots down one of her ideas 'New Hope', then passes it along to the others including the Czerka employees....

Also towards the top are numerous notes on a detailed training schedule for the next two days.

She suggests dawn and dusk training to Kacela and Reks without at all considering the potential symbolism behind it. Maybe it's the force talking through her, or maybe it's just co-incidence. In either case, Jihahna, who believes she has total control over her plans, is unaware.

If there's nothing else, she gulps down her second and third drink swiflty before thanking everyone and heading away. On her way out, seeing the deathstick Reks is smoking, she stares a moment before shaking herself to, saying goodnight and heading off. She silences the voice of temptation in her head with a grumpy riposte as she prepares to start her plan.

Those that remain at the Void Refresher are introduced to the other miners and crew-chief by Cal. It seems that he has been speaking with them and treated a number of their injuries and they all think that the team of heroes can do no wrong. Going forward, they had the thanks of the miners and anything that they might need they have but to ask...

At the Outlaw Gambit Jihahna found C-Four down in the common room/kitchen area doing some minor repairs. It beeps at her in Binary, and when she asks about cleaning supplies, it seems to whirl and beep with something like sadness. It then moves down the hallway into the main cargo hold (looking back at her if she does not follow) and to a set of crates. Pointing one of its appendages at one particular box. Inside Jihahna finds some dirty rags and old chemical cleaners. C-Four beeps again with noted sadness.

"No, look, that's ok. I figured as much. I'll just drop down to the survey corp and borrow some tonight then re-imburse them... Unless they're funny neighbours. Don't worry C4. We'll bring this vessel back to glory!"

With that, there isn't much else to say except that Jihahna heads away to do as she stated.

Somewhere in there they look and find the gand conked out and slowly sliding to the side, finally overcome by drink and the exertion of today's events...

The mercs and miners have a good natured laugh to Kacela and Cal about their companions holding down their drink. Targo, Cal and another merc help carry the pair back to the starport and the team's new starship. They pick random rooms to place the pair in while Jihahna is out collecting cleaning supplies from the Survey building. Vivian is more than happy to give the ex-merc all she can carry back to the ship.

Jihahna slows upon seeing the mercs and Cal helping the others back, allowing them to go in first. She giggles at the (complacent?) look on the face of this Gand and the gaping mouth of the great and powerful Jedi Reks, who appeared to be snoring...

She helps them into their (DIRTY!?!) beds, somewhat disappointed she did not have a chance to clean them first...., then shrugs the matter off under the basis that intoxicated individuals sleep like babies no matter how comfortable or uncomfortable the bed, chair or table...

Unsure as to their fortitude regarding alcohol and not wanting to be disturbed by vomiting during the night, she tries scraping up a bucket or other container for each of them along with a ready supply of water with cups...

Furthermore, she gently pats their shoulders in reassurance and takes their belts, boots and equipment off them, placing it all nearby and in view. She then allows a small amount of light to enter their rooms so they will not be confused about where they are when they look up.

Finally, when taking Reks items from him, she looks at one of his light-sabers without turning it on. She tries to fathom how such a small device can produce such a constant, deadly and stable blade of energy. She carefully observes where the buttons are to avoid them and looks at an angle down the barrel...

"What the hell is a crystal doin' in there?" She mutters to herself, before putting it down and walking off grumbling about the impossibility of something like that working, racking her brain as to how it functions.

Once she has given her bed a clean, she locks her door, sets her alarm and goes to sleep.

===

Elsewhere, deep underground in a cavernous space, a shadowy figure sitting in a lotus-like position raises its head. "That fool Dieban is dead. And Jedi are responsible. We must act with caution. We cannot have our presence here discovered by the Republic until our master is certain and ready to move..."

Another shadow replies with a harsh female voice, "Then let us move, warlock, and stop wasting time on this foolishness..."

The first shadow chuckles: "Patience, my dark sister. The dark side of the Force is strong here and it will guide me to where we desire. But we must have patience..."

A small group of Imperial troops stand nervously in the background, awaiting the orders that are sure to come, but not really relishing following the pair deeper underground...[/sblock]
[sblock= CHAPTER VIII. Stab at darkness]The next morning, Reks and this Gand awaken with pounding headaches but otherwise none the worst for wear... although the smell of their beds only adds to their discomfort.

When they make it to the common room/kitchen, they find the other three team members - including Cal - and the smell of coffee.

The gand (slowly) sets about making and puréeing its own breakfast, fussy as ever when it comes to food. He definitively does NOT groan in two different places: surely that is entirely in your head.

Reks waves to the others before stepping outside for his morning deathstick.

Jihahna is seated next to Kacela with her napkins flipped over and a series of crude diagrams of what she believes should be a basic lightsaber design, with a quickly drawn energy focus and stabilisation device on another and the comparatively small lightsaber hilt next to it.

Jihahna has been boggled by the lightsaber's design. She points to the device on the diagram. "It's just not possible! How do you make a component that's on average the size of this Gand - something used generally speaking in Capital ship shielding technology - and create a micro-sized equivalent using nothing but a damn crystal?" She waves her hands in front of her in sudden realisation.

"Forget that for a sec, how do people with absolutely NO mechanical or electronics experience learn to design such an advanced device just by feel?"

She turns to the others... "Oh, hey guys. How are you doing?" She offers Reks a ready cup of coffee to have with his death-stick and asks this Gand if he or she would like one too.

Without knowing it, Jihahna was probably asking Kacela all the questions of a 5 year old youngling, but perhaps with a little less tact. Everything to do with the force was new to Jihahna and new meant she was in the dark for a lot of it. She wanted to get her head around the basics as soon as she could.

She turns to this Gand. "Oh, by the way, I heard you might be looking to try and tweak the carbine... It's a dangerous process to anyone who doesn't know what they're doing. A slight misalignment can lead to disaster. Someone may be a good mechanic or an electrician, but they also need to be able to calibrate things correctly within very strict parameters.

"I used to do this sort of thing awhile back, before this," she waves her prosthetic arm and leg at this Gand... "But um, I haven't practiced since and the really fine motor skills with a prosthetic... I'm still getting used to. If you give me some time, I will try and brush up on those skills and help you out."

She raises her eyebrow back at Kacela. "Same goes for these lightsabers if I can get my head around the way they function.... Crazy...."

"The technology of lightsabers is ancient," comments Kacela with a shrug. "They predate the Republic by many thousands of years. They are built not just with wires and circuits, but with the living power of the Force. The crystals resonate with the Force, as well as providing a means of focusing the simple energy of the blade. That resonance is what gives different crystals the ability to make blades with different properties. It's also what draws a Jedi to instinctively choose some over others, to make a lightsaber that is truly their own.

"The knowledge of how to make one doesn't come easily though," she adds. "It's part of a Jedi's training. I suppose it's possible that someone strong enough in the Force might be able to access the knowledge without training, but it would be a very difficult and unusual thing. Most of us learn the components of a lightsaber and how they're put together from our masters."

guttural clacketty mumble jumble clack "This one believes kyber crystals are not natural," mentions the gand, raising the offered caf cup to the segmented metal straw attached to her vocoder/rebreather.

Kacela shrugs at that. "Not all lightsaber crystals are. I've heard the Sith manufacture theirs. I don't think I've heard of 'kyber' crystals specifically, but there's several kinds that will work."

Jihahna cocks her head at this Gand... "What's a Kyber crystal...?" She turns to Kacela...."And why do the Sith manufacture theirs? They all love the colour red or something?" She starts washing up any empty cups to be ready to start her training.

By way of answer the gand simply reaches out to tap one of the crystal-shapes on Jihahna's drawings.

Clicketty hum whirr clack "Probably very old." guttural mumble whirr-click jumble slurr clicketty "This one hears some are big enough to power superweapons." That was not at all a segway, and her glance at Kacela just then is entirely coincidental...

Jihahna frowns at this Gand: "Hmm, well let's hope we never have to bump into those crystals then. They sound like trouble. Anyway, I guess we should maybe get organised for the day... I've got training to do this morning and maintenance on the ship. You were going to check out the mining site right? Take the mid range communicator from me. I can probably reach you through the ships coms anyway. Or, maybe we can take the ship there and I can work on it there too. It makes no big difference to me, but maybe with the second option, it might be good if I'm close by."

With that, Jihahna hands her mid-range communicator over to this Gand with a smile and heads out to meet up with Reks.

Upon seeing Jihanna Reks finishes his deathstick, and pulls a lightsaber from his waist. "Are you ready, Padawan?" he asks, igniting it.

Jihahna nods at Reks, accepting his other lightsaber from him. She looks down at it apprehensively, rolls it around in her hand a moment, then grips it tightly in both hands. Igniting the blade, its glow light up her face in slight wonderment before she replies. "Ready."

"Attempt to strike me," Reks says sternly, a grin on his face.

Inside, the gand reaches for the spy's datapad (her movement a little jerky this morning), and idly starts doing a more thorough examination of the files therein, going for his second cup of caf -- the cheap stuff, but still.

guttural mumble click hum drone jumble clack "This one wonders if there is vine-coffee in Footfall." clacketty hum jumble drone click "Does Kacela want a refill?"



Reading through some of the files reveals little about the 'secret of the Infinite Empire' the spy was trying to locate: just general info that the Empire was the first known major galactic government within the Known Universe and that it was founded and ruled by a species called the Rakata, a scientifically advanced race that used their knowledge to conquer and enslave other species throughout the known galaxy. No notes or descriptions of the Rakata themselves though.

C-Four makes an appearance about then though and beeps in Binary to this Gand and Kacela (only this Gand understands it) "This unit was going to work on its weekly hyperdrive maintenance assignment. Does this unit's new masters have any other tasks for this unit at this time?"

The gand considers... Then: clacketty jumble click, drone clacketty whirr click "Would Kacela like to visit the Outlaw Gambit at this time?" she proposes with an offered hand.

Kacela snaps out of her momentary reverie and gives the Gand a smile, then reaches out to accept the hand. "No refill, thank you...but yes, let's give this ship a look over."

Outside Jihahna braces herself, moving the blade around a few times very cautiously, then takes a standard charging stance before she runs at Reks with a swing. She feels how light the blade is, which is somewhat off-putting in her mind. She finds it easy to overstep and over-swing. Her form is far more clumsy than it ought to be.

While the pair duel outside, attracting a few spaceport workers to watch, inside the tour continues. The Outlaw is a classic XS light freighter, built around a circular central corridor with four double-cabins (and the top and bottom weapon turrets) in the middle. A mess, large captain's cabin and main cargo hold are on the outside left, a meeting/navigation room (with holoprojector), airlock (with four fairly old trandoshan-sized vacuum suits), ramp and escape pod are to the outside right with a cramped engine room at the back. A five-station cockpit sits at the very front with a series of empty rooms forming the ship's long 'neck'. What these were designed to be is a bit mysterious.

The ship was not carrying any cargo but in the cargo area are a dozen bunk beds and kits where the extra pirates were sleeping. There is also 100 “man” days of field rations here.

On top of that, the ship as been extensively modified, with a front-mounted ion cannon and tractor beam!

As they walk, crouch down, reach in and inspect... clacketty click whirr jumble-hum click "What does Kacela think about the situation?"

Kacela is quiet for a moment as she considers the question and puts her thoughts into order. She then says, "The Sith was here when we first arrived, and I infer they've been active here for some time. I feel it's likely he had a hand in inciting the miners against us, which implies he was skilled in manipulating them."

She pauses, then says, "I think the Sith are using the mining operation here to look for some ancient weapon. Whether or not there's one here to be found, the consequences of their looking could be grave... and if there IS one, the consequences of their success will be graver still. Sith don't normally operate alone... but I feel if he hadn't been acting on his own, he wouldn't have had to be so circumspect in trying to kill one of us... Unless the others here are otherwise occupied of course. He could have been what amounted to a rear-guard of sorts..."

The gand nods, pausing its rather intense inspection of the Outlaw's bridge consoles, guttural whirr hum clicketty "These ones can check one thing." She turns to the blocky cylinder of the utility droid: drone warble click, whirr jumble mumble click "U7-C4, did this ship take off yesterday?"

C-Four bleeps in Binary: "The ship arrived here in the morning after departing from Corstris. Then in this spaceport all day. This unit's new masters were battled and defeating my old master."

After translating that for Kacela, the gand concludes: whirr jumble clacketty hum "There is at least one other ship." Drone hum jumble whirr "Possibly still in orbit?"

C-Four beeps. "If this unit's new master would allow this unit to speculate... there were no other ships with Captain Gomak. He wanted as much of the prize money as he could get and was not willing to 'share' with others. In addition, Jedco Sternestorm was expecting a large cash payout from their sale of the cargo to the Sith Empire. Other players might have sold to the Republic or informed them of their illegal trading of stolen goods. Master Sternstorm is a rather paranoid humanoid."

clicketty hum drone clacketty click whirr clack "That unit believes this was the only ship involved in the Dathomir-crystal heist." (Back to the droid): clacketty drone slurr mumble jumble mumble click "What happened between captain Gomak and the Sith dressed in black?"

C-Four beeped. "The one that you refer to as the 'Sith Spy' was not with Captain Gomak when this unit traveled here. This unit saw said 'spy' back on Corstris 15 standard days ago, meeting with this unit's old master Captain Gomak and the 'self-styled' Lord Jedco Sternestorm. This unit was not privy to that meeting, but this unit's old master promised the pirates of his clan a large windfall after they sold their 'booty' to the Sith Empire. This unit concluded that the 'spy' was offering the pirates a great deal of money for the materials that they are carrying."

Continuing their exploration, it turns out that there's a secret smuggling compartment built right into the floor of the smallest room in the 'neck'! Inside are piles of bars of various precious materials and minerals, probably around 50kg, as well as two packets of some sort of sweet-smelling powder with no markings...

"This unit's old master, Captain Gomak, had a fondness for secret storage areas."





As Reks instructs Jihahna further, she is directed less and less to focus on what she sees, but instead, to concentrate more on feeling when and where to strike. As he swings back at her, she uses her skills to parry. Apprehensive about the strikes of a lightsaber, once again, she makes the mistake of using her eyes.

She is reminded of some of the 'silly games' she used to play when she was younger and naive, working as the eyes and ears of a Hutt Cartel from just 11 years old. Her mother never agreed with Jihahna doing so, but she had been poor all of Jihahna's life. Jihahna wanted better for her mother, so she stubbornly continued with her grand plan, her dream.

Jihahna would save up as much money as she could and keep her mother in a comfortable state of living. As she aged, the Cartel had her take on bigger, more profitable duties. Her income improved moreso, but she had to live in one of their compounds. Her abilities in mechanics, electronics and slicing were an asset to the Cartel and so was her occasional defiance to their methods, which they believed was an indication of her potential. She was a straight shooter, her gruff honesty towards them was amicable. As a result, they sponsored her for combat training.

They were brutal with her at this stage. She was only 14 by now and she had to work long days, complete a balance of blaster and melee training and put up with frequent mock ambushes from her teacher. If she didn't defend herself well or quickly enough, she was beaten.

However, the pain to her was nothing compared to the shame she felt whenever she lost. Jihahna had always been driven, to the point that the beatings eventually felt like nothing to her.

This is what perhaps lead her to the 'healthy state of paranoia' she has today. The beatings became less frequent as she tried to learn the best way to counter her teacher.

Aside from rigging up simple ways to alert her of her teachers' presence through mirrors, tripwires and such, Jihahna used to lock herself in her room at night and practice combat blindfolded. She'd set up targets, little nuts that she could only eat once she had struck open with a thin lightweight metal pipe.

This required both strength and precision. It didn't always work, but sometimes, she could tell she would strike true before she did it. She later scraped together a small droid arm and processor and set it up with a basic program to take a nut from a bowl at a random time and throw it to a random location within her room. Jihahna became pretty good at cracking these nuts and thought it a fun way to relax at the end of the day.

At 18, she was later punished through several hours of beating by her teacher when she spun around and broke his jaw with a hydro-spanner during one of his ambushes. After the beating, she took the hydro spanner and in a rage, caved in his skull. Terribly guilty and full of shame afterwards, to her surprise, she was not further punished, but instead rewarded. Jihahna was told she had surpassed expectations and had earned her place within the cartel as a fully fledged member.

Everything from that point became a dark haze for Jihahna. She got rid of her 'childish toys' and became a member of the Cartels special operations as a saboteur and slicer.

Though she called herself a mercenary, really, she was a criminal, though aside from her teacher, she had always been able to avoid jobs involving killing through strategically picking certain assignments over others.

She made a great deal of money and as a result, was able to buy her mother a first class retirement suite on Coruscant and pay all of her immigration and citizenship fees. That had been her dream all along. But after she saw her mother off, her dream achieved, Jihahna fell into a great depression, less caring as to the work she did, she began taking on the more deadly assignments.

She killed pirates, drug addicts, small time gang members and rival cartel members. The latter she only ever did once at age 24 and she did so from another room. Whilst the others from her unit panicked over the numbers of the enemy that were about to slaughter them, Jihahna was calm as she approached and hacked into ship's security, opening an airlock and watching them all get sucked outside to their deaths on a monitor, Jihahna felt nothing.

But she stopped. She stopped at the cost of an arm and a leg.... And her.... Original name and identity. After the kind foolishness of an innocent man stopped her from pursuing one of her targets, she knew the Cartel would have her head. When she broke down in tears, the old man comforted her. He told her she was destined for something more. After she left him and woke up in the morgue with him beside her, she was surprised she wasn't at all angry at him.

He made her give up her 'mark' and when she tried to flee the Cartel, they sent a bounty hunter after her. When he had captured her, she closed her eyes and reached down. She killed him by activating the thermal detonator that was attached to his belt. She figured if she was going down, she might as well take a monster with her.

When waking up in the morgue, she was terrified and in horrible pain, but she was actually glad to see the old man there. Turns out, he had been running the morgue for years and had seen too much death. That's why he stood in her way.

She never did manage to get his name, he'd always tell her his name was unimportant with a casual wave of his hand, which she agreed was probably true...

Now she had a second chance to do right. She had done what she needed for her mother. Money comes and goes.... It mostly brings pain and suffering. It is time now to explore other... Possibilities. Time to be more than just a mercenary. "Time to become the REAL me..." She whispers.

Instead of focusing on Reks, Jihahna drinks in everything around her. Her focus almost blurs in comprehension. She raises the lightsaber, an extension of herself and wills herself to block each incoming swing.

Though sloppy compared to how she used to be as a teen, by the end of the session she understands... "I.... I've done this before!! I've done this before... I think I know how to do this! Thank you.... Master." Jihahna smiles before continuing, "For helping me to remember." She nods her head in a small bow to Reks and hands back his lightsaber, ready to work through the rest of the day.

Reks takes his lightsaber back, replacing it at his waist. He then nods, bows, and says "No, thank you. It's not often I can duel someone worthy of the honor."

"What I don't quite understand," Kacela says to the gand, "Is what the Sith were getting out of this deal. Are they simply after the minerals? That seems like a fairly lackluster prize for the risk they're taking here."

"- vonium, ingot of probable kelsh." The gand looks up from his crouch by/within the shallow depths of the secret compartment, a squarish, bronze-coloured metal bar in a gloved hand, material's data scrolling across the datapad in the other.

A buzz, guttural jumble click, drone-clack clicketty hum click "Some people may find fleets of capital ships sexy?" Then a tilt of her chitinous head as she thinks... guttural warble clack "This humble one suggests multiple objectives?" jumble click hum, slurr clacketty jumble, mumble drone clacketty jumble whirr "Disrupt Republic operations, locate an ancient superweapon, gain dathomir-crystals for the Empire."

The team spends the rest of the day exploring and cleaning their new ship. C-Four seemed to have done a pretty good job of maintaining the ship without any aid and limited resources. They discover four more hidden holds, an extra explosive devise of the type used to sabotage the mainport gate and all the various notes and datapads of the former Captain, stashed in another secret compartment in his cabin.

The datapads have various information on them, mostly about various smuggler routes, the value of various less then legal items and materials, contacts at various space ports and smuggler dens. Going through them the team discovers that the pirates where working for a crime-lord by the name of Jedco Sternestorm. His hidden base is supposed to be located on the planet Corstris (When Jihahna cleans up C-Four this is also the planet he has been programmed to jump too). This planet is also in the Quelii Sector, the same sector as the planet Dathomir. Thus the jump is less than a day long. Captain Gomak’s notes say that someone who appeared to be the Sith Spy they just killed had come to the crime lords base just a couple of weeks ago with a plan. He was going to arrange for a number of ships to be carrying thorilide and would also arrange for the Empire to purchase the cargo for at least 500,000 credits. Captain Gomak and Jedco were going to split this 50/50, with Gomak also getting to keep one transport and the rest going to the Crime Lord.

The Kessel's Kiss Spice (the - it turns out - highly addictive, sweet-smelling powder they found) was supposed to be delivered to a crime lord by the name of Dolgo the Hutt on Cathar, another planet in the Quelii Sector. From the notes they foundd, Gomak was doing the crime lord a favor for some past misdeed. The information provides the location of Dolgo's hideout on Cathar, a partially summerged city in the planet's main ocean.

Around midday, Cass Everburn and Targo stop by to see how things are going. It appears that Czerka Corp has decided to hire the mercs for the next two weeks to provide extra security at the spaceport. Gall mentioned to Targo that if the team had need of him they could use the mercs on Czerka's 'dime'.

During her examinations of the outer hull, Jihahna has also found that the Outlaw Gambit has reinforced landing struts, allowing the ship to land on almost any level surface that can support its weight.

Jihahna makes conversations with the others as she works. Happy to see Cass and Targo when they arrive, she tells them their trip off Dathomir looks to be as good as set, given the party has gained access to the Gambit. She informs the party of the good news with the landing struts with an excited grin. "It's like this ship was MADE for us!"

guttural click jumble whirr mumble, click-hum mumble clacketty click "Should these ones go to the mine first or seek out the temple?"

Jihahna's eyes glaze over a moment. After some basic training in meditation with Kacela, she hasn't been able to stop thinking about that wonderful feeling of connection with the Force... In any case, the meditation had done something and she enjoyed the feeling then, but right now, as she deliberately tries to ask it what to do next, there is a heave of her chest and the flutter of her heartbeat. It quickly becomes too much for her and she has to calm herself as Kacela has shown her, slowing her breathing before answering This Gand.

"I - I don't know. I guess the logical thing to do would be to start at the mine site. Maybe search around for any clues left behind from force users. Was there anything in that Sith datapad? Unusual patterns? Encryptions? What about comms channels.... If there are private comms channels, I might be able to slice in and pinpoint the location of his allies so long as they are unaware of the way we've caught HIM."

slur high-whirr clacketty "The Sith seek the temple," points out the gand after consideration. high-whirr clack, clicketty clack, slur hum click "Find the temple; find the prize; wait for the Sith?"

"Well, when you put it THAT way.... Sounds like a pretty solid plan." Jihahna replies with a grin. "How about we fire up this ship and go temple hunting. It's apparrently located at the tallest mountain according to the Kwi... In the meantime, I'll monitor those comm channels, maybe while I continue maintenance. We should make sure to bring Thirteen along to. I'll go get him. It's about time he and C4 met I think." With that, Jihahna heads away to grab Thirteen.

The gand holds up a three-fingered hand for patience, looking to Kacela, Cal Domaru and Reks Seviir...

For himself Cal seems unconcerned with the group's next step, "Temple search or exploring the caves near the mine both seem like logical places to start. We could probably use the ship's sensors to at least probe a bit underground - or at least through the vegetation - and get us a good map of the region. From the sounds of it, neither Czerka corp nor the Republic Survey have even done anything more then a basic fly-over scan of the planet. And the only satellites they have in orbit are communications one."

"Sounds good to me," agrees the tatooed jedi, "I'm sure anything found at an ancient temple with ties to the force will likely be of great interest to my master."

Cass says: "Well, my contract is here to protect the spaceport, but if you want him, Targo can go with you. His contract is a bit more... open". With that Cass nods to the team and heads out of the ship to talk with the other mercenaries.

The gand exchanges comm codes before he leaves (in case they haven't already), so they can keep each other in touch and call for assistance if there's need on either end.

They also quickly discuss maybe getting the various captain and hopper pilots onboard for quick transport if an armed force is needed somewhere fast -- say if the sith make a move or there's another 'guardian spider' breakout...

Targo shrugs his shoulder saying "Ups to you all iffin' ye wants me to tag along, case ye's thinks he need some extra firepower. Course ye can also fits my speederbike heres on yer ship if ye think we mights need it. But again, up to ye's if you want my blaster. Otherwise I got a job here also..."

Kacela frowns as she tries to think it through...

"The temple seems like the logical place to start," she allows. "But I feel that whatever the Sith are looking for, it's not there. If they've been manipulating the miners' digging, then what they're looking for is in the caves. We can learn more at the temple... but I'm afraid it might put us a step behind them, scrambling to catch up...

"That said, it sounds as if the consensus is to seek the temple first. There's wisdom in not going into a situation without learning what we can first... so all right." She looked at Cal and added, "Anything we can learn from the sensors would be of help as well."

clacketty drone jumble hum "Kacela is probably right." clack mumble whirr clicketty jumble slur, clacketty hum click "But if there was easy access to the caves, then the Sith would not need the mine." So they probably have time?

Having decided a course of action, the team, along with Targo and his speederbike, head out to the mountains early the next morning. On the way and just to be sure, they first do a quick fly over of the mines. The dust had long settled and the team coan see that the mine has indeed more or less collapsed in on itself. There are still small figures of miners working with various equipment pieces around the site, but they do not appear to have started re-digging just yet.

The mountain range that runs along the northern continental shelf is impressive. It's at least 400km wide and over 2,000km long. It would take some days to survey the whole of it even with modern technology and scanners. But the team starts around the mountain valley where the mine had been located and work their way out from there. There are only a number of high mountain peeks within a short flight, but no indication of any structures so far, at least with the naked eye.

The gand alertly sits in the co-pilot chair - to the front and right of the bridge - although luckily the ship is on autopilot most of the time. In front of her, the spy's datapad is plugged into the nav computer with a flat, colour-coded cable, feeding-in its coordinates...

Jihahna rubs underneath her chin. "Hmm, the Kwi said it was the tallest mountain of all of them, so we should try and firstly adjust the sensors accordingly... Furthermore, how do a bunch of tribals, who should know their lands like the back of their hands lose such a mountain? There must be something preventing them from finding it on ground level, impossible terrain or something..."

She paces a moment before continuing, "We know that the mining location that the Sith show interest in is definitely separate to this temple or the big mountain it is attached to would be obvious to see and the Kwi would know its location."

Jiihahna pauses once more, clearing her fringe from her eyes. "I would not be surprised though if despite the above logic, the two locations are somehow linked, but that would mean that the mountain should be close-by, within a few days walk. I could be wrong though..."

"I don't think the Kwi have been in this vallley very long," says Cal in answer to Jihahna. "From what I understand, the only reason there are any Kwi in the mountain valley is because Czerka corp brought them here as slave animals -- beasts of burdens, if you prefer. They consider the place to be cursed, after all."

The team spends most of the day scanning the mountain range with the ship's sensors and discussing what they might want to look for. There are a number of tall mountains that might be candidates as the 'tallest', from a primitive people's perceptive, but they are all within a few tens of meters of each other in altitude.

Both Kacela and Reks can feel a shadow of darkness over the range but cannot really pinpoint where these feelings are coming from. Only a general clamminess of evil... old evil.

As the team was about ready to head back to Footfall, Reks suddenly feels a dark tremor in the Force. Something very dark and evil and full of hate. He directs the pilot to head back towards the mining camp, and... as the ship passes over the mountain wall and back into the valley of the Kwi, those in the cockpit see black smoke rising from where the mining buildings once stood... for it seemed that the ground itself had swallowed up the buildings!!! The 6 or 7 big processing buildings and residences for the miners that lived up here and worked the mines have all been destroyed. In their place is a giant hole/crater at least 500 meters across with thick black smoke rising from deep within...





"What the He-..." Jihahnas eyes boggle at the size of the crater. She swallows momentarily before turning to the others. "We need to contact Gall and tell him to come by air. There could be swarms of spiders coming soon. Why didn't we get any distress signals?"

Frozen in horror, she remembers the need for control and tries to deal with her fear of this... unnatural destruction. The prickling on the back of Jihahnah's neck is sickly. She begins breathing in deeply and slowly as Kacela has been instructing her.... Rescue! That's the word that came to mind. "We need to scan for people who might need rescue too!"

The gand pushes the heavy control-stick forward, accelerating them into a shallow swoop aimed at the newborn pit.

Jihahna runs around towards the cargo bay. "Maybe we can winch people up! I'll keep in touch via the comms."

The gand urgently points at a section of controls without looking away from the constantly changing screens and panels. Hum whirr "Tractor beam." He may not have been in time for her to hear though...

As the team comes closer, they can see that the tiny figures are just miners fleeing the area in all directions. No spiders in sight. The thick smoke blocks the team's view of the other side, but on the south facing side there appears to be at least a score of miners and they are really spread out: it won't be easy to grab individuals with the tractor beam...

Closer, the group can only make out part of the pit, as the tar-like smoke that's pouring out of the hole completely blocks view of the interior. The ground also appears to be shaking as the few fleeing miners keep falling and trying to maintain balance.

"The tractor beam won't work on just one person at a time!" says Kacela. "We need to get them together, onto something! Take us close enough to the ground for me to jump out. I'll try to round as many as I can up, and find something they can get on, or inside, for you to tractor in!"

drone hum click mumble clacketty click "External speakers could help?" with a gesture at a yellow toggle-switch.

It aims the Outlaw Gambit at the edge of the pit, planning to bank and circle around, looking for a spot to drop down Kacela and Reks. drone warble click jumble clacketty whirr hum mumble click "Could U7-C4 use the sensors to see through the smoke?"

Jihahna decides she'll stay aboard, ready to assist in the cargo bay. She jumps on her communicator (I assume either the midrange communicator or the smaller comms can hook up to the ships longer range comms?).



"Czerka Corp, this is Republic Survey Team, we have just stumbled upon the mines. Chasm, 500 metres wide has swallowed up the mining camp. I repeat: mining camp is gone, fiery chasm 500 metres wide. Ground appears unstable, come by air, but beware smoke."

With that, Jihahna continues to move through to the cargo bay.

Her comlink back to the main spaceport goes through, but there also seems to be some kind of interference as the voice back was full of static: "Say again? We zzzziikkkk but it does not seem to have a epicenter that we bbbbzzzzzccc. Can you confirm?"

As they zoom through, scan readings of the pit flash up... it's at least 50 meters deep and something... large appears to be moving around within its depth! The scanners seem to have a hard time getting a fix on whatever it is though, like it's absorbing the energy somehow. But as the ship passes over the pit, both Jihahna and Kacela feel something evil down within. Something old and dark and full of hate and anger. For a second, they both also realize that whatever is down in the depths had also sensed the Jedi.

They come around and hover down 20 to 30 meters from the edge of the pit as Kacela and Reks run to the cargo hold and lower the ramp. When the ship has gotten closer to the ground, the young Jedi named Reks gives the others a wink, and then jumps out!!!

He lands on the ground, unphased by the fall, and yells to the miners that help has arrived.

Kacela also leaps from the hovering ship, drawing on the Force to hold herself steady and even slow her descent slightly, ensuring a safe fall!

That leaves just Targo, Cal Domaru, C-4 and the gand in the cockpit. Targo is on weapons, to the left of the gand, while Cal drops into the captain's chair, buckling himself in.

Under the gand's control, the Outlaw pulls away from Kacela and Reks in a forceful wash of thrusters, before gaining distance, then speed as they rush back around, aiming for their best guess at the large thing's location!

The Outlaw Gambit arrows straight through the billowing column barely above that very spot, the wind of their course punching away the smoke as they rise on the other side.

At first no one can see anything, when suddenly a huge snake-like creature rears-up from the smoke and debris at the bottom of the pit. The creatures raises its huge head to look up at the ship above, seemingly surprised to be so suddenly exposed. The struggling figure of a miner is caught within its mouth...

Suddenly the creature turns away and crashes into the crater wall, struggling to disappear underground...

Reks and Kacela are nearly knocked prone as the creature crashes into the pit wall and tunnels away. Kacela rocks on her heels, but manages to keep her feet as the ground shakes around her.

Jihahna looks down at the creature, her eyes boggling again. She radios through to this gand "Hey Gand, see if you can record at least the visuals please can ya? Maybe live transmission?"

But the little alien is otherwise engaged: clicketty hum whirr "Please brace for manoeuvre."

Pulling hard on the control stick, the gand tries to turn their rise into a flat overhead barrel-roll, back the way they just came so they can bring their weapons to bear -- the tractor beam most of all.

clack warble drone clicketty slurr click, whirr hum click "Could U7-C4 find the source of the jamming, please?" referring to Jihahna's static-y conversation being piped through on the bridge's comms. Of course they're upside-down at this point, making things a bit more challenging.

Last time it was coming from space. This time...

To make things worse, the gand's piloting skills are pretty much inexistent at this point, and talent can take her only so far. Bottom line: the roll is too strong, meaning he has to correct both pitch and yaw - several times - to get them facing just the way they have to. It's a bumpy ride!

And by the time that's done, they get to get just a glimpse of the tail end of the creature disappearing underground. Closing back in, they get a better idea of its size though: if the hole is anything to judge by, this thing is at least 4m wide, making it more than 20m long from what they saw through the smoke!

As the creature disappears, the three Jedi feel the shadow of anger and fear dissipate.

Kacela gives Recks a worried look, but focuses on saving the living. The worm will almost certainly have to be dealt with eventually, but there's damage to minimize now. She puts her lightsaber in her hand but doesn't ignite it as she tries to rally the miners to her voice and gather as many as she can.

Up in the ship, Targo mutters: "What in the red hells was that?"

Meanwhile Jihahna takes a guess at what Czerka was trying to say and speaks back to them in phonetic alphabet. "Phonetic alphabet, Repeat, Phonetic alphabet:

Earthquake; Echo, Able, Rancor, Tango, Heavy, Queen, Uridium, Able, Kolto, Echo;

---Confirmed; Capital, Ocean, Naboo, Flechette, Ion, Rancor, Magnet, Echo, Dewback;

---Giant; Gravity, Ion, Able, Naboo, Tango;

---Worm; Wampa, Ocean, Rancor, Magnet."

C-Four, one of his appendages twirling in a nearby port, beeps worriedly. In binary he says, "This unit cannot find any electronic scrambling master? This unit cannot explain the comlink disruption, but it appears to be dissipating. This unit believes comms should return to normal within moments..."

And just like that, about then a comlink from a Czerka Corp comes over the speakers. "Say again Outlaw Gambit, there is some interference and we can't explain. We are getting some strong seismic activity at the mining camp. Can you confirm? We can't contact anyone there..."

guttural clack slur sibilant, whirr hum clacketty slurr click "This humble one would guess ancient space worm modified for war?" answers the gand to Targo's question. clack drone guttural drone clacketty "Could Cal Domaru please hand this one that datapad?"

Clicking on the autopilot for a second.

Jihahna curses under her breath. When phonetics won't get through a transmission, not much will.... "Confirmed, Confirmed Czerka, Giant Hole, I repeat, giant hole, Sending phonetic reply, Repeat, Phonetic alphabet:

Earthquake; Echo, Able, Rancor, Tango, Heavy, Queen, Uridium, Able, Kolto, Echo;

---Confirmed; Capital, Ocean, Naboo, Flechette, Ion, Rancor, Magnet, Echo, Dewback;

---Giant; Gravity, Ion, Able, Naboo, Tango;

---Worm; Wampa, Ocean, Rancor, Magnet"

"Ah, we read you," the rep replies, adding: "Are you saying that there is a hole and a giant worm there? There seems to be some interference between us. We are sending a hooper now. Is there any danger? Do we need to send medical assistance??"

Jihahna sighs in slight disappointment at the com-rep's lack of understanding of phonetics. She follows through giving a description of the worm to the rep. And of course they need emergency assistance!

As Cal and this Gand search the datapads, they find nothing that would fit a description of what they saw.

Cal says, "Most of this planet is still unexplored. Must be something the miners have not seen yet."

For now though, rescue operations take precedence: Who knows if the crater worm will return, or even if it was the only one in the area?

Taking back control of the ship, the gand starts circling the pit, broadcasting a call for all survivors to meet for immediate evac at what was once the landing pad, south of the new crater, while the others try to spot wounded or trapped people on the ground that might need more immediate help. (Directing Kacela and Reks their way and/or dropping down 'ambulance' Targo and doctor Cal if there's more serious cases?)

When appropriate, she inserts a request into the conversation between Jihahna and the Footfall spaceport: clicketty hum mumble drone, drone mumble click "Could that one please track the epicenters of the earthquakes?" That should give them an idea of where the worm is headed... or even how many of them there are. Plus, jumble whirr clacketty "A warning perimeter for Footfall," it explains.

The com-rep replies, "Sure thing Gambit. It appears there is still some seismic activity but it... well... it seems to be moving away from you deeper into the mountain range. Weird, huh?"

Jihahna jumps on the commlink. "Where are these mountains in relation to us!?! Please keep tracking it as best as you can!"

"It's getting weaker and getting deeper but it appears that the activity is ending around where the mine was. Maybe it's just an after affect of the explosion the other day?"

"The worm has rejoined the main caves?" suggested the gand. "These ones are thankful to be in a well-monitored mining area, but what would these ones do if ."



With the ship's help, the team is able to pull about ten additional miners from the debris pit where the colony's buildings once stood. At least twenty bodies are also found, and seventeen miners who fled the area before the buildings feel are slowly coming back. The miners say that by that count, at least twelve other miners and personnel are missing.

Cal gets to work on the wounded, turning the trandoshan mercs' cots in the cargo bay into an impromptu hospital until such time the Czerka corp hooper shows up two hours later with additional medical teams and support.

Jihahna does something she would not have bothered doing before now. She goes to the miners to briefly reassure them. "That was a terrifying sight from up high! I can't imagine what it must have been like down below. I'm sorry for your friends and collegues".

After a brief pause, she turns on her heel and heads towards the cockpit. When she arrives she speaks to the others with her arms crossed and a grim expression on her face... "What's the bet tracking that worm won't lead us where we might want to go?" She looks down at the pit below from the bridge before speaking with her companions... "I think.... What about following the worm....?"

She's asking the question aloud, but is asking herself just as much as asking the others. Her feelings twist and turn in confusion as she tries to figure out whether her suggested course of action may yield results...

guttural jumble clicketty mumble "These ones should examine the entrance," agrees the gand with a dip of the head towards Jihahna, three-fingered hands unbuckling himself from the co-pilot's seat.

With C4 on guard duty (with orders to lift off at the slightest hint the ground begins shaking again), they finally have time to venture out and go examine the worm's tunnel as a team.

"Light swords are very useful for cutting people out of buildings," she comments on the way.

Setting up climbing rigs borrowed from the miners, the team descends to the debris pile, and, sure enough, there's a large gaping tunnel where the worm/snake thing escaped. With a press, the gand starts recording a holo of their approach.

The tunnel is around four or five meters wide but twist and turns erratically so even with glowrods no one can see deeper than a mere ten meters or so.

This Gand, examining the walls and cross-referencing her datapad on xenobiology, then chemicals, then physics, comes to the unlikely concussion that somehow the giant snake-thing must emit some form of high frequency sound wave that disrupts the atomic bounds of solid stone (and possibly earth and soil). In this way, the stone was made somehow semi-solid so that the creature could basically 'push' its way through solid rock!

As she studies this phenomenon, the Gand also finds something like a scale lodged in a piece of rock. Pulling it loose and examining it, she gets the idea that the creatures hide is partially crystallized and extremely dense. The others agree that this is far from natural, and Kacela is sure that some sort of darkside alchemical process has been used to 'change' the structure in some way...

Standing a few meters inside, Reks finds that it smells 'off' somehow. Like there is a bit of electrical ozone in the air... He ignites his lightsabers and peers deeper into the tunnel, then turns back to the others. "Would anyone like to join me?" he asks, seemingly unafraid.

whirr clacketty "Sound-based weapon." jumble hum whirr "Sapper tactics," comments the kneeling gand, looking impressed. mumble jumble slurr clack "Footfall cannot defend itself."

After warning the others, he draws Jihahna's old carbine and shoots a corner of the large scale... The blaster shot is partially defected AND absorbed, the scale growing hotter in her gloved hand. Once wiped clean, there's a ding, but no penetration...

Only pausing to inspect the (nearly non-existent) damage, she holds up the scale with two hands, presenting an easy target for the azure twi'lek. clicketty warble click "Would Kacela like to try?"

Kacela takes at swipe at the scale with her lightsaber, and the blade actually *slows* before cutting through... Very, very resistant.



Targo looks a bit worried but glances down at this Gand for instructions. He does pull out his blaster pistol and readies his vibroblade in the other hand...

Cal nods to Reks, "Just a second.." and with some tape he attaches his glowrod to the end of his blaster carbine and switches it on, casting a beam of light into the tunnel. "You all with the blades should probably go first if you plan on using them. Otherwise us with the blasters should maybe take the lead."

Reks takes point and leads into the tunnels, looking for signs of any miners that may have been dragged within.

Jihahna cocks her head at the party before turning and moving ahead with Reks, "Sure, but let's not walk directly into the mouth of that thing yeah?"

She walks quietly after that, keeping an eye out for rows of stalagmites and stalactites in the tunnel that might look like teeth. She had only been joking before, but.... Sometimes jokes hold a portion of truth to them.... She was in part, serious about what she had said.

So seeing, the gand radios back to the ship and then to the spaceport, advising them of their course of action before trotting to catch up.

guttural clacketty mumble hum click "What are these one's objectives?"

C-Four beeped an affirmative to this Gand and relayed her message back to Footfall. The droid also comlink back "This unit wishes you luck, and continued existence. This unit would be most dissacrificed if its new masters ceased to exist."



The team enter the strange, unnatural tunnel. It averages four to five meters in width, and is completely uneven with twists and turns leading down deeper into the planet's crust. Within a few meters, the tunnel turns pitch black, and without the glow of the lightsabers and glowrods, it would be almost impossible to navigate.

The team follows the tunnel as it progresses deeper, continuing its strange twists and turns in an almost random pattern.

After about almost two hours of slow progress (The Gand gets the feeling that the team is now close, but not quite beneath where the old Czerka mine shaft used to be), Reks feels a change in the air and ahead he can make out a dim light or glow coming from around yet another twist in the tunnel. Peeking around the corner, he can see that the tunnel opens into a large natural cave-like structure with stalactites and stalagmite, dripping water, and a strong musky earthly smell. The chamber appears to be about 40 meters across and at least 30 meters wide. The ceiling rises to about 10 meters in height towards the center of the chamber.

The 'light' is coming from the other side of the chamber but Reks could not see its source.

Jihahna gives the stalagmites and stalactites a dirty look and deliberately moves in such a way as to stay a good distance away from them. She moves a short distance into the large natural chamber, ready to strike with her vibro-bayonet, pauses and looks about and continues to do so as the party moves forward. Taking cover behind a particularly large stalagmite, she peers around the curve of the cave, whispering to the others. "How are you guys doing back there?"

The chamber appears bigger then even Reks thought, extending deeper around a slight bend. She can just barely make out the source of soft white glow... it appears to be a large, tall crystal, jutting up out of the floor some sixty meters away...

Reks moves up near Jihanna, looking around for danger. He can hear the dripping of water echo through the chamber. He also starts smelling something... something rotten like spoiled milk. It isn't strong but it is there. Past where the crystal stands, there's some kind of rubble or maybe a pile of odd stones.

Targo and the gand silently move up as well -- to the right so they have crossed fields of fire if need be and aren't bunched up too tight.

The latter crouches with a three-fingered hand flat on the rocky floor, feeling for any digging vibrations, while reddish compound eyes scan the cave itself for other tunnels, the floor for signs of the crater worm's passage, or clues as to any previous (or current) occupants. Say a tsunami of Gaping Spiders.

Looking around, it seems to her that the shadows deeper within the chamber moved ever so slightly. Something or someone appears to be well hidden farther in, but even the Gand's eyes cannot discern who or what is there. He does note two other tunnels deeper inside the chamber, both about the size of the one that the group has been traveling through...

For herself Jihahna's focus is drawn to the crystal before her. The force whispers inside her mind, she feels compelled to do... something, she just isn't quite sure what. So she closes her eyes and reaches out to the force. In a rush, like stepping into a strong wind, the answer comes to her.

Jihahna sees herself standing on a mountain, a great and terrible light coming from within her and blinding the world beneath. With the power of the crystal she could rule this world and many others. She could travel to other worlds with a simple step, and all who witnessed her would fall to their knees in worship. All who saw her would also be filled with the terrible light and together they would spread her rule across the stars. Worlds would burn in righteous fire and Jihahna would rule magnificently over their burnt remains...

Suddenly the ex-merc snaps back to herself. The crystal shines with a red light to her eyes and its hatred washes over her like nothing she has ever experienced before. This glowing gem is no simple rock, but contains a sentient dark spirit of some form that whispers to her, that wants her to seize it up so that they might rule together in darkness and fear.

Kacela notices Jihahna stop for a moment, and react to something unseen. She went to her side and said quietly, "Are you all right?"

Jihahna looks composed a moment, about to answer Kacela, then buckles over vomiting. All that emotion hit her suddenly, and Jihahna still had much to learn. She knows she's gotten lucky just then. She wipes her lips and cleans her hand on her pants, slowing her breathing. "Ughhh, don't open yourself up to that thing. I thought it might have been a lightsaber crystal, but it's not. It showed me images of ruling the universe and caused me to feel so much hatred, I didn't know that much of one emotion could exist! It tried to pull me to the dark side!"

The hairs on the back of Jihahna's neck were prickling. She raises her vibroblade in preparation to strike. "It's got a living evil sentience within it. The crystal was white and now I see a red glow coming from it. We really need to destroy it. It'd be a kindness to whoever crammed themselves inside there anyway wouldn't it? Or maybe they were forced in there by another dark force user." She looks to the other jedi for permission. In other circumstances, not force related, she wouldn't... But this is an unknown to Jihahna and it frightens her. This is essentially a ghost in a certain form, an evil ghost. It is a paranormal encounter she wants gone...

The gand's stops mid hand-signal when it sees Jihahna throw up, rather spectacularly. She looks to where something waits in hiding... to the noisy group around the crystal... then back to the shadowy darkness beyond the white light, weapon secure in her gloved hand.

"I would bring this back to the council," replies Reks, unawares, "but I think the darkness is greater even than my master can handle. Studying this would simply be too dangerous for anyone in the council. I say we must destroy this thing."

"Destroying it could unleash whatever's inside," a more-cautious Kacela says with a frown. "To an unknown end. I don't know much about this sort of thing, but what little I know counsels caution in dealing with them." She adds, after a pause, "But it may be that this is what the Sith seek. And what the Kwi fear. That would make that worm it's guardian, perhaps."

Jihahna notes Reks vote for destruction and then Kacela's vote for caution, followed by her thoughts that the crystal may be what the sith are looking for. "I agree we should be ready for a fight if I destroy this, but I think it will be for the best, just in case. Do I have your permission Kacela?"

Kacela hesitates, then shakes her head slowly. "Fear is a path to the dark side," she says. "It goads us to be reckless, and take the easy path. We have no idea what the consequences of destroying this would be, or even if we have the power to destroy it. Do not fear, Jihahna. We will protect ourselves, and the galaxy from whatever this thing is...but we will do so wisely, and with understanding. Not in a moment of panic, knowing nothing of what we do."

Simultaneously, Jihahna hears a soft voice whispering to her: It has been an eon since I have heard a voice down here in the dark. You have awakened me my child. You and the others like you. So like us in that long age of the past. So full of dark rage and a hunger for power. Come forward and claim a piece of that power and I can show you the secrets that you seek. The ability to walk between the stars... to rule them or destroy them! Don't be foolish and think that you can destroy me!

Jihahna nods to Kacela somewhat absent mindedly as the crystal tries to converse with Jihahna over the top of her. When the crystal finishes, she lowers her weapon and replies, "Oh ok, thanks for that..." She turns back to the others, "He or she says I'm foolish to think of destroying it. No doubt that's exactly what it wants me to try..."

jumble drone slurr clacketty mumble hum warble "'Trapped demons that can eat the stars', Jihahna Darut," quotes the gand's soft voice (from their conversations with the Kwi). guttural whirr mumble clacketty click "Apologies, but these ones have company?" she continues in the same tone. clicketty click jumble drone, whirr clicketty hum "20m down-cave, somewhere left of the column."

Jihahna opens her mouth in reply, "Ahhhh Yeah, I forgot about that... The Kwi also said the demons couldn't be destroyed right? And that they mustn't be released? Probably means if you break the crystal, it releases the demon or something..."

She turns to the crystal. "I don't want what you're selling THANKS, sith ghost or whatever ex-species you are, or were.... Besides, the whole 'power' thing isn't really my thing you know. The force isn't easy to control and I didn't ask for it! I'm really just after basic control, a little meditation here and there, a little peace of mind and I'll be happy. What have you offered me already? Don't answer, I'll tell you; you made me lose my breakfast! No you dark side people, really, you wake up on the wrong side of the bed EVERY morning, all so that you can what? Shoot lightning from your bits? You know there are weapons that can do something similar? Seriously...."

She shakes her head and goes to turn away, but then turns back with her finger raised in the air, ready for wagging. "Oh, and ANOTHER thing, you guys have no problem with killing yourselves and jamming your consciousnesses inside tiny objects right? WHO does that?!? I mean honestly, you guys are just weird seriously." She dismisses the crystal with a wave of her hand and moves to keep up with this Gand, ready to fight whatever lurks in the darkness.

For himself Reks smirks at Jihanna and her apparent willpower before walking a bit further into the cave, towards the strange rock formation. This Gand, Targo and Cal all kept their blasters trained and ready...

Jihahna again hears the whisper: Foolish child, if you will not accept my gifts there are those down here that will welcome them. Then you will know the folly of your rejection... before you burn...

"Uhuh..." Jihahnas interest in the crystal is fading more and more as she looks about the cave. "You're just angry because you crammed yourself inside a crystal and now you're lonely. If I were you, I'd be re-thinking your life choices buddy."

Suddenly a figure comes into Reks' view! A bound figure tied to a wooden post! In the light glow of the crystal the young Padawan can see that the figure is dressed as a miner, although she has been beaten and is dirty, her uniform torn in places. The miner is also gagged but even from here Reks can see a fearful expression in her eyes...

The young padawan instinctively reaches to use the force, trying to locate enemies nearby. To Reks' eyes, the crystal suddenly takes on a reddish glow. He then hears a whispered voice, coming from somewhere and finds himself floating within a great power current in the Force. Like nothing before, he feels power, that with the Force he could do almost anything! Within his grasp is the power to fix things... to remake the Galaxy as it should have been made. With the Force he can cross the void of space as simply as crossing a room. So much power!!!

Jihahna moves away from the crystal and turns again to this Gand. "Maaaan, you should have felt THAT. It was disgusting. I don't understand how those sith morons function. I mean honestly, I've heard they don't get killed in combat due to hot-headedness, they must die early from strokes and so on... Their blood pressure would be through the roof..."

That worthy gives her a bit of a strange look: Confusion? Concern? Something else...? jumble drone clack hum, whirr-clack hum "Jihahna Darut should probably rest here for a while."

Then it silently gestures for Targo to hop to cover on the right while she goes to the left: Reks has suddenly frozen as if he's spotted something: something is definitively up!

Jihahna smiles at this Gand; "I'm good, really, but maybe we should do what we need to in this chamber and get outta here."

Looking back once with what is definitively concern, this Gand and Targo move forward, sticking to the shadows and remaining somewhat out of sight. From their new position the pair can see farther into the chamber, past the glowing crystal and to not one but four figures tied to poles farther on. This Gand is fairly confident that all four are miners by their uniforms. One has a Czerka Corp patch on her right shoulder. All are dirty and look to have been beaten.

That there appears to be at least a dozen small caves leading out of the chamber near where the miners have been tied up. Some close to the nominal 'floor' while others gape further up on the chamber wall...

Behind them the young Padawan's spirit is suddenly back in the cave and he finds he's been walking back towards the crystal! Something brushes his mind: There in anger in you young one. I understand the injustices that you see and can do nothing about. Together, we could create an empire where all are equal and where you would be worshiped. Step forward and take what is rightly yours!!

The chamber is filled with fear and anger...

Reks shakes his head and his eyes flash with anger, he then looks at the crystal with a fierceness in his eyes, "I need not that which you offer, I do indeed see the wrongs being committed every day, but I need not your dark assistance to right them."

The whispers continue for the pair that has already reached out with the Force: Petty insults and threats are for those with fear and anger in the hearts. It would be so easy to push you to darkness, but I find it amusing that you will do most of the work for me. But there are others... who will accept my gifts. And together we will destroy you...

Kacela glanced at Reks and said softly, "Whatever you're hearing... conversing with it just gives it more chances to pry into your head. It won't tell you anything useful. Just ignore it, and help us move on for now."

Jihahna looks to Kacela and smirks... "If your analogy is correct, then this is not much different to dealing with a Hutt really. The more dealings you have with them, the more they worm their way into your life, eating away at it, taking greater control of the way you do things. Take out a loan with them and you'll never pay it back, they own you until you die. They're much like a primitive slug you might find eating away at your vegetable garden: they worm their way in overnight when you're unaware, lay eggs on the inside and by then it's too late, it's all spoiled."

The field medic and ex-mercenary moved forward, Cal taking cover while Jihahna makes her way to stand next to Reks and can see one of the miners in distress.

"Obviously tied up by the Sith's buddies right? We can't just leave her there!" Jihahna doesn't rush forward, but does move ahead, raising her blaster rifle ready to fire, her vibro-bayonet also active, she prepares for combat.

Reks starts walking towards the miners, lightsabers at the ready for anyone hiding in the darkness.

The ponchoed alien signals to Targo, then proceeds to use Jihahna and Reks's bold advance as cover to sneak even further-in, into ever diminishing light conditions...

Now, if she were an ambush, where would she be...? Those dark cave openings?

The team, spread out over the chamber, start advancing closer to the captured miners. Reks and Jihahna, slightly ahead, note the look of fear on the miners' faces: they seem to be trying to scream something but are tightly gagged. The gand, Targo and Cal are only a step behind the pair, trying to look everywhere at once, but there are just too many shadows and places where one could hide a landspeeder behind, much less a person. Kacela hangs back a bit, following the main group by some ten meters, confident that her abilities in the Force can move her forward if need be...

As the team gets within ten meters of the first bound miner, a scream is suddenly heard from deeper in the cavern. A scream of rage and anger!!! Rising up from behind places no one thought could be used as camouflage, at least a dozen strange aliens, wearing raggedy clothing and carrying crude spears suddenly appear, arms pulled back to hurl them at the team!!!

Reacting quickly to the attack by the degraded aliens, the gand and Cal both open fire on the attacker's front ranks, automatic fire pinging off surrounding rocks and columns. A trio of the creature are wounded while another takes a blast to the chest. They're smooth skinned humanoids with tall craniums and eyes that protrude from each side of their heads on short stalks.

With a shock, the gand recognizes them: drone mumble "Rakata." jumble drone whirr clacketty "From the Infinity Empire." They'd been thought to be long dead!

That realisation is accompanied by a large explosion as Targo seriously misjudges the distances underground and throws a grenade well past any of the aliens, sending it to harmlessly explode somewhere back behind the group.

Jihahna prepares for action as chaos breaks out. Though her reaction is slow - maybe because of the darkness, maybe because she is still distracted by the crystal - Nonetheless, she cries aloud to the others to take cover and dives towards the nearest cover herself.

She hears a cold chuckling in her mind... and then some mild irritation. You will be mine... my apprentice... somehow I will make it so...

Three of the wounded Rakatas move behind cover while two others remain on the ground howling in pain. The remaining three throw two spears each at both This Gand and Jihahna but, with their added cover behind various rock formations, the javelin-like weapons clatter against rock.

Meanwhile Reks uses the confusion to bound forward and chop through the bindings of two of the captured miners, directing them back the way the team came in.

Once free, they drop down prone and start crawling away. One, a female krish looks back at him and shouts: “They have a worm that they worship... a huge unnatural worm!!! Watch out for it: I think they planned to feed us to it!”

Kacela rushes forward alongside Reks, her lightsaber making a bright arc of light as she swipes it at one of the cave dwellers to clear a path for the miners! It hisses in anger and pain, a wild, almost animalistic look in its eyes.

Two Rakata stab at Kacela with their primitive spears and one stab makes it through her defenses to slash along her right arm : though primitive, they are quite adept at their use, using both the point and the shaft for linked attacks! The third one that she had wounded tried to move around to stab her from behind, but could not maneuver over the rough, uneven ground. At least not right away...

Two others rushes to stabs at Reks, each managing to lightly wound the young Padawan.

As if that wasn't bad enough, howling from the other side of the room anounces another group of the aliens, now racing towards the melee. They're hampered by the uneven ground and multiple obstacles in their way but they've already covered at least half the distance in a few short seconds.

jumble hum mumble clicketty clack "There are narrow caves to the left," the gand 'shouts' into the hand-to-hand melee before signaling to Targo and Cal. They concentrate their fire on the three Rakata that are openly rushing for his and Jihahna's cover, now close enough to see the shadowed ridges around their open mouths.

If they can keep the tide at range, then they have the advantage. If they can't...

clack drone mumble-hum "Autofire, please Cal Domaru."

Break the rush, keep them pinned.

(Below, he can feel the ground continue to rumble, like one long aftershock of Targo's grenade...)

Cal glances at this Gand but nods in agreement. Flipping his switch to auto-fire, he cuts lose on a group of aliens rushing forward and slightly wounds four of the creatures.

This Gand’s own energy burst-fire is more effective even if it isn't very fancy and he wounds the three creatures rushing their position.

Targo draws his blaster pistol and shoots one of the Rakatas that this Gand had just wounded, sending the creature prone, stunned by the damage it had taken but still very much alive.

Jihahna flicks over to auto-fire, gritting her teeth in firm determination. She ignores the voice of the crystal amongst this chaos, she has little time for mind games.

She instead once again becomes hyper-focused. She can feel the force flowing through her as she begins the dance she knows all too well. Assess, move to cover, fire, assess, dodge, assess fire.... She found that the more precisely she stuck to a combat plan, the more she excelled at what she did. She begins to move towards where this Gand indicated, placing the majority of her fire on the Rakata that would be most likely to deny her companions a tactical, re-manoeuvre.

She lets loose a barrage of energy-fire. She tries to avoid firing near those who are in melee with her friends, also trying to avoid hitting the miners. She shoots and wounds the same four Rakatas that Cal has just wounded, causing them all to cry out in pain and rage.

Meanwhile Reks moves forward, cutting the remaining two miners down from their pilori.

And as Reks sees to the miners, Kacels wheels and whirls, fending off the feral Rakata as best she can! Calling on the Force, Kacela takes a sidestep and slams five of the Rakatas back with her power - two that had been trying to stab her and three from the secondary group of aliens that are rushing the party! They're all wounded and knocked prone. The last one facing her growls at her and shouts something in his barbaric alien tongue.

Most of those Rakatas that had rushed from ambush only seconds before are too wounded to continue moving right away -- except for one solo alien. It howls in rage and stabs at Kacela. One other steps from behind cover to also stab her, along with the other, unwounded creature that had not been knocked prone by her powers. Her defenses are near flawless though and only one of the brutes is able to get past to slightly wound her.

As always Reks is not so lucky though, as the three Rakatas that surround him stab wildly, two scoring minor wounds against the Padawan. The quickly starts to feel the effects of multiple minor cuts from their crude spears.

That could have gone better, but they're still in the running.

Or so the gand thinks just before two large worm-things suddenly burst out of the ground next to Cal and Jihahna! These are pale-white and smaller than the giant that attacked the mining camp, but appear to be of the same general species! One bites at Cal, the other at Jihahna, and each slightly wound the pair. They hiss strangely and rear back to strike again!!

...clack slurr "Low priority," judges the gand after a pregnant pause.

She stands and starts firing continuously even as she moves, opening up an avenue towards the side-caves and waving invitation to the rest of the team (as well as the freed hostages): Open terrain is their enemy right now. Four rakatas leap out in turn, trying to stop her, but but each is cut down with a hail of well-placed blaster bolts.

Cal pulls carefully away and forward to one of the cave entrance, momentarily escaping the worm thing.

Targo too moves up next to this Gand and shoots one of the last of the Rakatas coming towards them, wounding it. It hisses in anger at him, its eyes almost glowing red.





Jihahna grits her teeth at the sinking cuts of the worm's bite. She would have tried to parry some of its attack, but she was too slow. She cries aloud. "The Gand is right! Fall back to the caves! We can handle them!"

She moves away from the worm, drawing an failed reaction from it as she heads towards the Gand.

Not worried about taking cover, she positions herself in the best position she can to try and draw Rakata from the Gand and Targo, calling for the Jedi to stand with her.

With that, her pupils dilate. Her power.... She could feel it calling to be released.

She had never felt this before, but she trusts it.... She opens herself to the flow of the force.

She breathes in suddenly as she feels herself extending outward, she is one with her allies, aiding them with an extension of her powers. It is glorious!

The pair of white, sickly worm things (with a mouth of too-big teeth) somewhat disagree. They shoot down into the ground only to burst back up next to Cal and Jihahna. The one on Cal misses him, but the second bites into Jihahna’s thigh. Luckily for her, her resistance from the Force stops most of the damage.

The prisonners, their clothes ragged, crawl their way behind the second line (this Gand, Targo, Cal and Jihahna).

Around the Reks cuts down the injured Rakata, ending its life, and seriously wounds another, yelling back to the others "Ensure the safety of those miners, we must save them!"

In the middle of the cut hostage posts, Reks is wounded by the one remaining creature on him though, causing the Padawan to stagger a bit as he struggles to remain on his feet and in the fight! To make matters worse, two other rushed towards him. No rest for the enlightened!

Kacela slashes her lightsaber at one of the Rakata still menacing her, causing it to emit a low moan and fall over dead. "Stay close, keep an eye on them but also to yourself," she says. "You'll do them no good if you're dead."

Point of fact, the last Rakata on Kacela is able to score a minor wound on the Padawan as other of its kind rushed out of cover to join it in battling her.

Lastly, A wounded Rakata rushes forward and catches Targo with its spear blade. The mercenary hisses in pain but remains up and facing the creature. Then the last of the Rakatas that can still fight rush Kacela and Reks, each scoring minor wounds against them -- but the multiple cuts are taking the toll on the pair...

hum warble clicketty jumble hum, slur click "Reks Seviir and Kacela please disengage and these ones will fire?" suggests the gand from the mouth of the cave. Somehow the synthetic female voice manages to remain understandable, even through all the blaster-fire, wounded shouts, worm rumble-roars and the mad swishing-hums of jedi weapons echoing off the cave's strange acoustics.

Cal draws a machete-like blade and stabs at the worm creature trying to bite him.

On his side, Targo too draws and activates his vibroblade and stabs the Rakatas on him, killing it!

The miners now safe, Reks disengages from his opponents with a flourish, then unabashedly runs back towards the others to try and recuperate a bit.

The waiting Gand then unleashes ill-placed blaster fire into one the first group of creatures, but is somehow able to correct and kill two and severely wound two others with his second burst of blasters.



Jihahna looks to this Gand and readies herself to unleash another barrage of auto-fire. "Kacela! We have you covered!"

Kacela glances back at the other and nods. She then whirls and keeps her lightsaber between herself and the rakata, holding her guard as she cautiously backs away from them... then quickly falls back to where Jihahna and the others are making their stand.

Jihahna, ignoring the burrower attacking her, burst-fires into the group of Rakatas following Kacela and severely wounds two of them.

Despite their wounds, the last one on Kacela and Reks follow the Padawans and each score minor wounds against the pair. Then, some of the previously reeling cave dwellers left their indivifual cover! One stabs its spear into Kacela’s stomach from behind, causing her to cry out in pain and fall to the group unconscious!!! The others throw spears at this Gand and Targo, one catching the nikto mercenary a glancing blow that causes him to duck back into full cover, holding his wound and gritting his teeth in pain.

The pair of worm things continue to attack Cal and Jihahna, but only the second one scores a hit, slightly wounding Jihahna. Again the Force helps stop much of the damage and she parries the worms blow, lessening the damage it inflicts further still.

The same voice as before entered her mind then I could save your friend… simply release me and I will show you the greatest power the Universe has ever known. The secrets of the old ways... the dark ways of power and glory... so simply and all within your grasp...

The freed miners continue to hide behind the group, crying but doing their best to remain as quiet as possible...

Reks and Jihahna move out towards Kacela in a rush, Reks firing his heavy blaster and blowing a hole through the head of the one who wounded Kacela as Jihahna (nonsensically for the others) yells back at the crystal. "You know what ELSE works, you stupid loner? MEDPACKS! Or KOLTO!"

She also yells back to the Gand "Hold the line! I'll be back in a sec!" She yells then to the Nikto. "Targo, focus on dodging that worm buddy; we're NEARLY there!"

Upon reaching Kacela, Jihahna lunges forward with her vibro-bayonet. She stabs the big brute that's about to rush forward. While she hits, the worm thing also bites her on the leg. Lucky for her, the Force has stiffened her skin in such a way that the damage is not serious.

Reks grabs Kacela, pulling her back towards the others and cover.

hum clicketty jumble drone "Please move further back," the gand politely suggests towards the former hostages. guttural slurr-clack whirr click "These ones will be retreating?"

With a click his magazine drops and another slams into place, the heating carbine almost immediately back on target to cover Jihahna and Rek's retreat. Just in tome too: as Reks moved back, three of the Rakatas rush out of cover to pursue. All three are cut down before making it to the second line of defense.

With Kacela on the ground, Cal stabs at the worm-creature and again cuts it slightly, event through its incredibly thick, crystalline hide.

Targo, not wanting to expose himself to further danger without a bit of medics first, crawls towards the cave entrance. He yells “Iffin’ anyone has a gots a medpacs, slab ones on the Jedi!”

A couple of Rakatas shake off the effects of their wounds. Despite the bodies now littering the cave, one rushes Reks and slightly wounds him with its spear. But the Padawan is again suffering from the effects of multiple minor cuts and feeling the pain.

A large Rakata and another alien gang up on Jihahna and the ex-merc - new-Padawan - suffer a number of small cuts.

So seeing, the gand calmly folds her carbine's stock - pull the captive pin, fold over the pistol grip, drop the pin back in place - and shoots the peduncled alien attacking Reks. Twice. In the chest. Switching aim, she also takes out one of the aliens fighting Jihahna.

Without the least pause, he ratchets his voice up to maximum and tries: guttural jumble whirr drone "THESE ONES SURRENDER," with her arms held wide and the still smoking carbine pointed to the jagged ceiling, away from the remaining handful of rakatas...

Jihahna calls on her inner reserve of strength and digs a little deeper as the cuts start to feel... A little painful now... She can see the party is almost there... She can feel the reinforcement they have from her power... Whatever it is.

The fight nearly over, she draws away from her enemies and fires upon them, moving back to Reks position as she drops the lasst opponent on her. The worm tries to bite her but misses.

Cal jumps back from 'his' worm and says: “Lay her over here!!!" as Reks races back to the healer, still carrying the unconscious form of Kacela. He places her carefully on the ground before bursting into action, striking the worm twice with his lightsabers. The creature's hide seems to absorb or deflect much of the energy of his attacks and it does not suffer as great a wounds as he expected.

The worm tries to bite Reks but it missed. The other, however, is able to bite Jihahna.

Then a pair of the Rakata races forward and stab at Reks and this Gand, but they both fail to get past the pair's defenses. Then another Rakata jumps up from cover - completely ignoring its own grievous wounds AND the now two-to-one odds against them - and stabs this Gand twice, both times inflicting minor wounds on her!!

With an untranslated clicketty - Pain? Something else? - the compact little alien brings his right arm down into a deadly-efficient pistol-butt strike to one Rakata's head, followed by a blaster shot into its other attacker. Both go down like sacks of heavy cruisers, the first 'merely' unconscious.

She looks somewhat puzzled though, if the tilt of its head is anything to judge by: clacketty jumble hum mumble slurr "Are those ones like the spiders?"

Reks once again attacks the worm with both lightsabers, stabbing into it twice! The creature emits a strange screeching scream of pain and then collapse. The ground shudders with the impact. Reks hears a strange voice in his head: Impressive, most impressive young magnus... you are strong with the powers... I could make you stronger.

Jihahna grits her teeth as she can see the worm behind her - snapping? Chittering? Yeah! - chittering at her heels. Once again, she risks moving away from it. She sees Reks slicing down the other worm so she runs towards the other threat, the last deranged Rakata that appears to be readying itself for attack.

It doesn't really stand much of a chance. She rams her bayonet through its chest from behind, its fingers twitching momentarily before it collapses.

THEN she turns back for the oncoming onslaught from the other worm. "Nearly there people! We're nearly there!"

Cal starts working on the downed Jedi, quickly stabilizing her: Kacela is saved from her own onrushing death.

Even with its 'handlers' out of commission, the worm keeps on fighting... Or is IT the one that was controlling the rakatas?

Whatever the case, Jihahna turns about to face the last enemy, her breathing heavy, the cuts running freely down her arms and legs, sweat and dirt matted her clothes at this point. Shrugging in front of it, jokingly trying to reason with the mindless creature. "All alone now buddy, maybe you should call it quits? No? All right then."

She turns her head and spits out a big glob of blood, looking a little dizzy on her feet, she refocuses once more before swinging her bayonet back behind her and then unleashing a swing into the beast with a cry of exhaustion.

Reks moves around Jihahna and stabs the creature twice, also wounding it.

The ponchoed gand does its part too, firing up at the worm's rampant, armored head as it rears above the party!

The combined damage is too much: the creature almost-screams and collapses dead!

Targo steps out from behind the rock he was hiding behind, saying: "Yea folk are crazy... crazy good at this stuff. I almost died and you took out a score of these bastard by yourself?"

Reks and Jihahna both hear a soft chuckle in their minds.

Jihahna is panting as she tries to catch her breath. She politely shakes her head at Targo as she replies, "You weren't in danger of dying anymore than we were Targo. We work as a team, so when one of us looks to be about to collapse, the rest of us help out. You contributed everything you could, but you looked like you couldn't fight much more, so I told you to back it off a bit. Sure, we took a couple of extra hits, but we shared those hits amongst ourselves and we haven't lost anyone as a result. We live to fight another day."

Jihahna pauses a moment as she looks to the others. "I don't think we're going to be able to handle the sith in our current state. I think we need to head back for now. Hopefully we won't experience enemies in such great numbers again. Maybe we can work out a way to avoid their ambush again... Hmm. Yeah, we should get these captives back. Maybe we can rig-up some scanners to pick up Rakshasa physiology and manoeuvre around future ambushes.... Also..."

She turns to the worm, dis-attaching her vibrobayonet and using it as a dagger. She attempts to carve away and skin the worm... "We should take back as much of this material as possible... Find out more about it and see if we can utilise it for our weapons or armor... We may be able to use it just in its natural form, but also might be able to powder the scales and then apply them to armor and weapons as a paint coating, or maybe it can be woven into material... Not sure yet."

Strong breathing through an ammonia breather-disk: guttural clack jumble, clacketty slurr-whirr mumble drone "This humble one doesn't know how, but these ones won after all." As she returns from the battle site, she clasps the big nikto merc on the side of the shoulder (the highest point she can reach): drone whirr click "Targo did good." A soft buzz - wry amusement? - as he looks up into the other's eyes: drone clicketty mumble drone whirr "Targo just needs a better weapon."

Targo laughs nervously and nods, "Aye... maybe a carbine would be a good investment."

The gand pats his own weapon, now that it's cool enough to be returned to its holster: drone mumble long-clicketty clack "Rhodian Arms FCR-2," she recommends. jumble drone whirr clacketty "Jihahna Darut has taste."

She slaps Targo's arm, gesturing him towards Cal Domaru before moving on to the next item on the priorities list.



===



Walking back to the entrance to their safety-tunnel - across the chaotic, rocky ground of the crystal cave - the compact little alien squats down: clacketty whirr drone click "Are those ones alright?" asks the synthetic female voice.

The rescued miners all look at this Gand with wide eyes and fear, now somewhat tempered by the facts that they are still alive and appear to be free. One says to this Gand "Yes... we are better now. Thanks to you and the Jedi... How did you find us?"

guttural clack, slurr jumble whirr "These humble ones followed the Crater Worm," answers the gand. She pulls out a trio of emergency food-blocks from the utility belt around her waist and places them on the ground before them, along with her water bottle: the rescued four have been down here two days now, under who knows what conditions... mumble drone click "What happened to those ones?"

The miners accept the offered foodpacs with much enthusiasm and wolf them down. This Gand notices that one of the miners bare a name tag identifying her as Deja-9, the missing forewoman (in fact, the one that has just thanked them for their rescue). The four are all dirty and suffered some obvious beatings but they don't appear to have been tortured or experimented on. This Gand notices that the patterns and cuts all the miners have on their uniforms are compatible with being grabbed by the pincers of giant Gaping Spiders.

mumble drone click "What happened to those ones?" repeats the little alien after immediate hunger has been dulled, their minds now clearer. drone whirr click, jumble-hum click "What did the Rakatas want?"

Between chewing, Deja-9 replies: "We're not really sure. The spider things grabbed us while we down in the mines exploring a new cavern we dug into. They dragged us in here before that creepy crystal and those crazy aliens you all killed... they were dancing around it and appeared to be worshiping it. They beat us up and tied us to those stakes. I don't know how long we were tied up... a long time. Days maybe? But then that big worm thing came into the chamber. The aliens all went wild, dancing and jumping up and down in front of it. It even ate one of them and the aliens seem to go even crazier. I think... they wanted to be eaten by it. Anyway the worm sat there for a few minutes... and seemed to be looking at the crystal. That might just me going crazy as I don't think it has any eyes... Anyway it left then and the aliens all started dancing again. A few hours ago I guess the worm came back in, left through another tunnel back that way and the aliens just sat around for a while. Then they all got excited and started hiding. And that's when you all showed up. I think they were going to ambush you all..."

drone clicketty slurr mumble click "Analysis of a new threat?" suggests the gand after Deja-9 finishes her story... drone mumble-whirr clack, jumble click clacketty drone hum click "The Guardians take a sample of those ones threatening to wake the demons?"

That, and the Crater Worm is apparently sentient...

Cal continues working on bring the Jedi back to the waking world.

Kacela comes back to consciousness feeling sore and weak... And then she hears a strange voice in her head: You are strong in the powers of the magnus... but not strong enough... yet... I could teach you these things... so much potential within your grasp..



"I firmly believe we need to work on moving this crystal immediately." Reks says, looking to Kacela for guidance. "Perhaps we should contact the council and see what they think?"

Reks hears the voice in his head again: What is this council you speak of? Are they your teachers in the magnus arts? I am... curious. Tell me of them. Surely there can be no harm in a simply conversation -- is there, young warrior?

Jihahna begins cutting into the creatures as best she can, trying to work out the structure of its carapace and the best place to sink the blade into... She's able to cut up one of the worms well enough to remove most of the skin in one piece. It weights around 15kg, being far denser then it appears.

She replies to Reks. "Well, I agree we need some advice, but maybe we need it from the Kwi too? I mean, bringing the crystal back would be dangerous. You're basically carrying around a Sith's 'soul' or something like it AND it can try to enter our mind any time we use the force... Plus, if it is one of the 'DEMONS', the Kwi told us that they used the force to trap them here... Also that their release would equal the extinction of all life. I'm thinking they're probably not invincible, but maybe they're really difficult to kill and vast in number... Let me see if I can transmit to our ship from here, maybe we can contact the council now, rather than touch the crystal."

With that, Jihahna tries setting up the mid-range scanner. She directs the signal as best she can through the tunnel back the way the party came. "Thirteen or C4, please come in, this is Jihahna, we need you to open a channel if you can to the Jedi council on..." She turns to Reks, "Where are the jedi located now? Coruscant or is it Tython now? I don't know."

But only got static as a reply anyway. One of the older miners said to her: "The mineral compound of these mountains along with the atmosphere is going to make calling anyone pretty much impossible"

Kacela gets painfully to her feet, with a grateful look for Cal. "This is what the Sith are looking for, I think," she opines. "If we leave it behind, we risk them finding it. It is not in their nature to resist its call."

She looks at the crystal, "We can cut the rock that it's embedded in. We don't have to touch or break the crystal to move it."

Jihahna gapes at Kacela, clearly both nervous and surprised before speaking... then the part of her brain that always looks for solutions calms her immediately. She raises her hands in a halting motion. "Just hold that thought... Maybe we could, you know, step out of its range briefly and consult the force as to whether taking it away would be a good idea right? Maybe getting to the surface is exactly what it wants? Right?"

Stepping away, she tries just that...

Jihahna pauses a moment as the chill of evil washes over her. A familiar feeling to her by now. It used to come with her every compromise of self, with every angry outburst, with every denied plea for mercy. But she had to push further, sweeping aside these thoughts with the logic she had constructed to keep her alive, the ex-mercenary finds her calm.

The answer she sought came to her like being drenched in ice water... When she is done, she turns her head to the others... "There is something FARRR worse down here, FARRR more powerful than this one". She points at the crystal as she says this. After composing herself a little more, she continues. "That aside, this tomb is their prison. I trust the Kwi. They haven't been wrong yet and it took their entire species connection to the force to lock these things away."

The gand looks away from the conversation, back to the miners: guttural clacketty whirr hum jumble hum "These ones will escort you to the surface soon." clack clicketty "Please prepare." In the meantime, the gand straightens, pulls out her compact glow rod and starts examining the fallen aliens, making sure they are no further threat and documenting them - their equipment and their worms - with a few quick holos from her datapad.

The examination proves rather fruitless though. She does re-locate the unconscious Rakata, tying him up with her cable dispenser, ready to be escorted back to surface... Aside from that though, these are strange, dead aliens and little. There is no immediate evidence of them even living here or nearby: no food caches, no cooking fires, no bedding... Cross-referencing through the data she researched before, he gleams that they were a primitive species who stole space travel from someone who visited their homeworld in a far distance past (like 20,000 years ago) and quickly formed their empire. By all accounts, they had a strong warrior-mage (Force-Using) Culture based on conquest...

The gand looks down at the javelin-wielding worm-worshippers... clacketty click, cruck slurr mumble hum clicketty "Those ones are possibly a devolved branch, much like the Kwi," she communicates to the others.

An idea suddenly occurs as he quickly starts rejoining the force-sensitives grouped near the crystal, motioning invitation for the hostages to precede him... clacketty hum mumble, clacketty drone jumble click "Later, perhaps Kacela will feel well enough to try to contact this rakata's mind?" Meaning the one she's dragging around right now. clacketty mumble slurr jumble slurr click "Perhaps those ones have been severed from the force as well?"

On the way over though, and despite their risky circumstances right now, she stops dead by the poles on which the hostages had been tied.

Is that... Wood?

And: Yes. Yes, the pole appears to be some form of surface wood... they are fairly fresh too. This Gand does not think they were cut more than a few weeks ago, at most!

One of the miners pipes up, "Can we get out of here now? I don't want to be around when that worm thing returns... it looked hungry..."

Troubled, the little alien rejoins the rest of the party. The danger being real and present, she quickly snaps a holo of the crystal and its base and does a quick visual and tactile survey before moving on. The thing does not appear to have been manufactured artificially, but it does not appear wholly natural either. She gets the feeling it somehow fused with the rock...

clacketty hum jumble click "So what has been decided?"

Kacela sighs, realizing that there's no way they can transport the crystal in their state... heavy equipment would be needed. And... she did recall that these worms were guardians. Ah, by the dead Masters, they'd erred hadn't they? They'd just made the job of the Sith easier!

"He's right...we should go. I hope this thing has other guardians we haven't encountered. Anything to delay the Sith while we try to figure out what to do with it."

No, they couldn't have done differently: the miners had been here. They'd have died without help!

More than ever, Kacela wished her Master was on hand... wisdom and experience she lacked, to puzzle this quandry out. Maybe she wasn't as ready as she'd thought she was, for knighthood. "Let's go."

Jihahna smiles and sighs in relief. She then prepares to head away with the others to safety.

Clack clicketty click slur jumble whirr "The giant Crater-Worm who dug this tunnel remains," mentions the gand as they start on their way up.



An unusually chatty Reks locks steps with the young twi'lek woman as they start walking, the gand guarding their rear, "Kacela, I think it would be wise for us to inform our masters, if not EVERY master what we have found here. The elder Jedi likely have more knowledge of what this is than us, I mean if such knowledge even exists beyond those creatures we just faced. We might be able to find more, deeper in, to try and talk to, but I'm thinking that won't get us anywhere if those creatures worship the foul thing."

Reks turns to the others and continues, "And we should likely inform the Kwi as well, I'd like to be there to talk to them again at least, as I've kind of taken a liking to the strange people. We should also ask C4 if he's heard about anything like this, as he spent a good deal of time with those foul-smelling pirates. I'm also thinking perhaps we should do what we can to have this area as heavily guarded as possible, in case any more Sith might be aware of this and come looking."

With that Reks appears to be finished, and begins walking away, seemingly ignorant of his sudden take-charge attitude. Perhaps it's just him starting to mature more due to his training sessions with Jihanna, or perhaps it's something else, but after that battle Reks seems almost like a different person. Like he has gotten smarter, calmer, and more caring about the situation on hand. From that point on, he is no longer just doing this because he was told to, he's doing it for the greater good.

The team lead the tired miners back through the tunnel that they previously entered.

As they are leaving Kacela, Jihahna and Reks all hear a frustrating growl in their minds and then a passing: You will regret rejecting my offer young magnus... but nothing more.

Reks turns his head in the crystal's direction, hesitating for a few moments, before he shakes his head, and begins walking once more.

Outside the room, the trio of force-sentsitive feel much better, as if a dark, heavy and smothering cloak has been lifted off of their shoulders. The others feel nothing special, either in or out; nothing save the need to regroup and retreat out of there with their wounded and their rescued miners. Kacela limps, leaning on an almost-equally-wrecked Reks for support, while the miners all need help at one point of another.

To help matters along, the deranged alien Rataka regains consciousness and starts screaming at the top of its lungs. It quickly becomes apparent that the creature is afraid of the light! No amount of talking seems to have any affect on it as it continues to try and close its eyes and scream incoherently.

To make matters worse, the gand is pretty sure that she feels the ground subtly shake a time or two...

With all of that, the scramble back up and through the tunnel takes much longer than the descent, but after a few short hours, Reks, out in the lead, notices light in the tunnel ahead. Finally the team makes it way into the caved-in area where once the mining camp had stood. Their ropes remain where they had left them and with a bit of work, and some surprise in many cases, all return to the crater rim without problems.

C-4 greets the returning heroes with a positive beep and says, in Binary (to any who can understand) "It is most joyous that this Unit's masters have returned from their adventures in one piece. A most fortuitous development for this Unit indeed."

Bringing the shouting rakata creature into the Outlaw Gambit seems to calm it down. It starts silently staring at the various team members. This Gand's attempts to communicate with it seem to fall on deaf ears -- either that or it doesn't understand anything the ponchoed aliens is attempting to ask.

Jihahna sighs as she heads into the ship's living quarters. She fetches a cup of water and a rag before returning to the others.

Taking a seat, a little sore from the days combat, she begins cleaning her equipment and her clothes.

"Try speaking to it in Kwi maybe? Maybe the two races knew each other on this planet?"

guttural whirr jumble, clicketty hum slurr click "This one wishes there had been more time to question the demon about such things," sighs back the gand, giving up on communication for now. jumble drone whirr, rumble whirr clicketty hum "But Jihahna Darut is right: the Republic Survey Corp is likely best for first encounters."

If there are no objections, she goes to do just that, using the Outlaw Gambit's comm systems.

Cal had been customarily quiet throughout much of the proceedings in the mine. His workman-like approach to neutralizing the threat and keeping his companions alive did not leave much room for talk. Now, returned to the ship, the Alderaanian inspects and cleans his combat gear before restocking his medkit to replace the supplies used in the mine. As he refills the kit, he looks around to his companions, "Let me check you all out... make sure none of us picked up anything nasty from the spiders or worms."

Meanwhile, Vivian is a bit surprised about the idea of some giant tunneling worm-creatures, but seems even more shocked about the news of a second sentient alien species on the planet... even if it is not native, it appears that the Rakata must have been here a long time. "If - If you could bring him to our facility, we can try and see if Thirteen can speak with it. We might also be able to learn something more about whatever is down there. An underground species of some long lost ancient society... fascinating."

clack jumble clicketty hum whirr "Surviving artefacts of the ancient Kwa," agrees the gand, her clicketties probably in the same tone. guttural clack warble-hum, jumble click clacketty hum "This humble one must really find a portable analyzer and return there."

The insectile one then turns to the trusty utility droid: clack warble drone clicketty mumble click "Could U7-C4 take us to Footfall, please?" Mumble clack whirr clicketty click "If the rescue operation can do without these ones?"

C4 beeps an affirmative and heads to the cockpit to get the transport ready for takeoff. The rescued miners ask if they can tag along the spaceport as the camp has been destroyed and no one seems too keen to spend the night in the mountain valley. There are a few emergency people still in the area but most everyone else has been evacuated back to Footfall.

C4 pilot the transport back to Footfall as the team discuss their next course of action. It appears that there is something very ancient and very strong with the Dark Side of the Force buried deep underground on this planet...

At the spaceport, Vivian along with Thirteen, Gall Doogota and two Czerka Security Personal, greet the team as they disembark. Two medical personal and Halina Yass also meet with the injured miners, escorting them off to be treated (and possibly questioned as well).

For herself Vivian is most interested in seeing the Rataka and Gall mentions that: "If you need somewhere to house the... alien... when you are done, you can bring it to the Czerka compound. We don't have much, but there is a small jail that we use when a miner get a bit to drunk and disorderly. It should work fine for this one."

Jihahna shrugs at Gall and turns to the others. "I don't see why not myself, seeing as we're all working together now, how about you guys?" She turns to the others before she feels a sudden compulsion to work on some ideas of hers to draw up a new diagram, planning ahead with some ideas for this Gand's weapon modification... Also had a brief thought about making a quadruple bladed lightsaber, before chuckling and shaking her head.

Cal shrugs and then nods: He doesn't necessarily like the idea of teaming up with Czerka, given his past experience with them, but he knows they have resources the Republic Survey likely doesn't. If they are going to get out of this situation safely, they are all going to have to work together.

Vivian was reluctant to turn the alien over to Czerka Corp, but seem to trust the team enough to go against her better judgement. Of course when the team brought the alien outside it again started screaming at the top of its lungs trying to close its eyes against the sun.

C4 bleeped to this Gand and Reks (in binary) "Shall this unit secure the ship while this unit's masters are away?"

Reks looks to C4 and smiles, "Sure, if that's what you'd like."

Gall has a medic inject the alien with something that seems to knock it out and then the security personnel carry the Rakata back to their facility. Once there, they take the group downstairs to a small holding cell area (where a irate Sullustan is complaining drunkenly about being unjustifiably detained). The security personal place the Rakata within a sound proof interview room, chain him to the desk and then left.

clack drone jumble low-hum whirr click "These chains are needed, Gall Doogota?" with a soft tap on the metalized links...

Jihahna smiles at the others, "I have no problem with releasing his bindings, if he's smart, he won't try anything."





Gall asked Vivian and the team "Where do you wish to start?" to which Vivian replies "We first need to see if Thirteen can communicate with the creature. Can you awaken it?"

Gall nods and injects the alien with something that causes it to awaken fairly quickly. At first it remains quiet and simply stares daggers at everyone. Thirteen then tries a number of dialects when the creature looks at the droid with some surprise and replies back!

After a few moments of this back and forth, Thirteen turns to Vivian and the others. "The creature claims to be a Disciple of the Dark Yat'thee and is cursing me in a most foul manner. It appears that its dialect is similar to what the Kwi speak but there are a few words and expressions from even more obscure dead languages that make up my translator program."

"So, either a pidgin language or maybe whatever it's speaking is a root to those other tongues? That's interesting..." says the Alderaanian. Not particularly well suited to questioning people, Cal crosses his arms and leans back against the wall, examining the Rakata for signs of suspiscious activity.

Reks looks at Kacela with a grim look, then says: "We should learn what we can about this Yat'thee. It could perhaps be some ancient Sith Lord, or maybe something even worse."

click mumble, jumble clack slurr hum clicketty "The rakata and the kwa are from before the Sith existed, Reks Seviir," reminds or informs the gand, depending on the case.

"Indeed, but I was thinking the Rakata could very likely have been around longer then the crystal, and could have found it while traversing the area underground."

The gand looks to the others to see if they understand what the male human is saying, then back at the silvery droid: grumble crack clicketty, hum clacketty whirr guttural "Could GE3-T3 please ask: what are the precepts of Yat'tee, nameless one?"

Thirteen translates back the alien's reply: "To follow the old way, to kill the outsiders, to worship the forms of the Great and Dark Yat'thee, the great Serpents, to hide from the demon in the sky, to breed so that one day we can return to the surface and destroy the great demon in the sky."



"I'll ask him a couple of questions," begins Jihahna, "Then some which might freak you guys out. Just go with me on this..." She turns to sit front of the Rakata, stretching her neck to the left and right before speaking to it directly. "So, Disciple, am I correct in saying that the Yat'thee was the being housed within the crystal we fought around? This Yat'Thee called me a powerful 'magnus'. He has offered to train me. This word 'magnus' does not cross languages well... Does he refer to those who can weave magic? If so, I am a Magnus."

Thirteen also translates Jihahna's questions and replies back with the creature's response: "The glowing rock is but one form of the Great and Dark Yat'thee. We are unworthy of it but strive to prove ourselves with sacrifices. In ancient times the Great and Dark Yat'thee walked among his people. But the cursed surface lizards... the Kwi... cursed him and bound him within many of the glowing rocks. The hated Kwi also destroyed what the Great and Dark Yat'thee had created and forced us underground. But the Great and Dark Yat'thee promised to return to his people one day. And that on that day he would destroy the demon in the sky for all time and would rise us up once again. We, the true followers, have held true to the old ways. We bring the guardians to many of the aspects of the Great and Dark Yat'thee and in his great wisdom he has enlightened them and made them strong. They now work for the true people instead of the hated Kwi."

BUT SOME RESIST?

Jihahna leans forward with her next question, eyes dead serious, "We wish to free the Yat'thee and become more powerful Magnus! How do we do this?!"

The creature seems to take a moment to consider her question... finally it shouts back (and Thirteen translates) "You lie!!! When the hated Kwi cursed and bound the Great and Dark Yat'thee, they also stole our powers. No magnus have been born of the true people in untold age. Until the Great and Dark Yat'thee returns there are no more magnuses!!!"

And then he adds: "If you free me, I will kill you and the other heretics of the true way."

Reks looks to the creature, and signals to the droid to translate him: "Well, according to your Yat'thee I am a magnus as well, so perhaps you should show some respect!"

Reks's threats must have lost something in translation as Thirteen carries back the alien's response as: "You and all like you will fall before the true Great and Dark Yat'thee when he returns. You may kill this one, but we are powerful and we have grown strong deep in the dark of the earth. Our time is returning and the sky demon and all who follow it will die!"

Reks pulls out a lightsaber, igniting it. He holds it very close to the creature's neck and says: "What is this sky demon? I follow nothing but that which I believe to be right."

What Thirteen translates of the alien's reply is: "The hot thing that rises into the sky. Evil and bright and burning. You saw it when you took this one from his home and again when you brought this one to here."

Thirteen looks at Reks and says "Oh dear I do believe that it is talking about this planet's sun, Master Reks. I am sure it is only ancient legends. They could not really destroy a sun could they?"

Reks burns the creature on the neck just a bit before letting off a bit once more: says "Tell me now exactly how you plan on destroying it and freeing Yat'thee right now, or I'll burn you again!"

The translation goes: "You and all the other heretics and false prophets will die when the Great and Dark Yat'thee returns!!"

Cal raises an eyebrow, but does nothing more than quietly change the selector switch on his carbine from KILL to STUN and bring the rigid stock up to his shoulder. The weapon remains pointed at the floor. He isn't quite sure who he is going to have to shoot... the Rakata or Reks. He looks around to see what the rest of the team is planning on doing, particularly the other Jedi.

Jihahna doesn't breech her bluff, but through gritted teeth, she mutters. "Easy Reks, captives often stop talking if they think they're going to die... I think we can scare him into talking, but we need to show him a display of force power..."

Still through gritted teeth, she speaks again. "As you can see, dear disciple, we know the power of darkness, so much so that some of us..."

She gestures her cybernetic arm to Reks, "Do not tolerate WEAKNESS. We would release you from your shackles BECAUSE you are WEAK. You have no chance of defeating us. You need GUIDANCE. There is a way we can help to make you strong. Instead of death, when we return your master to Glory, we will make certain YOU are rewarded too. Because something he NEVER told you is that his release REQUIRES the aid of a Magnus! I do not lie about being a Magnus, I know his voice to be male and I know he spoke to me in my mind."

Jihahna places her cybernetic hand on the table. Her other hand pulls away either a shred of cloth, a button or something similar from the Rakata.

"Perhaps a small demonstration of our power! Kacela? Reks, could you levitate this item? Either that, or maybe you can show them your more volatile powers? Raising a small object with the magic is of course a child's exercise Disciple, but perhaps this will sate your disbelief..."

The gand steps away from the waving lightsaber and then squats orthogonal to the two parties, watching from one to the next as the exchange progresses -- as she it did during that first conversation between Kacela and Cass Everburn.

Kacela comes forward and puts her hand on Reks' shoulder, trying hard to maintain and project serenity, even though the other Jedi's actions were shaking her to the core.

"Enough," she said softly. "Enough, everyone. This creature is a fanatic. We're only learning the dogma they've whispered to themselves after who knows how long buried in the earth, with only that presence in the stone to whisper poison into their minds. Whatever it knows, it's not worth this."

She gives Reks a reproving look. "We need to calm down and think straight. The Kwi may know more, but it seems to me what we need are ancient things... things from the past. Writings perhaps, or carvings. Maybe the Kwi can help us find such things."

Reks backs off, and puts his lightsaber away, breathing quite heavily. He then looks to the others: "You are right, I have taken this too far. I just lost my cool for a moment there, so I'd ask that you all forgive me this indiscretion." Reks stares at the ground, apparently bothered by what he had just done.

Jihahna scratches the back of her head casually in response to Kacela. "I agree on the torture thing - though Reks: don't worry, I've seen people get caught up before - but like I said, they most of the time shut down conversation. Light side or dark aside, it just isn't a reliable method."

She sighs before meeting everyone's gaze. "As for me, I just figured that imitating one of those angry force users might help us win the temple location over... All you really have to do is blab about how strong you are and how inferior your target is..."

She moves her fringe from her eyes before she continues.... "I mean, this was the sort of thing I used to have to do sometimes... Maybe though, I shouldn't now? Either way, you might be right. We may be able to find the information another way. Maybe we should continue our scans tomorrow for the big mountain?"

"Huh, perhaps if we were encased in crystal the fool creature would suddenly fear us," spits Reks. "I'm thinking nothing good will be found underground, but I'm sure something important will be. If we only knew how big the horde would be, we could gauge the effectiveness of an attack, or bring in a few mercenaries, but we simply know far too little, and that thing isn't telling us anything more."

"It knows, well... something," contradicts Cal in Basic, after a long look at the stalk-eyed rakata, hoping the creature couldn't comprehend. "Something that it's trying to hide. Maybe something related to what we've told it or something it has seen since it encountered us. We may need to find out something about its legends. Maybe we should speak to the Kwi again? They seem to figure into this creature's legends."

Jihahna stops a moment before looking to Thirteen... "Hey Thirteen? Does the name Kathree Dorm have any other meaning to it?"

Thirteen looks to Jihahna and replies "I believe that a rough translation would be Star Chamber or Star Chaser or Sky Dome mistress Jihahna... but the Kwi language is very confusing at times."

clacketty click hum clackett "That one is the same as the kwi," philosophically remarks the gand -- directing her words mostly towards Kacela, it seems. Then, to the dark-haired female, with a tilt of her chitinous head: jumble drone hum mumble-click whirr clack "Does Jihahna Darut wish to continue the magnus bluff?"

If not, he herself could perhaps have some things to say?

Jihahna looks at this Gand, then up to Kacela, with a sudden look of realisation, she should be able to raise the cloth herself! She pinches her thumb and pointer finger in front of her face.... "Just one more thing?"

She turns back to the table and attempts to raise the piece of cloth before her using the force.... And it works!

The Rataka's wide-set eyes go wide and it starts yelling and fighting his bindings. Thirteen translates its screams as: "Heretic!!! False one!!! Follower of the evil of the sky!!! Release this one so that it can kill you!!!"

Kacela sighs, but refrains from saying she told her so.

Reks puts a hand on his lightsaber, but makes no movement yet to draw it. He waits and watches for any signs of an actual threat from the creature.

grumble crack clicketty click "Please, E3-T3." Now - now that the prisoner is angry out of all restraints - now the gand adds to the fire.

slur jumble drone slurr clack whine-jumble click "The guardian destroyed the mining camp to keep these ones from the Yat'thee." slur hum whirr jumble guttural, hum drone clacketty whirr "The guardian knows these ones will make better Disciples than the Rakatas ever could."

Simple statements, said with simple conviction.

Although Kacela didn't say a word, Jihahna, looking more than a little sheepish, scrunches up her nose in her direction...

"Hmmm, yeah I um... Hmmm."

She slumps her shoulders with a sigh, the sheepishness becoming guilt... "Sorry Kacela." With that, she changes the subject with renewed vigour. "Say, who wants coffee?"

She takes people's orders before stepping out.

Cal shifts against the wall, his carbine pointed generally in the direction of the agitated Rakata. He doesn't really have anything to add here, his specialty isn't interacting with sentient alien species. He does nod his head at the offer of some coffee.

Figuring they weren't getting much more out of the alien, the human says, "Well, let me know if I should get the Gambit prepped to go search for this temple."

As Cal and Jihahna leave, Thirteen translates this Gand's last question to the Rataka after it calms down a bit (after Jihahna leaves, it calms down a great deal).

After a moment it seemed to consider the question and replied back "This one does not know how the stones and the false guardians communicate. Only that we bring captured new born guardians to the Chamber... hmm or Caster, I am not sure Mistress Gand, which it really means... anyway... we bring captured new born guardians to the Chamber of the Great and Dark Yat'thee and in his infinite wisdom he turns them to serve his Disciples. They attacked you because... it seems unsure why, except to say that you must be heretics and evil. I am sorry Mistress Gand, I cannot say for sure as it is muttering some prayer or curse in with this last part," replies Thirteen.

Reks steps outside at this point, and starts smoking one of his deathsticks, guilt clear on his face. A tear rolls down his eye as he continues smoking, looking up into the sky in contemplation.

The gand watches the others exit the room... guttural clack whirr-hum clicketty slurr "Talking is this humble one's best weapon," she apologizes to Gall Doogota before shrugging ponchoed shoulders and facing the disciple once more. "Is that one not afraid these ones will replace the rakata at Yat'thee's side, now that these ones have arrived?" it asks through the silver droid.

The alien seems to laugh and Thirteen translates back to this Gand "We are the true and the faithful to the Dark and Powerful Yat'thee. This one does not fear you. You will be destroyed by the great Guardian that has been shown the true path. You and the others that have invaded our homes... all will die..."

"And yet the disciples were easily defeated," the protocol droid translates back.

The Rakata seems to sink into the chair at Thirteen's translation. "It seems to just be chatting now Mistress Gand. Do you wish to ask it anything else?"

Gall shrugs, "I believe we have learned everything we can from this being. You should go join your friends. I will have it locked up for now until we figure out what to do with it."

The gand considers, head tilted, then raises a three-fingered hand. clack drone guttural clicketty, hum jumble click "With Gall Dogoota's permission, this one would like to remain?"

Gall again shrugs his shoulders, turning his triple gaze down onto this Gand: "As you wish. Do you want my security team to record it?"

Thirteen seems to sigh at the thought of remaining and not going for an oil bath, but shows no other sights of disappointment.

grumble crack jumble clicketty whirr "Contact with a new species, E3-T3," entices the gand after deep-nodding grateful acceptance to the administrator of internal affairs.

The rest of the team heads over to the Survey Building with Vivian and catches an early dinner. There are com-messages from all the rescued miners again thanking the team for their work.

===

The glowing crystal seemed to shine a bit brighter suddenly as the group moves into the room.

One of the members of this new group moves forward and bowes her head slightly toward the crystal. "We have heard your cries dark one. We only need collect a few more of your confederates and we will be able to open the sealed door into the ... weapon." A humorless smile creases the female's lips at the word 'weapon'.

The crystal seems to grow brighter again as the woman hears within her mind: You are dark and evil young one. So like us in days of old... I will teach you much.

With that the woman signals some of the men behind her, troopers in armor of the Sith Empire style, who step forward with a large laser cutter...

===



Cal wonder up into the Czerka medical bay where there were a still a few wounded miners being treated for various wounds that they had suffered. He was specifically looking for any adverse affects from some kind of toxin or poisons but as far as the naturalist could tell there were none. Everyone was recovering nicely and those awake greeted with hardy cheers and heartfelt goodwill.

Later that night when he stopped by the Outlaw Gambit he checked out the armored skin that had been taken from one of the smaller species that the team had fought in the cave. It took some time but with some of the scanners from his kit and from that on in the starship's medical room, he noted that unusual high levels of a strange mineral in the creature's skin.

Jihahna also wants to examine the Carapace with Cal and try to establish the best way to utilise this hide for application to weapons and armor.

Kacela sends the following message:



Master,

My mission has encountered something unexpected. The suspicions of the Kwi's intelligence proved founded, but they are not the only intelligences to be found here. Under the mountain there is a powerful mind, inhabiting at least one...possibly more than one...crystalline structure. It can speak via the Force, and can somehow reach out and poison the Force around it, making it difficult to control safely. The Kwi have legends of an old battle between a demon and a guardian, and I believe their legends have a distant basis in fact. The presence under the mountain is powerful, but confined it seems. It is only able to act through servants.

The servants were identified as Rakata, of all things. A tribe of them, living in slavish fanaticism of the thing in the crystal, with no trace of their ancient culture and technology left. There IS a guardian as well...or a monster that seems to act as one. A huge armored worm-like thing that seems resistant to blasters and lightsabers.

And on top of all this, the Sith are here, though how many or to exactly what end is still uncertain. They're seeking a weapon of some kind. I suspect the strange thing in the crystal may be their goal, though I don't know if they understand exactly what it is. In all likelihood they're operating from ancient myths and legends as well.

Reks, I and the others have had some close calls, but so far we've managed to pull through. I'm worried about Reks though. He's taking too many chances, and I feel that frustration and anger may be taking root in his heart.

And I am afraid. I fear that what we have may not be enough. I fear for what may happen if we cannot stop the Sith, cannot stop this 'demon' from being released. It is shameful to admit, but I cannot conquer my fears if I cannot face them. I remember your lessons. I will have faith in the Force, whatever happens.

Even so, if it is not to be that we are the ones to end this, I pass the knowledge of what happens here on for the sake of others. I do not think help can arrive before this is decided, but perhaps it will be in time to contain the damage if we fail.

Thank you for all you have done for me. No matter what happens next, I would not trade any of it for what I would have had without your training, without the Jedi.

May the Force be with you.



She spends this downtime, such as it is, meditating and clearing her mind of the fear and anxiety of her near-death experience, and trying to bring herself back into harmony with the Force...ready to face the next challenges.

As the night wears on, this Gand learns that the creature is basing most of its knowledge on legends passed down from an age so long ago that they've become jumbled over the millenniums... She thinks she can extract some kernels of truth for it all though.

First, these deranged Rakata don't seem to have individual names, per say, which is rather refreshing. He continually refers to himself as 'We'. 'His' apparent purpose in life is to mate and kill outsiders and occasionally travel to the surface (only at night) for raids against the hated Kwi or to gather supplies...

That said, the aliens believe that the Great and Dark Yat'thee will rise and destroy the sun when the doors to the great chamber once again open. Then his dark Disciples will reclaim the surface world and the stars will bow before them.

Furthermore, this 'temple' is deep underground in an area forbidden to the Disciples and everyone else. The guardians protect this area, but the Disciples have been working for generations to 'enlighten' the young of the guardians so that when the time comes they can attack and kill the old ones (supposedly still loyal to the hated Kwi or Kwa). This final battle will of course lead to the rise and full awakening of the Great and Dark Yat'thee and raise his children to their former glory, etc, etc.

After making some coffee for those interested, Jihahna politely farewells Czerka personnel before heading away to join Cal in examination of the creature's skin.

Once she has done that, she heads off to bed, but instead of thinking about the possibilities involving the new mineral, she for some reason begins thinking about lightsaber designs. She can't put the thoughts out of her head.

The schematics just don't make sense, but something is happening. Her brain is trying to work out the parts that don't make sense.

It's frustrating. She rolls over in bed and forces herself to think of something else: the Gand's desired carbine modification.

To get a portable generator that was small enough to fit in the Gand's backpack, you'd need a powerful fuel sourc. But generally, the more powerful substances are less stable and often leak radiation if not adequately contained.

She rolls over in contemplation.... Staring at the wall, she mutters to herself... "Hmm, maybe I could increase efficiency instead of worry about the power source so much..."

She considers the possibility of using a focus crystal on a barrel extension, then to make certain, she can imbue the crystal with the force, giving it an electro-magnetic field, compressing the energy that runs through it and intensifying it. In this way, she can lower the draw of power for the same result...

"Just like a lightsaber.... She whispers, before turning over in bed, suddenly able to relax. She'd figured it out... How to build a lightsaber.

With that she closes her eyes and goes to sleep.[/sblock]
[sblock=CHAPTER IX. Going Down Deep]The next morning, the team meets up for breakfast in the Outlaw Gambits kitchenette. This Gand presents what she has found from her interrogations of the Rataka last eve.

"The guardians guard the temple," the gand is concluding. guttural clacketty hum mumble clack "These ones should quietly follow." guttural clack mumble clacketty hum click "Or these one should talk with words that convince?"

But Jiahana at least is not listenning. She's come up with a basic working idea for a lightsaber bayonet and is sketching out some systematic while she half-listens to the others.

With a mouthful of caff, she's showing the other two jedi her lightsaber schematic without any verbal explanation. "Mmm! Mmm mmm m mm Mmmm!"

She places the schematics in front of each of them and points to the areas that would normally be a mystery to non-jedi.

She swallows the rest of her coffee: "I think I figured it out. The force, near as I can tell, is not a power source that runs out! It's literally the energy of everything in the universe...

"This is why basic jedi training involves lifting small objects, because they want to show you that.

"When lifting objects, you're not so much pulling power from the air, instead, I think you're using the connection within YOU to influence reality around you?

"So when you lift an item up, you're not so much sending out a beam of power to lift it, you are removing the influence of gravity around it.

"Focusing on a crystal for lightsaber creation, you can again, change reality around and within it. You create an electro-magnetic field around it so powerful that it bends energy to its will.

"The electro-magnetic field IS oddly shaped as it is manufactured, but it still will function.

"Its south pole immediately runs back up and over the crystal, but then it continues upward, up up, until it reaches the appropriate height for the tip of the blade. It then pushes inward and then down through the 'core' of the crystal.

"This inward pressure at the northern-most tip of the blade, contains significantly more pressure than throughout the 'shaft' it creates to focus the energy.

"This pressure at the tip therefore stops the energy from travelling any further!

"Finally, much like with a planet, an electro-magnetic field is only functional with a hot core. So the electro-magnetic field is only strong when heated up on activation."

Jihahna straightens her back with pride: "To conclude, although lightsabers would seem to have no solidity to them, they actually do, in the form of an electro-magnetic field. It's just that the blade is SO hot that this resistance would rarely be felt.

"Also, when parrying another lightsaber, the solidity you feel from contact comes from the electro-magnetic fields colliding and the sound of contact comes from the spontaneous combustion of gases, which get burn't up during these disruptions."

She pauses a moment... "Knowing these things, it could be possible to stop a killing blow from a sith lightsaber by forcibly shortening the electro-magnetic field. Of course, if you were in that position, I'd say you were in trouble anyway..."

Jihahna smiles and takes another sip of her coffee.

Cal is still considering what the scales of the worms might mean but at least they do not spread poisons or other toxins with their bite. Reks is still brooding on his loss of control with the alien but is otherwise ready to get on with the mission. Kacela feels refreshed after her meditations on the Force but she is troubled by what's happening on this world...

Kacela chuckles. "You're overthinking it..." she starts to chide Jihahna, but is interrupted.

Just then though, the ship is shaken again by a powerful earthquake and the ground outside trembles. There appears to be no damage to the immediate area that they can see, but it was certain strong enough to knock a few people off their feet and cause a small fire in the space port.

"Again?" tsks Kacela.

Jiahana sighs... "Well I guess that's our cue..."

For himself the insectile alien glances at the bulkheads and the overhead, looking... Annoyed? Fearful? Something else? Taking his blenderized (and half-eaten) breakfast mug with it, the gand slides off his stool and hurries towards the bridge in a business-like fashion.

Reks thinks he felt something... off with the Force, but can't quite make sense of what he's feeling at the moment: something like a shout of rage in the darkness and then total silence? Perhaps he is just letting the stress and severity of the situation get to him more than he should, but there is little he can do about it now, for the fate of the Galaxy may depend on this particular group of people in this ship: Reks can't start thinking of giving up now.

The jedi lets out an audible sigh before chuckling, "Perhaps we really should do something about that oversized worm and the evil thing in the crystal soon, before the Kwi are left with no planet to live on."

On the bridge, fingers punch comm buttons as the gand slides into the captain's chair: mumble drone hum mumble jumble "Footfall Control, this is Outlaw Gambit." mumble drone clack warble mumble click "Does Footfall control have an epicenter for the quake, please?" Most importantly: warble mumble hum-click jumble click "When will the epicenters be below Footfall?"

Footfall Control seemed to have easy access to that sort of data yesterday... She dips the flexible metal straw still attached to her vocoder into the greenish liquid and sips.

He is directed to a control officer who replies: "Ah... yea I think the information is coming in now. It appears to be deep in the mountain range... approximately 500km from here. I can send the info to your ship's A.I."

The straw emerges: mumble drone clacketty, jumble hum click... click whirr click "Would perhaps the data from the last few weeks be available, Footfall Control?" Say since the kwi started to make trouble?

"Ah... ok," the control officer replies.

She signals to C4 to please be ready to receive.

Clicketty thrum "500 kilometers," the calm female voice then calls back down the Gambit's long neck, hopefully hearable for those still in the ship's cramped mess hall.

C4 beeps an affirmative when the data comes over, showing the earthquake activity for the area and the nearby mountain range.

The little alien nods welcome when the ex-merc enters the bridge, before gesturing to the sismic data... jumble drone clack clickety hum whirr, drone clacketty-hum click "There are more than one way to 'quietly follow', Jihahna Darut."

He's presently sitting in the captain's chair, looking quite... pleased maybe?

Looking the data over, they can both see that the strongest quakes seem to be a bit farther away than most of the other smaller quakes that are close to Footfall and the mining camp in the mountain valley.

"That's some nice tracking there, Gand." Jihahna smiles and nods at the little alien before taking one of the seats in the cockpit. "I guess we've located our mountain. I'm ready to depart when you are." With that, she takes the Gand's instructions for monitoring the mechanical and electronic aspects of the ship.

Cal too hops into the co-pilot's chair and starts running through the pre-flight checklist without awaiting instruction. While he normally flies solo, he is cautiously optimistic about working as part of a crew.

A tilt of her chitinous head. "Should these ones stock up on explosives first?"

The others glance at each other and smile.

Barring objections, the gand punches through to Gall Doogota and explains the situation. slur click jumble clicketty mumble drone "The guardians' next target is probably Footfall." She lets that hang for a few human heartbeats...

guttural clack, drone mumble-whirr clacketty jumble click "This humble one can remember glancing at an intact baradium shed by the minesite?"

"Ah... That might be a bit difficult; the tech people were bringing everything back from the collapsed area when the mining camp was hit, so locating anything right now... Let me see what I can do here."

After thanking the gran, clack drone clicketty jumble, mumble-hum slur clacketty click "Would Gall Doogota like a scale from the Crater Worm for research?" clicketty drone jumble-hum click, hum-whirr, jumble-whirr clacketty mumble hum drone click "One could try injecting sound, grav fluxes or current into the ground to keep it away from Footfall?"

She yanks out the flexible metal straw still attached to the face of her vocoder.

Gall actually gets back to this Gand fairly quickly with an affirmative and about an hour later a Czerka security personnel stops by the Outlaw Gambit with a briefcase. Inside, this Gand finds a kit with not one but five combo remote-timers and five kilos of a putty-like explosive...

"Gratitude," gestures the gand, before lifting up one of the putty-gray cubes and admiring it in the light....

Having secured the services of Targo and Thirteen, the team heads towards the earthquake epicenter on board the Outlaw Gambit. The flight is just under an hour, vaulting over jungle-covered mountains and herd-beast sipping steam-shrouded bodies of water.

But, as the ship approaches the target area, the weather starts turning. Before them black thunderclouds flash lightning and dump heavy rain on the area immediately to the south of the epicenter.

C4 beeps (to those who speak Binary) "This one is hesitant to advise its new masters about proceeding into the coming storm. Instrument readings indicate hurricane force winds towards the center of the storm some 20 kilometers ahead..."

Seeing the storm in front of them, Cal whistles in respect. "That looks nasty..." Checking the ship's sensors, he tries to determine the seriousness of the situation.

Jihahna scratches behind her head as she thinks. "I'm just guessing here, but, maybe the storm is being caused by our temple. If we fly above the atmosphere and out of danger and locate the centre of it, we might be able to land safely in the middle, exactly where we need to go. The eye of a normal storm is meant to be calm too.... I think..."

C4 beeps in binary to Jihahna's idea "It is quite possible Mistress Jihahna. There is a small region towards the center where the winds are not as strong..."

Leaning over the scanner readout, Cal communicates "Looks like this area suffers from strong storms fairly regularly." The scout frowns after saying that, unaware of a natural reason for the phenomenon. Possibly something to do with the mists? Or this temple we're looking for? Better to think on that later. Continuing to the rest of the crew, "I think Jihahna and C4 are right, we might be able to set down in the middle of it if we can go over the top of the turbulence. Otherwise, we may need to wait up to four or five hours. Storm looks to be slowly heading south..."

The gand gradually pulls on the controls, the rumble of the engines deepening as they start to rise throught the clouds.

Cal checks his safety harness for the third time and glances toward the Gand. Who replies with her species's equivalent of a thumbs up.

Unable to change the weather with her powers, and unable to be much help in flying, Kacela decides to try to help in another way.

This temple...whatever it is...surely it was - is a place strong in the Force. To that end, she thinks she should be able to find it if she can focus through the turbulence of air and emotion that surrounds her now... She feels a slight tremor in the Force somewhere down within the earth and also under where the storm is presently blowing, but...

The twi'lek's eyes open, and she makes her way to the cockpit, bracing herself with her hands on the bulkheads as she goes.

"I felt a presence in the Force...underground, there." She points, at the heart of the storm. "It's surprisingly subtle. Possibly something is hiding it...or it may simply still be sleeping."

clicketty hum high-whirr "That is fortunate, Kacela." A small hole in their stomachs as both sticks reverse course under the gand's three-fingered hands and they begin their dive into the mouth of the storm. guttural jumble clacketty warble hum "Because that is where these ones are going."

The Gand and C4 bring the transport down into the storm. The ship is buffeted by the strong wind and rain but the pair are able to handle the storm without much problems.

Normally near invisible in this storm, there is a brief break in the rain and wind that uncover a mountain flank where part of one of the mountains appears to have recently collapsed.

"There," the Jedi says urgently, grabbing the back of the pilot's chair and pointing at the collapsed mountain-side. "It's under the ground there."

Clack mumble clicketty "Please brace for landing," calls the gand, maneuvering them into a left turn and hard decel, the ship angled back, landing thrusters firing.

Looks like she's aiming them right for the flatened section at the tail of the rock slide!

It's a bit rough but this Gand is able to set the Outlaw Gambit down on a flat area near the rock slide area. The rain is still falling hard outside and the team is not especially confident about moving around out on the slick, rain-soak mud and rocks. It's also an almost night-level of darkness outside the landing lights of the transport, even though it's still technically before the noon hour.

Cal uncouples his safety harness as soon as the Outlaw Gambit sets down. Glancing over the ship's diagnostic computer, he notes the landing has done little more than strain a few servomotors, nothing that an hour or two of work can't fix when they return to the spaceport. Gathering his gear, the human double-checks that his medkit is fully stocked and slings the satchel over his shoulder. Grabbing his all-weather cloak, Cal pulls the protective gear over his head before slipping his field pack on his back. With his gear set, he grabs his trusty hardened blaster carbine and readies to leave the ship.

Now that they've landed, Kacela feels a powerful draw by the Force, almost calling out to her... somewhere nearby. She is fairly confident that she can find where this calling is coming from and lead the team there even in the storm. It's less then a kilometre away... but who knows what stands between 'it' and them...

C4 beeps in binary "This unit's new masters are planning on venturing out into the storm? This unit would prefer to remain here to check all system and assure that the landing did no measurable damage to the ship's systems."

Thirteen adds: "Oh dear me. Yes this storm is quite powerful. Perhaps it would be best if I remained here... to assist your technical droid in making any necessary repairs. I am programmed in such technical work..."

With a heavy metallic *click* the gand is free from the pilot's chair, pulling her all-weather poncho in place and bringing up its pointed hood in prevision of the weather. grumble crack click jumble hum whirr drone clacketty click "Can GE3-T3 program this vocoder to speak Kwi?" with a multi-fingered tap on the silvery disk over her mouth.

Thirteen looks over at this Gand and gives an almost humanoid shagging of its droid shoulders. With a sigh the droid replies: "Sadly I cannot, Mistress Gand. My translator unit is too complex a matrix for such a device, especially when it comes to the complex language of the Kwi. I suppose that I will be forced to endure the elements with you if you require my services. Oh well, if I am destroyed, tell Mistress Vivien that it was all in the pursuit of knowledge..."

"There's no reason you have to come with us," Kacela reassures Thirteen. "If we need a translation, we can transmit back to the ship and let you comm the translation back to us."

Thirteen seems to stand a bit taller at this but then says: "I mean no disrespect, Mistress Jedi Kacela, but did not the rocks block communications when you ventured underground the other day? Though I would of course be more than happy to translate any transmitted sounds or even pic-vids that you might be able to send..."

Cal looks at the storm raging outside with skepticism. "With this weather, I doubt we're going to have much luck sending and receiving communications, particularly underground. He may have to come with us, but C4 should probably stay to button-up the ship." The naturalist starts to measure out a length of rope, estimating the droid's waist.

grumble crack long, low-whirr "Sympathies, GE3-T3," communicates the gand before handing it the explosives case to carry.

C4 beeps something that almost sounds like laughter as Thirteen is handed the satchel bag.

Cal secures a rope around Thirteen, who mutters "Oh dear oh dear me.."

A hand on the dark-haired woman's shoulder as it passes, concern - something else? - in its reddish compound eyes: jumble drone clacketty whirr click "Jihahna Darut is alright?"







A close-fisted punch on their sticky ramp button, and with a whirr of servos the ship cracks itself open to the outside world... The storm winds rush in, wet and powerful, even in this supposedly calmer region.

The group clambers out, hanging on to the docking ramp's hydraulics against the wind...

Kacela pauses and puts a hand to her temple for a moment, her expression turning to one of surprise. Shouting over the wind: "Strange. Now I feel something calling out through the Force. Something wants us to find it. It's..." she frowned slightly, and tilts her head as if listening to something. "Maybe a kilometer away. Maybe less. As long as it lasts, I can show us the way towards it... But we will have to fight through this storm to reach it."

The gand's eyes note what appears to be a flattened area in the direction that Kacela indicates... unnaturally so in this Gand's opinion. clacketty jumble hum "Artificial structure," he shouts over the rushing winds, pointing it out as well, although the others can hardly glimpse it through the sheathing rain.

With an encouraging gesture the little alien lets go and steps out into the gale, keeping herself upwind of Jihahna and Thirteen, poncho clacking about her chitinous form like a live thing wanting to escape.


OOC: On a hunch, the gand'll grab his/her jetpack on the way out, putting it underneath his/her poncho. Otherwise moving out towards the 'thing', please GK.[/sblock]

 

[GreenKarl]

GM: That would be GREAT!!! I can access any of it

 

[Sezarious]

Jihahna's gaze is suddenly broken. In the mere moments between the ship entering the storm and the Gands hand on her shoulder, she had felt as though several days, maybe weeks had passed. The hand to her shoulder brought her back.

She turned on her heels to follow. "Hey Gand! Wait for me! Yeah, i'm fine thanks!"

She also looks to Thirteen. "Look, as long as we keep your central processor safe, I promise i'll see to it you get re-built. Hopefully you'll get no more than a little wear and tear from the weather, which again, i'll make sure gets repaired. You're pretty brave despite your heuristic processors Thirteen."


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[Binder Fred]

"Yeah, i'm fine thanks!"

jumble hum mumble whirr "Nerves are normal." Considering where they are going, what they're likely to face.

He also pats Targo on the way out.

 

[GreenKarl]

The team prepared to leave the Outlaw Gambit Cal secured a rope around Thirteen's midsection and lopped the other end around himself. With the lowering of the loading ramp the storm's wind and rain blasted the team as they descended into the storm...

GM: If the team moves at half speed you get Advantage on either a Strength (Athletics) DC10 check or a Dexterity (Acrobatics) DC12 check to not be in danger for falling off the side of the mountain. If moving at 1/2 speed, Thirteen's check Acrobatics check: 1D20 = [4] = 4; 1D20 = [12] = 12, made it. Everyone else needs to make a check also, chose which one before you roll. If everyone makes it you will make it to the 'flat-area' that this Gand detected. NOTE also that a Jet Pack 20kgs all by itself... this Gand might be encumbered if he/she is carrying it (your Strength score x3 in Kg before you get penalties).

 

[Forged Fury]

[IC] SWS/DnD5, Star Wars the Old Republic – A Gathering Darkness

Cal gathered his all-weather cloak around him and headed out into the storm. The line he had attached to Thirteen was slack, the droid seemed to be following with little issue. Carefully, the human nimbly picked his way through the cutting wind currents whipping back and forth. His limited visibility, however, caused him to miss his footing...

OOC: Dexterity (Acrobatics) w/ADV: [roll0] or [roll1] Uh oh... oh wait, I forgot Force Points. See next post...

 

[Forged Fury]

[IC] SWS/DnD5, Star Wars the Old Republic – A Gathering Darkness

But with a deft, nearly supernatural twist, Cal managed to recover before anything bad happened.

OOC: Force Point: [roll0]

 

[Binder Fred]

Slippery when wet: 2D20.HIGH(1)+4 = [3, 5]+4 = 9

 

[GreenKarl]

Slippery when wet: 2D20.HIGH(1)+4 = [3, 5]+4 = 9

GM: There is always a Force Point...

 

[Sezarious]

With great ease, Jihahna moved along the rough terrain. A combination of her height and being used to harsh travel conditions made the trek relatively problem-free.

OOC: Athletics with Advantage http://roll.coyotecode.net/lookup.php?rollid=139515]_: 2D20.HIGH(1)+5 = [14, 17]+5 = 22 [/url]

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