Seth watched as Judder cowarded in fear from his shots and then rose on a suicide mission. He now held a detonator in his hand giving Seth the option of running and that he would give him thirty seconds. The Chiss might have taken Judder up on that option any other time. This was not one of those times. He did not take kindly to being offered mercy. If Judder had came to kill him then he should be a warrior and attempt to do just that, not show mercy. "No mercy, Judder." With serpentine speed, Seth raised his blaster and shot the detonator then leaped into the nearest hole in the wall.
Again the unexpected. Seth was full of that today, for whatever reason. Or maybe it was a constant problem the Chiss had? Either way the comment of no mercy took Mal aback slightly and he KNEW beyond the shadow of a doubt the man was going to do something stupid. Little did he realize exactly how right he was. A blaster bolt singed just narrowly past the detonator thanks to the waggle of his hand, the very poor lighting conditions and the fact that his black gauntleted hand was covering the entirety of the thing other than the red light flashing near the top. Still, Mal pulled his hand back in instantly slightly shaken at the near brush with total anihilation that had just occured. Didn't Seth realize that his plans of glory would be absolutely quenched when the baradium went off? This explosive would have disintegrated literally everything within a twenty meter radius? There was no way he could have survived. Likely this tunnel would have become decidedly non-existant due to the collapse that was sure to follow, and gods alone knew what would happen to the surrounding area after such an action. It certainly would not have been good. Having realized that there was not going to be a particularly honorable or pleasant way out of this, Judder turned off the det and set it on the ground and instead grabbed a concussion grenade. He had hoped to avoid THIS particular choice as they were a very valueable commodity but a quick ending to this was definitely preferable to potentially walking into a trap later on. With this in mind, he primed the grenade and lobbed it to where the blaster bolt had come from. Due to the enclosed nature of the area it would likely be vastly more effective than it's normal rate as everything was forced into a vastly smaller area. there had not been anywhere near enough time elapsed, less than three seconds, for anyone to have gotten the required four meters (or given the circumstances more like six or seven meters) away to avoid the killing field. In short there was really no way for Seth to survive this little standoff he had forced. Mal ducked and covered as the roar of the grenade went off behind him, and his eardrums rang quite harshly due to the sound that even his buckets dampening couldn't completely cover. Odds were the fight, brief and unsatisfying though it was, had been finished. No mercy indeed, Seth. With that he rose and went to go look at the body and ensure the Chiss was dead.
The old and wizened Luke Skywalker stared down at the planet through the transparisteel viewport of the briefing room. His arms were folded, and his chin dipped into his chest. There was something strange about Shadow, something he could not understand. Standing in the room with him was Miat Temm, the Imperial liason to the mission, her hands clasped behind her back as she looked down from the podium at seats that would be filled by the back-up team once they filtered into the briefing room, which had been modified from the hangar bay - the Skipray blastboat which was to carry them down was already sitting and waiting for them. Admiral Genna Delpin of the old Corellia-led Confederation was leaning on the wall, but there were no other representatives from the various factions present. Luke was doubling up as the GA and Hapan representative, while Miat was representing the Chiss as well. They had lost contact with the original team after Nill was destroyed, but upto that point everyone had seen the complete failure of the deployment. The team had disagreed with the battle droid, and that had got it, and it was believed, Alec Stuko killed too. The Chiss had betrayed the team, and recriminations had been thrown across the galaxy. Luke Skywalker had to step in to save the galaxy. Again. Was this what Mara had died for? The back-up team members had been called to the ready room of the Turbulent-class Star Destroyer Gilad Pellaeon. It was time to take a new approach to the problem. It wouldn't go away until it was resolved. The Shadow Question had to be answered by its galaxy - or they would tear themselves apart over it.
"Would this work for you?" Anakin Solo grimaced at the ripped hood. Well, a loincloth was something, at least. He took it, and turned away. "Um, yeah, thanks, Isis. If you guys could turn away..." A thought occured to him. "There's a room next door, with food and medical gear. I got a little side-tracked with the meeting. Don't go any further until I'm ready... please?" Anakin smiled, the blush still creasing his lips. "And, Driggs, I'll answer your questions later. I can fill you in with the historical stuff then - I promise." --- Far above them, a concussion grenade was thrown, and the pressure rushed out, hit the cavern walls, was refocused inward, crushing everything it had shaken up in the morass into dust. The bubble of counter-pressure nearly pushed Mal back out of the tunnel, but it certainly caused his eardrums to pop. But there was no blood. Seth was gone - he'd leapt into a denured hole and vanished, like a rather large and blue ranat. The smoke and debris obscured that fact, but Mal could only check by moving forward - moving backwards would see him killed, most likely, by the flailing tentacle-roots. For Seth's part, he had tumbled down the hull, which opened suddenly and deposited him into another cavern - one filled with a Killik nest. His fall was broken by the carapace of a Gorog. Mal, for his 'victory', had the tentacle-roots suddenly work out that he'd been pushed up onto the ledge, and they started lashing at him from the main cavern, two tentacles still holding the main cavern where the wires had been. In the rumblings, Mal's thermal detonator - unactivated - rolled off the ledge and fell. The tentacles reached for him by feeling - so Mal was pushed into the denured tunnel network which filled the mountain above.
The job required Alec Nephrite - Fenn Shysa - to head to the Moddell Sector. Upon affirming the contract, the auto-updater that the fine doctor had left behind directions to his current location. It was Sarafur. Since he'd just lost the Blood Carver he'd hired to an interfering team of spacers. So, at the broken down spaceport of Sarafur there stood Dr. Follnor Callat, tapping his shoe as the Free Mandalore landed. When 'Fenn Shysa' emerged from the ship, Follnor snapped. "About time! You're going to have to work even harder to get that bonus now, Mandalore!"
Farsk dropped her head, and tried to move himself out of the way as he lowered his arms. He completely failed - the Sith sword cut into his arm, hacked through the bone, and cut it off, sending blood spilling across the dusty plains. Farsk spun, and collapsed to the ground. A roar rang out nearby. "The Shadow Hand has fallen!" The call was spread, Cara's soldiers carrying the cry into the heart of the enemy position. But Cara shoved at Gorog, and reality blurred, before reappearing - Gorog clamping down. But she'd succeeded - pushed him out, for such a sweet moment. Reality converged again, and Gorog had her. Cara was still on Korriban - the sandy dunes told her that much, but now she was in her camp, surrounded by her soldiers. Lord Farsk was bound, his arm connected to his legs by manacles. The procession of Massassi warriors was lead by a particularly tall and handsome red-skinned man - Trayus, Cara understood - who bowed deeply to Cara. "Night Herald, it is my pleasure to present to you the Shadow Hand. The prophets have sentenced him to death by starving - to be shot into the stars by our space program. It amuses me, I'll concede." - the gathered Court laughed with him, imagining the great Shadow Hand now a guinea pig to be experimented upon. Trayus smiled at Cara, and a thunderbolt of recognition hit her. He looked exactly like her brother. Trayus held out a hand to one of the courtiers, who handed him two cups. "Might we retire from the sycophants, my sister, so we might celebrate? The court can play with our new jester." The court rustled, one part offended, one part amused. Typical Trayus, playing with her supporters.
He had missed and he could blame nothing else but his bad aim. He had acted too quickly. Judder would not have responded with Seth holding the blaster up and slowly, very slowly, aiming his blaster for the detonator which would have killed Judder on the spot. He had been too hasty and had sought to kill Judder by shooting the detonator, instead of shooting the trooper himself and then jumping for cover. Bad planning and even worse execution, but that was in the past and now he found himself on the carapace of a hereditary enemy. Seth looked around the cavern. It was a Killik nest and a rather large one as it scaled up the walls. The Chiss knew that he was in a dire situation and it would need to be handled carefully if it was going to be handled at all. Sliding of the carapace of the killik, he kept his hand near his blaster in case he needed to fight to find an exit, which he was now searching for. His red gaze wandered around the room, taking in everything to sight. He recalled a moment during his training that they had had to memorize 40 objects placed on a table, given a minute to take them all in, then write down everything they had saw, despite the COs talking to them and making them perform various tasks within that one minute. He had remembered every item. Those were the thoughts that was keeping his systematic, mechanic body shoveling through this. Obviously, Seth realized, he was deeper in Shadow than the team had been, possibly deeper than anyone had been. This could be used to his advantage, but it also put him in a dangerous position. The killiks already did not like him, but if he could escape their notice, which would be highly difficult, he might be able to continue his descent to the center of Shadow and to Shadow's Secret Weapon. His search for an exit continued as he moved through the shadows of the nest.
Realization of exactly how far back he'd been pushed finally set in, and when he glanced over his shoulder Mal was greeted with a rather bone chilling sight. Apparently the tentacle monster had figured out where the Imperial had gone... and it was coming after him. Oh feth. This is going to be bad. Glancing around, he noticed the thermal detonator he had neglected to pick up was kust then starting to fall over the ledge and the chill got even worse. It was out there. With the tentacle beast knocking space only knew what around and possibly setting the thing off. Suddenly this had become an even LESS Friendly place, which was saying something. Scrambling forward, and onto his feet, Mal bolted forward as if scalded. Everything in the tunnel had been jumbled up even more, and there were also more rocks and such from the walls and ceiling laying aroudn just waiting to trip him up. As such this was a rather unpleasant little scramble for life. Especially with two tentacles trying to wrap themselves around him and pull him to some crushing death. Or smooshing death, he couldn't quite decide which was the most likely. It did actually manage to trip him up once as he neared the first of the outcroppings, but the trooper was able to grab the edge and keep himself from sprawling on the floor. Absently he noted that there was no blood, no new body, nothing where the grenade had been thrown. This implied that Seth was still alive somehow, but the where and such was most definitely not the most pressing thing on his mind at the moment. As the tentacles crashed into, and eventually through, the outcroppings Mal ran through them, praying to whatever powers that be that there weren't any automated defenses active ahead of him. Or at least nothing that he would feel.