Beyond - Legends One Last Job - Winter 2020 OC Challenge

Thank you @WarmNyota_SweetAyesha - Amber's not all that.........

Chapter Two. - working with @Anedon

"Three more jumps and we are there," Ethan said, slowly as he looked around. The Tau34 system was so unknown it didn't even have a name of its own, just a regional tag with a number. It was the next step on their travels, making several shorter jumps and avoiding main hyperlanes he and Amber hoped to reach Eriadu without attracting unwanted attention.

"Noted." Amber acknowledged. Saying goodbye had been hard, Ethan had been right. They'd been working together so long and some were gone now but Amber knew this time in her life would mould out the rest of her years as the effects were that deep. "Anything I should know about your home? Like are there rules I have to try to follow?" She said try, as if anyone knew Amber, they knew she struggled with rules.

Ethan thought about this for a moment. "Eriaduans respect those who can stand on their own two feet, so I would ask you not to accompany me to any of the meetings with officials, cause if you do they will assume you are either a bodyguard or there to check on what I say. Either way I would lose credibility as an Ambassador." He made a pause, "also they are prideful, so if they make any unflattering remarks about other worlds and their people, I would ask you to at least try and not escalate the situation. Other than that, the planet is currently under imperial rule, and at least on the surface the local military collaborates. While many of them are preparing to rise up once the proper moment is there, some soldiers are genuine imperial loyalists so we should be careful to whom we reveal our relation with the Rebellion."

Amber gave a sage nod. Many of the things he'd spoken of sounded like the 'society' circles her parents used to move in. "So....essentially smile and shut my mouth?" she suggested.

"Well to put it simple: Best stay out of sight and mind when I'm talking to people who earn more than us and just be yourself if they earn as much or less then us, but in both cases don't mention or allegiance to the rebellion. Maybe you could think of a cover story before we get there."

Amber considered. "I could tell the truth?" She suggested carefully. "I mean of who I am." This was going to get tense, she knew that.

"That you are a Bakuran exile?" Ethan asked. "Could work."

Amber smiled tensely to herself. "No......glad you're sitting down. Do you remember for my 20th Life day, you gave me a bottle of Namana juice?" She paused but didn't let him answer. "My real name is Amber Win'Destari, I'm the Heiress to Win'Destari Estates, the largest Namana producing Orchids on Bakura. You gave me a bottle from my actual home." She let that sink in, they'd been friends for a while and it was time he knew the truth. There was a good chance he'd be angry with her for hiding this, but she'd have to wear that too.

"If that's to be a joke it’s not a particularly funny one," Ethan said and his voice was bitter. He wasn't angry, but he was hurt. He had told Amber that once he had been the protege of Wilhuf Tarkin the greatest mass murderer of their age, but she had found it necessary to hide from him that she owned a vineyard?

Even from the distance, across the empty space she felt it. "I'm sorry, really I am. It's true. I wanted to tell you so many times, but the timing was never right and there was this feeling of fear if it ever got out. See, I've been financing the Black Sheep, sending credit anonymously and paying for repairs and whatever they needed, we needed. I'm the mysterious benefactor, and I couldn't let that out. I trust you, but I couldn't trust who might over hear or......." She stopped as she was rambling and talking too fast. She'd betrayed him and she felt it.

Ethan wasn't sure how to proceed, what to say. "I... you, could have..." he stuttered, this utterly caught off guard by this whole revelation. He still didn't fully understand it. She had told him about her first husband, what he had done to her, Ethan believed there where truly no secrets between them. He was still struggling for words when he heard it, something was coming in, on a com channel, a rebellion emergency channel. A plea for aid.

"This is planet Korean, to all alliance forces within reach. We are in danger, something is happening..." static filled the channel for a second, then. "I don't know what it is but...." Again, static but the speaker sounded utterly terrified. "Please help us... requires... aid..." The quality of the message became worse and worse before it broke completely.

Amber's guilt was palatable, she could taste the bitterness on her tongue and knew she'd probably broken something that would take a long time to fix, if it ever could be. Tears were welling, she'd hoped he'd understand but even as that thought crossed her mind, she put herself in his boots and knew she'd been wrong. She was about to open her com and apologise again when a message came through, broken, static riddled and panic sounding. Did they respond? They'd left the Alliance and there was only two of them, what good would they be able to do. Inside her emotions were swirling, but the need to help was surging forward. "Are we going to help?" She asked in a subdued tone.

"R7 says it was sent via short range communication, and as nobody else responded I feel we are probably the only ones who heard it," Ethan took a deep breath as he knew what this meant. For a brief moment he played with the thought to simply move on as if nothing had happened, to ignore this message. But the moment ended as quickly as it had come. "You are no longer part of the alliance, and if have a different assignment, yet I still feel somebody needs to have a look at this, if for nothing else then to confirm the threat and send a message to the alliance HQ. I think I can do this alone, but..." he didn't want it to end like that. "You could come along if you want, it’s not far from here."

Amber had no intentions of abandoning him. "You don't have to ask; you know I will." She owed him now, she owed him huge amounts of apology and even more loyalty to make up for her mistake. This was going to take all she could muster to fix. "I really am sorry." Amber added in a quieter voice.

"Forget it, for now," Ethan told her. "We will talk about it once we find some place to rest, where we are not connected by com but can talk face to face." The mission comes first, Ethan thought. Hopefully it would give him time to process all of this.

 

It is isn't it? Who knows? Thank you @WarmNyota_SweetAyesha



"Are they the same?" Ethan muttered to Amber as they slowly followed the mechanically moving woman into the settlement and towards the hill that rose above it. More and more people had gathered around them, some slowly following them, others simply staring. They looked like colonists but seemed to be just as catatonic as their guide. The children where the worst, the lack of life in their eyes sent shivers down Ethan's spine.

"Same as what?" She whispered back, "And what is going on here?" She tried not to stare but the expression on the faces of those they passed was concerning to say the least. "They.......feel.........trapped?" She could sense them but under their calm docile and somewhat zombie like state were souls trying to get out. Amber could feel the fear inside, the terror and the frustration almost like their souls were screaming to escape.

"Is the Force influencing them?" Ethan asked. He knew Force users where able to manipulate a persons mind but so many at the same time?

Amber shook her head, "No, this is......" She stopped, she didn't know the answer, "No."

"But they are alive?" Ethan said, quietly. "Maybe drugs? Though I haven't heard of someone being controlled by drugs directly. And no one here seems to be holding the strings."

"No one we see, where are we being led? And why are we going so willingly when this 'feels' really wrong?" She asked raising an eyebrow, he was the Senior officer here and she was following his lead.

"Do you have a better idea?" He turned around briefly and saw how more and more people followed them. "If we act now we probably could make it back to the ships."

Amber didn't respond, he was right, they were in too deep now.

They walked silently for a few more minutes, before they arrived at the other edge of the village. Here in the shadow of the hill Ethan saw the opening of the mine shaft and the large elevator leading down. "Whatever they want us to do, seems its beneath the earth."

"Underground?" Amber hissed in disbelief. "There's no way out other than the way in!" Reaching down she touched the hidden panel behind her blaster where her lightsaber now rested.

"Could you get us out with your blade? None of them seem to be armed," at least he couldn't see any of the villagers bearing arms

Amber looked to him. "No...Yes? I don't know, I'm not good with it!" She knew it was more for show than anything and could even make things worse. She wasn't even sure how he knew she was carrying it, but it was irrelevant right now.

"Then I think we have little choice but to have a look at what's down there, don't you think?" Ethan asked.

Once again Amber simply nodded. She was feeling very wrong and it had come to her not trusting her words anymore.
"How far is it?" Ethan asked their still utterly silent guide as they made their way through the tunnels. With Amber having fallen silent now as well he just felt he had to say something, get at least some kind of information on what was going on around them. In a way it comforted him that most of the villagers had remained on the surface but at least a dozen had silently followed them into the elevator and more awaited them down here.

Amber was cold, felt cold inside and out. This was wrong as all the hairs on the back her neck were up and she felt very anxious. It was too late to go back, but she knew they were in trouble now and only hoped the Force would be with her for this.

 

It gets worse before it gets better......

Chapter Four.

The walls around them disappeared as the tunnel ended into a large underground cavern. Ethan noticed mining equipment lying all about around the tunnel exit, as if the people digging it had instantly stopped and left their equipment behind the moment they entered the chamber. Their guide suddenly stopped a few meters into the cavern. And in the sudden silence they heard it, something was there, in the darkness.

Following, Amber was cautious as her skin tingled. The tunnel had opened up to a cavern, it was dark, damp and the only real sounds she could hear were the shuffling of feet and the odd dripping of water. The people around them stopped and stood silently so the shuffling stopped and Ambers senses were heightened, that's when she heard it. Something moving, something 'clacking' against rock and dirt, something approaching and with each step her danger sense raised. Silently she moved her hand from the butt of her blaster down and around to the back of the holster, curling her fingers around the flap she unclipped a pouch and slipped her fingers in to curl around the hilt of her lightsaber.

The creature was large, around the size of a battletank Ethan guessed from what he could see through the darkness. Moving on several legs like a spider its body seemed covered in chitin plates, it was slow but steady as it came closer and closer. Ethan exchanged a quick glance with Amber which confirmed to him that she probably had never seen such a creature before as well. Their guide stepped forward before kneeling down in front of the creature, almost as if she was revering it.

Amber's eyes widened, but held her fear in check. This was something she'd never seen before, even in her studies and her glanced exchanged with Ethan told her he was in the same boat. The woman knelt before it as she tightened her fingers around the weapon's hilt. She moved close to whisper. "What is that?" Hoping he had at least an inkling.

"Never seen anything like it before," Ethan admitted. "I’ts a bit like in Aclay in build but I doubt they are even related. I don´t see a mouth, or even a face." He could only help but stare at the creature, his curiosity almost drowning out the rising fear inside of him. There was something about this creature that was utterly fascinating, something that kept his attention fixated upon it.

He saw how the creature extended a long proboscis down to the woman kneeling before it, and how it fixated at the back of her neck. The woman rose from her feet and turned back towards the others; her eyes closed. "There is no need to fear, you are all save."

Amber couldn't help but gasp, the creature was speaking through this helpless woman! "Ok, it just got really weird." she hissed. "How.....why?....Do you think they want this...this....whatever it is it's doing?" Inside she was screaming 'get out', her sense told her no one was fighting outwardly, but she could hear a single woman's mind screaming. She couldn't make out the words at all, but the gist of it was 'help'. "Cause I don't!"

Ethan felt how a sense of safety overcame him and almost instantly started to struggle against it. Whatever this was he wasn´t save, but why was his body reacting as if he was? His heart rate was to go up, not go down, his eyes should be opening not threatening to close. "What is this?" he asked as he tried to animate his own body into listening to himself again.

"You are save," the creature said again through the woman. "No one is going to hurt you anymore; I will take care of you."

Amber double took and through her Force sense she knew Ethan was fighting something so when the woman spoke in her monotone voice telling him he'd be safe; she knew they were in real trouble. She stepped in front of Ethan, thinking it was eyes or something that was hypnotizing him. "NO!!" She yelled. "Stop it, stop this now!! Don’t make me hurt you!"

He had experienced something like this before, Ethan remembered. As alien as the situation was there was something about it that the clear part of his mind remembered.

"Daughter of Ashla," the creature hissed in Ambers direction, the voice now filled with emotions, filled with hatred. The silent children surrounded her, grabbing her hands and arms as to drag her to the ground and keep her from using her weapons.

Amber pulled her arms up out of reach of the sudden onslaught of children, "Daughter of who!?!? My mother's name was Kalida!!!" She realised as soon as the words left her lips that they mattered little to this creature. "What do you want, let him go now!" she ordered moving from the grasping children. She needed to scare them off, get the away from her but they pulled at her clothes and dragged her to her knees, holding her arms and leaning their weight on her. "LET ME GO!!" She cried out.

"Pitiful child," the creature muttered. "My kind has been fighting your kind in the past, to purge the galaxy of your rot."

The Zeltron! Ethan remembered, where he had felt this before. Long ago, during the Clone Wars in a forgotten cantina... The purple skinned woman trying to seduce him. He had believed the only reason he had been able to withstand her was having a girl back home. Later tough his commander had told him that it was their homeworld who had protected him. Due to living on a poisoned world Eriaduans had a higher tolerance for poisons, as well as mind altering pheromones like the ones used by Zeltrons, or this creature... Slowly Ethan moved his hand towards the blaster at his hip.

Amber couldn't move and she was speaking through her teeth now. "My rot!?? What the frack are you talking about? What the Kriff is 'Your kind?” She had to keep it talking while she tried to figure a way out of this mess.

"They are gone," the possessed woman said more and more erratic. "Killed by your kind, I am the last of them, Jed'aii." The woman spat into Ambers direction.

The proboscis, Ethan realized. It was the most likely source of the pheromones and their only hope. But he needed a better field of view. Stumbling forward he raised his blaster, pointing it at his best friends’ head he prayed he would be able to keep control over his body for long enough.

She tried to turn her head to look. "ETHAN!?!!? WHAT ARE YOU DOING!?!?! IT'S AMBER, I'M AMBER!! WE'RE FRIENDS!" She screamed, sweat pouring off her body as she fought against her restrainers. "I'M NOT A JEDI!!" She spat, "I NEVER KILLED YOUR KIND! I'VE NEVER SEEN YOUR KIND BEFORE!!!" She was desperate, and whatever this creature was had convinced Ethan to kill her.

"Kill her child," the voice had become warmly, almost motherly again. "It’s a small justice for what they did to me, but it’s a start."

Ethan knew he had to be quick, lest the creature would realize his true intention. Turning away from Amber, he took aim at the proboscis and fired. The scream that followed wasn't human anymore, as it didn't come from the woman's mouth but from the creature itself. The woman herself collapsed to her knees and Ethan saw the other possessed stumbling around, confused, their control not yet fully broken but weakening more and more with every second as no more pheromones where released. He began to fire further shots at the creature, as even with its main weapon taken out it was still a threat.

Amber was about to beg when Ethan turned his weapon on the creature and began to fire. The grip of the children around her loosened and she was able to break free, and in a single movement pull out the lightsaber she'd already freed from it holster and ignited it. She watched as the surprised children jumped away from her in their confused state, she was a threat now. "That's right, back off!!!"

Ethan continued to shoot at the creature but was unsure how much damage his blaster bolt actually did against its chitin armour. With now distinguishable head or other weak spot outside of the remnants of the proboscis there was little he could do. "I think this is a job for your lightsaber." He called.

Amber spun to face the beast, it was rearing in distress as Ethan emptied blaster bolts into it but they seemed to be running over the surface of the scaled body, causing pain but not death. She stood and wondered if she had the right to take this life, the last life of its kind as far as she now knew. It was sentient and knew what it was doing, but still was it her right to end it's existence? Behind her the people who had gathered were confused but some were heading toward her and Ethan, they were going to try to stop them. Guilt began to creep in as she moved forward, she glanced at Ethan with concern on her face, she didn't want to kill this creature, but it was clear she wasn't going to be given a choice. She had to move if she was to stop this. Turning the handle in her hands to angle the rich purple blade downward she approached and waited for her moment. It came as the creature lowered its head area as it writhed in pain, lifting high she plunged the blade into the area of the head, pushing it through to the floor.

 

Of course the beautiful Heroine Survives!!

Chapter 6

Ethan was reading on a holoboard next to the bed in which they had placed Amber. The medical station of the colony was very small but it was enough, as the doctors had assured him his friend would soon be at alright again. After Ethan had yelled at them to help the colonists had quickly rushed to his side, and since then had been showering him and Amber with praise. It had soon made him uncomfortable and so he had decided to wait here in the medical station until Amber awoke so they could at least deal with the gratefulness together.

Sounds, she could hear sounds, beeps and tones that were somehow familiar. Was she in a medbay....again? She didn't open her eyes, the chose to take in the sounds, the touch, the feel, the smell. "Ethan, you stink." She muttered quietly, she could smell him. "Need a sanistream." She added noting her voice was a little croaky.

"Didn´t want to leave you alone," he admitted to her, only now remembering the status of his clothes still covered in dirt. "How about me getting a shower while you get truly awake?"

When Ethan returned from the shower he wore new clothing. His flight suit was so ruined he wasn't sure if he could ever get it to not reek again. Instead he had chosen the clothing he had kept with him for suitcase. The dark blue formal suit he had worn during important celebrations and formal events while he had still lived on Eriadu.

Amber was sitting up now, in a hideous Medical gown she'd been given a brush and was running it through her long red locks. She looked up as Ethan walked in sensing him, "ok, that's the other extreme." She smiled as she began to braid her hair. "You looking for an award ceremony?" She frowned, "Are they .....happy with what we did?"

"They are, they where still there, trapped in their own heads so they pretty much saw and felt everything we did," Ethan explained. "Told them it was no big deal..." he lowered his gaze. "Not sure if will improvise a medal for us or not. Just thought, now that I'm almost home I can wear the old colours again."

She sighed and dropped the long braid having tied it off. "Speaking of home........" She trailed off.

Ethan let out a sigh. This mission had been a welcome distraction but now the topic was right on their minds it seemed. He took a deep breath. "Amber, I'm not angry. I... I just don't understand it. You told me about Saxon, about your grandmother... I don't get why you didn't want me knowing that you where rich."

She looked down to her hands. "Who do you think was funding .....us?" She looked up, "That could never get out, no-one could know that." She explained quietly, "Now we're done, it's not important and no one will care, but can you imagine if they found out? Can you see their faces? Most of them already saw me as 'the Diva', if they knew the truth......" She gave her head a shake. "I made choices, some I regret, but without parents, I had to make them myself. Now it's time to enjoy the freedom we worked for, I worked for. I need to run my estate."

"You think I would have told them," Ethan said raising an eyebrow. "Like I did not tell them about all them other person things you've told me?" That was honestly more confusing than anything to him but maybe it was better to leave the topic behind them. But it seemed the damage was done. "So this is where we path ways then? Go live our lives?"

"Like I said, I made choices and some I regret, but I had to make them alone." She'd hurt him, she knew that and he was cutting ties. She shrugged. "If that's what you want, I did want to see your home........but if you'd rather I didn't, I can accept that."

"Oh you can still come, but I mean you just said you wanted to go to that estate of yours." Ethan said with a smile.

She gave a small smile. "I figured if I come to your place, you'd be forced to visit me at some point."

"Think so," Ethan nodded slowly. "So then remains the question, do we leave now without much trouble or do we stay here for whatever celebration the villagers come up with?"

Amber considered for a moment. "I need clothes, but let's bug out before they make a big deal out of this. Just another job?"

"Just another job, Vixen." Ethan responded.


The End........for now

 

Thank you @WarmNyota_SweetAyesha for being a faithful reader, we both appreciate it a great deal

 

Thank you @Thumper09 for reading! These two do go their separate ways after this, stay in contact an live very different lives. He goes on to lead, she goes on to be a mother and wife. They both have families, and that legacy is turning up in The Last Stand And Black Squadron RPG's

 

Thank you @Kit' and @Kahara !! So happy you guys took the time to read our exercise in fun! These two stay life long friends you will be happy to know