Star Wars CLOSED Star Wars: Episode X: DUEL OF THE FATES ~ 2021 Best RPG ~

It was one thing to have a three year Clone Wars... or a five year Galactic Civil War... but after a decade-long war... and most of that with no central society to speak of... inconsistencies were beginning to form across the cosmos. Law and order were enforced at the point of a blaster throughout warlord space, which was essentially the majority of the galaxy... meanwhile the Core, Colonies and Inner Rim were solidly within the First Order. The factions that had marched on Exegol now hid behind their borders... those that had survived.

The First Order had brutalised the galaxy for a year, but was this better?

This chaos?

This void filled with violence?

Inconsistencies became mysteries, and then, strangeness.

Perhaps, a Stranger...

TAG: @Master Vo'Un'Var

 

The broken nature of the galaxy is felt more in the Outer Rim than anywhere.

There are spots of civilisation, mainly clustered around the hyperlanes that dive into the area, usually aligned with the First Order, who dominated galactic trade for their war machine. The independent nations, mostly warlords, periodically shuttled captives off to the Core as tribute - the Tarkinate, the Andoan Free Colonies, Hutt Space, the Northern Dependencies, the Tionese Kingdom - they were given access to the First Order HoloNet.

But in the chaos, there was no way every system could be taken by war.

Many were isolated.

In that isolation, there was, after a fashion, peace.

Or, perhaps, a quiet death.

Some, of course, sought that quiet...

But whether she sought life?

That was a question for her.

Maybe we'll be able to ask Barriss Ofee.

TAG: @CosmoHender

 

The Cast of Episode X - Duel of the Fates

Armitage Hux played by Sinrebirth
Aryan Graul played by @HanSolo29
Barriss Ofee played by @CosmoHender
Dol Khan played by @The Jedi in the Pumas
Eleanor Magnus played by @TheSilentInfluence
Johnson played by @Jerjerrod-Lennox
Kacynna Juwee played by @Zedd-Vega
Kylo Ren played by Sinrebirth
Lin played by @Kurisan
Rey Skywalker played by @QueenSabe7
Rhoen Aquilla played by @galactic-vagabond422
Stranger, The played by @Master Vo'Un'Var
Tirran Huxley played by @Mitth_Fisto
Vicrul played by @Shadowsun
Wedge Antilles played by @Kalio_Dynkos
Xundel played by @darthbernael

 

IC: Poe Dameron
Kuat system

A rich tapestry of stars, reaching beyond all we know.

A world, surrounded by a dock.



Kuat.

Two sharp points of a space station enclose us as we drift backwards into the glowing rectangular entrance of a docking bay.



A First Order transport, a TIE Marauder, touches down; a wide platform descends, revealing a variety of droids.

A black-grey BB unit carefully splits off from the group.

The graphite BB unit swerves to avoid all manner of labour droids, scraping BB's spherical side against the wall. His head tilts down, checking a scuff in his paint, revealing orange beneath. It's BB-8, deep undercover.

He lets out his almost signature 'uh-oh' beep and rotates the orange scuff beneath his head.

---
Kuat Moon, Resistance Surveillance Den

A comm device blinks in a cramped room stacked with recycled Imperial gear. Rose Tico, adventure-worn and battle ready, grabs it with gloved hands. “BB-8, are you in?”



BB-8 beeps affirmative. Rose looks up through the broken roof at the orbital ring in the sky above. Star Destroyers protrude from it like spikes on a bracelet – as many as the spokes of the former Imperial insignia, all massive dreadnoughts –

The Eclipse Fleet.

Rose took a breath.

“I need eyes on the checkpoint.”

Back on the Kuat Orbital Ring, BB-8 plugs into a S-comp terminal, anxious, tense even though a droid. Out the window, the glowing Kuat moon, sun cresting its horizon. Back with Rose, a holomonitor grid lights up, blurred and scrambled. Rose straps electronic goggles over her cracked leather flight helmet.

“Atta boy,” she mutters, smiling.

From the perspective of her googles, we see a security checkpoint. The HUD zooms on an approaching dropship, and Rose swallows.

“Here they come.”

At the moon checkpoint, the dropship touches down in a canyon of white and blue rock, kicking up a storm of silver sand. Stormtroopers shield their eyes as the craft spits out a new batch of migrant workers from all corners of the galaxy – aliens and humans submitting to the First order in exchange for safety and a scrap of food.

The Stormtroopers funnel the migrants towards a weapons detector…

Finn, disguised in rags among them, speaks quietly. “Checkpoint. Keep your head down.”



A robed-human nods, face hidden under dusty headwear.

A bottleneck quickly forms. The ragged aliens bark at each other in a dozen languages. A beast-like Drovian shoves Finn.

“Whoa, hey! No trouble here!” He says, lifting his hands – the Drovian grabs his neck with a single hand, and lifts him up, teeth bared. Finn tries to smile reassuringly but fails. “Trouble! Trouble!”

The robed human steps between them. Poe Dameron.



“Easy, pal – easy.” He produces a dried three-eyed peckto fish from a leather pouch beneath his robe. “Here; I couldn’t finish it.”

The Drovian eyes the fish, drops Finn, and strides off, eating the offering one-handed.

“Thanks,” Finn says, even as Poe returns a concealed blaster to a fold of his robe. Finn regains his footing, clutching his neck, but the other shoots him a tense look – as the Stormtroopers shout at them to move along, funneling them towards the detector…

“How’ll we know if BB-8 hacked the mainframe?” Finn whispers.

As they draw into sight of the detector, the weapons scanner alarms – Stormtroopers pull a mangy Gotal out of the group. He pleads, pointing desperately at his metallic horns, pleading in an unfamiliar language. Blasters fire.

“We’ll know,” Poe says grimly.

As they step into the weapons scanner, the machine shudders and clicks off.

A Stormtrooper steps forward. “We lost power; hold the line.” The other three Stormtroopers stepped forward, blasters smoking. Finn and Poe eye each other, tense.

BB-8’s s-comp link stutters and spins. A Stormtrooper drops a crate of hydro-spanners nearby in the hangar. BB-8 startles as they clatter across the floor. Contrary to popular opinion; droids sweat. Seriously, they do.

The Stormtrooper smacks the console by the scanner, and it finally powers up again with our armed infiltrators standing inside.

No alarm.

“Go on, get going,” the lead Stormtrooper mutters. “Move along, move along.”

They exhale; still alive.

Poe and Finn pass through the border wall to reveal a vast migrant settlement. Modular housing painted with colourful symbols from each worker’s home world, a vibrant melting pot.

The orbital ring looms above, connected to the surface by a massive powershaft plunging directly into the core. It glows blue with the ship-fueling energy mined on the moon. As Finn glances up, he can make out the Star Destroyers docked.

Poe locks eyes with Biss Kova, a furry Anzellan watching from a machine shop. He taps his little cheeks, and they nod, heading in. Rose greets them, or, rather, she pulls a face and smacks Finn’s shoulder.

“You said two days. I’ve been here for two weeks!”

They exchange asides, and then soon enough they get to the business of planting explosives in the power-shaft – that would both cut off the fuel supply from the moons core, but also send a stream of detonations into the six warships presently attached to the fueling depot. The base is presently where BB-8 is stationed, having hidden for nearly a month!

Of course, already here by dint of the Force, is Rey Skywalker, and she would have long sensed them and their arrival… but Finn, if he had slowed down, would have sensed her. In a few minutes though, the three of them rushed off to the edge of the camp -

In short order they overpower the three Dark Troopers defending the base at the edge of the camp – mark twos, basically humans in a mech-suit – and set the explosives. Poe shouts into the comms. “BB-8, bombs are away! We’ll meet you at the relay point!”

Our heroes exit through the maintenance door they had used, to find themselves face-to-face with a dozen Stormtroopers and six Dark Troopers…

Poe looks up, expecting explosions to erupt and they can escape in the confusion –

“Distraction in three, two, one –“

Poe dives, dragging Rose and Finn down, covering his head –

Nothing happens.

The troopers simply lift their weapons and prepare to fire –

TAG: @QueenSabe7 (TAG to answer from 7th January 2021
---
Kuat Control

Modelled after the bridge of a Star Destroyer, a First Order office rushes to alert the steel-looking Admiral Vonn. Screen graphics show a contained blast in the power-shaft.

“Blast shields have contained the explosion, Admiral. All systems stable.”



Admiral Vonn

Vonn looks down at the glowing Kuat moon below, and scoffs. “Their outdated tactics are pitiful.”

“Do we notify the Capitol?”

“There is no need,” Vonn said with a sneer. “Our Stormtroopers will kill them before the end of the hour."

---
Korilev, the Resistance secret base, Outer Rim

They sat in the control room, cramped, and uncertain. The Resistance was no larger than it was ten years ago before the Battle of Exegol. In orbit hung the old Mon Calamari cruiser Home One, which had long been cannibalized for parts to keep in repair the twenty-or-so small craft they had left.

Kaydel Ko Connix consulted her headpiece, relaying it to the small group with her.



Kaydel Ko Connix
“The Eclipse fleet is still intact, General, but the explosives have gone off.”

They had X, B, A, and Y-wings strung out in a chain of communication, a risky move but the only way they could keep in contact with the team on Kuat. It was secure at least, but not anyway to run a galactic HoloNet.

“So now what? We don’t have a back-up team,” said Beaumont Kin, the former historian-turned-freedom-fighter. He had minimal combat training and worked better as an aide rather than a frontline officer. He and Rey had spent a good year translating the Jedi texts, but since the death of Ben Solo, he’d not seen her, though he would love to finish the study of the books.



Beaumont Kin

He looked at the only other person in room; the third General in the Resistance, but senior in age and experience; Wedge Antilles. With Poe and Finn ‘hands-on’ commanders, it was often the case that the veteran was held back, preparing for the next shipment of volunteers… because some-times, you needed someone to stand still rather than rush off and be a hero, though with how short-handed they were, sending Poe and Finn was simply all they had to hand.

There was a single X-wing left on world, as well as Rose’s personal ship, the Phantom Hawk¸ which was in a state of repair. D-0 was busy working on it, but the HWK-design was old, and it showed.



The Phantom Hawk

Connix, who kept her hair styled in a manner reminiscent of the late Princess Leia, was tapping tactical displays on her datapad. “We could call our assets on Coruscant, but that would likely expose them…” She was referencing Dol Khan’s cell, but that was a longer shot than not.

“… and we don’t have any idea if they’ll arrive remotely in-time.”

They could have argued about it all day; they often did.

TAG: @Kalio_Dynkos (TAG to answer from 7th January 2021), @The Jedi in the Pumas (mentioned only)

 

IC: Chancellor Hux
Coruscant, Monument Square

A dense cloud layer pierced with skyscrapers.

We follow a security craft down through the fog to reveal the city, unrecognizable from its halcyon days.

New structures built atop the deco architecture of the Old Republic, growing older as we descend to the decrepit streets below – sedimentary layers of progress.

The security craft lands on a broad avenue rife with despair. Immigrants from a thousand systems, all seeking a better future for their children. The cruiser unloads a squad of eight Stormtroopers on hovering speeders. They disappear down long alleys, spreading out into the populace.

One buzzes past a dirty propaganda billboard with the familiar First Order symbol and message: JOIN TODAY. Someone has painted DON’T above the word JOIN.

A street kid, Dade, a mere twelve-year-old, eyes a pair of patrolling Stormtroopers as they rough up a limbless alien. He pieces up a piece of broken cement, aims, throws. It hits a trooper in the head. Both spin, blasters up, but the kid is long gone.

A horn sounds on high –

Dade races through plumes of smoke, past buildings with shocks of Old Republic-era technology, revealing…

---


Monument Square.

A massive open plaza connected by a web of boulevards. The First Order Capitol towers over it, a jagged structure balancing on the surface atop a thin tower. For a decade that seventy-kilometer-wide dreadnought has hung, an ominous and terrifying symbol of the absolute dominance of rule.

Thousands are gathered here, and even more are shown the transmission on Coruscant, all the way down beyond Level 1313. All eyes are on the dais where blue-armoured Senate Guards hold a ragged, hooded figure before the crowd.

The people look to the sky at a hologram of Chancellor Hux, four stories tall. Dade weaves closer.



“Today,” he intones, “another conspirator stands charged with treason.”

The Guards remove the hood, revealing DJ. The man cracks a wry smile; he was once known for his ‘Don’t Join’ motto, but since had joined up, founding the Resistance cell on Coruscant, fighting at Exegol. Nowadays, he was Do Join, even if eccentric.


DJ

“Though support for his cause has all but vanished, let this day reminds us of the consequences for defying our Supreme Leader.”

The guards lead him to a light-blade poised above. DJ stares silently ahead, as Hux continues to pontificate.

“Kylo Ren is not a man without pity, just as the traitor before you is not without remorse. And so he offers to spare this man’s life in exchange for the location of the Resistance Base.”

DJ remains defiant, neck-raised. Hux’s hologram grows irritated.

“So be it.”

The man is placed within the light-blade guillotine; a woman in the crowd covers Dade’s eyes. He peels her fingers away, an anger burning within. The lightblade falls.

In his quiet shop in the Uscru District of level 1313, Tirran Huxley would watch what had happened… as much as in the shadows of the same level lurked Dol Khan… and prowling that immense crowd Dade now stood in was the Agent, assigned by Hux himself to look for any who used the public event to cause problems…

Of course, both Dol and the Agent had noticed what little Dade did, in the plaza for their own reasons…

TAG: @Mitth_Fisto, @The Jedi in the Pumas, @Jerjerrod-Lennox (I give permission for Agent and Dol to combo if they so wish to over Dade) for response from 7th January 2021
---
Penthouse, Coruscant

The matter dealt with, the Chancellor signed off and turned back to his guests.

Commander Sellik, yes, but also his Vice Chancellor, Aryan Graul.

“Well now that business has been resolved, we can get back to the business of the galaxy itself.”

Sellik nodded, looking to the galactic map, focused on the Outer Rim. “Lord Gherlid of the Northern Dependencies, Jor Nult, on behalf of the Hutts, and Raykar Shen, the Harch representative of Andoan Free Colonies are attending the capital for our latest round of meetings.” The Tarkinate and Protectorate were nominal First Order allies already, so their attendance was not necessarily required; a meeting with them would follow later, no doubt.

The Chancellor looked frustrated. “Warlords; only slightly better than rebel scum.”

“Will the Supreme Leader be attending?” Sellik said carefully. None of them had spoken to Kylo Ren save for Hux, and even he had not spoken to him in the last year; not that he’d admit it to anyone, especially not Aryan.

“He’s been appraised, but it’s more mundane politics for him,” Hux said, sniffing with disdain.

The commander nodded, trying not to let her relief show. “So you’ll be taking point on the meeting?”

Hux turned back to Aryan. “For as long as I can stomach it, and then you can take over.”

TAG: @HanSolo29 - for response from 7th January 2021

 

IC: Nomi Da Boda
The very galactic edge, Bonadon, Corporate Sector

The Force spoke of the time for many to act, as if awakening like it had ten years ago, but this time, it was more the confrontation of a hundred thousand destinies that had been released into the void, only to conflict and clash, to overlap and trip over each other… a true Duel of the Fates, perhaps.

Today was that day, it seemed.

Nomi looked up at the sky and focused upon the distance.

She sighed slightly and turned back to her hut.

Her grandmother had been right.

---
Spaceport



Bonadon

The world of Bonadon was one world abandoned by this war; strip-minded by the Corporate Sector Authority to feed the war machine of the galaxy. Happily supplying the Imperial remnants, then the First Order and the Resistance, and now all manner of Galactic Warlords, the former Separatists had simply grown richer. Even the death of most of the corporate board on Canto Bight had not slowed down their greed and avarice.

But now Bonadons’ resources were gone, it was a quiet one.

It is also a beautiful one.

A valley of cylindrical mountains rises over water spotted with junk boats. This planet exists in permanent sunset, lit by its bustling nightmarkets; a world of perpetual twilight. In the Force, it feels like a world on the verge of death, and yet teeming with life.

It was the final words of this world, but also the first of a new chapter.

Any ship which arrives would land on a multi-levelled docking array. It feels like a tower of lilypads, a visiting ship on each. It would be on this array that a ship landed, belonging to Xundel.

He had been led here by currents in the Force, through all manner of chaos in the galaxy, skirting the galactic edge.

One would have to wonder as to his first impressions.

TAG: @darthbernael (for reply from January 7th)
---
The Village Aurilia



There wasn’t much to add about why they had ended up here.

After all, this wasn’t the first village that had acted as a retreat for Force users, and it would likely not be the last. Indeed, there weren’t any members of the original core of former Jedi that had founded the first Aurilia on Dathomir, before Dark Jedi serving Emperor Palpatine had destroyed it.

Eventually the concept had settled upon Bonadon, thanks in part to the quiet guiding hand of Nomi’s grandmother. She shook her head somewhat as she wandered the huts, noting those that belonged to smugglers and spice-diggers, who financed the village by paying her to find deposits in asteroids. Most of them had arrived from Kijimi after it’s destruction nine years ago, but they were an alright sort, and their leader, Zorii Bliss, kept them in check.

But some of the huts belonged to strays, and one, well, it still belonged to a former Jedi.

Steeling herself, she stepped forward, regarding Barriss Ofee, their resident healer, recluse, and, well, arguably, stained and broken former darksider.

“Did you sense it?”

TAG: @CosmoHender (for reply from January 7th)

 

IC: Hattaska Ren
On their way to Akiva, the Outer Rim, aboard the Night Buzzard, central lounge

They were the rebuilt Knights of Ren, personally picked by Kylo Ren.

Some of them had been renamed for the Knights that had died before, and others had not, given new names by the man who had once been betrayed by those he had commanded for years. They all knew the truth; that Darth Sidious himself had been the secret master of the Knights, and they had only professed loyalty to the man who had been Ben Solo.

Now, they were his, re-founded from the ground up.

They’d all met Kylo Ren once, though their memory of the meeting would have faded thereafter, but the trust, faith and loyalty he had for them, and expected from them, well, it was a firm impression he had left. Murderous eyes, incredible throat-crushing power, megalomania and purpose filling their veins -

You get the picture.

They had inherited the Night Buzzard from the prior group, which remained a heavily modified and apt vessel; as ominous as those who now commanded it.



At present they numbered five; Hattaska Ren, their nominal leader in the absence of Kylo, the hive-minded twins Ott Ren and Lorl Ren, and Jaedec Ren, the navigator, who was presently inside the spherical hyperbaric chamber that had been added to the Night Buzzard by the Supreme Leader. Within it, Jaedec could isolate himself from external stimulus, and meditate upon distant Force users. Usually, they killed whoever they found, for they were not dedicated enough to the Shadow.



Hattaska Ren



Ott Ren and Lorl Ren



Jaedec Ren

Sometimes, they brought who they found to Kylo, Master of the Ren.

The last they had found was Vicrul Ren, some years ago now, but his specialty was communication. Though he did not know it, he was the most connected of the Knights to their master, and he could hear Kylo Ren’s voice almost anywhere in the galaxy.

They had been trailing the old haunts of the Rebellion across the Outer Rim, hunting the Resistance in part, but primarily the Scavenger, Rey, who Hattaska neither recognized as a Skywalker or a Palpatine, though they all knew the stories.

She was the last Jedi, and she had to die; that was sufficient.

This iteration of the Knights of Ren, save for Vicrul, all had lightsabers, rather than the wide and varied set of weapons the old Knights had. Hattaska stood out by virtue of the Darksaber in his possession, but they each had a set of beskar armour to their name, with Vicrul his beskar weapons. Hattaska liked to think of themselves as an improved group, notwithstanding they were not yet complete.

They’d visited Batuu, Endor, Hoth, and were passing by Mustafar before heading on to Akiva and then Tatooine. The Knights had only cruised by the lava world to see of their master had any further instructions for them.

Behind them trailed their First Order support ship – an eight-kilometer long Mandator IV-class dreadnought. These fleet-killers had proven too difficult for the Allied Fleet to overcome nearly a decade ago and formed the very core of the Navy. So of course, as they traversed Warlord Space and the Outer Rim, the Knights commanded one to ward off interference from the various polities beyond First Order space, named Knife IX.


Knife 9, a Mandator IV-class Siege Dreadnought

It was incidental to them, they simply went and it followed; Hattaska had not even learned the name of the commander of the ship.

But now he simply turned to Vicrul and asked.

“What word do you have from the Supreme Leader?”

The twins peered at him, their faces hidden behind masks, but their curiosity evident.

TAG: @Shadowsun (to respond to from the 7th January 2021)
---
Akiva, Myrra, Outer Rim

This was a world that had seen it all.

Between Republic, Separatist, Imperial, New Republic and now First Order rule, it had been consistent in its nature, which was that of a planet that jumped sides only when it was certain their side was defeated. Not quite early enough to risk harm, but not late enough to be looped in with the defeated.

The Battle of Exegol had left the Akivans in a precarious position.

Do they join the allies now, or later?

Usually, they relied upon the deaths of the leadership to jump, though they would not have recognized it as their sign. Dooku, Grievous; then Palpatine and Vader. But at Exegol? Palpatine died, yes, even if you believed he returned, but Hux didn’t, and then the rumours about Kylo Ren?

Akiva decided to hold with the First Order, even as the galaxy fell apart.

It had been a relatively safe decision, but one has to wonder if the tens of thousands of planets that had opted to stay steady had just jumped into the Resistance. What would have happened? But then again, with no HoloNet, how could they have jumped?

Thus was the nine-year quandary of Akiva.

Not that it mattered to Lin, one would imagine. Eking out an existence at the edge of the spaceport, she was relatively well known to the city’s various criminals, and the local but relaxed First Order guard. But today, the various Ranats that watched the spaceport were furious with excitement. The local Hutt owned them, but they were friends with Lin, and one in particular, Rizo, was desperate to tell her what he’d found out – on the basis that if she ever escaped Akiva, she would let him come too.



Rizo the Ranat

“Lin, Lin!” His tinny voice rang out down the alleyway.

“Two ships today! New ships!”

Those ships were the Pulsar Skate and a stolen Fury-class transport... for the Anzati owner had been murdered for it.




Pulsar Skate



The Fury

One had been wandering the stars trying to track down the Resistance, but the other, well, that had been following a less clear path, for its own simply killed to obtain a ship and move on. From Rishi (where he had awoken the first time) to Tatooine to Haruun Kal and now here…

The Stranger simply wandered.

But he would, for the first time in his life, sense a strange echo within his supernatural abilities, within what one bartender on Tatooine had described as the Force, and that resonance would carry on to Eleanor Magnus and her Padawan, Asteria. Her Padawan looked up at Eleanor, confused. She didn't often listen to her Master, and they had a prickly relationship at best, but when confronted with the unfamiliar she was more attentive student than difficult youngster.

The two of them had been doing what the Knights of Ren were; looking for the Resistance.

Without Leia, and seemingly without Rey, finding the Resistance had been as hard for them as for the First Order, even with the Force. The little Mirialan was voraciously curious, and the Force felt… well, she felt another Force user, that much she understood.

For Eleanor, though, it would seem as if she sensed someone oddly familiar, but that was impossible.

Everyone she knew was dead.

The two of them would notice each other, at opposite ends of the spaceport of Myrra, with a dozen other ships – mainly freighters, but also a First Order shuttle – strewn out between the two of them. The shuttle was placed in the center of the spaceport, opposite the entrance and customs checks, manned by Stormtroopers that were so relaxed that they didn’t even have clean armour.

Whistler, the trust astromech that had served Eleanor for nearly a decade, from Chandrila to Exodeen to Korriban...



Whistler

He tootled about the Fury to her; it was a high-end ship, very modified, and stood out even more than the Pulsar Skate!

All in all, an encounter was afoot…

TAG: @Kurisan, @TheSilentInfluence, @Master Vo'Un'Var (optional combo for Silent and Vo) all replies up from 7th January 2021

 

IC: Jedi Holocron of Prophecy
Chandrila, Core Worlds, aboard the Hardknock

First comes the day
Then comes the night.
After the darkness
Shines through the light.
The difference, they say,
Is only made right
By the resolving of gray
Through refined Jedi sight.

The woman spoke softly as they headed across the blue sky, softly and clearly, as she often did. She was always female, and usually a woman that looked relatively similar to the next, always in Jedi robes. The dodecahedron Holocron provided stilted overviews, a teacher but occasionally want to slip into mantras rather than content.





She seemed to glitch and refocus, turning to Kacynna Juwee and smiling.

"Sorry, I was just recalling the Journal of the Whills, Padawan Juwee," she always called her that. "Allow me to continue. Chandrila is special in Jedi history because it has a tomb, something particularly rare in the history of the Order," she continued. "The Braesen'thor fought in the Jedi-Sith Wars before his passing, you see." She gestured to a small mountain to the edge of...

Hanna City. Or rather, what was left of it. It was a wreck, a testament to the First Order occupation nine years ago. There was a new, Imperial-style construct to the south, New Hanna City, but it was generally just called Hanna City by the natives.

The Holocron knew ancient history, and the Dug would likely know the more recent history; Chandrila was the on-off capital of the New Republic, until Kylo Ren personally arrived a week after the Battle of Crait with a fleet. The Defence Fleet was destroyed, Supreme Commander Hiram Drayson killed, Hanna City bombarded, and then off he went, chasing a single Resistance ship into the far-off Elrood Sector.

There was a single First Order battlecruiser in orbit, Resurgent-class. The sensors warned them, and the comms crackled.

"Unidentified Starlight-class freighter, identify yourself."

TAG: @Zedd-Vega (no posting before 7th January 2021!)
---
Chandrila farm, not far from Hanna City



In the distance was a broken down care home, another casualty of the First Order arrival, but the farm itself was sufficiently distant from Hanna City that it was merely a blip on the horizon. Syal was sitting in a chair at the edge of the ranch, sitting there and stitching something absently. It was a skill she'd developed to stop having to go into the City to buy new clothes, to avoid that risk.

The enemy's hand was lighter here than many places, but everyone knew how violent the Supreme Leader could be.

She often sat here, letting Rhoen deal with the end of the day clean-up, regarding the sunset and the distance.

When she'd met Rhoen, she'd been engaged to another man - a lieutenant. A love-triangle emerged, and, well, Tiom died. But Rhoen hadn't insisted, hadn't pushed, and just been there, aware of how she felt about Rhoen, but not pushing regardless. It was inevitable they had married, settled down... the war had been bad, but this... this was worse.

Living through the defeat was much worse.

There was a light in the sky; a ship coming down. Syal recognised it as a Starlight-class freighter.



"A Rendilli-Surron design," she mouthed softly.

Once upon a time she'd been an Eta-5 pilot... then, after that, flying an experimental Aleph-class... before a dust-up between the then-New Republic members - a short, six-month squabble - had placed her firmly in an X-wing. But what had came just after, with the First Order... with Starkiller Base... with the war...

"Did Valerie go down okay?"

TAG: @galactic-vagabond422 (combo, for before 7th January 2021!)

 

IC: Kylo Ren
Mustafar



Mustafar.

Millennia ago, the Mustafar system was... reorganised.

The Sith needed the planets in an entirely different alignment, to draw upon fault-lines in the Force.

To access... the other side.

Some called it the World Between Worlds... others, simply, the 'Light',

But the Force resisted the intrusion of the then-Dark, and the Sith Temple there in the rock was abandoned...

Until Lord Vader built his own castle upon that fault-line, to reach through Death to his lost love...

He failed, of course, for even the Chosen One could not break the rules of existence and use the darkness to resurrect the dead...

But the castle remained, and then the world was tamed by the self-proclaimed Dark Lord of the Sith as he pursued the reborn Darth Sidious, some ten years ago...

It is on this world he has laboured.

Researched.

Grown even more powerful, hidden by the darkness...

---
Today

The terrain is obsidian-like, black and reflective. Jagged mountains spike in the distance.

A cloaked figure in tattered robes rises.

It is him, bearded and weary. He checks the stars for navigation, climbs over a rock precipice...

... to reveal Vader's abandoned castle in the distance.

A drone droid, VX-20, floats just behind him.

"Stay here."

A forgotten, decrepit cathedral. Crumbling. Pieces of structure litter the ground, untouched for decades.

He lights his red crossguard lightsaber, holds it up as a torch. Tiny creatures scurry at the disturbance.

A haunting wind blows against his cheek, chilling him.

"Leave me alone."

"This is where the dark path leads. An empty tomb."

Luke Skywalker's voice...

... haunting his nephew like a spirit.

"Where did your path lead? You're a ghost."

"I know what you're searching for. Your Masters promised you strength, but you feel hollow."

"Soon I will be more powerful than any Jedi. Even you."

"Are you sure?"

He snaps, spins and swings his lightsaber at empty space. With a billow of cold wind, Luke's spirit is gone, but yet -

"Go home, Ben... go home to Rey..."

Kylo is shaken. But on the altar beyond, the artefact he came here to find...

A Sith Holocron.



He kneels before it; holds out his palm, channels the Force.

The three sides of the Holocron peel away, revealing an energy within. It grows in intensity and projects a hologram.

Emperor Palpatine, recorded decades ago.

"Lord Vader. Young Skywalker will be ours. I have foreseen it. But we must prepare for the unforeseen. Should he strike me down, you will take him to the Remnicore system. There you will find Tor Valum, Master of the Sith Lord who instructed me."

The Holocron's blue light swirls red. It emit a laser that scans Kylo's body. Palpatine's hologram continues in the meantime -

"Here the son of Skywalker will acquire a great ability - beyond what you could hope to command in your damaged state. With it, he will harness the untapped power of Mortis. At last we will realize -"

The holocron keens an alarm - Kylo Ren is not Darth Vader. Palpatine's image stutters -

"-- the d-destiny... po-potential--"

A blast of red lightning shoots from the pyramidal device into Kylo's eyes.

The invasive pulse of energy spreads over his face like a stain. Horrible, raw purple veins streak through his skn.

He screams in deep, unbearable pain.

TAG: No-One, though I imagine @Shadowsun will sense his Masters anguish, though not his voice giving a command...

 

The Duel of the Fates...

Begins!

https://starwarsintrocreator.kassellabs.io/#!/CMQOOWhaxPmUB7ZYNChB

@QueenSabe7, @Kalio_Dynkos, @HanSolo29, @Mitth_Fisto, @Jerjerrod-Lennox, @Kurisan
@The Jedi in the Pumas, @darthbernael, @CosmoHender, @Shadowsun, @TheSilentInfluence, @Master Vo'Un'Var, @galactic-vagabond422, @Zedd-Vega​

 

IC Xundel
Bonadon, Arriving

The hybrid fighter emerged from hyper, the pilot gazing at the desolate world before him. His large ears twisted back and forth as he contemplated it. Xundel’s eyebrows rose. In his travels, he’d most recently been just out in Wild Space, in the Parthovian Cluster, on a world called Pochi. There was an ancient fortress, Fortress Baarlos, upon the planet. A pirate and his band had been the last to occupy it but that was not his interest. His travels had been to map and study Force Loci.

After a pair of weeks, studying the fortress, descending to the lowest levels of it he had begun the trudge back to his ship, in disgust at having wasted that time. During that period something had been tickling his senses and his focus on the fortress meant he hadn’t let his senses range more. Free of its confines, he realized what was getting his attention was not on this world, but close.

As he tended to do, he leaned on the cane by his side, slowly walking. It was an affectation he’d picked up from the old Grandmaster of the Jedi, allow others to assume you were feeble and they wouldn’t expect what would happen. When he reached his fighter he swarmed up the ladder and into the cockpit. A couple commands to the astromech and the fighter shot offplanet. He gave his impression of the direction and fed corrections to the droid as they neared the source of the feeling.

Which had led to this moment.

Somewhere on this world was a hive of Force energy, not a locus but living beings attuned to the Force. And...they did not have the feeling that they were associated with any order. Which was even more interesting.

A touch of the controls and the fighter swept down toward the spaceport nearest where he felt the energy came from. As he broke through the cloud cover, the sheer size and layout of the spaceport told of the fact that once, in the past, this world had been a major port of call. Now, the majority of the lilypad looking landing pads were empty.

He let the astromech guide them in to an unoccupied one far enough out that if he had to leave in a hurry he wouldn’t be obstructed by another craft as he lifted. The fighter touched down lightly, and he let the cane assist him down the stairs and across the tarmac to the central spine that would lead him down to the ground level. As he rode the lift he let his senses passively travel through the source of the Force energy. He could tell it was a diverse community, with some Force users and many that were not.

”Hmmmm, perfect world for a hidden community, on what could be considered a desolate world, out by the edge of Known Space, hidden among the rest of the populace.” he murmured to himself. Reaching the surface, he hobbled off, heading toward the exit, passing the perfunctory security check, really just one old, lazy guard waving people through. ’The question is what brought them all here, or why?’ he thought.

Once outside, he began the slow walk to the town, knowing his wait wouldn’t be long. Just as he’d sensed them, he was sure that at least one of them had sensed him. Which meant a welcoming party, of a sort. A smile creased his face for a moment as he decided how he would respond to such. ’This will be fun…’

TAGS: @Sinrebirth, @CosmoHender

 

IC: Vice-Chancellor Aryan Graul
Penthouse, Coruscant

At times like this, Aryan Graul wondered who creaked more – himself, or the aging wroshyr-wood chair he sat in. Both of them had been around the course of galactic events since the Clone Wars, and both were in dire need of maintenance and rest. He wasn’t usually particular about his choice of furniture, but the chair had served him well over the years. It was comfortable, stylish, and now that he suffered from chronic leg and back pain due to a prior injury, it was the only thing he could stand to get him through these arduous meetings. The decision to secure the chair from his office on Nubia had been a logical one.

But it wasn’t so much the age of the chair itself that bothered him. It was the reason it was creaking in the first place – Aryan couldn’t sit still. As the monitors around the room replayed the public execution from the square, he found himself fidgeting and shifting to refocus his attention elsewhere. The lack of ethical standards behind such a despicable act made him uneasy. It brought a sinking feeling to the pit of his stomach.

And the chair, through its incessant creaking to announce his movements, betrayed those feelings. For someone with his stature within the ranks of the First Order, those thoughts could be considered treasonous. If he wanted to make his displeasure known – to get his shot in – he needed to toe the line and play by his own rules. He couldn't appear too obvious; it required a subtle touch.

Fortunately, the Vice-Chancellor had his sciatica to fall back on for the time being. He could easily use that as an excuse to explain his agitation until the right moment presented itself.

To emphasize this point, Aryan shifted again, bringing his cane around to tap the handle idly against the tabletop. It conveyed his discomfort to his fellow officers, and his desire to get the meeting underway before he had to stand to alleviate his pain.

Of course, he wasn’t particularly keen on the idea of exchanging niceties with a bunch of disillusioned warlords, though it was a necessary component of his role. It was something he would have to deal with in his own way. Politics were erratic like that. However, he did enjoy playing the game. Despite the years passing him by, certain things never grew old. He found it invigorating, and it kept his mind sharp…

His thoughts trailed off when Commander Sellik, a highly-tense, though competent woman, inquired about the Supreme Leader. She was curious about whether he would be joining them.

It took almost all of Aryan’s willpower to not scoff in the woman’s face. The Supreme Leader was more of an enigma, a wraith. No one had seen him in the decade since the Battle of Exegol, and the Vice-Chancellor often questioned if he truly existed, or if he was merely a manifestation of Hux’s fractured mind.

Still, there was a quiet stirring that often pulled at his spirit, a distant longing that he couldn’t quite pinpoint. Was that proof that the Supreme Leader lived? It was a curious notion, and he turned now to witness the Chancellor’s response.

“He’s been appraised, but it’s more mundane politics for him,” the younger man replied, sniffing with disdain.

This time, Aryan did not bother to suppress his indignation. Folding his hands before him on the table, he lowered his chin and issued a soft snort. He should’ve known better than to get his hopes up. It was the same rhetoric over and over again. Of course, the Supreme Leader was too engaged in his own affairs to care about the normal day to day operations of his government.

Then he wouldn’t mind if I took more desperate measures to clear out the filth...

His blue-gray eyes shifted to regard Chancellor Hux with a sidelong glance.

Meanwhile, the Commander acknowledged the explanation with a nod, clearly trying to conceal her relief. “So you’ll be taking point on the meeting?”

“For as long as I can stomach it,” Hux murmured before he turned to meet Aryan’s gaze. “And then you can take over.”

The Vice-Chancellor leaned back, the action causing the chair to creak once more, as he flashed a sardonic grin. “So, it’s too mundane even for you, then?” Aryan remarked, making a point to reiterate Hux’s words. “Not to say I’m surprised, I suppose that’s why I’m here. We can’t all be gifted with the art of diplomacy.”

He released a heavy sigh and spread his hands, seemingly bored with the whole process. “Don’t worry, I’ll get the job done. They’ll fall in-line, and then you can go back to coordinating your...public spectacles.”

And there was his shot.

Aryan lifted his brow and anchored his cane to the floor, preparing to rise back to his feet.

TAG: @Sinrebirth

 

IC: Finn
Kuat moon, skirmish gone bad, gone good

He'd thought this was it, and then there she was.

Rey.

They didn't stand a chance.

He grinned, drew his blaster, glancing at Poe. But his expression was troubled, worried, even. He shouted over the fight. "You shouldn't have come!"

"You'd rather be killed?" Finn shouted.

Rose was sure to stay silent. As long she had known the three of them, there was a connection between Rey, Poe and Finn was so close. They were often compared to Luke, Han and Leia of the current generation. She shot a trooper that had hid from the initial attack, even as Poe shouted back.

"If it meant she was safe, yeah."

There's something more behind those words, and Finn gave him a look.

"Now's not the time," Finn said firmly.

Poe agreed. "Definitely not the time."

The migrant workers in the village point to Rey in awe, whispering, reverent. The children cheer, speaking a word they all know.

"Jedi! Jedi!"

More Stormtroopers flood into the square, dozens upon dozens -

But the migrants block their path to protect the Last Jedi. Some throw rocks. Others swing with hammers and tools.

Poe also knows its hopeless. He reaches for her, watching where Rose was going and realising her plan. "Rey, we gotta go!"

Finn hesitates; he wants to fight alongside these people even as blasters open fire on the migrants. "We have to help them!"

Poe eyes more troop transports and incoming TIE fighters -

"Not here, not know."

Finn knows he's right, but it kills him inside. He reluctantly followed his friends through the blast door to the power core itself. His ankle is grabbed by a fallen Stormtrooper, helmet blasted open. They lock eyes... recognition - a memory from long ago.

Finn pulls fee and continues on, but he's shaken, and he tries to avoid Rey's eyes.

---
Kuat orbital, command center

"What happened down there!"

An officer races to Admiral Vonn. He is peeved, frustrated by the lack of update, spinning.

"The Last Jedi is with them, sir."

Vonn's confidence evaporates, and turns to fear. He utters words he never wanted to, words he feared, words he had no choice but to speak.

"Alert the Knights of Ren."

---
Powershaft Core

Poe called into the comlink as they entered the shaft. "BB-8, we're coming up to you! Plan's gone sideways."

BB-8 has already left the orbital ring in his latest commandeered shuttle, and was already on his way down to the rendezvous point on Kuat's surface, per the plan. He beeps incredulously at Poe. Now what.

Poe looks up the power-shaft, usually carrying fuel but now cut-off and open to them, the maintenance lift ready to take them straight up at speed. He eyes the orbital ring above, and the warships docked within it.

"We're gonna need another ship."

His eyes settle on the Eclipse, a seventeen kilometer long Star Destroyer docked just above them, a dagger of a ship in space.



"You're not serious," Rose said.

Finn is incredulous. "That's an Eclipse-class dreadnought. You can't fly -"

"I can fly anything," Poe gruffly said.

Rose hacks the turbolift, glass doors closing upon them. He eyes them all, the only one able to meet Rey's eyes. "Clench. Everything."

The turbolift capsule rockets up in the tube, travelling from the moon's surface to the orbital ring in seconds.

There is a Glide Rover, which they could take to the Eclipse.

---
Kuat Command

"Where are they going?"

Admiral Vonn watched the Glide Rover race towards the Eclipse. He looks at the other warships, furious that they have made it this far -

"They can't possibly." Admiral Vonn leans over a First order tech, panicked. "How many men on that ship?"

The tech cringes. "Just the bridge crew sir, the rest are on dock leave -"

---
Bridge, Eclipse

A massive navigational bridge dense with First Order crew.

A laser blast spins them around. Rose cocks her heavy weapon. Finn seals the door.

"Who's in charge here?" Poe snaps.

The deck officer stands among them, clearly swallowing but speaking up. "I am."

"Great," Poe says, improvising. "I'm your new pilot, um," he smiles weakly. "Where does the pilot sit?"

Finn looks for Rey, afraid that she'd ditched them, vanished again. There's more crew members in this room than in the whole Resistance. In his mind, open in the Force like he'd been trained so long ago, are the words for where they were going to flee. Nirauan system.

There are a dozen shifts; crew members reaching for standard-issue side-arms, all preparing to act at the word of their captain.

They're all afraid, of not siding with the Resistance, yes, but also of the horror-filled death that would be visited upon them by the First Order - by the Agents, by the Knights of Ren, perhaps even by Kylo Ren himself. Their minds resonate with that terror, teetering on the edge.

The captain is the fulcrum of their take-over.

TAG: @QueenSabe7, with a mention for @Shadowsun
---
IC: Kaydel Ko Connix
Korilev, Resistance Base

Wedge's words warmed her heart, even though the odds remained long against them. It had been a long, long nine years without Leia. The Resistance had lost her, and over time the Force too. Rey and even Maz left, and over time the Resistance had whittled away. They had Finn, of course, but he wasn't nearly as powerful as Rey, or as connected as Maz. Though better equipped, they were as small as they were just after the Battle of Crait. The Kuat mission, she knew, was a last gasp. Soon, they'd be even less relevant... just another pirate gang across a galaxy rife with them since Exegol.

Her hand slid to the datapad in her pocket, the keepsake she kept on her at all times, closing her eyes.

Leia, please. Guide us.

The radio went.

As more data came in, that the Kuati were in panic, Connix let out a breath that she hadn't realised she was holding. BB-8 had maintained a connection to the network even as he made his move to leave as ordered, and though he couldn't precisely ascertain the cause, he could tell that the alarm had not ended, which it would have had their team been killed.

Beaumont grinned. "I can't wait to see what Poe did to get out of this."

"Who knows," Connix said, still not hopeful.

There was a message coming through, this time on Wedge's private channel. "General, it's Junior." The name was an affectation; the pilot of one of the distant A-wings was a son of the infamous Admiral Gial Ackbar, who had died a decade ago now. He'd had a school of children, and many of them had committed to the Resistance in their own way.

"I have a communique from Myri, General... I thought I should pass it to you directly, sir."

TAG: @Kalio_Dynkos (combo), and also past combo
---
IC: Chancellor Hux
Coruscant, Chancellor’s Penthouse

“Quite so,” Hux said, drily, to Aryan’s comments. Commander Sellik regarded her comlink for a moment as it chimed, and the Chancellor eyed him. “Well?”

“As you expected, there was some evidence of Resistance activity at the execution itself. A Rodian has been apprehended, but a young human assaulted some of our Stormtroopers and escaped.” Sellik amended quickly to explain. “Pranks, nothing more, but unacceptable. He appeared to escape with the assistance of another party, who vanished through the Uscru district.”

“Oh?” His brow beetled, and Sellik nodded. “Deal with this.”

Sellik saluted, nodded to the Vice Chancellor, and turned aside. Hux huffed, irritated, though the public execution had been designed to flush out conspirators, that any existed at all was an affront. Hux cast aside the problem. Gnats were nothing to concern himself with.

Not with the galaxy in chaos.

First; Order.

Hux looked wry, remembering the lesson that Grand Admiral Sloane had embedded into him all those decades ago. The galaxy showed the three polities they were courting today. Courting, he hissed, but he could hardly change what had happened nine years ago…

He gestured. “The Northern Dependencies, running the New Territories; Mygeeto, Phaeda, Orinda, Tangrene, Cuitric, Ord Trasi…” With the latter world, they had shipyards, with Mygeeto, financial influence, and so-on. They also bordered the First Order territories in the Outer Rim, eight sectors running from Borosk to the very galactic edge, and the Corporate Sector, where Aryan’s daughter Jalynn had several financial interests by marriage.

“The Hutts,” he sneered. Their territory had not changed much in hundreds of years. They retained their influence. But their access to secret hyperspace routes, and their economics pull, it was unavoidable they would have to deal with them at some point. But they were also Hutts.

“The Andoan Free Colonies.” This was another new polity, but this time based on a much older one. It was focused on Ando, but snaked along the Corellian Run as far Coreward as Druckenwell, and as Rimward as Christophsis, giving it a key strategic location. Also non-humans…

To be fair, even the Dependencies were led by a non-human…

The First Order would never be pure again, he feared.

Hux settled into his oversized chair behind the desk. This was where he entertained, after all, as Chancellor. His private chambers, they were elsewhere, as was his artefact collection. This room was a duplicate of the offices of Palpatine, from 500 Republica, from some sixty years ago, complete with a frieze of the Great Sith War, and various statutory replicas.

“We have a choice between appealing to them all, or attempting to pick one and focus upon it…” He chuckled drily. “Tell me, Vice Chancellor… what do you recommend?”

TAG: @HanSolo29
---
Commander Sellik
Coruscant, Debriefing

The Rodian was brought in, and another execution planned; this one would be less publicized, though the body would likely be displayed somewhere or other. Fresh from the meeting with the politicians, Sellik shrugged off being a more tentative presence to being an assertive one.

While Hux was the Commander-in-Chief (and Chancellor, and High Marshall, and a few other bombastic titles), she was the liaison between him and the majority of the First Order military. With a shake of her head, one last time, she became Commander Sellik, and stepped through the door.

Present was Agent Johnson, of course, called to the meeting as the agent on the ground at the execution. Sellik had, however, called ahead and summoned Agent Brown too. She needed a pair on this, to sniff out the Resistance.


Agent Brown

“Ah, you’re here too.” Sellik regarded Brown, who had arrived in the grey-white-Imperial-ascetic room. There was a display, blacked for the moment, and Sellik would have gestured for them to sit, but Agents never sat. The officers were obsessively loyal to their work, but sufficiently human that they were efficient and possessed initiative.

She went straight into the briefing.

“Level 1313; the maximum extent of the First Order on Coruscant; as far down as we dare send our forces. Any further, and our patrols vanish.” Sellik sounded grim. “Level 1313 itself? We have barely secured it, and the enemy uses it to access higher levels, evading our forward elements. Before we can proceed, we would need to firstly secure 1313.”

The Uscru District appeared as she gestured to the screen. “The Galaxies Opera House overlooks Uscru. Many of the governors we have across the various districts attend here, and we do periodically have warlords from the Outer Rim attend. The governor of Uscru, he invites many the Opera, and trade all manner of favor… rather than police the graft, Chancellor Hux allows Governor Don to run it, on the basis he runs it for us.”

https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Galaxies_Opera_House

That was a state secret, but it was also something she didn’t need to worry about.

Obsessive loyalty.

“Ensure you are up-to-date on the Uscru District, the Opera House, and the Don, and prepare for your assignment. I am partnering you up today; investigate the Don, and make sure he isn’t taking advantage of his freedom to support the rebels.”

It was a briefing, there wasn’t much to add to it.

“Dismissed.”

Sellik stepped free from the room, and left them to it. Brown looked at Johnson, inviting him to comment, and also inviting him to decide who would have primacy. They had numbers, after all, and Brown, well, he was merely 6.

It was Johnson who was 2.

There was an in-built assumption that the numbers confirmed the order in-which they were made into Agents, and filled with purpose. As much as all the Agent’s looked almost like each other – they did – they were different, after all.

If Johnson took primacy, he would lead them in the choice of their approach, deployment, even attire. That is what primacy meant.

TAG: @Jerjerrod-Lennox
---
Coruscant, Level 1313, a little shop

Dade took the lead as they wandered through his part of Galactic City, but soon enough they reached level 1313, the jump-off point for the ‘safe regions’. The kid glanced up and saw the Galactic Opera above it all; the controlling interest of crime on the planet… the Don.

Scum.

He shook his head and finally turned to Dol Khan as they settled outside a shop at the edge of the Uscru District. “Thanks for the help, mister.” He had his hands in his pockets, as much a child as anything else. He wasn’t a formal member of the Resistance, he simply stood there as a frustrated youth, caught in the nightmare that was Coruscant ruled by the First Order. He didn’t know his parents and didn’t have any prospects.

So why not rebel?

It wasn’t a good reason, but it was a reason.

“The Agents are creepy, I wouldn’t’ve dodged that one without your help,” he said, shrugging, hands still in his threadbare pants. “I hear they’re gonna be mass-produced when Hugs gets the formula down right. Prototypes, being made under the old Senate in labs that used’a serve the Emperor ‘imself.”

He shuddered, eloquent in his own way, but clearly emphasizing the fact that small people were often not noticed. The Lost Boys, that’s what they called themselves, again, because why not. Dol would have heard of them, but he had never met a certified Boy… but Dade had that over-sized signet ring… the one the old Resistance had mass-produced and scattered across the galaxy with the crest hidden within it.

He was going to speak up when the music fluttered through the area. He paused, recognizing that most music was proscribed by the First Order. And yet, there it was, and Dade ignored whatever Dol immediately said to look up at the shop-front behind them.

There was a clatter, and the young boy’s ears perked up. Sure enough, the lyrics, they had piqued a two-man patrol’s attention. They were sufficiently vague, and Tirran Huxley had sufficient credit with the First Order that he would be left alone. In-fact, the Don had given explicit instructions that he be.

The Stormtroopers would simply give the appearance of demanding he stop the disruption, and move on.

But Dade wanted to know what was going on here, and he dove in.

Dol had a choice; to head into the shop after the boy, or fade into the District, perhaps regroup with his other cell-mates...

… Tirran’s shop door would jingle with the arrival of the boy, who he may have even glimpsed at the execution on the HoloNews…

Two Stormtroopers were evident through the front window…

TAG: @Mitth_Fisto, @The Jedi in the Pumas
---
IC: Nomi
Village of Aurilia, Bonadon

The Force was conscious of the new arrival. Nomi sighed, dusted herself off, and followed Barriss to the landing spirals. Though it was setup as an isolated redoubt for Force users, there were presently very few present, and the local common-folk far outnumbered them.

It did not matter. Nomi had her business finding things, and Ofee had her healing. There was balance and sustainability here, even in the picked over-corpse of Bonadon. The authorities had long moved on, and interdependence is what kept the community alive.

By the time they reached the edge of the village, Xundel would have been met by two

This one looks more Kralkus than Yoda, Nomi silently rued.

The woman reached out to the two and clicked her fingers. “Shoo, shoo.” With a look of startlement, they waddled off, and Nomi turned back to regard the impish visitor. He did not feel good in the Force, but neither did he feel especially bad. She imagined Ofee and herself felt roughly the same.

She could already sense that Xundel would recognise her, or at least her resemblance to her grandmother, but Nomi shrugged. Producing a datacron from one of the innumerable pockets in her clothes, she softly tossed it to Ofee and turned to go. This wasn’t her place, wasn’t her role. Waving slightly, she added. “Let me know how it goes. There’s a suggestion of where you should go in there; something I found.” She wasn’t interested in the newcomers name, she was simply doing her part and moving on.

It was on them now.

TAG: @CosmoHender, @darthbernael (combo away)
---
IC: Hattaska Ren
Mustafar, departing

For the longest moment, Hattaska stared at Vicrul. He kept the masked expression up for a time, and then turned aside. His fury tinged the Force, no more than usual and yet it seemed targeted at Vicrul. The twins exchanged a glance, while Jaedec paid it no heed; as he often did.

It came down to the simple fact that their temporary leader did not like Vicrul. He did not like his closeness to the Supreme Leader Kylo Ren, did not like that his name harkened back to the old Knights, did not like his existence.

He stepped into the open cockpit and slapped a console. “Next target.”

“Acknowledged,” came the stiff officers voice from aboard the Knife 9. The two ships tunnelled their way into hyperspace and the Knights stared into the abyss in their customary silence.

Akiva wasn’t far.

While the tacit confrontation between Eleanor and the Stranger continued at the far end of the landing bay, Rizo led Lin through the Ranat burrows into the spaceport, of course completely circumventing the customs area. Appearing behind the waste disposal chute, Rizo scratched dust from the tip of his snout, smothering a sneeze.

Pointing from the shadows, he indicated the nearest ship; the customised and very sleek and black transport that the Stranger had arrived in - the Fury. “That’s one,” he said in guarded tones, though the general commotion of the coming and going freighters was sufficient to conceal them in earnest. “Around the dock is the yacht, too.” He gestured around the way, beyond the First Order shuttle settled in the middle of the U of the spaceport design, with that custom station manned by dirty-Stormtroopers. The yacht wasn’t visible to them, nor was the Fury to the yacht.

“Hey, hey,” Rizo said, elbowing Lin. “The ramps down.” His eyes widened as he realised the black ship was ripe for the taking. Without a moments thought he shoved Lin into the pile of trash they had been crouched behind -

The four Stormtroopers that Asteria had seen were aware that the occupants of the two ships hadn’t headed to the customs station, which was irregular. They were stepping around towards the yacht, having watched the Stranger on the security cams wander around the civilian traffic straight to the yacht. Asteria was barely containing a scream when they marched forwards -

And then they reached up to their helmets and turned to each other. With a sudden surge of terror into the Force, the four men turned to run to their shuttle -

There was a keening alarm, and then, the scream of -

“TIE FIGHTERS!” A tall Twi’lek screamed out, and pandemonium engulfed the spaceport. There were eighteen other freighters in the spaceport, nine either side of the First Order shuttle, with plenty of innocents to cause utter chaos, tripping, dropping goods, trampling, cutting the Stranger off from the Fury -

The Stranger once again has his pick of ships... Eleanor had to go. Whistler tweetled in alarm -

There was a First Order dreadnought here.

There was a powerful set of darknesses in orbit.

And it knew they were here.

@TheSilentInfluence, @Kurisan, @Master Vo'Un'Var
—-
In orbit

“The local government has enquired as to what they can do for us,” reported Jaedec, as the Buzzard floated up above the hull of the Knife 9.

“Ignore them,” Hattaska said. “There are Force users here,” he announced, and the Twins glanced at each other. He looked back to them, and then Vicrul. “Is it her?”

Standard operating procedure was for them to have the Knife 9 destroy all settlements on Akiva if it was a Force user, as a punishment for the natives not being more thorough. If it was the Last Jedi, they were to descend and capture her if possible. If a Force user evaded the attack, then the Knights could recruit them; it was simple, and efficient.

But the Force was unclear.

Hattaska could not ascertain the exact nature of the target. There were masculine traits... familiar ones, too... but female? Light intermingled with dark.

He seethed, and slammed a control. “Launch TIE fighters; lock down local space until you are in range to fire.” He cut the channel and swung back to face the Knights, and accusatory tang to the Force, as if he blamed them for his uncertainty.

TIEs streaked out from the Knife 9 in the meantime, and the great warship moved to bring Myrra into range of its main weapon...

TAG: @Shadowsun (combo)
---
IC: Syal
Chandrila, Core Worlds

Night had fallen on Chandrila.

Not the figurative night which had consumed the galaxy as of late, but the orbital one, for the day was over, their child was asleep, and the world was over for another cycle.

In the middle distance, Hanna City glowed, rudely billed as the place which never slept. It cast them all in shadow, and periodic raids along those shadows were a known thing. Stormtroopers would sweep the districts and other cities of the silver sea, but anything more than a minor commotion would result in an orbital strike.

Everyone knew that.

After all, the Destroyer above had fired on Chandrila’s surface no less than seventy-four times in the last decade. It was an object lesson for the natives, hammered again and again into the Chandrilan skull; the community is responsible for traitors. There had been no major uprising here, when Exegol occurred; they’d been occupied early, and the local defence fleet had fought to allow an evacuation, rather than flee to fight another day.

Right fight; wrong time.

It made Syal a light sleeper, not that any veteran truly ever slept well. The skirmishes in the Corellian system years ago had left her on edge, rarely off. The first year she’d held a baby; that had been calming. Their family had been complete - re-completed, even.

So when there was a loud clank from the direction of the barn, she sat bolt upright. Tying her dressing gown, she stepped from the bed even as she turned to see if Rhoen was awake. “The barn,” she hissed, whispering. Syal went to their daughters room, drawing the blaster she kept under her pillow.

Just like Daddy had always told her to.

They’d agreed many years ago that they’d split this way. Syal tucked the blaster beneath her gown, handy but not present sufficiently to alarm Valerie.

Had they been discovered?

Was it over?

She mentally checked the location of the over-night bag, readily packed in anticipation. Syal always had one. Just-in case.

TAG: @galactic-vagabond422, @Zedd-Vega (outstanding TAG for the other)