Messenger of Death

Continued from 'Original Sin'...

As the landing struts of his shuttle touched down within the belly of the Whaladon, Vega Van-Derveld sat in the dark of the ships cockpit and indulged in a private moment of relish. The security co-ordinates which had allowed him to infiltrate one of the most heavily guarded vessels within the Wheel had been accepted without question, his cover-story – that he was an Alliance specialist arriving to assist in essential maintenance – had not been challenged.

It was exactly as Darth Acera had planned.

There were men waiting to welcome him as he descended the shuttles boarding ramp, their attention divided between the new arrival and data cards of information that they were examining. Van-Derveld's footsteps echoed heavily as he lurched down the ramp, something almost arachnid to his gait. Awareness creeping over them, the Alliance crew felt their gazes pulled away from their data cards to the figure approaching them. His skin was white, his eyes as cold and empty as space and in his hand he carried a lightsaber.

With a snap-hiss the blood-red blade came to life.

Ripples of fear spread through the hangar as shocking realisation dawned upon those closest to Vega's shuttle – but he was on them before they could react. The rancid scent of burnt flesh filled his nostrils, thrilled his senses, as he struck down one then two, the third struggling to get away as a concussive burst of telekinetic energy slammed into his back and sent him sprawling on his stomach.

The messenger of death spoke with a hollow voice, his words laced with the venomous power of the Dark Side:

“Take me to the Jedi.”

Akasha Khan felt dizzy for a moment, and she reached one paw out to steady herself against the corridor wall. The Orryxians had a proverb to describe that inexplicable feeling of dread that came over a being without warning - The predator's footsteps in your footprints. The analog in Basic was something like someone just stepped over my grave. Akasha was not the most sensitive of adepts on the Wheel, but she knew without a doubt that something was terribly wrong.

Her heartrate quickened, and the young Orryxian padded onward, giving wary glances to a pair of engineers walking back the other way. And then her sensitive ears picked up the telltale thrum of an ignited lightsaber from the hangar deck just down the corridor. Was someone sparring in there?

The black-furred felinoid ventured forward, scratching absent-mindedly at her burgundy vest where it laid over the hairless scar that an orbalisk had left in the center of her chest. When she reached the door to the hangar deck, she gripped the bulkhead frame with one paw and cautiously peeked her head around to look inside.

The deck hand scrabbled backwards on his elbows, desperate to put whatever futile distance he could between himself and the monster bearing down on him. Vega slammed his mind against that of his prey, invading his thoughts and overpowering his emotions with primal fear.

“The Jedi.”

The words were said without feeling, voiced in an artificial synthetic drone, but they sounded to the deck hand like a demand. To punctuate his point, the Sith drove the tip of his lightsaber down into the poor wretches thigh, boring a scorching hole through flesh and bone alike. White-hot pain seared through his victims thoughts, like purifying flames burning away everything but the primal urge to escape and – prompted by the Sith's words – the image of the people who might save him from his torment: the Jedi. Vega fed on his frantic emotions and the Dark Side rushed through him. It gave him strength and sharpened his senses, expanding his awareness until it met with the next living thing that lay in his path.

With a rasping hiss, he raked one hand through the air and snatched at the tendrils of the Dark Side, willing them to ensnare Akasha Khan and tear her out of her hiding place.

Akasha shrieked as she was seized by an invisible force and pulled into the hangar. She grabbed madly at the bulkhead, but her paws slipped off the durasteel, and she fell flat onto the hard deckplates. Desperately she tried to dig her claws into the floor, but her clawtips only scored at the paint on the durasteel as she slid inexorably toward the spectral monster of flesh and metal.

The Orryxian twisted to look back over her shoulder at the intruder, her ears pinned back and all her fur standing on end, and she saw the cold, sneering hatred on the Darksider's face. She knew he was not like Idesca, who was looking for a convert - this man would kill her as soon as she was in range of his baleful red blade.

With a snarl of mad desperation, she conjured a flaming orb of Destruction and sent it hissing at his chest.

With the ball of flame roaring towards him, Van-Derveld lashed one hand to his left – releasing his hold on the feline and hurling a concussive burst of telekinetic energy into her body in the same instant. If the blow connected, she'd been rolled over and over like a ragdoll.

Bending at the knees, the Sith launched himself into the air and landed with an almighty clang of metal against metal on top of the shuttle he'd arrived in. The impact of his landing sent shattering fault-lines through the transparisteel view-port. The craft shook beneath Vega as the orb of Destruction bit into its hull-plating and the parts beneath it, which spat sparks as the unnatural fire raged through them. The shuttle wouldn't be space-worthy with a gaping hole like that in it – but that fact was far from Vega's mind as he sprung off the canopy to the deck floor and began to sprint towards the doorway that Akasha had first emerged through.

As he neared the exit, a shrieking Astromech droid ahead tried to wheel its way into the cover of a bulkhead but Vega swiped a hand at it, sending the droid spinning wildly into the air behind him as an improvised projectile weapon.

Akasha went tumbling over the deckplates, and she only just found her feet when the unlucky R4 unit came screaming her way. She sprung straight up in the air as the droid struck the deck beneath her and skidded past on a trail of sparks, and she landed nimbly on all four paws. The pale apparition was already dashing out of the hangar and into the corridors of the Whaladon.

Adrenalin roared in the Orryxian's ears with a force she hadn't felt since her trials on Onderon. He'd had a lightsaber, and he was better trained in the arts of the Force than she was. Which meant she'd only just escaped a very messy and violent death.

Part of her thought, Thank Maiur. Another part said, What am I, then, chopped nerfsteak?

It was only when she rose to her feet that it settled on her like a storm on the Orryxian steppes. There was a Sith. A murderer. On the Wheel. On a ship with younglings, fellow padawans. Kala.

Akasha rushed to the comm. panel sitting next to the hangar door and punched the emergency key. It glowed, but there was no answer. She hit it again. Then she pounded on it furiously until a bored-sounding voice responded from the bridge: "Yes?"

"Sith," Akasha gasped - she hadn't even realized she was out of breath. "There's a Sith on the ship. He's heading for the living quarters."

The crewman on the other end shifted audibly. "What?"

"There's a Sith onboard, you soft-skulled evolutionary throwback!" Akasha snarled. "Sound the alarm, or whatever it is you do!"

She jumped back from the panel and glanced around the hangar, just in case he might have any accomplices - she only saw two dock hands brutally shorn in half, the third groaning and trying to lift himself from the deck on what looked like a broken arm. Akasha's ears flattened against her head. There was no way she could stop this monster by herself. The Orryxian snatched the Echani fighting staff from her belt and rushed out into the corridor, desperate to find help.

It only took hours for the precarious safety of The Wheel to be tossed into the uncertainty that the Dark Side had cloaked with the new that Master Vymes had brought the Council. There was still much to deliberate and Daria and Navaria were already discussing strategies in protecting their own as they walked down the corridor, already steeling themselves in what was to come with the Republic. They had to be informed of what was at stake now that it was revealed the General Dan was confirmed to be a Sith, let alone one of their own ranks deceiving them so easily under the influence of Darth Acera ... she walked amongst them, even aided both her and Daria on personal matters. How could she not have sense that s'Ilancy was being corrupted from an outside influence?

Suddenly she stopped and grabbed Daria by the arm, squeezing it. "Do you sense that?"

Dread washed over her and attempted to drown the Jedi Master in despair but despite the urgency of this danger, Navaria kept her composure - her mind clear.

That was when the klaxons rang and priority one alerts were blasted over the ship's intercom.

"PRIORITY ALERT ZETA. ALL SECURITY PERSONAL TO LEVEL 3, SECTION 15B. WE ARE UNDER ATTACK BY UNKNOWN SITH. ALL NON-NONESSENTIAL PERSONAL ARE TO RETREAT AND STAY OUT OF THE AREA UNTIL CLEAR. I REPEAT THIS IS A PRIORITY ALERT ZETA...."

"It's him," Navaria said and Daria would know exactly to whom in which she was referring. "This has to be Acera's doing." Unless who they were facing was Darth Acera. Questions that needed answering but action had to be implemented now.

Letting go of Daria, Navaria was already moving in the direction of the nearest lift that would bring her closer to an old nemesis ...

The blare of the klaxons had woken Bryna Belargic from a restless nightmare of Coruscant wreathed in fire. Startled, she'd slammed her hand down onto the bed-side locker where he lightsaber lay and ignited the blue-green blade before her eyes were even half open. The sudden awakening and the sound of sirens had set her pulse racing, but it was the disturbance that she felt in the Force which sent her stumbling out of bed, desperately pulling on whatever clothes she could lay her hands on.

“This is not happening, this is not happening-” Moving towards the source of the chaos, Bryna shoved her way past a pair of crewmen just in time to see a turbolift in the wall to her right slide open. Two familiar figures moved quickly into view.

“Find us once the younglings are safe,” Master Tarkin said to Master Nytherciria as they strode out of the lift, lightsabers already in their hands. “I can hold him off until we know they're secure.”

Daria gave a crisp nod and broke off in one direction whilst Navaria turned towards the corridors that would lead to the Whaladon's hangar bay.

“Master!” Bryna jogged to Navaria's side and immediately fell in step alongside her master and mentor, her own lightsaber disengaged for now but gripped tightly in one fist. “Master, I recognise how this Sith feels. I think I've fought him before, in my time.”

It was just when he finshed his rounds in the medbay that the stink reached him and yanked his attentions from signing off on his rounds and mentally going over Kala's training plan for the day. For moments, it was disorienting, a thickness of dark presence he had not personally encountered for some 20 years, perhaps more. It was not a familiar one - the familiar ones seemed to have faded away with the passing of time - but it nearly made the halfbreed drop the datapad the five feet or so it would travel from his hands to the deck, nonetheless. Another moment to compose himself and urge the regular medbay staff to lock themselves in for safety just as the alarms began to sound off.

Sith. On board. His brow furrowed in the slightest of confusions. How?

Not that the 'how' mattered as he exited the medbay and began rushing down the corridor, which served at that moment in time to be a wall against a rather fast-moving blur of fur. It elicited a measure of oof from the warrior-healer as he absorbed the impact and steadied the familiar Orryxian, lowering himself to her level. He grimaced a fair degree as the impact had taken him square in the stomach.

"Akasha! Akasha, calm yourself, child! This panic will not serve well." All he could get out of her was some panicked verbalizations about... "Sith. I know, I know! A vile stench in the Force I have ever had the displeasure to smell."

A whisp of the stench lingered on her and caused something hungry to stir inside him. He held Kala's black-furred roommate by both arms and made eye contact. "You have seen...?"

"Who's panicking?" Akasha said between heaving breaths. She tried to jerk her arms away as a matter of reflex, but the knight held on, and her heart started pounding just a little less frantically.

The Orryxian swallowed back her fight-or-flight instinct and looked Ilias in the eye. "In the hangar," she said. "He was humanoid, but he looked half machine and half... dead. He has a lightsaber, and he's stronger in telekinesis than I am. So, what do we do?"

"And where is he headed..." The knight wondered, half curious yet half seeking with the Force and the detailed memory of the layout of the Whaladon. Pinpointing the source of the stench and his direction brought on a great burden of worry for the knight and pushed him to act. He flicked his eyes back to the furred face of the girl.

"We find the quickest way to cut him off before he reaches his destination and hope we are not the only ones trying to head him off. What I want you to do when we get there is be with the other young and urge their calm and let them not fear." He smiled a grim smile. "Perhaps Kala might be of some help in this respect."

Ilias released the Orryxian's arms and stood up, scanning and listening for a brief moment. He then started off in the opposite direction of the one in which he had been headed when he had ran stomach to furball into Akasha, and he did not look back save for to urge Akasha into action.

"Now come, my young Orryxian friend! There is a faster way to where our adversary is headed. This vessel, thankfully, has many useful secrets."

Zem had brought ill omens with him, back to a temporary home and hearth, and back to friends and family who deserved better. There was no sin in being the messenger, but the burden still weighed heavily on him, as he felt it imperative that he become the instrument of its resolution.

Alone in meditation, the songs of the Force a Jedi could feel allowed one to explore self, and beyond self. You listened, and did not speak. It took a patience that demanded discipline. What you heard was often subtle, and required time to discern. There were other times that it did not.

Zem's meditation broke a full minute before the klaxon sounded. He was on his feet, lightsaber in hand, and out of the door of his quarters when the alarm sounded moments too late for too many

There may not be time to undo Darth Decepis's evil, or Darth Acera's betrayal, but now was the time to balance the threat before them. And this threat felt intimate. The corruptions of the Force he could feel from the hangar bay bore the feral urgency he recognized in style and philosophy as a tenet of his former lupine student.

His pace quickened. The enemy was approaching the his direction; heading for the living quarters. Though his eyes bore him no witness around a blind turn in the hallway, his instincts demanded action NOW and with all of the inequities and tyrannies they faced, the scales would right themselves HERE.

With righteous vindication as his fuel, he drew upon the Force. If his heart were a cannon, he would fire upon what rounded that corner with the grim determination to settle all accounts, a primal blast of energy that would leave nothing on its feet.

The clamor of the klaxons filled the ships corridors, deafeningly loud, making its claustrophobic walkways all the more oppressive. Vega rounded one hallway corner with serpentine speed and a hiss sucked through vile, off-white teeth. Within seconds of laying eyes on Zem Vymes, a burst of energy propelled him through the distance between them, his feet barely touching the deck-plating as he charged into a full-body collision with the old Jedi.

It was the same dream she had been having... she was walking, prowling through the darkened bowels of a ship she had never seen before but somehow knew every inch of. Fear could practically be tasted in the air, it signaled her prey's location before she came upon the unsuspecting individual. Their features were blurred in the vision, unimportant as she raised them into the air and slammed them against the opposing wall, lingering only to dip fingertips into the broken figure's blood and smear them across her face in a tribute of the carnage to come. But they were on to her now. Aware of her coming... and they had set off the alarms.

Alarms that grew louder and louder until Charlotte found herself sitting upright and glaring hazily at a panel above the door she was sure the sound was coming from. Frakking starships... The adrenaline surge that had threatened to take hold of her body had to be silenced. Even if there was an attack in progress, it was something for the flight crews to deal with. There wasn't a damn thing a soldier could do about it. Charlotte grumbled, cursing Dashiel for bringing her to this place once again as she pulled on the fatigues she had arrived in. Some part of her was refusing to get too cozy in this place, even if it was day three without any word from command on when her and Starborn would be returning home.

As the door to her temporary quarters slid open, the klaxons seemed to dull, as if she was suddenly detached from all of it. It was as if everything had suddenly changed to painful slow motion as she turned down the hall to see the Jedi that she and Dash had escorted to The Wheel and baring down on Vymes was a creature she instantly recognized though had never actually seen before. How strange it was, though, to not be seeing everything from his perspective.

Bryna's appearance wasn't surprising to the Jedi Master, considering whom had violated the sanctity of the Wheel.

"As have I," she quickly informed and moved past the rush of military personal that was evacuating the area. "Thus far he has attempted to assassinate my sister and almost cost me Master Nytherciria. His cruelty knows no limitations."

Time had passed but the Dark Side was even stronger with Vega this day. Coldness emanating from his use of power grew only more potent as the two of them forged on. Eventually the crash of lightsabers hit their ears and only grew more intense as they moved closer. Picking up the pace, Navaria steadied herself for the inevitable confrontation only to sense confusion nearby.

"Charlotte?" came the perplexed response from the Jedi Master. "Why haven't you evacuated?"

With her lightsaber hilt at the ready, Navaria motion for the Republic operative to retreat. "Go. Now!"

The unstoppable force and the immovable object. The effect of each other's attack cancelled out the other, a zero sum stalemate that brought the two mortal enemies directly to the other. The energy shed from their efforts took the ship itself as a casualty, as the durasteel of the floor, corridors, and ceiling bent and groaned with the explosive force.

In the midst of the destruction, Zem Vymes and Vega Van Derveld grappled, a contest without grace but with urgency, fury, and immediacy. Unable to separate from each other to attempt a decisive blow, they resorted to a tangle of body shots, contorting rolls, and any means at their disposal.

In the cramped confines of the corridors, there was no room for finesse but that suited Vega just fine. In close quarters, he could do more than just sense the fear in his enemy. He could see it in their eyes, smell in the foetid stench of their sweat. He could wring the life out of the old Jedi with his bare hands and watch him slip into the netherworld of the Force knowing that all his effort had been for nothing.

As if spurred on by the foolish notion that there still was hope, Vymes let loose with a burst of energy that threatened to hurl Vega crashing backwards into a bulkhead. Instead of being carried by the wave he rode it. Landing at the opposite end of the hallway with a clatter of metal grating under foot, the Sith's attention was snatched away from Zem to an unexpected sight.

He thrust one hand at Charlotte Tur'enne – darkness slamming into her mind, forcing open the connection that had unexpectedly formed between them on Nelvaan. His malice became hers, overwhelming all rational thought with pure fury that would drive her into an uncontrollable rage.

Vega saw who was running up behind Tur'enne and, head rolling back, bared his teeth in a macabre half-snarl, half-grin: “Tarkin!”

The scream that left her was purely feral, the pain horrendous...

Both ended before she had any time to really understand them and all that was left was nothing that had once been the smug, somewhat nervous, Rebel officer. All that remained was the anger. It didn't matter who it was directed at, it was blinding, driven, hungry.

The woman stood there, breathing heavily before a voice brought instant clarity to everything. Whether Van-Derveld meant it or not, his shout had served as a demand, one that couldn't be ignored.

The combat blade that was ever present, strapped to the side of her calf just above the top of her boots was drawn and the girl launched herself at the Jedi Master. Charlotte could care less what it was that Navaria Tarkin had done, all that mattered now was her death.

Zem marched forward purposefully.

"The fight's with me, you cur!"

His fist tightned, and the utilitarian metal grating that made up the corridor's floor drew up suddenly around the Lupine's artificial legs, as if the durasteel was made of origami. Accelerating his pace, his lightsaber was in his hand in the blink of an eye, as he sought to liberate Vega from the metal rosebud...from the waist up.

Somewhere behind the Force-powered melee, a trapezoidal panel burst from the wall, and Akasha stumbled out of the maintenance crawlspace that she and Ilias had just rushed through and into the corridor. At first she turned in the direction of the crackling of lightsaber blades, but then her danger sense warned her of a more impending threat from behind.

Akasha whirled around to see a blonde woman with a large knife and a mask of frothing rage bearing down on her like a charging reek. With a cry, the petite Orryxian female turned her fighting staff sideways and squeezed.

What had been a featureless white cylinder the breadth of her paw expanded violently in both directions into a tapering five-foot staff. She managed to ward off Charlotte's knife, but the impact of the charging woman sent Akasha careening backwards toward Navaria.

Bryna flattened against a bulkhead to avoid the ball of fur that was hurtling towards her and Master Tarkin. Flush against the wall, she gaped at the sight of the Sith as the Whaladon itself seemed to rail against him, snaring his legs in a tangle of warped durasteel.

A rational part of her mind began to cycle through the words of the Jedi Code, knowing that the mere thought of Vega Van-Derveld was enough to bring out the darker emotions in her, let alone the sight of him trying to tear even more of her world apart - but it was no use. Cold fire burned through the Jedi Padawan as she shoved her way past Akasha, shouldered through an unfamiliar Alliance soldier and sprinted at Vega with her lightsaber held high and ready to swing like a club.

“You frakking monster!”

Calm eyes met the fury of Van-Derveld's and the Jedi Master felt the Dark Side attempt to penetrate her own defenses. His hatred for her had not diminished over time, only grow into such rage that it was a mere facet of his emotional state.

Though her sense of danger alerted her to a threat that did not make any sense at all to her. She felt the emotional upheaval of Charlotte twist and focus into rage. Rage directed at her.

But there were other matters to attend to firstly.

With a quick wave of her hand, Akasha was halted in mid-flight after passing by Bryna. "My thanks," she said and placed the Orryxian onto the ground. Sadly, she couldn't deal with Charlotte just yet because her newest ward had lost all sense of control after seeing her Uncle in the flesh.

"Bryna, no!" And with that simple command, the young Belargic was forcefully halted in her tracks by the Jedi Master's will. Charlotte was still recovering so there were only scant moments to get Bryna under control.

Walking right in front of the Padawan, Navaria kept her hold on the girl as she spoke. "By whatever fates brought you here, you did not come to loose yourself in rage and hatred, to loose who you are despite what that man has done to you. You are better then this. Better then him."

She would not allow someone else falling close to the Dark Side because of him. Never again.

Prey was in her sights, locked on, targeted...

And then something was upon her. It was unacceptable. There were no thoughts behind each savage slash of the blade that was made, even as she and the new black-furred quarry were hurled by the force of their impact.

She became vaguely aware of someone else shoving past her, of the fact that Tarkin was still present, but this new challenge stood before her and would not be denied.

Charlotte's recovery to her feet was quick, as if she was experiencing not even the slightest ache from their heavy impact. She eyed the Orryxian with an intense, maddened stare as she flipped the knife end over end, catching it by the hilt before lunging again as if unconcerned for her own safety, purely driven by the need to rip open flesh at whatever cost.

Akasha leapt to her feet as the flaxen-haired woman rebounded and shifted her death-grip on her combat knife. With the sabers still hissing and crackling mere meters behind her back, she felt as though she were trapped between a vornskr and a boma's nest. But her Echani fighting staff would be as useful against sabers as a an umbrella against the fires of Mustafar. She had to trust the Jedi knights at her back to protect her from the greater menace while she dealt with the stab-happy psycho lady.

First principle of combat: your strength against her weakness. All Charlotte needed to do was close, and the reach of Akasha's staff would go from an asset to a liability. The Orryxian turned her staff toward her enemy and wielded it like a spear, careful to keep the end in motion so it could not be easily grabbed, and the moment Charlotte came within range, Akasha stabbed at her solar plexus and then levered the staff sharply into her chin.

The moment they exited the maintenance crawlspace, Akasha had tumbled immediately into the fray and as much as deeper animal instinct begged him to join the fight, the sensible protector, the Jedi Healer, knew the better and slipped away from the fracas to tend to the evacuation of the more defenseless younglings from the nearby vicinity of their living quarters – a commune of doors about a central, larger open room. His presence in the fight at this time would only leave the situation crowded.

His first instinct was to garner the help of his own padawan, Kala’ndryl Ryj and implore her to aid him in keeping the remainder of the padawans and other force-enabled youth calm and silent as they quickly began to evacuate them out a different maintenance crawlspace, more central to the living commune. Kala took the point in leading them out, with the end purpose of coming out the other end on the far end of the Whaladon’s hangar bay, much closer to the medbay and much further away from the harm of the intruder.

Most of the small number of learners tailed Kala off into the crawlspace with haste and without much of a hitch, save for one who was not at ease with such enclosed spaces. After much assurance, he convinced her that he would be right behind her, that nothing would happen, that as a healer and a warrior he would keep her unharmed and safe, covering their escape with a masterful veil as he kept watch to ensure no-one was going to interrupt the effort to whisk them away to some form of relative safety. His hand went with caution to the saber hit dangling from his hip as he listened to every little directionality, yell, clang, and bash of the clash and watched intently for any movement that might head in his direction.

Blood-red blade alive with a snarl, the Sith hacked at the warped durasteel as if it were little more than a tangle of weeds. As his blade burned through the grating, it bit into the calf of his left leg, releasing the smell of burnt synth-flesh and circuitry into the air. There wasn't time enough to cut himself free, not before the old Jedi reached him. He rose as much as he could out of the durasteel, the screech and groan of the metal seeming to come from behind his clenched, rotten teeth. Then, with a downward sweep of both hands, Vega lanched himself into the air – crashing with hunched shoulders into and through the ceiling panelling of the corridor and into the crawlspace above. There was a clatter as the Sith scrambled through some unseen space on all four, hands and feet scrabbling like some over-sized arachnid.

As she watched Vega vanish - listening to the sound of him scratching through the Whaladon's innards like some hideous parasite - Bryna thrashed against the invisible hands that held her in place. Soon, however, it was Navaria herself who held her. Stood right in front of her, forcing Bryna to meet her masters gaze. Even still, she pressed forward, her eyes wide and full of fear.

“He's getting away!”

It had been a matter of being in the right hangar at the right time as the klaxons had reached the Challenger's bridge and sent the entire fleet into a state of alarm. Volunteering without a second thought, she'd taken to the controls of the shuttle and pushed the small craft as quickly as it would go.

One group had already been transferred over to the safety of the Challenger, and Carré had come back for another. And tried not to think too hard about the panicked descriptions about what was happening aboard the Whaladon. Clad in typical off-duty olive drab cargo pants and a tank-top, her black boots made a rhythmic sound as she paced by the end of the ramp. Her DC-15s was still in its holster over her right hip, waiting.

It was all she could do to not go racing down the unfamiliar halls of the ship trying to find Chrys' two daughters - the woman had been in a state of sheer panic at being unable to get word of them from anyone. Both were Force-sensitive, and both had come aboard the Whaladon only that morning to be introduced to the Jedi and the other younglings.

Up ahead a flash of silver and blonde caught her eye in the spaces of a ventilation grate. Kala soon stuck her head out and looked infinitely relieved to find her there waiting. Younglings soon piled out of the now-open vent, Emma and Brianne among them. "This way! All of you, quickly!" Carré said, catching Brianne up in her arms as she rushed forward to help.

The hit to her chin with the staff knocked her back onto the ground and stunned the small blond woman for a moment. A hand came up to her mouth, wiping away the blood that flowed from where she must have bit herself when the blow struck.

She looked from her bloody fingertips to Akasha, keeping the Orryxian in focus as she smeared the blood across her face, a maniacal grin plastered under the crimson streaks.

The girl didn't bother rising to her feet for the next move, it was driven by pure instinct and she screamed again as her hand shot out, fingers twisting into a cruel grip on the air... as the motion was echoed in a sudden tightening around Akasha's throat.

Charlotte's gaze intensified as she rose to her feet, again the movement echoing as Akasha found her own feet leaving the floor, her airway still clamped shut as the Dark Side rippled through the Corellian.

Vega made no attempt at stealth and Zem made no attempt to draw him out. He followed with a determined pace, lightsaber held low before him as everyone in the corridor gave him a wide berth.

"Running? And where to, you mongrel? There's no sanctuary to be found. You'll face me, and I will put you down."

He could feel the influence of his pupil on the deformed Lupine, and his jawline set as he walked along with the clatter above.

"I'll send your severed head back to her. I'll give you the courtesy of not having to explain your failure personally."

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Bryna Belargic

As she watched Vega vanish - listening to the sound of him scratching through the Whaladon's innards like some hideous parasite - Bryna thrashed against the invisible hands that held her in place. Soon, however, it was Navaria herself who held her. Stood right in front of her, forcing Bryna to meet her masters gaze. Even still, she pressed forward, her eyes wide and full of fear.

“He's getting away!”

---

"No. Vega is no longer our fight. There is a time and place for everything Bryna and right now our place is here." Navaria forcefully turned the girl towards Charlotte. "Akasha needs our help."

Vega may have been controlling her but Force powers do not miraculous appear. The girl had untapped potential that was now being used against the Jedi. It begged questions that no answers could be found at present. Right now it was imperative to get the Padawan out of danger.

The consuming darkness within her made Charlotte vulnerable, accessible and quite easy to get close to for a hand to grab her shoulder. Instantly a surge of power came from the Jedi Master in efforts to knock the Agent unconscious. She did not want to harm the woman if at all possible because this was not her doing, but Navaria would if it came to that.

The Sith tore through the space between one floor and the next. Though the space there was narrow, crowded by pipes and cables, Vega seethed through it. On all fours, his fingertips and the Force tearing at anything in his path. He slammed one palm forwards and the thick pipe running perpendicular across his path buckled, the old metal splitting like over-ripe fruit and spitting out pressurised steam.

With a hiss, the Lupine flinched away from the scalding heat and punched upwards, furious blows denting the metal plating above him until his fist exploded into the hallway above. As the steam burned against his shoulders, the Sith made a wild grasp upwards and his fingertips locked onto the ankle of someone passing by.

Their momentum halted, they fell face-first into the floor. They squirmed, trying to kick away whatever had snared them, but as they squirmed onto their back – blood pouring out from their broken nose, over ther lips – they saw the Sith rising out of the floor like some demon rising from the pits of hell.

Vega bared his teeth and climbed up and over the fallen crewman. Able to rise to his feet once more, he bent over the bloodied crewman and seized him by the shirt, hauling him backwards with a single swing towards the hole in the floor. Teeth set, he kicked at the man's stunned body and shoved him down into the crawlspace beneath the hallway.

The steam assaulted his flesh with a pain he had never before imagined possible and Vega revelled in the agony that rolled off the crewman in waves. It restored him, gave him strength. As if shaping clay, he gathered up the warped metal around the writhing crewman's chest and bent it in towards him, sealing him in place. The pain would overwhelm him soon, force him into unconsciousness, but for now his ululating screams chased the Sith as he loped off down the corridor.

Zem paused, listening in the distance for the Lupine's unsubtle movements. Moving to the next deck. His pace quickened, and the Jedi Knight pushed a crew member out of the way as he reached the lift. To the next level then.

Reaching the apex, Zem burst into a sprint, tearing up the distance between him and his quarry. A mauled crewman lay in the threshold between him and Vega. He went ignored. If he was to be rescued, it would come later. Instead...

...Zem called out with the force, snapping a blast door shut in the face of the Lupine.

"Vega Van Derveld!"

SNAP-HISS

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Charlotte Tur'enne

Charlotte's gaze intensified as she rose to her feet, again the movement echoing as Akasha found her own feet leaving the floor, her airway still clamped shut as the Dark Side rippled through the Corellian.

---

It wasn't the first time Akasha had felt the Dark Side's grip, but that didn't make it any more pleasant. Her eyes bulged and her blood pounded in her ears as she resisted the urge to reach up to her throat and pry away clutching fingers that weren't there. Her staff dropped from her paws and clattered to the floor, but she wasn't out of the fight yet.

With her wicked claws outstretched like butcher's hooks, Akasha swiped at Charlotte with all the bile she could muster. She was woefully short of connecting, of course, but four parallel lacerations split across Charlotte's cheek and began weeping blood. The Orryxian swung again, and now a gash opened up across Charlotte's shirt.

Too shallow! Her focus was waning, and fuzzy darkness was closing in at the corners of her vision. She was going to need to do something drastic, something a Padawan shouldn't know how to do, something that might risk her cover aboard the Wheel once and for all--

And then, gloriously, Navaria intervened.

The path before him blocked, the Sith turned on Zem Vymes with teeth bared. A way down the hall, the alliance crewman's screams had thinned into the high-pitched keening of a dying animal. His anguish fed the Lupine and he consumed it as readily as raw meat.

Vega's red blade snarled to life in his hand and he sprung forward, hurling himself at the old Jedi with fury in his eyes.

"What did she promise you, you cursed hodgepodge of a man?"

Their lightsabers clashed in the confines of the corridor. The deference of Zem's Soresu brought their animosity searingly close as each vied for supremacy.

"Eternal life is always a good one. Were you that gullible?"

Sabers clashed together into a bulkhead, showering each combatant in sparks.