Years From Now...

[Bryna Belargic]

<center>'In the years following the cataclysmic Battle of Endor, we did not foresee the coming of something that would surpass the destruction wrought by the Death Star... but we were wrong. In these dark times, it did not seem that the leaders of the Galaxy sought peace – rather, only desired a short reprieve between one war and the next. Always there were, in creation, new and more maddening devices of destruction.'

~ excerpt from the Journal of the Whills, 6:7145

***

</center> Rain lashed the shores of Orotoru G'am. Though the ocean-world of Dac – or Mon Calamari as it was more commonly known – was no stranger to storms, this particular torrent was putting all others to shame. It was Endor Day, the day that memorialized in the minds of the masses the losses sustained by both the Rebel Alliance and the Galactic Empire at the Battle of Endor. Twenty-two years later and the tides of war had still not subsided, only stilled a while in truce.

To honor the memory of those who had been lost, on both sides, the Calamarian Council and chiefs of the Galactic Alliance had commissioned a number of additions to the Hall of Heroes, favoring these somber plaques over audacious parading and galas. Although the Alliance had made substantial gains on the Empire, establishing footholds throughout the Galaxy and winning the support of billions now free from Imperial disenchantment, it was far too early for celebration. The battle might have been over, but the war certainly was not.

A week prior to the unveiling of the new additions – which included a number of busts, elegy's and holographic tributes – a sleek yacht had arrived from the Alliance hub-world of Denon. Numbered amongst the ships passengers were men and women who had served with diligence and passion in the Galactic Civil War; veterans of the infamous Rogue Squadron, graying Generals of the Alliance military and the former Director of Rebel Intelligence:

“Chancellor Belargic...”

There was a knock at the door, soft beneath the continuous patter of rain. Dasquian glanced up from the datapad he had been engrossed in. The door swung open and he narrowed his eyes against the light that spilled in from the hallway. A severe, sallow-faced man stood in the corridor. He had a look about him that made Dasquian's stomach tighten, the now all-too-familiar look that suggested bad news was on the horizon.

“Apologies for the late intrusion, Chancellor. You have a guest.”

Belargic felt some of the weight easing from his shoulders and allowed himself a small smile as a young woman pushed by the pale-faced messenger. Her arms were folded over her chest, an incredulous smirk on her face, one eyebrow arched. “I have to request an audience with you now?”

The Chancellor's smile grew. “Hello, Bryna.”

The white-faced aide excused himself, leaving father and daughter alone. Closing the door behind her, Bryna ambled over to where her father was sitting and peeked curiously at what was on his desk. He seemed to be spending all of his time in front of that desk.

“What are you up to, sitting here alone in the dark?” she asked, laying a hand on his shoulder.

“I'm working on my speech,” Dasquian sighed.

“Still?” She shook her head. “It's just a speech. It doesn't need to be perfect.”

“I know... but I've got nothing else to do. We can't go outside in this weather without catching flu.”

Bryna frowned, looking to the window pane. The storm wasn't showing any signs of letting up.

Silence held for a moment.

“When's mum getting here?” the girl asked.

“Sometime today, hopefully. They're having some trouble with communications because of the weather, so we haven't been able to get into contact with her shuttle – but she should be here soon.”

Bryna perched on the edge of her fathers desk. The Alliance envoy had been delayed already, on numerous occasions. Every day, for the past week, Dasquian had assured her that her mother would be here soon. After all, she had come from Vortex especially to see them both and found her mother virtually missing in action and her father, albeit present physically, mentally a million miles away. It was not the family reunion she had envisaged, but that in itself was not unexpected. It was a difficult time for them both, and for everyone really. In the quiet, Bryna sighed and looked out into the cloud-filled skies. Barely visible in the distance, a small ship passed into the atmosphere.

[Director Belargic]

The Calamari shuttle passed through the atmosphere unhindered by any check points or communication inquiries. The pilots had already transmitted the clearance code allowing them ease of passage, for the Director of Alliance Intelligence was expected.

Grace's stone face stared out the rain beaten window into the raging storm outside. The winds were powerful, lashing up the oceans high and causing them to crash into the rocky shores. Skies were filled with dark angry clouds with no sign of the storm letting up.

It fit her mood perfectly. What was to be a joyous occasion, a reunion with her daughter and husband, had become a nightmare while in transit.

Damnable Imps! You never learn ...

***

"Madame Director, are you sure you don't want us to inform the Chancellor of your arrival?" Dasquian's aide was too detailed about appointments and proper etiquette. "It's rather ... unprecedented."

"I'm his wife. Not to mention an Alliance Spy. I could have simply snuck in and you'd be none the wiser," she said with a gruff voice that most of her subordinates were all used to. "I only informed your staff to be polite."

They turned down the hallway leading to the Chancellor's private office and Grace shooed the man away. "I can take care of the rest. You can leave now."

He nodded, begrudgingly, and did as he was told. In truth, Grace didn't want the man here to watch her be nervous. It had been over six months since she had seen her daughter, but the regiment of Jedi training often caused such long distance of time between them.

There was also the other matter that caused Grace to feel out of sorts. All too often she was the barer of bad news, but what had happened on Coruscant was diabolical and hadn't hit the holonet yet. The Imperials were keeping it under wraps for as long as they could ...

She abated the nervousness with a quick tug of her uniform jacket and entered the Chancellor's chamber without any announcement; eyes instantly melting at the sign of her daughter.

[Bryna Belargic]

Thinking that the opening door would be another unwelcome interference from one of her fathers many aides, Bryna was about to protest when she turned and saw who was standing in the threshold, dripping wet yet somehow still aglow. Springing up from her perch, and scattering some papers in the process, Bryna threw herself into her mothers arms. “What took you so long?! Where have you been?!”

[Director Belargic]

Holding Bryna in her arms after so many months away from home brought great pleasure to Grace. She hadn't truly smiled in so long, but having her family reunited gave her some peace, even if it were for a short time.

"Bryna ..." she said softly, petting her daughter's hair and ignoring her questions for now. "I've missed you dearly too."

Over the young Jedi's shoulder, Grace betrayed a smirk as her husband was left to watch his organized paperwork fluttered to the ground in a mess.

[Chancellor Belargic]

“Hello, stranger. We were beginning to think you wouldn't come.”

Dasquian returned Grace's smirk with one of his own, apparently calm in spite of the destruction of his meticulously stacked pile of papers.

“Thank the Force it didn't come to sending Bryna out to look for you,” he added, tongue firmly in cheek.

[Bryna Belargic]

Still clinging cheerfully to her mother, Bryna rolled her eyes.

“Says you... I doubt you could find your way out of a paper bag, you've been stuck in here so long.”

She matched her fathers expression with a defiant smile of her own, before turning back to Grace. She led the somewhat sodden Director over to a long sofa behind Dasquian's desk. She kept tight a hold of her mothers hands as they sat down opposite one another, as if she expected Grace to vanish if she wasn't held down.

“I'm so glad you're here at last. I've got so much to tell you! How are you? Was the trip okay?”

[Director Belargic]

The Director's mood quickly turned sour. She squeezed Bryna's hands as reassurance that she weren't going anywhere, but her gaze was focused on her husband. He knew that look all too well. The steely gaze of hard truth that Grace could easily tell of that would usually choke up the former Director. It was why he was the Politician now. His heart was far bigger then hers could ever be.

"The reason for my delay ... There was news from Coruscant. Several of my spies transmitted information to me that forced me to act." As she continued with the news, Grace's eyes turned cold, filled with hatred and her tone became increasingly harsher. The Imperials were working on some sort of biological agent to use against us. But it backfired. An explosion occurred killing many innocents, but was worse is that the agent spilled into the general populace. The details are sketchy here but citizens became infected and grew very violent and destructive."

Her nostrils flared with contempt. "The bastards gunned them down like animals and are still trying to cover it up. Last I heard it was still not contained and spreading."

She had to let go of Bryna's hands, not wanting to hurt her daughter inadvertently.

[Chancellor Belargic]

Coruscant... they had fought long and hard for it. For all its short-comings, it was the center of civilization and the home of the Republic. Dasquian could not help but feel that the state of the Galaxy as a whole could be judged on the state of Coruscant alone, as though the vast city were a microcosm of the rest of the universe. If that was the case, then they were all in a lot of trouble.

“We knew this was coming,” he sighed.

Though they had no way of predicting where and when, the Alliance knew that the Empire would soon be preparing for another attack. The development of biological weaponry was as sure a sign as they could ever think to have. Just when they had thought the Empire could stoop no lower, the Emperor proved them wrong...

“Has anyone been dispatched to Coruscant?”

[Bryna Belargic]

A frown colored the Jedi Padawan's expression, lips turning sternly down at the corners. One of the Jedi Masters had foreseen some darkness looming on the horizons, but had been unable to place the precise source of the disturbance in the Force. Now, suddenly, that haze of uncertainty had cleared to reveal a startling and horrifying reality.

Bryna shifted restlessly for a second, then snapped upright, on her feet.

“We have to help them... I need to warn Master Tarkin and the rest of the Council.”

[Director Belargic]

Tarkin. That name was still infamous to this day. Wilhuff Tarkin had destroyed Alderaan and his granddaughter, Miranda Tarkin, had become just as insidious and merciless as Palpatine himself. Perhaps even more ... Miranda had become Empress and a very powerful Sith Master.

Bryna's Master, Navaria Tarkin, was Miranda's twin sister and had killed the Empress in quite the epic battle on Korriban, the tombs of the ancient Sith Lords trembled under the wake of the twins struggle.

Grace held no fondness for the Jedi Master. Ever the noble Jedi she was, her heritage was too entwined with the Empire's for her own liking. Still, her daughter was right. The Council needed to be informed of what was happening.

"Yes, you should leave immediately," she said with a touch of sorrow. Grace stood to hug Bryna's shoulders softly. "And as always with the way of things, we must part so quickly."

[Chancellor Belargic]

Watching Bryna's transition from gleeful child to sullen adult was saddening and yet at the same time it affirmed Dasquian's suspicions that his daughter was growing up to be a conscientious and rational minded young woman with far too much of her mothers ways in her character for her own good. Although it was plain to see that the girl was deeply disappointed at missing out on spending time with her mother, Bryna had fully internalized the selfless ethic of the Jedi Order and as such didn't think twice about abandoning the family reunion to rush back to the Jedi Council.

Lifting a communicator from his desk, Dasquian ordered the nearest 'port to prepare a shuttle. This done, he stood up and walked to Bryna, giving her a firm squeeze on the shoulder.

“Make us proud.”

[Bryna Belargic]

In one final show of unrestrained emotion, Bryna embraced her father and mother tightly, in one big hug. Stepping back, her eyes lingered on her mothers face. She exhaled heavily then nodded firmly, to herself. “I'll see you soon... take care, and may the force be with you.”

Not wanting to say 'goodbye', she quickly turned away and hurried out of the room before her heart got the better of her head. Back in her own room, she played a short tug of war with the idea of asking her parents to come with her to the spaceport, to send her on her way... but she knew they had more important things to do now. She didn't resent them one bit it, it had always been that way. Although as a very young girl it had hurt to feel second to someone or something else, as she had matured she had come to realize that everything they did, they did for her good – and for the good of every other living being in the galaxy. With this thought in mind and her traveling bag packed, Bryna hurried out of the presidential residence and towards the spaceport – she had a shuttle to catch.

[Mac Ravenwing]

"Teagan!" Mac shouted, putting on a burst of speed to try to catch up to the blonde who was disappearing into the crowds at the Port of Entry. Damn that girl!

He paused as he lost her completely, running a tanned hand over his close cropped hair. "I am so not in the mood for hide and seek, dammit." Turning around, Mac scanned the people around him, their scents strange to his sensitive nose. Completing a three-sixty, he caught a whiff of a familiar floral scent, and pushed his way between beings towards it.

At nineteen, Mac Ravenwing was tall and well proportioned, and already a pilot of no small repute. He'd taken Teagan along on his last transport run deep into the Core (which neither of their mothers knew anything about, thank the lords) and they had a few days to kill off before he had to make his next trip.

A few days to kill most certainly meant a good time romping around Cloud City, but right now he was exhausted and wanted to find a room to rent. Teagan had said something about having the best place in mind, and had run off. As per usual. Trying to pin her down was like trying to catch the wind.

And he wouldn't have it any other way. Mac trudged along, his boots dragging as he shifted his rucksack to the other shoulder. Palming his commlink, he tried to raise her electronically.

[Morgan Evanar]

It had taken him many, many years, but gradually Morgan was able to listen to the currents of the Galaxy much like his wife and many of the other Jedi. There had been times where he had been roused from a pleasant dream for an emergency and he was one of the few with no solid idea why. Tonight was not one of those nights. Morgan and Rhianna shared a troubled gaze before hastily throwing on something more appropriate than the sheets they were under. Morgan yawned as he pulled on a pair of pants and plain t-shirt. Rhianna slipped into a blue robe. Her wavy red hair cascaded down past her shoulders.


Today their children were sleeping with the rest of the younglings, and it was Rhianna's turn to stay with Morgan, a luxury only experienced for two days a week, if he was there. Morgan rubbed his face as they hurried to the council chambers. More Jedi filed into the room.


“Do we know what has happened yet?” Morgan asked. He hoped one of the more intuitive Jedi would field a solid answer.

[Master Nytherciria]

The assembled Jedi looked to one-another anxiously. It was not a time in which definite answers were easily achieved. The paranoia and unease created by the escalating cold war between the Empire and the Alliance had made divining the future of the Galaxy nigh-impossible. Uncertainty seemed to cloud everything and even the most adept of clairvoyants saw only vague shapes and portents of what might be.

Jedi Master Daria Nytherciria was amongst those largely in the dark.

“The hub,” she said. “It seems to be emanating from the Core Worlds. So... sudden.”

Her brow furrowed, blind eyes seeing more than most knew.

“Coruscant?”

[Navaria Tarkin]

Several Jedi were still making their way to Council Chambers, some included the Council themselves.

"Master Tarkin! Master Tarkin!"

One of the hooded, petite, Jedi turned around slowly to see where the commotion was coming from. The voice she knew, it was Eleric, a young Padawan of thirteen. He was barreling through the corridor as if there were a fire.

He stopped a kilometer away from the Jedi Master and slid to a halt just before bumping into her. "Master Tarkin ..." He said out of breath. "There's ... there's ..."

"Take a moment to collect your thoughts and breathe, Padawan," she said calmly, "And then tell me your message."

Nodding, he bent over to capture his breath and then stood erect. Navaria was certain the boy had run the entire length of the compound. With one last deep breath, he started again. "Master. There is an incoming transmission for you from your Padawan Belargic. She says it's very important."

The Master grew contemplative. She had a feeling that the news Bryna had was intertwined with the dark portents most of the Jedi were feeling.

"Inform the rest of the Council of my whereabouts and I will join them as soon as I finish speaking with my Padawan."

"As you wish Master." He bowed and ran off to the Council Chambers to deliver the message while Navaria headed towards the nearest holonet access.

[Senator Prent]

It was showtime. My small army of attendants worked around me, dabbing makeup here and there, fussing over my hair, meddling with the suit. It had initially taken time, but I'd gotten used to the treatment, and sometimes even perversely enjoyed it.

"Two minutes till air." one of the holocrew people called out to the set.

I sat across from Raz Shandin, the Zeltron political talk show moderator, himself getting the same treatment from his attendees. The makeup kept the lighting from giving you a sweaty, uncomfortable appearance, and brought out your best features. We were both relatively handsome men, but it could all be undone under the holorecorder in the wrong conditions.

I looked to the other side, and held the hand of the person sitting next to me.

"Mrs. s'Ilancy-Prent, we're going to apply some heavy foundation to this scar, and cover it up." one of the attendees noted.

I waved him off. "No way. I don't want it covered up."

I smiled at Lok, my wife of fifteen years. She had credibility with that scar. It was real. She'd been reluctant to appear with me on my political stumping tour, but I had insisted. Did Kosh Brannag have a strong, supporting Jedi wife? No he didn't, and the people would make that distinction. Beyond my platform, and beyond my own vision, we had the potential to be political rockstars, with a cult of personality strong enough to effect real change the likes of which maybe only Chancellor Belargic had.

[Master s'Ilancy-Prent]

The smile she returned was strained, but the Lupine held her discomfort well. Only Sanis would be able to recognise the emotion behind it as somewhat disturbed. But, it wasn't from having being cajoled into accompanying him on his little political tour - which, in itself was still something to get used to. She still had fond memories of their journeys together back aboard Layla. She remembered their arguments, their bickering...

And I can only hope that you'll be more discriminating in who you bed, as well.

They were words she'd spoken long ago, and somehow, he'd managed to do just that. At the memory, she gave his hand a slight squeeze.

But still, there was something wrong, and she couldn't place it. It was so clouded in her mind, and Lok furrowed her brow in concentration, trying to pick apart the dark cobwebs surrounding this feeling. Something had happened, that much she knew, but whatever it was was eluding her.

Turning from Sanis' smiling eyes, she cast a blue/hazel gaze off to the side. Serena would contact her, or one of the other Council members, she knew.

It was only a matter of time.

[Senator Prent]

"Places people!"

The attendees scattered like roaches, leaving me and my wife with a few seconds of time before we were live. I leaned in.

"What's wrong?"

I might not be a Jedi, but being on the lam with somebody for five years and saving half the galaxy with them, then up and marrying them afterwards leads to a kind of amateur telepathy that even a guy like me could ride like a hoverbike.

[Master s'Ilancy-Prent]

Idly watching as assistants scattered to the nine winds, Lok turned to her husband.

The look she gave him was confused, and not a little bit frustrated. "I don't know. I can only feel it, but there is nothing beyond that." A sigh, and she brushed an errant lock of blonde hair from her face. "The Council will contact me, I'm sure."

Her smile returned, and she reached out to lightly pat his cheek. "Of course, I might be wrong, and it very well could simply be your son getting ready to do something stupid again."

[Senator Prent]

"I'd bet on the latter." I spoke out the side of my mouth.

The little heir to my dynasty was turning out to be marginally as much of a troublemaker as I was as a Nar Shadaa street rat. Fortunately the media found little Ledo's antics to be cute and endearing. I could only imagine the future in store for us if he went out on drunken benders with scandalous women. Do as I say, not as I once did.

"Okay we're on in five...four...three..." The stage manager counted the rest of the cadence with hand gestures, and I turned back to face the holorecorder, smiling cordially.

The applause sign lit up, and the live audience gave us a warm greeting. Raz smiled back at them, fiddling with a pen at his desk as he spoke to the crowd.

"Well my next guest does most of the introducing for himself. Former General of the Rebel Alliance, Senator, and now working on a second term, please welcome Sanis Prent."

I gave the crowd a smile as the applause intensified.

"Glad to be here, Raz."

"And who is this lovely lady you've brought with you?"

"Raz, this is my better half - Loklorien."

The applause resumed. The people had a very keen understanding and appreciation for the Knights of the Alliance.

"We're honored to have you on the show, Master s'Ilancy-Prent. Hope it didn't take too many mind tricks to get out of the Temple for an evening?"

[Master s'Ilancy-Prent]

With an amiable smile, Lok gave a shake of her head. "It was no trouble at all."

She still couldn't shake the feeling, but kept any signs from her expression. She knew it wasn't Ledo; her previous words had been more to try and make light of the ill feelings she had. Her and Sanis' son might be on the road to being his father's boy in spades, but he had never done anything to make her feel this way.

If I can feel it, the others can too. The council will be meeting...

[Senator Prent]

Raz smiled at the Master's reply.

"Does this mean that you're staking an endorsement on your husband's re-election bid?"

I'd seen that kind of baited question coming, and I dismissed it with a polite laugh.

"I once walked out of the house with a mismatched tie and my shoes on the wrong feet. She's my insurance policy. Besides, I don't ever know if I'll have her vote. Depends on if I clean the dishes, usually."

The audience laughed a bit at that, and I figured it was enough to deflect that line of questioning.

"The real reason I wanted to bring her here is a multi-partisan effort to improve the Outer Rim Humanitarian Project. I think its something we can all agree on. Even Kosh Brannag and the Phoenix Party have put up large donations in the past, and the Jedi have always made anti-poverty outreach a major focus of their effort.

I grew up on occupied Nar Shadaa, and I have seen first hand the real needs that often go unmet on the Rim. Lack of adequate education, even sometimes basics like food and water. Resources that the Core and Middle Rim take for granted, and I think that on Endor Day, it's a good idea to look at how far we've come, and how much further we've yet to go."

[Master Krogen]

The Enclave was abuzz. Everywhere there were people rushing around as their internal warning systems told them something was wrong. But these were Jedi, not morales politicians. When Jedi ran scared, they hid their fears and bottled it down, allowing the force to comfort them as their anxieties ran high. But there was still a feeling of panic as the Jedi, especially the knights, tried to make their way to the council chambers to see the Jedi Council for answers to the question they were all thinking: What is happening?

But there was an obstacle that kept them all from entering the council chambers, and that was Jedi Master Kyle Krogen. They all stopped dead in their tracks when they saw the Jedi Master in his frayed gray robe, his hands hanging loosely at his sides, and his blue eyes set like stone. Of course, all their gazes were always drown down to the cold metal of the mechanical fingers of his left hand. He had lost all his fingers on that hand while captive by the Imperial Inquisition, and only by a freak chain of events had he been able to escape from that slaughter house before being killed. Yet, it was not just the hand that frightened these Jedi. It was the stories. Kyle had worked closely with the Rebel Alliance through the years up till today, working at first as an undercover operative and then filling the position of war commander in the campaign against the Empire. Stories, some true, some false, had spread. Stories that depicted him as a brutal warrior on the battlefield that butchered Imperials with hesitation and without mercy. There were even stories that he'd attacked Imperial Settlements along the fringes of space, killing everyone, man, woman, and child. All the stories had a grain of truth in them, but they were all exaggerated, as all stories become over time, but that did not stop these Jedi from being afraid of him.

His message was clear: No one was entering the Council Chambers, save the council themselves. Several had already entered and become seated within, but Kyle would remain outside till the rest were gathered, so that he may seal the door behind them. Even as an active member of the Republic military, he was also one of the heads of security for the Enclave. He had the passcodes that would seal the door and allow none to enter.

But not until all the council is assembled.

He had also felt the troubling feelings of terror and pain that seemed to emanate from somewhere coreward. Kyle was, and has always been, more attuned to the balance of light and darkness then the average Jedi, and he could feel the balance tipping toward darkness, again for one of many times it had done so in his lifetime. The feeling sent chills down his spine, but he held himself up, make himself look strong, despite the questionable fears that where running rampant through his body. He had to look strong for the padawans, he always had to look strong. How it would break moral if the padawans, who revered him as some kind of living legend, saw him break down?

No. He had to be strong, again. If not for them, then for himself.

[Master Laran]

In one of the empty seats of the Council circle a hologram flickered to life. Serena Laran adjusted her robes as she sat comfortably in her ship, Serenity. Not the original Serenity, as she'd lost the Old Republic ship fifteen years past while escaping the Inquisition in the deep Core, but a retrofitted light freighter with the same name.

Master Laran was usually seen in pristine white and tan robes, but one would tell through the fuzzy holocam transmission that the robes she was wearing now were a little frayed and dirty. She was in the deep Core again, working with a resistance on Chandila helping to get a small knot of adepts out of Imperial territory.

She heard Daria's words, and nodded. "There have been many rumors about Coruscant here in the Core. Cannabalistic crazy people running amuck in the Taapes district. Some of the rumors have the entire planet killed by a biological weapon of the Alliance."

Serena folded her hands, her long red hair streaked with thick bands of white. "I did not put much faith in these, though I have felt there was some truth in both of them. But I called this meeting of the Council because something happened that made my doubts go away.

"A transport from Coruscant arrived in the capitol city of Chandrila yesterday. A Gran carrying the virus was on board. I have seen its affects first hand, and there can be no doubt that the galaxy faces a dire threat." She closed her eyes for a moment. "Padawan Belargic will be arriving shortly with much the same news, I feel."

[Teagan Staedtler]

So very much unlike her mother had been at this age, Teagan struck out into the populace of Cloud City with wild abandon; Mac would catch up, she knew that much. He had as good a nose as she did, and the two had never had any trouble finding one another in crowded places. Crystal blue eyes tracked to either side, taking in the mass of people around her, and her nose and ears picked apart smell and sound.

Hefting her pack up on her shoulder just a bit more, the Lupine barreled through a clump of Rodians. At twenty-six, she enjoyed what traveling she could get. With a mother on the Jedi Council and a step-father who was a politician, there were times when things got particularly drab. And the bad part about it? It never used to be like that. Back in the day, she and her mother traveled with Sanis, going from planet to planet and system to system. There was always something happening, and never any need to dress up for holocams.

Which was why she stuck as close to Mac Ravenwing as she could; well, that wasn't the only reason. Teagan smirked. Yeah he was almost seven years younger, but Sanis was only half her mother's age, and that didn't stop the two from marrying. What was seven years compared to twenty?

Turning to look behind her, she caught his scent on a breeze. It was full and robust, with a hint of something more primal. So unlike that of Ledo's. But then again, her little brother was Losstarot, and Mac was Loveloxx.

[Rev Solomon]

Master Solomon met Serena's eyes - or at least, their holographic likeness. His dark brow was creased with concern.

"The groaning of the Force is too great for this to be an isolated case. If this is the disturbance we've been sensing, we might have a pandemic on our hands."

In many ways, he felt out-of-place on the council - in his mind, he'd never stopped being that country preacher on the Dantooine frontier circuit. His skills in the Force were broader than many of his colleagues', the result of formal training under a Jedi Warrior before the Purge combined with practical experience as a negotiator, spiritual leader, and healer. But each of his fellow councilors outstripped him in their own areas of specialty - Loklorien's combat skills, Daria's sensitivity, Serena's healing and empathic abilities.

But Solomon's versatility had left him equipped as a natural mediator. Once called upon as a holy man to settle arguments between landowners and nerf-herders, he now found himself thrust into disputes among politicians, religious leaders, military officials, even occasionally his fellow Jedi. His calm and gentle demeanor always seemed to have a cooling effect on heated debates, and his devotion to the Faith as well as the order led him to consider angles others sometimes overlooked.

But when a crisis of this magnitude came along, he couldn't help but feel overwhelmed and inadequate. O Lord, forgive! How can Israel withstand your judgment? He is so small!

"It seems to me there's little we can do until we have more information - if it is a virus, how is it transmitted? Can we contain it, or is Chandrilla already infected? We need to find a way to get a sample of this contagion to Alliance medical."

[Senator Prent]

The Zeltron host nodded in understanding at my call to support the ORHP.

"Humanitarian relief has been a major talking point all through your freshman term in the Senate. You co-sponsored two bills with the Chandrilan Bloc to forgive war spending debts, and made some enemies with the Mon Calamari and the Phoenix Party. With the latest war spending bill about to hit the senate floor, how does that change things?"

I took a sip of water on the desk and thought about the question for a second.

"We've been living too long in a siege mentality, and there are a lot of people very concerned about losing what we've worked hard to establish. I just want to be a voice of reason before we approve any more missile starships for the navy. We've gone how many years without a major shooting incident? We're as close to peace in the galaxy as we've been in a lifetime, and I think it's time that we started giving more of our attention to matters away from war."

Raz had more for me, I was sure. The Zeltron's hue changed a bit and he continued.

"You yourself led no fewer than twelve missions against the Empire, and your war credentials are certainly spoken for. What makes a war hero like yourself think about turning the other cheek?"

It was a pretty fair question, and I squeezed Lok's hand for comfort.

"True, I did my share of fighting. A lot of us did. I don't like to hang my coat on any war hero label, because I was a guy in a ship who was trying to do the right thing and survive. Now I'm a guy in a suit doing the same thing. We can win this thing a lot of ways, and not all of them involve guns. That's a luxury we just didn't have when I was a young man."

Raz and the audience seemed very at ease with my comments, and I was happy with how the interview was going.

"We'll have more from Senator Prent and Master s'Ilancy-Prent after these short messages, don't go away."

And the cam was cut. I took another drink of water, smiled to Raz, and looked back to s'Il, giving her a quick kiss.

"You're wonderful. They love you."

[Lord Inquisitor Valten]

“DAMN IT…” Lines of Imperial soldiers swarmed through the thick quagmire of what was once a pristine district of the capitol. Thousands of stormtroopers and army regulars set up heavy street blockades and manned heavy weapon emplacements. In the air gunships and military speeders patrolled the passages out. And beyond…the city burned. Screaming and shouts of rage echoed for kilometers.
<o></o>
“…Gamma platoon, get your fraking selves over to the Sector 10 blockade.” Everyone cowered before the angry woman shouting orders left and right. If not for the fact that she stood over two meters tall in heavy power armor, than for whom she represented.
<o></o>
Marshall-Inquisitor Naomi Scothis was not pleased. This had been a simple event. But of course the softies couldn’t even follow their fraking orders and now the whole planet was going to hell.
<o></o>
There wasn’t supposed to be direct involvement, just see what the damn things could do, unfortunately most of the army was made of idiots. A good half dozen bodies of Imperial officers littered the ground, hacked to pieces.
<o></o>
The dark-haired woman leaned against a massive halberd still slick with blood. A retinue of black-clad retainers followed her close behind. Their armor crafted in the image of hellspawned demons of ancient lore.
<o></o>
“By order of the Crusade Doctrine, I am taking command here.” She glanced down at once of her lieutenants, a warlock of the Imperial Mages. “I want you to take over the defense here.”
<o></o>
Heavy booted steps resonated on the ferrocrete as she began moving away. In the distant a high pitched sound grew ever louder. The fearful eyes of Imperial soldiers cast upwards as countless dozens of dots swam into focus through the have.
<o></o>
Inquisitorial gunships carry the dread death-troopers of the Imperium.
<o></o>
The female Inquisitor hefted her gargantuan polearm in set the autofeeder into action on her wrist-mounted blaster.
<o></o>
“Bren’lar, dear, if you’re not here in ten minutes, I’m going to burn these creatures by myself.”

[Clea Darkrunner]

She had come here to claim her inheritance from the recording company.

Her mother had been shot here two weeks prior by what had been officially been called a distraught fan. She had, as usual, left Sharra with her governess on the quiet planet of Dantooine, one of the backwaters of the galaxy. "It's for your safety, dear," she had said as usual.

Safety? Hadn't Clea taught Sharra to handle herself? She could get her target 49 times out of 50 on the range, and she was VERY good at the Force skills her mother had been nagged into teaching her.

The raging mob had shown Clea's daughter that there was a difference between a range and reality, and her common sense told her that it wasn't wise to display her Talents on an Imperial world.

Now she cowered in her hotel room, shaking and terrified. Madam Stuyverstant had been torn to pieces by the flash-fired mob as they exited the aircar, and only the best efforts of hotel security had been able to hold back the - lunatics - long enough for Sharra Darkrunner to get inside.

The room comm only repeated warnings for guests to stay in their rooms with the doors locked. Sharra definitely didn't want to leave. But the door had been locked for two days, and she was getting hungry. There was no room service...... maybe there was some way to sneak down to the kitchen?

[Bryna Belargic]

Once Navaria had arrived at a holo-emitter and keyed in her personal identification code, an image of her Padawan flickered to life. Bryna was sitting in the cockpit of a ship, looking more than a little flustered.

“Master Tarkin.”

She bowed her head, her words somewhat breathless.

“I have an important message from Alliance Intelligence. The Director has received word that a virus of some kind has broken out on Coruscant and is spreading at an alarming rate, driving the population into frenzy... the Imperials are just killing anyone they suspect to be infected!”

[Executor Van-Derveld]

The video-screen crackled with static. The feed blinked, then refocused onto another image. A cycle began, glimpses into many areas of Imperial City. Though at first the images remained on screen for some time, soon they began to change at a quicker speed, until each snapshot of chaos was displayed for only a second, not even a ghost image left behind. Lit only by the glow of the screen, pale lips smiled.

beepbeep...beepbeep...

A frown. Attention drawn away from the spectacle, one gloved hand approved the incoming transmission: “Governor Zh'far on channel 1.”

The line hung, alive, sounds of the video-feed filtering through to the other end as staccato fragments of yelps and grunts. Moments passed and at last the connection to the Governor of Coruscant was confirmed.

“Van-Derveld! What is the-” Zh'far's voice barked.

“Governor Zh'far...”

The metallic voice of Executor Vega Van-Derveld cut through the Governor's words like a butchers blade.

“I would appreciate it if you would make this conversation as brief as possible. I am very busy.”

Silently, the Governor fumed. The artificial monotone in which the Executor spoke was so calm and free of nuance's, so at odds with Zh'far's own manic state of mind, that he wished he could reach through the communication line and strangle the leathery old bastard. This fantasy was dismissed as quickly as it had come to mind, as the Governor was gripped by the sudden irrational paranoia that the Executor might somehow sense his murderous thoughts.

“Very busy? Yes, we have all noticed how very busy you are – sabotaging our laboratories!”

“Your laboratories?” Van-Derveld arched one leathery brow, his skin straining against the body suit that encased it, held it together. Though he now had blood of Lupine heritage in him, it did not course through his veins. In fact, it did not so much as trickle through them without artificial aide – his own heart having long since given up its steady rhythm. His body had become a mass of technology, designed by engineers from every corner of the known Galaxy. Many designers had made their names on being able to say that they provided part of the mechanism that kept the Executor alive. He was an exercise in bio-engineering taken to its limits.

“Those laboratories are mine,” the Executor continued, with finality. “The Morbus Project is mine.”

“Do not be unreasonable, Lord Van-Derveld. What you have done is-”

“What I have done,” Vega repeated. Though the voice-box through which Van-Derveld spoke provided no emotional inclination to his words, his face had become twisted in indignation. His interest in the galactic stalemate exhausted, Vega had taken matters into his own hands.

“What I have done... is what you lacked the conviction and courage to do yourself, Governor Zh'far. Coruscant is only the beginning.”

[Master Henning]

On the set of Raz Shandin talk-show, something began to beep.

The sound was coming from the folds of Jedi Master s'Ilancy-Prent's robes, where a small communication device was flashing red. The gadget was one carried solely by Jedi and whilst to the untrained eye it would have appeared that the communicator was unremarkable, the very fact that it was beeping meant that whoever was trying to contact Lok had a very important message.

[Master s'Ilancy-Prent]

Thank the Bloodline...

Whether it was that she had been called during a commercial break, or simply called period was anyone's guess; either way she was thankful for it. An apologetic nod was given to Shandin, and a pat to Sanis' hand as she stood.

"If you would excuse me," she said quietly.

Backstage, the Lupine moved to as secluded an area as she could find, pulling the comm from her robes.

"Yes?"

[Master Henning]

“Lok! Thank the Force,” the voice on the other end of the line sighed.

Unable to establish a connection with the main Enclave on Vortex, Jedi Master Barton Henning had resorted to activating an open frequency that would register with any other Jedi communicators in range. Barton's voice trembled, due to technical difficulty rather than his own anxiety.

“Something terrible has happened on Coruscant. There's been... an outbreak of some kind, a contagion that's driving the population into some kind of aggressive frenzy. The Imperium are out in full force, slaughtering anyone who stands in their way. I tried to help, when I thought it was an isolated case, but...”

The sound of the transmission was suddenly jagged.

“... been bitten... managed to get to safe-house... Eastport...”

Abruptly, the connection severed.

[Master s'Ilancy-Prent]

She'd had no time to respond, only listen to the voice on the other end. Barton...

His words were jumbled, and she did her best to piece it all together. This is what I felt, she thought with dreaded finality. That dark cloud in the back of her mind, the angry, underlying tremors through the Force... the muscles of her jaw tightened visibly as the haze partially lifted. Barton's words painted a terrifying picture, and for a few moments after his connection had so suddenly stopped, the Lupine stood rooted.

She was as a statue, staring straight ahead, reaching out with her thoughts as far as she could. Pulling in a deep breath, Lok allowed her eyes to glaze over.

There.

She could see it; see the Force. See it shaking, rippling, and swirling like a volcano ready to burst forth. Its' color throbbed with pent up anguish, and she let out a hiss between her teeth.

An intern passed by, and she reached out with a quick hand. "You."

The poor boy dropped the caf he'd been delivering, thoroughly startled.

"I need a private conference room. Take me to one; now."

[Rhianna Evanar]

Rhianna made her way to her seat. She sank to the cushion, tucking her feet up cross-legged beneath the folds of her robe. From the moment she had awoken, she had known that the coming events would not be pleasant. She hadn't felt a shadow hang as heavy in the air in many years. The space around her was charged with brittle warning.

She listened to the other voices of the Council. Silently she agreed with Master Nytherciria, nodding slowly. She too felt the pull to the Core. Fear.. Pain.. Anger.. Darkness.. She did not know the catalyst, but she could feel the effects. It was not open war, it was chaos.

Rhianna's empathic abilities generally centered around innocents. It was how she had become the instructor of many younglings. She had a way with children, particularly. Now she felt the call of lost children, terror stricken and in pain. She felt her resolve harden to steel.

The appearance of Master Laran and her grim tidings did little to relieve Rhianna's worry. Her eyes glanced over to Morgan, but then flicked to the Council Room doors, Master Tarkin was coming..

[Master Laran]

Serena's holographic eyes met Solomon's, and she smiled. Old friend, be strong. "It appears to be transmitted through the saliva of the infected. The humans who have been in contact with ... the things... that came off of the transport have disturbing cannabalistic tendencies. I am not completely certain at this point, however, as I have been limiting my contact with those carrying the disease.

"I have not much more time with you, my friends, as I must tend for the ones I came here to bring out. But I will study this virus and see what can be done to stop it. I am trapped inside Hanna City - the entire capitol has been cordoned off and no one is allowed to leave until they have cleansed out the infected.

"There is panic in the streets, though the virus is not widespread as of yet. Anyone trying to leave via ship has been destroyed by the ISD in orbit above the city." Serena did not allow any of the other Council members a word in edgewise, as she saw that her ships power was fluctuating and she did not know when the connection might disappear. "Do not worry about me, I trust you will all make the decisions that must be made in the coming hours."

Her hologram brushed a few loose strands of hair from her face. "I plan to wait out this infection on my ship, with the young adepts I came here for in the first place." She didn't mention that since the first case of the virus had arrived on a transport, the spaceport was ground zero. Even if the infected wandering the 'port ignored the freighter (they were running on as low power as possible) once the Imperials moved in to cleanse the area the Jedi ran a very high risk of being discovered.

She and her young charges.

The sixty-five year old woman folded her hands in her lap again, adding, "I realize this is a great deal of information my friends." The hologram flickered, but remained in place as silence descended on the Council Chambers. Serena waited to see who would speak next. She would keep the connection open as long as she could.

[Master s'Ilancy-Prent]

In the quiet after Serena's words, the empty seat beside the aging Jedi's flickered to life. Lok's form, that familiar translucent blue, blinked into existance.

Master s'Ilancy-Prent said nothing as she got her bearings, looking to see who was present and who was yet to arrive. It'd been easy to procur a recorder from one of the aides, and sequestered in a back conference room at the studio, she'd given the order for no one to disturb her.

Folding her hands into her lap, she bit her lower lip - Barton's voice still ringing in her ears.

The Lupine lifted her eyes then, as the doors to the Council Chambers opened.

[Navaria Tarkin]

Something dark was coming, something big, but it remained elusive by even the most skilled Jedi seer. Rhianna and her dearest Daria could barely scrape the edges of the continuously threading future to gain any insight to where this new threat was coming from.

Now it was here and Navaria felt the unmistakable warning within the Force that the rest of the Council could sense too.

"Say no more." She spoke with strength to help calm her somewhat frazzled Apprentice. Bryna was a very confident and outspoken young Jedi, but much like her father, sometimes her emotions directed her behavior. "I'm going to redirect this transmission to the Council Chambers so you can speak of what you learned to all of us."

A few clicks of the touch screen and the Jedi Master made her way towards the Council Chambers. Master Krogen was diligently guarding the entrance and abating questions, but they were soon directed towards her when the Jedi Knights assembled spotted her.

"Master Tarkin! What's going on?"

"... Has the Council ..."

"... a great disturbance in the Force ..."

"What are we going to do?"

Navaria was halfway through them when she stopped suddenly. "Jedi, please." Her voice was sharp and stern, but lacked the scolding of a school teacher. Instead it projected attention and calm that began to hush their fears. Slowly her head turned around as the hood to her robes fell. "The Council has felt the same disturbance and are discussing its meaning currently. Until then, you all must be patient and trust in the will of the Force. Understood?"

Murmurs of agreement spread amongst them. "Good. Now if you'll excuse me. The Council has waited for me long enough."

She nodded to Master Krogen as he opened the door and stepped inside. Not surprising, the eyes of the Council were upon her.

"Apologies for being late," she said as the doors closed behind her. "But I had good reason."

The Jedi Master stepped up and cued up the holoimage of her Padawan, and Bryna's face shimmered into life. "Tell them what you have learned Bryna. Everything."

[Lord Inquisitor Valten]

If there was anything that Lord Inquisitor detested more than the mongrel <st1:city w:st="on"><st1>Alliance</st1></st1:city> and their Jedi pets, it was a breach in protocol, written or unwritten. And now anger bristled under Valten’s skin as the planet below heaved. He knew exactly where to find the man he was looking for, he knew everything.
<o></o>
“Vega!” The distorted voice rang off of metallic walls like a writing serpent. The years had not been kind to the Lord Inquisitor, metal plating and skin merged and separated in wild patterns and wires laced in and out of his body. His two black eyes, optical implants replacing his old eyes, did their best to show its owner’s rage.
<o></o>
Valten’s mottled skin made impossible to tell if he was a droid with synthetic skin or a human with cybernetic implants. Despite the redundant organs and neural implant carefully keeping him alive, the Lord Inquisitor was far from helpless.
<o></o>
CRASH
<o></o>
The heavy doors to the Executor’s alcove nearly flew off their hinges, the lock shattered beyond repair. Enhanced strength, senses, sight, an additional pair of mechanical limbs grafted to the Inquisitor’s back; Valten did not resemble the man he once was.
<o></o>
“You fool, this was too early! The virus is already spreading into the undercity.”

[Adia Issoris]

Adia was starting to wear. She had been on assignment on Coruscant for the Republic, but then the outbreak happened. She had been fortunate to be in a hotel room when it got to her district, and thus, able to don her battle armor and equipment that she had smuggled in. As primarily a tourist district, Johone had been quickly abandoned by surviving Imperial forces. Adia was supposed to be making contact with the local resistance cells in a Works district, but had never gotten that far.

Instead, she had been greeted by a frantic banging on the door early in the morning. The night maid eventually broke through with the help of her cart, a feat that would only be possible pumped full of adrenaline. Adia kneecapped the woman, and yet she persisted, trying frantically to attack the tall redhead. Unable to reason with the woman, she ended her life. Unnerved, the Jedi barricaded herself into her room until she ran out of ammunition. Psychotically, the infected would claw through the dead and downed to get at her. Her blaster emptied, she set the floor on fire, donned her armor, and rappelled down the side of the building. She paused, and found herself under assault by an infected security team. Adia would not pause again during her descent from her 20th floor window. She bounded and bounced down in a haphazard, difficult to track pattern while the equipment she grabbed bounced against her armor. Their shots began to come closer. Adia activated her saber, no longer able to maintain any sort of stealth as to what she was. She reflected the bolts off of her, but was moving too fast to return them to her attackers, who moved to greet her on the street. Adia launched herself from the wall at three stories up. She sliced the line, and her body arced gracefully toward the pavement while her arms moved automatically to deflect incoming bolts away. She twisted, and hit the ground in a roll. The move had granted her three meters between herself and her attackers, who threw themselves at her, only to be cut to literal pieces. Adia managed to lift a pair of energy packs from the bodies before The mob emerged from her hotel, running at her. She scrambled to the next nearest building, a massive department store. The infected were frantically fast, but Adia was faster, aided by a potent combination of genetic engineering and the Force. She kept moving, cutting down any who opposed her until the horde seemed thinned. She ducked behind an optical wear shop's counter. Although not as potent in the mental arts as many Jedi, it seemed she was good enough to give the raging minds of the infected new prey, away from her. Minutes passed, and she looked over her datapad for a diplomatic station. It was five kilometers away. She studied the route carefully, and then set off at a dead run. Perhaps it would attract less attention.

It did, somehow. Her feet pounded on the duracrete as the scenery flipped by. Buildings burned. Bodies lay strewn about the streets. Crashed speeders dotted the landscape, some wedged into blood-spattered facades. She pounded on, seldom checking behind her. Only the smack of hard boots on duracrete and the rapid thud of her heart filled her ears.

1 kilometer disappeared quickly. Two came and went. Three passed. Four was a bloodbath. A new crazed army was upon her, intent on tearing down the independent runner. She beat a hasty retreat and lobbed a thermal detonator into the crowd with drastic results. The compact grenade had been set for maximum charge. Adia scrambled up the nearby apartment building, pausing to eliminate any pursuit with a few quick blasts. She crawled into an open window, fifteen stories up, lightsaber first.

Now she moved quietly, blaster in one hand, deactivated saber in the other. The stairwells began to thunder. Adia moved several rooms down, and began to cut her way through the floors back down.

On the third floor, she hid and waited, her back to a reinforced wall in a corner apartment. She concentrated, sending the wandering individuals away, looking for her in other rooms. It was exhausting, but after two hours, they had moved on to search for other survivors. Adia contemplated removing her helmet, but thought better of it when she guessed what the unfiltered air would smell like. The dead have no body control, and the body count in this district was likely in the tens of millions.

She climbed out of the window quietly, having bound her equipment to make as little noise as possible against the layered composites and metals that protected her. She slipped silently through emptied back alleys toward the diplomatic outpost in the district, built during the Old Republic as a convenience for the old political machine. Like the many blocks around it, it was abandoned. It's halls were not devoid of struggle, but, since they were largely abandoned compared to years past, they were minimal and only around the front desk. Adia activated her saber and decapitated a young Imperial's corpse. There was no sense in being uncertain. She cut her way into the holo transmitter chamber. There was no sense in bothering with security codes until absolutely needed.

Adia waited for fifteen minutes before removing her helmet. Her jaw-length hair fell out of her helmet in a chaotic mop. The room smelled stale. She turned on the station, and put in a hardcoded back door that would route her straight to the holonet address of her choice. She picked a tightband node considered disposable by the Republic Intelligence, and put in one of her emergency codes that would forward the transmission directly to the Jedi and Intel.

[Captain Raurrssatta]

Cirrsseeto snored loudly. Nobody was here to protest, so why not? In the relative calm of his Captain's quarters, the Rebel commander could at least hang up his responsibilities for a few hours on end for some high quality shut-eye. Next to chow, it was his favorite time of the day. Unfortunately, life on a starship had made cruel bedfellows with his sensitive hearing, and he was somewhat of a light sleeper. So when a comm chime trilled softly at his bedstand, his faintly-glowing blue eyes were wide open. So much for that.

"Yes?"

The voice sounded like the night watch chief, Lieutenant Commander Pell.

"Captain, we have a coded transmission from Denon. Looks like shooting orders."

Damn. That had Cirrsseeto sitting up on his bed, and the sleep knocked out of his skull.

"jI'm on my way. Wake Commanderr Galljico and have hjim meet me on the brrjidge."

In a brief pause of decorum, Cirr grabbed his officer's jacket from the hook on the wall, draping it over his undershirt without bothering to button it up. He ran a paw over his hair, and stepped out of his quarters.

Shooting orders were the single most important event on a Liberty class missile cruiser, such as Cirrsseeto's ship, the Dauntless. It was an impressive evolution of Mon Calamari and exile Corellian shipbuilding talent. The Dauntless sprawled to the length of two Imperial Star Destroyers, carried over one hundred gun emplacements, and an entire wing of the Alliance's next generation superiority starfighters. But those were only to support the real brunt of the ship's force, which lay in rows of unassuming circular hatches along the ventral hull.Designed to wage interplanetary war from parsecs away, the missile cruiser was equipped with dozens of TX-79 Starkiller warheads, a dreadful superweapon that had found itself on both sides of the conflict, and had brought a chill to the Galactic Civil War for years. With the power to annihilate entire worlds readily in the hands of the Empire and Rebel Alliance alike, it had changed the face of the war.

Cirr took a quick ride up the turboshaft, stepping onto the bridge. An ensign was quick on the call, gave a sharp "Captain on deck!" followed with a blast of his whistle. Trying not to make a face about how much that awful damned thing hurt his ears, Cirr gave a nod and casual salute to bring the bridge crew at ease. Captain Raurrssatta took a moment, staring at the empty, inky black in front of his ship. They were light years out of the nearest system. Deep space.

"Rreporrt."

Cirr extended a paw, only to have Lt Com Pell fill it with a dataslip.

"Alliance command, on coded channel. It's verified as a shoot order. Target list Gamma-Seven-Theta. Solutions for Kuat, Fondor, Carida, Naboo, Ilsis, Vendak Prime, and Torin."

Cirr paused as the turboshaft opened again, and his XO appeared on deck.

"Commanderr Gelljico, confjirrm thjis."

Cirr passed the shoot orders to his second, who briefly looked the orders over, and returned them to his commanding officer.

"I confirm."

Cirr rounded the bridge and made his way to the missile control kiosk.

"Helm, brrjing us to coorrdjinates 2-5-4 marrk 6-2 forr a fjirrjing solutjion."

[Kale Zarinov]

I was born here. I could die here. Convenient.

Kale was no stranger to the threat of death. He'd faced it daily as one of a horde of orphaned children on the streets of the Southern Underground - hiding from street gangs or roving predators, poking through refuse and old food wrappers for enough calories to stay alive. His years on the street had been better survival training than the Jedi could ever have offered him.

And it was those instincts, more than his Jedi training, that he was counting on now as he ghosted through those same dark, dismal streets. The plague hadn't hit the Chiba District as hard as it had hit some of the neighborhoods closer to Imperial Center, but those who hadn't been infected were on the lookout for those who were and would probably shoot before asking questions. Kale couldn't afford to be seen by anyone.

And so even when his commlink received a ping from a fellow Jedi, he couldn't respond. All he could do was feed the signal to the transceiver implanted in his inner ear and listen in on the brief conversation between Master Henning and Master s'Ilancy-Prent.

Eastport. He and Henning had been scheduled to rendezvous in Coco District. Henning had probably been attacked on the way. Kale sent a silent ping back to Henning's link - just an ID code. It would be enough to tell the stricken master that Kale was on his way.

There were shortcuts that no one but a streeter could know - paths that cut through maintenance accessways, broken barricades, utility conduits. Kale could travel miles without ever setting foot on a street or inside a building.

In half an hour, the Jedi investigator was lifting up a loose floorboard in one of the safehouse's back rooms and hauling himself up out of the crawlspace below. As soon as he was above floor level again, he closed his eyes and expanded his consciousness through the Force - his range was limited, but he could adequately read the currents to tell there was only one other sentient in the apartment, and a Force-sensitive at that.

Kale entered the apartment's common room with caution. Henning had said he'd been bitten, and there was no knowing how far the infection had run.

"Master Henning?" He kept his voice at a calculated volume - loud enough to carry through the room without bleeding through the walls. "Are you still there?" Still sane?

[Clea Darkrunner]

Sharra whimpered as she bandaged herself.

Hunger had finally driven her out into the back hallways and down to the kitchen's pantry. She had been as quiet as a small rodent, hearing the screams and snarls of others in the main areas.

When the cute waiter had come into the pantry, she thought at first that he was going to help her. She had flirted with him, briefly, when she'd first arrived at the hotel. His snarl of hunger had told her differently. Only the dirty fighting that Clea had taught her had enabled her to get away with only a bite. She had broken his neck, and then had thrown up, upset over her first killing.

Bagging some canned food, she had run back to her room. Concentration had slowed the bleeding, and she washed the bite out with Corellian firewhisky, and hot, soapy water, certain she had taken little harm.

She was wrong, but what did she know? The little instinctive Jedi training her mother had passed on was slowing the virus' progress to a crawl, and changing her into something far more deadly - a carrier of the disease. Her body was reaching an accommodation with the Morbus virus, and it was multiplying into her blood, her saliva, her tears. She had it, and it did not show.

What did show, now, was the fact that she was a Force Sensitive. Years of training by her mother to never show her abilities was coming undone, unknown to her.

And this on Coruscant, deadliest of planets to an innocent Force Sensitive, hunting ground of Dark Jedi, Inquisitorial Hunters, and the occasional Sith.

[Master Henning]

“Here, Kale.”

The Jedi Master's voice was quiet, but distinct enough that the young Jedi would be able to follow the sound to Barton. Sensing the investigators approach, Henning had slipped free of the temporary hiding-hole he had created and was now sitting, back against one of the buildings dirty walls. From the state of the complex, it was clear that no one – at least no one of any importance – had lived there for years now. There were traces in the architecture which hinted of a past grandeur, but time had worn that all away. From the outside, it was clear that the bombardments of past wars had taken a heavy toll on it, and all of Easport.

As Kale entered the room Barton sat in, the Master held up a halting hand. All things considered, Henning looked healthy – if somewhat exhausted.

“I'm... not sure how this virus spreads, Zarinov. I don't want you coming too close.”

[Bryna Belargic]

“Masters...”

The flickering image of Bryna Belargic bowed its head. She had calmed herself, knowing that she was to present her message to the entire Council. They looked troubled and no doubt were already aware, to some degree, of what was happening, so the Padawan got right to it.

“My mother- Intelligence Director Belargic-” she corrected herself. “Has received troubling reports from agents stationed on Coruscant. There was an explosion in Imperial City, killing a number of civilians. The explosion appears to have been no accident, as immediately following the blast members of the public found themselves exposed to a toxin of some kind. The Galactic Alliance believe that this virus, which is presently spreading at an alarming rate throughout the city, is a tool of biological warfare designed by the Empire.

Soldiers of the Imperial army are being cautioned to shoot anyone who moves in the contaminated area, regardless of whether or not they are exhibiting the physical signs of having been infected. The outbreak is spreading so quickly, though, that the number of those infected is soon going to outweigh the number that the army will be able to cope with. At that point...”

Bryna paused, faltered. She thought of Coruscant, the thousands upon thousands of people there who had been unwittingly drawn into something beyond them. She averted her eyes and then, frowning, cleared her throat and returned her gaze to the images of the Council members in front of her.

“At that point, we cannot accurately predict the course of action that will be chosen by the Empire.”

[Executor Van-Derveld]

Light spilled into the crevice that Van-Derveld had sequestered himself away in, like a tick burrowed into a wound. The Executor rose from his chair without turning to face the Inquisitor Valten. In front of him, the video-feed of Imperial City continued its endless cycle. With passing time, however, more and more static filtered into the feed, as streams were forced off line by the senseless vandalism of the infected.

Yet, rather than being vexed by this, the Executor was pleased. Regardless of whether or not the Morbus Project had achieved the results desired by Inquisitor Valten, Van-Derveld took some malicious delight in what he saw.

“The undercity and beyond,” he corrected. Bending slightly, he picked up a handful of data-sheets.

“There are reports of outbreaks on Chandrila... and Brentaal IV. It's spreading along the Perlemian trade line as we speak. It's only a matter of time before it infects Carida and the colonies. Once Morbus reaches the Inner Rim, there will be no stopping it.”

[Master Nytherciria]

When Bryna drew to her conclusion, Daria's eyes closed. At times like these, she seemed almost perpetually in a world of her own. As a member of the Miraluka species, she saw the Force in a way wholly unique, as none of her peers could understand. It would not - could not - endure the imbalance brought about by Coruscant; it writhed and struggled, in desperate search of equilibrium. This was the tremor they had all felt, the living Force crying out for absolution from the abnormality the virus had introduced.

“If the hand endangers the limb, strike it off.”

When Daria spoke, her words echoed those of a ruthless Jedi Master of the Old Republic. She, more so than any others, believed in the will of the Force over adherence to the Jedi code. For all she seemed ethereal, even timid at times, Daria was arguably the most unyielding of all the Jedi Masters and rarely found her views counted among the majority. Some of the younger Jedi saw her as something of a relic from older times, though the wiser amongst them understood that there was truth in her words, however archaic.

[Master s'Ilancy-Prent]

She was certainly not one of the more gentle-handed among her peers; hard years and trials had sculpted the Lupine into a rather harsh individual, and it showed in her movements, her eyes, her very voice. She was kind, but there was an edge to her kindness that it seemed many of the Order's padawan's grumbled about. It seemed only around her close friends and family that she let go of her hard demeanor.

Reticent to follow the code over the Force itself - which had lead to more than one argument with the other Masters over the years - she found herself nodding at Daria's words. She could see the Force, much like her fellow master could, and what she saw worried her greatly.

"If the Force wills that blood be spilled, than that is what must happen," the Lupine reinforced.

"I recieved a transmission from Master Henning; he is on Coruscant, in a safehouse in Eastport. He said that it was a contagion," she nodded at Bryna's image, confirming the Padawan's own message, "... and that it was spreading exponentially.

"His message was cut off before I could learn more, but... "

Her jaw tightened imperceptibly.

"... he has been infected."

[Lord Inquisitor Valten]

The Inquisitor halted, his half mechanical brain whirring. The contagion was spreading faster than expected, but at least something was going right. It proved that the virus could be used as planned, albeit the collateral would be far greater than predicted.
<o></o>
“When I supplied you with the preliminary research, the agreement was that the original strain would not be tampered with.<st1><st1> Imperial</st1></st1><st1><st1> Cente</st1></st1>r was NOT TO FALL.” The planet could rot for all Valten cared, it had the Imperial capitol had become the deepest pit of corruption, yet. What with <st1><st1:city w:st="on">Alliance</st1:city></st1>pies, rogue adepts, and traitors running thick.
<o></o>
We cannot contain and infection of this scale.”
<o></o>
The original plague had been created in the same laboratories that had spawned the Krytos virus and others, but it was obvious that it had been engineered into a much more potent strain.
<o></o>
“Carida, Kuat, Eridau, Fondor. None of these worlds can be affected.” Valten sighed as best his mechanical voice would allow. Brentaal IV would have to be purged, the planet sat at the hub of two major trade routes.

Why make the virus more potent than it already was?"

[Clea Darkrunner]

<i> Go</i>

That was what she had dreamed, Clea saying, "Sharra, go!" She had always been a hard child to wake, preferring sleeping to schooling. So she had dreamed her mother yelling, increasingly loudly, "GO!"

"Fi've more min...." she mumbled, then was shocked awake by an even louder boom on the floor above her. Someone was blowing open the doors in the hotel.

Hearing a strange whine above her window, she looked out - and up into the bottom of a gunship. Another explosion rocked her room.

Correction - someone was blowing open the rooms, coring the hotel like a puui-puui fruit. Someone was eliminating the people in those rooms as ruthlessly as farmers on Dantooine rid themselves of naal rats nests.

To Shaara, that only spelled one group. Her mother's horror stories of the Imperial Inquisition had fueled most of her childhood nightmares. She had to go, and risk the crazed mob. To stay was to meet certain death quickly.

She scrambled into her clothes, her speed fueled by her fear, shoes on her feet. About to run out the door, she paused, listening, then darted back.

Grabbing the small improvised bag of supplies, she upended her carisac on the bed, and dumped the food into it. She took only two items off the bed, the flashlight and her map. The vibro blade her mother had given her when she turned 16, hidden in the seams of the carisac, could also use the power cell. She hit the button, but the door did not open. Frantically, she connected the vibro-blade, and stuck it into the security panel. It sparked, and the door slid partially open.

She listened again, then moved out into the ominously quiet corridor. Hitting the back utility corridors, she crept down and down staircases, deeper and deeper, driven by the sounds of clanking military movement. Where was everybody, she wondered, going toward the Underlevels her mother had spoken about, un-fondly.

She did not realize that the living were being driven down, where they would not trouble the Tower dwellers. The Morbus virus could do what years of raids could not - cleanse the Underlevels of their human garbage.

[Kale Zarinov]

Kale stepped around a sagging partition to find the stricken Jedi master. He took a moment to absorb the situation, then quickly moved about to secure the room - doors and windows had already been locked and barricaded, but he tested the vents, floorboards, light panels, anything he might take advantage of if he were still trying to sneak in.

"This thing is tearing through the population. I tried to get the word out to my contacts in Chiba, Coco, Yangtze, South Bay... But most of these people don't have the means to leave their districts, much less get off-planet."

Kale's anger was palpable. These were the people everyone else in the galaxy forgot about - people whom the Empire regarded as vermin. But Kale knew them - he'd been one of them. He'd spent most of his Jedi career trying to give them a voice, a chance, a hope. And now, purposefully or not, the Empire had made them, men, women, and children - a quarter trillion of them - fodder for their latest bio-weapon.

He knew how dangerous it was to harbor such anger - but it was one of the few things keeping him from despair.

Kale finished his rounds and came back to Barton. He leaned closer to inspect the older Jedi's wound, ignoring his protests. "If the virus is airborne, I'm probably infected already. All the victims I've seen have had bloody wounds. My guess is it's only transmissible through the body fluids..."

He sat back and met Barton's eyes. "How are you holding up? You think you could make it to the Ben Zedi spaceport?"

[Lord Inquisitor Valten]

“RHAAAAAAAAAAA” Naomi didn’t even blink at the screaming civilian that had vaulted off of a nearby rooftop at her. One swing of her arm and the flat side of her halberd sent the infected person’s flying to the side. All around the demon-faced troopers of the Inquisition fought against slavering mobs.
<o></o>
She paused, glancing around at the carnage, a sick feeling rose in the pit of the Inquisitor’s stomach, a feeling that she hadn’t experience in years.
<o></o>
“What do you mean they want some of these things alive.” The high-pitched of a rail-rifle discharge sounded next to her. Inquisitor Bren’lar Scothis, lowered the oversized gun. Naomi couldn’t see a thing of her mate’s face beneath the thick helmet.
<o></o>
“I don’t know, orders came from the High Council.” But of course the Lord Inquisitor controlled the Council, both of them knew who really gave the orders.
<o></o>
Naomi just shook her head, this was going too far. So much bloodshed, too much bloodshed. Contrary to popular belief, there were Inquisitors out there that did maintain some semblance of a soul. Frak the orders.
<o></o>
“Inquisitor Scothis!” A haggard deathtrooper skidded to a halt next to the pair. Both Inquisitors replied at the same time. “What?”
<o></o>
A confused half second passed before the tired soldier shook it off. “Captain Jarol is dead along with half of the platoon, we have to fall back to the barricade.”
<o></o>
The screaming of people both infected and the wounded, soldiers and civilians, lifted into the air. Crackling fires and the shrill screech of blaster fire pierced the once calm air. Too much death.
<o></o>
“No, push forward, reinforcements will be on the way. Decontamination orders are withdrawn, get any sane person you can on a gunship and get them to the citadel.”
<o></o>
“Ma’am?”
<o></o>
“DAMN IT, I said get as many people out as you can.”
<o></o>
Bren’lar lifted an arm to remove his helmet, his green eyes meeting Naomi’s. Disobeying a direct order was a breach of the Corruption Doctrine, any Inquisitor violating it was to be killed on sight. A minute passed between the two before his gaze fell and a sigh escaped. He clicked the helmet back into place and hefted the rifle.
<o></o>
“Gods, I hope you’re right about this.”

[Director Belargic]

Mon Calamari

She watched her daughter leave with a heavy heart, hugging the sides of her arms as if Bryna were still there.

"Why must I always be the bearer of bad news?" Grace said with a disheartened sigh. "Seems like every time we are able to have us all together, I find a way to break us apart."

[Kal Cimmerian]

He frackin' hated this armor.

Wasn't that it didn't give 'im enough protection or the fact it had a coolant system in it. Or the fact he could easily see his target in the building across the street. He could actually let slide the fact he couldn't drink or smoke innit too.

Naw...wasn't any of that.

He hated it 'cause he couldn't feel the breeze through his short hair. Or feel it on his face as it rolled over every curve and made his eyes squint. Even if it wasn't his 'real face'.

Kal Cimmerian hefted his T-28 repeating sniper rifle and tried t'ignore his problems 'bout his armor and focus in on the job.

He was really doing it as a favor to BC, the merc had asked him t'take out the head of the Curovao ImpEx empire (http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Curovao_ImpEx), Jaan Curovao for renigging onna deal and causing five of BC's ships t'be destroyed in the process.

The plan was to make it look like the rogue Mandalorian group, Death Watch, was involved (hence the armor) which Cimmerian was fine with. He'd dealt with 'em before...and they'd become scum.

He'd felt a bond with 'em a while ago...hell it felt like he was at home. But not anymore. The cancer in their organization which'd originally just been at the top was now slipping through the ranks. So they deserved whatever they got.

Cimmerian's face twitched into a small smirk as he prepared to fire.

Then all hell broke loose.

One of Curovao's bodyguards started twitching, spasming like he was having a seizure. He dropped his weapon and screamed in pain or anger or something.

Then he bit Curovao.

Bit him!

Right in the frackin' neck. The businessman went down, blood shootin' from the wound. The other bodyguards were immediately on the Infected, trying t'pull him away from their master but they were soon clutching at bites to their own bodies.

And then they began spasming all the same.

The hired gun's eyes widened as he stared at the scene from his perch across the street.

What in th'blue hell was goin' on?

[Master Krogen]

Kyle nodded his head to Master Tarkin as she approached, and waited patiently while she addressed the apprehensive collection of younglings, padawans, and knights. Jedi the lot of them, but all equally distressed. Once Master Tarkin stepped inside, Kyle moved in right behind her, closed the door, and locked it from the inside with security codes that would only allow it to be opened from the inside and only with codes known by the Masters of the Enclave.

Moving deeper inside, he took his chair in the circular one, which was the one nearest the door, thus he did not have far to move before being able to sit down in his chair. Once sat, he became the lifeless statue that he always was during any session with the Council. He hardly ever offered advice to padawans or solutions to problems the Enclave faced. He hardly did anything with or for the Enclave at all, but no one had ever considered sending him away, to give his position on the council to someone more interactive. He blamed respect for this. He was very respected for his war record with the Rebel Alliance, but especially for the injuries he sustained at the hand of the Inquisition for his beliefs; and the works he had done in aiding in the construction of the Jedi Enclave.

The reports of an infectious agent on Coruscant chilled him to the bone. Such a disease on Coruscant, the core of galactic civilization, could spread from there to the rest of the known galaxy in a matter of years. Reaching the inner- and mid-rim systems, though, could take only months. Decisive action was needed, and it was needed now, lest this spread quicker then it could be cured. The Masters spoke truths around him. There was much that needed to be cut off, first of which was Coruscant. The planet itself needed to be quarentined, with gunships placed in high orbit to remove all fleeing vessels, and then the planet itself would need to be either destroyed or purged. The only problem was that there was no way in hell that the Empire was going to cooperate with the Jedi to tackle this problem. A direct invasion of forces would be easiest.

But he would keep his opinions to himself, as he always did. For now, at any rate. It was not very jedi-like to jump up and demand that they all take the next ship to Coruscant to do battle with the Empire, such might warrant him exile, and he had walked that line too closely his entire time here with the Enclave, and he did not intend to cross it today.

[Master Laran]

Serena nodded slowly at Daria's words, and felt her heart swell with concern for Barton Henning. His road back to the Jedi had been a long one, but she had worked side by side with him many times since he had joined the Enclave. His skill as a healer was joined with his knowledge of traditional medicine, and Serena had learned from him even as she'd taught him more of the Life Giver's ways.

Rhianna. The girl... woman... was there in the Council Chambers, with Morgan. Serena adjusted the small holographic projector that displayed and updated the Council chambers in real time on top of the control console. Her first two padawan learners after her exile, the two held a special place in her heart. As did Solomon.

"My pacifism is well known," Serena said, "But in this case I agree wholeheartedly with Master Nytherciria and Master s'Ilancy-Prent. Once infected these ...people ...are no longer people. Unless a cure can be found, or is presented by the Empire, these beings are lost to us. Their soul in the Force appears to be gone."

There was a thump on the hull outside, and a frantic scrabbling. Then silence. The viewshield was opaqued to keep those outside from seeing in, but that did not stop the occasional bumps and noises. The power fluctuated again, and the holo of the council chamber suddenly disappeared. Serena frowned, and fiddled with the emmitter, but a surge had blown its delicate circutry.

The holocam was better protected, and was still transmitting. "I have lost sound and visuals, friends. If you can still see and hear me..." Shipboard power failed completely then, the camera operating only on battery power. The ventilation system quietly ground to a halt.

"My ship will not protect us for much longer. I must prepare the children. May the Force be with us all." Serena ended the transmission, her hologram on Vortex flickering and then disappearing.

[A'na]

A'na looked up as the Jedi Master walked back into the main room of the light freighter. "It appears that our power relays have failed, A'na." The white haired Jedi was unruffled, but A'na's heart was gripped with fear. "The ventilation system has stopped operating and our breathable air will run out in less than two days."

The darkhaired woman held her daughter tightly, until the five year old squirmed and gave quiet protest. "What shall we do, Master Jedi?" A'na released Jade to play with the other children, and turned her full attention to Serena.

"We will need to move on before the air runs out. The longer we wait, the more the landscape changes outside." The Jedi folded her hands, looking over at the gaggle of children, ages four to fifteen, that were gathered in one corner of the living area. They were sitting and standing around the dejerik board, watching two of the older children play.

They were being quiet. All in all, perfectly well behaved.

A'na brushed her hands through her long dark hair, worried about the future. She'd initiated the contact with underground elements here in Hanna City, trying to get ahold of the re-established Jedi. Jade was an adept, and she needed training. Proper training. She folded her hands in poor imitation of the Jedi's gesture, her knuckles whitening as she clasped them nervously together.

[Milivikal k'Vik]

The Siren's Song, an Imperial II class Star Destroyer tore through the swirl of hyperspace, flanked by the Kalavashik, a Victory class Star Destroyer and a pair of Interdictor ships, the Snapping Snare and the Silk Web. Numerous other smaller ships dotted the black and blue void.
This was Milivikal k'Vik's fleet. The beings under her command were some of the most ruthless in the Galaxy. They were well paid for their motivation, and there were roughly a hundred thousand of them. Her rule over them, in space, was absolute. You obeyed The Captain, or she either killed you or had you killed. If you wanted to take your fortunes and leave when docked, you could. Most didn't. Over the last ten years, Milivikal had become the most capable and feared pirate in the Galaxy, ambushing commercial freighters and military frigates alike. Each ship wore her livery, splashed lines of crimson radiating from the starboard stern to the port side, ending at the tip of the bow. Battle damage was to be repaired, but not repainted. Every capital ship was pockmarked with turbolaser burns and torpedo craters. New panels gleamed against old, battered ones.
k'Vik paced the deck. Her uniform was a gray Imperial officer's uniform, tailored to fit her slender figure. She retained the rank of Captain from the original ship. The rank badge had a burned hole in it, from her lightsaber. Over her right shoulder, she donned the sash of an ancient Sith, it's red fabric with black embroidery contrasted nicely against the dull gray Imperial garment. A blaster was strapped to her thigh right thigh, and her Jedi weapon bounced against her left hip. Her face was lined now. Her skin was no longer flawless alabaster, but her eyes were the same winter-sky pale blue. She had cropped her hair short again, but did not dye out the gray from what used to be glossy, jet black hair. Her beauty had worn a little, but it revealed a tenacity in it's place.
Her bridge was dotted with some of the best of the available from her crew. Her helm had been a bulk freighter pilot whom she convinced to her cause with good pay. Her navigator was a Bith with a wicked sense of humor and awful taste in music. The list went on. Each had a story, each came from somewhere first. But they were hers now.
She dashed to her chair, dropping in dramatically, and keyed the broadcast comm.

“All ships,” She said, singsong, “prepare for hyperspace withdraw. Snare and Silk, on the ready.”

She began to hum something that sounded rather like “Flight of the Valkeries.”

“Minute to Mark.” she sang

“Twenty to Mark.”

She continued, each second sounded more and more like an orchestra.

“Ten to Mark!” She sang, her voice echoing clearly across the bridge.

“Fiiiiiiivvee, foooouuurrrr, threeeeee, twooooo.... one.” The orchestra stopped. “Mark.”

Her fleet ripped back into real space, dropping neatly around the Dauntless.

“Hold fire. Dictors, engage” She said coldly.

On the tactical display, two false spheres of gravity poured off of the pair of arrowhead shaped ships.

“Ship has been identified as the Dauntless.” said the Tactical Officer. k'Vik blinked, and then grinned.

“Hail them.”

[Rev Solomon]

"Serena--"

She was already gone before Solomon could speak to her. So he committed the words to a power even higher than the Force. And God go with you.

He glanced around the council chamber at his colleagues, sober and grim-faced. "It's clear we cannot trust the Empire to contain this outbreak, even if we could be sure that they were inclined to do so. To protect ourselves, we must take bold action, even if it means risking an open confrontation with the Empire. But before this goes any further, I think we need to clear the air about something.

"Even before the development of the Omega Warhead, we of the Jedi Council voted to unilaterally condemn the use of planet-scale superweapons. The Alliance has only deployed such a weapon once, in desperation - to destroy the third Death Star in the Battle of Mon Calamari. In the face of our current predicament, we may be able to convince ourselves that the time has come to use Omega again, to eliminate the source of this contagion before it can spread any further.

"If this has occurred to you - and it shames me to admit how soon it occurred to me - I plead with you now to put it out of your mind. If we are who we claim to be, the heirs of the Jedi Order, the guardians of the free galaxy, we cannot countenance the use of these horrific weapons on a living planetary body, let alone the most populous world in the galaxy. I move that we must advise Alliance Command that the Jedi Council will condemn the use of Omega weapons as a means of containing this plague. The offices of the Supreme Commander and Intel Director are doubtless preparing contingency plans for deployment as we speak."

[Navaria Tarkin]

Vortex

Navaria had to agree with the rest of the Council thus far. Until there was a cure, they had to protect the innocents that could be infected. Perhaps it was wishful thinking, but she hoped that the Empire could finally see the folly of their ways and allow insight into what they have caused. If not, they would just have to take it. Seeing Master Laran flicker away just reinforced that, especially with the mention of the children ...

"Bryna. Make your way here as quickly as you can ..." She was caught off by another incoming transmission. A priority one. "One moment."

Activating the receiver, Adia Issoris flickered to holographic life. Under normal circumstances, Navaria would have enjoyed seeing her adoptive mother, but the call hailed from Coruscant and the former Imperial Assassin looked as if she had been in the thick of the outbreak by the look of her armor. Blood splattered stains and scratches were quite visible.

"Adia. We know of what's happened. Can you shed more light as to what's occurring?" They needed this first hand knowledge desperately.

[Quinn]

Imperial Center was infected. A sick world that needed to be cleansed, but possibly saved. And so, many 'Cleaner' teams were sent to kill as many possible so that the Destroyers above wouldn't have to Base-Delta-Zero the planet, which Quinn was sure would take several days.

But the Imps were not above hiring mercenaries to help them out when something on this scale. And so the Sulaco-class ship sat in orbit. It was an absolute monster of a ship, built on a planet that had not yet discovered hyper-travel. It was capable of being run completely on autopilot, almost a kilometer long, and even had cryo-capsules on board. However it was now retro-fitted with a hyperdrive and could now take jumps through hyperspace.

Quinn had bought the aging craft, renaming her the Conestoga, and repaired the outer hull, but kept the almost obsolete weapons. A pair of dual-barrelled railguns was all the ship had, but what it carried as cargo was far more deadly.

Quinn was the leader of a mercenary outfit that used the craft as their mobile home base. About twenty mercs was all Quinn had, but they were some of the best in the galaxy, all of them ex-military from various organizations. Quinn himself hailed from Nar'Shaddaa, the under-areas, and had a good knowledge and understanding with how Coruscant was right now.

When Quinn accepted the assignment, he was given an IFF code to broadcast once he was in orbit, and he now sat there in the Conestoga, reviewing the area he was given to clear. He also knew that if any of his team became infected, he was to kill them immediately. Doing so was a mercy. But even so, his whole team, even the dropship pilots would wear sealed suits, and each time they returned to the Conestoga they would completely detox.

"Ready for drop in thirty minutes." chimed the Flight Ops. officer over the 1-MC, and Quinn stood, heading for the armory to suit up with his squad.

[Captain Raurrssatta]

"Captain, unidentified ships have dropped out of hyperspace at close range!"

There was always somebody on the bridge to state the obvious. Cirr watched the ships suddenly decelerate around him, and stroked his beard at the sight. Either these were the sloppiest, not to mention stupidest, Imperials he had ever seen, or they were bandits in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Either way, they were interrupting his shooting orders. They would either clear the sky, or he would clear it for them.

"Rrajise shjields, arrm weapons, and hold steady."

Cirr approached a railing at the front of the bridge. That they were extending a channel told him things. For one, they hadn't jammed communication lines. To jump a Rebel missile cruiser, in Alliance territory, and in a border sector notably thick with Alliance starships, this probably wasn't the best idea for a band of brigands.

The Captain tapped his comm officer at the operations kiosk.

"Sjignal Alljiance command. Dauntless approached by fourr Starr Destrroyerrs. Rejinforrce jimmedjiately. Send coorrdjinates."

The comm officer performed dutifully, the transmission beaming through instant lines of Holonet battle communications.

"Captain, the lead star destroyer is hailing us."

Cirr returned to his seat, remembering to button his jacket over his belly before sitting.

"jI'm rready forr them. Open up."

The image of a woman appeared on screen, and Cirr steepled his fingers in front of him.

"jI won't mjince worrds. You arre jin Alljiance terrrjitorrrjy, jinterrferrjing wjith naval operratjions, and behavjing rratherr jimpoljitely to say the least. Fjind an easjierr tarrget somewherre morre jImperrjial."

[Kal Cimmerian]

Cimmerian leaped from his perch to the duracrete street and headed towards the Curavao's home.

His curiousity had gotten th'best of him. Which'd prolly kill 'im but what the hell...everyone dies.

As he reached th'front door it was suddenly thrown open and a raving, blood-shot eyed...thing flew from it. The two fell to the street as they tangled with each other.

The computer within Cimmerian's helmet started analysing th'thing as they fought. Its adrenal systems were haywire and th'heart was pumping faster than any 'normal' human. The former bounty hunter ignored mosta th'info...it wasn't gonna keep him alive.

He did catch one thing of interest...the computer labelled them as 'human'. Which meant whatever th'frack they were...they could prolly still be killed.

Prolly.

The Infected latched its jaws onto th'Mandalorian-armored arm, attempting t'tear into it. Cimmerian brought his legs up and heaved th'guy onto his back (his arm still latched in its jaws). It slipped from the infected's mouth a bit and he pulled himself free.

Another latched itself on his back and started biting at his shoulder'n neck. The bulky man threw him off as well, then pulled the twin Bryar Pistols from their holsters. He shot each of them in the head and they fell backwards.

Th'odd thing 'bout it was, they started vomitting afterwards. Blood spewed from their mouths like a fountain, drenching their quaking bodies.

Behind his helmet, Cimmerian raised a black eyebrow. He gotta feeling it wasn't gonna be th'last time he did. The computer said their lifesigns were crashing. When they stopped shaking...so did their vitals.

"What th'frack are those things?" his raspy voice said t'everyone and no one as he checked himself for wounds.

No abrasions or cuts. Whatever the hell those things were...they hadn't bitten him.

Thanking whatever gods were out there, Cimmerian revved up his swoop bike and peeled outta the city. He'd clean his armor off atta small pool outside th'city. No sense in walking 'round with some kinda 'ticking time bomb' on his body.

'Sides...No one went near it since the head and torso of a Twi'lek rapist was found 'bout two years ago. It was whispered whoever did th'killing wasn't even human but was instead some kinda monster.

Cimmerian only smirked at the comment.

"Hey Maddy...wake up," he keyed in th'signal for his droid, R9-M8, who was back at his ship The Balmorran Blaster. He heard a series of annoyed beeps, as if th'droid were busy with something.

"Get a message t'BC. Tell 'im the mission was FUBAR then pass on th'holo recording I got of th'entire damn thing. We need t'frackin meet and soon. Tell 'im that too.

"Oh and gimme a drink will ya. Been a helluva day."

The swoop raced into th'dying sun towards the spaceport Vuultin.

[Berek Dralken]

Berek sat atop the rooftop of an abandoned warehouse in the Works district. He like many others awaited the sunrise, hoping that a new days light would cleanse the city of the nightmare which had ravaged the city world overnight.

It was the city's own design which allowed the horrid virus to spread across the world in such a short time. The undercity of the capitol world was an unhindered network for the virus to flourish.

He sang to himself as the morning light grew, sprawling across the flat rooftops of the industrial blocks, skyscrapers failed to hinder the beautiful sight of sun in this district. It was the only thing Berek was thankful for on this world in it's current state.

Berek sat atop the roof of a warehouse in the Works district. He like many others awaited the sunrise. Many who huddled together on the rooftops, away from the dangers that ravaged the cityscape below, hoped that a new morning's light would purge the nightmare which had come to them overnight. Berek on the other hand was thinking on a less divine level. He sang to himself as the morning light grew, sprawling across the flat rooftops of the industrial blocks. Skyscrapers failed to hinder the beautiful sight of sun in this district. It was the only thing Berek was thankful for on this world in it's current state, next to all the open doors left by the people who would be fleeing when that light would be bright and full.

To Berek the virus and those it infected weren't something to be feared. They were merely another obstacle he could deal with. He'd dealt with similar mad creatures already having lived in the undercity of Coruscant. Few upworlders knew of the dangers which actually lurked in the depths of the undercity such as Cthons and corridor ghouls. To Berek they were far more deadly adversaries than any person fueled by aggression. However, just to be safe in his venture, he would wear a biofilter mask. If the rumors were true, that the virus was also airborne, he would hopefully be protected.

Light now reached between the rifts of the blocks and illuminated the solid street ways around the buildings. It was time to go to work. Berek hunkered over his knees and unlaced his boots, pulled his socks up and then dragged his pant legs around them. Afterwards he reefed on his laces, closed the boots firmly, and then tied them as tight as possible. He wouldn't lose his boots this run. Next he tucked his shirt in, cinched his belt two notches tighter then before, and checked his pistol and additional power packs. One was half charged, not to big a deal, he exchanged it for the one in his pistol, and then holstered it. He then grabbed the mask from his pack and hung it around his neck. Finally he strapped the pack to his back. It was light, and nearly empty except for a ration and medical kit.

A quick stretch and he was making his way to the door and down to the base level. What awaited him in his expedition he could only imagine, but the rewards would be great.

[Adia Issoris]

“It's much worse than a war zone.” Adia said. “The populace, once infected, goes berserk. It's multi-species, so it is likely many viruses adapted for the same purpose, but once infected, they become relentless creatures with no concept of anything beyond attacking and converting. They still have a knowledge of tactics and weaponry. I had a gun fight with some of the local security. The weapon does not seem to be airborne. The limited number of survivors and unaffected seems to verify that.” She looked over her shoulder for a moment and then back at Navaria. Eventually, this would be traced, but with the current situation on the ground, this would likely be a very low priority, or so she hoped.

“If the Alliance does not get everything civilian grounded, right now, we will have a bloodbath. People will wish for death by Starkillers. If a ship does not respond to a hail in 30 seconds, dust it. I don't know if any of the infected can pilot any more, but if they can...” Adia shook her head. Her face twitched, and she resisted the urge to scratch her itching cheek, noting the mostly dried blood on her gloves.

“I don't care how objectionable anyone on the Council finds it, get everyone fitted for armor and blasters, right now. This isn't a matter of “proper Jedi appearances.” She ground the phrase out like a food disposal. “If we want to lead by example, this would be a good start. I've had more vibroblades bounce off me today than I had in weeks of training Clones.”

The security status light on the connection began to blink. Someone had picked up on the transmit. Adia didn't care, she would talk to Lianna for as long as she could.

[Quinn]

The drop was hard and fast, and Quinn shook slightly in his battle armor, thankful for the crash webbing that secured him to the APC's commander's chair. They were given a section of under Coruscant to strike, and if they couldn't hold it, leave a beacon for the Conestoga to fire a kinetic strike and vaporize as many as possible.

Quinn and his ten man team, also with the three man crew of the APC, and the two pilot crew of the dropship in which they were screaming to the earth in were all that were being sent in, and Quinn was happy for it. The rest were remaining in the Conestoga, safe from harm for the time being.

Quinn swept his eyes over the two fireteams sitting in the transport section of the APC. Each of them had a fully-contained suit of armor with reactive camouflage, so that they could ambush with impunity.

"We're coming up on the LZ. No hostiles detected. Dropping in ten."

The dropship hovered an inch above the ground while it's cargo area opened, and the APC roared out of it, it's wheels hitting the duracrete and rolling along the old freeway.

"We'll be in standby sir, waiting for your call." the radio crackled, and Quinn answered it. "Roger that, we'll see you guys soon."

"Catch ya on the flip side!" and the dropship blasted away, leaving the APC roaring into the darkness, lights flipping on to illuminate the way between some of the largest buildings ever devised.

[Quinn]

The perpetual darkness of the lower levels of Coruscant were pierced by a bright light, the deathly quiet broken by the roar and snarl of an engine at high revolutions.

The box-like vehicle thrust it's way through the darkness. Armed with a double laser cannon turret at the top and a pair of E-web repeating blasters in a barrel-less turret at the front. Colored in a dull green, it seemed to blend with the night, with the exception that the lights lit it's way.

"Our first objective is a hotel we need to shut down. It's turbolift is still operational." Quinn told his men and women over the radio. "We have four to shut down. If you encounter any of these things, either break their neck or hit them in the head. That's the only way to confirm a kill. Everyone got me?"

Quinn got a chorus of mumbled affirmatives.

"Vode an." Quinn spoke, and he got a louder answer of the troopers repeating him. It meant "Brothers All" in Mando'a.

The APC slid to a halt in front of a very old hotel that had definitely seen better days. The side door slid open, and the two fireteams disembarked, and one covered the other while they ran for the hotel opening.

"Entrance is secure." came the report.

"Right," Quinn flipped on the radio as the door of the APC slammed shut. "There's some movement inside, so be cautious, and one more thing troopers. Not everyone is infected, keep that in mind."

"YESSIR."

[Master Henning]

“I'm fine... really.”

Since his infection, Barton had toed rather precariously the line between clarity and chaos. He had witnessed in others the bizarre transformation that the virus caused, plunging even the most peaceful of minds into baseless fury. If he did not maintain careful focus on himself, on fighting back the contagion, then he too would fall. Even as an adept healer, he found the task daunting – primarily because of how little he knew of the virus. As a man-made agent, there was the chance that it could adapt and mutate. Given enough time, it might find a way to bypass even the Jedi Masters defenses.

“If you can lead the way to the 'port, I think I might be able to make it.

I don't think I have any other option than to try,” he added, with a small smile.

[Kale Zarinov]

Kale offered his hand to the Master and hauled him to his feet. "We have to get a sample of this plague to Alliance Medical. That objective is more important than you, more important than me. I can get us through the streets undetected. But I want your light saber."

His implication was clear. He'd seen the infected make use of whatever weapons they had at their disposal. Kale didn't know if Barton would retain his Jedi skills if he succumbed, but he didn't want to find out.

"Now, let's go."

Kale led Barton out the front door, keeping to the shadows. With some concentration, Kale bent those shadows around him and his charge, hiding them from all but the most perceptive eyes.

They moved more slowly than Kale would have liked, but he didn't want to risk ruining Barton's concentration on the war that was waging inside his body. They saw the infected running in packs, many of them almost unidentifiable now, they were so covered in multi-colored blood and gaping wounds. Occasionally a cluster of them huddled over a corpse like wolves over a kill, tearing it to pieces and gnawing on whatever flesh they could seize. In the distance they heard the whine of atmospheric jets and explosions - Imperial gunships attempting to pacify other parts of the city. No one took notice as two shadows passed through a stygian nightmare to rival all of Corellia's nine hells.

But after twenty minutes' travel they hit a dead end - a massive causeway that had been struck by a drifting hover-liner and plunged down to the city floor a hundred stories below.

"Krasst!" Kale glanced around hurriedly, and his eyes fell on a service entrance in the building directly behind them. "About ten levels up, this tower becomes a hotel," he said. "And I think it has limo service to Ben Zedi - maybe we can find an abandoned speeder in the carport."

But they would have to move fast. An Imperial gunship was hovering around the smoking tower like a swarm of hornets around a nest. Kale Forced the lock off the service door and dragged Barton in and up the coiled stairway toward the hotel.

[Clea Darkrunner]

The front service staircase had been blown by an idle shot from a gunship, and now it hung, swinging in space, an exit to Eternity 500 feet down in the darkness. She had retreated carefully.

Coming down the hallway to the back staircase, she had seen the men in reactive camo - sort of - but they had seen her first. Holding up her hands, she had retreated back into the ballroom she had just passed. To her surprise, they let her go, passing in a leapfrogging formation toward the turbolifts.

The dead hotel security man, head blown off, had warned that she could not go out that back exit, the hum of a hovering gunship underlining it. She had scavenged a blaster and belt from his body, knowing that a vibro-blade was too close to one of the Infected.

She waited patiently in the darkened room until the last flickering soldier had passed, then went back into the hallway. The staircase soon appeared, and she followed it down a couple of flights. Hearing a noise above her, she wrenched open a door, exiting rapidly on an ancient loading dock, a broad roadway with flickering, dusty lights stretching in front of her and to either side as far as she could see in the dimness.

Crouched not 10 meters from her was a vehicle straight out of her history texts. It had TIRES, for frell's sake! A low burbling rumble came from it, like the sound from an ancient text. She froze, fascinated that something so archaic could still be around. Had someone looted a museum?

The weapons on it, though, were modern and deadly. A single barrel pointed away from her, out into the broad roadway, while a slowly traversing turret covered the opposite direction.

Towards HER, she suddenly realized, and bolted back into the staircase, moving downward, running.

With all the racket she was making, she ran into the two men before she noticed them. She started back, vibroblade in hand, searching them carefully for any sign of the madness of the Infected. Her gut reactions said they were friendly, though one of them was unarmed and looked weary.

The other - Oh Gods, was that a Lightsaber? She cowered back, remembering that Clea had said that only Dark Jedi walked on Coruscant. Dark Jedi and Sith, like Lord Vader and the Emperor had been. Barely trained, unshielded, they could feel her terror.

[Chancellor Belargic]

"Why must I always be the bearer of bad news?" Grace said with a disheartened sigh. "Seems like every time we are able to have us all together, I find a way to break us apart."

Standing at his wife's side, Dasquian shook his head. “It's not your fault, you know that.”

With a deep breath, he look from Grace to the data-sheets scattered around his desk. It was quite possible that the other members of the Alliance had been tipped off to what was going on in the Core, but it was also necessary that they be given an official briefing – so that the best course of action could be decided. Already Dasquian could hear the debates playing out in his mind. It seemed almost inevitable that the war he had avoided ratifying for so long would not be upon him, whether he assented or not.

He removed a hand held communicator from his pocket and relayed a message to the suite front desk, asking that all Alliance representatives assemble in the Calamari Hall of Heroes. There they would decide the fate of the Galaxy.

[Master Nytherciria]

Daria listened to the words of the Jedi Council, the syllables becoming muffled as her focus was drawn to the threads of the Force once more. Her head inclined ever so slightly upwards, as though she was scenting the air. Eyes narrowing, she strained to hear some far-off voice. It, like the words of her peers, was distorted – as though a chorus of voices were all trying to speak at once. They whispered fragments of the future and the catastrophic fate that lay ahead of them all.

The harrowing thought that, should the virus spread far enough, the Force would will complete and utter destruction lingered constantly in the back of the Jedi Master's mind. Perhaps they had strayed too far, so far that the Force deemed cataclysm necessary... wiping every living being from the Galaxy to start again anew.

“We cannot count on the Alliance to act in the best interests of the Force. They will undoubtedly maintain their long-standing stance of appeasement and avoidance.”

[Executor Van-Derveld]

Questioned in his motives, the Executor turned from the video-screen to face Valten. The Inquisitor hadn't the foresight to understand what could be achieved with Morbus. That was why it had been necessary to intervene in its development, to ensure that the virus be engineered to its full potential.

“None of those worlds can be affected,” Van-Derveld repeated questioningly, his mask straining again as he raised one curious 'brow.

“They can, and will. Perhaps, in the past, their shipyards were of some importance, but they have out-lasted their use. To manufacture and man a starship – a mediocre and cumbersome weapon at best – is inefficient, costly. Morbus... Morbus is not so transient. It will accomplish the work of an entire fleet in a matter of hours.”

Turning slightly, Vega depressed a button on the video command console and the image appeared to freeze. The view now was of one of the busiest crossroads in Imperial Center, piled high with bodies. At this sight, Van-Derveld swelled with satisfaction. All of the pain and suffering... already he could feel the Dark Side presence on Coruscant growing exponentially.

[Master s'Ilancy-Prent]

Silent and buried within her own thoughts, Lok sat immobile in the confines of the conference room. What Master Nytherciria said was true; or at least, she shared the same opinion as her fellow Jedi. Her thoughts went to her husband, and how this disaster would no doubt affect everything he'd been campaigning for. She did not know which side he would ultimately follow, but she herself had no doubt on which side she would fall.

"If we are to contain this in any way shape or form, we must act quickly." Her voice was terse, "From what little we know of it already, I don't think that finding the source of the contagion will come close to solving the problem. It is the contagion itself that has to be dealt with."

The Lupine leaned forward, resting her elbows on her knees. Her small frame seemed to be swallowed by the robes she wore.

"But, I feel that we must protect our own first. As kneejerk a reaction as this may seem, we can't strike out without direction.

"Blockade Vortex; all traffic to and from - stopped."

[Emperor Ave]

Elsewhere in the Galaxy, news of the epidemic on Coruscant reached the private residence of the Galactic Emperor. Engaged in a game of dejarik, Ave took the time to complete his turn before acknowledging the messenger stood in the study doorway.

“M-my lord,” the boy stammered. “What are your orders?”

The Emperor's pure-white eyes remained focus on to the game-board laid out in front of him.

As he spoke, he eyed the K'lor'slug piece with a near imperceptible frown.

“Summon Razielle. Send word to Inquisitor Valten that all starports must be closed, and that Imperial Center is to be evacuated post-haste.”

The messenger boy lingered a little while longer, watching as Ave held one clawed hand above the dejarik board, fingers curling ponderously.

“Will that be all, my lord?” he asked, at last.

To which the Emperor replied: “For now.”

[Razielle Ave]

Gone were the days of Razielle haunting palace halls as a simpering young fool. Her girlish demeanor had long ago vanished, along with her lace edged gowns and gentile manners. At present she was to be found ensconced within a training room, as was typical for her, practicing her swordplay. At one time she would have only thought to choose a steel edged weapon, but now she held in her dual grasp single bladed lightsabers, one crimson, one violet. Dressed as she was, from head to toe in black, in a room bathed in little light, the only way to observe her movements was to track the arc's and spins of light.

The heavy double doors opened, spilling a beam of outside light into her solitude. Immediately she cast herself once more into darkness and issued a command of her own.

"Speak.."

The boy cleared his throat, then hesitantly began.

"Lady Ave, the Emperor commands your presence."

She stepped from the shadows directly before him, startling the boy further. Lady Ave, was not known for her patience.

"Well, by all means, let us not keep our Emperor waiting."

The boy gulped and nodded, then led the way back to the study, announcing Razielle as she brushed past him and entered. She crossed the room and slid into the richly upholstered armchair to the Emperor's right, crossing her booted legs and waiting on his pleasure to speak.

[General Michael Brand]

General Michael Brand, Supreme Commander of the Allied Armed Forces, stepped into an armored Sorosuub luxury speeder en route to a briefing with the Chancellor of the Alliance.

He'd never gotten past wondering how the frell some Hanna City jarhead had ended up with so many Capital Letters after his name. He'd never had a shred of ambition; he'd never asked for more than the power to do his job. Somehow, over a period of thirty-five years of service against the Empire, that had parlayed into the highest military office in the fledgeling Galactic Alliance.

As General Brand settled himself on the rear bench seat, Colonel Aylen Marcos took the opposite bench, facing him. Frack, when did Marcos start looking like an officer? Every time Brand looked his way, he expected to see the raw-faced, underaged private who'd signed up with his outfit twenty years ago.

"What's on your mind, sir?" Marcos asked.

Brand let the question bounce around the spacious cabin area as the speeder pulled away from the curb and the bulbous blocks of Coral City rolled by. His own intel had already briefed him on the virus, what little they knew of it - a virulent, fast-spreading contagion, readily communicable, one hundred percent fatal. A plague that was running roughshod over Coruscant and had already jumped into several core systems, including his homeworld. A weapon of fiendish design and potentially galactic reach - made the Starkiller missile look like a cap gun.

"Just the usual," Brand replied. "Contradictory objectives. Impossible odds. Only now we're armed with weapons we can't use and facing an enemy we can't attack. Things are so much simpler in the trenches."

Marcos laughed sardonically. "Pinned in a foxhole with half-spent ammo against a superior force. We had plagues back then, too."

"The few, the overlooked, the under-provisioned, the marines. We always scraped through. If it wore white armor or a black jacket, shoot it. Now we're facing an enemy we can't see - Director Belargic's kind of people. And they're willing to sacrifice billions of their own people to test their latest bio-bomb. I'd say nuke the whole fracking planet, but Force knows the Empire doesn't care about Coruscant one way or the other. And whether this is the first stage of a new biological offensive or the work of one renegade warlord, the only way to stop it is to run straight through the Empire, war or no war."

"Their fleets are still concentrated on our borders. And almost a quarter of ours is spread through the Allied systems doing humanitarian missions."

"Then they become the homeguard while our border patrols become the strike forces. The Empire may have numbers, but their forces are still as unwieldy as ever. We can vape a couple key communications relays with ballistic strikes, send small, nimble forces against shipyards, weapons facilities, naval docks. Our missile boats can keep their defensive fleets pinned to their major systems."

"But it'd take a fraction of their starfleet to wipe out our major systems if they're willing to sacrifice a few of theirs," Marcos replied.

"I know, classic Imperial Machiavellianism. Only way to oppose that is to cripple their ability to make war. We could accomplish that with one deep-space strike force. A missile cruiser and a small attendant battle group into the heart of Imperial space. Corulag. Brentaal. Ralltiir. Kuat. Every major base capable of sending an invasion force into Alliance territory. No more maneuvering, no more warnings. We can't afford a fight that leaves the Empire in a condition to fight back."

[Lord Inquisitor Valten]

“Agreed, but now we have no control over the spread.” The gears in Valten’s extra limbs whirred, as if they were impatient to rip something to pieces. The two greatest values of the Inquisitoriate were knowledge and control, and now he had neither thanks to the conniving Executor. With timing off and no knowledge of the new strain, the Inquisition was hard pressed to guide the infection along as planned. Now it just ran rampant, infecting everyone, not just the detritus.
<o></o>
“Control and order, Executor, without those the Imperium cannot survive.” An ivory knife found it’s way into one of the Inquisitor’s flesh and blood hands, slowly twirling between his fingers. That glint in Van-Derveld’s eye was something the Inquisitor had seen before, in the eyes of the former Executor and many dark adepts he had dealt with.
<o></o>
“Your duty is still to the Empire. Do not test the balance or I will have your head on my desk.” The spinning of the blade stopped, the tip pointing at the Executor.”
<o></o>
A chime sounded before either could continue. “Lord Valten?”
<o></o>
Karl calmly tucked the knife into the sleeve of his uniform and never broke his gaze on the Executor. “Speak.”
<o></o>
The voice paused a moment, as if nervous to deliver it. “A message for you…it’s from Kohlma.”
<o></o>
Ah, of course the Emperor would be intervening. Valten turned a shoulder to leave, but lingered a moment longer. “We estimate at least a quarter trillion infected and it has already been proven that they are capable of operating technology. They cannot be allowed to escape. I will be invoking the Extermination Doctrine, I expect you’ll enjoy seeing this world burn.”
<o></o>
The cyborg Inquisitor passed the threshold, his mechanical arms grasping the door edges and slamming them shut behind him.

[Emperor Ave]

“I am... vexed, Razielle,” the Emperor began.

“It has come to my attention that a devil-may-care element within my Empire has taken it upon himself to plunge Coruscant into chaos.”

It was a fact widely known yet rarely spoken of that Salem Ave detested Imperial City. The ecumenopolis was not to his taste and upon acquiring his current position within the Empire Ave had made sure to get as far away from the Galactic Center, making his home in the striking castle once used by the infamous Count Dooku. From the citadel's thorn-like spires, he could muster a much clearer view of galactic events than he ever could from the skyscrapers of Coruscant.

If there was one thing, however, that the Emperor loathed more than Coruscant it was chaos. Strict order and structure had governed Ave's life, and paved the way for his ascension through the ranks of the Galactic Empire from lowly envoy to supreme ruler. Already, control was beginning to slip from his grasp – but he would not allow the madness to continue any longer.

“I want you to contact Adraudia and instruct her to ready the Hapan Navy for combat.”

[Razielle Ave]

"Of course.." Razielle nodded once, then rose from the seat she had just gotten cozy in. She made no mistake in assuming that her husband had not meant now. Before leaving the study, she leaned over the Emperor's shoulder, observing the game of dejarik. She leaned close and whispered something to him, that only he could hear. Although, from the smug look on her face as she rose and departed it had little to to with any of his pawns..

She left the Emperor's study, heading to her own office to relay the message privately. The eyes of morbid statuary following her movements down the halls of the keep. A servant opened the door for her, at her approach, but did not follow her inside. She closed the door and crossed the room, moving around behind her desk. She opened a private channel to the Queen Mother of Hapes. The frequency was one that Adraudia would recognize as being from the Emperor, and of utmost urgency. Razielle switched on the visual recording device and began to speak.

"Erenada, my Sister...", she began, letting her voice trail off, awaiting a reply from the Queen Mother.

[Darth Lucid]

Lucid felt it spreading through out the city, this plague. Coruscant would soon fall into ruin and would be nothing more then an empty planet. It would be empty just as empty as Lucid's soul had become. Long ago Lucid had been a man with a vision and a future. A future he destroyed himself by killing the one he loved and chasing away the children he had.

He had destroyed the sith empire he had wished to reclaim in the process. There where only a few remnants left of the sith religious cult he had started. Empty and alone the man that was once Blade Ice now hide behind a mask , only go by the name Lucid now.

He sat in a room in an old abandoned apartment building on Coruscant. He had come to this city trying to hunt down rogue sith. He was empty but he served purpose it was to end what he felt he had started. Lucid slipped his mask over his face latching his prison shut. He stood up from the bed he had been meditating on and wrapped his belt around his waste. On that belt hung five sabers. One was his master and lovers. Two where his own built sabers. Another was his masters, master's saber. The last was of another sith he had killed on his path to redemption.

Through force Lucid sent out a message to Zereth a sith of the warrior caste.

"My brother in force listen carefully. I have seen the future and my time here in this universe is coming to an end. Yet I have one last war to fight. We must seek out those are people have called the enemy for so many generations. The Jedi will need are help if anyone is to survive this."

[Mac Ravenwing]

She wasn't trying to hide, but wasn't making it easy to follow her either. Nose to the wind, and with the Ugnaughts around the wind was eyewateringly potent at times, Mac located the hotel she'd stopped at, and hesitated only a moment before walking inside.

Teagan wasn't hiding behind the door ready to pounce on him, a habit he was sure she'd picked up from growing up around Daani Raurssaattaa, so he relaxed a bit and headed for the front desk. The droid fastened to the desk studied him for a moment, and then swiveled around to locate a keycard from the rack behind it.

"Miss s'Ilancy informed me you would be arriving." Its synthesized voice was stuffy and its torso smelled like fresh oil. "Take the elevator to the -"

Mac snatched the keycard, and heard his commlink ping in his pants pocket at the same time. Frell it, they can leave a message. He mashed the button for the turbolift and the doors opened almost immediately.

Busy looking at the room number on the card in his hand, Mac was taken off guard momentarily as Teagan and Teagan-smell reached out of the 'lift and pulled him inside. His commlink pinged once more, but the pilot ignored it again as he wrapped his arms around the Losstarot Lupine, and backing her against the wall of the 'lift. "You should stop running away from me, Teagan..."

[Bryna Belargic]

The journey from Mon Calamari to Vortex had passed without incident for a while, at least, but it couldn't be smooth sailing forever. Bryna's mother had often joked that the girl had inherited from her father what Grace called the 'Belargic Bad Luck'. Passing from the Outer Rim Territories into the Mid Rim was always dangerous – the Empire were known to patrol the Mid Rim extensively due to the large number of Imperial bases and shipyards throughout the area.

As her shuttle entered the system, long-range sensors began to pick up on a number of vessels ahead, all of them substantially larger than the passenger craft Bryna was piloting. She could only hope that her presence would go undetected...

[Master Laran]

The air tasted stale as A'na helped Serena sit the seven children down for a meal. Rammon, fifteen years of age, had some control over the Force, but no formal training. He could wiggle and bounce inanimate objects if they were small enough, and he also tended to project his emotions on everyone around him, if his emotions were strong enough.

Thankfully, he was not fearful at the moment. Serena was touching the Force, keeping the children calmer than they might have been under the circumstances. A'na sat next to her small darkhaired daughter, reaching across the low table to help seven year old Dako with his drink. Jade, her green eyes so light that at times she almost looked Arkanian (if not for the pupil in the center), tugged on her mother's sleeve for attention.

Serena lowered herself to her seat, Alise and Ida, the ten year old blonde twins, sitting on either side of her, both beaming and thrilled to be so close to a real Jedi Master! They ate their sandwiches and soup in relative silence, though each occasionally jostled Serena's elbow for some personal attention.

Four year old Jax was being helped with his soup by thirteen year old Trelby, the older girl displaying infinite patience with the boy as he struggled to get the soup in his mouth rather than on his shirt. A'na, who had been swept along with the group as they had tried to make it to Serenity and off planet before quarantine went into affect, ate nothing, though Serena encouraged her to keep her strength up.

She was a puzzle to the Jedi Master, and Serena's little calming trick didn't seem to touch her, either. A'na's face was calm, a brave front for the children, but her spirit was uneasy. There was also something else there... a darkness that was buried deep.

There was more banging on the outside of the hull, and the children stopped eating, each looking around with wide eyes, before turning their attention to the white haired woman sitting at the head of the table.

[A'na]

A'na put her arm around Jade until the noises outside subsided, for her own reassurance as well as the girl's. After lunch was finished the Jedi set the older children to work cleaning up, and A'na led the three littlest ones to one of the cabins to take a nap.

They would need all their strength soon enough.

Jax cried a little as A'na tucked him in, but Dako and Jade settled in quietly and all three were soon sleeping soundly. The events of the last day and a half had exhausted them.

Serena met her in the passageway outside the cabin. "We will have to leave within the next six hours, A'na."

"So soon?" The woman hugged her arms around her body. "I thought you said we had a day and a half of air left."

"And so we do, but there's been a breach in the underside of the freighter." At the look on A'na's face, the Jedi added, "Nothing too serious, and there is no danger of anything getting to us in here. But a coolant line was torn out, and its leaking. The fumes will start to trickle up here through the vents even though there is no circulation."

Serena patted A'na on the shoulder, a kindly gesture from the tall woman. "We will be fine, but I need you to get some sleep before we go."

The woman couldn't help but feel relieved at the Jedi's words - Serena had a way about her that set people at ease. "And the other children too, yes?"

The Jedi nodded, and headed to the cockpit to plan out the route they would take from the spaceport. Assuming they made it out of the spaceport. A'na went into the living area and got the four older kids settled into various couches and seats around the room for a mandatory rest period.

Five hours. Five hours and then they'd all be up again, planning to make a run for it. A'na shuddered at the thought of trying to survive out there with the infected running around, let alone with seven children in tow. Sure, a Jedi Master was nothing to sneer at but...

No, I cannot. I swore I would not.

But she might have to. A'na pulled a soft blanket up to her shoulders, curled up in a corner, and tried to put those kind of thoughts out of her head.

[Kale Zarinov]

Kale gripped his lightsaber in its holster, using Sharra's moment of shock to size her up. It was plain to see that the madness of the infection wasn't on her, but it was plainer to see she was terrified, and the vibroblade in her hand could be a deadly nuisance.

"We never saw you, you never saw us. Got it?"

Time was short, and they didn't need any entanglements to make it shorter.

[Master Henning]

The young woman... there was something familiar about her, and yet in his distraction Barton could not place where he thought he knew her from. Perhaps she just had one of those faces. Though Kale tried to hurry onwards, Henning was not so eager to abandon the girl to the wastes of Coruscant. “We could use her help,” he murmured, wiping away sweat from his brow.

[Quinn]

"Wait, you want us to do what?"

"Find our singer, mate. And if it's not too much trouble, our ship." crackled the voice over the radio. The band was moderately famous, so his driver told him.

"I can get her out provided I find her, which is close to nigh impossible here, but forget the ship. The imps are blasting anything that tries to leave orbit without clearance from them specifically." Quinn informed the twi-lek band member on the other audio line.

"Well, if you find her, try to bring her back." the band member pleaded, and there was the sound a wookiee roaring in the background. "For all of us?"

"With the sum you're offering, we'll keep an eye out, just so long as you know the odds of us finding her. But one more question." Quinn asked into the mic.

"What is that?"

"What if she is infected? There is that possibility. I have my orders." Quinn informed him.

"If she is too far gone, make it quick, and bring back some thing of hers to confirm it."

"Roger that. If we see her, we'll bring her back." Quinn touched the communications console. "Quinn out."

As the radio died, Quinn sat back, wondering about his options at the moment. He and his people were being paid to kill the access to the upper levels via the turbolifts, and for nothing else.

"Sir, we're set for blowing this one." crackled the squad channel. Quinn answered it immediately. "Roger that, get out and blow it."

Two squads ran out of the hotel, headed for the APC, and as soon as they were secured, the APC roared away as the lower part of the hotel vanished in a flash of light and smoke, as the tower itself started to come down, some of the upper struts holding the rest together.

[Director Belargic]

Standing at his wife's side, Dasquian shook his head. “It's not your fault, you know that.”

With a deep breath, he look from Grace to the data-sheets scattered around his desk. It was quite possible that the other members of the Alliance had been tipped off to what was going on in the Core, but it was also necessary that they be given an official briefing – so that the best course of action could be decided. Already Dasquian could hear the debates playing out in his mind. It seemed almost inevitable that the war he had avoided ratifying for so long would not be upon him, whether he assented or not.

He removed a hand held communicator from his pocket and relayed a message to the suite front desk, asking that all Alliance representatives assemble in the Calamari Hall of Heroes. There they would decide the fate of the Galaxy.

Her husband was right, of course. It was not her fault, but the galaxy made it a point to make it feel that way to her. She had to miss Bryna's 16th birthday because their outpost on Ryloth was destroyed by an Imperial Spy. One wedding anniversary was spent wadding through the swamps of Ugnasut III in an attempt to rescue a kidnapped Senator ...

It was not the life she wanted to live, but it was the hand that was dealt. Grace had no regrets, but sometimes the lingering doubts of what ifs managed to break through her icy demeanor ... but only in front of her husband.

After Dasquian called in the meeting, she kissed him gently on the lips in silent support. They had not seen eye to eye on the cease fire for quite some time. She wanted the Empire eradicated from every system, he wanted to ensure a peaceful process of understanding with little hostilities. This new development could force his hand into war. Especially if the disease spreads past Imperial Center.

[Navaria Tarkin]

Silent and buried within her own thoughts, Lok sat immobile in the confines of the conference room. What Master Nytherciria said was true; or at least, she shared the same opinion as her fellow Jedi. Her thoughts went to her husband, and how this disaster would no doubt affect everything he'd been campaigning for. She did not know which side he would ultimately follow, but she herself had no doubt on which side she would fall.

"If we are to contain this in any way shape or form, we must act quickly." Her voice was terse, "From what little we know of it already, I don't think that finding the source of the contagion will come close to solving the problem. It is the contagion itself that has to be dealt with."

The Lupine leaned forward, resting her elbows on her knees. Her small frame seemed to be swallowed by the robes she wore.

"But, I feel that we must protect our own first. As kneejerk a reaction as this may seem, we can't strike out without direction.

"Blockade Vortex; all traffic to and from - stopped."

As much as she hated to do this, with their communication compromised, Navaria had to sever the link. The Jedi were going to be the wildcards in all of this and no one must discover what the Council must inevitably do.

"I'm sorry, but we have to end our transmission here." Her words were said with much regret, but she knew her old friend and mentor would understand. "Contact us when you are able to secure another channel and may the Force be with you, mother."

With a bow of respect, the Jedi cut off the transmission and took her place amongst the Council to Daria's right. She required a moment's pause to center herself and remove the image of Adia from her worries. She was a formidable woman, Adia, and would find a way off Coruscant unharmed.

"Master s'Ilancy-Prent's words have merit. Some of the Jedi outside this chamber are stricken with panic and concern. They are not ready to face this catastrophe. Not yet."

[Teagan Staedtler]

A carefree grin on her face, Teagan let the younger Lupine press her against the lift's wall. His scent filled her nostrils, and she breathed in deeply while slipping her arms up along his chest and wrapping them around his neck.

<"Or else what,"> she purred in their native tongue, <"... you'll turn into a big bad beastie and hunt me down?">

She stood on her toes until their noses touched, still grinning wide. The lift started traveling upwards, and she clicked her teeth together.

<"Cause I can do that too, you know.">

[Senator Prent]

Raz's show concluded, and I held my own in his line of questions, making what I considered to be a strong performance. Still, I was curious about Lok, and what had called her away. No doubt Jedi business, but she was still indisposed when the show wrapped up.

I pressed some flesh, made small talk with Raz and some of the other guests on the show, before excusing myself, just as my commslip chirped. I checked the channel, and it was a private Senatorial message.

"Damn."

It was a summons to a hearing on Mon Calamari, and from the looks of it, something I couldn't defer.

I asked a few staffers where my wife was, and eventually found one who directed me to the door, but warned me that she wasn't to be disturbed.

"She's my wife. It's my job to disturb her daily."

I dismissed his protests with a casual squeeze on the shoulder and knocked on the door frame.

[Kal Cimmerian]

"Whatta ya mean ya can't get a hold of 'im?!?" Cimmerian was incensed as his pilotted his swoop bike towards Votrad Independent Downport.

His droid, 'Maddy', beeped a response which sounded more like an insult than an actual relaying of info. Frackin' R9 droids and their personalities, Cimmerian thought. Should've mind-wiped him when I got th'chance.

"Keep tryin' t'reach him."

He was actually disconcerted 'bout th'fact he couldn't get a hold of Bloodcrest. The pirate had been one of only a couple people who'd kept up with Cimmerian since his disgrace. And in his own way, the Brentaal resident was happy for it. He didn't have a ton of off-world friends, hell he could only count two or three really. One was a rather annoying info broker (and who knows where the frack he was). The other was 'The Kid' and he knew she was safe. Or 'least he hoped t'the gods she was.

But that was a different story.

"Figures th'one time I wanna be sneaky..."

The gun-for-hire's voice trailed off as he stared at the city around him. It was in chaos. Whatever th'frack had happened at Curavao had happened here as well.

Things...well things who used t'be people...were attacking everything organic in sight, ripping open limbs from various creatures or vomitting on victims. One Infected was hopping on one leg towards this one human male who brandished a large blaster rifle. As he shot the other leg out from under him, two other virus-enhanced humans attacked him, ripping into his neck and bringing him to the ground. One moment later and he started spasming like the rest.

The HUD in Cimmerian's snow white helmet saw and recorded it all: the deaths, the transformations, everything.

It was horrid, even f'someone who'd seen (and done) plenty of dark things. One who had a monster hidden inside of his own soul. This...this was beyond that. This wasn't something which could be fought with alcohol and tobacco or claiming t'be a part of some organization which shared ya goals. This was something which had t'be eradicated no matter the cost.

He had a couple puzzle pieces but still wasn't sure what was goin' on. Cimmerian's thoughts were pulled to a halt when he came to th'starport.

It was a slaughter. A frackin' mindless slaughter. Infected and non-infected alike were strewn across the entry way, their bodies all removed of their limbs or heads. Some were torn off by the look of a blade...others had been ripped from their sockets. Blood made th'floor slick and the hunter was happy for th'nose filters his helmet possessed.

And in th'middle of the room, near the black-haired man's token offa this damned planet (The Balmorran Blaster), stood a Wookie. His coat was matted with blood most of which came from his mouth. If Cimmerian'd been closer he woulda seen blood red eyes and a look of rage on his face.

The Wookie's head reared back and its howl was ungodly. It was awful, shaking the armored hunter to his bones.

'Specially since the Wookie carried two deadly ryyk blades.

Well hell's bells, Cimmerian thought as he was spotted. This makes things a helluva lot tougher.

The Wookie actually twirlled the blades, twirlled th'fracking blades, before rushing towards the armored man with inhuman speed.

Cimmerian's reaction was quick. Sliding to th'left, he avoided the charge and landed a blow on the Wookie's neck. It was like hitting duracrete and even in the armor it frackin' hurt.

The Wookie swung his blades again, this time in a downward motion which caused sparks to shoot up from the hangar floor. Cimmerian dodged and pulled one of his Bryar pistols shooting th'Infected Wookie twice in the chest.

The Walkin' Carpet didn't even flinch...fact it prolly got madder. Krasst!

The Infected Wookie swung an elbow, connecting with Cimmerian's helmet. The human fell to the floor, losing his blaster. His helmet's HUD went fuzzy for a moment, but quickly realigned itself. Cimmerian almost wished it hadn't when he saw the two ryyk blades swinging again towards him.

With seconds to act, the Brentaal-resident pressed a button on his right glove, extending the two vibroblades from their holdings within his forearm armor. He swung the vibro-gauntlet upwards, towards the soft belly of Wookie. A *sluicing* sound came from the Wookie's skin and with a *plop* his innards rolled down Cimmerian's armor and onto the floor.

And yet th'Wookie didn't stop. He swung his blades again, this time towards Cimmerian's head. The latter ducked, then swung his own blades at the former's thick wrist. The blades made it most of the way through the wrist before getting caught within the flesh. Cimmerian jumped and booted th'Wookie in the face.

The Infected lost his balance and fell to th'floor, its wrist (and a part of its arm) still stuck to the vibro-gauntlet. The armored man, breathing hard from the fight, pulled another Bryar Blaster and shot him twice in the furry head. This time...he stayed down.

A sigh came from Cimmerian's lips and he retrieved his lost pistol. His eyes then spotted th'girl huddled in the corner.

She was small, at least 11, and she was crying.

Cimmerian walked towards her, cautiously, tryin' not t'appear too threatening.

"Hey...you okay, girl?"

Nothing, just more crying. His pistol in one hand (and th'Wookie's wrist still connected to th'other), he knelt before her.

"I ain't gonna hurt ya. Can ya tell me what happened?"

Still nothing. She was clothed plainly and must've lost her parents somewhere.

Setting his blaster down, Cimmerian started t'reach for the clasp to his helmet, but her eyes suddenly shot up and she screamed and jumped for him.

"Shavit!" he cursed as he fell to th'floor, the infected girl on top of him. She spat blood on his protected face, some of it dribbling onto his neck armor. He swung his right arm, the Wookie's stump and the tips of his blades, connecting with 'er creepy-lookin' face.

The infected child fell back and the hunter grabbed his blaster. He shot her twice, once in the arm and once in the head.

"I'm sorry," his raspy voice was serious as he stared at her dead body.

It took a moment for Cimmerian to compose himself, but he knew he had little time. His long strides took him to The Balmorran Blaster and keyed in the entry code. It remained locked.

"Hey 'Maddy' let me th'frack in will ya?"

There was a *twittering* in his helmet's mic and Cimmerian growlled, "Of course it's me, why th'frack would it not?"

More *twittering*

"Look I ain't infected with whatever the hell this poodoo is, but I will sell ya f'scrap if ya don't open th'fracking door!"

It opened.

The Balmorran Blaster was a Firespray-class starship (http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Firespray-31-class_patrol_and_attack_craft) and one the hired-gun actually liked. He still missed the speed of his previous ships, but this one was fast 'nough and did its job. Plus it was pretty much a classic ship. Nothin' wrong with that.

The hunter made it inside th'ship, noting with a bit of joy no surprises were waiting for him. Save for his R9 droid holding a towel within one of its grasping claws.

"Thanks," Cimmerian nodded as he took the towel. No way he was gonna take any chances that whatever was affecting the crazies outside were gonna make him crazy as well.

No more than normal at least.

His right arm was heavy and then he remembered th'Wookie's stump. Finding an empty cargo container, Cimmerian dumped the hairy wrist/arm into it, then cleaned the blades of his gauntlet.

"Get us off planet 'Maddy'. I don't care if there's a whole frackin' fleet above us. I want out."

He spent th'next thirty minutes cleaning the armor of all th'blood and grime it'd collected. As he cleaned, Cimmerian started putting together mental puzzle pieces: It was obvious whatever this thing was that it wasn't just local t'Brentaal, especially how quickly it'd spread. And if the Spaceport was infected as well, then it meant it came from off-planet. Which meant it might've been engineered. Which meant it prolly came from th'Empire. Probably.

It was the 'why' Cimmerian couldn't figure out, but with th'Imps ya never frackin' knew. These chuffsuckers would prolly destroy th'entire frackin' galaxy if it meant getting their version of 'pure order' into everyone's head.

Bastards.

He placed the Mandalorian Armor in its display case and changed clothes. There was another set of Mandy armor in another housing but he ignored it for now. F'once he wanted comfort.

Cimmerian grabbed a large bottle of Alderaanian Ruge and made it to the cockpit just as space started t'greet his eyes. No blockade yet, just a few other ships trying t'get the hell off the planet. One of them suddenly exploded as it appeared something went 'wrong' within.

'Maddy' made a nervous *twitter* and his master cursed.

Cimmerian shook his head and took another drink. He then raised a dark cigar to his mouth and lit it with a silver butane lighter.

Gods it was wonderful. Even in this craziness it was frackin' wonderful.

"All right, keep tryin' t'reach Bloodcrest. If we can't get 'im, then I guess we get t'make the whole damn Alliance mad."

He gave a small smirk and took a rather long drink, "And who wants t'do that?"

[Clea Darkrunner]

"I've got a ship," Sharra muttered at the two men. "Listen, my mom's rich, I can pay you to help me get off - I can fly it alone, but something in my <i>gut</i> tells me that I need help to get off here. <i> I've gotta hunch that it will need more than just me or just you two</i>."

There was a faint wash of the Force from her when she spoke of her hunch, the feel of an untrained or partially trained Force user, afraid, but quashing the feeling instinctively.

She would have said more, but there was a large explosion above, and they were all thrown down the last flight of stairs. She picked herself up, noting that she had turned off the vibroblade. <i> Wow, that training DID work</i> she thought, before helping the other two up.

[Milivikal k'Vik]

“You do not recognize me, Cirresseeto?” Milivikal's voice was full and sultry. She adjusted the lighting near her chair chair. Cirr's features narrowed. She did not smile. Her lined face was grave, and yet, on some level, seemed to be euphoric.

“But I did not come to exchange pleasantries. Understand,” she said, her eyes rolling back into her head “that I did not ask for you, Cirreseeto. I was brought here by the Force. I am an agent and messenger.” Her voice was unearthly and multi-layered. The ships themselves seemed to hum with her words.

“Balance, the Balance has been wrenched from it's fulcrum. We teeter on the edge of annihilation. Billions must die because of a great folly. We have a voice, now, and our eyes and ears our many. But a fist! Provide us our fist so that we may right the balance. Smash Coruscant.”

[Queen Mother Basillie]

"Of course.." Razielle nodded once, then rose from the seat she had just gotten cozy in. She made no mistake in assuming that her husband had not meant now. Before leaving the study, she leaned over the Emperor's shoulder, observing the game of dejarik. She leaned close and whispered something to him, that only he could hear. Although, from the smug look on her face as she rose and departed it had little to to with any of his pawns..

She left the Emperor's study, heading to her own office to relay the message privately. The eyes of morbid statuary following her movements down the halls of the keep. A servant opened the door for her, at her approach, but did not follow her inside. She closed the door and crossed the room, moving around behind her desk. She opened a private channel to the Queen Mother of Hapes. The frequency was one that Adraudia would recognize as being from the Emperor, and of utmost urgency. Razielle switched on the visual recording device and began to speak.

"Erenada, my Sister...", she began, letting her voice trail off, awaiting a reply from the Queen Mother.

Hapan Palace - North Wing

The taller of the two women fencing parried the incoming lunge and disarmed her younger opponent with ease. "You are using too much power and leaving yourself open Ryssa," said the older of the pair.

The younger one picked up her weapon and returned to an en garde stance. "I know. I keep trying to go for the quick hit."

"There is a time and place for everything," said her elder and returned to position. "Every opening is not necessarily the proper time to strike."

The match resumed and the younger girl kept on defense. She held back, refraining from her usual instinct to charge ahead but was being pushed back. Her foot was nearly on the piste. She had no choice but to try an offensive maneuver in order to create some room between them. Unfortunately her attack was passé, completely missing and allowed her opponent to circle the foil around her arm and hit her squarely in the chest.

It was quite painful.

"Ow! Mother!" The young girl took off her helmet and glared with rumpled hair. "That was not sporting!"

"Am I to take it easy solely on the fact you are my daughter?" Her mother chuckled underneath the helmet before removing it. At 46, time had touched Adraudia gently as her hair was just threatening to grey. Her complexion was as perfect as ever, even with the perspiration glistening and matting some of her hair against her skin. "I cannot take it easy on you if you are to learn to defend yourself properly."

Named after her grandmother, Ryssa was a spitting image of her mother at 16 years of age, from her pouting lips to the slender cheekbone that outlined her face. Even her brown locks mimicked Adraudia's. However the defiant look was clearly inherited from her father. Those dark eyes were always full of confidence or mischief. As the heir to the throne, those qualities would serve her well or get her into a lot of trouble. But the Queen Mother was pleased that her daughter did not have to grow up quickly as she was forced to do. At 16 Adraudia had to serve as Queen, orphaned by the loss of her parents.

At least here, all of her children could be raised by their mother and father together.

"I know that, but you did not have to prove your point that hard." She smiled and then winced, rubbing at her chest. "Thankfully Ariestian makes good plating for protection."

Wrapping an arm around her daughter, Adraudia had to smile. "Yes. Another reason I'm not soft. But you have to admit, you'd do much the same against me." Her eyes glanced downward, scrutinizing Ryssa and making the girl uncomfortable as any parent could do. "Right?"

Sheepishly she hugged her mother's waist and agreed. "... yes ..."

Pecking Ryssa on the top of her head, she smiled. "Thought so."

At that moment, one of the Palace staff quickly made their way over to the Royal family and bowed graciously. "I beg your pardon Queen Mother, but there is a transmission for you from Lady Ave."

Ryssa's eyes lit up. "Auntie Razielle?" She looked up at her mother with fondness. "We haven't heard from her in a few months. I hope she is well."

Adraudia pet her daughter's hair with a smile. "As do I. Let's see how she is."

"Ah ..." The aide looked grim at the thought of that. " ... She wishes to speak to you in private."

That caused a brow to raise. "Was it the priority code?"

"Yes, your Majesty."

Ryssa sighed, knowing that meant it wasn't a social call and let go of her mother. "Duty calls. I'll go and make sure that my sisters aren't driving father mad."

"Thank you. We'll talk later." She watched as Ryssa left with her handmaiden and walked into the adjoining study where she could talk with her old friend in private.

She activated the call immediately.

"Erenada, my Sister..."

"Razielle ..." Adraudia began to speak before she rounded the desk and sat down. "It has been awhile since we have had the luxury to speak, but it is our Master's will that beckons you to contact me ..."

The Queen Mother took a moment to center herself and delve into the Force to gain insight as to why the Emperor would contact her. All she felt was cold and death. " ... something displeases him?"

[Knight Staedtler]

It was with great relief that the small, battered transport made it's final hiss as of descension, landing smoothly on the narrow strip of pad outside of the Jedi Temple. As the computers hummed lowly, shutting down, the man piloting within jerked from his seat quickly. He tried, without much success, to release his frustration into the Force.

Wyl Staedtler had been an hour outside Vortex when he'd felt it; 'it' being the awful rent in the Force that signalled something very wrong had happened--was happening, rather. With the ship's comm system on the fritz, the man had been nearly completely cut off from any other sentient being. The only other present with him was a terrified five-year-old from Umgul, whom he had been sent to investigate for potential. The boy had it in spades and, with his parent's blessings, had returned with the Knight to begin his Jedi training.

It was clear from his continued silence that the boy had felt the disturbance too. Unclipping his safety webbing, Wyl offered a reassuring smile, though there was a deep worry crease dividing the Jedi's forhead. "Come on, Danru. We must hurry." The boy nodded and wordlessly followed the man out into the windy atmosphere of Vortex.

Absorbed in his own thoughts, Wyl didn't realize the child had dropped behind him as they crossed the pad and headed towards the Temple.

"Master Wyl, can you slow down?!" Danru called. Wyl turned and waited for the boy to catch up. Because he did not have the time to allow for the boy's small strides the Knight hoisted Danru's featherlight frame into his arms and carried him the rest of the way.

There was a collective feeling of deep unnease, something Wyl had never felt within the safety of the Vortex academy before. Completely in the dark as to what was going on, the Knight headed immediately for the Council chambers, only briefly stopping to put Danru down and take the child's hand instead.

The hall was filled with Jedi of various ranks and ages, the doors gaurded by Master Krogan. Wyl caught the man's gaze and nodded once in terse greeting. He was about to try and manouver himself and Danru through the crowd when a blurred figure barrelled into his side with enough force to send the Knight reeling.

His boots slipped on the slick stone floor and it was a merit to the physical training he'd recieved that Wyl managed to recover before he was made a fool. Righting himself, the Knight raised an eyebrow at his attacker. "You shouldn't be running in the corridors, young one." A pause, as he looked pointedly at the closed Council chambers. "Especially at a time like this."

[Ever Talbot]

Skinny arms were wrapped tightly around his waist, a brown mop of hair nuzzled into his side. A tiny, childish voice was muffled by his robes.

"But I missed you, Master! And," 12 year old Ever Talbot looked up at him, ears drooping down to her shoulders. Her lower lip quivered slightly. "Something is really wrong."

It was then she realized he had another youngling in tow. Still keeping her arms wound tightly around Wyl, she greeted the boy with a puzzled look. "Who's that?"

[Knight Staedtler]

"This is Danru. He's going to live here now." Wyl replied quietly, one long arm circling around Ever. Though the trip had been short and not the first time he'd left his padawan behind, the Knight suspected that his not being able to contact the girl coupled with the events of the day were making his return a more notable one.

Waves of worry were rolling off Ever, which even the new presence of Danru could only distract momentarily. When he looked down her eyes were wide and her grip on his jacket tightened imperceptibly. Wyl turned a steady gaze on her. Ever would be able to tell that he shared her worry, but there was also a calm readiness radiating from the man. "Yes, I feel it too, Padawan. We must wait until the Council has finished discussing matters."

He did not tell her that things would be alright. Ever had never gotten anything less than honesty from her master, just as Wyl had from his own. The girl had come to expect the brutal truth.

Which was that Wyl did not know if things could be sorted.

[Kal Cimmerian]

The Belargics' kiss was interrupted by the *bleeping* of the Chancellor's comlink.

"I'm sorry to bother you, sir," the officer spoke, "But you have a...I suppose it's a personal message, we're not really sure. It's on a very old frequency and rather basic."

There was a pause, "We wouldn't have given it any sort of notice if it didn't deal with your...err...former job.

"I'm patching it to your computer right now."

The message popped up a moment later.

To: Director Dasquian Belargic
From: Whipping Boy
Subject Line: Meeting

Message: Inna day. Mon Cal. See ya then Bossman.

The officer spoke again, "Shall I forward it to Director Belargic?"

[Razielle Ave]

"Razielle ..." Adraudia began to speak before she rounded the desk and sat down. "It has been awhile since we have had the luxury to speak, but it is our Master's will that beckons you to contact me ..."

The Queen Mother took a moment to center herself and delve into the Force to gain insight as to why the Emperor would contact her. All she felt was cold and death. " ... something displeases him?"

"Yes, my Sister.." Razielle braced her arms on the desk before her and steepled her fingers, pressing her forehead to them for a moment. She sighed deeply, sinking back into the chair to bring Adraudia up to speed.

"There has been an.. incident. Imperial agents, acting of their own accord have released a weapon in the Core. By nature, the Morbus Project is the latest in biological weaponry, fast spreading and absolute. It was not scheduled to be released at this time. It has begun spreading through the Core already. Those infected become as the walking dead. It is no exaggeration to say they are most nightmarish creatures, with a taste for flesh and consumed with rage. It has already claimed a vast number and at present threatens the Inner rim worlds."

"If it gets beyond that.. we are lost. The Emperor wishes you to ready the Hapan Navy for combat and confront the problem at its source. The only possible solution now is to burn the festering disesase from the galaxy." She looked up, serious and resolute.

"Adraudia, close your borders. Leave nothing to chance. I have heard first hand that some of the infected can still retain use of their faculties, using technology against us." Razielle thought about her young nieces. She was a Sith, and the Hand of the Emperor but her heart still beat for those she loved and she would not allow this great catastrophe to touch her family..

[Kale Zarinov]

Kale, distracted as he was, sensed the danger only one neural transmission ahead of the blast. He gathered up the Force behind him to cushion his fall as he struck the landing below. He hoped Master Henning still had the presence of mind to do the same.

The Jedi knight cursed again under his breath - an old Coruscant habit, hard to break - and hauled himself up to his feet so the two of them could help Master Henning. Then he regarded Sharra fiercely.

"A ship? Where? Does it have enough fuel to make it to the Alliance worlds? Never mind, we talk as we go. Just hope those sons of biths didn't blow up our carport."

[Ever Talbot]

"This is Danru. He's going to live here now." Wyl replied quietly, one long arm circling around Ever. Though the trip had been short and not the first time he'd left his padawan behind, the Knight suspected that his not being able to contact the girl coupled with the events of the day were making his return a more notable one.

Waves of worry were rolling off Ever, which even the new presence of Danru could only distract momentarily. When he looked down her eyes were wide and her grip on his jacket tightened imperceptibly. Wyl turned a steady gaze on her. Ever would be able to tell that he shared her worry, but there was also a calm readiness radiating from the man. "Yes, I feel it too, Padawan. We must wait until the Council has finished discussing matters."

He did not tell her that things would be alright. Ever had never gotten anything less than honesty from her master, just as Wyl had from his own. The girl had come to expect the brutal truth.

Which was that Wyl did not know if things could be sorted.

She nodded a little too hard, and sniffled. She wouldn't cry, she wouldn't cry...even though all she could feel was confused and worried. Master Wyl was calm, but she could tell he didn't know if things would be okay. Ever loosened her grip on him, just a little, and wiped her eyes.

"I hope they tell us soon."

[Master s'Ilancy-Prent]

Her brow furrowed at the knock, and Lok leaned back in her seat. Her hands moved to rest over her knees. She didn't need the Force to tell her that her husband had sought her out; she could smell his cologne through the cracks in the door as it seeped inward, a familiar invisible cloud that she had smelled many times over. It was a pleasant odor, and at any other time would've made her smile.

Now though... now. The Lupine dipped her head, looking down. Jawline set, she let out a long breath.

"Masters; I must take my leave of you. You know my initial feelings on this matter.

"I won't be returning to Vortex until this epidemic is contained. Send word to Shwartzweld if you need me; otherwise I will contact you when I'm next able."

And with that, her blue translucent image leaned forward, one hand reaching out before blinking out of existence and leaving her seat empty.

In the conference room, Lok palmed the camera she'd just turned off. Holding it in her lap as she once more reclined back, her fingers lightly went over the smooth metal as her mind reeled with the dawning of what she - and her fellow Jedi - had been feeling. The scope of it all was close to unimaginable, and her eyes closed in near-anguish at the rumblings she was feeling in the Force. Her stern demeanor had been washed away now that she was alone.

A second knock roused her from her thoughts, and the Lupine leaned back further into her seat, shoulders sagging beneath a freshly descended weight.

"Come in," she said finally.

[Queen Mother Basillie]

"Adraudia, close your borders. Leave nothing to chance. I have heard first hand that some of the infected can still retain use of their faculties, using technology against us." Razielle thought about her young nieces. She was a Sith, and the Hand of the Emperor but her heart still beat for those she loved and she would not allow this great catastrophe to touch her family..

The Queen could not hide her shock. She knew that the Emperor had funneled money into various secret projects in order to gain new weaponry to destroy the Alliance. This plague must have been something that was to be released behind their borders ...

Her thoughts quickly turn to her family, to her people... Even before Razielle suggested the idea, the Queen already decided upon that course of action. The Hapen/Onderon Consortium would be closed until this disease was contained.

"I will call a meeting of the Ministers in conjunction with my Admirals. However, due to my impending order, I will require a good contingent of ships to remain within my territory. Once the fleet is selected, they will not be allowed to return until there is no doubt in my mind they do not carry the contagion." Adraudia would not compromise the safety of her people and she knew that her soldiers would understand. They would rather die first then possibly infect their homeland. "I'm sure the Emperor realizes that I cannot allow Hapes, nor Onderon's, defenses to lapse in case the Alliance decides to threaten war after this mishap."

It was no secret that there was an alliance between the Empire and Hapes and Onderon, allowing Adraudia to run her systems independently. But if either required assistance, they were always there for one another.

[Senator Prent]

I cracked the door open and eased inside carefully. I knew from the tone of her voice that she was dealing with business.

"You okay, scout?"

I approached her and closed the door after me, loosening my tie as a course of habit upon exiting the public realm.

[Master s'Ilancy-Prent]

Scout.

It never failed to amuse her that, even though she was twenty years his senior, he still referred to her as if it were just the opposite. Setting the camera back on the table, Lok slowly got to her feet.

The lines in her face had deepened with concern, and the look she gave him matched the ones that he'd seen shortly before her brief descent into the Dark.

"You've finished?"

She avoided the topic of her unease for the moment; privacy was needed for such a thing.

[Captain Raurrssatta]

“You do not recognize me, Cirresseeto?” Milivikal's voice was full and sultry. She adjusted the lighting near her chair chair. Cirr's features narrowed. She did not smile. Her lined face was grave, and yet, on some level, seemed to be euphoric.

“But I did not come to exchange pleasantries. Understand,” she said, her eyes rolling back into her head “that I did not ask for you, Cirreseeto. I was brought here by the Force. I am an agent and messenger.” Her voice was unearthly and multi-layered. The ships themselves seemed to hum with her words.

“Balance, the Balance has been wrenched from it's fulcrum. We teeter on the edge of annihilation. Billions must die because of a great folly. We have a voice, now, and our eyes and ears our many. But a fist! Provide us our fist so that we may right the balance. Smash Coruscant.”

Cirr didn't immediately comment on Mili's introduction, but his ears pulled back at the sight of her. The bad blood he'd had with her in the past was brought back to the forefront, and the Cizerack Captain took an effort to lid his disdain. He had half a mind to close the channel immediately and unleash a broadside on the nearest ship, but he opted for tact.

"jI am not yourr psychjiatrrjist, Mjiljivjikal. You wjill have to speak morre plajinly to me to get me to do anythjing otherr than open fjirre on you."

Part of him did want to understand her insanity, if only to file it again for use down the road.

[Senator Prent]

"Well, there's only so many questions they can ask me about campaign finance reform, so I guess so."

I saw the look, and it put me on edge, though I did my best to appear disarming. I walked around her, approaching her slowly, and eased my hands onto her shoulders.

"You look like you're thinking about packing your toothbrush. How's the office?"

[Milivikal k'Vik]

For a moment, despite the rapid eye movement state, Milivikal seemed to regard Cirresseeto with interest. One of her eyes, fully dilated, rolled forward for a moment and then back up while her eyelids fluttered.

“Coruscant threatens to destroy us all.” She explained, although the voice was not solely hers. It seemed to be a chorus of hundreds, maybe thousands, speaking in unison. “The Jedi concur. Milivikal concurs.” The voice paused, and did not mention the Emperor.

“The world is sick...dyingdead. Beyond reach. They scream noise-nonsense to us, to the Force. They are no longer alive, but not dead.” Her head shook back and forth for a moment and then stopped.

“Smash Coruscant.” the voices pleaded.

Milivikal slumped back into her chair. She looked exhausted and disoriented. She looked at Cirr with tired eyes, now her own again. She canted her head, and as a gesture of faith, the dictor grav wells shut down, and her fleet began to inch back from the Alliance ship.

[Rev Solomon]

Blockading Vortex - a drastic, distressing measure. It could potentially send a wave of panic throughout the Alliance. The Jedi have closed their borders. They have forsaken the rest of the galaxy.

"We still have agents in the field," Solomon pointed out. "Issoris, Henning, and..." His eyes narrowed in concentration. "Zarinov. They're still all on Coruscant. At the epicenter of this crisis. Henning may be lost to us, but Issoris and Zarinov are both experienced in covert operations. They might be able to infiltrate the lab where this plague was produced - locate samples, lab records, any data that might be useful in developing a cure."

The former preacher took a deep breath. "I know most of you don't hold to my view of the Force, but I cannot imagine it is the will of God or of the Force for us to sit back and condemn Coruscant to death, either by pestilence or by fire. We must pusue every avenue still open to us."

[Clea Darkrunner]

"A ship? Where? Does it have enough fuel to make it to the Alliance worlds? Never mind, we talk as we go. Just hope those sons of biths didn't blow up our carport."

"Of COURSE it has enough fuel to get to Alliance Space. I'm the lead singer on Red Shift Rising, you don't think we just play in IMPERIAL space, do you? Why, the Imperal Cultural Board has banned SEVERAL of our records!" Sharra said indignantly. "And it's at the nearest starport, I just need to GET there, without one of these frelling Crazies killing me!"

At that moment, though she didn't know it, she looked more like a bratty, dirty child, than a lead singer. Grimy hair fell over her face, sweat making tracks down it, and her lower lip was out in the beginnings of a pout.

[Master Henning]

Barton hit the ground like a sack of potatoes – he was willing to take all the bruises he could get, so long as he could keep focus on the virus. Cuts, grazes and even breaks could be seen to with ease, unlike the infection. As the girl rattled on about something, Barton struggled to his feet, only hearing her words punctuated by the repeated phrase 'Imperial'. As he limped onward, his eyes remained trained on the uneven ground in front of him... but something was still bothering him about the girl. He didn't follow popular culture much, but he supposed there was a small chance he'd seen her face on some holo-ad, if she really was famous.

“In all likelihood, there will be a complete lock-down within the hour. It clearly wasn't the intention of the Emperor to destroy Coruscant, but I have a bad feeling that when he becomes aware of the gravity of the situation he will warm to the idea.”

The ever-presence menace of the Starkillers loomed in the back of his mind.

[Master Nytherciria]

Blockade Vortex? A slight frown creased Daria's brow. Slowly, she turned the idea over inside of her mind, as though allowing it time to ferment within the Force. It was unusual, that she did not feel an immediate and reaffirming push from the Force, as to which direction they should proceed in. It was clear that Coruscant itself was lost, that they could not save it – but was it the intention of the Force to save the people there? If not the people as a whole, the Jedi stranded there...

“Solomon speaks truthfully,” Daria said, words that could have easily elicited a gasp.

“To some degree, at least,” she added, the 'but...'that the others had been waiting for.

“Henning, Issoris and Zarinov. The Force has more in store for them...” Yes, she was sure of it now. Speaking the words aloud, the Force seemed to hum in agreement. They all had their parts to play, saviors or martyrs. The tangled web of destiny had not yet fully unraveled. “Coruscant is lost, but the rest of the Galaxy must not fall. We must travel to the Core, to the Inner Rim, and put an end to this before it spreads any further.”

[Chancellor Belargic]

The message popped up a moment later.

To: Director Dasquian Belargic
From: Whipping Boy
Subject Line: Meeting

Message: Inna day. Mon Cal. See ya then Bossman.

The officer spoke again, "Shall I forward it to Director Belargic?"

Dasquian looked down at the scrolling text of the message. Something akin to a smirk began to form on his lips.

“No need,” he replied to the officer, and cut the connection.

“Is everything alright?” Grace asked, that grave frown taking over her face once again.

Dasquian pocketed the communicator and took a moment to consider his reply. He didn't think for one moment that Grace would be pleased with what he had to say, but there was no use in lying to her. “Kal is coming here, tomorrow,” he said and continued, before she could protest, “I don't know why but he's coming.”

Grace was predictably silent. There wasn't any time to argue over the fact, after all. They had to make their way to the Hall of Heroes. Soon enough, they were in a speeder en-route. Dasquian looked across to Grace, who seemed to be sitting as far away from him as was possible, pressed against the side of the car, her eyes looking out into the stormy sky. What was going through her mind, he could only wonder. Even after all of these years, there were still parts of her that was unknown to him. Though they had worked together in perfect unison on their many missions, reading one another with ease, outside of the workplace things were different.

He frowned, and looked out of the opposite window. It wasn't the time for those kind of thoughts. It never was.

[Victer Dejan]

Unlike his somewhat younger wife, Victer's hair was more salt than pepper. While she still looked stunning, Victer managed to look decent. The Queen Mother was likely driving another metaphor and fencing tip home with Ryssa, Victer was teaching their younger daughters to play Akkesna, a grand, large scale battlefield game. While she was the youngest, Natasha had quite a head for strategy.

She was slowly grinding Victer's front line units in hit and fade attacks, and Victer was letting her. Natasha pouted as her turn ended, knowing he had something nasty up his sleeve, but had no way to find out what.

“Just do it already, Father.” Natasha said, exasperated.

“Do what?” He asked, feeling an odd pit in his stomach.

“Whatever clever, infuriating thing you are planning on doing, Father.” She said, shaking her head. Natasha had a good head for strategy, but was still a ten-year old. Her patience was wearing thin, and he had so far refused to give her a genuine target over the last hour while their armies ground against each other. Victer always did something that seemed rather clever wrapped in sound strategy that was likely to succeed anyway. He glanced at his 13 year old daughter.

“Kiana.” Kiana was the middle child, and the most mischievous of the three. She looked up from her awful “romance” novel that she had smuggled at both the objection of her Mother and Father into the palace. In truth, they were less upset than they put on. At least she was reading consistently now. Anything that they emphasized as absolutely necessary, Kiana flaunted and tried her best to do the opposite. She was something of an escape artist, but for now she lounged in a recliner, reading what she thought annoyed her parents to the point of lectures and groundings. Despite her recalcitrance to schooling, both Victer and Adraudia knew she was just as smart as her sisters.

Kiana glanced over at Victer's side of the board and giggled, because she knew it would drive her sister mad. Natasha shot an evil glare at her sister, who bounced out of the recliner with feline grace.

“Quit while you're ahead.” She advised her younger sister. Ryssa entered the room, somewhat surprised that things were still civil. Kiana and Natasha tended to provoke each other often. Still in her fencing gear, she reminded Victer very much of a younger version of the Queen of Onderon he first met at that controversial ball.

“Mother has a priority transmission from Auntie Razielle.” Victer frowned. Priority transmits were seldom good news, and he knew this one was especially bad.

[Quinn]

The APC roared towards the next waypoint when Murphy decided to show up and make things interesting. The freeway was old and decrepit, but could easily hold up human-sized objects. But a five ton Armored Personnel Carrier was quite another matter.

The freeway crumbled and cracked, then finally gave way, sending the APC down into the darkness to the next level. Fortunately, it was only a ten-meter drop, but everyone didn't like the CRASH that sounded throughout the whole area.

They had dropped into a shopping area, what some could call a mall. In it's day, it must had been the center of many people's lives.

"Damage report!" Quinn shouted, checking his gear.

"Sir, the vehicle is all fine!" came the report of the driver. Quinn received a chorus of acknowledgements from everyone that their equipment was fine, even if they were a little bruised and shaken.

"Good." and Quinn accessed the maps that he had on file. "Now, where are we?"

"Surrounded?" asked one of the gunners. Quinn didn't like that tone, and he turned on the thermal imaging, and indeed, they were surrounded. And the things were closing in.

"Confirm hostiles." Quinn reported, and the two gunners scanned their fire sectors.

"Hostility confirmed. They're infected." came the voice of the front gunner. Indeed, they were the infected as the first ones broke into view around a corner.

"Open fire." Quinn ordered.

[Razielle Ave]

"I will call a meeting of the Ministers in conjunction with my Admirals. However, due to my impending order, I will require a good contingent of ships to remain within my territory. Once the fleet is selected, they will not be allowed to return until there is no doubt in my mind they do not carry the contagion."

"I'm sure the Emperor realizes that I cannot allow Hapes, nor Onderon's, defenses to lapse in case the Alliance decides to threaten war after this mishap."



Razielle nodded in understanding, and in accord. They had to do whatever it took to make sure the Morbus Project was isolated quickly and destroyed. Even if it meant the lives of the fleet to keep it contained. The crews would, of course, be examined thoroughly before they were allowed to make any sort of return trip to the Consortium. Razielle would see to it personally. She would not risk sending the plague to the hub of her family.

"I am quite certain the Emperor would not wish, or allow for your borders to be threatened." Razielle frowned. The Emperor was far more to Adraudia than the Seat of the galaxy. There was no need to discuss it further, Emperor Ave would not risk losing the Consortium, or Onderon as his allies.

Razielle sat forward, the business was concluded, she knew Adraudia would be cautious, but thorough in her selction of a fleet to purge the virus. She took a moment to soften her tone and inquire of those dearest to her. Hearing that all was well with Victer and her neices, Razielle sent them her love and closed the connection.

She left the office and returned to the Emperor.

"It is done..", she slid once more into the seat at his side..

[Master s'Ilancy-Prent]

"You look like you're thinking about packing your toothbrush. How's the office?"


She breathed out a long breath. "The 'office' is... troubled."

Beyond that though, her explanation would have to wait until the two were alone. She turned to face him, letting his hands slide from her shoulders to rest in her own grip. Her fingers gave his a light squeeze, and the Lupine softened the lines in her face. As much as he could read her, she could do the same to him, and the unease in the back of his eyes was like an open book.

She let a small smile grow on her lips. "Shall we gather the boy and be on our way?"

[Senator Prent]

"I think we've both got a long night ahead of us."

I'd let her read into that. The Senate didn't push spontaneous summons often, so this was likely serious, and likely related to whatever was weighing Lok down.

I smiled at her, the skin at my eyes pinching into slight crows feet.

"Don't suppose you'd mind sharing notes?"

[Rhianna Evanar]

"We still have agents in the field,"
Rhianna had been sitting quietly, listening intently, but with her eyes shut in concentration. Her blue orbs opened as Solomon spoke. Without saying it, they both knew that they had more agents in the field than Henning, Issoris and Zarinov. Master Laran, the woman who had saved her life all those years ago, trained her and become as a Mother to Rhianna was also in dire straits. Everyone in the Council room admired, respected and cared for the Jedi Elder, but for three people present it was far more than that.

Her eyes crossed the room and held the glance of the most riteous of Jedi. Serena would not be abandoned, nor would her young charges. Rhianna nodded, saying nothing and much at once. She looked over her shoulder at Morgan, who was listening to Master Nytherciria speaking..



“Coruscant is lost, but the rest of the Galaxy must not fall. We must travel to the Core, to the Inner Rim, and put an end to this before it spreads any further.”
In private Rhianna was much the same as she always had been, bright and cheerful and with a bit of mischief in her. However her years among the Jedi, especially under the influence of Master Laran had created a serene and calm presence over her that was in command, always, before the Council. At last, she elected to speak up, her Basic was now flawless but she had never lost her accent..

"I also agree with Solomon. Blockading Vortex will be the best defense we have to make sure the destruction does not reach us here. Also, I feel we have an obligation to retrieve who we can." She closed her eyes, opening up her feelings to the Force.

"We can succeed."

[Master s'Ilancy-Prent]

"Not here."

The steel in her voice was tempered though, as she hooked a hand into the crook of his arm. Leaving the conference room behind, Lok remained mostly silent as they made their way through the studio's maze.

Normally, she would have left Ledo with Teagan, but it seemed that her daughter had disappeared to some unknown location.

No doubt with Mac...

It wasn't an undesireable thing, as indeed, over the years she and Arya had grown rather close. To the point of nearly being sisters, the Elder Lupines had seemed to buck the traditions of their people and turn their backs on history. And while it wasn't something that she could have ever foreseen, it was certainly not unwelcome, either.

Such thoughts turned to concern then, and she bit her lip. She would have to gather Arya. They all needed a safe place to be, now.

"We need to find Tak," she said suddenly; she usually tended to interchange her daughter's name on a regular basis, something that the younger s'Ilancy found annoying.

Of course, that was why Lok hadn't stopped calling her by her pet name entirely.

[Mac Ravenwing]

He grinned wolfishly, and replied to her in the ancient Lupine dialect. <"Can you imagine the looks on the faces of the other guests when two great beasts dash out of the 'lift, leaving behind a pile of clothes?"> That thought gave him a warm feeling in his belly, and he nuzzled her neck, intent on the possibility of a pile of clothing on the floor.

Then his commlink beeped. Teagan kissed him on the cheek and wriggled a bit, retrieving it from his pocket. <"Looks like it is your mother.">

"Of course it is," Mac sighed, and the turbolift slowed and stopped at the same time. The doors opened, and he grabbed Teagan's hand as she led him out of the 'lift. He thumbed the commlink to its active status, and said, "Yes Mom? Little busy right now, really."

[Arya Ravenwing]

Finally. Arya sat up, looking at the comm panel in the console as her son's voice came filtering through the speaker. "Never too busy for me, I hope," she smiled, brushing back her short black hair from her eyes. There were a few streaks of grey near the crown, but her Lupine blood meant that even though she was nearing fifty Standard years of age, she had changed little in the last twenty years.

Physically, at least. "Where are you at? Not still working I hope." Their little code for the trips to the Core. She was still working, but his trip should have ended if everything had gone according to plan. "Teagan with you?"

[Berek Dralken]

These people are doomed. Berek thought as he ran down the street against the flow of the mob heading to the Imperial check- or rather chokepoint he'd just cut through.

The stormtroopers at the location exchanged glances at Berek when he walked up to them and said he was going in. He wasn't sure if he heard them debating on whether to shoot him or not as he entered into the zone.

Berek continued down the street passed more and more frightened people. A minute or so went by and the noteable sound of AT-ST and small arms fire echoed from behind him. Seconds after the cries and screams of panicked people followed. What had Coruscant come to?

A luxury residential structure rose ahead and Berek's heart began to beat faster. He could see the masses fleeing it, on foot and in private airspeeders. The people didn't seem to be carrying anything but smaller family members. They were in a rush to escape the building they'd left all their possessions. Berek's mind should have clicked then and told him going any closer would be a horrid idea, unfortunately he went on reaching the doors in minutes.

Panicked and monstrous screams rang out above Berek as he entered the building. He pulled up his mask and pulled out his blaster, he noted his immediate surroundings. The lobby was in ruins, furniture was turned over, and soil was strewn across the floor from toppled potted plants. A real mess that would never be cleaned up. The turbolifts across from the doorway were going up and down, never reaching the ground floor. The stairs would be Berek's only option and he moved up them cautiously as they were smeared with blood. Not his day. Some poor soul had tripped in his rush down and ended up smashing his head against the landing of the first story.

[Lord Inquisitor Valten]

Across the burning surface of <st1><st1>Imperial </st1><st1>Center</st1> </st1> warning sirens began to wail in every district. The system had been installed millennia ago under the <st1><st1>Old</st1><st1> Republic</st1></st1> in the case of a planetary assault, though how a trillion people would be able to take cover, no one knew. But now, as the number of infected climbed ever higher, the sirens signaled something that not a single person in the galaxy ever expected—A planet wide evacuation.
<o></o>
Imperial gunships and shuttles flew over the sky with external comms blazing at the highest volume possible, directing the survivors to head for building rooftops and sanctioned star ports still under Imperial control.
<o></o>
“….repeat, <st1><st1></st1></st1><st1><st1>Imperial</st1><st1> Center</st1></st1> is under evacuation orders. Transports and shuttles will be attempting to pick anyone up from rooftops and plazas. Anyone who isn’t able to reach a safe point should try to make it to one of the following starports: Sah’c District…Works District…Ssuri District…Palace District…Arv…”
<o></o>
But Colonel-Inquisitor Scothis didn’t have the luxury to pay attention to the ships flitting overhead. A burst of gunfire sent Naomi diving to the side. Her armor could probably have stopped every blast, but overconfidence had gotten many Inquisitors killed; a lucky shot could find a joint or shift in the plates. The sturdy floors of the suite did an excellent job of supporting her half-ton form, but the same could not be said for the plaster walls of the residential complex. They shattered into dust.
<o></o>
“Krasst!” Naomi hissed through her teeth. The infected where getting more and more organized going so far as using weapons and ambush tactics. They still insanely hurtled themselves, but now it seemed more controlled…with purpose. Hell, she had seen a handful using a combat speeder to mow down fleeing people before a gunship had vaped them.
<o></o>
The Inquisitor rolled to her feet, her weapon lying in the corner where it had landed during the escape, just as a snarling feral figure leapt at her through the crumbling wall. Saliva dripped from the infected Trandoshan’s mouth he advanced with claws out. Scothis took the charge like swoop running into a ferrocrete wall, but found herself stumbling back as claws scraped on the metal.
<o></o>
In all of Naomi’s experiences, nothing had ever been able to match her strength for strength while wearing power armor. The surprise wore off quickly and she twisted her arm grabbing the wrists of the slavering monstrosity. She felt bones snap as she applied pressure with the gauntlets…it only seemed to make the Trando angrier.
<o></o>
A knee to the gut and the sound of more bones popping sent Naomi staggering back. Her armor absorbed most of the blow, but the Inquisitor had still felt it. Another new experience. Unfortunately for the infected, its kneecap had shattered on striking the suit. Yet still it came.
<o></o>
Rage exploded from Naomi’s throat. “Enough!” She drew herself to her full height, standing even taller than the Trandoshan. Thundering footsteps carried her at the creature. Even as the creature beat at her with its broken limbs, Naomi’s hand tightened around its neck. With a flex of her fingers, she crushed the wind from the infected’s throat. Even as it died the rage lingered its eyes.
<o></o>
Naomi stood there with her chest heaving and the dead thing hanging limp in her grip. This one had killed nearly a dozen Inquisitorial soldiers and uncounted civilians. On a planet like Coruscant, how many of these killing machines could exist?
<o></o>
Outside of the room the sound of gunfire was slowly declining, but muffled screams and snarls could still be heard.
<o></o>
“We’ve lost sight of the Trando. How are you holding up, love?” The voice soothed the rage that had built up inside her, but she still had enough anger to throw the body through the neighboring wall.
<o></o>
“I’m fine and the scaly freak is dead.” Naomi cracked the joints in her neck and picked her halberd from the floor. The trek through the city had taken them to a large residential complex where infected where concentrating. The Inquisitoriate forces had fought their way through the building, sending any non-infected back the way they’d cleared.
<o></o>
“Good, I think we just sent the last of the civilians down. Let’s get the hell out of here.”
<o></o>
The building was built around a central atrium that could be seen from every story. From the top of the floor Naomi could see the black-armored deathtroopers pulling out. Two sharp cracks caught her attention. Across the expanse Inquisitor Bren’lar Scothis fired his rail-rifle at two infected chasing the straggling civilians, each fell with a fist-sized hole through their heads. He gestured to Naomi before vaulting over a railing to a mezzanine just level below.
<o></o>
Naomi was just about to follow suit when a scream echoed from a nearby room.
<o></o>
*****
<o></o>
Aboard the Purifier
<o></o>
The Inquisitoriate flagship had just arrived in the space over <st1><st1>Imperial</st1></st1><st1><st1> Center </st1></st1>slightly under an hour ago. Lord Inquisitor Valten had sent for the vessel at the plague’s outbreak; it would be the first of several ships to enter the system. Many to help evacuate refugees, but Valten’s Black Ships were not there for so noble a cause.
<o></o>
Karl himself had walked into the private holotransceiver pad. The evacuation was going as well as it could under the circumstances, but that was not what the Inquisitor was concerned about.
<o></o>
Valten kneeled on the pad, bowing his head clasping his right hand to his left shoulder; the mechanical arms neatly folded themselves at his back. For what he was about to suggest need the consultation of the Emperor himself.
<o></o>
“Veritas Vincit, my Lord.”

[Kal Cimmerian]

He'd just started his third bottle of Randoni Yellow Plague (http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Randoni_Yellow_Plague) when th'comm rang.

"Dammit, who th'frack *BELCH* izzit?"

"Are you drunk?" the Mandalorian-armored face asked, "We're fighting for our lives here and you're drunk on your ship? What the hell is wrong with you?"

An easy smile from Cimmerian.

"h'lo Dom. How ya doin'?"

Dom (short for Dominique) was an Amazon in the truest sense of the word: tall, aggressive, beautiful...very handy with a blaster (and a few other things he'd been told). Her black hair, normally worn long and down 'er back, wasn't visible beneath her armor and her eyes (also obscured by her T-visor) burned with a smokey fury hardly anyone else could equal. Cimmerian woulda shagged 'er himself if she wasn't married t'a buddy of his. Couldn't do that t'buddies.

"I ask again," her voice raged, as blaster fire resonated behind her, "What the hell are you doing?"

The easy smile remained on his face, "Gotta meeting with someone."

He could almost see 'er mind start t'work behind the flame design of her helmet.

"You're going back to them. Aren't you?" she shook her head, "Aure-Kal-whatever the hell you're calling yourself...what is WRONG with you?!? They won't take you back. You've done too much.

"What do you want? Redemption? Aliit ori'shya taldin (Family is more than blood).Come back here and help us stop these damned things. You know Eleazar wants to give you leadership anyway. You could reunite our cla-"

"Outta th'fracking question Dominique," the disgraced man spat, "I ain't interested in that.

He took a swig from his drink and it seemed t'calm himself down, "How you guys holding up?"

The connection fuzzed out forra moment as an explosion of some kind was heard in the background. Cimmerian saw two other Mandalorian-armored troops run towards whatever'd caused it.

"Not good. We were able to wall ourselves from the rest of the city but they're using thermal detonators and rockets..." the connection went fuzzy again, "Plus we lost Mikaal and Paris earlier. They tried to bite those who treated them."

Dom shook her head and Cimmerian thought he heard something in her voice. Fear. Absolute fear. Fear for the loss of her husband. Fear for the loss of her world. She'd die in battle that was for sure, but she was still afraid.

He set his jaw, "I'm gonna try t'convince Belargic t'lemme back in. If I'm not, I'll have Maddy let ya know. Get off planet and we'll meet elsewhere. Ordo, I dunno. Someplace where there ain't any of these...things. Then we'll go kick the Empire's teeth in f'doing this poodoo."

Dom nodded and Kal was sure she was smiling beneath her helmet.

"I'll tell Eleazar to expect you. Since only we will accept you for who you are. And you know it."

The connection faded and Cimmerian was left alone. He took another couple drinks then stared at his droid.

"Well guess th'Alliance ain't the only people we pissed off today. Not bad 'eh?"

Maddy *twirtted*.

"Yeah yeah whatever. Go shut down for a bit. I wanna be left alone."

It was a couple ours later when the R9 droid found his master passed out in the cockpit. The little droid let out a *whimper* and then went to check on the engine.

Maddy hated seeing Cimmerian like this. Especially with all that was going on in the galaxy. His processing unit didn't quite understand it, but it knew one way or another...everything was probably going to change.

[Clea Darkrunner]

Sharra stared at the two men. "Come on, what are you waiting for? We need to get out of here, now!" She felt like her skin was crawling, like something was looking at her and licking its chops in anticipation of a succulent meal. She hadn't felt that way often, but generally something BAD happened when she felt like that.

The problem was, there was no way that she was getting off this hellish place by herself. She'd seen the Infected fly armed aircars and fire weapons at others, fer frell's sake! She needed them as gunners, bodyguards, and they needed her ship.

Nobody had any time for any response, as the same Armored Vehicle she'd seen before crashed through a short distance away at a shopping area. The signs identified it as the Willamette Mall. The noise seemed to attract all the Infected at this level and they swarmed the APC, attacking it with blasters, clubs, and fingers. Ineffective as these weapons were, they did not so any serious damage to the vehicle and its main gun and twin turrets soon made short work of the mob.

The three must have registered on the vehicle's sensors, though, for as soon as the Infected were disposed of. it advanced rapidly on them. "Hold it!" came the command through the loudhailer, as it rolled toward them.

Having seen the guns in action, they froze, and were soon surrounded by troops deployed from the vehicle. "Miss Sharra Darkrunner? We've got orders to get you out of here, now!"

"And my friends?" she asked. "They're coming with me. None of us are Infected, and I'm not leaving without them"

"And your friends......" said the leader resignedly.

[Quinn]

However, before letting them on board, Quinn inspected each one for cuts, bruises and scrapes. And he found that two of them had nasty bite wounds.

"You're infected." he informed Sharra, and the Jedi who had also been bitten. "Don't know how long you've been infected, but enough bacta should cure that."

Should... he thought. In the meantime, he injected the two with fifty cc's of bacta to hold off the plague, at least until they could cryo them.

"Right." Quinn said, and took both of Sharra's hands, swinging them behind her and tieing them together. "Sorry, procedure."

Quinn then handed Sharra over to one of the troopers, giving him a stern glare. "And no Norris, I don't care if you're her 'biggest fan', I don't want you slacking!"

[Director Belargic]

Dasquian looked down at the scrolling text of the message. Something akin to a smirk began to form on his lips.

“No need,” he replied to the officer, and cut the connection.

“Is everything alright?” Grace asked, that grave frown taking over her face once again.

Dasquian pocketed the communicator and took a moment to consider his reply. He didn't think for one moment that Grace would be pleased with what he had to say, but there was no use in lying to her. “Kal is coming here, tomorrow,” he said and continued, before she could protest, “I don't know why but he's coming.”

Grace was predictably silent. There wasn't any time to argue over the fact, after all. They had to make their way to the Hall of Heroes. Soon enough, they were in a speeder en-route. Dasquian looked across to Grace, who seemed to be sitting as far away from him as was possible, pressed against the side of the car, her eyes looking out into the stormy sky. What was going through her mind, he could only wonder. Even after all of these years, there were still parts of her that was unknown to him. Though they had worked together in perfect unison on their many missions, reading one another with ease, outside of the workplace things were different.

He frowned, and looked out of the opposite window. It wasn't the time for those kind of thoughts. It never was.

Of all the times for him to show up again. Possible war was looming over the horizon because of this plague infesting the Core Worlds, and now Kazaar wanted to talk after all these years.

He wouldn't get the luxury to talk as far as she was concerned. Soon as he stepped foot on the planet he was going to be handcuffed and thrown in the Brig right after she decked him across the face. Too many good people had died because of him. All because his way was the only way.

Frell him...

The speeder slowed to a halt outside the Hall of Heroes. Grace didn't even wait for the driver to open the door before leaving the speeder. However, she did wait for her husband at the base of stairs leading to the building. The Director needed to put aside her disgust for Kazaar and display a strong front for those inside when they hear the news...

[Queen Mother Basillie]

Kiana glanced over at Victer's side of the board and giggled, because she knew it would drive her sister mad. Natasha shot an evil glare at her sister, who bounced out of the recliner with feline grace.

“Quit while you're ahead.” She advised her younger sister. Ryssa entered the room, somewhat surprised that things were still civil. Kiana and Natasha tended to provoke each other often. Still in her fencing gear, she reminded Victer very much of a younger version of the Queen of Onderon he first met at that controversial ball.

“Mother has a priority transmission from Auntie Razielle.” Victer frowned. Priority transmits were seldom good news, and he knew this one was especially bad.

Adraudia immediately called for an emergency session of the Prime Ministers and her Admirals. All save one. She would inform the Minister of Trade that his presence was required personally.

The Queen Mother quickly changed from her fencing gear into something more suitable after a quick washing up; a black dress that hugged her torso firmly but was sleeveless. Silver encrusted beads outlined her chest and reached around her neck snugly. The rest fanned around her legs gently.

Roughly twenty minutes later, Adraudia and her double escort arrived at the rec room to retrieve her husband. She was also rather surprised that the children were behaving themselves. Often the Queen Mother walked in on Kiana and Natasha screaming at each other, or worse ...

Ryssa was the first to notice her mother and frown immediately. She could tell by her stance that Aunt Razielle did not bare good news at all, but it was Kiana that spoke up first. "How is Auntie Razzy, Mother?"

"She sends her regards to all of you and misses you dearly. She hopes to see you soon." Not a lie at all. Razielle wanted to see them as soon as this crisis was over. "I'm afraid I'm going to have to borrow your father though." She smiled apologetically and looked to her eldest. "Please mind your sisters as we have matters to discuss."

[Morgan Evanar]

While his wife exuded the calm of a Jedi, Morgan was fighting down his thoughts of doom. He felt as if civilization was about to be crushed.


A multi-targeted disease that either attacked the nervous system or the various chemical regulation that seemed to drive the infected to insane rage, but retained some sense of practicality. It was the worst case scenario.


Morgan knew who Rhianna's thoughts were directed at: their Master. It was a long shot, though.


“We should do what we can to insure the safety of the Order and Republic.” Morgan said.


“Which means Rhianna and I need to leave. May wisdom guide you all.”

[Senator Prent]

We quickly made our leave, and headed to my star yacht. An attendant took Lok's robe and my jacket, and we were quickly led aboard. I had an appointment to keep at the Hall of Heroes, and my wife had insisted on coming along.

"I'm really in the dark on this."

I finally spoke, as the ship made the jump to hyperspace. We were ensconced in a lavish cabin, seated on soft leather chairs with warm decor and polished hardwoods all around us. A far cry from my second love in my life, Layla.

"It's pretty serious, it seems. At the very least, I want to hear it from you. I'll get a straighter story than from my advisors, I imagine."

I had a retinue of attendants in the next quarters, eager to clue me in. But I wanted to settle this straight up.

Of course, there was also the issue of tracking down our children. Teagan was who-knows-where, and Ledo was no doubt giving our nanny fits on Mon Calimari.

[Navaria Tarkin]

The Council was in agreement, save for Master s'Ilancy-Prent, but the Lupine would understand the compromise. The Jedi could not sit back and watch chaos infect the galaxy. Neither could Navaria ...

"Then it is decided. We go to the Core and rescue those we can and gather information to combat this plague. Those Jedi that wish to come may do so, the others stay behind and protect Vortex at all costs."

Navaria looked to the assembled Council Members present as she stood. "May the Force be with us."

[Master s'Ilancy-Prent]

Her frame settled in one of the leather chairs, Lok scooted forward until she was sitting on the edge of the seat. Sanis was looking at her, waiting for an explanation. Out of the company of others and in the privacy of their cabin, the Lupine fell back on old habits. After all, such things can die hard.

A hand reached out, wiping away an unseen speck of dust from his shoulder.

"Something... has happened," she started, still fussing with him.

If any of her students; or even some of her fellow masters could see her now, most would more than likely believe she had lost her mind. Doting on her husband, her normally stern voice now unsure and hesitant. It was a side that precious few were allowed to see.

Yet, despite her ministrations and initial hesitation, the Lupine managed to cut to the heart of the matter.

"The Empire has released a contagion, on Coruscant. Anyone that is infected is incurable. I don't know what it does exactly, other than it has already begun devestating Imperial Center. The Council will do what they must, but I cannot return to Vortex until this is controlled."

She paused then, unsure of how to go on.

She leaned away from him at that point, folding her hands in her lap.

"I must keep Ledo with me. I don't know where Teagan is, but I'm sure Arya does."

[Senator Prent]

"A contagion?"

I settled back into my seat, studying her expression. I didn't have to ask, because it was apparently a very serious one.

"There's enough outbound traffic from Imperial center to endanger every sector of the galaxy. Even cross-border traffic into the Allied zones would be hard for the Navy to stop, if not impossible."

My mind drifted to the unpleasant larger picture of all this.

"Some people are going to use this as an excuse to open a shooting war with the Empire. Suddenly I have a full dockett.

You're right. Ledo needs to go with you for a while, at least until the Senate calms down. I'm gonna be running through a hornet's nest."

[Master s'Ilancy-Prent]

"Borders would need to be closed before any sort of shooting can start."

Sanis knew her opinion on such things, as the two had often enough had disagreements concerning the state of things.

Before he could say anything though, she went on. "Ledo will be with us, because I will be with you."

[Senator Prent]

Before shooting can start.

I didn't take comfort in her words, because I didn't think we agreed eye to eye on the solution.

"I'm suprised the council hasn't plucked you for some death-defying mission into the deep core, with the gravity of all of this coming out."

[Master s'Ilancy-Prent]

She'd seen the look in his gaze, but ignored it.

"There are already Jedi on Coruscant."

Her eyes went to the carpeted deck then, as the memory of Barton's voice made her pull a pained face. Standing, the Lupine made her way to a small alcove that held a small assortment of decanturs and other assorted spirits from all over the galaxy.

Her brow furrowed, she pulled a bottle from one of the topmost shelves. Not a word was spoken as she removed the top, pouring the amber liquid into a glass.

"What the Senate does will be a large factor on how the Jedi will continue to approach this situation. I've already called for the blockade of Vortex, though I had to cut my transmission before the Council had finished their meeting, so I don't know what was decided upon.

"Besides."

The top was replaced, and the decantur returned to its' place on the shelf. One hand resting around the glass, she looked at the swirling contents. "One of the Masters has already been infected."

[Senator Prent]

"There are Jedi on Coruscant?"

The temperature in the room seemed to increase, and I leaned up from my seat. Had they been sent there before this? The implications of the Empire discovering this were enormous. How had the Senate not known? And with one of them infected, what was to happen? It wasn't likely that they could simply be 'called back', now with events deteriorating as such.

"As if there wasn't enough kindling on this fire. When was this authorized?"

I ran my hands down my face, suddenly realizing I could really use a drink. We were due on Mon Calamari in minutes, and I was suddenly finding myself way behind the curve.

[Master s'Ilancy-Prent]

Sipping from her glass, Lok swallowed. She had chosen one of the few Lupine spirits that they kept on hand, and it burned a hot trail down her throat, settling into her stomach. It reminded her of Zem, strangely enough.

"That doesn't matter, and I would ask that you keep that bit of information to yourself."

She turned to face him then. "At least until I meet with Director Belargic.

"What does matter is how the Senate will initially react. I will do nothing until I know what avenue they wish to pursue."

[Senator Prent]

"All I can guarantee is my end. How do you think this will go if we hear about it from Coruscant first? If the Empire kills or captures Jedi, and we deny they're on the planet? They'll have a perfect scapegoat to lay whatever the hell has happened on us. War hawks on both sides of the galaxy will use this as fuel on the fire. The Empire will blame the Alliance for causing this disaster, and I can guarantee that there are Senators who will push for the military to intervene and get the Jedi out by force."

[Master s'Ilancy-Prent]

There was no shortness to her tone, and the stern intonations were absent as well.

"If the matter is brought up, than you may defer to me. But before then, I will speak with the Director."

[Senator Prent]

"Yes, I think a briefing would be best, up front."

I changed the subject, and largely tried to decompress before being thrown to the lions in the Senate.



<center>Later...</center>



My yacht touched down at the designated landing pad on Mon Calamari, and my retinue debarked. I was among the last off, with Lok and a few of my inner advisors. I hadn't spoken a word of my wife's revelations to them.

At the bottom of the gangplank, an eager throng of lookers-on and media were there, all swarming about with holocams. I largely ignored the questions they had about the pending crisis, instead smiling to the cameras genially and keeping my wife close by. There wasn't anything for me to say until there was...well...more to be said.

[Teagan Staedtler]

"Teagan with you?"

Leading Mac down the hallway to their room, Teagan flashed her pearly whites while flicking an unruly lock of sandy blonde hair out of her face. Was this how her mother had felt when she'd met her father? Or even when she had stopped being so controlled and aloof around Sanis?

"Hello Feathers," she called, loud enough so that her voice could be heard by Arya.

Stopping at a door marked 55A, the female Lupine passed her keycard over the locking panel. It beeped in confirmation, and she pushed the door open while pulling Mac inside.

[Knight Staedtler]

The increasing bloom of disquiet in the Force was wearing away any patience that the man had managed to compose. Conscious of the pressure Ever was maintaining at his side, Wyl guided them both forward slightly. A few words were whispered to one of the senior padawans, who nodded and turned her attention to the care of little Danru.

At the back of his mind he could sense the presence of familiar figures, their signatures as identifiable as his own hands. Master Daria, Morgan and Rhianna; Wyl paused, tentatively prodding and coming up empty on Serena. The man frowned and his grip on his padawan's shoulders tightened ever so slightely. These were the Jedi he had grown up amongst and it was a familial instinct which made him search the four out first in times of distress.

Master and apprentice navigated the crowd until they stood just outside the doors. Already sensing a shift from inside the chambers, the cluster of Jedi had begun to quiet, the multitude of voices lowering into whispered hushes. Ever glanced up and him, and for a moment the man was overwhelmed with the responsibility reflecting from the girl's eyes; of all the lessons Ever had taught him, newfound respect for Daria and her ability to teach was the most often repeated.

"Padawan," Wyl took a knee before the young girl, maintaining his grip on each of her slim shoulders. Her face was drawn seriously and her elongated ears strained so as to not miss anything. "You must listen very carefully now. Whatever happens, you're to stick close and keep alert, understood?" Things would snowstorm, it was the natural course of any event, and all it would take was a split second of inattention for everything to grow far more precarious.

[Master Laran]

After four hours of rest, Serena awakened from the Jedi trance she'd placed herself into, feeling refreshed. The taint of the coolant was in the air already, detectable as a strange odor. It would have no ill effects on the inhabitants of the ship for another hour or so.

The Jedi master spent some time setting out the children's backpacks that they had brought with them, replacing most of the clothing with food items from Serenity's stores. Each pack was light enough for the children to bear without tiring easily. Little Jax's bag held only clothing, as A'na would have to carry him and a pack of her own.

Serena looked down at the woman, sleeping on the floor covered with a blanket, and wondered how she'd gotten the scar that marred the perfection of her face. A touch at her elbow nearly startled her, but Serena found Trelby just behind her, the girl's tanned face wide-eyed.

"Yes young one?"

Trelby rubbed her nose, and then clasped her hands in front of her. "Master Jedi, are we going to die?" She sniffed, hard.

Serena knelt down, facing the girl and taking her hands in hers. "Not if I have anything to do with it, Trelby." Behind them A'na stirred, then sat up, fully awake.

"What about my parents?" Another big sniff. At thirteen Trelby was at the awkward stage between woman and girl, and her emotions were beginning to get the better of her. "Are they...?"

The Jedi shook her head. "I do not know, child. But your home is not Hanna City, so it is likey they have escaped this plague."

A'na reached forward and pulled Trelby into a hug, and the girl dissolved into tears at the kindness. Serena smoothed the girl's hair, and said, "Get her calmed down, A'na. I will get the other children."

It took half an hour to line up the children and prepare them for the journey through the spaceport. There were no noises outside. Trelby held Jade's hand, Dako and Rammon were buddied up, and the twins clutched at each other as though they were terrified of being separated. Jax snuggled into A'na's arms, his little hands clasped behind her neck.

Serena pulled on her own pack, the heaviest of the group, and unclipped her lightsaber. The children looked at the elegant weapon, their eyes wide with wonder and excitement. She looked at them, just a little sternly. "Remember, keep your mouths closed as much as you can. No shouting, even if you are separated from us. You will not be separated from me, and certainly not from the Force.

"Right," she took a deep, calming breath. "Here we go."

[Master Nytherciria]

Daria stood in time with Navaria, to lend strength to her words.

“Once we have departed, those of you who choose to remain on Vortex may enforce the blockade. There is no telling how long we will be gone, but one thing is certain – you cannot allow any others to enter the Enclave in our absence. It is the only way to ensure that the Order is not infected.”

With this said, the Miraluka Jedi Master walked towards the chamber doors – which parted before her, at the gesture of a hand.

[Rev Solomon]

"Morgan, Rhianna."

The Evanars hadn't made it far from the Council Chambers when Solomon intercepted them. The preacher never seemed in a hurry, but he could move deceptively fast with his long strides.

"I know what you two are planning," Solomon said, matching pace with the younger Jedi. "You're heading to Chandrila to rescue Serena."

[Morgan Evanar]

Morgan nodded slowly.

"We're going to do what we can." He said. "I hope Adia was exaggerating." He knew, unfortunately, that his mother was not. Not even slightly.

Solomon knew that Adia was not given to streching the truth, and knew how hollow those words were to all of them.

They were at the Barloz class light freighter that was now more engine and hyperdrive than most ships double it's size. Half of the cargo area had given way to uprated power plants and engines. It was a bit of an unruly ship to fly generally and required total concentration at full speed. It was somewhat ironically christened Nonsense and Grace.

Rhianna dashed onboard to begin the very brief startup sequence. Nonsense was designed with emergencies in mind. The repulsors were active within 20 seconds, and one of the main engines within 45. More than enough to break atmo.

"Now that I'm leaving, you're the last bastion of common sense. You take care of them while I'm gone, Rev."

[Master Henning]

However, before letting them on board, Quinn inspected each one for cuts, bruises and scrapes. And he found that two of them had nasty bite wounds.

"You're infected." he informed Sharra, and the Jedi who had also been bitten. "Don't know how long you've been infected, but enough bacta should cure that."

Bacta wouldn't cure it, Barton was sure of that much. After all, it was one of the first cures he had tried. The virus seemed burrowed too deep into the nervous system, so far as he could tell, for it to be removed by a surface-cure like bacta. His tired eyes looking over the men who had 'rescued' them, and he breathed a sigh. Henning was in no state to be arguing with anyone, though he was not eager to become the cargo of... whoever this soldier was.

[Emperor Ave]

Valten kneeled on the pad, bowing his head clasping his right hand to his left shoulder; the mechanical arms neatly folded themselves at his back. For what he was about to suggest need the consultation of the Emperor himself.
<o></o>
“Veritas Vincit, my Lord.”

The flickering image of the Lord Inquisitor sprung to life in front of the Emperor, who sat reclining behind a wide dark-wood desk. At the sight of Valten, Ave gave a slight nod. He did not speak, rather sat silent and waited for the Inquisitor to speak his piece – he would not have contacted the Emperor without due cause.

[Kale Zarinov]

"Just a minute," Kale cut in, glaring solidly at the stranger. "I don't follow your orders, soldier. I want to know who you're working for."

[Quinn]

"Her people are paying for me to get her offplanet. And apparently, she wants to take you with us." Quinn informed the man who spoke to him. "And chances are this planet is going to be Base Delta Zeroed soon, so I recommend we keep the small talk to a minimum."

He held up a simple set of duraplast handcuffs. "We'll get you off, but you have to follow our procedures. And you're not gonna get off with him being infected. Not through the starports anyway." Quinn nodded to Master Henning.

[Kale Zarinov]

Kale eyed him defiantly, looking for all the world like he was going to refuse - but then he huffed and offered his wrists. "Fine. We'll do things your way. For now."

He gave Barton an almost careless glance - but what it meant was that he intended to go along with this charade only as long as it seemed beneficial to the two Jedi's interests. When the time came, the handcuffs would be no obstacle to him.

[Clea Darkrunner]

Sharra looked coldly at the trooper as she was marched off. "You try anything and I'll personally break whatever you try it with," she warned him.

[Quinn]

The soldier taking Sharra back to the APC laughed, as he was in powered armor. But he was gentle, even guiding her to a seat.

[Lord Inquisitor Valten]

Valten did not raise his eyes to the Emperor, to do so without invitation was a travesty. The servants of the Inquisitoriate were fanatic in their loyalty to the Imperium, almost to the point of religious zealots. To them, the Emperor was as close to a living god as one could get.
<o></o>
<st1:street w:st="on"><st1:address w:st="on">Salem Ave</st1:address></st1:street> had been odd as an Emperor in that he did not waste words where they were not needed. Efficient and to the point.
<o></o>
“Excellency, the evacuation is proceeding as ordered.” Valten regretted those words even as he spoke them, the Emperor would well know the happenings on <st1><st1>Imperial </st1><st1>Center</st1></st1>
<o></o>
“It is clear that those infected by the virus outbreak retain their technical abilities. The plague has already trickled to other worlds along the Corellian Trade Spine and Perlemian Trade routes…..” Karl reluctantly let out a sigh. The Inquisitoriate prided itself on flawless service, admitting failure was a horrifying idea.
<o></o>
“……we cannot retake the planet. Several starports have already been overrun and I fear that countless more infected will breach the blockade.”
<o></o>
Karl slowly raised his eyes, breaking his own beliefs of Imperial Doctrine.
<o></o>
“I have failed….” Valten did his best to swallow with his mechanical throat. “…I request that the Exterminatus Doctrine be invoked.”

[Kal Cimmerian]

With a groan, Cimmerian fell outta bed. His head felt 'bout three sizes too large and his stomach roiled with the thought of having to move.

"How th'frack did I end up here?" he muttered and tried t'pick himself off of the durasteel floor of The Balmorran Blaster. The disgraced man didn't really remember much after his conversation with Dom. He'd told 'Maddy' t'shut down, then continued t'drink his bottle of alcohol.

Did he have another bottle? He woulda thought three was 'nough. And when'd he move from the cockpit to his cot? Ah who gives a damn...

Cimmerian staggared from his room towards the refresher, his stomach aching and complaining with each step. It took 'bout five minutes longer than normal, but the bounty hunter made it to the refresher where he turned on th'faucet and splashed cool water on his face.

As the water permeated his facial pores, Cimmerian stared into the mirror. It'd been a final joke or payment (maybe both) from th'Belargics.

They'd changed his identity...made his face different and new, but in the process they brought the monster on the inside out onto his face. It looked horrid, more monsterous than normal. His large brow jutted out over his shrunken and (alcohol-induced) bloodshot eyes. His nose was crooked and his jaw was square and thick. All this was only made more gruesome by the scars all over his face, picked up from years of fighting and killing. And of course th'look of death in his eyes.

Cimmerian did his best t'shuffle the thoughts away as he filled a cup of water, then gulped it down.

He wished he hadn't. A moment later, he was emptying his guts into the toilet, his stomach deciding the mixture of alcohol and water not good for his system.

"Dammit," Cimmerian swore between stomach heaves, "Musta had another bottle of Yellow Plague. The guy said not t'have four..."

When he was certain his stomach was done disposing of its contents, Cimmerian rose from the floor, his arm muscles rippling as he did. He pulled off his tanktop and pants, depositting them inna pile on the floor, and turned on the shower.

It took 'bout five minutes for the water t'be just right but Cimmerian felt good in the heat. It opened up his nostrils and started making 'im feel as human as possible.

"Hey Maddy!" he called into the intercom, "Any word from either BC or Dom?"

The R9 droid gave a negatory *beep* then let out a series of *whirrs* and *blips*.

"Whatta ya mean no one's talking 'bout it? Brentaal's a frackin' hub."

This time 'Maddy' gave a couple *blats* in response.

"Yeah yeah...government controlled media," he spat th'words like a curse, "Anything on th'free wires? I know ya like paying attention t'that crap."

Another *blat* then a series of *beeps*.

"So all over huh? Damn. All right, keep an ear out f'anything from Dom," he exited the shower and took another look in the mirror at his face.

A voice spoke in his mind, What is it you want? Why are you doing this?

"If I frackin' knew," Cimmerian said to th'mirror, "I'd tell ya."

Then he exited the refresher, dressed, and went to the cockpit. He still had a few hours before Mon Cal. And the Belargics.

[Navaria Tarkin]

Daria stood in time with Navaria, to lend strength to her words.

“Once we have departed, those of you who choose to remain on Vortex may enforce the blockade. There is no telling how long we will be gone, but one thing is certain – you cannot allow any others to enter the Enclave in our absence. It is the only way to ensure that the Order is not infected.”

With this said, the Miraluka Jedi Master walked towards the chamber doors – which parted before her, at the gesture of a hand.

As the doors opened, the mutterings of the Jedi behind it ceased instantly. All looked towards the Council leaving with eyes full of insecurities, where some of the younger Padawans looked on with fear.

One common thread connected all of them despite how they were perceiving the threat felt through the Force ... They looked to the Council for guidance and understanding.

Navaria came to stand by Daria's side and took a moment to look at the entire group assembled. More had come since she had entered the Council Chambers.

She took a strong breath and frowned. Navaria would not lie to them. In order for the Jedi to survive this crisis, all must understand the stakes involved and work together as a unified front. "The Council has learned that a contagion created by the Empire has accidentally spread across Coruscant."

The Master allowed a moments pause to let the reality of the words she spoke sink in. "The planet is most assuredly lost, but there are still Jedi there. The Council now must act to ensure that this plague does not spread any further and try and rescue our lost comrades."

[Quinn]

Kale had shock-binders placed on him, and led to a seat in the rear of the APC. Master Henning was likewise placed in shock-binders, and placed in another seat. Both were strapped in, as was Sharra by soldiers who made their actions deliberate and precise, with a touch of annoyance at the fact that they had to take along passengers.

"Right." said Quinn as he closed the door once everyone was in. He sat down in the command chair with the electronic equipment, strapped himself in, and locked in the chair. "Alright driver, let's roll!"

The APC roared and began charging through the mall, headed for the exit.

"Golf-Delta-One, we need another rendezvous point, over." Quinn spoke into the APC's communications unit.

[Victer Dejan]

Victer knew that stern look. The Queen Mother had steeled herself for a difficult task. He knew he was needed as the Minister of Trade and as one of the Queen's trusted advisors. She masked the unpleasantness of the task before them, but with so many close years between them, it was more than obvious. One by one, Victer gave his daughters a kiss on the forehead. Ryssa regarded her sisters as Father and Mother disappeared into the corridor. All three girls exchanged glances. Natasha stared at her feet.

“It's something terrible. It always is when Mum has that look.” Natasha had only seen that look a few times.

“Ladies, gentlemen.” Adraudia began after a quick sweep of the Queen's Table. Two of her Fleet Admirals were present by holo link, a pair of shrewd older women who wore their grey hair and uniforms proudly. Victer sat to the Queen's right. Unlike on Onderon, when Adraudia was known to have an heiress as she took the throne, Victer's position in the government was not so unpopular.

“We have a crisis thrust upon us. Hapes must close its borders.” Victer visibly winced. Onderon had thrived under his trade system, and to shut it down would be a huge blow. The Queen Mother knew this, and would not call for such an action unless the facts demanded it. She addressed them all with a steely gaze before continuing.

[Rev Solomon]

Morgan nodded slowly.

"We're going to do what we can." He said. "I hope Adia was exaggerating." He knew, unfortunately, that his mother was not. Not even slightly.

"Now that I'm leaving, you're the last bastion of common sense. You take care of them while I'm gone, Rev."

There was a brief lift in the Reverend's cheeks that wasn't quite a smile but meant well.

"You give an old preacher more credit than he deserves," Solomon replied. "I came down here because I mean to join you. I've never felt so close to God I was ever comfortable debating the fate of the galaxy. I need to get out there again, helping people I can see and lay a hand on. And there aren't many outbound flights available right now."

He carried nothing with him but a small banthahide satchel. It seemed the longer he lived the less he found he needed to carry with him.

"Permission to come aboard, Captain."

[Emperor Ave]

“Excellency, the evacuation is proceeding as ordered.” Valten regretted those words even as he spoke them, the Emperor would well know the happenings on Imperial Center

“It is clear that those infected by the virus outbreak retain their technical abilities. The plague has already trickled to other worlds along the Corellian Trade Spine and Perlemian Trade routes…..” Karl reluctantly let out a sigh. The Inquisitoriate prided itself on flawless service, admitting failure was a horrifying idea.

“……we cannot retake the planet. Several starports have already been overrun and I fear that countless more infected will breach the blockade.”

Karl slowly raised his eyes, breaking his own beliefs of Imperial Doctrine.

“I have failed….” Valten did his best to swallow with his mechanical throat. “…I request that the Exterminatus Doctrine be invoked.”

I have failed. The words of the Lord Inquisitor rang with an ominous toll. For Salem Ave, failure had never been an option – or a reality, for that matter. Though life had tested him, with careful planning and patience he had overcome every trial. It was simply a matter of out-witting the opponent and that was something he had always excelled at. White eyes drifting idly towards the dejarik board set out in front of him, the Emperor nodded.

“Granted.”

It would not do well for the Emperor to seem as a butcher, but given the current situation he was left with no choice. If he could shine some favorable light on the situation, however, it would be through ensuring that he seemed to have no direct part in the destruction.

“I have contacted our friends in the Hapes Consortium. The Queen Mother sends an armada from the Hapan Royal Navy to our aid. The Commodores have orders to comply with the wishes of our own Admirals, but know that you have the power to veto their decisions, Valten... the combined fire-power of the Empire and the Consortium is at your disposal.”

[Master Nytherciria]

She took a strong breath and frowned. Navaria would not lie to them. In order for the Jedi to survive this crisis, all must understand the stakes involved and work together as a unified front. "The Council has learned that a contagion created by the Empire has accidentally spread across Coruscant."

The Master allowed a moments pause to let the reality of the words she spoke sink in. "The planet is most assuredly lost, but there are still Jedi there. The Council now must act to ensure that this plague does not spread any further and try and rescue our lost comrades."

Daria's blind eyes took in the many Jedi gathered before her, watching them with practiced ease as Navaria explained the situation they were all facing. Once Navaria had finished speaking, Daria continued:

“Master Tarkin and I are leaving for Coruscant soon. We do not expect any of you to come with us. The mission ahead is one fraught with danger and there is no certainty that we will even make it back to Vortex, let alone find those we are looking for. That being said, if there are any amongst you with a level-head, a talent for healing or a good knowledge of the topography of Coruscant, you presence will be more than welcome.”

This said, Daria fell silent, allowing suitable pause in which any volunteers could speak up.

[Chancellor Belargic]

They had not yet entered the Hall of Heroes when Dasquian heard it. Voices – shouting, arguing, each one trying to out-do the other. It was as he had feared. Entering the fray largely unnoticed, he assembled a great many familiar faces, some red with anger, others white with fear. The Mon Calamari Council had gathered in full and were sitting opposite to the representatives from the Republic. There seemed to be some kind of debate in progress as to whether or not the fate of the Galaxy should be decided on Mon Calamari.

One particularly hot-headed Calamari looked fit to burst, his furious cries going above all others.

“There is no doubt that the Empire shall use this moment of weakness and confusion to strike, and where better than here, with so many of the Republic's key diplomats and military strategists gathered in one place! Our planet will be destroyed!”

One of the Senators, tiring of the madness, let his eyes drift away from the crowd and saw, to his surprise, that the Chancellor and the Director stood watching the entire proceedings. His eyes widened and he nudged the man at his side. The realization spread through them all, in a ripple of silence. All eyes turned onto the Belargic's.

“Esteemed Council of Mon Calamari... Senators of the Republic... men and women, all of the Galactic Alliance.”

The Chancellor inclined his head towards each group in turn.

“I do not know what you heard about the challenge we face today. Before we begin our discussions in earnest, I would like to direct your attention to our capable Intelligence Director, who has the latest information on the developments surrounding Coruscant.”

[Knight Staedtler]

Daria's blind eyes took in the many Jedi gathered before her, watching them with practiced ease as Navaria explained the situation they were all facing. Once Navaria had finished speaking, Daria continued:

“Master Tarkin and I are leaving for Coruscant soon. We do not expect any of you to come with us. The mission ahead is one fraught with danger and there is no certainty that we will even make it back to Vortex, let alone find those we are looking for. That being said, if there are any amongst you with a level-head, a talent for healing or a good knowledge of the topography of Coruscant, you presence will be more than welcome.”

This said, Daria fell silent, allowing suitable pause in which any volunteers could speak up.

His grip on Ever tightened without his realizing it. The gravity of the events was far more dire than he--than any of those in the hall--had anticipated. What was it that Master Tarkin had said? Coruscant was most assuredly lost.

A heavy silence idled away precious minutes as the information was processed, before he took a step forward, giving a slight bow. Wyl stared at his former Master, nodding once. He'd likely made up his mind the second the news had been broken.

"I'm coming."

[Ever Talbot]

"What?!"

As soon as it had squeaked out of her mouth, her hands had slapped over her face. Was Master Wyl CRAZY?! She felt warmth spread up her neck, into her cheeks. She followed suit, bowing and giving Wyl a hard stare.

"If my master is going, then I'm going to."

[Rhianna Evanar]

"You give an old preacher more credit than he deserves," Solomon replied. "I came down here because I mean to join you. I've never felt so close to God I was ever comfortable debating the fate of the galaxy. I need to get out there again, helping people I can see and lay a hand on. And there aren't many outbound flights available right now."

"Permission to come aboard, Captain."
Rhianna ascertained that the ship was ready. Now she just needed to find her husband. She was twisting her long hair into a braid while she made her way down the ramp. She felt, before she saw, that the preacher was going to be joining them.. Her blue eyes settled on his face fondly. She would appreciate his presence with them, he had as much cause to go after Serena as they did. Rhianna never spoke of the fragile bond between the Reverend and Master Laran, but that did not make it any less real. She had eyes..

"Granted..." Rhianna stepped forward and offered her hands to the Jedi holy man. "Welcome Solomon, I rather hoped you would join us."

She stopped and placed her hands over her hips. "Well? From in there..", she nodded into the ship.., "it says we are ready to go. All those departing for Chandrila, kindly put a sprint in your step. That'll be you, Morgan.."

[A'na]

"No shouting, even if you are separated from us. You will not be separated from me, and certainly not from the Force.

"Right," the Jedi Master breathed deeply, calmly. A'na shifted Jax higher in her arms, his head snuggled into the nape of her neck. "Here we go."

A'na felt a little like throwing up, but she followed the Jedi and the other children, taking up the rear of the little party as Serena led them down the descending ramp. The spaceport hangar was dark, lit only intermittently by sparking lights that cast strange shadows.

Dark, and quiet. The feet of the children shuffled on the duracrete as they stuck near the old woman who was leading them, unquestioningly putting their trust in her and her lightsaber. A'na clutched at Jax, but her eyes were riveted on her daughter's back as Trelby held onto the younger girl.

A thought crossed her mind, one that made the corners of her eyes tighten momentarily. He would have kept Jade safe. She wouldn't be in the horrible position of running for her life if her father had anything to say about it.

A'na shook that thought away as she stepped onto the duracrete, her shoes echoing softly as she followed the Jedi. Nothing around the little group moved.

[Master Laran]

Serena cast outward with her thoughts as their footsteps began to echo in the hangar, bouncing back at them from abandoned ships. The children stuck close together, all of them utterly serious with perhaps the exception of Jax who seemed ready to nap again as A'na held on to him.

The innocence of the young was the redemption of the old. The Jedi Master felt nothing untoward for the moment, and she walked towards the doors that led into the spaceport proper. Yards away, the little group had to pass between two parked shuttles and the tech shack where the outer launch doors were controlled.

There was a smear of blood visible on the duracrete to their left, and Serena walked them clear of it. Thirteen year old Trelby gasped when she noticed the stain, but none of the other children seemed to see it. Concentrating on the children, it was a sudden change in A'na's orientation that alerted Serena to the danger first.

The woman snapped her head abruptly towards the right, staring into the darkness between two ships. "Move!" she blurted, and Serena felt it, the malice leaking into the area. The Force quivered with anticipation, and footsteps boomed on the 'crete even though the children were all standing still.

"A'na -" Serena pointed towards the doors leading to the 'port proper. The woman didn't need to be told twice or have anything explained. She grabbed one of the twins' hand and took off towards what might be saftey, the other children following as the footsteps quickened and multiplied.

Waiting until A'na passed her, Serena took up the rear, her blue lightsaber igniting and lighting up the area around her.

[A'na]

Everything sharpened into focus as A'na hurried towards the doors that spelled freedom - at least from this awful hangar. Serena walked backwards behind the group, lightsaber at the ready as the first of the infected rounded the ship where A'na had detected them.

She shuddered, and put her hand into her pack as she moved, pulling out a blaster. She didn't intend to leave Jade's fate to the Jedi alone.

You can do more than this, A'na.

No. No I can't. Terror gripped her, but she paused in her flight at the tech shack. It offered likely shelter, but she stopped any of the children from getting to close to the open door. Blood was splattered inside the windows, and the place smelled like death.

Crowded around her like baby birds, the children looked to her for encouragement, but A'na had none for them. She had released Ida's hand to grab her blaster, but now she stood frozen watching the Jedi Master stand against what looked to be at least ten infected running towards her.

The lightsaber flashed as the older woman flowed into a defensive stance, one hand out to the side for balance. A'na raised the blaster, ready to blow the brains out of any that might get past the Jedi.

Serena moved with speed A'na wouldn't have thought possible from such an old body, severing the head of the first infected without hesitation. The others swept onward, rushing forward without weapons in hand other than the odd hydrospanner or two. No blood splashed as the lightsaber cauterized wounds as it made them.

"To the door, A'na! Quickly!" Serena called to her, and the woman jumped back into awareness as the Jedi had backed up nearly to their position as the last few infected drew back to regroup. One of them, a Gran, seemed to be staring at A'na with all three of its eyes.

Trelby jumped at the Jedi's words, pulling Jade to the doors and hitting the controls. Both girls screamed as the doors swished open and a body fell inside the hangar, its head blown apart.

[Knight Staedtler]

"What?!"

As soon as it had squeaked out of her mouth, her hands had slapped over her face. Was Master Wyl CRAZY?! She felt warmth spread up her neck, into her cheeks. She followed suit, bowing and giving Wyl a hard stare.

"If my master is going, then I'm going to."


"Absolutely out of the question." Wyl answered swiftly, his tone brooking no argument. "It's too dangerous."

Ever looked as though she were going argue, but the Knight shook his head sternly. He believed in teaching hands-on, and he certainly hadn't been coddled as a child, but this was a different situation entirely. There was no chance that he would allow Ever's life to be endangered so blatently.

"You're needed here, Padawan." He said, softening his tone. A gentle tug at one of her ears was given, in the hopes of easing the blow. Ever hated being treated like a child. "Danru and the other little ones will need watching."

[Clea Darkrunner]

Sharra wiggled in her seat, clearly unhappy. Finally she said to a nearby trooper, "Excuse me, could I talk to your Commander?"

Quinn leaned back in his chair. "Sorry, God's a little busy at the moment"

The troopers snickered.

"Well, then, can I talk to God's assistant in charge on this mission?"

One of the troopers sitting next to her poked her in the ribs and said, ".....but he's our commanding officer," as Quinn started talking on the radio.

She snapped at the trooper, "That's who I asked for in the first place!"

"Well, then you'd better start praying, 'cuz by the sound of it we're gonna need every bit of it." said Quinn.

"THEN GET US OFF THIS ROCK!" she yelled, fear and anger evident in her voice.

"If you'll shut up, maybe I'll be able to," said Quinn.

She glared at him, and shut up.

[Morgan Evanar]

Morgan managed a half-smile before dashing into the ship. Rhianna knew how to fly the ship just as well as he did, and for casual flight, she was the better pilot. The cockpit was a bit snug, but it allowed him to reach almost all of the controls from the pilot's seat. Rhianna and the Reverend took two of the remaining 3 seats while he finished the final pre-flight checks and started the navicomp. By the time they reached safe distance from the planet's gravity, the route would be calculated.

Serena would have to find a way to hold out for a day. Even Grace and Nonsense's hyperdrives had limitations.

He made sure everyone was secured with a quick glance over his shoulder. Thumbing the repulsor control on the side of the throttle, the ship gently floated off the landing pad and taxied toward the exit while the landing gear retracted. Five seconds later, the ship roared out into the air and leapt toward space.

[Ever Talbot]

"Absolutely out of the question." Wyl answered swiftly, his tone brooking no argument. "It's too dangerous."

Ever looked as though she were going argue, but the Knight shook his head sternly. He believed in teaching hands-on, and he certainly hadn't been coddled as a child, but this was a different situation entirely. There was no chance that he would allow Ever's life to be endangered so blatently.

"You're needed here, Padawan." He said, softening his tone. A gentle tug at one of her ears was given, in the hopes of easing the blow. Ever hated being treated like a child. "Danru and the other little ones will need watching."

Her ears sank down below her shoulders, a pout forming on her lips. She wanted to argue - he would need her help there, and she wasn't about to let him go without her. There were other Jedi who could play babysitter to the younger kids; her place was with Master Wyl. A plan was beginning to form in the back of her mind. She managed to keep a completely straight face as she nodded. "If that's what you want, Master."

[Mac Ravenwing]

"Mmm," Mac said as Teagan kissed him firmly on the lips, and then he managed, "Yeah so the job's finished, Ma." He managed not to yelp as Teagan yanked him inside room 55A, but he did trip over his feet and both of them went down in a pile of arms and legs just inside the door.

The outer door swished closed on them and he returned Teagan's kiss with fervor.

"Good, I've heard some rumors leaking out of the Core over the last few hours and they haven't been good." His mom sounded tired. "I got a message relayed to me from your mother, Teagan, wanting to know where you were. I'll let her know you two are safe."

"Oh yeah, we're... fine." Mac agreed, "Cloud City, at the moment."

"I'll rendevous there myself in the next few hours." She sounded a little perkier, but Mac was busy fighting off Teagan's wandering hands. Frell, she was strong! "We should do dinner, okay?"

"Right! Okay!" He managed to pin both of Teagan's hands with one of his, and she made a face at him. "Call me then!" Mac terminated the call.

[Arya Ravenwing]

Arya couldn't help but smile as Mac ended the transmission abruptly, but the smile faded as her second entered the cockpit. The tugboat she was piloting was pulling five great containers through hyperspace, all empty at the moment. After a refuel stop in Cloud City it was due for stops at several agricultural planets to fill up before turning back towards the Core.

Her business was legit now, though that didn't mean it wasn't high stress. The Lupine kicked her boots off the piloting console as Mr. Mayweather sat in the co-pilot's seat. "Th' word ain't good from the Core, Cap'n. Th' price of grain tripled in the Corellian markets over just the last four hours. Th' Empire is tryin' to keep something quiet, but buisness don't lie. Coruscant went dark about eight hours ago - nothing in nor out."

Arya brooded over that, but in the end, what could she do? Mac and Teagan were clear of whatever was going on, and she had a stop to make in Cloud City. "We'll ride this one out, we always do."

[Teagan Staedtler]

With an almost feral grin, Teagan rolled over so that she sat atop Mac. Her grin stretched from ear to ear as if she'd just bagged herself some magnificient trophy kill.

Not too far from the truth, she thought wryly.

The mention of her mother caused her to furow her brow, and Teagan hrmphed in annoyance. It was bad enough that the elder Lupine smelled different - she wondered if her mother had even told Sanis yet - but if her mother's pregnancy with Ledo was any indication, it meant another slew of months full of nagging for company.

One look at Mac though was enough for her to shrug the thoughts off, and she filed them away for later contemplation. She made a face at the man underneath her.

"So we've got a few hours before your mother gets here," her voice dripped with the very essence of conspiracy, and she let a hand wander beneath his shirt to poke at his belly button.

"Whatever shall we do?"

[Queen Mother Basillie]

“Ladies, gentlemen.” Adraudia began after a quick sweep of the Queen's Table. Two of her Fleet Admirals were present by holo link, a pair of shrewd older women who wore their grey hair and uniforms proudly. Victer sat to the Queen's right. Unlike on Onderon, when Adraudia was known to have an heiress as she took the throne, Victer's position in the government was not so unpopular.

“We have a crisis thrust upon us. Hapes must close its borders.” Victer visibly winced. Onderon had thrived under his trade system, and to shut it down would be a huge blow. The Queen Mother knew this, and would not call for such an action unless the facts demanded it. She addressed them all with a steely gaze before continuing.

"I do not make this decision lightly, but I have no choice. I received word not that long ago from Lady Razielle that a biological contagion has been unwittingly released on Coruscant." Her Ministers visibly tensed and eyes grew in shock and fear. "The disease causes those infected to become hostile and destructive, without a care for what damage is inflicted upon them. Thus far, the damage has been localized on Coruscant, though the possibility that some of the infected have escaped the planet and are still within the Core."

The Queen Mother turned her attention to the holographic images of her two Admirals. "From this moment on, all traffic coming into and out of Hapes and Onderon cease. Admiral Cata and her fleet will see to it personally that the borders are patrolled heavily."

"Glady Queen Mother," Cata said with a respectful bow.

"The only exception to this order is one fleet shall be heading to the Core. The Emperor has requested assistance in destroying Coruscant. I am sending you, Admiral Reth, to ensure that this nightmare does not reach our borders. You realize that I cannot guarantee your safety, but this must be done. If this disease spreads like wildfire, our society could be lost. I will not allow for that."

Admiral Reth's hand covered her heart and bowed. "We gladly give our lives to protect our home. Your will will be done, Queen Mother."

[Navaria Tarkin]

"Absolutely out of the question." Wyl answered swiftly, his tone brooking no argument. "It's too dangerous."

Ever looked as though she were going argue, but the Knight shook his head sternly. He believed in teaching hands-on, and he certainly hadn't been coddled as a child, but this was a different situation entirely. There was no chance that he would allow Ever's life to be endangered so blatently.

"You're needed here, Padawan." He said, softening his tone. A gentle tug at one of her ears was given, in the hopes of easing the blow. Ever hated being treated like a child. "Danru and the other little ones will need watching."

Navaria waited patiently as Wyl explained to his Padawan the reasons behind his decision. The rest of the Jedi present volunteered for border patrol, watching over the young Padawans, and communications details. It was imperative that the Jedi remain in contact with one another as much as possible.

"Master Tarkin, Master Nytherciria. I wish to come and help." A Knight, Amira Kayle, stepped forward. She was dressed in the traditional tans and browns that match her blond hair, which made her greens eyes ever more striking. Navaria remembered when this young lady was first brought to Vortex by Master Laran. She was all of two years old when her parents were killed as Rebel sympathizers. Now she was a woman of twenty who had barely seen much battle. She was a healer, a peaceful soul.

She could feel Kayle keeping her fear in check. As much as it did frighten her at the prospect of finding her fellow Jedi dead, she did not fear death herself. The Knight would be welcomed. "You may join us, Amira."

[Clea Darkrunner]

Sharra wiggled in her seat, trying hard not to scream. They had been sitting, unmoving as far as she could tell, for several hours. She had fallen asleep once, and awakened to the same sights and sounds. She shivered, her sense of "Something BAD going to happen" getting stronger every moment. She shivered, and wanted to scream at the armored men around her to do something....to get OUT of there!

[Quinn]

The reason that they had been sitting was because the extraction needed a re-working and fast. And to move too much here, with these crazies was not a good idea. Finally, Quinn nodded with the radio.

"Right driver, let's get rollin." and the APC growled as it began to move cautiously through the mall, the main turret swivelling and tracking on shadows.

"Find us an exit." Quinn told him, and looked back in the passenger compartment. "Calm down miss, we won't be hurt. Not in this." and he knocked on the wall of the hull.

[Master Henning]

Cuffed and bound to his chair, Barton was locked in a struggle which he could not win. Now and then, his head would fall forwards as he felt fatigue creeping up on him. Vaguely, he heard the soldier saying something about an exit. His eyes, beneath heavy lids, roamed without purpose. His body was screaming out for rest, for sleep – but the moment he gave in would be the moment that the contagion won. He would sleep when he was dead.

[Master Nytherciria]

Daria felt a small swell of pride as Wyl volunteered himself. Though it had been many years since her term as his guardian had ended, she still thought of him fondly – even if it did not always show. Another Knight stepped forwards, but it seemed that she and Wyl were the only two forthcoming. The Jedi Master nodded.

“We have our party, then,” she said, and then carried on walking, the others in tow.

“Bryna is en route to Vortex, is she not? As much as it may pain the Director, it will be necessary for her to accompany us.”

[Knight Staedtler]

Her ears sank down below her shoulders, a pout forming on her lips. She wanted to argue - he would need her help there, and she wasn't about to let him go without her. There were other Jedi who could play babysitter to the younger kids; her place was with Master Wyl. A plan was beginning to form in the back of her mind. She managed to keep a completely straight face as she nodded. "If that's what you want, Master."

He stared at the girl a moment longer, thrown slightly off-guard by her nearly immediate compliance. Ever possessed... a strong will, and though she never disregarded him completely, the child always put up a fight if she thought things ought to go another way. This aquiesence was unexpected. A blessing from the Force, in fact.

Nodding slowly, Wyl embraced his apprentice in farewell and then pointed her in the direction of Danru. "Listen to the other Master's. May the Force be with you, Padawan."

Picking up his feet, the man fell into stride next to Amira, returning her smile with a brief one of his own. He knew the young woman vaguely; she'd helped him nurse Ever through her first case of the flu, simultaneously easing the child's fever-induced cramps and his sheer panic in the face of puking younglings.

Despite the gravity of their mission, Wyl took a moment to revel in the fact that he was, once again, trailing behind Daria. It had been years now since he'd been under her experienced wing. Between Ever and his diplomatic assignments, and Daria's position on the Council, the two were hardly afforded much time together anymore. Falling into this familiar rhythm was a nostalgic treat.

"Bryna Belargic?" Wyl picked up on the last thread of conversation. He'd known the girl's parents, a long time ago.

[Director Belargic]

“Esteemed Council of Mon Calamari... Senators of the Republic... men and women, all of the Galactic Alliance.”

The Chancellor inclined his head towards each group in turn.

“I do not know what you heard about the challenge we face today. Before we begin our discussions in earnest, I would like to direct your attention to our capable Intelligence Director, who has the latest information on the developments surrounding Coruscant.”

Grace stepped up and onto the platform and took a moment to collect her thoughts. Hundreds of eyes stayed at her with anticipation of the news. Most of them stared with fear, others clinging to a semblance of hope that he rumors were not true and the Director would put a quick end to their problem.

If only that were true. "The Empire has quite possibly doomed Coruscant. The rumors you have heard ... are true. An unknown viral agent had been released on the planet accidentally. Agents in the field learned that it was the Empire itself that had created this agent and were storing it in secret. How it was released we do not know the specifics. What we do know is that those infected have become savages. They are violent, blood thirsty beings, who will attack at anyone that gets in their way.

The virus is spread through saliva. Only by being bit or scratched and coming into contact with it will one become infected."

Her voice was measured and even as she spoke, like the monotone neutrality of a droid. "We do not know if any of the infected have left the Core, but the possibility is there. Though aggressive, the infected still have the mental capacity to pilot ships and use weapons."

But her tone changed. The Director's voice lowered in pride and sadness, out off respect for her subordinates that she had lost. "We lost good men and women in bringing us this information. Use this wisely to ensure the Alliance's safety and May the Force be with us all."

[Navaria Tarkin]

“Bryna is en route to Vortex, is she not? As much as it may pain the Director, it will be necessary for her to accompany us.”

The Master nodded, "That is correct, Daria. She will be stopped at our borders as soon as she enters the system. I will need to contact her and advise her of our plans before we depart."

She sighed heavily. "Grace will understand." The Director had to make many decisions in her time that were difficult. Life and death choices were part of her job, as it was her daughter's now. "I leave it up to my Padawan to decide who shall tell her."


"Bryna Belargic?" Wyl picked up on the last thread of conversation. He'd known the girl's parents, a long time ago.

"Yes. She'll be rendezvousing with us."

[Quinn]

Quinn looked over at Master Henning, his eye perking up. "You really should get some sleep. You're only hurting your body at this point."

Quinn walked forward until he was standing over the Master. "Or is there another reason why you're staying awake?"

[Director BlackOps]

Mandalore - Chamber of Justice, Keldabe

"Im not hearing the answer I want" Estelle said coldly, her Manda'o not quite clean of the Basic accents.

There was a murmur of disapproval at her tone amongst the members at the end of the table - each of them representatives from various Mandalorian planets, Ordo, Shogun, Dawn, Gargon - themselves derserving of respect. But their leader's face remained passive. Riorin was not of a large frame for a Mandalore, but he was an imposing figure, nevertheless. He sat, clad in traditional armor with the exception of his helmet, relaxed in his chair - an attitude of repose that declared to everyone present that he didn't give a frak about the Director's tone.

Estelle continued, she had long tired of polite ettiquitte and went for the throat.

"It was agreed, by your council and ours, that the Death Watch would be completely dissolved. That those who refused to reform would be eliminated. Terminated. Cease to exist. I dont have to remind you that it is this very same Death Watch that attack your own homelands, your own families, without mercy."

The Mandalore nodded. He well knew all this.

"And yet I hear that there is still rogue elements at large, most notably, the Crier's faction. How do you explain this?"

Riorin moved his palm through the air, as if expecting the answer would somehow alight itself therewithin. "These things take time, Director. We--"

"You've been given time" she cut him short. "And you've now been given a deadline" She stood up from the table.

This made Riorin sit up, and the disapproving remarkings increased. He was not used to being told when and how by anybody.

"You will find that the friends you have enjoyed through our good association, Mandalore, will otherwise be assigned if by the upcoming Liberty Festival these assasins have not been dealt with."

She stood up to go.

"I will have no hesitation in doing the job myself, just as I have wanted too all along. But, you may find I look under a few rocks and behind a few doors that I have, til now, found no compunction to search."

Riorin had benefited greatly by Russard's 'all hands off' policy with regard to the Mandalorian's and their internal power struggles. Without the BlackOps blind-eye approach, many beneficial, and illegal, alliances could be compromised or disrupted.

Mandalore tapped his finger on the table, and Estelle understood his body language clearly. He was beginning to see her point.

"Good. I will be in touch"

She turned to leave.

"Enjoy the Festival" she said in parting.

*****************************

The Director, or Ghost Lady as she was sometimes referred, though not within her own hearing, strolled the groved pathway along the Kelita River. The sparkling blue-green band bordered this side of the tree-top City and the overhanging Tiran Blossom trees provided a picturesque walk not bettered in any of the citys Estelle had travelled to. It was peaceful beneath its shaded canopy. The gentle scent of the delicate blossoms reminded the walker that there was much beauty in the galaxy.

Estelle often needed such reminders these days.

Susan walked quietly along beside her, waiting for the Director to speak. Estelle's assistant had accompanied her to the meeting with Riorin, having waited outside where she had received a communication. It was this news that was the reason Ghost Lady (Susan knew the name too, but never used it with her outward voice) had lapsed into studied silence.

Russard broke the quiet with a question, "And he has contacted the Belargics directly?"

"Thats what it says, Director"

Estelle signed, this could only mean trouble.

"As if the galaxy isnt frakked enough without Aurelias thrown into the mix"

"Yes, Director" Susan agreed, thinking who the heck is Aurelias?

[Darth Lucid]

Blade woke from his trance he had been trying to send out messages to allies. It could have been hours it could have been days the man that was once Blade didn't seem to care. No what concerned him now was the prospect that he could be the only living sith left. That made a shiver run down Blades spine cold enough to give him frost bite.

He stood up from the bed then and walked towards a window that overlooked the city. Through the window Buildings in distance where burning and Black smoke billowed into the air. Alarms could be heard going off in an annoying symphony of noise. The city was in havoc to a sith this should be the beauty of chaos. The great smell of destruction and carnage. All the things Blade's old friend Sorsha loved with a passion. Aria would call it the end of what the sith should be, the of it all. Blade then spoke as if Aria was there to listen.

"We are sith. The lurkers in the Darkness. The things of children’s nightmares. We eat away at worlds until they become like this the once beloved city of Jedi and Old republic. Now in ruin and chaos we rule this place with no one to rule over except the unruly beasts that carnage has left behind."

Blade head sunk between his shoulders and he headed for the door. If he was the last sith he needed to preserve it's secrets and teachings. He felt impending danger coming to this city and knew he had to leave. So he stepped out into empty hallway and walked down the empty flight of stairs into the empty lobby. People once populated this place he thought to himself. People once populated this city and now only the monsters dwelled here. The monsters created by a monster. Blade had to find that monster and destroy him but first he needed to know who or what he was looking for. The answers where not in this city.

Blade walked down the streets of curscant now not paying attention to the destruction or its new populace. It's new populace however did look at him with a hungering so imbedded in there instincts. Feeding was there primary purpose now no longer human or any other intelligent life form for that matter. The beasts began to circle behind blade salivating as they stalked. One of the beasts couldn't hold out any longer and leapt at Blade biting at his arm. The beast bite right into armor crumbling its teeth.

"Pitiful! If you had half a brain anymore you would have noticed the armor."

The beast attempted to slink away but it wasn't quick enough as blade grasped it around the neck. Blade stared at it's eye's through the eye slots of his mask. The beast eye's where gray and dull almost lifeless. This beast probably was someone important once but it did not matter now as Blade's grasped tightened crushing the things neck. Blade then tossed it to the side and continued walking yelling at all the other beasts he felt following him.

"I'm not your food nor your spawn. If you wish death then come to me if you do not then leave me be."

Not that he expected them to understand Blade just needed to speak with authority for no other reason then to speak. With only a few altercations ending with a beast or two squirming away or ending up dead in a brutal manner Blade made it to the landing pad where his ship was docked. As blade was about too board to more human like beasts jumped him from behind. One bite right into armor the other however landed a lucking bite right on the neck in the small area where there was no armor between his shoulders and helmet. Blade screamed out in vicious pain.

"Dam you foul beast!"

Blade shoved the one that had bit into armor far and off to the side into empty barrels of fuel. He then elbowed the one that bite him the stomach and spun to face it.

"You die now you understand this right? No? I didn't think so."

Force lighting shot forth from Blades hand into the beast with violent force. Blade fried it then fried it again and again over and over again. It hollowed in pain the first couple of times but by the tenth flash it was pretty well dead. The other one again jumped Blade this time it snapped him right on the elbow again where there was no armor.

"That’s it I have had enough of your kind of crap for the day if you keep insisting on biting me aw screw it."

Blade unleashed his saber and let it cleave right through the things head. Then he dashed into the ship shutting the hatch behind him. He ran for the pilot station. He just put in random take off commands. As his ship prepped he looked at his wounds.

"These better not kill me or make me one of those things!" He screamed at his wounds. "Dammit Life sucks!"

[Captain Raurrssatta]

For a moment, despite the rapid eye movement state, Milivikal seemed to regard Cirresseeto with interest. One of her eyes, fully dilated, rolled forward for a moment and then back up while her eyelids fluttered.

“Coruscant threatens to destroy us all.” She explained, although the voice was not solely hers. It seemed to be a chorus of hundreds, maybe thousands, speaking in unison. “The Jedi concur. Milivikal concurs.” The voice paused, and did not mention the Emperor.

“The world is sick...dyingdead. Beyond reach. They scream noise-nonsense to us, to the Force. They are no longer alive, but not dead.” Her head shook back and forth for a moment and then stopped.

“Smash Coruscant.” the voices pleaded.

Milivikal slumped back into her chair. She looked exhausted and disoriented. She looked at Cirr with tired eyes, now her own again. She canted her head, and as a gesture of faith, the dictor grav wells shut down, and her fleet began to inch back from the Alliance ship.

Cirr pondered the strange outburst from Mili. He'd crossed paths with her enough to know that it wasn't her usual style. What was she up to?

Did he even have the luxury to ponder it? As he stood, he held firing orders. He must never forget it.

"Ai'kaarraa tas'serree"

Gellico, his second, had an ear for only a few of his XO's native words, and the command to "mute channel" was one of those. He cut the audio at once.

Cirr pulled the durasteel necklace out from under his white shirt. At the bottom of it, rested a dataslip key.

"Commanderr. Fjirrjing solutjions. Executjive staff to my warr rroom."

Gellico did the same, grim faced. Reading his XO, the commander ordered the flight deck on scramble status, and gave the forward bombardment observer a notice. Any instance of aggression by the brigand fleet would be met with extreme violence.



<center>* * *</center>


Cirrsseeto, Gellico, and Pell entered the war room at once, followed quickly by Subcommander Nenvik. The War Room was a small, dimly-lit nerve center, adjacent to the command deck. In it was housed the insidious fire controls and safe measures that kept vigil over the starkiller warheads.

Cirrsseeto started first, laying a palm on a plain black table.

"Authentjicate. Rraurrrssatta, Cjirrrsseeto. Captajin. XJ2-34A-332JC."

Gellico continued in turn.

"Authenticate. Gellico, Dien K. Commander. PA1-59D-935YU."

Pell and Nenvik also entered their authentications following Gellico. Once all four were witnessed, the center of the table rose upwards, revealing itself as a monolith with two slots on it, and a sphere in the middle. Gellico and Cirr stood on opposite sides of it.

"On my marrk."

The Captain and Commander inserted the dataslip keys into their respective slots. Upon Cirr's signal, they would be turned, and the executive staff would know only then if the firing orders were a simulation, or if they were real.

Cirr bit at his lip.

"Marrk."

The keys turned in unison.

The sphere flashed green. There was no war.

Given the tense stand-off that did exist, this led to sighs of relief. Cirr withdrew his key, and his XO followed, as the key column descended once again. The door to the war room opened, and they all filed out.

"Belay sjimulatjion orrderrs, and contjinue yellow alerrt."

He arrived back to the viewer, with a visibly irritated Mili still waiting. At a head nod, Cirr bade him to open the channel again.

"Mjilji, jI am loathe to offerr, but please accept my jinvjitatjion aboarrd my shjip. jI want to settle thjis wjith you, and send you away as soon as possjible."

[Milivikal k'Vik]

"I am wanted by every government consider legitimate. Why would setting on foot on your ship give me exemption, beyond the fact that I would likely kill all of you if you so much as raised a hand? I have no personal want of a Planet Killer. I know not of your codes, nor could I likely coax them from your brain, as transparent as you may be at times." She shook her head with vigor.

Her head suddenly jerked back, her pale blue eyes rolling away disappearing again.

"We accept." The voice echoed without traveling over the comm system. It manifested itself right in the ship, or seemingly so. Her body immediately began to shake it off, and thrashed back and forth until the woman seemed herself.

“It seems I am left with little option. I will be present in five standard minutes.”

[Captain Raurrssatta]

Cirr's jawline clenched at the massive contradiction, and he spoke after a second.

"We wjill send escorrt to meet you. Dauntless out."

Cirr cut the line with a hand gesture, his gaze lost in thought. He'd spent enough time around Jedi and darksiders to know that their ways eluded rationality. He could feel his second's eyes boring into his temple.

"Trrjiple guarrd post at the hangarr bay."

He met his commander's eyes.

"jIf thjings go south of Mustafarr, jI don't have to rremjind you that ourr orrderrs arre to destrroy the shjip."

[Milivikal k'Vik]

Milivikal rose from her chair, the crew staring. Even for someone so unconventional, this was insane. Her personal ship was one of many random craft that dotted the Song hangar bay. If the Force had not spoken so strongly she would not have even ventured to go anywhere near a Liberty. While capable of destroying planets, it's ship to ship performance was unknown and it would make her operation a top kill priority by both the Republic and Empire.

As it stood, she was nuisance, that was either minor or major, depending on the month. She hit targets of opportunity for whatever commodity would make her good money without too much effort, and stole fighting ships whenever she could. Her personal shuttle was one of her few indulgences, aside from her music collection. Lightly armed, agile, and smaller than most yachts at a mere 20 meters, the smooth ship would evoke thoughts of Naboo's shipbuilders. The smooth, dark grey metal gleamed, but the outer edges were trimmed with a dark, metallic red. Three small, round holes in the bottom of the hull were the only sign that the ship had offensive capability. The design was built for excellent atmospheric performance, and the blended wing design made for great interior space. The craft's four engines were lifted from a pair of stolen, newer spec A-Wings.

The ramp descended, narrow for such a craft at only five feet wide. She had already started the pre-flight from her Captain's chair. The ship hummed softly and smoothly. Milivikal slid into the seat, custom fitted to her body, and reclined more like a fighter's than a luxury craft. She grabbed the controls, and whipped the craft off the deck. The landing skids retracted, and a quick glance at her scanner below the viewscreen showed the escort's tight, well managed formation. It was a very expensive way to run a Navy, on alert at nearly all times. She brought the shields on her craft up, in case someone decided to be clever and remove an annoyance for the Republic.

[Captain Raurrssatta]

The escort was swift in their work. Fighters arranged themselves in a diamond formation around Mili's fighter, and matched velocity for return to the Dauntless.

Cirr was waiting for her in person, having taken the time since to button up his officer's jacket and tend to his hair in passing. Part of his intention was to buy time for the reinforcements he had requested. The firepower the pirate possessed was extensive, and though a Liberty would theoretically be able to survive an attack of that size, it was beyond a certainty, especially with an enemy as dangerous as Milivikal.

There was a growing part of the Cizerack's rationale, his curiosity. He'd always figured Mili for a sociopath, but not generally crazy. She was either slipping into a different psychosis, or there was something more substantial at work. He wanted to consult Master s'Ilancy-Prent on the issue, off the record. He once had her ear, many years ago. She was one of the few Jedi that he trusted.

Mili's ship and the Z-wing fighter protection had returned, with the Z wings peeling off into the fighter's berth, letting Mili's ship take a perch at the primary deck. Cirr stood apart from the security entourage. No sense in boxing her in with men and weapons yet, but it wasn't a terrible idea in case things went wrong.

[Milivikal k'Vik]

Milivikal departed, straightening her uniform. The red shoulder guard/sash was dotted with ancient script in a black fabric that seemed to consume light. Her uniform was dark gray, and obviously custom fitted from it's original Imperial design which did not, originally, fit to one's figure. A simple metal clasp held a black belt around the top of her hips, along with various bits any fleet captain would need: a blaster, a comm link, thin rope, and what probably held a light and a small multi-tool. Her lightsaber was strapped to her left thigh, in easy reach of that hand.

Her hair was cut ear-length and shorter, except for a pair of bangs that touched her face. It was still thick and smooth, with no grey. She had aged since Cirr had last seen her. Her skin had lost a touch of it's perfection, and was gently lined at the corners of her eyes and mouth. Her eyes were no different- still a winter-sky pale blue outlined by a thin ring of almost-black at the outer edges. Milivikal's stride had lost none of it's previous grace as she walked down the steps of her ship.

She examined the Cizerack. His middle had expanded some, and he had been awoken from one of his prized naps, although he was much better at hiding it now than he used to be.

“Captain.” She said with a smooth bow.

[Master Laran]

Serena pushed lightly with the Force, getting the children moving forward again despite the carnage beyond the door and inside the spaceport. A'na shoved a blaster into her sash, and reached out with both her hands to grab children, pulling them out of the hangar and onto the concourse.

The Jedi backed up, lightsaber twirling in front of her. The infected before her followed her movements, and though she was loathe to murder sentients, it was clear that these would not give up until she was dead. A Gran threw a hydrospanner at her head, but she ducked it gracefully as the remaining infected charged.

It was over quickly - heads rolling on the duracrete even as she backed up out of the hangar and sealed the door behind her. Serena turned around, lightsaber at the ready, but found only the wide eyes of the children looking back at her.

[A'na]

A'na pulled Jade in close to her side as they surveyed the interior of the main walk of the spaceport. Trelby whimpered, gripping the twins' hands tightly. On A'na's shoulder Jax contentedly sucked his thumb, eyes closed.

Oh, if only I deserved your trust, little one. Her arm was cramping up from holding him, but she did not dare set him down even for a moment.

Master Laran walked through their little group, taking in their surroundings. Everything in the 'port seemed to be... dead. There were bodies littering the concourse like candy wrappers, their dead unseeing eyes open and staring. A'na pushed her daughter's face into her side, hoping to spare her some of the horror before them.

The Jedi Master spent a moment taking it in, then she turned to A'na.

"They are not all dead."

[Darth Lucid]

Blade started taking off pieces of his armor as his ship prepped investigating his wounds further. The flesh was already starting to swell and the wounds where warm to the touch. His head started to spin in dizziness as he ship told him it was prepared for launch. He slammed his fist into the take of switch and the thrusters when off in a blaze lifting off the ground. Blades last words before his mind feel into to darkness where to the computer.

"Auto pilot... find Jed...I"

A loud echoing thud could be heard through out the rest of the empty ship as Blade's body collapsed landing on the floor in front of the console. The Computer said out loud.

"Acknowledged Auto pilot engaged. Searching for Jedi inhabited planets Would you like to cross reference with The republic? Confirm? Confirm?"

The computer spoke over and over into the darkness looking for confirmation but no answer came back. Blades ship now drifted into the abyss of space with no confirmed trajectory.

[Kale Zarinov]

Quinn looked over at Master Henning, his eye perking up. "You really should get some sleep. You're only hurting your body at this point."

Quinn walked forward until he was standing over the Master. "Or is there another reason why you're staying awake?"

Kale glared hawkishly at the merc commander. "You worry about driving your little tank. The two of us can take care of ourselves."

And might've been better off without Captain Testosterone's help, but he kept that part to himself. Both lightsabers were still concealed beneath his jacket.

As soon as Quinn's attention was diverted, Kale leaned toward Master Henning and breathed, "Say the word and we can disappear. Unless you'd rather hang out with these jarheads."

[Quinn]

Quinn looked over at the younger one, his face giving off... amusement?

"It is a brash fool who brushes off help. And not even Jedi such as yourself could stay out there long." he said almost genially. "We could always drop you off out there, a long ways from any starport. Now if you WANT to get out of here ALIVE, maybe you could be a little more polite. Ease off the ego?"

Quinn turned back into the commander area. "And you may be able to get out of this APC using whatever you Jedi do. However, if you don't want a lift off, just say so and we'll toss you out. We're only taking you two along because the young lady here wants you to come along, despite my better judgement."

And although Quinn wasn't within earshot, one of the soldiers closer to Zale was. He smirked at the derogatory word 'Jarhead'.

[Captain Raurrssatta]

Milivikal departed, straightening her uniform. The red shoulder guard/sash was dotted with ancient script in a black fabric that seemed to consume light. Her uniform was dark gray, and obviously custom fitted from it's original Imperial design which did not, originally, fit to one's figure. A simple metal clasp held a black belt around the top of her hips, along with various bits any fleet captain would need: a blaster, a comm link, thin rope, and what probably held a light and a small multi-tool. Her lightsaber was strapped to her left thigh, in easy reach of that hand.

Her hair was cut ear-length and shorter, except for a pair of bangs that touched her face. It was still thick and smooth, with no grey. She had aged since Cirr had last seen her. Her skin had lost a touch of it's perfection, and was gently lined at the corners of her eyes and mouth. Her eyes were no different- still a winter-sky pale blue outlined by a thin ring of almost-black at the outer edges. Milivikal's stride had lost none of it's previous grace as she walked down the steps of her ship.

She examined the Cizerack. His middle had expanded some, and he had been awoken from one of his prized naps, although he was much better at hiding it now than he used to be.

“Captain.” She said with a smooth bow.

Cirr felt marginally more comfortable speaking to Mili in person. He sniffed the air discretely, comparing against his memory. She'd gotten older, but it was assuredly still Mili. Her bout with insanity obviously wasn't due to her being a doppleganger.

"Do jI call you the same?"

She'd been successful since they'd parted ways, though she was no farther from being a spurrious brigand, it seemed. It was easier when he was an outlaw on the fringes of the Rebellion. You could state your displeasure with candid words and a blaster bolt. His life had gotten increasingly more complicated.

"Let's talk overr drrjinks jin my staterroom."

The contingent trailed Cirr and Mili at a respectable distance as the Cizerack escorted his guest from the deck.

[Milivikal k'Vik]

Milivikal threw her feet up, her boots neatly hanging off the corner of the table and balanced in her chair precariously. The Cizerack grabbed a bottle of Corellian Whiskey and poured it into two tumblers. He remembered that she smoked sometimes, and presented the glass with a cigar and a match.

She laughed. There was nothing else she could do. He was a Captain in the Alliance Navy and she was the leader of one of the most feared pirate fleets in the Galaxy. They were having whiskey, in an Alliance ship's state room. Cirr had forgotten the cigar cutter, but it was no matter. She pulled out one of her boot daggers and neatly sliced the end off in a blur. She light the match against the dagger's handle and replaced the weapon. She stopped laughing. The tip burned orange and flared as she breathed in the pleasurable toxic smoke. One neat singular smoke ring wafted away. A puff, a sip, a sigh. Cirr looked at her with curiosity.

“I realize my previous presentation was unorthodox and uncomfortable, but I needed your absolute attention.” Cirr took a sip. She was dangerous when she went poetic.

“The Balance of Life in the Galaxy has been crushed by some sort of Imperial idiocy. It was a cleverly developed clumsily deployed manufactured death designed to perpetuate itself, but to what end, we do not know. Cull Coruscant. The source is there. The alternative: A skeleton civilization, if everything isn't erased. Your leaders will not act fast enough to save us. I will protect mine and my own in any event." Another sip, another puff, another sip.

[Captain Raurrssatta]

"jI've hearrd no news frrom Alljiance Command."

Cirr quirked a bushy eyebrow, taking a level off his drink as he sat opposite his guest.

"The unforrtunate fact of the matterr jis that ourr blessjing jis ourr currse. The Empjire was put jinto check wjith Starrkjiller mjissjiles, but so werre we. Warr doesn't happen wjith the...spontanejity that we werre once used to."

But surely she must know this. Must know the limits of the environment, and the nature of the beast. Then again, Cirr knew all too well how simple an outlaw's life could be. There were times when he was almost on the edge of tendering his resignation and turning over the Dauntless to somebody else. He never did, but the allure was there. Distantly, he wondered if Sanis felt the same way. Senator Prent...that title fit him like a square peg in a round hole.

In a way, both of them never should have left Layla at all.

[Milivikal k'Vik]

Her face hardened. Mili shifted into the seat correctly and leaned forward.

"Your Alliance Command is placing the pieces to parse the puzzle for the picture I painted previously. They are frantic."

Neither she nor the Force gave a spit about Alliance Command. Age had mildly tempered her impulsive anger. Her nostrils flared and she ashed the cigar. Smoke seemed to leak from the edges of her mouth. She needed a solution from a source the Cizerack trusted. She downed the remains of the Whiskey in two gulps. Gasp, breathe, wince, appreciate.

"Call the Smuggler Senator's Lupine Lady. She knows. We all know."

[Captain Raurrssatta]

Cirr reclined in his seat, unconciously angling the tumbler against his belly. Now they were getting somewhere. His ears twitched a few times, and he took another drink.

s'Il was the one he wanted to speak to in the first place.

"Gjive me tjime to make counsel. Ten mjinutes."

He set his drink down, pulling at the lower hem of his jacket again.

"jI can arrange quarrterrs forr you aboarrd."

It was also a generally good idea to keep Mili close, and Cirr wanted to encourage it.

[Rev Solomon]

Solomon sat quietly aft of Morgan and Rhianna and let the younger masters guide the Jedi transport through the corridors of hyperspace. He had once been a creditable star pilot himself, but he'd been focusing on other things in recent decades, and the pace of technology had passed him by.

He sat with his eyes closed, committing a message to powers beyond hyperdrives and plagues and superweapons.

Serena, if you can hear me, hold on. We're coming.

The old Jedi master opened his eyes and squinted into the electric blue glare in the viewports.

"I don't suppose we've picked up any more transmissions from Chandrila? Or anything on official channels, maybe something about the progress of the disease?"

[Morgan Evanar]

It had been hours before any of them had spoken, but Solomon broke the silence.

“No.” Morgan shook his head. Most of the comms had been dead for a few hours. The infected didn't seem to have any use for them.

Morgan sucked in breath as they exited hyperspace. While Grace and Nonsense had a tolerable stealth package, it wasn't going to do much good against that ISD that loomed above Hanna City's space port.

Except...

He cut the ship's engines to a flicker. There was an expansive debris field.

“Rhianna, set the stealth suite to a damaged core.” He said aloud, although she was halfway there before he started. At the heart of the stealth suite was a multi-band energy emitter that could produce most of the electromagnetic spectrum.

Morgan manually pulsed the throttle and put the ship into an awkward roll, one engine barely burning, but steady, and the other pulsing as if the power coupling had been damaged and only arched enough to pulse it.

It seemed that the ship's gunners and scanner crew were buying it.

Rhianna exhaled as they entered the metal scrap. Several passenger liners had been dusted, torn apart further by gravity.

No one looked too closely as Rhianna steadied the ship's descent toward the upper atmosphere.

Adia had suggested battle armor, and while almost no one had anything quite like hers, Morgan and Rhianna had posed as bounty hunters before. He had kept the suits around, in case he needed to do something similar again. He had taken a set of the largest snowtrooper armor he could find and largely gutted it. Part of the environment seals had been retained, but little else. He added a moisture capture layer at the base for recycling body fluids and wicking away moisture from the skin, useful for all sorts of extreme climates. The outer ceramic armor had been retained as well, but painted matte gray and backed with 1 centimeter durasteel plate. It weighed the better part of 50 kilos, but hardly slowed the the Jedi down. The helmet was, at the base, a combination of swoop crash helmet and stormtrooper filtration system, layered with 1.5 cm plate on the outside. Rhianna's armor was far more compact and lightweight. It still would provide protection from most direct impact things short of a wookie wielding a rykk blade, or a large vibro-axe, and some light blaster fire. Both suits were space-survivable for as long as the wearer could withstand the cold, or roughly 30 minutes in practical terms.

Morgan's plan was fairly simple in concept. Keep Serena and the children safe, commandeer another transport, and leave.

In theory, they could pack everyone into Grace and Nonsense, but it would be a tight fit, and dangerous if anyone was infected.

The N'Gant-Zarvel 9118 was a bit antiquated now that it had been supplanted by the 9121, but it was still an able weapon. Morgan sometimes carried it on more dangerous worlds without the armor, along with his pair of lightsabers when concealment wasn't an issue. If it was, he used the slightly more discrete Marr·Sonn Model 434.

Rhianna's equipment had been more exotic. The smart stun whip, modified DL-22 blaster pistol and a SoroSuub Firelance blaster rifle were the main affair, but also affixed to the armor was a smart rope and a micro-rocket launcher. Except for the smart rope and the DL-22, the rest of the equipment had been stripped from the armor. Rhianna surely her saber, and the blaster and rope were just a bonus. Unlike Morgan, Rhianna had not grown up with blasters. While the range was a benefit, she found them clumsy and imprecise, like many other Jedi.

5 minutes before landing, they were dressed. Morgan looked intimidating in the matte, angular armor. Right now, he didn't much care if it was bright pink so long as it kept him sealed from the virus.

[Master s'Ilancy-Prent]

She had listened in stoic silence as the Director spoke, her gaze resting on a point at the far wall of the meeting hall. She was beside Sanis, though in body only. Her mind was stretching out, the colors of the Force in her vision disturbing and undeniable. They pulsed in a low beat, a rumbling and angry murk that had no distinct hue. Everything seemed mashed together, swirled into an dull grey that overtook everything with deliberate, terrible slowness.

Even as the Empire's contagion spread, it was easily evident to the Lupine that the Force was becoming overrun as well. Such a poison... to infect the Force also...

She blinked, and her eyes focused on Director Belargic once more. She needed to confer with the other woman; the other Lupine.

Taking a step back, Lok left her husband and the rest of the senators who'd flooded the Hall of Heroes. Without ceremony the Lupine made her way to the Director's own office. She would wait for the Lady Belargic there.

[Master Henning]

Barton's shoulders sagged forwards. Though he heard the soldiers question, he did not answer. He couldn't lie, after all. He was done with lying now, but he didn't have the heart to tell the man what was truly wrong. A small part of him felt cowardly for the deception, but something – the Force, he hoped – told him that it was the right thing to do, to stay with Quinn and the others. Patience in all things.

“My apologies, Captain,” the Jedi Master said, through a spluttering cough. “The stress of the situation is getting to us all... but we're very glad to have your assistance.”

[Milivikal k'Vik]

Stay here? On this ship? Milivikal blinked.

“Why? Should she speak true, I will continue on my way after Coruscant is ash. What further could you want?”

She batted her black lashes innocently.

“Do you miss me so much? I did not know your crew was that dull.” Her daggers appeared from nowhere and juggled them. Cirr's brow raised. There were only two scenarios where Milivikal behaved so absurdly. One: she was having a self-indulgent moment of absurdity. These were not very common. Two: she was in a situation where she needed to not kill someone, and she was trying not to snap.

Cirr stared at her.

"I will stay." She pouted.

[Rhianna Evanar]

Chandrila - Hanna City
Capital Starport - Repair Hangars

There was a brief debate regarding where they would land. It was all a matter of deciding on the lesser of evils, as there were not really any ideal places to be in a situation like this. Populated places posed a greater threat of infection though, so somewhere less crowded, but still in proximity to the 'port led those onboard Grace and Nonsense to the nearby repair hangars. The thought was that with the crisis, the workers may have already evacuated the scene. They could gain access to the under-field transport byways and from there avoid as many of the infected as they could, find Serena and the children and get out fast with as little engagement as possible.

Rhianna closed her eyes, meditating on what needed to be done and banishing her fears. Thoughts of everything that could go wrong were banished from her mind. Her life had been a series of close calls, brushes with Fate that she had seemed to remain on the favorable side of. Perhaps she was truly blessed by the Abhairt Saoil. It was a comforting thought, and one that she held as they prepared to lower the ramp and set out into the deep tunnels beneath Chandrila.

[Lord Inquisitor Valten]

A little girl screamed, scuttling backwards on her little hands and feet. Her eyes, wide with terror, glued themselves to a slavering creature stalking towards her. Tears streamed down her face in rivulets as she scurried under broken chairs and up turned tables.

The poor child found herself backing father into a corner under the pitiless eyes of the virus-ravaged former human intent on satiating its rage. She scarcely had the time to cry out when the creature leapt. With head buried in arms, the girl waited. But nothing happened save for a growl of frustration from the beast.

Peeking up, she beheld a metal giant holding effortlessly holding the infected in the air by its clothes. The new monster was larger than anything she’d ever seen, covered in overlapping silver plates rimmed in gold. Almost like from fairy tale stories of heroic knights tens of thousands of years ago. Streamers of parchment in curious writing and brightly colored seals coated the armor, like a guardian angel.
The massive knight turned it head down at her and all she saw where ghostly pale blue orbs tucked deep under the angled helmet. No happiness, no sadness, no pain, only the emotionless azure glow.

And then it threw the creature across the room. For the first time the girl saw the weapon gripped in its huge hands, like a long staff with a huge blade on the end of it. The ghostly evil knight stalked towards its prey, crunching furniture under its boots as if it were walking on twigs.
It raised the halberd high, ready to cleave through the stumbling creature. At this the child sparked into motion, running towards the evil knight.

“No!” She balled her little fists, pounding on the leg of the metal monster. “Don’t hurt mommy!”

The knight hesitated for a moment, but the infected launched itself forward, reaching for the child.

“Damn it.” The knight’s voice came out low and demonic, reverberating through skin and bone. Far swifter than a being its size should have been capable of, it twisted and swept its blade in a wide arc. Crimson flew across the apartment and the girl screamed. In the violence, she had been knocked back and now she scrambled on hands and knees towards the dead beast.

“Mommy!!!”

But the knight stopped her, picking up her up in its arms while the girl wept.

“Sshhhhh, that wasn’t your mommy.”

Still the girl cried, muttering incomprehensible words and trying in vain to push away from the devil.

“It’ll be alright, don’t cry, I’ll get you out of here.”

The knight dropped the girl as she squirmed, not wanting to harm her. The girl backed away, shouting at the knight as it tried getting closer. Once again the child found herself in the corner, looking up angrily into the cold blue glow. In the pause, the knight saw the smallest of scratches on the girl’s arm.

“No.”

Confusion seeped into the girl’s face at the monster drawing away.

“No.” The knight stumbled back, falling low in a crouch, anguish creeping into its filtered voice. “This is not happening.”

The girl glanced at the scratch on the arm, a gift from her infected mother in the scuffle before. For a moment she looked as if she were going to move towards the knight in nervous compassion.

BANG<o></o>
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------<o></o>

Inquisitor Bren’lar Scothis rushed towards the sound of the retort. He had seen his wife run off in the direction of the scream earlier. Naomi could handle her own, twenty years of service to the Inquisitoriate spoke as much. But hearing the discharge of a gauss pistol brought a knot to his stomach.
A helmet came flying from a door way in front of him, colliding with a wall and shattering plaster.

“FRACK THIS!” Naomi stormed out of the apartment hair clinging to her face from sweat, pain evident on her face. “I FRACKING QUIT!”

Naomi embraced Bren’lar, armor and all. Tears filling her eyes for the first time in decade.

[Arya Ravenwing]

Arya finished the hourly checks on the containers she was towing, double and triple checking the umbillicals and clamps that held the whole rig together. For even one lock to come apart in hyperspace would spell disaster.

Now settled in her cabin, the 'night' shift being watched by Mr. Mayweather, Arya pulled on a loose sweater and settled at her desk. Activating her personal comm system she dialed a familiar number.

[Master s'Ilancy-Prent]

She'd just reached the Director's office door when her comm chirped. With a frown that soon smoothed into a relieved smile, the Jedi master glanced briefly at the name flashing on the identifier screen before answering.

"Arya," the relief on her features was easily evident and carried over into the tone of her voice. Though while her expression was genial enough, she bypassed their normal habitual greetings.

"Where are you?"

[Arya Ravenwing]

Lok was to the point, which wasn't unusual. "On my way to Cloud City, where I have dinner plans with our offspring. What's happening in the Core?"

[Master s'Ilancy-Prent]

Teagan was on Cloud City then. With Mac.

There was no normal good-natured grumble about the two being with one another. Instead, she merely blinked.

"Something has happened," was her answer. A pause, and she went on. "The Core is lost. You can't go back."

The Lupine set her jaw. "You must go to Schwartzweld and take the children with you."

[Lord Inquisitor Valten]

Bren’lar had never seen Naomi in the state she was in now. Most servants of the Inquisitoriate eventually succumbed to insanity or complete mental breakdown if they weren’t killed. The human mind could only take so much moral and emotional punishment before it broke. Different people had different ways of holding off the inevitable, sanctioned stims and drugs, neural wipes, even schizophrenia. Naomi and Bren’lar were in the growing number of agents that had found mental stability with marriage. Not that it could really be called an intimate relationship.


Still, in all of the missions, all of the violence, the screams, the interrogations, the decontaminations, Naomi had not once broken down so completely as she was now, in pain and rage as Bren’lar moved her out of the tenement structure. And it terrified him. An instinctive thought flashed through his mind, a concept drilled into every Inquisitor. Any Inquisitor to lose capacity was indication of failure to the Empire and must be punished by immediate execution.


“Snap out of it, girl.” Bren’lar’s armored joints strained as he hauled Naomi outside. “Nothing you could do, nothing anyone can do.”


The Inquisitor didn’t know if she could even hear with through her unintelligible ranting. But he hoped somehow she’d be able to switch from being Naomi to being the heartless Inquisitor…and fast. Civilians and Imperial soldiers alike fled towards waiting gunships. Only Inquisitorial Deathtroopers maintained their composure, keeping an active firing line in controlled withdrawal.


During the time inside the situation had greatly deteriorated. Imperial choke points and emplacements were quickly being overrun by infected. And the flood would shortly fill the plaza.


A grunt escaped Bren’lar as he held Naomi’s form. Power-armor may have been the greatest leap in combat technology, but in no way was one suit designed to hold the weight of another.


“Naomi….please. If you don’t help me out we are going to die, the pilots won’t wait.”


Bren’lar shifted his grip and pulled harder, closing the gap to safety meter by meter. A sudden wrench nearly dislocated his shoulder. Teeth gritted in pain, he glanced over his shoulder to find Naomi’s eyes filled with something odd. Remorse. She violently shoved a surprised Bren’lar away.


“We deserve worse than that.” She turned her head towards the approaching horde, setting sun and burning city highlighting her long hair with crimson. “We’ve damned ourselves a thousand times over.”



She swept her arm out over all the howling creatures. “We have less of a soul than they do.”


Her husband forced himself to nervously examine the plight of the infected. Bren’lar shook off the feeling of impending death and laid an arm on Naomi’s shoulder.
“I know. And w
e will burn for everything.” He tried to get a clear look at her face. “But we’ve always accepted it.”


Naomi kept staring straight ahead, sadness softening her face. “I killed a kid. Infected……but she was still…. there.”


The male Inquisitor cocked his head slightly, a tint of confusion. “It wasn’t the first….”


A high pitched whine pierced the air. The sound repulsors lifting transports into the air.


“This is our fault. I know it.” She finally turned to look at her husband. A lump found itself in his chest, she actually wanted to die. “How many more kids are there going to be?”


Bren’lar stepped forward, leaning his forehead against hers, his nose brushing against hers.


“So, you’re just going to throw your life away without doing anything to fix the problem.”


In the path of an incoming horde of shrieking, crazed, former citizens, silence hung over the embracing pair. Naomi slowly pulled back, a sigh on her lips, eyes cast downward. “Coruscant is going to burn.”


Bren’lar released gingerly raised her head with his armored hands. “At least we can make sure other worlds won’t.”


Less than twenty meters before the first wave of infected were to hit a smile slowly made its way back onto her face and the fear in Bren’lar’s gut faded away. The deadly and dangerous Naomi was starting to show through again, determined in a different way, but not the resigned wreck she had been minutes ago.


A beat and the two Inquisitors sparked into motion. The leading creatures leapt only to be slammed back in midair by the Scothis’s paired firepower. Slowly but surely, the Naomi and Bren’lar pulled back, knocking back the horde with bullets and blades.

[Master Laran]

"They're not all dead," Serena murmured to A'na, and the other woman nodded, her green eyes wide.

Lightsaber held at her side, the blade disengaged but ready to be deployed in an instant, the Jedi led the way through the concourse. The children clumped in behind her, a touch of the Force removing most of the fear that could have paralyzed them. A'na took up the rear, the toddler still in her arms and a blaster in her hand.

The 'port was spacious, though it now looked as though a battle had been waged inside. The bodies littering the carpeted ground filled the air with the smell of death and blood. Wary, Serena regarded each corpse they had to pass as a potential threat. Would these remain as they were, or would some dark side curse reanimate them?

[A'na]

Minutes dragged by, seeming like days as the little troupe picked its way down the once pristine concourse. We must get out of the city, A'na thought, Past the quarantine zone - if there still is a quarantine zone. But the chances of their survival were slim, even if they did beat all the odds and make the long trek out of Hanna City. Once they reached the edge of the QZ they would probably be shot by troopers determined to maintain the saftey of the rest of Chandrila.

No rescue. Only containment.

A'na looked up suddenly, imagining an ISD in orbit getting ready to scrub the capitol city from the face of the planet. It was the most logical step for the Empire to take. Tripping over an arm on the ground, the woman stumbled, her grip tightening on the child in her arms. Jax cried out softly against the pressure, but she quickly righted herself and made him as comfortable as she could.

[Master Laran]

Serena looked back over her shoulder at A'na, but the woman did not meet her eyes as she comforted little Jax. They were almost past the shops, getting closer to the outer doors and any vehicles that might be beyond them. The Jedi planned on getting everyone into a speeder, or maybe two, and making their way towards the outskirts of the city.

They simply would not survive on foot. Serena could, and perhaps A'na, but the children would not have a chance. A small hand pressed into hers, and Serena squeezed gently, calm reassurance for A'na's daughter Jade who was pressing into her side.

Then the twins began to cry.

[A'na]

Alise and Ida started sobbing, clutching each other and trying to be quiet. Trelby and Rammon, the two oldest children, looked uncertainly at the Jedi who led the group.

I feel it too. A headache bloomed behind her eyes as the Force closed in oppressively.

"Its a trap," she blurted. "The dammed things drew us in!" As she spoke, ice cold pain shot through her right leg and she stumbled, falling to the ground.

"Get down!" Serena bellowed, and the children ducked as blaster fire erupted from the shops on either side of them. A potted tree burst into flames and fell over as the Jedi deflected blaster bolts with her lightsaber, protecting the children.

[Director BlackOps]

The reports coming in were alarming and all confirmed the mushroom-cloud effect of contagion blooming ever outward from Imperial Center.

Russard sat stone-faced as she listened to the report from her Intelligence Officer.
A man in his late fifties, Captain Ursandin was reed-thin and stood ramrod straight. His hair was greying at the temples, yet he had the air of a man still well in his prime. He spoke in a clipped monotone.

"They've barricaded the Vortex. Nothing in or out"

"They cant do that!" exploded his naval counterpart, Gerrard Darline - a pastey looking fellow who was also in his fifties but carryied none of Ursandin's composure. "The Jedi cant shut their doors!" he bleated.

Estelle gestured for Ursandin to go on.

"Imperial Center is a shambles" he stated, adding, "They must destroy it if there is to be any hope of containment."

"Bit late for that, would'nt you say" offered Darline fearfully.

"One report has an Imperial ISD in place even as we speak." Then Ursandin fell silent. It would be a terrible day that Coruscant was gone altogether. Of all the planets in the Galaxy, that one embodied the driving force of change - both good and evil - and had been a bastion of power - the seat of great, and terrible, men. The captain could not believe it had come to this.

Estelle broke into his thoughts, asking quietly, "Then why do they wait?"

"Well its obvious" blustered Darline, "They're trying to save a few important as--er, personages before obliterating it"

Russard and Ursandin exchanged a candid look. Darline was not much of an officer, and even less an Intel operative. But despite his glaring shortcomings, he often had a gifted insight, though he was quite oblivious to this redeeming trait, Estelle was quite sure.

"You may be right, Darline" she said thoughtfully.

This unholy infection had half the galaxy in an uproar. She had not been aware as to the extent of it until her return to her ship from Keldabe. She had not received any direct orders from the Belargics, though it was quite possible communications had been sent, but not received, given the current state of turmoil. Word that had gotten through was that several parties, Jedi and Alliance and non-afiliated alike have rallied in varying capacities to evacuation, or rescue and containment, operations.

This had created a unique window of opportunity that Estelle was beginning to be realise.

The Empire was responsible for yet another disaster - and this one on such tremendous scale. For so many years, the master-planners and deviant minds had held the galaxy ransom to their brutal and violent will. And now, even as the Imperials fell prey to the chaos of their own making, justice would find them. In the midst of their own panic and dissarray, judgement would come calling.

"Captain Ursandin - last known whereabouts of Lord Inquisitor Valten?" Estelle asked.

The Captain did not have to look for the information, he prided himself on keeping up to date on Valten's movements out of personal interest and the fact that he was on the top of the hitlist for their Special Branch, "Imperial Center, Director"

"And...the Emporer?"

This caused a slight pause, before he replied, "I will have that for you immediately"

Russard nodded.





Darline was momentarily perplexed, and then as he caught up with what the Director had in mind, he frowned with uncertainty. "We have orders for this, from Headquarters..?"

Estelle ignored him.

"And Ursandin" she called as her Captain headed out, "get me the whereabouts of Cimmerian while you're at it"

A plan was formulating in Russards mind, and it unnerved Darline as he sat alone with her now, to see the cold calculation that moved behind her eyes.

[Quinn]

Barton's shoulders sagged forwards. Though he heard the soldiers question, he did not answer. He couldn't lie, after all. He was done with lying now, but he didn't have the heart to tell the man what was truly wrong. A small part of him felt cowardly for the deception, but something – the Force, he hoped – told him that it was the right thing to do, to stay with Quinn and the others. Patience in all things.

“My apologies, Captain,” the Jedi Master said, through a spluttering cough. “The stress of the situation is getting to us all... but we're very glad to have your assistance.”

Quinn looked back at the Jedi Master, and nodded with a serene look.

"Yes it is. And I apologize for the restraints, but they are necessary. However if we all keep calm, everything will be fine. We just have one more stop before we have to depart, then we're clear out of here."

Quinn turned back to the driver and nodded. "You have the new course. Head for it at maximum safe speed down here."

The soldier then looked to the two squads in the back. "We got lucky boys. Our next target is on the way out. Just set the explosives, and get out fast. Lock and load."

There was a chorus of clicking and clanking as the troopers slapped in fresh magazines, checked their communications gear or adjusted their armor straps.

"Just this last one, and we collect the rest of our paycheck." Quinn nodded to all of them. "This last one, and we get to go home."

[Director BlackOps]

Word had come from Eleazar and Dominique – mandolorean friends of Kazaar who had helped Russard keep a hooded eye on his activities over the years. They had managed to safely depart Brentaal and had contacted Blackop's, forwarding Estelle the rogue rebel’s secured transmission grid.

Russard held her directive in slender fingers and read it over once more. She was sure Kazaar – or Cimmerian, as he had long ago been reinvented – would recognize the cipher. It was old, archaic even, and had not really ever been in circulation. It was an old training format that he had helped design back in the days when the two were partners. Kazaar would use it to send Dasquian inappropriate jokes over his official line. Even then, Kazaar's anti-authority issues had ruled much of the things the ex-bounty hunter did.

"He will remember this code?" Captain Ursandin’s query interrupted her thoughts.

"He will, if he hasn’t liquored or cigared his brain into pickled morbidity." She replied.

Last reports she’d had of Cimmerian had been discouraging to say the least. He’d always lived hard, drank hard. But Estelle feared the last few jagged pieces of self that remained of the Kazaar she had known may have been drowned completely by his obstinate and self-destructive habits.

"We will know soon enough" she added without emotion. "Send the cipher. We will hold the Aurora’s course to this distant orbit from Coruscant until we get a reply. Expect Cimmerian to be angry at Belargics alteration in plan." She warned.

"The Chancellor…?" Usrandin asked uncertainly as he reached for the offered sheet, holding just shy of taking it.

It was one thing to act independently of Command - it was quite another to misrepresent the leader of the Rebel Alliance. The Captain hesitated – not from any sense of conscience, but rather from a healthy fear of Military Law. He did not wish to end a sterling career in court-martial.

Estelle squared a hard look at her subordinate. "You have nothing to fear, Ronal" she said, the rare use of his first name designed to placate him. "Cimmerian will assume the missive is from the Belargics, and we will correct him when the time suites us. Besides, the holy man tells me the Chancellor is extremely busy in dealing with this crisis and our small diversion in their plan will probably go unnoticed."

The holy man was Estelle’s informant within the Chancellor’s camp. Russard did not particularly like having what could only be construed as a spy amidst her own leadership, but the Blackop’s Director had long ago realized that her job was Information and she must use any - and every - means available to her in order to get it. A tender conscience toward spying on life-long friends and respected superiors had no place in her mind and she had long reconciled herself to that hard fact.

Ursandin took the note and folded it into his jacket, a sign of his submission. He had followed Russard in to the flaming furnace many times before, and now with the galaxy in such dire straights was not the time to shy away from the heat.

"Good man" she said, and the small commendation gave Ursandin a sense of satisfaction. He nodded his acknowledgement and turned on his heel to go to the transmissions room.

"Keep them scanning for the Lord Inquisitor’s transport" she called after him. "All this frantic exodus from Imperial Center is to our advantage. He must not get away."

"Yes Director"

"And Captain, destroy any craft that approaches and does not respond to our inquiry – we cant forget the reason the populace is fleeing."

A sobering thought. Again, Russard cursed the Imperials for their insanity and stared intently at her star maps.

"Where are you Emporer? I am coming to find you."



***********************************************

Crypted Message sent to Kal Cimmerian:

33--8cng5ree881@#*bn>##1

(RECLAIMED)

ES^LL2(99-->>...(RrES

(RENDEVOUS CO-ORDINATES: - 243.72 x CR--98DEGREES)

************************************************** ************************************************** *********

[Kal Cimmerian]

Cimmerian rubbed his eyes as hyperspace changed t'normal space, yawned, lit up a dark cigar, and cursed as his eyes viewed the long line of space traffic waiting t'get into Mon Calamari.

The Galactic Alliance had blockaded the entire planet, forcin' every ship t'wait while they were 'processed'. Wasn't a bad strategy after all, ya never knew when an 'honest pilgrim' might turn into some crazy Imperial bomber looking t'raise all sorts of hell on the Galactic Alliance's homeplanet.

Or an infected traveller who just wanted t'bite everything in sight.

Cimmerian leaned back in The Blaster's semi-comfortable seat and waited. He wasn't too patient 'bout this damn thing, but it gave him a bit more time t'drink.

He'd just taken a drink when 'Maddy' rolled in *twittering* 'bout some message he'd gotten a few minutes ago.


33--8cng5ree881@#*bn>##1

(RECLAIMED)

ES^LL2(99-->>...(RrES

(RENDEVOUS CO-ORDINATES: - 243.72 x CR--98DEGREES)

The gun-for-hire gave a smirk/scowl. "Frackin' Belargic. Why the hell didn't ya just getta hold of me before I burned spacelanes from Brentaal. Frackin' politicians."

He pressed the controls and pulled his ship outta the wait line, then maneuvered it away from the ships. A warning message was sent by a nearby squadron of K-Wings, but Cimmerian ignored it and pressed the button for hyperspace.

A minute later, he was headed towards Coruscant.


* * *
Mon Calamari- Galactic Alliance Intelligence Headquarters

Tech Specialist Pau Karol took another swig of his caf, raised his eyes towards his flashing computer screen, and prayed whatever virus had set the galaxy on fire would go away. It made his job even tougher to handle.

On a normal day, Karol IDed and processed over 200 ships, making sure their points of origins matched their hyperspace paths, and made sure their IDs matched their owners. It was long and boring, but tended to provide enough stimulation for him to believe he was getting paid enough to placate his wife.

He pressed a few more buttons on his screen, calling up the last few minutes of ship who'd just come out of hyperspace and were awaiting processing.

It was early evening and Karol had seen 5000 ships come through all ready and there had to be at least 10,000 more awaiting processing. It was absolutely maddening, especially since every one claimed their reason for coming here was even more important than the one before.

No wars had broken out between the ships yet, although one ship of Trandoshans almost opened fire on a ship of Wookies. It'd been prevented by some quickthinking by a pilot named McDonnaught or Donut...something like that.

Karol tapped a few keys, then noticed the name The Balmorran Blaster on one of the ships who'd just come in, before jumping to hyperspace very quickly. The name was familiar, although the Tech Specialist couldn't figure out why. The fact it was a flagged name meant bad news.

He queried the ship's name, only to find the information *CLASSIFIED* with an addendum, "NOTIFY CHANCELLOR AND DIRECTOR BELARGICS SHOULD SHIP APPEAR". Karol breathed a curse, alerted his superior officer.

Everything moved as quick as possible after that. The alert was passed on to the Deputy Director of Intelligence, who then passed it to both the chancellor and his wife's offices.

Director Belargic's aide made a note and immediately prepared to give to her boss. The aide was delayed because of a meeting between Grace and the Jedi Master s'Ilancy-Prent.

In Chancellor Belargic's office, the message was delayed further. Because the Chancellor was in meeting with the Senate, his secretary followed immediate protocol. Three copies of the alert were made, then placed into the hands of the Chancellor's two top aides. The secretary didn't know why three were needed, but didn't ask any questions. Belargic's aides both decided it wasn't worth passing onto the Chancellor due to the current crisis.

The third copy made its way back to 'The Ghost Lady' en route to Coruscant.

[Clea Darkrunner]

Sharra sat back in her seat, finally satisfied.

She had heard Quinn explain to his men that they had one last objective, then they were heading out. And that was good.............. It had slowly sunk into her self-centered mind that she was in danger.

She'd lost her mother's ship, and The Band was going to be pissed off at her, but she felt certain she could charm her way back into their good graces. After all, she had her mother's voice..................and looks.

Still, that small, still voice she had learned to listen to was screaming at her to get the frack off the planet. Listening to the men around her chattering, Sharra gained an impression that the whole planet was slowly disintegrating into diseased anarchy. She looked down anxiously at her handbag. If these men ever identified what the jumble of components could be assembled into, she was sure they wouldn't have let her keep it, even if it had belonged to her mother

Even if she didn't know how to reassemble it.............................

[Executor Van-Derveld]

Valten turned a shoulder to leave, but lingered a moment longer. “We estimate at least a quarter trillion infected and it has already been proven that they are capable of operating technology. They cannot be allowed to escape. I will be invoking the Extermination Doctrine, I expect you’ll enjoy seeing this world burn.”

The cyborg Inquisitor passed the threshold, his mechanical arms grasping the door edges and slamming them shut behind him.


The fear, the anger... it was so potent now. All of the control and order that the Inquisitor strove to uphold, the Empire strove to uphold, was crumbling away to ashes. They would deal with chaos in the only way they knew how – by destroying it completely. The effects of the Morbus strain were of such magnitude that any kind of treatment plan was unthinkable. The Emperor would be forced, Van-Derveld knew, to kill thousands upon thousands of his own loyal citizens, and all because of the 'incompetence' of one man. His eyes closing, the Executor imagined he could almost here the Empire falling.


There was not long to savor the moment, however... not long before the Inquisitor's justice was exacted. He had to move, to flee the Pliada di am Imperium and Coruscant itself, seeing its pristine skylines for the last time.

[Quinn]

The squad bolted from their target shortly before it went up in an orange flash and flames, probably visible from orbit. It was another chokepoint that was closed off, cutting off this section of the lower levels from the surface.

The mercs clambered into the APC and took their seats. The previously empty gunner's seats were now filled and ammunition was being expended quickly, the BREEOWBREEOWBREEOW of the forward pulse turret on rapid fire clearing the path of the vehicle followed by the CHOOM of the twin railgun on the roof of the vehicle. Plus the RATATATATATATATAT of the mercs pulse rifles mowing down the infected coupled with the occasional FWOOOOOSH of a flamer burning the corpses.

The doors of the APC slammed closed, and the roar of the engine kicked the vehicle forward, weapons still chattering away.

"HEAD FOR EVAC POINT THREE!" Quinn shouted to the driver, a map popping up on his HUD. The driver shouted an affirmative and mashed down on the accelerator. The pulse turret was barely making headway until the twin railgun swung to the forward arc and began assisting in clearing the path, mostly taking out walls that the military vehicle had to clear.

And during this grueling test, the men inside the vehicle never lost their cool, only being focused on their task. The foot soldiers themselves began reloading their weapons should they be needed.

"Ten minutes until we hit the EVAC point!" Quinn shouted to the back over the engine and the weapons fire.

[Clea Darkrunner]

Sharra sagged against her seat in relief.

Evac point! She had never before realized how glorious two words could be. It meant that they would be leaving this infected world and its screaming hordes behind. It was one thing to have screaming people around when they were delirious over her singing. It was another thing when what they were screaming for was her blood.

Sharra shivered. Normally a self-centered rock star, it had finally sunk in that a world had been dying around her. She glanced back at the two men she'd felt compelled to rescue. At least they were safe now, although the Jedi didn't look too good......

[Serena Laran]

Mayhem exploded around the little group, the Force giving little enough warning as the infected made themselves known. Perhaps they had been wandering the spaceport as a group, killing whoever they could find, or maybe they had been lying in wait this entire time, as A'na's exclaimation suggested. Serena did not have time to think about where the attackers had come from.

Conscious thought left her as she let the Force take over her actions. Or guide them, or whatever the popular way of putting it was these days. The lightsaber in her hand was an extension of her arm - and she wielded it nearly effortlessly to deflect the incoming blaster bolts.

A'na shouted, and her blaster spat energy bolts towards the other side of the concourse where a few crazed and unarmed individuals were dashing towards the group in the center of the wide hall. Two fell, but got to their feet again, lurching forward once more.

[A'na]

Her leg wasn't working right anymore, and A'na frantically pushed the children to the ground behind several huge pots of botanicals. Serena guarded one side with her lightsaber, the blade flashing impressively.

A'na stumbled to the ground beside the children, all of whom had tears in their eyes, but their mouths were sealed closed as the Jedi had told them. Jade's lips quivered, and A'na gave her arm a quick, reassuring squeeze. "Stay down here, its safe here."

Which was, of course, a lie. The dark haired woman tried to get into a crouch but her thigh burned where she'd been caught with a blaster bolt. Leaning on the rim of one of the pots, she shielded the children with her body from at least one angle, and looked for targets to shoot at.

Wherever the frelling things were firing from, they had good cover. She heard a shout from the other side of the concourse, the side the children had no cover from, and saw a group of beings come loping towards them from around a corner. She shot at them, and pegged two of the infected, but they simply got back up again and resumed their run at the island of Force sensitives.

There was no getting around it. With a ragged cry A'na opened herself to the Force, letting her fear and anger out in a rush of adrenaline that steadied her hands and improved her aim. One eye lightly closed, she sighted down the barrel of the blaster and shot four times.

Four of the incoming infected dropped to the ground, dead with smoking holes in their foreheads.

[Morgan Evanar]

The spaceport had a network of tunnels beneath the landing field to safely move personnel, material and cargo. Rhianna and Morgan paused at the entrance, noting the charring on the walls and burnt corpses. The foamy remnants of the automated fire suppression system's spray thinly coated the next hundred yards, until the lights were out. Rhianna stayed close, lightsaber in hand. Morgan held his blaster at the ready one hand and his shorter saber in the other. Rhianna's helmet quietly whirred when she turned the night-vision on. Morgan blinked, his eyes quickly adjusting to the dim at best surroundings.

Over-turned luggage carriers littered the way. They were very fortunate that they landed in one of the local craft carrier hangers and not one for a major carrier, which would have been jammed with support personnel. Morgan and Rhianna quickened their pace slightly, moving at just short of a jog. After nearly a half kilometer without lights, they were greeted by functional lights and horror in the circular exchange junction. They picked their way across the roundabout.

Blood was smeared across the walls from the impact of a body flung from one of the badly smashed cargo carriers. Someone had their head beaten in with a blunt object. The leavings of violence were everywhere. Morgan could sense Rhianna's revulsion.

“So... senseless.” Morgan nodded in agreement, scanning the area for anything living.

“Do you know where Serena and the children are?” He asked. The way ahead split in three directions, each servicing a pair of terminals. Normally he wouldn't ask, as their familiarity with Serena would lead them easily to her. Morgan was having trouble feeling through the noise. Rhianna paused, her head tilted up slightly. They were in the middle of the roundabout, and didn't have the best cover. Morgan could hear something walking in the distance, and he could feel it moving, too. It let out a guttural yell and charged toward them. Morgan raised the N'Gant blaster and waited until whatever the mutilated thing was got into clear visual range. The formerly overweight maintenance worker vaulted over one of the downed carriers, and the Jedi put a blaster bolt into it's skull. The body's feet landed first, and then what remained of it's head hit the ground and tumbled.

“There.” She pointed down the corridor that the changed worker had emerged from.

Morgan tucked into a quick jog, and Rhianna followed close behind. Time was growing short.

[Rhianna Evanar]

The moment she had opened herself up, searching for the familiar presence of Serena, her vision within the force began to change on her. Her eyes closed and she was no longer picking her way through a body strewn terminal. Rhianna was seeing a mist shrouded forrest. The bodies around her feet were pale echoes of her past. Their faces frozen forever in pain and horror. As she had been when she was just a girl, she suddenly felt a frantic need to find someone, anyone alive in the mist. She needed to find Serena. Through the thick vale before her, in the distance she could see a beacon of light.

'Rhianna...', it called to her.

She shook her head, trying to return to the terminal and focus on the present.

"There.", she pointed and they started down the corridor. She could see Morgan, knew where they were and what they were doing, but inside her mind she could still also see that misty, dark forrest. A waking vision, layered on reality. Ahead of them were several storm troopers, they crept out from behind heavy trees, ready to kill without thought. Their visored helmets focused on her. Rhianna was no longer a helpless girl. Her wrist rotated, the aqua radiance of her lightsaber rising up before her. She would not stand by and let villainy and despair take her family from her again.

There were no wounded here. No one left that had been infected, that had not already succumbed to the virus. These were bodies gone forever still, and ahead.. There were things that were moving. Many in fact. From their distance, and the way they still shuffled, rather than move with unnatural haste for the kill, it was apparent that they had not yet noticed the presence of the Jedi. The light that she was following continued, on the other side of the infected and further down the corridor. They had to cut through to reach Serena and time was not on their side.

[Director Belargic]

With the meeting adjourned, the Director was only allowed a brief moment to say good-bye to her husband before returning to her duties. Dasquian had to stay behind for further questions and to be present for the vote if the Alliance would go to war.

Grace selfishly hoped for war, but her conscious warned against it. Nothing good came from war when motive was fueled by vengeance. During her days with the Rebellion, war was a necessary evil. The Galactic Empire created order through fear and oppression. It was no way to live when so many good beings died because they did not fit what was proper...

But the Empire continued to try and take back what was not theirs. This latest attack proved that. And now they might have doomed the galaxy.

Upon returning to her office, Grace was surprised momentarily to who was waiting. Jedi Master s'Ilancy-Prent was still in the middle of a communication and opted to check with her secretary for any news. If a Jedi Master wanted to see her unannounced, it had to be important and would allow a moment for the conversation to be concluded.

[Master Henning]

Had it not been for the restraints that held him in place, Barton would have collapsed. His chest rose and fell slowly, breaths staggered and uneven. For a moment he became stiff and still, his face twisted in a faint grimace. His half-lidded eyes looked towards Kale, feeling sadness swell in his chest.

[Executor Van-Derveld]

The sky was full of smoke, yet even through the rolling clouds the black hull of the Miranda was visible. There were scores of ships swarming above Imperial City, many of them embroiled in dog-fights, laser fire flashing across the skyline – but none of them held a candle to the gargantuan dungeon ship. Even in his frantic state, the Executor noted the bitter irony that he should have to flee to such a vessel, named as it was after a woman he had once tried to assassinate. Miranda was, however, his only certain method of escape. The transport he piloted would not withstand the onslaught of the defense turrets and airborne 'clean up squad' that had already begun to patrol the air-ways. Van-Dervelds only hope was that he could make it beyond the combat zone before they became aware of his presence...

[Darth Vicet]

:: The woman who was once Sorsha Kasajian watched as the transport approached, and she sensed the presence of the man within it.

For five long years she had secluded herself on Dathomir to grieve, after spreading Miranda's ashes into space near the Maw. She uttered a death curse there, and the result of her hatred and anguish grew, and it became known as Tarkin's Triangle.

It was only recently that she had come out of seclusion, to exact her vengeance upon the galaxy. With Executor Van-Derveld, she had devised a glorious virus, and now it had begun ::

[Vince]

The Star Destroyer Tempest streaked into the space in Imperial Centre's system.

On the bridge stood a much older, more experienced Admiral Trix Idalix.

"Status of Imperial Centre," he said as soon as they had entered the system.

"Admiral, we've just exited hyperspace. How can you expect..." the officer stopped as he saw the Admiral point the blaster, normally holstered at his waist, at him.

"I may have been recently assigned to the Tempest," Admiral Idalix said, not moving the blaster from where he had aimed it, "but I must say, Captain, that I find your lack of order highly unamusing."

The officer gulped and bowed. "Scanning now, Admiral."

Trix raised an eyebrow. "And?"

"High levels of activity; scanners indicate that the planet is in chaos. There high numbers of starships in the atmosphere, but most are being put down by Imperial pilots and star-fighters."

Idalix nodded. "Reports have stated that the situation is under the purview of the Lord High Inquisitor. Send a message informing him of my arrival. I have no doubt that my predecessor is preparing himself for execution."

"Admiral?"

Trix said nothing for a moment. "He has failed the Empire, Captain. In such circumstances, there can only be one option to deal with the scope of his failure."

The Captain bowed. "Of course." Another officer strode up to the Captain and handed him a datapad. Scanning it, he offered it to the Admiral. "Your message has been sent, Sir. We await their returning signal."

[Master Laran]

Her concentration broke as a dark hole in the Force seemed to appear behind her. Serena glanced backwards and only saw A'na, painting the infected who were coming up from behind them with a hail of blaster fire.

Each bolt found a target, and bodies hit the ground, some twitching, others not moving. The other woman turned to look at Serena, her eyes blazing with renewed energy. "The children," A'na cried, "For the children!"

The Jedi thought she understood, though how A'na had hid her power for so long was mystifying. A problem for another day. Serena flicked her lightsaber from side to side, deflecting more bolts, and then the creatures were upon her, jumping and gnashing their teeth as they grasped for her robes. Limbs and heads rolled to the carpet as her saber cleared a space around her, but she was forced to step back. Forced to move closer to the darksider at her back.

She had no choice but to trust that A'na would continue to keep the children's best interests at heart.

[A'na]

The rage came up quickly - remembered violations, forgotten pains rising to the surface - and A'na rode the emotion like a wave at the beach, letting it cast her up to higher and further heights of power. Fear for Jade's saftey fueled her as well, and she shot with unerring accuracy at the approaching horde. Infected dropped with each shot, burning holes in their heads or necks.

She could feel Master Laran behind her, knew the woman was in trouble. The enemy was too close, the children would not be safe. A'na turned and leveled the blaster at the Jedi's attackers, shooting one as it attempted to leap onto the older woman. More movement caught her eye in the distance... more? but no. These two were bathed in a light that could only mean more Jedi.

A'na turned her back, crying out as an infected human got close enough to almost touch one of the twins where they were huddled. The girl couldn't help herself, she shrieked, and A'na blasted the creature away from them with the Force. Everything was closing in...

She stumbled, falling down as another blaster bolt caught her high in the chest, but she raged within. Jade would not die here, not like this. A'na gathered her strength and released it in an invisible wave that surrounded her, the Jedi, and the children like ripples in a pond. It gathered in size as it crashed out from her, knocking down and blowing away the swarming infected.

A'na couldn't see her handiwork. Everything was getting dark...

[Clea Darkrunner]

Sharra was mad and getting madder.

They had made the hyperspace jump from Corescant, only to be slammed back into normal space far sooner that was normal.

Much sooner.

TOO Soon.

The boarding party from the Republic Interdiction Cruiser that had so casually snatched them out of space had quickly separated her and the other two from Quinn and his men, despite the latter's roars of protest about the snatching away of his "bonus."

They had been hustled into rescue balls, and carried down to the medical area, where they had been thrust into severe quarentine. Humanoid figures had pushed her into a smelly shower, told her to strip, and had taken everything away from her. The shower had removed her makeup, her hair-glitter, her nail polish, her skin lights.....everything that made her look like a Rock Star's Daughter. Now she only looked like a fourteen year old.

A very mad fourteen year old. Spitting and swearing in half the galaxie's languages, she yanked on the UGLY undergarments they'd given her. The drab tunic, pants and slippers followed. "LET ME OUT OF HERE!" she shrieked as her head cleared the neckline. "I'M NOT SICK! LET ME OUT OF HERE!"

Silence answered her. Silence, and the flashing red QUARENTINE sign she could see reflecting off the wall, outside the transparent wall that only had controls on the OUTSIDE.

"I'm not sick........" she repeated softly, her chin quivering, as she sat on the lone bunk.

[Knight Staedtler]

“Bryna is en route to Vortex, is she not? As much as it may pain the Director, it will be necessary for her to accompany us.”

The Master nodded, "That is correct, Daria. She will be stopped at our borders as soon as she enters the system. I will need to contact her and advise her of our plans before we depart."

She sighed heavily. "Grace will understand." The Director had to make many decisions in her time that were difficult. Life and death choices were part of her job, as it was her daughter's now. "I leave it up to my Padawan to decide who shall tell her."

"Bryna Belargic?" Wyl picked up on the last thread of conversation. He'd known the girl's parents, a long time ago.

"Yes. She'll be rendezvousing with us."

They kept a brisk pace, the four of them, and as they neared the hanger with it's modest bank of ships Wyl broke cadence and took the lead; Amira followed him and the two Knights boarded a vessel.

Wyl immediately strode into the cockpit and slipped into the pilot's chair; despite only a vague familiarity with this model of ship, he moved with the certainty of someone very much in their element. It was no surprise - the man had twenty-odd years of flying under his belt and it showed in the easy movements and efficient manner with which he began to prepare for flight.

Beside him, in the co-pilot's seat, Amira brought the navcomputers online and raised an inquisitive brow at Wyl.

"I've heard you're something of a reckless pilot." She remarked offhand. It was common knowledge (to those that knew her, at least) that the Jedi was not a fan of ships.

"It's not recklessness if you know what you're doing."

"And you know what you're doing?"

Wyl nodded and replied simply, "Yes." I learned from the best.

"Well all the same." Amira's gentle voice held a hint of doubt overtop of it's grave seriousness. "I think I'll take point."

They lapsed into a companionable silence until Daria and Lianna entered the compact space. Wyl glanced up from securing his safety webbing and moved one hand to the ship's communicator. "What's Bryna's code?"

[Morgan Evanar]

The pack behavior exhibited by the infected was bizzare. They seemed to swarm the non-infected. This wouldn't have been a problem if there hadn't been in such astounding numbers. As it was, Morgan and Rhianna waded through what Morgan estimated at nearly six hundred infected. As many as possible seemed to rush in waves. There was a constant rythm of humm burn thud humm burn thud of sabers slicing bodies.

The pair of sabers in Morgan's hands carved wide, fast arcs. He moved efficiently, fully aware that anything that slipped behind them would encounter Rhianna. He was no longer thinking about what used to be people, just that his hands needed to move here, and then there. Then one rushed him. The man leaped in the air over the inbound wave of infected, spittle trailed from his lips and chin as he screamed. Morgan cut him in half. His torso sailed overhead. The infected went berserk. With the body armor interposed between himself and the horde, he wasn't worried about random bodily contact. None of the infected got a chance to try for a helmet.

Morgan charged. He could sense Serena. She was close. With his shoulder low, and sabers flicked outward, he made a final fifty meter push for the terminal. The doors flew open from the service entrance, hinges nearly wretched apart from the impact. Under his helmet, Morgan's eyes went wide as the subtle distortions from a massive pressure wave went off. The infected were caught and tossed like dust in the wind. Morgan and Rhianna dove down, their saber blades disappeared as they hit the ground. The wave hit and pounded them both into concourse floor. It felt like being hit with a tsunami.

Both lay still for nearly ten seconds before they rose. Rhianna had protected them from the massive burst of energy. Most of it had passed harmlessly over, redirected away. Rhianna pulled her helmet off as they approached. The last thing they needed was friendly fire.

[Director BlackOps]

"The Balmorran Blaster" has docked in Bay 9, Director" Ensign Powell announced, interrupting the joint-cheifs' morning coffee, "It is being scanned before we allow debarkation"

Estelle nodded, "Good. Be thorough." No one wanted to risk any on-ship exposure to the virus, Russard included. Not that she really feared that would be the case, Kazaar'd blow himself up, and half the galaxy with him, if he thought there was any chance they'd been infected. No, Estelle was just wanting him to cool his jets a while, make him wait. It was an obvious power trip, but she wasn't beyond a little tripping now and then.

"I'll be down in half an hour. No one de-boards til then"

"Yes, sir" Powell snapped about and exited the room and the cheifs returned to their caffe.

*****************************

The walkway-ramp lowered amidst a whosssh of steam and hydraulic pressure and the Director stood before it flanked by Captains Ursandin and Darline. Ensign Powell stood behind them and to the left, ready for any orders the Ghostlady might have for him, anxious to lay eyes on this Cimmerian fellow he'd heard so much about. Quite the rogue, by all accounts, and short a few parsecs, if you were to believe all the stories. Russard kept a steely composure and there was a certain tension crackling through the air that had been growing since the Balmorran Blaster had surfaced. Powell wondered if there had been a history between his boss and the renegade, but that was just too outrageous, even given all he'd heard.

The ramp lowered and Estelle caught a glimpse of her old partner for the first time in years.

[Kal Cimmerian]

Th'frack is takin' so long? Cimmerian wondered while he sat in The Blaster. There hadn't been one peep from th'Rebels ever since he'd docked his ship, all he knew is if they wanted him dead (and who knew, Belargic (th'female one) could hold a pretty good grudge) they'd probably've killed 'im by now. Not made 'im sit on his butt while they did whatever it was they were doin'. Th'gun for hire smirked and took another drink. Probably holding some kinda committee or something. Politicians...feh.

His bones popped as he stretched and Cimmerian took his own time gettin' dressed. First, he slipped on his Mandalorian-armored pants and boots then, a tank top across his scarred chest. Th'armor was more f'show, plus ya never know when someone was gonna take a popshot at ya knees. The tanktop showed off all the scars he'd gained while workin' for the Alliance, plus it showed off the tattoo he'd been ordered not t'get. It was of four aces from a sabacc deck, with a swoop racer goin' inna curved motion across th'bottom. It had no letterin', no nothing...wasn't needed. Cimmerian knew what it stood for. So did everyone else who knew who he'd been before his fall.

"You need to keep a low profile." He'd been told as he recovered from his injuries. "To be sure you wouldn't be caught, we removed all your tattoo. Including the one on your right buttcheek. Why did you have that anyway?" He'd never bothered givin' an answer, he was too pissed 'bout being kicked out. So th'first thing he'd done was get that tattoo reapplied but on his right arm instead of his left. It was his own little "Frack you" to his former superiors.

Cimmerian strolled down th'ramp, cargo container in one hand, cigar in between his teeth. "So Bossman..." He smirked between puffs. "Nice t'know ya decided t'see..." He stopped dead in his tracks as his black eyes spied Russard. Th'cigar fell from his mouth, rolled down th'ramp, then came to a stop at Russard's feet.

His face went from shock, t'incredulation, t'fierce anger. He was so angry he forgot t'use his 'Cimmerian' voice and instead used th'sotto, guttural tone, they all knew.

"What're you doing here...Kid."

[Director BlackOps]

Kid. The old familiar term. It covered alot of history and it slightly rankled Estelle by Cimmerian's use of it. He would always view her as the kid, and for the most part, she did not mind that - their relationship had been one that she had treasured, it was the longest and most important one she had ever known. But she was the Director now and couldn't he, for once, just pretend that he remembered that?

She remained quiet for a moment, the silence making the present company a little awkward, as she allowed herself to look Kazaar over. He was bigger than she remembered, but that could also just be time distorting things. He was certainly less handsome - that new face took some getting used to. And the spikey hair. She missed his thick black locks, he had always had such great hair. She would have liked to embrace him in welcome, tell him how good it was to see him, even give him a hard time about still smoking those awful Sacorrians. But that would not be possible today, maybe never. Everything had changed in decisions made years ago. Choices, the hard ones, had a way of doing that.

Estelle stepped forward and ground out the cigar, "We've got work to do" she replied, indicating Kazaar should follow her, "I hope you remember how to hunt"

********************

They had moved from the docking bay to Russard's office, the two Captains and Ensign Powell in tow. The latter couldn't keep his eyes from Cimmerian, looking at him as much as he dared as the scarred legend eased himself with a groan into a chair. He stretched his legs out infront of him and popped his neck, giving each person in turn a beligerent and impatient look. Kal had perfected his trademark sneer in his new face and this unsettled as much as it fascinated the young Powell. Cimmerian was as close to rock-star notoriety as the Ensign had ever come, and the young man was having trouble's composing himself.

"Powell!" Estelle barked, "Stop oogling the man and bring me the newest intel from Omega line"

Cimmerian snorted as the Ensign moved quickly in order to obey the Director, "I see Intel's still recruitin' th' village idiots" he remarked dryly.

"Yes, your departure left an opening" Russard cut back, taking the sheaf of papers from Powell with a snatch. The Ensign tried not to look at Cimmerian, and awkwardly shot his eyes about the room in a valiant effort of avoidance that would have made a lesser man dizzy. Estelle sighed and Kazaar smiled to himself - it had been a long ,long time since he was so wet behind the ears. Estelle understood his look in an instant, "You never were that young, Cimmerian" she said quietly.

Kazaar shrugged. He never was that young.

"So, zombie-huntin', is that really what y'called me for, cause y'know, I got a cool night with some hot Twi'lek's over in Nal Hutta planned and...?"

Estelle fixed him with cool brown eyes, "We're looking for an old friend" she said.

A faint line knotted her old partner's brow, he didn't quite follow.

"Valten has to run, just like everyone else"

Kazaar couldn't hide the gleam of interest that sparked in those black eyes of his and everyone in the room knew the Director had got a bite.

"Everyone must run, including Van-Derveld" she continued, reeling him in with a delicious possibility. "We find one, we'll likely find the other" And she handed Cimmerian one of the intel sheets Powell had given her.

For the first time since their meeting in the docking bay, the two of them openly smiled.