Recruitment (open)

[(Alex) Jacen]

Setting: Adumar system (Bordering the Unknown Regions), 6 months before the great Federacy race...


"Adumar Control, this is the YT-2000 Arden, requesting landing permission." Jacen dropped the freighter's speed to little more than a drift as his droid copilot signalled the Imp who would be monitoring space traffic in orbit around the planet.

"Permission granted," a youthful-sounding female voice replied. "Landing Platform 6 has been assigned to you." Jacen cringed as he knew the corny words that were about to follow. "Welcome to Adumar. Enjoy your stay."

Jacen let out a sigh of relief as he sped their freighter up, and headed down into the atmosphere. Recruiting people for his cause was hard enough, without the locals trying to chase them out of the system. If they realised what he was up to...

He sighed again.

* * *

Jacen wandered the streets of Adumar searching for the site of his first meeting. "What are we looking for, Trey?" he asked the droid walking beside him, who'd put on a large black cloak to hide his odd appearence. All that could be seen where the two glowing eyes of his "naked" threepio head, shining out from under the hood. He looked like a giant Jawa and, if Jacen should ask, could probably make himself sound like one, too.

"Aevenon Cloak," Trey replied, accessing the datafiles in his brain. "We are looking for a bar called the Maelstrom."

"Reckon its that place over there?" Jacen asked, pointing to a dark hole in the wall, where a tired old neon sign flashed the letters MAE-STRO-.

"I believe so, Master Jacen," the protocol brain inside Trey replied.

"Good," Jacen muttered. "I could use a drink."

[Linn O'Conner]

Linn saw the man and his odd companion walk into the Maelstrom. She sat at the bar drinking something very strong, watching the man out of the corner of her eye, intrigued by what he might be doing here.

[Aevenon Cloak]

Inside the bar, the atmosphere could have been cut with a knife. It was bristling with tension, the locals all on edge. Not ten minutes ago a man had arrived and sat down at the bar unlike any other they had seen before. He was a most peculiar creature, whom the barfly’s couldn’t seem to take their eyes off, especially having glimpsed traces of feathers sticking a little above the collar of the heavy clerical coat he wore. Worse than this, even, was the fact that he had ordered a glass of fruit juice – men here didn’t drink anything that wasn’t at least partially likely to give you some kind of lasting disease.

“Namana juice, please,” he asked. Even his voice had a duality about it.

Then again, Aevenon Cloak was no normal man. A perpetual smile lingered on his lips, blithe and emotionless. It was eerie to look at. He was eerie to look at, and had an ethereal air about him that set the bar tender on edge as he spoke to him, kindly and plainly. He was to meet someone soon, and he could not do with being anything other than clearheaded for such an important rendezvous.

[(Alex) Jacen]

"Corellian Brandy," Jacen said in a half-grunt to the barman. It had been a long day so far, and it wasn't over yet. Jacen needed a little bit of his home...even if it was a home that he had never actually set foot on.

He sighed in relief as the brandy soothed him from the inside, the familiar warmth spreading down his throat in the wake of the liquid. A lot of good had come out of Corellia. Had being the past tense. Jacen longed to visit the home of his mother. But it wasn't an option. And, unless a miracle happened, he wouldn't get to go for a very long time.

Not quite true, Jacen, his subconciousness whispered to him. You could always succome to the rage inside you. Then you would become more powerful than your wildest dreams...nothing could stand in your way.

No, Jacen insisted, forcing the voice as far out of his thoughts as possible. But it clung on, lodged in the very back of his mind. It was something that pervaded over all...the dark rage inside. It was a gift from his great grandfather, the Dark Lord of L'Khos't who's Lightsabers Jacen now carried with him. It was strange how fickle the Force was. His father had rejected it in his youth, and the Force had ignored him, and his offspring. All that remained was the residual darkness in his DNA from his great grandfather. And that was a power he didn't really want to tap into.

He looked around the bar, smiling at a pretty-looking woman a few stools further down the bar than him, his visor scanning the patrons for a visual match with the person he sought. Aevenon Cloak. The headset flashed. A match was found. Pouring the last of his drink down his throat, he set the glass down on the bar top, and walked over. "Anyone sitting here?" he asked.

[Linn O'Conner]

Linn saw the man approach one who had looked odd to her since he'd come in. She could feel the air btween them electrify. She decided to sit and watch what was going to go down.

[Aevenon Cloak]

The Ambrellian looked up. His eyes, an odd liquid-blue, fixed on the unusual visor the man wore. So curious was he about its purpose that it took him longer than a moment to respond to his quest. Correctly himself, and his ways, he shield. “It does not appear so,” he said, moving his chair back somewhat so that Jacen would have more room to sit. “The apparatus you wear on your head… it intrigues me. What is its purpose?” he asked, a childish naivety in his voice. In truth, he was very young, despite what his appearance might have told of him.

[(Alex) Jacen]

Jacen sat down, smiling. He slid the visor off his face, and handed it to Aevenon, blinking at the change in light levels. "It enhances my vision," he explained, his pupils growing inside his blue-grey eyes. "It lets me see further than I would normally be able to, and it lets me see beyond the normal range of my vision. It also has...other features."

His eyes struggled to cope with the dimness as he glanced around the Maelstrom. "Interesting place to hang out," he commented, turning back to Aevenon. "I'm Jacen Dantarno, by the way," he added. "You said you wanted to meet?"

[Aevenon Cloak]

Once again, he was overtaken by his thirst for knowledge. Setting down his glass, Aevenon lifted the visor before his eyes. His vision danced with unintelligible data feeds, as the focus and zooms adjusted seemingly randomly. With a smile, he returned the device to its owner. “Yes, Jacen. I did, didn’t I.” His hands folding neatly in his lap, Cloak gave Dantarno his full attention. “But why would I ask to meet you,” he then added, eyes narrowing ever so slightly.

[(Alex) Jacen]

"I can think of three options," replied Jacen. "Maybe you're an Imperial, and you heard about my little plan, and want to kill me. Or maybe you're a bounty hunter, and you want to turn me into the Imps for a bit of money." Jacen slipped the visor back over his eyes, but beneath his eyes narrowed too. "Or maybe, just maybe, my proposal piqued your interest." He sat back in the chair, adjusted his visor to monitor Aevenon's heat signature, and awaited his response.

[Aevenon Cloak]

“Yes, that last one sounds sensible.” There was no warrior in Aevenon. If need be, he could fight, but with defensive form only. That eliminated the chance of him being a bounty hunter, along with the fact that their didn’t appear to be an aggressive bone in his body. As for being an Imperial – he simply wasn’t manipulative enough for that. “Tell me more.”

[(Alex) Jacen]

Jacen nodded, wondering where best to begin. He turned his head, eyes scanning the bar. He couldn't see anything that looked Imperial, but he kept his voice low just in case.

"Alright," he said softly, leaning closer to Aevenon. "You already know I'm recruiting, and you already know what for. I'm after the Imps...all of them. And I'm gonna need all the help I can get." He paused, choosing his words carefully. "What I think you'll want to know is why."

He nodded to himself, and shifted forwards in his chair, his voice dropping to little more than a whisper. "Until few years ago, I was an Imperial myself. A Storm Commando. I wasn't one by choice...merely by necessity. At least, that is what I was told. I believed that the Rebel scum would come to kill our women and children, and we must destroy them before they destroyed us. But then I found out the truth. The Imperials were destroying things long before the Rebels even existed. Then, more importantly, I found out my past. I found out what it was the Empire had stolen from me." He fought back a tear as he continued, glad that the visor shielded his eyes from view. "My father was an Imperial, yes. But his father was a Jedi. His father used the Force...so did his father, and so on and so forth, for generations.

"My father...he was a thistle among roses. He joined the Empire at the first chance he got. He had his father killed and his brother banished at the first chance he got. He became a Moff by the time I was born...and probably one of the most corrupt ones out there. I was a side-effect of my father's play-thing...a young officer whom he'd blackmailed into being his lover. When she became pregnant with me...the Empire covered it up.

"I served under the Imperial banner, totally unaware of all of this. As far as I knew, I was born to be an Imperial. But then I found out. I found out about the corruption of one Moff. I found out about his evil. As I looked, I could see it all around me, hidden in plain sight. The Imperials are a corrupt and evil people. They do not deserve the seat of power that they command."

Jacen's face set, as anger rose up inside him...the anger he'd been feeling every day for the last few years. It was the anger that had driven him on this quest, and it was the anger that fueled his powers. Though descended from a Jedi family, Jacen was blessed with the abilities of a single ancestor...his great grandfather, a powerful Dark Jedi, slain by his own son. He breathed through his teeth, trying to hold back the rage, for when it empowered him, Jacen Dantarno ceased to be. All that remained was a mindless creature, enraged, enpowered, and unstoppable.

"My quest," he continued, relieved that the anger was subsiding, "Is to free the galaxy of the tyranical rule of anything and everything evil. But to start, I'll settle with tipping the balance of power away from the Imps that have held it for far too long."

[Rain DeSantos]

The woman in the camouflage pants with white military style tank stood at the bar. Her hair was pulled into a tight ponytail. Her back was to the gentlemen at the table. Her eyes moved to the side and her head tilted slightly as she listened. A smirk formed on her full lips as dark eyes once again moved to look back at the wall behind the bar. Not really a wall, but a mirror. She could see them, both of them.

She was freshly out of a unit, being disbanded since they got in way over their heads on Hestus IV. She has been looking for another group to hook up with, and heard of someone looking. she came to see if and what he had to offer.

Hopefully something good. Time would tell though....time would tell.

[Kyle Raiden]

Thread Terminated.

Sorry people...the anti-Imp resistance just died before it even began. So there ain't no point recruiting anymore...

Sorry that you all got messed about.