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Thread: All That Remains: Ashes and Temples

  1. #121
    * * *


    Another violent bucking sent him crashing into a bulkhead. He could hear the medic swearing, and another burst of exploding and twisting durasteel in the far distance followed by cries of agony and despair. A woman's voice called out, screaming in pain as she pleaded for salvation. A chorus of voices rose in volume to join her wails until there was a sea of auditory despair. It was all so deafening, all so violent.

    "Stay here Sir."

    He felt a hand on his chest, pushing him against the solid sanctuary offered by the bulkhead he had leaned against.

    "I'll be back."

    And then the hand was gone, pulling away to disappear into the netherworld of darkness and chaos that surrounded him.

    Marlon let his head fall back, feeling as the wall came to meet his motion in an inaudible thunk. Lids closed over now-useless eyes.

    But the aetherial hand... it returned. It reached for him. It took him in a comforting hold and passed wispy fingers over his drawn features. And then it pulled away, beckoning him to come.

    Come with me. Save a life.

    Save a life.

    He swallowed, then pushed away from the bulkhead to take two unsure steps forward. The hand was his guide, and led him through the death and destruction that he could not see.

  2. #122
    He stumbled over a fallen strut, the chorus of destruction loud around him. He could hear the warning klaxon pounding its' fury through the corridors of the ship, and he knew that it was most likely a fatal injury that Dauntless had sustained. Whatever was happening on the bridge... whatever Dan was doing... was it...

    An explosion of stars burst through the inky black of his blindness, and Marlon felt himself shoved roughly against the bulkhead as panicking crewmembers abandoned their resolve. Had he abandoned his? He was following a Hand, a Hand! Away from the bridge, and to wherever it called him. Or... had his resolve shifted to something else? Was there clarity in the loss of his sight?

    "Run!! Find the escape pods!!"

    "Take the children, get them out of here!"

    "Daddy? Daddy! Where's Momma?!?! I want Momma!!"

    "We don't have much time before- "


    A stuttering rumble approached like some sort of wave before the sound of the entire ship shuddering jogged him back into action. The Hand was insistent, filling his inner awareness once more and leading him onward.

    How long had he staggered, how many corridors and hallways had he passed through? The lifts were inoperable, but the maintenance hatches were still serviceable, and most certainly being used. He blindly fought the deluge of bodies streaming through tight confines, hissing in pain and anger as he struggled to follow the Hand.


    Save a life...


    Again the voiceless utterance echoed those three words into his mind, and with renewed resolve, Marlon Kori heaved himself upward with determined strength.




    He could recognize the scents that permeated the detention block; sterile, almost bleach-like. It was a smell that no other part of the ship seemed to have, and despite the air-scrubbers always on double duty, it never seemed to change that smell. He put the weight of his shoulder into the grated panel above his head, and was rewarded with a pchonk. The panel popped up and slightly out of its' setting. One hand gripping the top rung of the utility ladder he occupied, his other shoved the grating to the side, and Marlon pulled himself up and out.

    The Hand was becoming almost frantic, and he strained to do as it wished.


    Save a life...

  3. #123
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    * * *

    The news from Novgorod was not good, and s'Il couldn't help the scowl that turned her features. Out of the fight, but thankfully not gone. It was a consolation that she gladly accepted.

    "Send to Novgorod - understood."

    KHER didn't need to acknowledge, as his processors were already delivering the message to the stricken ship and their captain.

    Kes was pushing the control throttles as far forward as he could, dumping as much power as he could into the sublights as they slowly gained on Dauntless.

    The spindly ship's avatar seemed to tick his head a moment, as though interrupted in his tasks.

    Commodore, we're receiving transmission from Marianas. A General Brecklin for you, Ma'am.

    She only had time to angle her head to the left, as the brilliant, blue image of Meiers Brecklin materialized from thin air to stand beside her.

    "General."

  4. #124
    She looked the same as ever; she always did. Where he and those around her had seemed to add the lines of age, it was as though the Jedi was frozen in time. But, it was a thought that he let occupy his thoughts for the barest second upon seeing her.

    "Commodore."

    His nod was minimal.

    "Whatever senses that Dan has taken leave of, I am not of the mind to allow him to continue this folly. Marianas is on an intercept course now. Our tractors are online and we'll be in range of Dauntless in twenty seconds."

  5. #125
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    A grim nod of her own, and s'Il tightened her grip on the walkway's railing.

    "General Thrule will destroy the Jedi encampment if he is allowed to continue. My ship has no tractor beams, but I can provide cover for you until you're in range."

    As if to punctuate her statement, Kes banked right, bringing into sight the form of one of the two recon pocket cruisers in Dan's fleet. An overlay blinked to life, following over the ship in the viewscreen, the IFF identifying it as the Castor. Her already-present scowl only seemed to deepen as memories of Castor's skipper flashed in her mind's eye; Antori Yvalianos was a stocky, severe man that had been with Dan's cell from almost the beginning. He'd been one of the commandos from her very first mission with Dan, speaking only briefly to her as they'd fled the destruction of a Kamino cloning facility. He was a true believer and a survivor, a man who faught against the Empire with every fibre of his being and stood for truth and honesty.

    Now he was blinded, following a lie that was unraveling everything he had spent his life fighting for.

    KHER held no such memories, and his larger self opened fire, turbolaser batteries erupting to send brilliant red spears of energy along the length of Castor's hull.

  6. #126
    Serena Laran's guards had run away, leaving her to her meditation as she sat cross-legged in the center of her cell. She had reached out with her mind, finding one on the bridge of the ship, one that had broken free from the Dark one's influence.

    As the ship shuddered underneath her, she breathed softly and steadily, the Force welling up from inside her as she gave up her fears and focused on pulling the one mind toward her. The ship rocked and lights flickered as more impacts were felt. Death was near, and perhaps it was her time to go...

    The double-thick doors of the brig opened, and a man in a battered commander's uniform staggered in. Serena opened her eyes, and stood up, her cream robes stained with the blood of others.


    there is no passion; there is serenity
    there is no death; there is the Force


  7. #127
    Half-stumbling through the doorway of the cell, Marlon's face fell as the mysterious hand he'd seen in his ind vanished. He sucked in an almost panicked breath as he felt returned to the darkness that his unseeing eyes gave to him. Unknown to him, blood had collected in his tear ducts to send thin rivulets of red down craggy cheeks. Eyes that had once been a deep brown were now blackened and sightless.

    "The Hand," he gasped, one hand going out to grip the door frame before he could fall completely, "... where's the Hand?!"

  8. #128
    His eyes were beyond repair. Serena pressed her hand to her head, drawing on the Force to project a sense of the room to the man's mind, illuminating his surroundings. As long as he remained near her their connection should hold, although it was extremely taxing.

    "Please, get me out of here."

  9. #129
    Her voice filled his thoughts in the void that the hand had left, and Marlon let out a cough that seemed to sting his throat. The darkness was pervasive, but stepping past the threshold seemed to cast a strange sort of light around him, as he perceived edges and walls. Everything was close, and he sucked in an alarmed breath.

    The disorientation slammed into him as though he'd been broadsided with a durracrete sledge, and he cast unseeing eyes to either side before settling on the ghostly breath of an image. Outlined in dancing lines and frantic slivers of light was a woman.

    Another stumble as Dauntless rocked, but he managed to catch himself before pitching forward completely.

    Leaned against a wall, Marlon Kori reached out a hand to the spectre.

    "I... "

    Had the hand brought him to this woman? To this voice?

    "He's mad, " the weight of the course that Dan had set them upon suddenly crushed down upon him, and as he felt her hand join his, there was a strange sort of despair that engulfed his thoughts as he pulled her closer.

    "He'll kill us all... "

  10. #130
    As she took his hand their connection deepened, and his despair immediately pressed upon her. Serena pushed back, exuding peace and calm, even though she could sense Dan's terrible dark presence in the ship. His sharpened purpose that was directed to the settlement on the planet below.

    "We must leave the ship, and get as many people as we can to do the same. Can you take me to the escape pods?"

    She pulled him gently through the cell door into the hallway. "Is it possible to signal an evacuation from somewhere that isn't the bridge?"

  11. #131
    She had helped him, guided him even as he guided her. She was his eyes, and he was the navigator. He stumbled a few times, but the woman with the soft voice and the steady hands always kept him from falling completely, and his previous disorientation had been smoothed over, to be replaced with a resolve that finally felt his own. He knew who she was - the Jedi woman - Dan's prized prisoner...

    Her firm but gentle mannerisms and the way that she spoke washed over him, and he held her hand tightly at first, then as Dauntless shuddered again in throes of inevitable death, he draped an arm over her shoulder for further support.

    "To the left," he coughed as the smell of smoke invaded his lungs.

    "There should be a main console in the detention receiving area... "

    They exited the maze of catwalks that was lined on either side with detention cells, and down into a much more open processing area. Another rumbling shake, and Marlon shot a hand out to brace against the nearest thing he could blindly grab, and ended up grasping at a dangling bit of shredded conduit.

    "It's," another cough and a wheeze, "... it's in the middle," he let go of the conduit as the Jedi woman started forward once more, taking him with her. She must've seen it, and he spoke up once more.

    "You'll need a command code to access the shipwide vox system," his leg crashed into a fallen stool, and Kori hissed out in pain, his features screwing into a deep grimace.

    "Use mine. Four-two-four-Besh-eight-three-two."

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