Sandra Mana: War Games

[MissMora]

Sandra takes up Bernie’s offer and heads to meet one of his Republic contacts. It’s on Viscara that she finds Agent Donnie Bartlet. He’s a brash leader of a small band, but with a fair success rate and moderate casualty rate. While this was a normal statistic for most agent groups, it was fairly balanced for Bartlet’s. It’s hard to say.

Sandra makes her way to the cantina where he waits in the far back booth by himself. She makes her way over to the booth and takes a seat. There’s already a drink on the table waiting for her, but the first rule of being a woman in a tavern is never pick up a drink you didn’t see made yourself.

“Agent Mana, welcome back to Viscara. I’ve been briefed by coordinated results of various scouting parties along the Mid Rim. Sith are headed this way and there’s no doubt about it. We have an estimation of where they may go. One of these assumptions is Charros IV, but we need evidence. The scouting party was intercepted, but now we need agents on the ground to see what’s happening. It’s at times like these, we need Intelligence Agents with heavy reputation, or in some cases… lack there of, if you get my drift.”

“Right. What do you need me to do?”

“Here’s the dossier. Give it a read. We’re Mission Ready in 24 hours. You’ll be in a team with 2 others. The goal is to gather intel see if it’s a prime target. It’s not a central hyperspace lane like the one closer to Kashyyyk, but better to be safe than sorry.”

“Understood. I’ll begin study immediately and head out with the team in the allotted time…”

“Stars light your way in these dark times. Farewell, Agent Mana.”

Sandra returns to her ship and runs into Aligonda, Gareth, and more. They go off to rescue Corbin and Shirri in the desert before she returns to study for the mission. It’s there for the rest of the day she spends her time. Sandra lays in bed and goes through all the floating data screens around her. She looks on the Planet dossier and so on.

Charros IV:
Classification - Rocky Terrestrial
Moons - Char’Unus, Char’Duo
Orbital Period - 4.2 years
Atmosphere - Type III (Breath mask Required) on the more wild side of the planet, whereas where cities are it is Type II (Breath mask Suggested) for most life forms since the Xi’Charrians have pumped gases out of the cities and put domes over them. The Xi’Charrians have no problem going between these environments using one of their two respiratory systems in either.
Gravity - 2x Coruscant
Government - Elected ‘Prelate’ who serves as the religious and political leader.
Major Cities - K’naanar-s City (capital), Th’laagog-s City (financial centre)
Imports/Exports - Technology (e.g. Ships, appliances etc), Luxury items (e.g. clothes, jewellery etc)

“Hmm…looks like i’ll have to pick up a breather from the group. Otherwise, the only other major issue will be the Gravity. It will be exhausting and combat is certainly difficult. May be best to keep stealthy instead fo engagements. This seems like a fair scouting mission in the least. Just get the information from one of their larger government offices to see if they have Sith leaks and then leave. What can go wrong…”

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> MOOD MUSIC: CHRONO CROSS: BURNING ORPHANAGE

The next day, Sandra is shipped out with the 2 Republic Commandos. They take a moment to introduce theirselves to each other and go over the mission plan. They discuss Two major corporations that are the heart of their industrial religion. But they are a set of Three buildings. Sandra and the Commandos are to infiltrate into the head offices of the three buildings and look for a data leak. This would confirm the planet as a target. They would drop from the roof tops of the respective buildings and make their way to the office. As far as missions went, this was clear cut. Commandos tend to prefer things that way.

“A lot of people think the word commando means super-hero, or at least something close to it. In the popular mind, they’re thought of as the ultimate elite soldier, the solution to every problem. The fact is, a commando is just someone trained to fight under a specific set of circumstances. He’s the guy you send in when there are more bad guys than good guys, when surprise is the only advantage you can get in an operation. When it works, commandos seem unstoppable. Those are the operations that make the papers. When it doesn’t work, commandos get killed just as dead as anyone else.”

The ship goes into the air space and the group puts on their breathers and jumpsuits.
The first commando is dropped off.
The second one jumps onto a roof a moment later.
Sandra is dropped on the last roof corporate roof.

From the roof top, she latches a repelling system to a section of a massive comms array. From there, she repels down about 10 floors to the system she needs to get into. She hangs upside down a moment and grunts, and takes a peek into the room. There’s one person inside pacing back and forward, looking on a datapad. Sandra waves a finger and the fellow falls over, stunned.

Taking out her saber, she holds it near the glass so that it melts and deforms. Once that’s done, she force pushes the glass inwards. The goop and weakened glass just falls in to her weight after and there she stands in the room. She walks over to the fellow and zipties his hands and leaves him there before coming to the computer terminal and the various wall mounted drives. Sandra takes out a republic modified device and sticks it into the port of the terminal and begins typing. This is not an exciting thing as she mostly contends with firewalls, some security checks, and whatever the tech society’s systems had to throw. It would be a good 30 minutes before it cracked to her will.

But, as she looks through the data, there are distant booms of a great variety. Her head lifts from the computer screen and when she looks, there are hundreds of ships in the sky, nearly blacking it out. Sandra quickly turn to the computer terminal and skips looking for data leaks now. The Sith were here.

================================

The skies begin to rain fire of plasma and laser on various parts of the capital city. Various communications arrays are knocked out and one of the buildings a commando was in gets blasted. The building splits in half and falls on the citizens below. Screams filled the skies and disturbances in the Force filled the airways. Several Republic ships hop in only to be vaporized moments later. Something was wrong. Why were they here so ‘early’? What did this mean?

It didn’t matter. One by one, the comms towers were being shot down. Sandra was in one of them. She typed furiously as her fingers dance across the screen. A bead of sweat forms and drops down her cheek as the desperate message gets out. A desperate warning that Charros IV was under attack. It’s then that the building shakes intensely. A massive chunk of the building is blown out below.

Sandra sprints wildly to the other side of the building, slamming doors open and pushing others from their hinges to try and leap to the next building. People were running and screaming and doing what they could to push past each other to get out. As Sandra reaches the other side of the building, she could feel it waver. It was going to fall. She takes a deep breath and looks to the next building a few dozen meters away. She shoots out the window. Her heart begins to races as she runs back and with an explosion of speed and augmentation, leaping across the sky. Before colliding with the other building’s window, she shoots it out and lands with a series of rolls, tumbles, and crashes into several pieces of furniture with soft screams of pain before coming to a stop.

She gazed out the window she fell into to see the other building fall sideways into whatever it was going to meet. Her heart drops and she takes a moment to try and get up, but that proves too painful. With a cough of blood, she begins to crawl as quickly as she can to the stairwell doors.

A scream is all she can grant as she raises a hand to launch the door off its hinges. It seems like the people in this building were long gone or were hiding. Sandra gazes at the number of floors she would need to drop. Maybe 40 or so. And so it was done. Leaping downards from rails to rails, she reaches the ground floor and the lobby.

The lobby was a mess and askew from the shakes and panicked workers. Datapads littered the ground and some bodies where parts of the building had fallen on them. Sandra runs outside and looks up at the ships coming over head. It’s suddenly that Sandra finds herself flipping end over end…coming to a stop on something soft. She looks up with a blurry gaze to the ships in the sky… and it all fades to black…

[MissMora]

Sandra awakens to the sounds of screams, crackling fire, small explosions and in a world that might come straight from hell. She sits up and her body aches. Her left arm is clearly broken and she has sprains around her body. Using the force so heavily in such a place would make her an easy target, granted she was one of the only Jedi on the planet. So it was time to compromise.

Combat medicine is not necessarily about long term healing. Civilian doctors try to immobilize injured limbs to make sure they knit properly. Field medics often have to do the opposite and make broken limbs as usable as possible. Walking on a broken, bloody leg isn’t good for you but it’s better than taking a blaster shot.

Sandra takes a breath and wretches her arm back into place and she screams into her suit. She then gets up and takes stock of her situation. She’d landed in a patch of bustling flowers. Maybe it was an irony, but that didn’t matter. Her time unconscious clearly was an issue as now she sensed Dark Force users all around and so many notes of death in the Force. It reminded her of the Mandalorian Wars when she was with her Master on missions for a short time.

The city burns around her as she slips into a near by building, taking a few flights up to get the vantage she needs. It’s difficult to make anything from the sights of explosions and needless death. Many of the places she had on her own map were long changed, terrains revamped, and other places just gone. With that, all she could do was try to find a way off the planet and hinder her enemies as long as possible.

Making her way around wasn’t impossible. Many of the noted Sith were troopers or droids. There was an advantage and disadvantage in this. Sith were fairly well known for knocking off their own soldiers and the Droids were usually quite expendable as well. Any meaningful way off the planet would have to come from seeking higher priority targets. This usually means someone with a lightsaber, fancy blaster, or beam cannon, but there was work to do.

==========================================

Day 2

*There were a lot of hired mercs and various other malcontents that roamed the city. What was more difficult was to listen to a barely reconfigured radio from a series of datapads and junk. Whatever open channels were available, she found various notes about the capital being raided, the near by outskirts being sacked, and that republic troops were getting people off the planet how they could. Getting to one of those Republic ships could help her get off the planet, so that was the plan. One a few miles west of her position. *

So she jogged. Through the fires of the landscape, through the fallen buildings, and more.
She arrives at the civilian vessel and she smiles a bit as she begins to approach from a set of ruins, only for the ship to explode, throwing her back a few feet. With wide eyes, she looks on as a red sabere’d Sith and Rocket launcher elite chuckle at the attempts of the Republic to flee. There were some people still alive, but to save them would mean engaging. There were only two of them for now, so a swift action is needed. Sandra engages her Force Cloak and the Sith looks over in her direction. Clearly not able to see her, but sense the engagement of the Force. He walks over to where she was, only to be met with the scream of his counterpart being sliced in half. Sandra, clearly with only 1 decent arm, takes the single saber route and does the Makashi salute. The Sith smiles and dashes over to engage with her.

*Their blades clash and though Sandra is fairly injured, controlling the circle of dueling brought on by Makashi’s dedicated single action arte was deterrent to the Sith’s rather direct assault. With a series of pokes to various parts of his body, he slows. In his slowing, he takes a stab to the heart and falls over. She jogs over to the burning ship and pulls out who she can. Even though she can’t take them anywhere or help, at least they won’t immediately die. *

She goes onto the ship and looks for any equipment the Republic ship has. There is an equipment case with some explosive charges and signal flares. While not immediately useful for the attention it can bring, it’s something. She sets the charges into a backpack she pulls from a dead republic soldier and his blaster rifle. It’s then she listens to the radio for a bit once returning to the near by building and gets word from the civilian population that there are more Sith ships incoming. There a few landing pads around the capital that were left functional and it allotted some ways to give trouble. Though this could be a double edged sword if others were to come help, but that wasn’t likely. May well go and give the Sith some trouble.

In the next few hours, Sandra waits and focuses. She senses a rather powerful Sith incoming to someplace near her location and decides to go investigate. A landing pad a mile or so near the capital building is landed at and seemed like the logical place to land if you have already considered yourself the victor. So she hops along broken builds and ruins to get an oversight of the landing. A ship lands and various people come out, hurrying on their way to the Capital building. Once the group goes on by, she looks to the ship where the Sith Lord stands by. Her force suppressing keeps her hidden, but still best not to do any Force based actions. Meanwhile, the Sith Lord walks over and exits the section. She drops down on one of the other ships and observes the transport. It was odd. It’s a design she didn’t really recognize, but if Kho taught her anything, it was to look for the mechanical aspects that used the most power. Those made the nicest explosions.

She looked at the repulsion system and decided this was a fair spot. The good thing about Sith Lords and so on is that they are mostly solitary creatures. Getting the jump on one is generally not insane to do in it self, but fighting them is where the things got tricky. It wasn’t in her best interest to fight one now in anycase in her condition. Once the charges were placed, she went off. It wasn’t good to stick around and leave traces in the Force for them to read.

The returning Sith Lord an hour later returns with a particular crew of Mercs and is met with an explosion that rips her apart.

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Day 3

There’s a reason most people don’t sleep well in new places. The brain goes on alert in unfamiliar environments,

Being mostly awake for nearly three days has its points of intrigue. Taking power naps only works as far as the mind is willing to allow rest. Meditation was difficult as well when the only places you can safety do so tend to be shaky buildings open to bombing. It’s not fun, but you have to get by with what you can.

Sandra works on a small war droid she disabled as she ambushed it alone. It takes a good while to set this droid up for her own use if it was needed, but leaving it open to be sliced was an option too. She pinches her finger on a computer spike and then draws a Republic marking on the side. Maybe this would help inspire people to keep fighting, or at least… it would be a reminder of who was here.

A few hours later, Sandra walks into a former super market. Half of the building was crushed and the building looked looted and mostly empty. Sandra walks around and her foot kicks a can cross the way, klinking into a wall. She sighs and keeps on. Searching down the ailes produced a few cans of food and a bottle of juice that was slightly busted open. The walk to the back of the super market leads to a fridge of frozen goods, but she leaves it alone to sit on a pile of boxes. A fashioned pike is used to edge open the canned goods for her to eat from. In this moment, she looks up at the blinking lights of the market. She thinks of her First Master and a particular moment.

---

“Master? What is this…cold thing?”

“Ice Cream, Sandra! One of the greatest creations in the universe, hahaha!”

“Better than datapads and hyperdrives…?”

“You better believe it. Have I ever steered you wrong?”

“…What about tha–”

He laughs and drops a heavy hand on her head
“Go on! Try it before you knock on my pride.”

Young Sandra takes a lick of the ice cream and her eyes sparkle with a great joy. The simple things that a 12 year old can discover are wondrous. Her emerald gaze looks rapidly to her master and he nods an ‘I know, right?’ and she takes a massive bite. He winces as he knows the results of this. Sandra groans and rubs her head and he gives a hardy laugh.

“Why does …ow ow wo… it hurt, Master?”

“Because, of the receptors in your mouth. Like overcharging one of your datapads. Remember how your battery popped?”

“I remember… it was messy.”

“Like anything in life, Sandra. Too much of a good thing, or bad thing for that matter, can be painful or worst. Take it slow. Enjoy the allotment and live just as smoothly.”

“Was this a lesson too?!”

He laughs and pats her head again with a nod.
“There are lessons in even the sweetest things.”

“…You’re annoying…”

He laughs more and they resume licking and consuming their ice cream.

---

Sandra takes a bite of the odd concoction in her can and tears stream down her cheeks. She sets the canned food down and cries into her hands for a few minutes before taking a moment to recover and takes care to savor the last of the food and drink before the rest of the day comes.

The next few hours is mostly listening to the radio and watching out over the city like some vigilante waiting for the right moment. It’s then a call comes in that citizens are massing quickly to various check points. A rebel faction seems to have emerged and is gathering citizens. A few moments later, she sees dozens of civilian troops and people zipping across the skies, flying so low that even Sandra can see the Serendipity and the Beryn’s Legacy. Sandra covers her mouth and suppresses the emotions she feels to try and run their direction. It’s then one of the buildings she leaps onto explodes below her and with a leap, she’s thrown into the window of a near by building. She cries out in agony as a pain rips through her ankle. It’s broken. There was no doubt about that. The onset of shock was setting in. She had to do something quickly or she wouldn’t reach them in time.

She decides to blow her cover and Force Heal her ankle enough to get her going. It’s then she feels many force sensitives headed her way. She gets up and starts running as best she can. A sith with a jetpack flies next to her and she fires the blaster rifle at him. He deflects the shots, as expected, and she pulls him into a standing spike to get impaled. It’s then she slides down the side of the building that’s at an angle to get to the ground floor. A few sith soldiers show up at her side, but a few deflection returns with a Soresu combo has them all laying on the ground from each other’s shots. She takes off again and gets to the site of a fairly intact building. Taking the way up she hurries on the stairs, groaning in agony, to see her friends running away from an army of incoming sith.

She recognized one of the Sith… the one who trained Artemis and the bitch of a redhead Neph. They had met before and it wasn’t good news that they were here. Sandra leaps out the window onto a pile of rubble. She hobbles over to a column, holding up a part of a building, and sets some charges. She limps over to the side and once the heroes cross by, she blows it and the Sith are halted. Sandra limps over to see their faces. Barely pulling off the hood… the onset of shock settles and she faints… the black of her reality coming to a crash.

=====================================

END

[MissMora]

==================================

Jungle Terror

The shuttle to Rodia is a small silver craft, designed to reflect the space around it. This is akin to space camouflage which makes the ship look black in space in a more natural way. The ride takes a lot shorter on their private shuttle. Sandra sits and prepares her gear and clothes. She goes to a corner of the ship to change and get into the jungle boots and attire. Darian tries to peek back, but the ship shakes a little and he grumbles

Markus shudders a bit at the sudden shake and swears in some old varient of basic as he almost drops the frequency scanning device he was tinking with, looking over at Darien with a brief bit of exasperation “Nervous, Darien? Pre-mission flight jitters?” He asked, putting away the scanner and rifling through the pockets of his camo jacket to make sure he was stocked up on ration bars

“Preflight jitters. Preflight sadness…”

he jokes, but keeps on Sandra finishes getting dressed and packs the other gear she needs into a smaller backpack. By the amount of things she carries, it’s clearly her intent to not hang around this planet too long. Once the boots are laced, she looks to Markus and Darian.

“Are you all set…? We should be near the planet soon.”

“That’s right. Shouldn’t be too much longer now. You two ready for a real good time?”

Markus sighs and runs a hand through his hair before putting on his helmet and facemask giving one last check over his equipment, most of which was either built sturdy or cheap enough that he wouldn’t care about it getting ruined

“Affermative, operation swamp-ass is a go."

He said before giving a little sarcastic salute

"Anything more I should know beforehand?”

Darian looks back

“Yeah, you’re going into a ruined city. Watch out for normal junk like leaking power radiators, left over electronics that are still on, and junk like that. A city holds its own bit of shames and dangers. Not to mention they sent a Sith Lord to find some odd map thing. We don’t know yet, but that’s all the intel we have.”

“Feels like they’re always pulling another Sith lord out of some oriface every day, do they not trust their troops to collect some maps?”

Markus said with an exasperated sigh as he now decided to double-check his sawn off scatter-blaster

“Far as I know we’re trying to set up some comms stations, not find any maps, correct? Can we avoid all the dark sorcerer lord or are our objectives going to intersect?”

Sandra nods lightly and ties her hair up to fit under a hooded hat.

“Mm…we’re to do more than that. We need to make sure the Sith Lord lurking the area is dead too. We need his intel. He’s supposedly someone who works with Revan closely and that can mean a war turning factor. He needs to either die or be restrained.”

Markus Clicks his teeth, tursly, making sure he has a LOT of shotgun rounds, grenades, and combat stims on standby and that both his shotgun and pistol are in proper working order.

“I think that might have been a slightly more relevant detail than the humidity.”

He said with a grimace, recalling the last time he’d been face to face with a sith lord.

“Might have been prudent to load up on more than my usual kit…like maybe a nuclear bomb or something.”

Sandra giggles softly

“It was a consideration…”

“She’s not joking. We really wanted to just nuke him. But Bernie felt that the republic was being too hasty and set for us to go peek first.”

“…Hopefully we can manage. Alright… we’re about to land. Set us up few miles from the city. Markus is a normie, so he wont be felt to differently from the wild life.”

“Alright, legs. Ready and don’t die on me, okay?”

"Pfft…hasty, when some terrorist asshats call in a fake airstrike they can’t bombard my ass hard enough, meanwhile dropping a nuke on satan? “Oh no, we should stop to consider this.”

Markus grumbles, before shaking his head. His gaze seemingly hardening at Darien’s last statement.

“It’ll be alright D, worst comes to worst she just has to run faster than me.”

Darian chuckles and in a few minutes lands the ship. The ship revs a bit to push some plants for a mini makeshift area. The pair hop out of the ship and give a very slight splash on the moist ground. The ship takes off rapidly and disappears over the horizon. Sandra sighs and looks around. The jungle is quiet as they had just arrived and she takes out a datapad with some info on it. They begin walking through the jungle. Various odd sounds echo and birds quwak in the background

Markus followed behind Sandra carefully, hand to his holster as his eyes darted towards whatever available cover might be nearby. Keeping an ear out for the birdcalls as per Bernie’s advice about Fauna being an important part of keeping track of one’s surroundings.

The way through the jungle leads to an open section of swamp. Sandra hops up into a tree and looks around, surveying the swamp. There’s no way for Markus to cross otherwise, unlike Sandra who plans to go tree to tree.

“Markus… you’ll need to cross this swamp. I’ll be up in the trees. Be mindful and move slowly so you don’t rile up the wild life in there.”

“Savvy” Markus said simpy with a nod, before slowly setting about trudging through the swamp, very thankful for both his thigh high boots and mostly covered skin as he trudge through the murky, insect-ridden water, doing his best not to splash too much for fear of some river creature coming to take a bite of his legs.

“Hah, Who has terrible fashion sense now.” He whispered to himself

Markus walks by some odd glowing mushrooms that illuminate the water. The thigh deep water shows various fish and bugs below. There are these …longer looking eel things. They cress his leg gently. Sandra whispers from above.

“…Be careful. Dont let those bite you. They can stun you for a time after a few bites. Just… breathe easy and walk slowly.”

Markus swallows and tries to pace his breathing, slooowly walking through the water as best as he could and idly wondering if his boots would stand up to a bite from them if he bolted, before deciding it wasn’t worth testing. Instead doing his best to pretend to be brave until he could get somewhere the eels weren’t “You take me to such lovely places.” He joked, pulling his handcannon out of its holster to hold it above the water as he continued to wade.

The reverb of his voice so close to the water makes some of the fish move a slight faster. The 30 mins through the swamp is rather painful as these glowy fish just wait for the opportunity he screws up. But the end of the swamp comes and as the dust from the watery floor comes, they reach the shore. The adrenaline spike slows. Sandra hops down from the trees and looks around at the swamp. Below their feet, there is some thing hard. When Markus kicks aside of the dirt and the leaves, it’s …a street.

Markus can almost cry as the leaves and dirt give way to blessed, Blessed concrete, finally no longer beholden to the tempestuous whims of nature and once again on a manmade artificial surface, where things make sense He nods to Sandra before glancing around trying to picture the layout based on whatever overgrow or rubble might be around him.

This place is a whole new world. As the scenery slowly begins to mold… he can see the beginning of the outskirts of the city. Buried speeders, laced street poles that may well look like trees now. Sewer main holes open and vines stretching out. Birds flocking to street signs that may well look like a fantasy world. There was a beauty to it. A beauty to this return to nature and what seems like a hostile take over by the planet itself. Sandra runs a hand on the other hand, is looking into the broken speeders for things she can use. She crushes a sheet of the metal on the hood of the car and pulls it off, revealing the engine. She scours through some parts and pulls out some tubing and wires that look fair

The sight of nature’s creeping tendrils overtaking the cityscape sends a slight shiver through Markus’s spine and for a moment he considers grabbing a cigarette and lighting up, almost reflexively to calm his nerves, before he figures creating a smell and smoke would be a bad call Idly he looks over to Sandra to see her scavenging and raises an eyebrow behind his mask, wondering what she was looking for specifically that she hadn’t brought herself. Still he decided to simply cover her, shuffling into whatever light cover he could find and looking around the area in case the sound drew someone or something over, content to wait and watch for whatever it was she had planned

They continue and a series of structures fall a few dozen meters infront of them. Sandra steps back a bit as the dust from the buildings press around the area. She sighs. Markus Winces at the structure’s falling looking like he’s about to bolt before the dust even comes up and for a moment he seems to debate between remaining in cover and getting as far away from any given stucture as he can for fear of a collapse, eventually he walks over to Sandra, and whispers as silently as he can

“So…I’m guessing that’s a potential hostile?”

“If gravity was our enemy, that would certainly be it. Anything can fall apart here at any moment, so keep your ears open for anything.”

As this is said, there are various growls near by. Beedy red eyes poke their way by the shadowed ruins a few meters away. “…That’s cant be good.” Sandra ignites her lightsaber.

Markus doesn’t waste time with a response, instead opting to draw his scatter-blaster in one hand and a riot foam grenade in the other, preparing to toss it into the darkness if the red eyed figures if they started to move closer. The odd looking quadrupeds race out , like tigers of sorts. There are six of them. Their large fangs are certainly intimidating. Sandra force throws one aside and dodges the tackle of another. Three rush for Markus.

Markus pulls the pin on the riot foam grenade and scrambles away at full tilt, hoping the sticky foam restrains the assailing creatures.

As Markus leaps away from his position, leaving the granade, it pops with foam and the tigers leap into it, just missing him, and they are stuck. Sandra pulls a tiger over to stab through it and rolls to dodge another. She slashes the one that tries to flank her and the last one is knocked into a speeder. From his newly acquired reposition, Markus quickly lifts up his gun and double-taps the tigers trapped in the foam. Firing off two quick shots from his scattergun at the two closest ones. The beasts of tiger like design fall over and put up little to no resistance. Sandra sighs and calms down. She goes over to Markus and pats his shoulder

“Are you alright? Ready to proceed?”

Markus sighs and rolls his shoulder, giving a light nod before venting the heat on shotgun “I’m fine, down to a single foam grenade and probably a made a bit more noise than I should have, but I’m not hurt.”

They both keep on and hurry a bit through the city. There’s a point where Sandra suddenly stops.

“…Run. RUN! Just go!” Sandra motions east wards and she takes off. Markus gets a really bad scoundrel’s feeling

• M O O D Music: Parasite Eve 3: Insanity of the Enraged

There’s no glance backwards or questions when Sandra tells him to run off, instead he throws himself full tilt into a cowardly sprint, his long legs and natural practice at cowardly running taking him far and fast eastwards alongside Sandra. Behind them, a man comes into view as he peeks over his shoulder for a second. The shiver of fear up his spine. They run into one of the buildings and look around. Sandra force pushes the rotten desks infront of the door way and then takes Markus by the hand, leaping upwards through the rotten ceiling to the second floor.

Finally up on the second floor and already looking for something to more easily climb to a third floor, Markus spoke up

“I take it we don’t want him to catch up to us.”

As he spoke he started counting out his various explosives, lamenting that his assorted grenades probably wouldn’t be enough to bring the building down on their pursuer.

“We need a better point of engagement. Fighting in dusty ruins where anything can collapse does nothing for us. Let’s hop out at the other side of the building! Come on!”

“Savvy, Don’t have to ask me twice.”

Markus said as he watched Sandra clear the gap easily with a single graceful leap. Meanwhile Markus ran forward in a running leap, scrabbling and clawing his way with Sandra’s help after he just barely made it across. They run and there are things behind them that seem to make a crumbling sound and ripping apart. As they run, Sandra motions to a dilapidated bridge. They can see all the various speeders on the bridge. Could be the city was abandoned in a hurry at some point. Various animals bark at them as they run by.

“We can use the bridge! If we can get to a certain point, I think we can collapse it!”

“Gotcha, I’ve got some frag grenades and firebombs, I can set them in the speeders engines, that might cause a big enough explosion”

He says, pulling out some a cluster of grenades while making his way to the bridge Sandra indicated, briefly glancing behind to see if they were still being chased. Sandra runs to one side of the bridge entry and slaps on some explosives. She dashes with enhanced speed to the other side and sets up some more explosives.

“Alright, I think we have enough combined explosives to blow the bridge, but we need to cross the 8 miles of bridge fast! I hope you ran track back in in the day…”

“If there’s one thing a coward knows how to do, it’s run!”

Markus replied confidently as he rolls a few grenades under the speeder to provide their own explosive power to the resulting blast without stopping his sprint. Behind them, a series of lightning bolts blow up near by. Some of the grenades are set off prematurely. Several speeders are thrown at them, bouncing off the ground, slamming into bridge cables and slamming them loose, parts of the bridge opening below them revealing the structure. One of the speeders slam and explode near Markus and throws him into another speeder.

Slamming into the speeder winds Markus a bit, and makes him reconsider his earlier plan. Still in spite of the pain in the entire side of his body and the woozy, swimming, feeling in his head, he scuttles forward and attempts to scramble to his feet, already trying to run once more and hope beyond hope he can beat out the rapidly collapsing bridge

A speeder flies towards Sandra and with some effort, she returns the speeder to the sender and he simply walks a slight to the left to dodge it. He leaps through the air and, flying over Markus, lands infront of Sandra. As he lands, she blasts him back with a massive force push and he returns a few meters back behind Markus. Sandra activates the detonator earlier and the beginning of the bridge explodes and is compounded with more busts of explosions. The durasteel wires rip from the bridge and lashes near the Sith. He grunts and draws his lightsaber now. Dashing to avoid being pulled below.

With a terrified Yelp, Markus tosses his last riot foam grenade over his shoulder and books it away from the rapidly gaining sith lord, hoping he wouldn’t be able to change course or that doing so would subject him to the collapse. Either way he wasn’t going to stick around to watch as he sprinted away from the crumbling mess and murderous figure behind him as quickly as he could

The Sith returns to grenade to Markus and it ends up going off near him instead. The bridge shakes intensely now. The wavering of the rotten structure is now more than just a feeling of odd equilibrium, but now a viewable fact. Sandra throws some of the speeders at the Sith and one collapses the ground by him, buying a bit of time.

After struggling for a few seconds with the rapidly hardening foam coating his boots, the smuggler simply opts to abandon his footwear, weighing immediate survival in favor of long term comfort, and simply ripping his feet out from the stuck boots and continuing along the bridge in his socks, finally drawing his sawn off scattershot and firing off two rounds of scatter-patterned blaster bolts behind him as he ran, once again more hoping to slow the figure down and make them make a mistake rather than score a good hit. The Sith hops up after a few seconds and does a blinding dash towards Sandra again. They collide and dual as they try to cross the bridge. Sandra’s amazing speed clashes against the wall of a man. Like a thousand strikes knocking on a wall. They dual as Markus gets himself together. The bridge on the entry way begins to fall into the water. There’s little time to remain on the bridge. As Markus runs, he can see the two engaged in what might look like a superhuman battle. Markus can see various options available. The speeder next to the pair, the wires trying to break free, the weak grounding they stand on… there is much to note, but only time for one move.

Markus draws his pistol in favor of s precision shot he almost deliberates on driving the speeder into the Sith lord before he casts the idea aside in favor of firing a concentrated blast into the bridges wire supports, while uttering a single warning.

“Fly red! FLY!!”

Sandra leaps heavily back wards towards the other end of the bridge, dodging a swing, and the Sith looks to the incoming shout. At this point, the wires slap around, slamming infront of Markus, around the Sith, and slicing the rotten bridge into sections now. Sandra watches the bridge collapse now more aggressively.

"Markus! MARKUUUUSS!”

It’s all she could shout before the collapse happens, and Markus falls into the blackness of the water, the environment shifting to the bright sun in the sky, shining in the water down on him as he sinks. Soon, it all fades to black…

===========================

Part 1 END

[MissMora]

Place holder for part 2

[MissMora]

M O O D Music: ChronoCross - DragonKnights

After the fall of Viscara, Sandra remained on Mon Cal and is called up by Bernie. With a heavy heart, she makes her way to the Consulate where she knocks on his office. There is when Darian and Bernie are sitting at a desk with a digital map floating over a hologrid.

“Welcome, Sandra. We’re just going over everything we have from the Fall of Viscara. Come, sit with us.”

Sandra comes over and pulls up a chair to sit in. She crosses her legs and sits proper as she asks an initial question.

“Bernie, I know everything went mad, but why? What happened? I don’t understand.”

“You see that, Darian? If you don’t understand something, you ask bloody questions, not go off and play hero with some blumbing mad men.”

“But sir, I only w–”

Bernie slaps the stupid off his skin with a back hand that makes Darian reel

“You talk when you’re asked to or i’ll keep slapping you until your genetics figure it out across generations, you hear me?”

Darian nods and sits quietly. Sandra raises a brow at this, but keeps quiet as Bernie comes to answer her question.

“After some time of gathering reports, getting the information from security feeds, people’s personal datapads, and so on, this is the conclusion i’ve come to based on all the stuff your buddies have been throwing at me for days. Ahem…”

Bernie opens a floating screen

“Seems a Spy, Ex-Jedi, Sith Hater, and slicer, Samuel Mayer, was taking hold of the Republic base security as its head. He preformed various unrecorded and Black Operations for the Republic in the last few weeks. Likely why he was as quiet as Qyilisc was putting up. Seems like your pals caught him mid operations for taking some Sith out, but then was taken out earlier than he expected. It was then that your buddies chose Markus to be taken in to custody for the murder of an officer, a bit of time that I was buying them before I had my own plans going, but seems they loved your Markus so much that they jumped a fair bit of guns. Even Darian and his dumb ass decided to help out. Of course, the record for this Op yesterday doesn’t exist and no one can pin anything on us, no matter what they say.”

“That’s …intense. Go on.” Runs a hand through her long red hair

“Corbin, Qyilisc, Navy or Jacen, and Darian decided to devise a plan to get into the Republic base. I denied Darian, of course, but you know how he is. He’ll get some more beatings until he gets his head right. In that meantime, they went undercover as one of the normal maintenance crews. No one ever bats an eye at maintenance, or rarely do, so they were let in and they made their way to the commander’s room to look for evidence that Mayer left behind. They found it and most of them decided to broadcast it out to everyone, and I mean EVERYONE. Even that bitch reporter has a copy of classified information hotter than a supernova. After that, High Command asked for the Commander to make an immediate return to Coruscant to discuss the information they just got. As soon as he left, the Sith made their move. Seems like they are occupying the base for now and a lot of the tech was scuttled before they got in.”

“I see now. With the Head of Security and their main Commander now out of the way, the Sith just went full in and hoped for the best. I can’t say it was a bad idea. So, now what? You wouldn’t just call me over if there wasn’t more, ya?”

“The ‘now what’ is an operational retaliation and re-stabilization of Viscara’s position. If there’s one thing the Sith aren’t good at without Revan around, is consolidating their gains and power. They use a lot of fanfare like we do to make things seem larger than they appear. I’ve been talking to Command on Mon Cal and they are prepared to make a surprise attack on the Sith. I’m talking the in and out kind of missions that leave heads spinning. Myself, and two High Command Mon Cal officers are going to assist.”

“Makes sense.”

“YOU are going to be at my side. No super hero-ing for you. I won’t be around forever so someone has to eventually learn what I know. You’re MY damn padawan now, Sandra. So get your shite together and ready for a lesson in Total War tactics.”

“…What?”

“You’re going to get the advanced lesson in Operations. So you’ll be at my side guiding your comrades on the battlefield. They trust you. They rely on you. They see you as a leader, now you only need to be that leader. So stick around a bit. I have some things for us to go over.”

“Y-Yes, sir.”

Bernie goes to close the door and the blinds. Then the chatter begins…

[MissMora]

Sandra and Darian are sitting on a bench in Mon Cal’s beach side resort. There aren’t really any people where they sit today. The sun is lovely and the weather is fair as well. Sandra flattens her cute short black flowy skirt before and pulling up her top a bit before looking to Darian who holds out some cards to her.

He smiles and she rolls her eyes as she picks a card. When she looks at it, the card is the Joker of Spades. He shuffles the cards and puts on a little show before pulling a card from the deck. He reveals the Queen of Hearts and she giggles softly before taking the card and ripping it in half, throwing it behind her. He just shakes his head with a smirk and puts the cards away before leaning back in the bench. Sandra leans back also and closes her eyes. They relax quietly and ponder the universe in their own way. Darian slips a finger to try and lift the skirt, but she gives his hand a soft slap and peeks an eye open at him. He preens with innocence and she rolls her eyes before a series of heavy boots approach.

Bernie stands with two republic soldiers with a speeder down the street near by. Bernie sighs sadly and looks to Darian.

“…Darian.”

“Boss? Why are you with an escort?”

“They aren’t my escort, son. They’re yours…” Bernie says softly

“What do you mean, boss? What… do you mean?”

“I’m sorry, son. You lost the game…”

“No…. N-No… Hey, Bernie listen.”

Bernie looks down as the two come to take him and he struggles against them a moment before falling to his knees and grabbing Bernie’s shirt on the sides.

“NO! They can’t! I was just trying to help! We got the bad guys! WE GOT THE BAD GUYS!”

He shakes Bernie a bit.

“We got them, boss! Markus was saved too! Boss! BOSS!!!”

The guards pick him up by his arms and he kicks and cries heavily

“They’ll lock me away forever! Please! BERNIE! BEERRRNIEE!!!”

Sandra stands up and Bernie looks to Sandra

“SIT DOWN.”

She pauses and sits, her hands shaking nervously. She knew what happened to spies that failed. They were either executed, killed, or locked away in a black site for the rest of their lives.

“Someone RATTED ME OUT! We were cool! BERNIE! BERNIE!!! I was ratted out!!! NOOO!!!”

He gets dragged off and after a moment, Sandra gets up and runs to Darian. He escapes a hand from the soldier and grabs her arm, holding on for dear life.

“Sandra! HELP! I was cheated! I’m gonna get burned! PLEASE! SANDRA!!! Someone talked! We were clean! Sandra! We didn’t kill anyone! No! NOOOO!”

“D-Darian! I…I can’t do anything! Why?”

“Sandra! Please! I’ll never see you again! PLEASE!!! You know what they’ll do! NOO! BERNIE! ANYONE! HEEEELLLP! SANDRA! BERNIE! AAAHHHHHH!!!”

“Darian! Darian…”

Sandra experiences the onset of a panic attack as her chest tightens. She grips his hand and the soldiers rip them apart. He’s taken kicking and screaming into the vehicle where the door closes. Sandra runs to the side of the speeder where he’s banging against the window, crying in utter fear. She could feel it even if she couldn’t hear his words. She could taste it… every ounce of his distraught and pain. It ripped her in half.

The speeder takes off and she falls to her legs. The cold of the cement floor was a reminder of the cold nature of being a Spy. The cost of failure was high for them, but they were needed. All she could do is watch the speeder fly away and slowly shrink into the sunset.

Bernie comes to crouch near her and sighs sadly. Sandra looks to Bernie for whatever plan he might have, whatever words he could say, whatever answers he could have for this. He only looks to where the ship vanished in the sky and shakes his head. Sandra takes a moment as she struggles breathing, her legs shaking intensely, palms sweaty, and the sensation on her arm where he scratched her…trying to hold on for dear life. It takes a few minutes to recover from this as Bernie puts a hand on her shoulder. She buckles over and lays her forehead on the cool cement…

=================================

Sandra makes her way to the hotel room she was staying at.
She throws her bag on the bed and slowly and heavily kicks her shoes off.
Her cute ponytail is let down and the band is just dropped on the floor.
She steps into the refresher and turns on the shower…clothes still on.

The cold water pours on her body as she leans forward, her forehead against the wall under the shower head. Her legs shake gently as she stands.

She stands there…
water running…
droplets pounding on the floor…
rivers of water rushing off her skirt folds…
and for once in a few weeks, everything was silent.*

When you’re a spy…. When you’re… a…

Sandra reaches over and turns the lights off…

[MissMora]

A few days after the restoration of the Republic Base on Viscara

---

Mood Music: Parasite Eve - Memories

Sandra returns to her ship after trying to find Callista. She encounters several people in the Community Center and finds subtle amusement in watching Corbin and Ira going on about nonsense. Seeing the blonde lass of a medic was fair as well. A lot of new Jedi Hopefuls were not a terrible thing, all in all. The opportunity for the Jedi to keep some numbers after hundreds of losses across the galaxy was a good thing. It was unfortunate that Callista was rather busy. She desperately wanted to speak with Callista and sought her affection. Even wearing something fairly teasing in hopes to attract her. It was a familiar scene and one she understood quite definitely. She was reminded of herself in the busy times where Mart sought her affection.

It was then that she ended up leaving and returning to her ship. The scarf of her previous master was wrapped around the seat she chose to sit on the ship. She covers her face with her hands while trying to cope with the distractions and pain on her mind. It was hard to describe the weight of the loss of people you find a security in them just existing by your side. What can a person really say or do about the vanishing of those who have offered their heart to you in many ways.

She recalled the vid that Jacen left for her in his apartment and she watched it a few times. It was as casual as he usually was and a bit more serious in other ways. His confession was rather clear on it though and was a reminder of how one didn’t need to be a Jedi to be someone who could fight for what they believed in. And then there was Rai who really felt like she needed to be a Jedi to make a real difference outside the medical field. It didn’t really matter now though. She realized how much the last line of the Jedi Code was really difficult for her. She’d lost her first master to war when she was only 14 or so.

Thoughts came back to Callista again, who had managed to push through watching Sandra fall apart, the deaths, and then having the resolve to press on to fight in the mission just a few hours later. She realized then that Callista was really a better Jedi than she herself was. In a vital moment, Sandra had failed and fell apart, while Callista fought on with her students. For all the genius, for all the skills, for all the years of Jedi study… she didn’t really feel like someone who was as grand as others noted her to be. If anything now… she felt small. The feeling of being a Padawan again in some sense.

It’s then that Sandra receives a call…

“Mana! It’s Bernie. Where are you now?”

“I’m just…on my ship.”

“You don’t sound so good still. Listen, i’m sorry for your losses and future ones. We don’t play a very fun game and it’s not one i’ll blame you for stepping away from. It’s why I threw so much at you so you can decide what you want to do with your life. You’re young and popular, despite your isolationist living methodology. But for now, the galaxy needs you. I need you.”

Sandra lays her head on her arms and asks through them…

“…What do you require of me?”

“I need the super spy. Sith and Republic forces are in epic negotiations on Mon Gazza on the Tatooine space lane. It’s a BlackPort where Spice is gathered, drug dealers a plenty, illegal Pod Racing, and other glamorous illegal activities exist. I need you to negotiate and sabotage the deal on Mon Gazza. The Gazzans have some fat cannons pointed at our and their ships in space, the the winner of the negotiation gets to live. Let’s make it our side.”

“I… I can’t say i’m feeling very confident right now. My focus is all off and over the place. I don’t know what to do…”

“When you’re a spy, making connections with people is really hard. Not only because of our trust issues, but because of the nature of our work making us vulnerable to the possibilities of enemy invasion to our lives or taking our loved ones against us. My advice is to keep that up for now. Keep that distance and focus on what you need to get through the missions. We need you, girly.”

“…I understand. When do you want to meet for the brief?”

“Let’s meet tomorrow. Get some rest. Shoot something. Have a drink. Do whatever you need to relax and then let’s talk. Expect to be off and on the planet for a few days. You’re on this job alone, so do your solo thing and be careful. The Sith negotiator is likely going to sabotage you as much as you’ll try them. I don’t know who their negotiator is yet though, so you’ll have to find that out.”

“Understood. I’ll see you soon, Bernie. And ah…thank you.”

“No problem, Red.”

Sandra gives a shaky sigh after…

=======================================

In the next Two Days, Sandra spends most of her time alone, meditating and gathering herself while the galaxy spins on. At the noted time, she meets with Bernie and then a day later she’s ready to head to Mon Gazza. There’s a weight in her feelings as she looks on the Dossier. This planet felt like Nar Shaddaa in it’s own way, just the vices were slightly different. This job didn’t seem like any thing she hadn’t done before, but such thinking usually lead to self destruction, so she decides to let the notions of her past jobs go and focus on this one as if it was her first. There was a lot riding on this task and letting the Sith have access to the clever illegal routes that these fellows had under their belts would twist things against them in various sectors.

[MissMora]

Getting to Mon Gazza was simple enough. With her access codes from Bernie, she was allowed to land at one of the designated ports. Mon Gazza, a Black Port and proverbial hive of scum and villainy. It was one of the homes to Pod Racing and even spice mining. Dozens of pirate clans and organizations existed on this planet. It was certainly a colorful planet, but having so many loose organizations and illegal trades made a lot of people want to hold on to that REALLY tightly. They build and created massive orbital and ground cannons that would rip most ships apart a few dozen miles out to space.

They say credits cant buy power, but they can sure buy the most expensive and experimental weapons that the markets have to offer. Credits talk…bullshit walks.

Sandra walks up to a greeter and three guards. She’s wearing a tight black outfit with leg and arm guards along with a utility belt with various good. The red hair kisses the air around her…

“Master Rosha Lesst, welcome to Mon Gazza. We have been expecting you. We are to hold our first negotiation meeting in a few hours. We’ve been asked to show you around our beautiful city and enjoy a bit of Pod Racing before the meeting. How does this appeal to you, Master Rosha?”

“…That shall be quite pleasant. I’ve spent hours on my ship and it lacks of entertainment.”

“Good, GOOD! Come, come! Let us enjoy!”

And so they take Sandra to have a fly by look at various buildings, attractions, and other key highlights that the city is known for. Despite being a city run by mobs, pirates, and some key prate councils, it was actually lovely.

“This place is beautiful for a place known for illegal activity. How do you keep it all together? Is there no large civil wars or other things that might destroy all this?”

“THAT is a good question, Master Rosha! This city is run by an organization of Pirate Lords who work together to create a place where anyone can escape oppression of external governments! And with their riches, they built one of the most insane defense systems in this sector. No one is getting by us without some recognition and palm greasing.”

“Brilliant. I can certainly say that the Republic needs strong and understanding allies like yourselves. Not just to butter you up, of course, but power should recognize other powers.”

“Aaaaaaahhhhh, you’re so sweet. Keep talkin! Ha!”

==========================================

The ride to the Pod Racing track was not so glorious in itself, but the was a certain character about it. Drivers of various ages were working on their dual engine machines. The morning sun was coming up and it slowly highlighted the vast expanse of the arena. She couldn’t help but admire the persistence of these people and the engineering that went into these volatile engines.

Her tour guide leads her down to meet some of the pit crew, which she her self was curious to actually see. She and some of the crew exchange a bit of banter about the technicals of the Pod Racing machines. It was quite the fascination, but it’s then that a particular fellow walks on by. Wearing a racing jump suit, the fellow with prematurely grey and slights of black hair, dazzling hazel eyes, confident air, and such a handsome face, walks on by making slow time pausing eye contact with Sandra.

The commanding fellow goes over to his Pod Racer and puts his helm down before walking over to Sandra. The attendants back down and swallow air nervously, but she stands there keeping her eye contact. A finger goes to her hair to wrap around with a slight head tilt and he comes but three inches from her. A hand raises to take the hair around her finger and he lets it flow like soft lava in his hands, letting the hair down gently with a cheek cress. Sandra smirks a slight and straightens her head now. He speaks with a smooth deep voice now…

“They say perfection can’t exist.”

Sandra smiles softly and he just shakes his head before taking a hand gently. He presses his lips to the top and her face gains some blush.

“Front row seats are yours. Wish me luck.”

He lets her hand go and he goes to his pod. The entourage guides her to the front seats for the particular visitors. Sandra looks down at the racer line up and after crossing her legs, gives an elegant wave towards the curious man. He gives a slow nod in turn and looks forward.

The cold approach is something you try to avoid in intelligence work. You wanna ease into a relationship over time. When that’s impossible, you just have to turn on the charm and hope for the best.

The various engines load up and pilots get their goggles, and various other self preparations before an announcer walks on to the small stage near the racers. But Sandra generally ignores this, instead now she looks to the Sith Entourage. Two Mon Gazza guards leave the person alone and Sandra gives a fingery wave to the person. The person’s hood does a double take and then is pulled down quickly. Neph winces and Sandra smirks a bit.

“You SCHUTTA! What are YOU doing here?! Where is that Donner negotiation fellow? HE was suppose to be here!”

“…Guess he called out sick.”

“Don’t play me, scum!”

“To winner goes the spoils, no?”

Neph slams her fist into a near by chair and crushes it completely before they look back to the Pod Racing…

[MissMora]

The Pods rip by the track several times as sometimes, one or two dont return. On the large screens around the seats, they can see various crashes, explosions, and various other obstacles to trip up the Pods or racers. Sandra can’t help but feel some measure of excitement at this grotesque game. Yet, there she was hoping for the success of the mysterious fellow.

After the last lap, there is a neck and neck riders coming to the finish line. The mysterious fellow ends up in second place. The audience rises and cheers in a frenzy at the intense race and are totally satisfied with what they see. Sandra gives quiet claps as the vehicles comes to their resting stations. The 1st and 2nd place shake hands before the large platinum trophy is given to the winner. The grey fellow comes back over to the pit stop and takes off his helm. Sandra takes the initiative to get up and make her way down to the pit. Neph groans heavily and gets up a moment after and decides to follow.

Sandra stands a few meters from the fellow and he walks over, brushing a hand through his hair, making immediate eye contact with the redhead. Sandra smiles slight and gently as he approaches. He stands a few inches from her again and offers his hand. She offers her own elegantly and quietly for him to kiss again. With a blush she takes her hand back and perks her shoulder sweetly.

*It’s nice to have a beautiful woman waiting for you at the end of the line. I hope i’ll have the same treatment in the after life. For now though, this is perfect. And who is this lass?"

He looks to Neph, who’s standing cocky like with a hand on her hip

“The name’s Nephthyra, Sith Lord and your negotiator for today. So, when do we start? I’m ready to go.”

“What’s the rush? Are you in a hurry? If so, perhaps you should leave now.”

Neph winces at that slightly and gathers herself.

“No no, there is no rush, hehe, take your time! Where would you like to meeeet?”

“Let’s meet in 30 minutes at the capitol building. The new one, not the old one.”

“Good! So, are we traveling together?” Neph chirps

“Naw. I’ll take this lovely lady and meet you there.”

“Wait, you’re going with the other negotiator and not me?”

He looks to Sandra and she smiles gently.
He gives a hardy chuckle and looks on Sandra for a quiet moment before he considers.

“Seems i’m a step behind. In all fairness, I will meet you both at the Capitol. Though it pains me to leave a lady to these cretins.”

He looks to the entourages and smirks at them. They preen proudly and pat their chests in a makeshift salute. He gives the ladies a fair bow and gets into a limo that pulls up. It takes off and Neph stomps the ground, looking to Sandra

“Why not just show him your big FAT tits, geez!”

“Do you think he’d like them?” She perks her nose cutely and holds up her breast

“You’re something else. Let’s hurry up so we can get this crap over with. I have planets to burn, people to kill, Sandras to stab through the heart. Time is credits and credits is honey.”

========================================

The pair land near an old capitol building that looks it was made a Galactica ago. It holds old pilasters, a judicial dome, Columns, and everything. It’s closed off and doesn’t look to be in the greatest condition, but it seemed like they kept the lights on for posterity rather than functionality. Perhaps this was a way to honor their beginnings. It was hard to tell without more experience with their history. The walk otherwise to the modern capitol building. It stands in a series of linked glass formations that resembled a series of overlaying and underlaying rectangles. Such a piece of art was this building and as they entered the massive structure, they looked around with some awe. Neph and Sandra make eye contact for a moment before resuming to look around the long series of cross sections holding up the interior structure.

They take an elevator up with the entourage to the top section of the building where they are met by guards wearing Beskar gauntlets. It was an odd thing to be wearing and how they got it was another story, but figuring that out wasn’t her goal. At the end of a short hall was a set of double doors that opened to one of the office rooms.

Sandra and Neph quietly sit on the black couch and await their host. Neph taps a foot on the ground impatiently and Sandra sits with her hands folded properly in her lap. Her own mind worked hard to keep the distractions of the last weeks to a minimum, but she couldn’t help but consider some of the things.

It’s then that their host comes out of the back room, well dressed in a light blazer and a semi professional attire, fits this modernized room. He comes over and sits on the desk infront of the monitor, giving the women a generous smile.

“Welcome to Mon Gazza, representatives. I am Baron Garison West. I guess you could call me the Pirate King around here if you like all the dramatics about it. I leave the day to day to a council, but despite this small oasis of a city wonder, we’re not big enough to handle two factions. So, we’re here to make a deal with the Republic or Sith. One becomes our lane guardians, letting my ships pass for the next 15 years without hassle and the other becomes fodder for some legendary pirates and all that. We put 20 years into making the terrain and weather altering sections for this city on this nearly barren planet. This location was once the capital before it moved to a larger mining town for the sheer amount of credits it made. So we built upon the remains of the old capital as a testament to the spirit of survivors. To the spirit of those who want to be free from the oppression of governmental statuses. We take care of our own here and make it how we can. That’s a bit of history for you. Sorry if it was uninteresting.”

“I can’t say I know much 'bout history stuff, buuuut that’s a decent story. Pulling yourself up by the proverbial boot strap. This already sounds like a Sith planet. Strong, Independent, and capable of great things. That’s what we believe in and what we want for the galaxy! You need us to help keep Order and to sustain. You all might be pirates with a lot of power, but you can’t really end up opposing a galactic government. So let’s be partners!”

Neph crosses her legs confidently and leans back on the sofa, her arms stretched across the top of it. Sandra looks at Garison and in her silence, he makes eye contact with her. She takes out a datapad, walks in-front of him, and hands it to him. He raises a brow as she continues to play her silent mysterious stranger act. He reads the message designed by Bernie and various High Republic Officials.
He chuckles and looks back up at Sandra. She stands quietly and looks upon him. He sets the datapad aside and gives her a look from bottom, slowly rising to her eyes. Garison reaches over, runs a hand along her slender hip down to her waist…ending at her lightsaber. Garison draws it from its holster gently as she watches and waits quietly. He looks it over and then makes eye contact again. He returns the lightsaber gently to its holster. Perhaps this was a test of trust, or perhaps he was just curious, or maybe he was testing her boundaries.

“Would you answer me if I asked you a question?” he asks gently

“The schutta can answer you. She’s playing the coy snark.”

“Is that so?” He asks Sandra, looking up at her.

Sandra smiles gently and runs a hand through her hair slowly.
Garison chuckles and shakes his head before putting a finger on her stomach and giving her a gentle push and she takes the hint to back into her seat on the sofa. He looks on the pair, runs a hand in his hair and motions them to the little bar behind them. They get up and take their seats at the bar. He pours them fine crystal wine from a new bottle.

“I’m going to talk with one of my partners and we’ll let you sit here for a moment. So behave while i’m gone, ladies. Enjoy the wine.”

Garison calls someone on his datapad and the person he plans to talk to enters the room, walking past the two women and heads off to the back office to speak with Garison.

======================

Meanwhile, in the meeting room:

“Captain Garison, are we going to make a decision right now?”

“No. That’s not how we work. Let’s give them a false answer and see how they react. We’ll learn as much about them in that more so than we would picking a ‘winner’ straight out. I’ll decide after that. Go and tell them that i’m joining the Republic. While i’m thinking about following the Sith, I think some research is needed. Go on and tell them, Dyork.”

“Yes, sir. I will return their reaction.”

[MissMora]

Dyork comes out and gives a kind bow to the women. They get off of their seats and look to the fellow with some anticipation. He elegantly moves his hand during conversation…

“Good day, I will deliver the final decision on Garison’s behalf. After some moment of deliberation, he has decided to follow the Republic. Questions and Comments?”

“WHAT? The republic? They are soft and squishy? Like crappy oatmeal! Are you sure? Can we get back in the room and talk again? The Sith LITERALLY have a lot of ships they can use to cover this space and we’d even throw in some extras like droids. LOTS OF DROIDS.”

“Thank you for your generous offer. We will consider this in our treaty revision in 2 years.”

“T-Two years? Come on, pal, just give us a chance to prove ourselves! We can even begin with demonstrating how we can gut the Republic ship in space! Just a little?”

He looks to the Republic representative.
“What say you to this exchange, ma’am?”

Sandra gives a gentle bow and a soft smile. He too can’t help but smile a bit in turn and bows his head in response. It’s at this moment Neph looks between the pair and her anger picks up at the thought of losing to Sandra, of all people. Neph picks up Dyork by the throat and throws him at Sandra. His body pauses in the air by her side and is set down gently. Garison comes out and slowly claps, looking to the pair as he walks his way to the front of the room.

“So this is how the Sith treat their negotiators and treat rejection? To be honest, I was considering joining up with you, but now, if that’s how you treat your potential partners, then I guess that has to be a hard ‘no’ for me.”

“WHAT?! You played me? You WERE going to join us? Guaaaah! Why can’t people just say what they think! Why do this?” Neph argues

“Because seeing how people deal with rejection or disagreement shows far more than just simply being straight. You tried to hurt my partner AND the other negotiator. I can’t say we’ll be making a deal.”

The monitor turns on at his side and displays a Republic Capital ship and a Sith Capital ship in space. Several shots from the planet fire up to gut portions of the Sith ship without warning. Neph’s shoulders drop and she fumes. She takes out her Red lightsaber and her gaze turns to the group slowly.

“I think i’m going to kill you now, so I ho—”

The monitor flies over to crack and slap Neph over behind the bar.
With that note, the three run out of the room and begin down the hall.
Garison gets on his comms and calls in.

"This is Alpha! Got one of them angry Sith Ladies in the office, so clear the building with the secret elevators. The three get to the front of the building and a small ship comes to pick them up real fast. Dyork hops on and as Garison goes to hop on, Sandra starts to walk away. He hops down and takes her hand gently.*

“You’re going to fight her, aren’t you?”

Sandra nods gently and frowns a slight.

“I don’t even know your name and you’re willing to die for us. Would you at least tell me your name?”

She considers and leans in close to whisper in his ear.
“…Sandra.”

He nods gently and puts a hand on her cheek, studying her face and sweet voice as if it might be the last time they met.

“Give her some trouble. Use the old capitol building. Power up code is 23104E. Look me up if you survive. I’ll be around, alright?”

She smiles gently and lets her hand fall from his before dashing off to the old capitol building. Neph slices out of a window from the new building and screams out loud. The ship takes off and Neph sees it dart away before she can do anything. Neph slices a near by tree and goes to chase Sandra to the old capitol building.

============================================

BOSS BATTLE: Grandia 2 - Purification of Darkness

Inside, the power of the building seems to be on. Neph looks around and shouts out…

“I can sense your fear! All those muddled emotions that you have hidden! Did they tell you it was my master that killed your little friend? Stabbed her twice through her body AND then poked her a few times? The little wretch thought that some explosions would kill Valerius? She was clearly an idiot, hahahaha!”

Neph hears some patters on the third floor and looks. Narrowing her eyes, she casts Lightning at some of the railings, blowing them out and scattering white dust all over.

“You know, she was only the first! What about your other little Jedi buddies, hmmmm? Let’s talk about them! Corbin? Iskellia? Callista? Oh… what’s that I sense? Is it her? Is she your bosom buddy? Heh…hehe… What if I go find her and put that pretty smile on a plank of mahogany for you? I think that would sound DELICIOUS!”

At this point, several stone objects fly towards Neph and she evades them with a sideways flip through the air.

“FOUND YOU, SCHUTTA!”

Neph hops up to the 3rd floor and Sandra engages with a rapid series of strikes. Neph returns with parrys and counter strikes. Their blades collide and the walls and side rails of stone get slices on occasion. Sandra does a back flip into a doorway and Neph charges

“Backflip into a room. You’re so extr–AA!”

Neph trips on a thin wire and Sandra force pushes her through a stone rail down to the first floor. Neph groans and laughs before getting up with a forward legs kick. Neph hops back to the 3rd floor and kicks through the wire Sandra left. She walks through the hall of offices slowly… her saber turning to light the low lit room. A red glare shines on everything… the thick blinds defend the room from most of the day’s rays. Several of the tables in the room lift to strike at her, but she slices them in half and runs through the rapidly moving desks. They slam and explode and lash across the room as Neph runs by. With a dodge roll, she lands in the next area.

This next room is much older and even the floors are in disrepair. It’s possible to see two floors down to some sort of chapel under. Neph swallows some air and takes some steps that make the wood creek with absolute rage. Sandra decloaks behind Neph and throws her through a window. Neph grabs an edge before falling and hangs there a moment, glass splintered into her skin. She grows and pulls herself up quickly. She turns on her saber to engage with Sandra over the wooden creaking blanks.

“I can feel your troubled mind! Your moves are clouded by even more distractions than I have. Look at yourself. LOOK! You aren’t even totally mentally recovered AND thinking about everything on your dirty plate. How can you POSSIBLY defeat me, haha!”

They both use the force at the same time, and Sandra gets overwhelmed by Neph’s less distracted mind. Sandra is thrown against several walls and then is slammed through the ground, falling down to the chapel’s wooden bench on the first floor, practically exploding it as her body falls through it. Sandra coughs blood and everything is spinning. She drops a flash bomb as Neph hops down and with the flash, Neph flinches and squeaks in annoyance. Neph comes to the broken bench and kicks some of the wood aside.

“Did you know, Sandra? Did you know I was the one who killed Artemis? I came to that Black site with Valerius and it was ME, Sandra. Do you want to know her last words? It was pretty pathetic, hehehe! She said that you’d kill me! Isn’t that a JOKE! YOU? Little miss poppet, local sweetheart, the BITCH people drool over? Oooooh you should have seen it. It was then she was on her knees with that sickening smirk and with that disgusting smile, her head rolled on the floor! HAHAHAHA!”

Sandra’s head hangs and her fists ball up tightly. With great strain, she lets her comments go and continues to work on trying to defeat Neph. But there’s nothing she can do as her own feelings betray her again. Neph cuts the column that she’s hiding behind in half and sandra engages again in blade to blade combat. Sandra’s Makashi is pushed back by the sheer aggression of Neph’s Ataru and eventually it breaks, the saber slashing her arm and with a scream, Sandra hops back only to be Force Lightning’d down the hall more, rolling end over end. Sandra rolls on the floor, her body aching and screaming at her to get up.

Neph raises the two sabers to bring down on Sandra, but with a sweeping kick and a hand of Force Lightning from Sandra releasing, Neph flies through a column. Sandra crawls quickly, leaving a trail of blood on the ground. Many thoughts roll through Sandra’s mind as she tries to reach the main corridor. Then there’s a laugh behind her and Neph’s voice rings out through the large hall.

*I can practically FEEL your unfocused mind! You’re going to DIE, Sandra. No more rivalry, no more pally pals with your JEDI buddies, and with you broken, i’ll show Corbin that the Jedi way is fake and weak! And when I present your insides to my Master, he’ll be avenged for Artemis and your pathetic attempts at being a Jedi. EVERYTHING IS PERFECT!"

There’s not much she can do except crawl behind a corner and lay her back against the pillaster. She holds her side and pulls a fragment of glass out, trying to heal a bit before Neph finds her. Her own heart races as she looks around for a point of escape…

“Where are you little redhead?”

Sandra was desperate now. With only a few moves left to make, now was the only time to do it. Now was the time to pull every survival trick out of every book to get away from Neph. She was far more focused and wanting than Sandra was right now. Her own mind was still unfocused and spinning from the last few days. She’ll die now if there’s no consideration for that.

When a trained team is advancing on your position, sneaking away is usually impossible. Your best bet is to give them something else to worry about. Even in the case of a Sith, they can’t ignore a larger threat to their own lives. They’re kind of selfish that way.

Sandra takes some grenades and sets them on the ground under a wooden bench. She then suddenly increases her Force Pressure, like setting off a Jedi’s radar to find a force sensitive, then she shuts it off and suppresses it as much as possible before starting to crawl towards Neph, parallel to her on the outer wall as Neph comes down the center walk way. As Sandra crawls as quickly as possible, the grenades go off a few feet from Neph and is thrown through several wooden benches. Sandra is thrown a bit forward by the force of the grenades and rolls into a wall on her side. A squeak of pain slips from her voice and she holds her side, standing up and limps away to the next room.

The room is akin to a press office. Several monitors line the room and a presentation desk stands in the center before some chairs. She throws several of these chairs against the door she just entered and keeps on moving through to the back stage with a lot of electronics still around. They look older and looks in particular at a microwave. Sandra can hear the screams of Neph back in the chapel room.

Microwaves are one of the most dangerous appliances in the home to repair or modify, but in a pinch, you can use their extremely high voltage to your advantage. Remove a microwave’s surge inhibitor, mix in some reactive household cleaning supplies and pressurized cans and a fistful of silverware, make sure the door is sealed tight and to save time, just press “Popcorn”. Do it right and you have the making of a very big explosion. A make shift bomb.

Sandra finishes messing with the microwave and shoves some of the metal parts pulled from nearby objects into the mechanism. She pulls a roll of tape and wraps the microwave door as closed as possible. There’s a banging against the door with the chairs and in a moment, they are all blown out by a massive force push. Sandra hits the heating button and limps off to the window where she throws herself out of. Some shards of glass cut her and she wimpers slightly before ducking behind a thicker tree. Neph throws aside various things in an intimidation tactic as she senses Sandra near by and before she can even open the back stage curtain, there’s another explosion. Sandra’s ears ring at the massive metalic ping and she gets dizzy for a few seconds before limping through the brush onto a street with several speeders parked and zipping by.

Some blood escapes her mouth with a cough. Her vision is blurry and heavily relying on the Force at this point to guide her. It paints her as a beacon, but without it she might have fainted already. Regardless, she walks over to a parked speeder and rips open the door, sitting inside and working to hotwire the speeder with a shakey head. Clearly taking longer than practiced or the usual. At the edge of her mind, she could almost taste Neph’s absolute rage and this was rather encouraging to speed up.

Neph’s rage grows and moves closer, but she gets the speeder going now and inserts a cracked datapad into the terminal, loading the auto nav to her pick up point. The speeder lifts and takes off and in the background is a scream of utter rage. Sandra pulls the crumpled door as ‘closed’ as she can and buckles up before passing out…

===============================================

Sandra awakens to Garison carrying her to her own ship where he takes her to the command panel to type in her codes to get the ship running.

“Come on, Sandra. You scared the wretch away, just turn the ship on so I can save you!”

With a dizzying sight and pale from blood loss, she barely gets the code in before his second come in to fly the ship and takes Sandra to a bed where he works on her wounds. He cuts fabric as needed and pulls out some advanced medical supplies.

“Damn good thing I was a doctor in another life. We’ll get you to your guy. No problem. I won’t forget what you did for us. Just hang on…”

======================

Sandra blacks out again and…later wakes up to a Master Healer on Mon Cal where she sits up rapidly and looks around. The woman nods and gives her an update before she lays back again. After a moment, the meds kick in and she’s out for a thrid time…