Where No One Can Follow

[Fromikeable]

Vance took a deep, unsteady breath as the Augur Hawk slipped out of hyperspace. To what normally would’ve been his delight, the ship did so without the slightest hint of a rattle or protestation. The new warp coils he installed must have finally broken in. A very slight upgrade from the old ones, which offered just the tiniest of lurches, but a welcome one indeed.

... goddamnit, I don’t care. That had been one of his biggest problems a few months ago. How times had changed.

”Do a quick scan, see if anything’s still got power on there.” One of Vance’s suit-gloved fingers pointed out at the cockpit window. Before them, through a brand new field of spinning and malformed dust and debris, was a tumbling, wrecked hulk of metal. The more key components could still be made out, thankfully including the bridge. But the entire hull looked stripped. Shredded, even. Turbolasers hung by snaking tendrils of metal, one snapping free. Entire chunks of the side were missing. Across the center, Basilisk could just barely be read on worn, ripped, missing plates of armor.

Considering that they hadn’t been able to find the stern, the bow of what used to be the Hutts’ main battleship looked pretty good.

Looking to his copilot, Vance paused for a second. To be flying with a Jedi that wasn’t Locke felt strange, but it was hard to put into words how glad he was that Mooney had been down to join him. They both had their reasons, of course, hers no doubt being gathering information for the Republic. But in truth, it would have been hard making this flight solo. Putting aside the creepiness of the great mystery before them, there was also the small detail that Lidah would no doubt yell at him when she arrived.

She’d told him not to come. He’d done exactly what she’d taught him and decided to be stubborn.

Vance tapped his helmet. ”Even if their life support is still on, we’re gonna’ go with our suits’ air supplies. Lidah mentioned some kind of contaminant.” As the Augur Hawk neared, the signs of its battle became apparent. Holes from what Vance had to guess were missiles differentiated themselves from some other form of damage, the wounds much more circular and targeted. Pulling the ship up to one at a distance, Vance couldn’t help but lean forward over the ship console, getting a good look.

”Force…” Sighing heavily, he sank back into his seat.

”The Hutts got eviscerated.” The rest of the fleet was nowhere to be seen, and their flagship had been pulled apart like wet clay.

[Moonfire]

A hum buzzed through the tips of Moonfire’s fingers, zipping and uncomfortable even as heavy suit gloves clacked along the surface of the instrument panel. We’re going to get in trouble. Her stomach clenched as Vance drew the ship closer to the Basilisk. Lidah had requested they stay behind, citing the risk of contamination too high. A request promptly and silently ignored as the young adults climbed into their own ship, punctuated now by a lump in the Jedi’s throat.

Scans flickered to life as Moonfire struggled to brush off the decidedly childish feeling. How much trouble could they realistically get into with a former Darth? Probably a lot, but let’s not dwell on that.

”Force… The Hutts got eviscerated.” Vance muttered hoarsely as the Augur Hawk shifted closer, preparing to dock. He wasn’t wrong, ragged holes and scorched debris floated in a lazy spread as the flagship’s vitals flickered to life.

“I haven’t seen anything like this since Coruscant.” She replied, blue eyes narrowing over furrowed brow. Tattered wrecks of starships across the city in blackened craters-- This seemed oddly peaceful in juxtaposition, the broken shells of a massacred Hutt fleet drifting somberly. “I’m seeing some life signs, and a few emergency systems still active in the less… obviously destroyed bits. It’s far from a ghost ship at the very least.”

Shaking her head the woman snatched up her helmet, sealing it with a pneumatic hiss to her suit. Turning back to Vance she grinned through the helmet, hands clapping together with a shake before laughing. “Well, let’s get on this extremely dangerous wreck and have Lidah yell at us already.”

[Neology]

[googlefont="News Cycle"]

”Alright MoBiva, send it off. Thanks.” Lidah rubbed an alcohol swab across the inside of her left elbow, a subconscious shiver raising goosebumps on both bare arms. She drew two vials of blood, disliking the bruised, purplish cast observed where her skin was thinnest. The hollows of her face and throat, wrists and hands. Feeding one vial into a diagnostic scanner, Lidah settled the other into a rack with a number of others. Carefully, she pulled up the Wolfsbane armor’s gray bodysleeve, adjusting the fit over her hands until all the sensor pads were perfectly aligned. The Soothesayer’s medbay hummed around her with automated activity. Yarloc’s AI assistant had integrated quite easily with the ship’s systems. Lidah hoped it was getting some use out of the Soothesayer’s extra computing power. As did, she trusted, the rest of this tiny crew. It was the only hope left to them, she feared. That, or to at least die a useful death – a peculiar fatalistic obsession of Lidah’s, perhaps – and emphatically not shared by at least one passenger. The rational part of her mind couldn’t really blame Qiki, but weeks and weeks cooped up with the slicer were wearing on her nerves and patience. Really, who needed that much Space Slug soda?! ”Miss Faine,” MoBiva chirped politely from the overhead speaker. ”I have flagged a trend in your file that I think you’ll be very interested in. ”Alright. Display it on my HUD.” Thumbing up the cowl, Lidah collected the pieces of her armor from their case and locked them on, piece by piece. Telekinesis sped the process considerably, with no other help at hand. Finally, she loaded two ampules into the suit’s autoinjectors: bacta in one and a potent combat stim in the other. Ideally, she wouldn’t have the use the latter. Less-than-legal, the chemical hangover was one of the most miserable physical experiences she’d ever had. Not one for fleet battles, Lidah had never seen a ship in quite the state in which they found the Basilisk. ”Where’s the rest of it?” More pressing, how and where to board in a mess like that? A musical chime played softly from the helmet under her arm, reminding Lidah to pull it on. It had automatically paired to another Wolfsbane suit within range – someone had forgot to reset them after the agristation mission. Lidah keyed her mic, cool and severe as she stared out the front viewport, half searching for the Augur Hawk’s bright orange hull attached like a pilot fish to the immense wreck. ”Vance. What do you think you’re doing here?”

[Fromikeable]

”What do you mean by ‘us’? You’re not the one who lives with her.” Vance returned Moonfire’s grin with a smaller, more nervous laugh of his own. All joking aside, he really wasn’t looking forward to being found out. Lidah had never been the type to really, honestly punish him, but her anger was still a thing to be… avoided. Certainly not something to incur lig-

”Vance. What do you think you’re doing here?” Wincing at the sound of his actual name, he covered the receiver on the inside of his helmet before looking to his partner in crime. ”If she kills me, delete my holonet history before Qiki finds it.” Sliding his helmet on, he let it seal completely before clearing his throat.

”Just trying to find out what can make the Hutt flagship tear apart like the galaxy’s biggest piece of elastic.” Looking out the cockpit window, he let the HUD in his helmet guide his eyes to the Soothesayer, resisting the urge to wave like an idiot.

”Plus I heard a bunch of seriously ill Force-users were going to expose themselves to even more of a mystery disease. Thought I’d give them a hand in case any more of it, y’know, almost kills them.” There was an argument for him and Moonfire to try as best they could from getting sick, to be sure. But to Vance, the stronger argument was to make sure no one got any sicker. At the moment, that pointed specifically toward the crew of the Soothesayer, which was already a quarantine ship to begin with.

”So yeah.” Swallowing a little harder than he meant to, Vance started bracing himself for an unhappy rebuttal. Before he did, he motioned at Moonfire standing opposite him. ”I also brought Moonfire for back-up.” He pointed at her helmet, indicating that she should turn on her comm.

[Stephen]

Janus had been living in his suit for far too long. He was starting to fear that he would forget that you shouldn't just urinate the second it occurs you. Eventually he would be wearing trousers again, and he occasionally talked to people in person. There was no risk of cross contamination here, but he was loathe to give up his by the minute bio scanning. It was deeply interesting on a moment to moment basis to watch his body simultaneously both fight and integrate the alien infection within. He could feel the changes within the force already unsteady and strong. Where there were going however, they'd have little need of finesse.

He stared through the viewscreen at the wreck ahead. Mo was already plotting the final trajectory based on the left over momentum of the hull. If he pressed his face against the clear observation plate, he could just about see the debris trail from the wreck extended out in both directions. Mo projected twin holographic outlines, the tail end of the ship apparently tore itself free attempting a blind warp jump. The hull ahead of them keyholed end over end, following the blue holographic outlines through the inky black.

Janus drifted over toward the commotion and lurked. “Oh shit, we're baby sitting now?” He interjected. The added complication of trying to keep Vance alive was probably unavoidable, but still frustrating. Probably more so to those who knew him well enough to fear for him. He had met Vance a few times now, but still really didn't have too much of a handle on him. He seemed a steady set of hands at Lidah's call, but little more. This situation drew out the hero in him it seemed.

Janus raised his hand behind Lidah and spoke, “What the fuck is a Moonfire? It sounds like an orbital strike platform.” Vance inviting himself seemed to bring further baggage as well. Still, the ability to scuttle the half craft in case of failure was a useful backup. Maybe Vance could be convinced to stay behind and operate Moonfire from his ship, save them a world of trouble.

[Rugs]

The drop from hyperspace was nearly imperceptible to Io’an. The Sephi sprawled in bed in his room, in a light shirt and some lounge pants, with his head propped on one hand as he as he flipped through the final pages of the book Whispers on the Wind.

He’d lost count of the number of books he’d read since Lidah activated the Soothsayer. After a while, technical manuals and slicing journals grew stale, even for Io’an so he’d expanded his horizons. Whispers on the Wind had been an unexpected choice, rising to memory from his conversation with Lidah back in the Eye.

Now that he worked for the woman — for a former Dark Lady of the Sith, Force it was still hard to believe — Io’an figured it might be prudent to learn what he could of her.

He had expected the book to be a biography or profile, of sorts. And it was... of sorts.

He had not expected some of the more lurid details that’d turned the tips of his pointed ears red as Lidah’s howlunner.

There were, admittedly, some fasicanting accounts in the book. But as he turned off his datapad and rolled to sit up, Io’an couldn’t help but wonder at how well this Dr. Rahse Jones Hyul, Jr. knew Ms. Faine.

Really, it was better not to think about it.

Best not to tell Ms. Faine I read it. He felt his cheeks warming again.

A glance out the viewport in his wall showed the inky black of space, so Io’an busied himself with getting dressed for the job ahead.

---

Io’an wondered how far away he was from dying as he wandered through the ship. The books had been a distraction from the mysterious disease that ailed him--and the others--aboard the ship. But a hallway provided little distraction for a worried mind, and it was impossible to completely shut out changes in his perception of the Force.

He hated it. It hadn’t been so bad today--yet--but when the coughing fits or fever dreams came, it was nearly unbearable.

He knew the way to the gathering area well enough, and even if he didn’t, Lidah’s irritation shined like a floodlight to his over-sensitive perception. He winced internally as he stepped into the room and greeted her.

“Hello Ms. Faine,” he said. He noticed the other man with her and nodded. “Janus.”

“Is... something wrong, Ms. Faine?”

More wrong than chasing after Hutt flagship and, potentially, whatever had chased it off in the first place? He wished he was still in bed.

[Neology]

”Physics, I assume.” Lidah growled back, embracing her anger – if only to keep full, galloping panic at bay a little longer. Vance was supposed to be light years away, managing the Eye in her stead and therefore, by welcome side effect, as safe as she could make him. This error in reality brought a dizzying shift of perspective and felt like cold fingers feathering down her ribs, constricting her breath for a too-long moment. What if we both die? What if it’s worse than that? She remembered Reynard DeVoss, the roiling agony sheeting off of him in waves. Mind scrambled by the fever and the torture and something else, at the last … Now, that was a fate to run and scream from. Better to die quick – in the undertaking of some properly heroic task, if it could be at all managed. Lidah breathed out at last, venturing a single humorless chuckle. There were worse intrusive thoughts to dwell on, piling up. What would any of the above do to Locke, who was even now running down some other piece of this for the Republic? She closed her eyes, perceiving through bruised lids the angry blinking lights of MoBiva’s HUD alert. ”Those are weak arguments, Vee, and you know it.” She could not imagine that the twisted wasteland before them had been the intended result of the Basilisk’s flight, from anyone’s point of view. Except … Unrelated mechanical sabotage did trail a faint and distant possibility, the Black Sun and recent events in mind. But the risk of a second exposure, when already infected, was obviously bullshit. Yarloc’s arrival on the bridge was better temporary defense than anything Vance could have said. Lidah glared invisibly at the Corellian gray Jedi through her visor, lapsing momentarily into a strained silence. Her posture hunched guilty as Io’an joined them. Janus had got himself into this predicament, but things were a little more ambiguous concerning her pair of slicers. Probably it was their youth, she decided. Twenty-three, disgusting really, though the young Sephi looked older than that just now. ”No. Just gonna be more of us than planned, I guess. That girl better understand what she’s risking, Vance, or … I don’t even know, I’ll figure out something later and you wont like it. Now, take the Augur and find us a point of ingress.” Lidah waved her hand, frustrated, unwilling to drag this out further with an audience. The abortive gesture was suddenly altered, beckoning Io’an to follow her. ”Come on. If you’re boarding with us, you need something heavier than that hold-out pistol I’ve seen you use.” Contemplating the Soothesayer’s armory cheered her slightly. It was well stocked, of course, owing to the same doomsday philosophy that justified the yacht’s other systems and amenities. Inventory ranged from miniaturized spy gear to the hilariously over sized and destructive, the latter mostly requiring powered space armor to properly wield. ”Whatever you want, please help yourself. Though, standard boilerplate warning, most of it is extremely illegal to carry outside Hutt space.”

[Rugs]

“No. Just gonna be a few more of us than I planned.”

“Ah,” Io’an said, wiping his brow. A sudden rush of heat made it feel like he should be sweating, but his hand came away bone dry. The heat and the chills, which seemed to set in at their leisure and were often gone as suddenly as they arrived, weren’t overly high on his favorite-thing-about-being-sick list.

He leaned against the wall beside him, hoping to casually disguise a wave of dizziness as a simple posture change. He’d zoned out for a moment, but a name from Lidah’s lips lingered in his illness-blurred mind.

Vance. Io’an’s eyes narrowed slightly as a cog turned in his mind. Who is Vance?

Lidah began to leave, beckoning for him to follow. Io’an did so, silently thoughtful that the dizziness had passed. But he hesitated a step. His senses, already potent enough on their own, had sharpened to something beyond a razor’s edge ever since he fell ill. He stretched out for a moment, beyond the Soothesayer’s armored hull to the other ship drifting toward the field of silent wreckage.

A familiar presence. Thel? And another, less familiar but not completely unknown. The one from the Auction, if memory served — the girl that had been one of the sources of conflict between Thel and that insufferable Zeltron, Zexva.

”That girl better know what she’s risking Vance...” Lidah had said.

Io’an drew his senses in and tucked his suit’s helmet under his arm. He hurried after Lidah, a fresh set of questions burning in his mind. Secondary matters now, compared to the task that lay before them. Besides, the offer of a new weapon drew his attention squarely back to his immediate surroundings as he followed Lidah, using a hand to stifle a cough.

The Soothesayer’s armor was impressive, to say the very least. “Woah...” Io’an breathed quietly as he took in the staggering array of weapons and equipment before him. Weapons, from smaller than his hold-out blaster to a stunningly-excessive blaster cannon/missile launcher combination that he shuddered to think of a use for, were arranged neatly in the armor.

For a few fluttering moments, Io’an felt like a child in a toy store as he hurried to inspect the racks. “Avi would love this stuff,” he muttered. He quickly honed in on a rack of pistols, where he found several disruptors.

Lidah’s warning rang especially true in his mind. They were potent weapons. He’d read about them, growing up--about how they could tear a living being apart atom by atom. Even the Sith Empire banned their use.

Io’an’s eager smile turned grim as he picked up a pistol and held it out, testing its weight. Heavier than his normal blaster, but not much out of line with others he’d used in the past. “I never thought I’d see one of these in person,” he said, quietly to Lidah, “let alone use one. But I never thought I’d be boarding a ship like this either.” He holstered the blaster and turned to Lidah, giving a slight bow. “Thank you, Ms. Faine.”

He grabbed a few extra power packs — disruptors were hungry weapons that tore through ammunition supplies, and stepped back to Lidah, ready to follow her out of the armory. "How have you been holding up?" he asked. "With... the sickness, I mean."

[Moonfire]

Swallowing back a bit of nerves, Moonfire waited a beat, hearing the familiar shift of static from Vance’s comm of Lidah’s reply before flicking her own on. An action only brought on by the man’s tapping insistence. The part of her that would never quite be suited to being a Jedi was perfectly at home letting this conflict between both dazzling mentor and friend remain private. Alas, two decades of training made her stuff the non-confrontational baser nature away. It had little use in this line of work.

”-Na be more of us than planned, I guess. That girl better understand what she’s risking, Vance, or … I don’t even know, I’ll figure out something later and you wont like it. Now, take the Augur and find us a point of ingress.”

Where was that mute button again? Fingers lingered over it, expression sheepish as blue eyes widened before shifting away. Was it more awkward to restart the conversation with introductions or leave Vance hanging out to dry? Swallowing the lump in her throat Moonfire voice cut a professional, but all together light tone.

“Point of ingress inbound shortly.” She started, voice entirely more customer service than intended. A cough quickly covering it up. “And Thel was kind enough to arrange a proper environ-suit for me. See you shortly.”

Flicking the public channel back off she switched a private line with Vance. Letting loose a long sigh she chuckled again, shoulders lifting up with the motion. “Well, she took that better than expected. Do you lose dessert privileges when grounded too, or is it just house arrest?”

--------

Qiki fucking hated this shit. The Soothesayer for all its bits and baubles and tech, glorious incredibly well funded tech, was boring with a capital B. Days melted and stretched together in the weeks post Prahzi, when that melon skull burst apart infecting her with whatever the fuck this was. The news showed much of the same. People everywhere were getting sick. Bodies covered in mold. In junk. A cold, slimey thought that prickled a bit too close to her mortality than needed. Qiki was functionally immortal in her own very sacred opinion, fuck you very much.

You’d think having unlimited freetime would be a blessing for someone as busy as Memento, but a killer cold didn’t do shit to keep the HLS community managed, the credits flowing and basement raves attended. Truly, it impeded such extremely important Qiki business. Not even trying to get back in the realm of holonet gaming helped.

Funnily enough, having your cellular tissue melting in slow-motion really wrecks one’s relaxes. Gets you real tilted. Her Space Slug sponsors would be pissed.

Oh, Voids and Stars. The soda. The soda rations were low. Weeks without a proper resupply meant Lidah was forcing Qiki to eat actual food, real fruits, vegetables and meats. So far from the decidedly beige, orange and fluorescent green diet of choice.

The cheez-triangles had long been depleted. The games were fuckin’ boring. The end was nigh.

Stumbling into the armory-- blanket wrapped about her shoulders, datapad tucked under her arm blaring the little tune of RussanValley-- Qiki glanced about, bleary eyes falling on Io’an and Lidah.

“Yooooo-yooooo, Liiiii-liiiii.” She groaned, raw throat barely allowing her to wheeze.

“Where’s my soda? Is Avi bringin’ my soda?” She whined, pulling the blankets tighter about her nightgowned form. “I can’t post more rumors unless I’ve got my ‘dew.”

[Fromikeable]

Vance's posture changed the moment Lidah began to respond. His shoulders tensed further, squeezing up and in on his own neck as if a viper was biting for it. His knees bent a little further, gripping at his chair for extra support. It became a bit harder to swallow, making the effort to do so a little louder than he would've liked. But most of all, his mouth flattened out into a line while his brown knit, the expression somewhere between frustration and regret.

Of course they're weak arguments. It was taking most of what Vance had to restrain himself from yelling the real argument for his presence over the comm. For one thing, it was entirely based in emotion, which made it an instant loser for any sort of debate, heated or otherwise. For another thing, it was sentimental, attached, and nonsensical. Neither he nor Lidah were Jedi, but in the underworld, those sorts of sources for rationale tended not to work out very well.

He just didn't want her dying, Forcedamnit. Especially not here.

Hearing her rant cut to an early end by company, Vance only responded to his scolding and new instructions with a quiet "Yesmaim" before flicking his comm back to its private channel. Dead silent as he began to throttle up the Augur Hawk, he gave Mooney a half-hearted smile as she tried her best to make light of things. He supposed he was getting off relatively light, really. But then again, that promise that Lidah would "figure out something later" was one he would bet on.

That woman was many things, but forgetful? Not even slightly.

"Oh no, it's never that unimaginative." Leaning toward the center of the console to flick on the active sensors, Vance hovered the Hawk as it began to scan the exterior of the ship, watching the three-dimensional holographic model construct itself between them. "I don't piss Lidah off too often, but whenever I do, she always makes sure I know why." He huffed a tiny chuckle. The punishments were always fair, if not effective. Never torture so much as teaching, as it were.

Just teaching that made for a fairly miserable few lessons and a few more awkward conversations.

Shaking the promise of later reckoning off, Vance reminded himself to relax as the scan completed. Poking at the assembled hologram, points of entry began to highlight; hangar bays, giant tears in the structure, and so on. Pondering for a minute, Vance pointed at one, a large hole torn in the very tip of the ship's nose. The decks there had been wiped out, providing a very large, very open area with a massive hole out into space. Flicking back to the main channel for a moment, he spoke quickly. "The tip of the bow's gone. Should be enough room for both ships there."

Zooming the Augur Hawk over to the spot, they found it to be exactly as the scan described. Twisted, torn metal opened in an almost ovular shape, the decks within basically missing. Looking at the scattered beds and pieces of fabric left adrift, Vance could only guess that this section of the bow had housed a crew quarters. Maybe for the gunners? He wasn't familiar enough with military design to say, especially Hutt design. In any event, the resulting chamber almost seemed like a giant spoon had scooped out the front tip of the ship's bow, leaving a large floor to land on and a massive portal to enter into.

Setting the Hawk down, Vance powered it down before sealing his suit. Standing, he checked his belt for his holdout blaster, his grapple, his emergency med kit, and his saber. Satisfied, he led Mooney over to the airlock, giving her a final apologetic look.

"Forget about me, though. I'm curious how you're going to word the tip you got for this investigation." Smiling under his helmet, he hit the controls on the airlock, the air sucking away before the ramp lowered. Stepping down, his first look around at the floating debris, noting a sealed door that looked to be powered off in the distance, where the decks' tearing had ceased. Brushing his fingers on his saber, he finished the thought a bit more absentmindedly.

"Though I've wondered that about Locke for a while now."

[Stephen]

Whatever this was, it was going to keep chirping up without his input, so Janus found himself headed to more useful ground. A quick slide over to the cockpit left him in more familiar waters. Their ship wasn't the most agile thing, but it'd be fine for their purposes. If he could land on a rickety landing pad in a crosswind on Nar Shaddaa he could manage this. Mo' began to plot the twist they'd have to take to land on the toppling ship. Another cyan holographic outline appeared on his helmet array, leading to an intersecting point with the other line, constantly updating as Janus failed to take the initial turn. He thumbed the ship comm open and spoke “Alright, we're making our final approach, there's gonna be a bit of a jostle on the landing, so mind your saftey harnesses. It wouldn't do for one of you to don a new sucking chest wound because you didn't manage to stow your new toys from the armory.”

The approach was mostly simple with one massive caveat. Janus eased the ship in to a gentle aileron roll coupled with a turn, putting them on an intercept course. All he had to do was hold this course and he'd land belly to belly on the ship. However the force the two ships would hit at would likely shoot his shinbones out his shoulders from the force of it. He extended the landing gear, his finger on the retro boosters. He spoke one last time over the speakers “Okay, brace for landing.” He fired the retro rockets and it pushed his eyes down into the bottom of his sockets. He felt the shudder of their ship passing through the larger ships shield, followed immediately by the shuddering thud of steel on steel as they landed.

Despite the heavy landing, all lights remained green. Probably worth a check on getting to a proper dock, but it'd do. The mag locks had kicked in and the gravity generators had already reasserted themselves with a sickening lurch. “Alright, we are green to go” Janus said finally before flicking comms off and unbuckling himself and unsteadily staggering down the loading dock. Their impromptu landing pad was almost alien beyond compare. The outer edges of the shield were lined grey with built up dust. They themselves were anchored to an exterior armour plate was ended in fifty some odd feet with a huge upward rent. Twisting brown and grey masses thicker across than janus was peirced the hull and wound through the plating like lacing on a boot. His suit sensors were reading an oxygen level of over 70 percent, being somehow maintained beneath the energy sheild. If Janus were so inclined, he could take off his helmet and enjoy the bitter cold winds whipping past his face as he stood in the inky nothing of space. It was beyond compare. “Fuuuuuuck” he whispered under his breath, but into his suit microphone. “We can, uhhh, probably make entry in any one of these huge battle scars.

[Neology]

Lidah grinned crookedly at Io’an’s wonderment and paced slowly down the aisle of lockers and racks. Browsing without intent – much of this here ran beyond her own taste in sabers and blades – but taking some small pleasure in the orderly collection just the same. ”Yep. I can get death for you wholesale …” She murmured vague agreement, trying not the dwell on the other slicers camped out in the Eye’s basement levels. Hopefully they were better at keeping themselves safely occupied than their convalescent leadership. ”You’re very welcome.” Now, the disrupter pistol was a surprising choice, but happily an appropriate one for this task. After working together several times now, it seemed to her that Io’an had little taste for violence. It was a good sign that no less-than-lethal option tempted him today. She kept that thought to herself, just the same. Strangely, few people took her compliments on pragmatism well. ”Oh.” Lidah considered the question, frowning behind her visor. Had Vance put Io’an up to this? Seeking evidence that she was too sick to go, hmph. He would know if she lied, experiencing much of the same symptoms himself. She set her shoulders, calling up certainty that she did not feel. If they wanted to stop her going, they’d have to bowl her over and sit on her. Lidah trusted no one in this company would quite dare to try that. Yet. She triple checked that her microphone was muted before responding. ”It is tolerable, thus far.” Lidah could tolerate quite a lot, as far as discomfort went, and a well-stocked medbay provided when that tolerance ran out. That didn’t make the blood she’d passed this morning any less frightening, though. The ship groaned in complaint as Yarloc began their approach. Lidah braced herself against a bulkhead, one arm lifted above her head to hold on. “I fear to dwell on it. But we aren’t out of time yet.” They certainly had more time than the unfortunate crew of the Basilisk – and a ship of that size would have had thousands aboard. She hated space battles, but there was some slight, distracting relief to contemplating disasters other than her own. “Yooooo-yooooo, Liiiii-liiiii.” Qiki’s raspy voice filled the space, demands that Lidah felt she had heard several hundred times by now, even if not in fact. ”No. At our current rate of consumption, our supplies will spoil long before we run out.” And we’ll die well before that. Still, while ration bars were a far cry from fine dining, they were nutritionally complete. The same could not be said for Qiki’s diet of choice. The ship jostled again, a bone rattling impact that tripped Lidah to her knees with a clumsy metallic thump. ”What is Yarloc doing to my ship?” Groaning and scrambling up, she spared a backward glance for the two slicers. ”C’mon. And Qiki, watch the ship please?” Jogging, she joined Janus shortly and followed him out. The viewports had not done this foreboding vista justice, she thought. And there was the other ship, Vance and Moonfire disembarking. Lidah stared at them for a long, silent moment. Then she keyed her mic and stepped forward. ”Last chance to see sense and back out. Iris, Thel.” She paused, confused. She’d made a mistake, somewhere … ”You’ll be looking at two weeks of quarantine, even if nothing’s wrong.” An appeal to the other woman’s sense of prudence, of responsibility to the Order. Normally, that was the last thing she’d want that young Jedi focused on. But she'd use it, if it got Vance out of danger. And she knew exactly how hard it was to get that much unmarked time as a Jedi.

[Rugs]

“Tolerable,” Io’an muttered, nodding. That wasn’t wholly inaccurate. For him, the sickness’ worst symptoms came and went in waves. At times, he could feel something approaching normal.

Other times, he just wanted to curl up and die.

But regardless of how his physical body felt, it was growing ever harder to close himself off from the Force, or to keep his senses to himself. Nor could he entirely hide from the voices that whispered in his skull in a quiet moment or came to him when he sought the refuge of sleep.

It was disconcerting, to say the least.

As Lidah braced against a bulkhead, Io’an leaned against the armory threshold as his stomach lurched with the ship’s movement for landing. He didn’t want to imagine what the Janus was maneuvering them through. A glimpse of the Basilisk, hulls scattered across space like shredded pieces of paper, had been more than enough.

“Qiki,” Io’an said, frowning slightly. “You’re not supposed to be up.” His words, chiding they may have been, were betrayed by a deep concern in his voice and an instant softening of his expression. Io’an was very concerned for Qiki. She seemed to be the worst off of them all. He couldn’t put his finger on why. Perhaps it had been the method of her exposure, or because she couldn't’ use the Force.

There were a thousand things he didn’t understand about the illness, and each question he thought he could answer only opened three more.

“Avi isn’t here,” he said quietly as he stepped to Qiki, gingerly — or as gingerly as he could, in a suit with powered joints — helping her pull the blankets around her. “And you don’t need any more of that crap while you’re sick anyway. Now you need to g-”

The ship shook suddenly, violently. Io’an grit his teeth as he bumped against the wall, trying to shelter Qiki against the impact. “We’ve gotta go,” he said, sighing as Lidah hurried off. He grabbed his void suit’s helmet and put it on. It hissed as it sealed with the rest of his suit and a holographic display flickered to life. “Please, get some rest,” he said as he hurried to join the others.

The Basilisk was foreboding, but in a different way than Io’an remembered.

At that agristation — what seemed like a lifetime ago — the ship had been a monolith that threatened to blow them all away with its raw power and endless crew.

Now it was a floating wreck of nothing, drifting nowhere, with a hole the size of the Bind Eye blown into it. And that’s just one of them,” he told himself silently.

Iris and... Thel emerged from the other ship. Io’an’s gaze lingered momentarily on Thel, wondering at the name Lidah used earlier. Vance? Now wasn’t the time for that.

He meekly wandered toward Janus as Lidah offered another chance for the other two to turn back. Io’an decided that was none of his business. He tried to reach out with the Force, to feel other life besides themselves, a presence clouded his senses. It was strange and alien, much like what he’d felt in that lab on Ylesia.

“What do you think’s waiting for us in there?” he said, crouching down to prod at one of the grey things weaving along and through the plating. It was firm and didn’t seem to react to his touch. He didn’t know Janus very well, but it wasn’t the older man’s first time working for Lidah. “I can’t make heads or tails of anything, but maybe we’re the only ones still alive here.”

Maybe, just maybe, voicing his hopes would make them true.

[Fromikeable]

Vance dared to let his presence spread for a moment, inspecting the ship that lay before them. The entire thing felt… ominous. Doom-saying, even. It wasn’t just the innumerable dead sailors littered about the decks within or the complete sense of chaos that clung to every piece of twisted metal. It was an actual, genuine presence, weak but constant, pulsing rhythmically within. Concentrating harder, Vance could swear he could hear it.

When he realized it was singing, he shivered, his presence retracting in like it had seen a ghost.

The landing Soothesayer a welcome distraction. The trio that departed it was… well, the stare from Lidah was something Vance could feel through her suit, the void separating them (although assuming his suit wasn’t glitching out, it seemed to be atmosphere), and his own protection. He returned it, but less as a challenge and more as an inspection, his eyes peering at the visor of her helmet.

She looked pale. Maybe it was just the lighting. Maybe it was just her natural color. Nevertheless, he did his best to bury how much it flared his concern, rolling his shoulders and plucking his saber from his belt.

”You’ll be looking at two weeks of quarantine, even if nothing’s wrong.”

”I’m probably not going to be able to go anywhere beyond the Eye until this is over anyway.” Taking Janus’s recommendation to heart, Vance’s head swiveled in search of a one of the hull’s larger tears. Spotting one that looked roughly wide enough for a person, he walked over, peering through.

Through the grey-brown tendrils rippling through the metal and the torn metal, he could see a hallway half a meter below. Snapping his saber to life, he knelt and began to carve, the sound overpowering his ears and excusing him from conversation. Swiveling on his knee, it only took a minute to make a large oval, the segment floating free at a lazy pace. No rush of air from within the ship, given the atmosphere within its shields. No alarms given the lack of power. Not even a light or the sounds of shutting bulkheads.

The whole thing was creepy. Lifting the chunk up and out of the way with a gentle tug of the Force, Vance hopped down first, saber held aloft. The hallway he came to stand in looked more like a room in a botanical garden, more tendrils lacing through each wall, the ceiling, and even the floor.

”Watch your footing.” Raising his saber aloft as he powered his helmet’s headlights, he couldn’t help but take in the room. The presence felt stronger here, encouraging him to tuck his presence tight to himself.

”The bridge is that way.” His green saber pointed toward one of the hallway’s ends. ”It looked mostly intact.”

[Stephen]

“That'd be nice, wouldn't it?” He didn't buy it, but it'd be a nice change. He ignited his lightsaber and took after Vance. The twisted steel corridors were lit with an interwash of bright white and halogen green as they strode through the steel sarcophagus. Each footstep brought a small swirl of the ever present white powder. Odds on favorite was a spore, but it could just as easily be a byproduct of whatever the Archeri were doing. He could just about hear them sometimes, but he still wasn't sure if they were thinking persay. He held little idea that they werent here, even now. He could feel them just now, on the edge of being. Like heat on the other side of the door from a burning room. They knew why they were there. They moved forward.

As they moved further within, he swelled within himself. Nervousness gave way to almost exultant energy. Janus shifted within the group, pacing between the walls inspecting each aspect he could. When he entered he had braced himself for the normal detritus of a space ship husk. The vacuum of space, the errant bodies frozen in mid descent from the pitch and yaw of a ship out of control, the half finished meals and bunks still unmade. He found nothing of the sort inside. As they drew further within, the corridors pushed inward, the grey dust giving way to tough grey fiber, woven in a carpet like lattice along the walls and celing, as well as the floor, crowding out the hall into cramped circular tunnels at times. The high oxygen environment caused flecks of fire to dance from Janus' blade and burn the surface mold off of some of the mesh in a startling whoosh, but he dared not turn it off. Every now and again he found something undeniably human within the grey masses. An nearly intact eye, a set of lower teeth still in a u wedged into the solid grey walls. The crew, when they couldn't serve the Archeri directly, still served as a serviceable building material to mend the halls of the ship. Like vines across a chain link fence they were strung. Stunning.

Still, he felt strange joy as he walked. His mind hummed, almost like a battle march and his legs followed. Only the revulsion at himself for his lack of revulsion brought him to. They weren't just beyond reach, they were already in his mind. He was unable to feel them in the same way he couldn't feel his own ribs. Not unless they were broken. Janus drew the force within himself and cocked his head to the side for a moment. If they knew joy and they knew war, it would be a fine thing to see what else they recognized. Janus combed his memories for every embarrassing moment, every awkward sexual thought, every deep seeded doubt and thrust them to the front of his mind, and then outward through the ship in a blind wave. His body almost seethed and convulsed at the shame of it, but he was no longer happy, and that moored him in the moment. “I can think of no reason they'd be on the bridge. This ship is hardly propelled from there anymore, but yet here we head.” He paused, still thumbing through his personal self loathing like an indecisive patron of a restaurant. “Seems strange doesn't it. Are we sure it's our idea?”

[Neology]

”Someone should be there, don’t you think?” Lidah prowled after Vance, taking up a sentry position behind him. His lightsaber threw off sparks, hissing loudly as it sawed through the strange marriage of durasteel and alien matter. She rolled the discarded deck segment around, curious, but the carbonized edges told very little beyond the tool used to remove it. As scientific instruments went, lightsabers were very crude. ”If I cannot, and Forte will not.” She let her hands fall open, empty palms. There was an unwelcome premonition, lurking beneath the current of her thoughts. Locke would return to the Eye, something cavalier and halfway clever on his lips, and find it dead and emptied out. Lidah climbed down in silence, anger swept away like the tide and leaving her a desolate beach in its place. The Basilisk was changed. Entire decks seemed to be rerouted, sculpted from twisted bark and rubbery, dense clumps of fungal growth – all wrapped around and through the skeleton of the original ship. A necessity, after the wreck? Or did the Archeri have stranger reasons than all that? The tunnels themselves reminded her of the petrified Killik hives of Alderaan’s Castle Lands. The sudden psychic intrusion of all Yarloc’s shameful thoughts stopped her in place, struggling with a wave of nausea. It was not the content, barely grasped, but the concentration. Lidah glared at the back of his head, then braced hands on her knees as she fought dry heaves down. ”Of course it’s our fucking idea –“ She burped once, quite daintily. ”Don’t be stupid.” So much the better for them, if the bridge was empty! They had only to plunder the databanks, not clear the ship. Lidah had a dreadful feeling that they’d need many more men to attempt the latter. Rebuilding the ship like this must have required an engineer – or at least a pattern – and many, many hands. Lidah gulped down air and went on. ”Look, no one really knows what happened. This ship was the most advanced in the Hutt fleet; I think that its battle computers must have recorded everything. We are going to recover that data and get it into the hands of someone with a fleet’s worth of analysts. They’ll take it apart frame by frame.” A panel, thick blast doors … Of course, all of it dead and dark like the rest of the ship. It would take ages to carve through that. ”We sell it, maybe more than once. Gotta be worth most anything, to avoid going in blindfolded. “I think we might have to start with getting the power on.”

[Rugs]

“Yeah, it would,” Io’an said, sighing. If only things could be that simple. He suspected that if he truly opened himself to the Force, he’d feel them, swarming through the Basilisk’s husk like bees in a hive.

Maggots in a carcass more like--taking something better left dead and forgotten and turning it to their own needs.

He inhaled deeply, following Janus, Thel and the rest as they started their incursion into the ship in earnest.

The Basilisk’s bowels, revealed as they were once Thel cleared an entry, were a strange and alien sight. Io’an had seen plenty of Hutt ships — including this very one — from the inside before, but it looked almost wholesale different now.

A thick layer of pale dust coated the floor. More of the strange root-like growths ran like veins through the hallways. Something crunched underfoot — Io’an felt it more than heard it — and he made a pointed effort to keep his gaze forward rather than confirm his fear that he’d stepped on something that should have been alive.

Thell — or was it Vance? — pointed them toward the bridge, his lightsaber throwing a wash of green over the fungal growths that surrounded them. Io’an was opening his mouth to agree to following the path to the bridge when a strange sensation washed over him.

He felt it, bizarrely at first, his too-sensitive touch on the Force all too eager to latch onto any stimulus. Then the images flooded through his mind like an unexpected tsunami and he saw his own eyes go wide in his visor’s faint reflection of his face.

Turning away from the group as he felt heat rush into his cheeks, he hurriedly pushed Janus’ influence out. He could hear Lidah chiding the man, but he still staggered from the breadth and intimacy of the thoughts the man abruptly forced upon them.

Eventually, he turned around, thankful that the visor mostly hid his blushing face as he glanced sidelong at Janus. Hopefully, that was the last of that.

“That data will be encrypted if the Hutts follow any sort of standard military procedure,” he muttered. “Probably heavily.” He stepped forward, putting a hand to the doors that barred their way. They thudded dully, deeply when he knocked his suit’s metal knuckles against them. Io’an pursed his lips. With no power, it would be possible to break through, but...

Yes, Lidah’s suggestion to get the power back on seemed the best way to go. If the power still works.

A map flashed to life, overlaid across the front of his visor. With silent commands based on the movement of his eyes, Io’an zoomed in on one of the ship’s lower decks. The Basilisk was the Hutt flagship, but so too was it the template for a class of ships that bore its name.

“Ship’s power plant is on one of the lower decks,” he said. Glance around as the map flickered away, he wondered at the state of the ship between them and the power plant. It should be an easy trip, but if the Archeri had blocked off existing pathways in favor of creating their own... that’d be problematic.

Io’an took the lead this time, off down a corridor that broke away from the great doors to the right to a flight of stairs. He could only imagine it’d be a matter of time until the Archeri decided to respond to their intrusion.

[Fromikeable]

Vance braced himself as the Force swirled very close by, expecting the worst. He remembered the Selosian woman on Nar Shaddaa all too well, her mental voice seeping through every pore of his being like a wave of thunder. Even when contested and fighting, her mind had felt like the weight of millions, her voice ringing like a symphony of bells. He had endured, but only just; if that was being brought to bear agai-

"Fuck, Janus!" Stopping and swirling to look at the other man, sabers in their hands, Vance gave him a scowl, his cheeks flushing red as a shiver rocked his spine. His mind recoiled into its figurative shell, too disturbed by the older man's thoughts to bear the Archeri for a moment.

"I've got an idea I'm sure is mine; do that again and I'll puke on you!" Suppressing further shivers, Vance muttered a curse under his breath. Disgusting as the "broadcast" had been, it had at least put their presences all on the same page, each a mixture of disgust, shame, and frustration. It was a sharp contrast to the Chorus that awaited them, that pulsed through the very walls with serene, unnatural calmness.

Of course, Vance wouldn't say as much. He had never wanted to know about Janus's thoughts on the sex appeal of Gamorrean grandmothers, and yet here he was.

At Lidah and Io'an's reasoning, Vance followed Io'an as they turned off the path to the bridge, descending a few decks and heading for the ship's middle. Eerie silence, unnatural vines, and the constant mental pressure of the Chorus proved to be their only companions. The darkness of the ship was rare to break, the lights on their suits like beacons into the abyss. The only sounds beyond their own footfalls was the occasional groan of a broken, forgotten ship.

Coming upon the ship's foremost engineering section, the party came to a half before a sealed fire door. Poking at the door terminal beside it, Vance's finger yielded little fruit, the entire affair dead as a doornail. Shuffling over to the door, Vance deactivated his saber, clipping it to his belt before his hands shot out to grab the emergency opening mechanism. Finding the small wheel, he began to turn it, the mechanics of the door slowly opening a gap in its center.

When the door was about halfway open, Vance did his best to get out of the way, arms braced against the mechanism. "Squeeze through, I'll hold it."

[Stephen]

This was clearly absurd. They were a small band of roaming force sensitive thugs walking around a ship full of force sensitive spiders ? Janus hadn't gotten the research back on what exactly they were dealing with. “Vance, lad” he started in. “They know we're here. I just told everyone force sensitive about the time I slept with someone who kinda smelled like popcorn and I can't really go to movies and feel normal anymore. I think they know we're here.” Janus concentrated a moment, centering himself within the force. He could feel the tendrils of foreign minds drawing closer to him, following the eddies of the force. “I don't think they're getting their deposit back either, so stop noodle-arming the door.” Janus raked his arm behind him and the door followed suit with a near deafening pop of spent rivets. The door raked huge channels of filth from the walls, exposing stark silver beneath.

“Fuck sake” he muttered walking into the generator room. He could see the engine core in front of them, it's radiation shielding pierced by an errant support beam. The core still spun within, giving off a high heat glow, so they were lucky in that regard, but anyone who stood to long in this room was likely to grow too many fingers to conveniently house in these space suits. Janus had some radiation sheilding built into his suit, but likely not near enough for a battleship class engine core exposed like this. They'd have to move fast if they wanted to keep their hair. Still it was on, just needed to reroute power.

“Io'an, you take engineering and habitats on the left side here, and I'll take a look at weapons and life support on the right, reroute as much as you can” Janus was already striding toward the banks of chest high panels that lined this room in neat rows, even with the warped floor, it was an easy enough layout to understand instantly if you'd ever been in a engine room. No need for a real plan, this was as smash and grab as it got. “Lidah I guess it's on you and feather touch over there to watch our backs.” Janus could feel them in the room, or just outside of it, perhaps they seemed content to watch for now. Seemed unlikely, but if they moved fast enough, any confusion on the enemies part could be all the time they needed. It would probably devolve into a bloodbath eventually, but maybe they could pick a nicer room.

[Neology]

Something like military encryption – well, then. It was a good thing she had some very talented slicers, previously employed by the Hutts, on hand and more or less ready to work. Lidah conceded Io’an’s point with a quick nod nevertheless. ”Then we’ll take everything we can. Sort through it all later.” Truly, he and Qiki would have little else to occupy them for the foreseeable future, cooped up aboard the Soothsayer. It remained to be seen whether they shared Lidah’s particular enthusiasm for working in the face of probable doom. Most likely not, at least in Qiki’s case. She’d spent her lucid moments either immersed in holonet games or lamenting their lack of sugary drinks. To each their own precious distractions. Yet the long walk through the ship’s guts gave Lidah time to ponder. Vance being here was something of a problem for her. While undeniably talented, he’d never once in ten years seemed to enjoy this kind of thing. So why risk her displeasure by showing up unbidden? Less all the selfish reasons, that left only virtuous answers like sentiment or integrity. Qualities she found so fascinating in Locke were a pain in the ass to discover in her disobedient former apprentice. ”You’re not invited to movie night anymore, Janus. Not until you get that sorted out.” If this were a burrow, and they sick animals … Yarloc was good company for that, at least. The reactor was as big as a house, suspended in a long chamber. She could not see the far end, just the faint suggestion of more hive-like twists and mounds. A central catwalk led down the middle. Her helmet chirped at her, a slow and steady warning. Lidah leaned on the railing, content to watch the two tech experts get to work. ”Very well.” She couldn’t argue with guard duty. After a few moments, everything cycled off, including the lights. Lidah’s eyes adjusted to the dark, reading heat instead. The core was hard to look at, the walls … Not as dead and cold as they should be. Slow movements at first, many limbed creatures lumbering over each other. It reminded her of bees, huddling through the winter. More activity by the passing moment, the catwalk shivered as climbers began their ascent. ”Ready Thel?” Lidah drew both her sabers, bathing the immediate area in soft blue light.