NationStates Jolt Archive

The star was known only as Mel, primarily due to the fact that Mel'tsha'yxiou'pwiouqtpeo was reeeeeeeally hard to pronounce. The small and humdrum star rested just inside the Demilitarized zone between the Freespace Alliance and the Galactic Empire, closer to the former than the latter. It played host to three planets. A molten rock that might as well have been IN Mel, a gas giant, and a water giant about twice the size of a Terran world, but with the exact same gravitational force.

This last planet, known only as Li, for reasons similar to Mel, supported two things in particular: A booming Algae Farming and Microbial Engineering Industry, and a Freespace Sensor station. The Freespacers didn't talk much about the sensor station, as some rules were 'bent' to place it there. Not even the settlers operating the new farms from their makeshift floating cities.

Now I told you all that to tell you this:

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Malarn was the de facto capital city of the planet, as it was home to the largest population, resting happily at just over five thousand people. Algae farming and Bacta cultivation had turned the place from a single large boat into a hustling bustling nexus of planetary commerce. People would shout out their wares at any within earshot, and some beyond. Children romped about with abandon between the many linked vessels, navigating the treacherous bridges with uncanny ease.

But not today.

Today the 'city' was completely silent. Not one sign of movement could be discerned throughout the entirety of the floating burg. In a small marketplace, it seemed as if the stalls had been abandoned in a matter of seconds. On occasion, an observer would be able to note the fact that some stalls of fruit or algae sported stretches of emptyness, as though somebody had walked in, and made a trail through each and every display. If one were to look further, they would notice that the entire planet, all six or seven cities, had been abandoned in a similar manner.

It was an odd situation indeed, yessir.

Some kilometers away, a Freespace vessel sporting the Sensor Station rested, also completely abandoned, and completely inactive.

Save for one thing.

A distress beacon was whirring happily away, sending the following message on a repeating loop:

"To any Freespace Alliance vessels! We are under attack by unknown vessels! Repeat, We are under attack by unknown vessels! Malarn's gone, and they're coming for us.

*background shouting, background screaming*

Oh no, we're too la--"

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Five Participants. Two Freespace, Two Imperial, One Neutral Max. First come first serve. Expect casualties

TAG, unless any other neutrals want the spot, I'll take it tomorrow night...

Tag

It was a peaceful world. A very peaceful world. No civilization living on it to date, but thousands of years ago, there was an ancient civilization. They built temples and cities all over a continent on the planet. The giant tan colored stone buildings, pyramids, temples. It also had a very, very, strong connection to the force. And this was what attracted the fifty-four year old Jedi Master Konas, and his apprentice Vinn Damross to the planet.

Konas was busy sitting on a rock in the middle of a big grassy meddow, surrounding the meddow was pine forest. Right in front of him, was a temple. It was around fifty feet tall, and stretched back another hundred feet. It wasn't, but it was almost completely full of the moving force. It was as if waterfalls of the force were shooting out of every window and doorway and hole. Why was it this strong?

Konas had been sitting there for two hours now. His fifteen year old apprentice was busy walking around the meddow, picking up rocks and looking at them. He was either doing that, or bird watching. He had short dark brown hair gelled up. He was fairly good looking for his age. He had on brown jedi robes, and finger-less gloves on. He picked up a rock, and threw it, it soared through the air, but stopped about twenty feet up. Back down on the ground, Vinn had his palm facing it, using the force to keep it there.

It didn't last long. He heard someone shout. He turned around, and looked. Sage was standing in the doorway, shouting to them. It was right then he heard a noise, he silently jumped forward, and he heard the rock hit the ground where he was previously standing with a thud. Konas stopped meditating and turned around.

Sage Linner, their pilot. He was a former smuggler for the Alliance, smuggled equipment out of Imperial space to the Alliance. He had nearly been caught dozens of times, and had been caught at least three times, but managed to escape. He was twenty-three, with shaggy orange hair, and a scraggly chin.

"What is it?" Konas shouted back.

"We've got a distress signal!" Sage replied.

***

The three stood in the cockpit of Sage's ship, the Anubis. Sage was sitting in the pilots chair, and Konas was standing behind him. Vinn sat in the co-pilots chair, leaning forward intently. Sage hit a button and a voice started up.

"To any Freespace Alliance vessels! We are under attack by unknown vessels! Repeat, We are under attack by unknown vessels! Malarn's gone, and they're coming for us..."

In the background of the transmission, they heard gunfire.

"...Oh no, we're too la--"

"Thats the end of the transmission," Sage said. "That came from the Mel system, to be more specific, the planet Li."

"Isn't that system neutral?" Vinn asked. "What would anything be doing there? Were they under attack by Imperial ships?"

"It just said unknown vessels," Konas said. "However, its a distress call. Even more, its a distress call to the Alliance."

"And go figure we work with the Alliance," Sage said, starting up the ship.

"We need to go to the Mel system, at least just to find out what's going on," Konas said.

"Way ahead of you..." Sage said as his ship lifted off the ground and started for the sky. Konas walked out of the cockpit, and Vinn strapped himself into the co-pilot's seat. They broke through the atmosphere, and left the bright green and blue world behind them. They continued on for another half an hour before Sage entered the coordinates for the Mel system, and they jumped into hyperspace.

tag

An L.S.F. Battlestar class cruiser worked its way through a nebula that was right outside the target system.

The Mel system.

Hours ago, the force commander had recieved word that a distress call had come through, though the call had only been revieled to high ranking members of the military at that time, the troops were told to prepare for anything. The Freespace Alliance was definately worried about this situation, but there wasn't much they could do, in neutral space. The Battlestar itself would remain in high orbit, with its weapons powered down, to show that it meant no harm, but a single squad was to be launched into the main city to investigate, the Alliance thought it best to remain as inscrutible as possible in an explosive situation such as this, but the capital ship was more than ready to launch reinforcements at a moments notice, if things got that bad.

The ship finally got into its orbital position, but instead of sending a dropship down, a hatch opened up that looked like a torpedo tube, and a large pod was fired out at dramatic speeds. Breaking through the atmosphere, the drop pod crashed into a park area of the main city, two soldiers came out and secured the area, sweeping their bolter rifles back and forth across the landing area. Behind them, six more troops filed out into a defensive position. Each soldier wore large, powerful looking Space Marine armor, with huge helmets with glowing green eyes. Each one was colored for urban combat, however, and were mostly grey tinted. Another soldier got out of the pod last, he wore no helmet, but carried a banner on his back. His rank identified him as a seargeant, and the leader of this squad. His name, Cardion Vascar.

Nodding to his troops, he moved forward and was passed electrobinoculars from his recon troop in the squad, he swept it over the grey city scape, nodded, and passed the binoculars back silently. Making a motion with his fingers, two of the troops moved forward to secure a better position and to make sure there wasn't an ambush up ahead, Vascar activated his com, and whispered into it.

"We're going to move fast and silently, anyone whose anyone probably saw that thing come in, if anythings still around here. We going to get to the beacon, and see what went down. Roger?"

Eight "rogers" filled his com, and the squad moved forward.

To the newly-arrived Laskonian forces, it would have seemed as if the town truly was empty. There were no noticeable reactions to their landing, save for the slight ripple effect caused by their rough entrance upon one of the boats. Truth be told it was a wonder the Landing Pod had not simply crashed through the vessel and sunk into the briny depths.

Sergeant Niels couldn't help but chuckle at that thought.

And that wasn't a Freespace Landing pod either. Those were marines. Bad Guy Marines.

His laugh stopped cold with another thought. Perhaps the attack was those damned Imperial Lapdogs testing some new weapon? What if they had sent some made-up ships in with the new weapon to annihilate the locals, and were now sending in the marines to check on the damage?

He still knew not why he was the only one who escaped the carnage. All he knew was A) SOMEBODY had wiped all the people on the planet out and B) There were Imperial Marines wandering about through the streets. The sensor platform in the city, much less powerful than the one on the FAS Aqueas, had shown the arrival of the massive warship overhead.

An armed vessel! In the Demilitarized Zone! Oh if anybody else caught that, it would be a shitstorm across the galaxy. An armed vessel found over a neutral planet only just cleansed of life.

It made him shiver.

But he wasn't about to let the bastards get away with what they did. The city had no guns, nothing to fire at the great warship overhead, but he could make those Marines pay. It would be a mere pittance in compensation for the thousands of lives lost to those horrific weapons, but he satisfied himself with 'Its The Thought That Counts'.

The boats had no weapons, but they sure had fuel tanks, nice and brimming in order to provide power to the town before solar panel platforms could be set up. He'd blow the entire damn place sky high. Send those Lapdog Marines to the bottom of the sea, he would, and himself too if necessary.

He grabbed his meager combat supplies, a couple grenades, a combat Layer-Knife, and a blaster rifle, then headed off into the depths of the city. Life on a bunch of interconnected boats may have been somewhat crowded, but all the sublevels made it REALLY easy to stay hidden.

As he moved off, he stopped momentarily to listen to a strange clicking in the distance, then continued on. What the hell were those Lapdogs doing?

Seargent Vascar moved his team into pairs, two for each boat. The extra soldier went with Vascar. they moved along slowly towards the sensor station, remaining as quiet as they could, their bolters in hand.

Vascar kept his chain sword on his back, his bolt pistol forward. The two soldiers with him watching the sides and the rear.

"This is the seargeant, I've reached the station, converge on my position. Teams five through eight, you'll stay at the entrance and make sure no one out here is watching us. The rest of you will follow my team in."

"Roger that, sir."

"Moving in now."

Vascar and his men moved into the station, their weapons at the ready.

The Sensor station was very much empty, save for the activity of the various electronics, which had strangely been left completely intact. Inspection would have provided access to long range sensors which reached some distance into Imperial Space, short range sensors that allowed for a detailed survey of the Mel system, and internal sensors showing lifesigns romping around the interior of the station.

Progressing further into the structure, one would find the very console that the Distress Signal had been sent from, and a FreeSpace Officer's uniform draped over it, as though it had just... fallen there.

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Shitshitshitshitshit, they went straight for the sensor station!

Sergeant Niels watched from the town's sensor array in hopeless dismay. The bastards had gone straight for the paydirt. How better to check total casualties than to use the most powerful sensors on the planet?

And the only person who could access the self-destruct protocols was the commander, who'd been zapped by those horrible weapons.

He stopped to listen to that distant clicking again, then, sensing danger, he grabbed a remote datapad and vanished into the ventilation ducts and other byways of the city's substructure.

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Looking for us?

No.

Looking for them?

Yes.

Kill?



Yes.

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Some time after the Marines had landed on the station, a strange clicking became increasingly audible...

Sergeant Vascar moved amongst the electronic equipment, every now and then inspecting a screen closer, or looking at a used datapad. He finally made it to the primary station, where the signal was being sent from. He found an Alliance officer's clothing draped over the station, he grabbed it with his hand and pulled it back...

Nothing.

He quickly sat down in the seat and shut off the signal, the Alliance wouldn't need that on now that they were here, and they couldn't risk Imperials coming down here to investigate, not with the battlestar in orbit.

"Sergeant?"

One of the marines that came with him into the station was a tech expert, he had already accessed the mainframe, and was using the scanners to examine all the boats in the city.

"Sir, we've located one life form, looks human. Its crawling through the under structure that connects the boats to one another."

"Is there no one else here?"

"Nothing human we can locate, sir."

Vascon patted him on the shoulder.

"Keep a lock on him. Marine, stay with him."

The other soldier nodded and stayed at his position at the door. The Sergeant was looking at another computer terminal, wondering to himself the best course of action, to track down and capture this man for questioning, or wait for him to make a move. His com buzzed and he clicked it on.

"Vascon."

"Sir? Our sensors are detected a low, clicking noise. I detected it when we got here, but it was much to low, then. Its becoming much louder, now, sir."

"Hold position, I'll be out in a minute."

Vascon nodded to the two troops inside, and quickly moved outside to the soldiers, most of them sitting in defensive positions, bolter rifles and heavy bolters at the ready.

"We can hear it audibly now, sir. Even without our helmets."

The Sergeant nodded, he could hear it plainly, a clear, clicking like noise.

"What do you think it is?"

"I can't say, yet, sir."

"Stay low. We found a human wandering the sublevels, so be ready if he shows up."

He looked wistfully out towards the sea, the clicking noise still in the air.

"And for anything else."

OOC: At all possible for a neutral to come in?

Well, THR said he'd be posting, and I've kinda been wondering how a bunch of giant rats would work in an RP like this. If he doesn't want in though, you could tiddle in. Only want one neutral for this, so you and he gotta fight for it :p

Need to have some of the Imperials clomp in too.

OOC: My contribution would be boarding, causing lots of chaos as they are being stalked and unnerving the oppenents with the screams of them dying. What's yours Z?

OOC: My contribution would be boarding, causing lots of chaos as they are being stalked and unnerving the oppenents with the screams of them dying. What's yours Z?

OOC: Being a survivor.

Well, truth be told, both would be somewhat ill-advised. Now if the Rats wanna try pre-emptively salvaging the boat city, that might work. As for the survivor, the only survivor person is the one I am presently RPing, as being a survivor requires at least a small knowledge of what the unknown attackers are.

If you wish to RP a smuggling vessel going through the DMZ, that would be okay. I suppose I might be able to allow two neutrals in, since neutrals are presently the more "Character-ized" group.

Still need some imperial presence though.

Well, truth be told, both would be somewhat ill-advised. Now if the Rats wanna try pre-emptively salvaging the boat city, that might work. As for the survivor, the only survivor person is the one I am presently RPing, as being a survivor requires at least a small knowledge of what the unknown attackers are.

If you wish to RP a smuggling vessel going through the DMZ, that would be okay. I suppose I might be able to allow two neutrals in, since neutrals are presently the more "Character-ized" group.

Still need some imperial presence though.

OOC:What if you were unconcious?

You'd still show up as life signs, plus, the attack left nobody unconscious. Only those who escaped with what appears to have been nothing more than dumb luck (Sergeant Niels) avoided getting whacked by the nasties.

Of course, the one thing Laskon should be curious about is why they only found the officer's clothing...

Far above the Laskon marines, watching like vultures from the antenna tower of the sensor station itself, cloaked such that the light seemed to bend around them in a very predatorish way, were three of... them...

http://www.wave.co.nz/~dwbl/klick/largeklick.gif

Surprisingly strong despite their spindly little legs, easily granting their bony arms the ability to slam an enemy back several feet with a swipe of their taloned hands, they clung to the antenna and surroundings with remarkable grace. Any attempt at movement caused the pincers on each of their legs to click together, creating an unearthly din that meant only one thing: Incoming.

They studied the marines, waiting for the perfect time to jump down and let their bio-disruption field do its work. The strange field they all emanated almost constantly made enemies feel as exhausted as they would be after several days of constant combat. They each carried a single pistol alien design, but their aim was bad enough that even then they had to get into melee range to have any real chance of doing any damage. But then, their weapons had their own benefits.

Namely the ability to ignore armor. The onyx beams of their Blacklasers went straight through inorganic material, and vaporized any organic tissue in its path. Unlike the larger weapons used earlier, this did not quite mean autokill, but having the equivalent of a blaster bolt go straight through one's armor would likely be enough.

OOC: For the record, energy shielding blocks the Blacklaser without any power drain whatsoever.

To the marines, it would have seemed as if the Clicking had stopped for but a moment, right up until the three monstrosities slammed onto the deck around them. Jarring them both from the impact onto the station's deck, and from the feeling of being punched in the gut with a jackhammer.

The things first leveled their pistols, then fired...

And three of the marines, fell, screaming, but with no noticible wounds on their armor.

Then the others sprung into action.

Not stupid enough to use their guns while the aliens were in the middle of them, they all took out their knives, the three marines slowly circled the group, then engaged them, one for each of the strange creatures, their knives flashing in the glinting sunlight, their advanced combat training took over, and they were merciless killing machines.

One of the wounded marines yelled into the com inside his head.

"Brothers! We have come under attack!"

The Sergeant, who had gone back inside, how walked calmly out of the sensor station, his chain sword revving, he walked to the first creature who was still engaging on of the marines in hand to hand combat, and drove the blade straight into its side.

The wounded marine who had communicated with the sergeant was checking the others who had been shot. One of them had been hit straight through the heart...even the advanced technology and bio engineering that created the Space Marines would have stopped him from being killed, but the other one had only been hit in the side. He had opened his armor at that area, so he could check the wound. The recon soldier nodded, raised his plasma rifle, and fired a shot into another of the creatures.

Combative!

Yes.

Flee?

No. Kill.

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The aliens holstered their pistols somewhere on their body, then lunged into melee, striking out with their pincered legs and letting their sharp claws do whatever work they required, ignoring the one that had fallen to the one enemy's saw sword.

Although, it need not have been ignored, despite the fact that two of its legs were gone and it was oozing ichor from its side, it somehow managed to gather the strength to grab at the Sergeant's sword in an attempt to rip off the marine's arm. Lacking the strength to accomplish that, it began pulling itself toward the edge of the deck, hoping to pull the marine into the sea with it.

And all around them, a frenzy of clicking erupted... more were approaching.

tag

A Marine fell to the powerful claws of one of the beasts, the two Marines left fighting outside finally pulled out their bolter rifles and let loose on their respective opponents, the Vascar, being pulled by the near dead one, pulled out his own bolter pistol and began pumping rounds into the things "head", if you could call it that.

"Keep fighting!"

The Anubis exited hyperspace. The planet Li was directly in front of them. The water planet with floating silver cities. The ship stopped, resting silently and unmoving in the dark void. The three members of the ship were in the bridge, looking at the planet. Konas standing in the middle, Sage sitting at the pilot's seat, running scans, and Vinn was sitting around patiently.

"There's a struggle going on," Konas said. "Soldiers against...some sort of...beasts..."

He opened his eyes and looked at the planet. "We need to get down there quickly. Sage, we'll land, and you'll take off again. Vinn, ready your lightsaber and blaster."

"Roger," Sage said and the ship blasted towards the planet.

They flew down through the atmosphere, and descended down to the city. Konas and Vinn were already at the door, and opened it. They were ten feet up when Konas leaped from the doorway onto the ground. Vinn did the same, and then the door closed, the ship rose into the sky afterwards. The two Jedi looked around. The part of the city they were in seemed quiet. But the Jedi learned never to trust their senses quickly.

With the unlit lightsaber hilt in hand, Konas proceeded down the street quietly, with Vinn closely behind him.

OOC: For the record, seeing how these guys are all my main guys, I request no deaths if that is ok.

OOC: Well, you're in the city. I'd suggest trying to figure out where the paranoid Sergeant Niels is holed up.

Also Laskon, keep in mind that these things emit a strange field of life drain that slowly saps away at your endurance. The more there are in one area, the nastier the field is, but it's not a very large radius.

Also, for some unknown reason, this bio-weakening field does not affect force users.

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Sergeant Niels sat in his cubby hole, watching the battle from the City sensors, not certain which side he should root for. With this battle he knew that whoever those ugly spider thingies were, they weren't imperials. That allayed one suspicion, but another odd feeling crept into his mind...

Why hadn't the autodestruct gone off? Any non-allied personnel on the station with gunfire being traded like that would have started up the charges all around the sensor vessel. That sucker should already have been sinking to the seafloor some thousand kilometers below.

Then he snapped his fingers. Oh yeah, five minute countdown in order to recover if the firefight was over...

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Just as some eight more aliens burst from the various parts of the vessel, a single voice boomed over the din:

Self Destruct Sequence In Ten... Nine... Eight... Seven...

Near the planet Li, just outside the Mel System, The "Grand" Readanian Exploration Fleet exited hyperspace. The flagship of the fleet of three capital ships was aProvidence-class carrier/destroyer (http://www.starwars.com/databank/starship/tradefederationcruiser/index.html) called The Sentinel. Aboard this ship, within its observation deck, the commanders of the expedition discussed what was to be done in this interesting system.

"I believe the best thing for both us and our nation will be to risk open war and enter the demilitarize zone." stated Admiral Colin Valkor (http://img144.imageshack.us/img144/9680/admiralvalkors8yn.gif), naval leader of the expedition, "If my assumtion is correct, the scanner outpost we detected may contain maps of systems we would otherwise spend years exploring."

"We have little knowledge on the extent of the cold war within this galaxy. We may cause a war so great that it could very well engulf the distant nebula we call home as well." retorted General William Veers (http://img144.imageshack.us/img144/1124/generalveers1cw.png), surface commander of the expedition, "Milord, I highly recommend continuing on to the next scheduled jump as soon as we can!"

"Our scanners have indicated that there is a great deal of combat between the rebels and an unknown force." said Darth Magnus (http://img144.imageshack.us/img144/3606/elsokaris5qz.jpg), (known as John Smith to everyone besides the top officers,) leader of the expedition.

"Another point as to not go down th-" began the general

"I myself will lead the droid expedition force. I request the use of a dozen of your battle droids as well as four droideka, general. I sense this unknown force will be somehow at the disadvantage against our droid forces." interrupted the Sith Lord, "I expect a landing craft with the afore mentioned forces to be ready within the hour. This meeting is concluded."

A half an hour later, an Imperial landing craft with a small drop force within it left the Readanian command ship. It would then land as near as possible to the Scanner station. Imperial forces had finally entered this battlefield.

OOC: Thought I'd jump in since no other Imperial nations will. Oh, and can lightsabers deflect these black lasers?

Konas and Vinn opened the door to a building, and walked in. They had seen nothing yet. There was no sign of life, the only thing they could sense was the firefight going on in the distance. It was not of their highest priorities to get caught up in that. They made their way across the room, and out another door. Onto another street. They started down that one. Vinn silently following his master. Konas suddenly stopped though, his eyes closed. He opened them quickly and looked at Vinn.

"We've got company, I sense a dark presence here," Konas said.

"A Sith?" Vinn asked.

"Possibly," Konas said. "No doubt he'll be able to sense us as well. Best keep close."

"Commander, our scanners indicate numerous unknown heat signatures." reported the pilot droid, "Should we continue with the landing procedures, Commander? ...Commander?"

"Yes, continue landing." stated Darth Magnus, "Be wary of the humanoid lifeforms, however. I have a feeling that there may be jedi here."

"I will aleret you if we near any humanoid lifeforms, commander. We are now landing a kilometer from our objective."

The landing craft slowly came down in an empty lot about a mile from the scanner station. The landing ramp opened and two destroyer droids rolled out followed by the rest of the expedition forces. After the droid forces and the sith lord left the vessel, the craft began its return to The Sentinel.

OOC: *cough* Sensor station's on a boat about three to four kilometers away from the city. And it's about to get sunk. Remember, it's a water world.

three...two...one...

These were the last words he heard as he fired another round point blank into one of the creatures, but by then they had all been thrown violently by the dozens of explosions now littering the city.

"GET DOWN!" He screamed, but he could see several of his men floating motionless in the water. He tried to contact the soldiers inside the station, but his com had fuzzed out.

Swimming over to a piece of wood, he leaned on it, and began to check his equipment, and started to look for survivors.

The Sensor Station had ripped itself apart, and was even now sinking towards the seafloor some thousand kilometers below, sending trapped marines and insectoid aliens, whose armor made them too dense to swim, into the briny deep.

The City of Malarn was visible in the distance, unaffected and undisturbed.

Oddly enough, one of the small boats the marines had taken to the station floated happily nearby, having been cut away by the aliens in order to prevent escape.

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Drowning.

Deserved it.

Could not have known!

No excuse.

Assistance!

Expendable.

Help...help... help... he--

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As it would turn out, the two groups, the Techon Jedi and the Rea Danian Sith, had set down on diametrically opposed sectors of Malarn City. Moving around between the two groups, stopping only long enough to get his bearings and change direction, was Sergeant Niels.

And in the midst of them all, in groups of four to six, watching and waiting, a total of approximately two hundred and twelve of the insectoid aliens.

Breathing heavily, a single man flipped himself over the side of a small boat and began to sputter water and cough. It was Vascar, and he was not happy.

There was no way that the two soldiers inside the station had survived, and the wounded troops fighting with him wouldn't have had the energy to get to the surface. That meant five of his troops were KIA, or, he'd have to assume so. That left the others, of whom one had been killed by the creatures. He looked around the waters, until he saw a slight disturbance. He looked for a weapon aboard the ship, as he had lost his during the explosion. Finding only a large fish hook and rope, he swiftly attached them together to create a weapon of sorts.

A human hand bobbed out of the disturbance and clamped onto the Sergeants, whom had let his down to assist. He raised the waterlogged Marine out of the water and onto the boat.

"Is anyone with you, soldier?"

As if by an answer, another marine came up from the other side.

"We didn't know if it were you or one of those creatures on board, sir, so I was to make a distraction while he came up the other side."

"Good thinking. I see that explosion didn't rattle your brains any."

They stood in silence for a moment, remembering their lost comrades.

"We'll need to get back to the ship, sir, we're out of weapons except for our knives."

"I'd like to do that, too. But you just saw the only way of us contacting the ship explode."

"Your comlink, sir?"

"Lost, in the explosion."

"Ah."

"Theres only one other place that can contact the ship, its the main cities sensor station. We get there, we can get picked up by the ship and blow this place to hell."

One of the troops suddenly leaned against the side of the ship, shaking.

"Whats wrong with him, Lietenent?"

"Sir, we figured this out during the battle, it seems that the aliens produce some kind of anti life force that saps the energy out of you, its probably how they destroyed this entire city, and why we did worse as the battle progressed."

"How large is the area this affects?"

"Just a few meters around the alien, sir. But when more of them congregate, it gets worse."

"Then this will be a covert mission. Not to mention we're out gunned and out numbered, we'd eventually lose, no matter how well we fight."

"Sir, don't we have extra armaments in the pod?"

"We do, including plasma cannons and rocket launchers."

"Perhaps we should head there, first, then."

"We'd have to go around the target, there would be no need."

"But even if the drop ships take five minutes to get down here, thats more than enough time for the aliens to over whelm us with our current weapons. We'd have to hold them off."

"Alright, then, what do you suggest?"

"I will go to the pod myself, sir, and gather as many weapons as possible, then meet you two back at the station where we will be picked up."

"To risky, and you won't be able to defend yourself and carry weapons at the same time. You two are going together, I'll hold the station and contact the ship."

"Yessir."

The soldier stood at attention again.

"Feeling better, sir, sorry about that."

"No need, soldier. Just drive this thing back to the city, as quietly as possible. Lientenent, we're going to finalize that plan."

"Aye, sir."

The small boat began to move away from the wreckage of the station, now back towards the primary city area.

Darth Magnus sensed something amiss. It was something other than the presence of the Jedi. The unknown beings were producing a field of unlife. The most troublesome part was this strange feeling was incredibly powerful. Magnus estimated that there was atleast a hundred of these aliens.

"Keep alert, soldiers. These unknown beings may be anywhere and could have any sort of weaponry at their disposal."

"Roger roger"

The group moved into the city with the commander in the lead. The two of the Droideka protected Magnus' flanks. The other two rolled out in opposite directions, with orders to explore and defend against hostiles.

OOC: Here is another imperial, so that fills it up....

The Lambas Shuttle flew through space like a bullet launched from a gun. Well of course it did since it had been equiped with some of the best engines kuat could make. On board there was about Six "Dark Troopers". Two where from the distant planet of Moorigton and had long names but they had shortened them down to Maxen and Cologne.
In thier group though each of them had another name. Maxen's name was Silent and Cologne's was Shadow. The other four DT's names where Twist, Snipe, Knife, and Captain. Each had thier nocknames from certain events.... Silent even in killing.... Can disapper even in light like a shadow.... A twist of a neck was all it took.... More than 40 scratches on his Sniper.... He practiced as there erazt cook and on enemies of the Empire and was perfect.... Their Captin and in charge.
They where going to investigate this silly distress signal that the Alliance had a second to late turned off. They where going to make sure all of the aliens had been destroyed in the station and get as much stuff back as possible. So of course OOC: Who would be in charge "Ice heart" a.k.a Izard, Palpatines Clone, The Clone of that clone wars guy Jorobus or Grand Admiral Thrawn? IC: sent them out there for whatever reasons.
As they reached the docking area they swifly and secured the bloddy area. All of them where used to blood but they hadn't seened that much of it in a long time. They marched along and found a holostation that was covered in large amounts of alien colored blood. As they advanced along the path with the Captin checking out the ships schematics they heard a rustling in one of the vents inside a barracks room. Shadow and Twist where sent to look inside with the rest guarding the entry way and the captin.
Shadow and Twist swept the room and the adjacent ones and found nothing until Twist tripped on an Bothan arm sticking out of the bathtub. The bothan had obviously been punctured and ripped in many areas and Twist did a tatical withdrawl or enleast in his mind he thought that what it was called.
Outside the Barracks room the captin had looked and downloaded everything he could and even broke through most of the alliance firewalls to get into the logs and summarys. He then sent it to the Imperial Center's main database for futher analization.
The captin turned around to issue the orders when allof a sudden a surviving creature ripped out of the overhead panels and stabbed the captin in the heart jumped on him and finally chewed his head off. The first to react was snipe and promptly got out his "For close encounters of the second kind" oldfashioned bullet and gunpowder two barrle pump actioon shotgun and promptley blew it away.
All of a sudden the surviving creatres leapt out of nowhere and some tried to get onto Knifes head but he got out his two BlastTech double berrled light fast firing blasers. He blew them all away then continued to have a running battle with the aliens. Shadow and Silient paired up with thier standerd regular DT Cannos and started melting away the aliens. In seconds it was over and the imperials happily left with the prospect of captin for a lucky someone.

OOC: Now hold on there, homeboy...

One, there are no visible survivors short of Sergeant Niels.

Two, I am RPing the Klicks, and its bad form to do it for me.

Three, I have not yet acknowledged you as participatory in this setting. Please wait to actually post until it has been decided to let you in.

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As the two Droidekas rolled out into the depths of the bobbing burg, many sets of inhuman eyes came to study them and their movements.

Living?

No, Mechanical.

Properly armed?

Equipping computer deadmakers. Deadmake these?

Yes.

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For a while, each of the roaming Droideka was allowed to continue on its exploration, then, as if from nowhere and everywhere at once, both came under withering fire from what appeared to be a large number of small ion cannons...

The two Jedi walked around some more. This place was getting offset by the second, they kept feeling more disturbances in the force from those..creatures. They sensed the sith, and felt something else; droids. Almost small blank spots in the force. A struggle had just started. Vinn couldn't decided in his mind whether he wanted to continue away from the fight, or go towards it. Konas had made the decision to keep on the path they were going on. They needed to get to the capital building and see if there was anything at all there that would help show what happened.

Okay can I join now? Please ;)

Bumpies... waiting for Rea Dan to react to the attack on the Droidekas and Laskon to make landing back into the city.

The Droidekas put up a worthy fight, but were vastly outgunned and outnumbered. The droids were disbatched relatively quickly. Their scouting mission would be of little use to Lord Magnus.
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With the droieka scouts destroyed so quickly, Magnus became very concerned about his own safety. The small party of droids here would not be enough to hold off the unknown creatures for very long. Ignoring the jedi presence, the sith lord lead the regiment to the nearest and most defendable building against this unknown foe. Magnus determined that this structure was the capital building.

The devil you know... he reasoned

It wasn't so much a capitol building as it was a capitol yacht. Sixteen separate points of entry from the rest of the city, including one major entrance area that led to and through about six massive tankers that had been turned into a small commercial district.

The Yacht itself was well armored against outside attack, being the property of one Eust Poljan, a rather paranoid imperial senator who had decided to take the vessel here during the initial stages of the Freespace War Surge, and not surprisingly found his life ended by being shot in the face by his dog, who was, also not surprisingly, a wookie who had been intricately shaven to resemble a shaggy poodle.

Eust was renowned for not being all that swift on the uptake.

Several portions of the ship were shielded, although the shield systems themselves were the originals, and therefore somewhat spotty in their performance. In the deeper sections of the ship, unknown even to the people who had sat in it and argued over critical issues such as the effects of phytoplankton on the local ecosystem, even though there was no existing indigenous life on the planet, was a rather healthy and rounded-out armory. An automated maintenance system had kept the blasters and grenades and randomized implements of imperial will up to code.

Of course, in the bowels of the ship was also one Sergeant Niels, who had come to the same conclusion as the sith lord leading his droid contingent into the capitol 'building', and was now cursing to himself in several different languages, as this bunch was undoubtedly imperial...