NationStates Jolt Archive

Right. Taylor answered, eager to get out from the glares of the workers.

Don't think you're out of the woods yet, Taylor, for you still have to deal with the angry hordes at the nine other plants. Anyway, let's go.

Whitfield climbed into his 'Mech and headed towards the next power plant...

Don't think you're out of the woods yet, Taylor, for you still have to deal with the angry hordes at the nine other plants. Anyway, let's go.

Whitfield climbed into his 'Mech and headed towards the next power plant...
Taylor followed in his own Mech.

When the two Jedi arrived at the next power plant a few minutes later, Whitfield led Taylor into the natural gas plant, to explain what had happened and correct the problems. The process continued through the night, as the two traveled to the other eight plants to conduct Taylor's penance.

Even as Taylor corrected the problem he had caused, plant by plant, boiler by boiler, the workers therein made their displeasure at both his deeds and his temperment known.

The two would finish at about three in the morining, and wherever they went, about three hours after they left, the lights flickered back on. By sunrise, the entire city of Sablayan would have power once again.

However, the Lieutenant Colonel still wasn't happy. When the two of them arrived, he looked at Taylor straight in the eye, which of course meant looking down a bit, and ordered, "The two of you get the next patrol shift." He didn't particularly like Taylor, and was a bit more reluctant to let things go than Whitfield...

Meanwhile, as Keith gave his punitive order, at Eheayana, some nameless low-ranking officer reported to General Ypsilanti that the next round of presents was ready for the enemy.

"Then launch the next round. How many more cruise missiles do we have left?"

"About a hundred after this round," the junior officer replied.

"Hmm...whether to load the third up with more of the dearly deceased or use conventional cluster warheads...decisions, decisions. We'll wait to see the enemy's reaction first."

"Yes, sir."

A few minutes later, another round of a hundred thirty cruise missiles launched, their warheads containing more heads of the innocent, their targeting systems programmed to release them over the Coredian positions...

When the two Jedi arrived at the next power plant a few minutes later, Whitfield led Taylor into the natural gas plant, to explain what had happened and correct the problems. The process continued through the night, as the two traveled to the other eight plants to conduct Taylor's penance.

Even as Taylor corrected the problem he had caused, plant by plant, boiler by boiler, the workers therein made their displeasure at both his deeds and his temperment known.

The two would finish at about three in the morining, and wherever they went, about three hours after they left, the lights flickered back on. By sunrise, the entire city of Sablayan would have power once again.

However, the Lieutenant Colonel still wasn't happy. When the two of them arrived, he looked at Taylor straight in the eye, which of course meant looking down a bit, and ordered, "The two of you get the next patrol shift." He didn't particularly like Taylor, and was a bit more reluctant to let things go than Whitfield...
"Don't rub it in my nose, Colonel." Taylor grumbled, but he assented to the shift anyway.

Meanwhile, as Keith gave his punitive order, at Eheayana, some nameless low-ranking officer reported to General Ypsilanti that the next round of presents was ready for the enemy.

"Then launch the next round. How many more cruise missiles do we have left?"

"About a hundred after this round," the junior officer replied.

"Hmm...whether to load the third up with more of the dearly deceased or use conventional cluster warheads...decisions, decisions. We'll wait to see the enemy's reaction first."

"Yes, sir."

A few minutes later, another round of a hundred thirty cruise missiles launched, their warheads containing more heads of the innocent, their targeting systems programmed to release them over the Coredian positions...
"More heads a'coming, sir." A soldier with barely concealed rage said to his superior officer as heads flew down again and countermissile fire spat out to give the heads funeral pyres.

"Maintain control, trooper. We'll get them yet." His officer ordered. "If it makes you feel better, I hate 'em too."

"Yes, sir."

No movement on the enemy scopes except for the mecha moving in shifts occurred. Hopefully it'll infuriate them.

"Don't rub it in my nose, Colonel." Taylor grumbled, but he assented to the shift anyway.

"I could be even nastier and make you do it by yourself, without the politician," Keith replied right before the two left to relieve the existing patrol, seeking to remind Taylor of the occasion where he asked him if he would like to fight the entire campaign by himself. "But, in the interests of being nice, I won't do that."

"More heads a'coming, sir." A soldier with barely concealed rage said to his superior officer as heads flew down again and countermissile fire spat out to give the heads funeral pyres.

"Maintain control, trooper. We'll get them yet." His officer ordered. "If it makes you feel better, I hate 'em too."

"Yes, sir."

No movement on the enemy scopes except for the mecha moving in shifts occurred. Hopefully it'll infuriate them.

"No reaction, General." The sensor officer in one of the downtown skyscrapers the military had commandeered in the last couple of days found nothing but the routine patrols the enemy had set up hours earlier.

"Ah, so they're expecting more of the dearly deceased, then. We'll have to give them a nasty surprise." Brigadier General Ypsilanti turned to his weapons officer. "Prepare the last round with incendiary cluster munitions. I'll have to think of some other way to deliver more heads. Maybe a couple of squadrons of low-flying civilian aircraft swiped from the airport."

"Yes, sir."

"Rig the passenger jets in the airport so the contents of their bellies can be dumped midflight. Then, load more heads where the suitcases should go."

"A most fun assignment, sir." The weapons officer left to relay the orders.

"I could be even nastier and make you do it by yourself, without the politician," Keith replied right before the two left to relieve the existing patrol, seeking to remind Taylor of the occasion where he asked him if he would like to fight the entire campaign by himself. "But, in the interests of being nice, I won't do that."
Whitfield just makes it easier. I could very well do this without him, will only take a couple days longer. But in the interests of saving lives, I won't. Taylor shot back as he moved off on patrol.


"No reaction, General." The sensor officer in one of the downtown skyscrapers the military had commandeered in the last couple of days found nothing but the routine patrols the enemy had set up hours earlier.

"Ah, so they're expecting more of the dearly deceased, then. We'll have to give them a nasty surprise." Brigadier General Ypsilanti turned to his weapons officer. "Prepare the last round with incendiary cluster munitions. I'll have to think of some other way to deliver more heads. Maybe a couple of squadrons of low-flying civilian aircraft swiped from the airport."

"Yes, sir."

"Rig the passenger jets in the airport so the contents of their bellies can be dumped midflight. Then, load more heads where the suitcases should go."

"A most fun assignment, sir." The weapons officer left to relay the orders.
"Star Destroyer real-time recon shows movement at the airport, sir." An aide said to the Admiral.

"We have X-wings in the air?" The Admiral asked.

"Yes, sir."

"Order two to go full burn over the airport." The Admiral ordered.

"Ah, yes sir."

Soon, two X-wings swooped down upon the airport at supersonic speeds with sonic booms powerful enough to shatter the glass trailing them, showing the enemy that to try anything stupid in a no-fly zone will result in immediate destruction.

Whitfield just makes it easier. I could very well do this without him, will only take a couple days longer. But in the interests of saving lives, I won't. Taylor shot back as he moved off on patrol.

And, if I didn't care so much about saving lives, I'd just go ahead and make you prove it. You should consider your arrogant ass fortunate I haven't already done this, the pissed-off commander shot back.

As Whitfield reached the old patrol route, and relieved the existing shift, he sensed he might have to intervene soon, and let out a heavy sigh...

"Star Destroyer real-time recon shows movement at the airport, sir." An aide said to the Admiral.

"We have X-wings in the air?" The Admiral asked.

"Yes, sir."

"Order two to go full burn over the airport." The Admiral ordered.

"Ah, yes sir."

Soon, two X-wings swooped down upon the airport at supersonic speeds with sonic booms powerful enough to shatter the glass trailing them, showing the enemy that to try anything stupid in a no-fly zone will result in immediate destruction.

"General, the enemy is trying to dissuade us from using civilian aircraft delivery," an aide reported as the two X-wings flew overhead, and as green and red bolts of pulse laser energy lit up the sky, with both turrets and defending 'Mechs firing on the intruders.

"Well, they only have to make it what, four to ten miles off the runway, depending upon which one they use, right?"

"Yes, sir."

"Then load the aircraft up, fully laden, with fuel, and stick some incendiaries in the passenger compartment. Clear all of our military units out of the flightpath. They shoot them down over the city, THEY kill a bunch of civvies in the resulting crashes, they shoot 'em down after they leave the city, they kill themselves." The general smirked. "Move civvies into the terminal buildings, so even if they decide to deal with the airport now, they kill the people they're trying to save anyway. Win-win."

"Immediately, sir."

And, if I didn't care so much about saving lives, I'd just go ahead and make you prove it. You should consider your arrogant ass fortunate I haven't already done this, the pissed-off commander shot back.

As Whitfield reached the old patrol route, and relieved the existing shift, he sensed he might have to intervene soon, and let out a heavy sigh...
An icy smirk washed over Taylor's features. I would have simply gone with the Marines and beaten you to the punch in saving the cities, especially with my ice powers. I'm a Jedi Knight first, and a Major in the Coredian Defense Force second, or did you forget?

"General, the enemy is trying to dissuade us from using civilian aircraft delivery," an aide reported as the two X-wings flew overhead, and as green and red bolts of pulse laser energy lit up the sky, with both turrets and defending 'Mechs firing on the intruders.

"Well, they only have to make it what, four to ten miles off the runway, depending upon which one they use, right?"

"Yes, sir."

"Then load the aircraft up, fully laden, with fuel, and stick some incendiaries in the passenger compartment. Clear all of our military units out of the flightpath. They shoot them down over the city, THEY kill a bunch of civvies in the resulting crashes, they shoot 'em down after they leave the city, they kill themselves." The general smirked. "Move civvies into the terminal buildings, so even if they decide to deal with the airport now, they kill the people they're trying to save anyway. Win-win."

"Immediately, sir."
The laser bolts splattered across the shields of the X-wings, but the astromech units worked hard in keeping them up and the juking made it tought to track them. It then became a matter of how quickly the X-wings, as they called in more support, would blow up the planes as they took off.

If civilians died in the process, so be it. It's war, and the Coredians aren't going to tie their own arms simply to protect them from unwinnable situations.

An icy smirk washed over Taylor's features. I would have simply gone with the Marines and beaten you to the punch in saving the cities, especially with my ice powers. I'm a Jedi Knight first, and a Major in the Coredian Defense Force second, or did you forget?

Is that a transfer request? Because that could be arranged... By now, Taylor had pissed off his commander to the brink of expelling him from the unit for insubordination, and both Whitfield and Taylor could sense it...

At this point, Whitfield felt forced to interject. Both of you need to calm down. Taylor, don't push Keith, because if he kicks you out for insubordination, your superiors in the Jedi Order will know about it. Both of you need to let go of your anger, because anger begets hate, and hate begets suffering, as this war should be proving to both of you. The elder Jedi waited to see how the other two would react before doing more.

The laser bolts splattered across the shields of the X-wings, but the astromech units worked hard in keeping them up and the juking made it tought to track them. It then became a matter of how quickly the X-wings, as they called in more support, would blow up the planes as they took off.

If civilians died in the process, so be it. It's war, and the Coredians aren't going to tie their own arms simply to protect them from unwinnable situations.

The Coredians had forced the hand of the airport personnel charged with fulfilling General Ypsilanti's orders. If the Coredians could claim victory, it would simply be over the fact that the aircraft only had a partial cargo of the dearly deceased, fuel, and bombs. Nevertheless, they would only have about forty-five seconds to shoot the aircraft down before they reached their destination...

Across the airport, pilots ignored usual safety precautions of pushback, starting only one engine at a time, et cetera, for they knew they were dead anyway. Some of the aircraft didn't even bother taxiing to the runway in their haste to reach the enemy. About forty aircraft scrambled to take off at once, some using runways, some taxiways, some any long stretch of pavement they could find, and about thirty more simply waited, lifeless, empty, at Eheayana International Airport. The roar of jet engines filled the air, and drowned out the roars of the Coredian mecha, as some forty aircraft took off at full throttle, ignoring safety procedures, quickly spreading out a bit, all going into the west, racing for the Coredian line...

Is that a transfer request? Because that could be arranged... By now, Taylor had pissed off his commander to the brink of expelling him from the unit for insubordination, and both Whitfield and Taylor could sense it...

At this point, Whitfield felt forced to interject. Both of you need to calm down. Taylor, don't push Keith, because if he kicks you out for insubordination, your superiors in the Jedi Order will know about it. Both of you need to let go of your anger, because anger begets hate, and hate begets suffering, as this war should be proving to both of you. The elder Jedi waited to see how the other two would react before doing more.
Having made his point, Taylor backed down from further inflaming the already strained relationship between him and the Lt. Commander as it would serve no purpose. Instead he just gave a curt mental nod to follow Whitfield's request and drained his anger into the Force.


The Coredians had forced the hand of the airport personnel charged with fulfilling General Ypsilanti's orders. If the Coredians could claim victory, it would simply be over the fact that the aircraft only had a partial cargo of the dearly deceased, fuel, and bombs. Nevertheless, they would only have about forty-five seconds to shoot the aircraft down before they reached their destination...

Across the airport, pilots ignored usual safety precautions of pushback, starting only one engine at a time, et cetera, for they knew they were dead anyway. Some of the aircraft didn't even bother taxiing to the runway in their haste to reach the enemy. About forty aircraft scrambled to take off at once, some using runways, some taxiways, some any long stretch of pavement they could find, and about thirty more simply waited, lifeless, empty, at Eheayana International Airport. The roar of jet engines filled the air, and drowned out the roars of the Coredian mecha, as some forty aircraft took off at full throttle, ignoring safety procedures, quickly spreading out a bit, all going into the west, racing for the Coredian line...
Missiles and laser cannons flew into the air, targeting the jets as they took off, and the X-wings, now six strong took the opportunity to dive low and strafe the planes with their lasers, keeping so low that the turrets will have trouble going down to their level at times. The airport became a scene of desperate battle...

Having made his point, Taylor backed down from further inflaming the already strained relationship between him and the Lt. Commander as it would serve no purpose. Instead he just gave a curt mental nod to follow Whitfield's request and drained his anger into the Force.

The Lieutenant Colonel left Taylor to himself as he backed off, taking several deep breaths to try to calm himself down. That politician just prevented mutiny, he thought to himself.

However, he still had no real reason to trust Taylor, and his conduct as of late had left every reason to distrust him. Maybe transferring him isn't a bad idea, if only so I can actually sleep at night. I'll have to think about it.

At least I can trust the politician farther than I can throw him--wait a minute, what the hell am I doing trusting politicians?

Missiles and laser cannons flew into the air, targeting the jets as they took off, and the X-wings, now six strong took the opportunity to dive low and strafe the planes with their lasers, keeping so low that the turrets will have trouble going down to their level at times. The airport became a scene of desperate battle...

The aircraft only ascended about a hundred feet before leveling off, depriving the Coredian positions of a decent firing angle; only the X-wings had a clear line of fire as the aircraft started their short journey over the city. Four of the forty aircraft exploded before leaving the tarmac; the X-wings shot down another eleven as they raced the three miles over the city. The aircraft detonated into massive firestorms, leading to a swath of utter destruction about half a mile wide from the end of the landing strip all the way to the city outskirts. Several thousand civilians died instantly; about a million more suffered burn injuries in one form or another.

As the twenty-five remaining aircraft cleared Eheayana's buildings, they descended to a mere fifty feet above ground level, thier engines still at full throttle, having by now attained a groundspeed of approximately three hundred fifty knots and still accelerating...

...It was a good thing indeed that this was a short journey; the fuselages of said aircraft couldn't take more than a few minutes of the stress of barreling through the dense, cold air at speeds they were only supposed to reach in cruising altitudes.

The Lieutenant Colonel left Taylor to himself as he backed off, taking several deep breaths to try to calm himself down. That politician just prevented mutiny, he thought to himself.

However, he still had no real reason to trust Taylor, and his conduct as of late had left every reason to distrust him. Maybe transferring him isn't a bad idea, if only so I can actually sleep at night. I'll have to think about it.

At least I can trust the politician farther than I can throw him--wait a minute, what the hell am I doing trusting politicians?
It was quiet that night when Taylor maintained patrol for the duration of the shift.

The aircraft only ascended about a hundred feet before leveling off, depriving the Coredian positions of a decent firing angle; only the X-wings had a clear line of fire as the aircraft started their short journey over the city. Four of the forty aircraft exploded before leaving the tarmac; the X-wings shot down another eleven as they raced the three miles over the cities. The aircraft detonated into massive firestorms, leading to a swath of utter destruction about half a mile wide from the end of the landing strip all the way to the city outskirts. Several thousand civilians died instantly; about a million more suffered burn injuries in one form or another.
OOC: Mwahahahaha! Evil thoughts galore!

As the twenty-five remaining aircraft cleared Eheayana's buildings, they descended to a mere fifty feet above ground level, thier engines still at full throttle, having by now attained a groundspeed of approximately three hundred fifty knots and still accelerating...

...It was a good thing indeed that this was a short journey; the fuselages of said aircraft couldn't take more than a few minutes of the stress of barreling through the dense, cold air at speeds they were only supposed to reach in cruising altitudes.
The six X-wings, being faster than the other aircraft, accelerated and continued to methodically slash laser bolts into the aircraft to make them spiral out of control and crash before they reached the Marine infantry positions.

And even the Star Destroyer helped out at times, using its ten powerful tractor beams to force the planes that survived the X-wings to pull up over the heads of the Corpsmen and prevent crashes from killing many of the troops.

As the X-wings raced to shoot down more aircraft in the fifteen or so remaining seconds they had, another twenty blew up before reaching the enemy line, leaving five for the Star Destroyer's tractor beams...

...However, by now, the remaining aircraft had accelerated to four hundred fifty knots, their hulls under incredible stress, not designed for top speed at ground level...

...and just as the Star Destroyer managed to lock on its tractor beams, the added stress of the beam ripped the aircraft apart, just as they approached the Coredian line.

The result: One massive fireball, or a collection of smaller ones, all the way from the airport runway to the siege position.

As the five remaining aircraft fell apart, their fuel detonated, only about two hundred feet above the ground...

Then, the incendiaries loaded in the passenger cabins detonated in a chain reaction of doom...

And, as the cargo compartments fell apart as well, more presents for the enemy disgorged themselves.

Burnt. Heads. Of women and children, falling to the ground.

As the white phosphorus detonated two hundred feet in the air, it created a massive firestorm, about a mile in diameter, which in turn, reignited fuel from the aircraft previously shot down. The previous swath of destruction enlarged into a giant firestorm two miles wide and ten miles long, killing another few hundred thousand civilians, most of them already injured by the previous falling aircraft.

OOC: Mwahahahaha! Evil thoughts galore!

OOC: Agreed.:D

As the X-wings raced to shoot down more aircraft in the fifteen or so remaining seconds they had, another twenty blew up before reaching the enemy line, leaving five for the Star Destroyer's tractor beams...

...However, by now, the remaining aircraft had accelerated to four hundred fifty knots, their hulls under incredible stress, not designed for top speed at ground level...

...and just as the Star Destroyer managed to lock on its tractor beams, the added stress of the beam ripped the aircraft apart, just as they approached the Coredian line.

The result: One massive fireball, or a collection of smaller ones, all the way from the airport runway to the siege position.

As the five remaining aircraft fell apart, their fuel detonated, only about two hundred feet above the ground...

Then, the incendiaries loaded in the passenger cabins detonated in a chain reaction of doom...

And, as the cargo compartments fell apart as well, more presents for the enemy disgorged themselves.

Burnt. Heads. Of women and children, falling to the ground.

As the white phosphorus detonated two hundred feet in the air, it created a massive firestorm, about a mile in diameter, which in turn, reignited fuel from the aircraft previously shot down. The previous swath of destruction enlarged into a giant firestorm two miles wide and ten miles long, killing another few hundred thousand civilians, most of them already injured by the previous falling aircraft.
The Sabercats yowled as they were forced to fall back from the massive flames, their shields the only protection against the massive firestorm that blew up.

The Marines ducked into the trenches, athough several dozens were injured or killed by the falling debris and injured by the extremely close heat of the fireball.

The Admiral sighed as he sent the orders. "Shift away from the firestorm if you must, but maintain the siege."

OOC: Agreed.:D
OOC: Now move the plot, if you will, please. We have a timeline to finish.

OOC: Now move the plot, if you will, please. We have a timeline to finish.

OOC: One last round of presents before you get your revenge. Only one more. That third round of missiles is still unaccounted for.:D

The Sabercats yowled as they were forced to fall back from the massive flames, their shields the only protection against the massive firestorm that blew up.

The Marines ducked into the trenches, athough several dozens were injured or killed by the falling debris and injured by the extremely close heat of the fireball.

The Admiral sighed as he sent the orders. "Shift away from the firestorm if you must, but maintain the siege."

General Ypsilanti thumbed through reports of the results of the aircraft kamikaze mission. So, the enemy chooses to kill civilians. One last attempt to lure them in. Or, more like two concurrent attempts.

"The cluster missiles ready yet?" The General eagerly anticipated an answer.

"In about a half hour, expected." The weapons officer cursed at his technicians for not being faster, despite the fact that they worked as quickly as they could.

"Give orders for the area bound by Diversey, Dempster, Eheayana, and Kedzie Streets to prepare for detonation. Also, Western, Canyon, Waller, and Country Club Streets. I want them ready by the time the missiles launch. Detonation will occur concurrently with the launch."

Total area bound by those streets: two square miles, nowhere near destroying the entire city.

"Yes, sir."

Half an hour later

The last hundred cruise missiles in the city, this time carrying more conventional incendiary cluster warheads, left the city, flying over its buildings, then skimming the ground at slightly below treetop level (OOC: no trees however; it's steppe after all) as they raced for the heart of the Coredian formations. These missiles carried the same warheads as the ones that had been used on the first strike against Isokepe, and they only had about a minute of flight...

Meanwhile, two square miles of the city, one square mile both in the northern and southern halves thereof, suddenly went up in flames, sucking the air from nearby city blocks in the process, immolating another few hundred thousand civilians and suffocating several thousand more...

OOC: It'd better be...

IC:
Despite the valiant efforts of antimissile defenses, the Marines were immolated by the hundred cruise missiles as they slammed into Coredian positions and detonated, creating a massive fireball almost as big as the one that hit the city moments before. About a fifth of the infantry were wasted, more burned badly by the fires despite armor and NBC suits, and the injured were sent back to the forward base. The mech units sealed themselves up and stood like demons amidst the firestorm.

It was only luck, or perhaps the fact that it began to snow heavily with cold winds, that the fireballs didn't get any bigger.

The Corps reorganized themselves after the assault and then moved to new positions slightly closer to the city and west of it as well. And they waited for their commanders' orders to move in.

By now, the Admiral was furious enough to wish for a bombardment of the city and fuck the consequences, but he stayed his hand, for it would only make things worse. Is there nothing we can do here? Is there no way we can save the rest of this fucking city?

OOC: It'd better be...

It is.

IC:
Despite the valiant efforts of antimissile defenses, the Marines were immolated by the hundred cruise missiles as they slammed into Coredian positions and detonated, creating a massive fireball almost as big as the one that hit the city moments before. About a fifth of the infantry were wasted, more burned badly by the fires despite armor and NBC suits, and the injured were sent back to the forward base. The mech units sealed themselves up and stood like demons amidst the firestorm.

It was only luck, or perhaps the fact that it began to snow heavily with cold winds, that the fireballs didn't get any bigger.

The Corps reorganized themselves after the assault and then moved to new positions slightly closer to the city and west of it as well. And they waited for their commanders' orders to move in.

By now, the Admiral was furious enough to wish for a bombardment of the city and fuck the consequences, but he stayed his hand, for it would only make things worse. Is there nothing we can do here? Is there no way we can save the rest of this fucking city?

Sunrise

The General looked up at the skies, full of snow, as the first signs of daylight appeared, even as he received another situation report.

"Sir, in the last two hours, the enemy has only drawn slightly closer, and has taken up new positions, still well outside of Eheayana."

The General was most disappointed in his sensor officer's report. "Do we have anything else with which to lure the enemy in here?"

"Not unless we start wholesale nuking of the city, General."

"No, we can't do that unless the enemy enters the city. We need to take the enemy along with us." The General let out a heavy sigh. He only knew the will of the Dark Lord, and the Dark Lord's will was that the enemy burn along with the civilians.

"Yes, sir. So what do we do then?"

"We'll have to use the 'Mechs to try to lure them in. Advance all infantry to within three miles of city outskirts. Have the four lances take up position a mile inside city outskirts." He directed this order at everyone in the room, not just the sensor officer. "Engage on my order."

The Dark Garrison's positions started shifting towards the outskirts of the city, leaving the sixty percent behind the line free of anyone to detonate the incendiaries...

...At absolute minimum, about half of the city would survive, if the Coredians came out victorious.

Three hours later

The enemy still hadn't moved. The time to engage said enemy in full combat was come. The general had weakened the enemy and conducted as much psychological warfare as he could, given the resources he had to work with, without simply torching the city, a shameful admission of defeat, an admission that would leave the enemy to molest some other city.

If the General was to be defeated, he at least had to take the enemy with him.

"Mechanized units, engage at long range." Now, the order, as well as the proper time, was come...

Four Timber Wolves, four Atlases, four Summoners, and four Mad Dogs moved to the city line, taking a second or three for proper targeting, before firing a deadly collective array of blue energy bolts, long-range pulse lasers, Gauss Rifle slugs, and swarms upon swarms of long-range missiles at the closest Coredian positions...

Meanwhile, at Sablayan...

After thinking for a couple of hours on what to do with the loose cannon known as Major Taylor Masaki, Lieutenant Colonel Keith Allaire decided to give him one last chance. He already had two strikes against him, and Taylor wouldn't want to try the third.

Even the politician had told Taylor not to push things. And, if anyone could get Taylor to actually listen, it was said politician. Had Taylor not been 1)a Jedi, and 2)from another nation, Keith would have had him kicked out of the military a loooooooong time ago. He didn't like taking shit from people, and he wouldn't take any more from Taylor, especially considering his suspicions that Taylor would gladly burn his ass or impale him with his lightsaber as he slept.

He claimed to be of the Light Side, but he carried about him such arrogance that Keith wondered about that. He was simply too angry all the time for Keith to be able to trust such claims.

For some reason, Jedi Whitfield trusted him, at least a little bit. But Keith couldn't bring himself to do it. He had tried, but after last night...no. He couldn't.

Nevertheless, the morning recon data lay in front of him. Southern Batangas Bay had much the same defense that Sablayan had, but North Batangas bay was...undefended? Am I reading this right? I'm going to have to have the politician look at it...

He reached for his commlink. "Whitfield, conclude the patrol. I need to see you." He didn't much care what Taylor did at this point.

It is.

Sunrise

The General looked up at the skies, full of snow, as the first signs of daylight appeared, even as he received another situation report.

"Sir, in the last two hours, the enemy has only drawn slightly closer, and has taken up new positions, still well outside of Eheayana."

The General was most disappointed in his sensor officer's report. "Do we have anything else with which to lure the enemy in here?"

"Not unless we start wholesale nuking of the city, General."

"No, we can't do that unless the enemy enters the city. We need to take the enemy along with us." The General let out a heavy sigh. He only knew the will of the Dark Lord, and the Dark Lord's will was that the enemy burn along with the civilians.

"Yes, sir. So what do we do then?"

"We'll have to use the 'Mechs to try to lure them in. Advance all infantry to within three miles of city outskirts. Have the four lances take up position a mile inside city outskirts." He directed this order at everyone in the room, not just the sensor officer. "Engage on my order."

The Dark Garrison's positions started shifting towards the outskirts of the city, leaving the sixty percent behind the line free of anyone to detonate the incendiaries...

...At absolute minimum, about half of the city would survive, if the Coredians came out victorious.
"The enemy's on the move, sir." An aide said. "Latest Star Destroyer recon says so."

"Finally." The Admiral said. "Have the divisions attack when they attack, but pull back slowly and carefully."

"Yes, sir."

Three hours later

The enemy still hadn't moved. The time to engage said enemy in full combat was come. The general had weakened the enemy and conducted as much psychological warfare as he could, given the resources he had to work with, without simply torching the city, a shameful admission of defeat, an admission that would leave the enemy to molest some other city.

If the General was to be defeated, he at least had to take the enemy with him.

"Mechanized units, engage at long range." Now, the order, as well as the proper time, was come...

Four Timber Wolves, four Atlases, four Summoners, and four Mad Dogs moved to the city line, taking a second or three for proper targeting, before firing a deadly collective array of blue energy bolts, long-range pulse lasers, Gauss Rifle slugs, and swarms upon swarms of long-range missiles at the closest Coredian positions...
It has begun. As the mechanized forces began the assault, the Coredian mechs targeted the enemy mechs and let loose with violent assaults of turbolasers, hypersonic shells and missiles as the counterassault. And slowly, so slowly, the Marines pulled out from their positions under fire, firing back with everything they had. But instead of advancing, they retreated under cover from the walkers and mechs, as if the enemy mechs were too much for them.

Meanwhile, at Sablayan...

After thinking for a couple of hours on what to do with the loose cannon known as Major Taylor Masaki, Lieutenant Colonel Keith Allaire decided to give him one last chance. He already had two strikes against him, and Taylor wouldn't want to try the third.

Even the politician had told Taylor not to push things. And, if anyone could get Taylor to actually listen, it was said politician. Had Taylor not been 1)a Jedi, and 2)from another nation, Keith would have had him kicked out of the military a loooooooong time ago. He didn't like taking shit from people, and he wouldn't take any more from Taylor, especially considering his suspicions that Taylor would gladly burn his ass or impale him with his lightsaber as he slept.

He claimed to be of the Light Side, but he carried about him such arrogance that Keith wondered about that. He was simply too angry all the time for Keith to be able to trust such claims.

For some reason, Jedi Whitfield trusted him, at least a little bit. But Keith couldn't bring himself to do it. He had tried, but after last night...no. He couldn't.

Nevertheless, the morning recon data lay in front of him. Southern Batangas Bay had much the same defense that Sablayan had, but North Batangas bay was...undefended? Am I reading this right? I'm going to have to have the politician look at it...

He reached for his commlink. "Whitfield, conclude the patrol. I need to see you." He didn't much care what Taylor did at this point.
And me too? Taylor asked Whitfield. He didn't much care for the Lt. Colonel either, and was close to simply popping away and heading north. The only reason he didn't was because he trusted Whitfield and also due to the other Mechwarriors, who were Coredians like himself and he was not about to abandon his fellow Coredians like that.

"The enemy's on the move, sir." An aide said. "Latest Star Destroyer recon says so."

"Finally." The Admiral said. "Have the divisions attack when they attack, but pull back slowly and carefully."

"Yes, sir."

It has begun. As the mechanized forces began the assault, the Coredian mechs targeted the enemy mechs and let loose with violent assaults of turbolasers, hypersonic shells and missiles as the counterassault. And slowly, so slowly, the Marines pulled out from their positions under fire, firing back with everything they had. But instead of advancing, they retreated under cover from the walkers and mechs, as if the enemy mechs were too much for them.

As the enemies fired upon the 'Mechs and retreated, the sixteen heavy units only pursued for about fifty meters before firing another massive, but carefully targeted, Alpha Strike at the enemy, unleashing the full fury of their PPCs, hypersonic Gauss Rifles, swarms of missiles, and pulse lasers. They would pursue no further unless given specific orders to do this, and instead, the 'MechWarriors simply paced back and forth parallel to the city line, twisting their torsos to maintain line of fire.

The heavy armor, standardized in recent years to the strongest variety produced at the White Diamond 'Mechworks, absorbed that portion of the incoming fire which did not miss and strike the buildings behind their positions. Several of the 'MechWarriors saw yellow appear across their damage displays...

And me too? Taylor asked. He didn't much care for the Lt. Colonel either, and was close to simply popping away and heading north. The only reason he didn't was because he trusted Whitfield and also due to the other Mechwarriors, who were Coredians like himself and he was not about to abandon his fellow Coredians like that.

The Lieutenant Colonel gave no direction on Taylor's question, as if to indicate that he had come so close to kicking him out of the unit last night that he didn't care whether Taylor deserted or not. As Whitfield left, leaving Taylor sitting in his 'Mech, he reached out with the Force to discern exactly what was going on.

Taylor, you pissed him off to such a degree last night that he could really care less if you desert or not at this point. He left you out of the order deliberately. Whitfield certainly did not relish revealing this to Taylor, but knew that he must...

As the enemies fired upon the 'Mechs and retreated, the sixteen heavy units only pursued for about fifty meters before firing another massive, but carefully targeted, Alpha Strike at the enemy, unleashing the full fury of their PPCs, hypersonic Gauss Rifles, swarms of missiles, and pulse lasers. They would pursue no further unless given specific orders to do this, and instead, the 'MechWarriors simply paced back and forth parallel to the city line, twisting their torsos to maintain line of fire.
Violent explosions occurred as the Marines pulled back from their positions to a fall-back point, but the Coredian mech forces noticed that the enemy isn't moving any closer.

The heavy armor, standardized in recent years to the strongest variety produced at the White Diamond 'Mechworks, absorbed that portion of the incoming fire which did not miss and strike the buildings behind their positions. Several of the 'MechWarriors saw yellow appear across their damage displays...
Several mechs lost their shields in the assault and were subsequently destroyed by the enemy, but the others used a few seconds to produce more accurate results on weaker points in the enemy and concentrated their firepower on a mech at a time.

Meanwhile, the Star Destroyer was summoned to action once more and the sensor crew conducted deep scans on the enemy mechs. Then a single pair of light turbolaser turrets on the ventral side of the Hailfire opened fire specifically on the enemy mechs with the accuracy gained from the deep scans, accuracy that will hopefully minimize civilian casualties as the bombardment is conducted.

The Lieutenant Colonel gave no direction on Taylor's question, as if to indicate that he had come so close to kicking him out of the unit last night that he didn't care whether Taylor deserted or not. As Whitfield left, leaving Taylor sitting in his 'Mech, he reached out with the Force to discern exactly what was going on.

Taylor, you pissed him off to such a degree last night that he could really care less if you desert or not at this point. He left you out of the order deliberately. Whitfield certainly did not relish revealing this to Taylor, but knew that he must...
Oh. Taylor answered nonchalantly, or appearing to be so. He headed back to the base and stepped down from his mech.

Taylor silently made his way to the top of one of the lower buildings near the base using Force jumps. He sent Whitfield a message. If you need me, I'll be on the roof of the building to the south of you.

He sat down on the roof cross-legged, using just enough Force to keep himself warm and just watched the snow fall. I wonder if I went too far... He thought to himself.

Violent explosions occurred as the Marines pulled back from their positions to a fall-back point, but the Coredian mech forces noticed that the enemy isn't moving any closer.

Several mechs lost their shields in the assault and were subsequently destroyed by the enemy, but the others used a few seconds to produce more accurate results on weaker points in the enemy and concentrated their firepower on a mech at a time.

Meanwhile, the Star Destroyer was summoned to action once more and the sensor crew conducted deep scans on the enemy mechs. Then a single pair of light turbolaser turrets on the ventral side of the Hailfire opened fire specifically on the enemy mechs with the accuracy gained from the deep scans, accuracy that will hopefully minimize civilian casualties as the bombardment is conducted.

As the enemy returned fire, they slagged the cockpit off of two of the Mad Dogs, killing their pilots, and slagged the 'leg' off of a Summoner, effectively mission-killing it. Meanwhile, as turbolaser bolts streaked through the snow, striking several 'Mechs on top armor sections and destroying the two remaining the Mad Dogs, with comparatively weak armor, in the process, the eleven survivors retreated back into the city, unleashing one last Alpha Strike before doing so, and continuing to take potshots at the enemy whenever convienent from behind buildings.

"Well, time to get out the cannon fodder," General Ypsilanti said to himself. Deploy all armored vehicles to where the 'Mechs were a minute ago, and form a line. They exist to soften up the enemy. All 'Mechs, utilize the repair bays at Dorsey and Winchester."

The 'Mechs went off to repair, in the middle of a civilian area, while a swarm of vehicles, ranging from lightly-armored long-range missile carriers to heavy tanks mounting twin PPCs or twin Gauss Rifles, with armor to rival a sixty-ton 'Mech, emerged to take their place. These vehicles opened fire on the enemy from extreme range, in much the same manner that the 'Mechs had, earlier...

Meanwhile, infantry moved to within a mile of the outskirts.

Oh. Taylor answered nonchalantly, or appearing to be so. He headed back to the base and stepped down from his mech.

Taylor silently made his way to the top of one of the lower buildings near the base using Force jumps. He sent Whitfield a message. If you need me, I'll be on the roof of the building to the south of you.

He sat down on the roof cross-legged, using just enough Force to keep himself warm and just watched the snow fall. I wonder if I went too far... He thought to himself.

Whitfield left Taylor to himself as he walked into the nominal headquarters to confer with his commander. However, since he knew it was inevitable that the issue come up again, he asked Keith, "You requested my presence? May I ask why you left Taylor out of your order?" Whitfield had an idea of what the response would be; nevertheless, this diplomatic formality was necessary if the issue was to be resolved.

"Because I don't know what to do with him. If he wasn't from another nation, and if he wasn't Jedi, I would have expelled him on the first day of the campaign. But, doing that carries extra repercussions I don't want to deal with." Keith paused for a moment. "His personality reminds me of...the Dark Lord."

"The Dark Lord?" Such a comparison surprised even the old Jedi, but he couldn't say he hadn't warned Taylor about it... "Please explain."

"His attitude. That I don't have to respect you, because I'm a Jedi. That the only reason why I'm here is that you have sixty (ooc: including techies/logistics) of my countrymen attached to your little unit. He's an arrogant little bugger, just as the Dark Lord was arrogant enough to circulate blatantly unconstitutional 'surveys,' followed by mindrapes of those who spoke up. And his anger..."

"But he is not a Sith Lord. You know that, as well as I."

"So you say, but after last night, I just can't trust him. At all. How can a Light Side Jedi be so angry and contemptful? I just don't get it. Now, I'm paranoid that he wants to, er, dispose of me. If it weren't for your constant intercession, one of us would probably be dead by now. Probably me, I'd be a pile of ash on the ground. And I don't know what to do with him. I would just have the two of us conduct scouting, as in Rejaf, and let Coredian command Coredian, as I did in Rejaf, to keep us separate, but now I'm afraid that Taylor will have other ideas and abuse his command."

"Oh, dear." Whitfield thought for a few seconds. "I believe that the three of us must confer over this. I don't think he realizes how far his lack of tact goes, sometimes. Believe me, when I first met him, he was far worse, and thought I was senile for the way I trained him in 'Mech combat."

"What did you do?"

"The 'fire-on-commander' exercise." The Jedi said this as if it were simply a mile run in basic training. "He thought I was senile for a week, until I defended him from one of the Dark Lord's mindrape attempts. This is why he trusts me, even though he doesn't like you. He doesn't like much of anybody, from what I can tell, and I haven't prodded the issue. Anyway, shall I call him?"

"No. I think he will pull something on me."

"But I will be there. He trusts me. You trust me. If necessary, my nine-foot lightsaber will separate the two of you."

Keith thought for a moment. "Very well, I have to deal with this eventually."

Taylor, your presence is required here. Whitfield sent the message telepathically, because he admitted to himself that Taylor was unlikely to respond to a similar request from Keith...

As the enemy returned fire, they slagged the cockpit of one of the Mad Dogs, killing its pilot, and slagged the 'leg' off of a Summoner, effectively mission-killing it. Meanwhile, as turbolaser bolts streaked through the snow, striking several 'Mechs on top armor sections and destroying two more of the Mad Dogs, with comparatively weak armor, in the process, the twelve survivors retreated back into the city, unleashing one last Alpha Strike before doing so, and continuing to take potshots at the enemy whenever convienent from behind buildings.

"Well, time to get out the cannon fodder," General Ypsilanti said to himself. Deploy all armored vehicles to where the 'Mechs were a minute ago, and form a line. They exist to soften up the enemy. All 'Mechs, utilize the repair bays at Dorsey and Winchester."

The 'Mechs went off to repair, in the middle of a civilian area, while a swarm of vehicles, ranging from lightly-armored long-range missile carriers to heavy tanks mounting twin PPCs or twin Gauss Rifles, with armor to rival a sixty-ton 'Mech, emerged to take their place. These vehicles opened fire on the enemy from extreme range, in much the same manner that the 'Mechs had, earlier...

Meanwhile, infantry moved to within a mile of the outskirts.
Crew of the Star Destroyer noted that smaller, more numerous vehicles have come out to play, and decided to continue helping out the Corps by sending down turbolaser presents after scans were taken carefully.

In the meantime, the more mobile 'cat mechs sped off to attack the enemy flanks as soon as the enemy formed their line while the less mobile but more heavily armored walkers, Urson mechs and lesser repulsartank units unleashed artillery-level fire on the enemy. Air assault in the form of fighters and LAATs flitted in and out of the battlefield, firing off long-range ground missiles or beamlaser cannons.

And the Marine infantry behind the lines began to file into APCs...

Whitfield left Taylor to himself as he walked into the nominal headquarters to confer with his commander. However, since he knew it was inevitable that the issue come up again, he asked Keith, "You requested my presence? May I ask why you left Taylor out of your order?" Whitfield had an idea of what the response would be; nevertheless, this diplomatic formality was necessary if the issue was to be resolved.

"Because I don't know what to do with him. If he wasn't from another nation, and if he wasn't Jedi, I would have expelled him on the first day of the campaign. But, doing that carries extra repercussions I don't want to deal with." Keith paused for a moment. "His personality reminds me of...the Dark Lord."

"The Dark Lord?" Such a comparison surprised even the old Jedi, but he couldn't say he hadn't warned Taylor about it... "Please explain."

"His attitude. That I don't have to respect you, because I'm a Jedi. That the only reason why I'm here is that you have sixty (ooc: including techies/logistics) of my countrymen attached to your little unit. He's an arrogant little bugger, just as the Dark Lord was arrogant enough to circulate blatantly unconstitutional 'surveys,' followed by mindrapes of those who spoke up. And his anger..."

"But he is not a Sith Lord. You know that, as well as I."

"So you say, but after last night, I just can't trust him. At all. How can a Light Side Jedi be so angry and contemptful? I just don't get it. Now, I'm paranoid that he wants to, er, dispose of me. If it weren't for your constant intercession, one of us would probably be dead by now. Probably me, I'd be a pile of ash on the ground. And I don't know what to do with him. I would just have the two of us conduct scouting, as in Rejaf, and let Coredian command Coredian, as I did in Rejaf, to keep us separate, but now I'm afraid that Taylor will have other ideas and abuse his command."

"Oh, dear." Whitfield thought for a few seconds. "I believe that the three of us must confer over this. I don't think he realizes how far his lack of tact goes, sometimes. Believe me, when I first met him, he was far worse, and thought I was senile for the way I trained him in 'Mech combat."

"What did you do?"

"The 'fire-on-commander' exercise." The Jedi said this as if it were simply a mile run in basic training. "He thought I was senile for a week, until I defended him from one of the Dark Lord's mindrape attempts. This is why he trusts me, even though he doesn't like you. He doesn't like much of anybody, from what I can tell, and I haven't prodded the issue. Anyway, shall I call him?"

"No. I think he will pull something on me."

"But I will be there. He trusts me. You trust me. If necessary, my nine-foot lightsaber will separate the two of you."

Keith thought for a moment. "Very well, I have to deal with this eventually."
While the politician and the unfriendly Colonel talked, Taylor recieved a Force-punch in the face, and he knew where it came from. Jacob, what the hell was that for?

You're acting stupid, and you know it. Jacob chasitised him. I don't know what's going on over there, but you're acting like a whiny idiot, and it's spilling over into our twin-link! Honestly, you're going to end up like Anakin Skywalker someday with that attitude of yours.

What...I'm not...

Jacob cut his brother off. I warned you once, I warned you a thousand times, watch that temper of yours! Now if you don't go back and resolve your troubles and you get kicked in the ass for it, you're going to hear from not just me, but from Daniel as well.

"Eep." Taylor definitely didn't want to face their eldest brother and explain a completely failed mission to him. Fire's nothing to a guy with millions of volts at his fingertips.

I thought so. Now move it. Jacob answered, then cut off their link.

Taylor sighed. It was their usual argument, but with one change. The comparison to him and the man who turned into Darth Vader struck a nasty chord within him. Ugh. He just had to pull out the heavy artillery...

Taylor, your presence is required here. Whitfield sent the message telepathically, because he admitted to himself that Taylor was unlikely to respond to a similar request from Keith...
Then Whitfield's call came to him. All right. I'm coming.

Taylor headed down to the base. "What is it?"

Crew of the Star Destroyer noted that smaller, more numerous vehicles have come out to play, and decided to continue helping out the Corps by sending down turbolaser presents after scans were taken carefully.

In the meantime, the more mobile 'cat mechs sped off to attack the enemy flanks as soon as the enemy formed their line while the less mobile but more heavily armored walkers, Urson mechs and lesser repulsartank units unleashed artillery-level fire on the enemy. Air assault in the form of fighters and LAATs flitted in and out of the battlefield, firing off long-range ground missiles or beamlaser cannons.

And the Marine infantry behind the lines began to file into APCs...

*cough* losses *cough*

The thirty or so long-range missile carriers only managed to fire a couple of rounds of missile spam before most of them were slagged either by enemy artillery or the Star Destroyers, for they were the least armored of the swarm of vehicles. The fifty or so heavier tanks, more heavily armored than a LAAT but with twin heavy guns (PPCs and Gauss Rifles) and far less manueverable, survived the initial onslaught, with a couple of exceptions, although several reported heavy damage. About fifty more hypersonic Gauss slugs and fifty more blue bolts of energy lashed out at the enemy lines.

Meanwhile, the eleven surviving 'Mechs, having completed their repairs, made their way back to the outskirts of the city, to form a secondary line behind the more expendable vehicles, and also to lend fire support. They, too, unleashed all manner of Gauss Rifle, particle projector cannon, pulse laser, and missile fire at the enemy...

General Ypsilanti ordered the infantry to hold position, and prepare some presents, in the event the enemy came too close. If not, suicide bombers might become necessary...

While the politician and the unfriendly Colonel talked, Taylor recieved a Force-punch in the face, and he knew where it came from. Jacob, what the hell was that for?

You're acting stupid, and you know it. Jacob chasitised him. I don't know what's going on over there, but you're acting like a whiny idiot, and it's spilling over into our twin-link! Honestly, you're going to end up like Anakin Skywalker someday with that attitude of yours.

What...I'm not...

Jacob cut his brother off. I warned you once, I warned you a thousand times, watch that temper of yours! Now if you don't go back and resolve your troubles and you get kicked in the ass for it, you're going to hear from not just me, but from Daniel as well.

"Eep." Taylor definitely didn't want to face their eldest brother and explain a completely failed mission to him. Fire's nothing to a guy with millions of volts at his fingertips.

I thought so. Now move it. Jacob answered, then cut off their link.

Taylor sighed. It was their usual argument, but with one change. The comparison to him and the man who turned into Darth Vader struck a nasty chord within him. Ugh. He just had to pull out the heavy artillery...

Then Whitfield's call came to him. All right. I'm coming.

Taylor headed down to the base. "What is it?"

It didn't take Whitfield long to sense that Taylor had just been scolded, probably by a family member, telepathically. It showed on his facial expression and in the tone of his voice, which lacked the usual hint of defiance, especially when Keith was in the room. Even Keith could tell that something had happened to Taylor, to change his attitude a bit.

Nevertheless, Keith remained reluctant to open his mouth. Whitfield, you tell him. Please.

Whitfield obliged. "If I may be blunt, the Colonel does not trust you at all, because he sees much the same combination of anger and arrogance in you as he did in the Dark Lord, right before he was mindraped and enslaved. I've warned you about the consequences of excessive anger before, and now, it appears that it's turned your own commander against you."

*cough* losses *cough*

The thirty or so long-range missile carriers only managed to fire a couple of rounds of missile spam before most of them were slagged either by enemy artillery or the Star Destroyers, for they were the least armored of the swarm of vehicles. The fifty or so heavier tanks, more heavily armored than a LAAT but with twin heavy guns (PPCs and Gauss Rifles) and far less manueverable, survived the initial onslaught, with a couple of exceptions, although several reported heavy damage. About fifty more hypersonic Gauss slugs and fifty more blue bolts of energy lashed out at the enemy lines.

Meanwhile, the eleven surviving 'Mechs, having completed their repairs, made their way back to the outskirts of the city, to form a secondary line behind the more expendable vehicles, and also to lend fire support. They, too, unleashed all manner of Gauss Rifle, particle projector cannon, pulse laser, and missile fire at the enemy...

General Ypsilanti ordered the infantry to hold position, and prepare some presents, in the event the enemy came too close. If not, suicide bombers might become necessary...
Losses were getting increasingly heavy with the slugs and bolts of energy slagging many a Marine and vehicle. And then, they knew they were in trouble when the Mechs came back. They forced to fall back for real to let the Star Destroyer conduct riskier but more powerful firesupport with more of the turbolaser cannons. What once was a careful trickle became a heavier rainstorm of destructive green energy raining down upon the enemy vehicles and Mechs. At least it was the outskirts of the city and not the interior that was hit.

Still, the smaller turbolasers and hypersonic slugs of the Coredian mechanized divisions, now reduced to several large brigades, did their best to defeat the enemy.

It didn't take Whitfield long to sense that Taylor had just been scolded, probably by a family member. It showed on his facial expression and in the tone of his voice, which lacked the usual hint of defiance, especially when Keith was in the room. Even Keith could tell that something had happened to Taylor, to change his attitude a bit.

Nevertheless, Keith remained reluctant to open his mouth. Whitfield, you tell him. Please.

Whitfield obliged. "If I may be blunt, the Colonel does not trust you at all, because he sees much the same combination of anger and arrogance in you as he did in the Dark Lord, right before he was mindraped and enslaved. I've warned you about the consequences of excessive anger before, and now, it appears that it's turned your own commander against you."
It was a second slap to his face. The comparison between him and Dark Lords came up again. They're right...they're both right...

Taylor sighed. "I understand. I was tactless, and didn't realize it came out like that. I'll have to work on that." It was as close as they would get to an apology. It's a start.

Losses were getting increasingly heavy with the slugs and bolts of energy slagging many a Marine and vehicle. And then, they knew they were in trouble when the Mechs came back. They forced to fall back for real to let the Star Destroyer conduct riskier but more powerful firesupport with more of the turbolaser cannons. What once was a careful trickle became a heavier rainstorm of destructive green energy raining down upon the enemy vehicles and Mechs. At least it was the outskirts of the city and not the interior that was hit.

Still, the smaller turbolasers and hypersonic slugs of the Coredian mechanized divisions, now reduced to several large brigades, did their best to defeat the enemy.

About two thirds of the remaining heavy tanks fell to the combined onslaught of the Coredian ground forces and the Star Destroyer in orbit, leaving only twelve heavy tanks and a couple LRM carriers to continue firing at the enemy units still within range. Said bombardment also destroyed another pair of Summoners, leaving nine 'Mechs, of which three were heavily damaged.

The 'Mechs fired parting shots before retreating back into the city. If the enemy wanted to conduct heavy orbital bombardment, they would take quite a few civilians with them...

...The 'Mechwarriors donned NBC suits and sealed their cockpits as they prepared for what was to come.

The Star Destroyer took down the last Summoner on the way, leaving eight 'Mechs, but at a terrible cost. A few heavy turbolaser bolts went a few meters astray, and this problem compounded when the 'Mech's reactor went critical. The twin detonations also managed to detonate white phosphorus presents, starting a chain reaction that set about six square miles and a couple million people ablaze, or suffocating them. However, said fireball also burned about a quarter of the grunts defending Eheayana...

The eight surviving 'Mechs, consisting solely of the two original assault lances, stood in the fire, with anywhere between a third and half of their armor burned off, ready to turn back to the front lines...

It was a second slap to his face. The comparison between him and Dark Lords came up again. They're right...they're both right...

Taylor sighed. "I understand. I was tactless, and didn't realize it came out like that. I'll have to work on that." It was as close as they would get to an apology. It's a start.

"I understand. I'm not exactly a natural diplomat either." Lieutenant Colonel Allaire let out a sigh, as he still had doubts about his ability to trust someone with both a proven temper and a lightsaber, for he also knew the politician had warned him of his anger before...

...He carefully considered whether Taylor's confession of sorts was sincere, or whether it was lip service meant to dismiss the subject and move on. "Major, I'm giving you one more chance before I start filling out paperwork that you really don't want me to fill out. Because, to be painfully honest, I still can't be sure whether or not I can trust you."

As he said this, he looked out the window. The snow had broken, leaving a partly cloudy sky, and Keith could ascertain that the Sun had ascended to about halfway between the horizon and directly overhead. Shit, it's already midmorning. "Jedi Whitfield, bring those maps on the table over there, there's this other little thing we need to discuss..."

About two thirds of the remaining heavy tanks fell to the combined onslaught of the Coredian ground forces and the Star Destroyer in orbit, leaving only twelve heavy tanks and a couple LRM carriers to continue firing at the enemy units still within range. Said bombardment also destroyed another pair of Summoners, leaving nine 'Mechs, of which three were heavily damaged.
With a partial victory in sight for the Marines, the mech brigades summoned up strength and concentrated their firepower on the final number of cannon fodder thrown to deal with the Coredians.

The 'Mechs fired parting shots before retreating back into the city. If the enemy wanted to conduct heavy orbital bombardment, they would take quite a few civilians with them...

...The 'Mechwarriors donned NBC suits and sealed their cockpits as they prepared for what was to come.
A small number of aircraft sped down towards the mechs retreating into the city and fired their missiles before turning away.

The Star Destroyer took down the last Summoner on the way, leaving eight 'Mechs, but at a terrible cost. A few heavy turbolaser bolts went a few meters astray, and this problem compounded when the 'Mech's reactor went critical. The twin detonations also managed to detonate white phosphorus presents, starting a chain reaction that set about six square miles and a couple million people ablaze, or suffocating them. However, said fireball also burned about a quarter of the grunts defending Eheayana...

The eight surviving 'Mechs, consisting solely of the two original assault lances, stood in the fire, with anywhere between a third and half of their armor burned off, ready to turn back to the front lines...
The Marine Corps watched yet another fireball burn a part of the city and prepared to meet the mechs once again. With the damage recieved by the enemy, however, they believe that victory over them could be achieved now.

"I understand. I'm not exactly a natural diplomat either." Lieutenant Colonel Allaire let out a sigh, as he still had doubts about his ability to trust someone with both a proven temper and a lightsaber, for he also knew the politician had warned him of his anger before...

...He carefully considered whether Taylor's confession of sorts was sincere, or whether it was lip service meant to dismiss the subject and move on. "Major, I'm giving you one more chance before I start filling out paperwork that you really don't want me to fill out. Because, to be painfully honest, I still can't be sure whether or not I can trust you."

As he said this, he looked out the window. The snow had broken, leaving a partly cloudy sky, and Keith could ascertain that the Sun had ascended to about halfway between the horizon and directly overhead. Shit, it's already midmorning. "Jedi Whitfield, bring those maps on the table over there, there's this other little thing we need to discuss..."
Taylor nodded sincerely. "Understood, Colonel."

With that out of the way, it was back to business.

With a partial victory in sight for the Marines, the mech brigades summoned up strength and concentrated their firepower on the final number of cannon fodder thrown to deal with the Coredians.

A small number of aircraft sped down towards the mechs retreating into the city and fired their missiles before turning away.

The Marine Corps watched yet another fireball burn a part of the city and prepared to meet the mechs once again. With the damage recieved by the enemy, however, they believe that victory over them could be achieved now.

Unfortunately for the Coredians, the fireball consumed what missiles the aircraft had managed to fire. However, that was not to say the battle was going well for the defenders...

General Ypsilanti looked on. Turning to one of his underlings, "Infantry are to break into civilian cars, load them up with chemical presents, and turn themselves into suicide bombers, 'cause it appears the enemy ain't coming in here." Suicide bombers had proven to be one of the deadlier weapons in the Dark Lord's arsenal...

"Yes, sir." The aide relayed the orders to the front line, and in only a few minutes, the first round of about a hundred suicide bombers sped towards the Coredian positions, even as the 'Mechs returned from inside the city. Infantry grunts raced to load up more cars, more going-away presents for the enemy.

By this point, the heavy tanks and lighter escorts had pretty much been removed from the battlefield, but not before managing to fire off a couple of rounds of going-away presents at the enemy mecha, consisting of gauss rifle and particle projector cannon fire.

As the last of the tanks blew up, the eight surviving 'Mechs reappeared on the city line, replacing the fire from the destroyed vehicles with their particle projector cannons, pulse lasers, and long-range missile racks. The Atlases closed to short range, or at least tried to, to bring their heavy AC20s to bear, a weapon roughly twice as destructive as a Gauss slug, but with only about a third of the range.

Victory for the Coredians would not come without sacrifice, for they were facing an enemy with a proven willingness to kill itself if it meant killing more of the enemy, after all.

Taylor nodded sincerely. "Understood, Colonel."

With that out of the way, it was back to business.

Lieutenant Colonel Allaire looked at the recon maps again. Nothing had changed--only two medium lances in South Batangas Bay, nothing defending the north. "Damn, between Rejaf and the siege, we must have really tied up the enemy. There's like, nothing left. Except possibly a few presents that you and the politician can look for." Nevertheless, Keith had a nagging feeling that his warning about not being able to save the entire city had turned out to be accurate, while Whitfield sensed destruction and flame, although now it appeared as if most of the city, at least, could be saved. "If we move quickly, we might be able to meet up with the Admiral, in person, before midnight."

Unfortunately for the Coredians, the fireball consumed what missiles the aircraft had managed to fire. However, that was not to say the battle was going well for the defenders...

General Ypsilanti looked on. Turning to one of his underlings, "Infantry are to break into civilian cars, load them up with chemical presents, and turn themselves into suicide bombers, 'cause it appears the enemy ain't coming in here." Suicide bombers had proven to be one of the deadlier weapons in the Dark Lord's arsenal...

"Yes, sir." The aide relayed the orders to the front line, and in only a few minutes, the first round of about a hundred suicide bombers sped towards the Coredian positions, even as the 'Mechs returned from inside the city. Infantry grunts raced to load up more cars, more going-away presents for the enemy.
Missiles and lasers from aerial positions, and high-ROF E-web cannons from the APCs and cougars slashed down the lines of the cars a-coming, not to mention infantry blasters set at maximum power.

By this point, the heavy tanks and lighter escorts had pretty much been removed from the battlefield, but not before managing to fire off a couple of rounds of going-away presents at the enemy mecha, consisting of gauss rifle and particle projector cannon fire.
A couple of mechas had their shields in the red and dropped back to recharge them, although one was caught by a combined PPC and gauss assault and blew up.

As the last of the tanks blew up, the eight surviving 'Mechs reappeared on the city line, replacing the fire from the destroyed vehicles with their particle projector cannons, pulse lasers, and long-range missile racks. The Atlases closed to short range, or at least tried to, to bring their heavy AC20s to bear, a weapon roughly twice as destructive as a Gauss slug, but with only about a third of the range.

Victory for the Coredians would not come without sacrifice, for they were facing an enemy with a proven willingness to kill itself if it meant killing more of the enemy, after all.
The cougar wolfpacks growled and lept forward upon orders to destroy the Atlases. Their high speed and ability to dodge with catlike movements meant that the Atlases would have a hard time bringing their weapons to bear on the cats as they moved to leap upon the mecha and slash with their chainrazor claws and bite with their teeth, especially on the legs and cockpit. In the meantime, the larger Sabercats and AT-TE walkers concentrated their firepower on the other lance of enemy forces, using high-speed slugs and turbolasers to dish out damage, especially towards the legs.

Lieutenant Colonel Allaire looked at the recon maps again. Nothing had changed--only two medium lances in South Batangas Bay, nothing defending the north. "Damn, between Rejaf and the siege, we must have really tied up the enemy. There's like, nothing left. Except possibly a few presents that you and the politician can look for." Nevertheless, Keith had a nagging feeling that his warning about not being able to save the entire city had turned out to be accurate, while Whitfield sensed destruction and flame, although now it appeared as if most of the city, at least, could be saved. "If we move quickly, we might be able to meet up with the Admiral, in person, before midnight."
"Yeah, that seems about accurate." Taylor replied with a nod.

Missiles and lasers from aerial positions, and high-ROF E-web cannons from the APCs and cougars slashed down the lines of the cars a-coming, not to mention infantry blasters set at maximum power.

A couple of mechas had their shields in the red and dropped back to recharge them, although one was caught by a combined PPC and gauss assault and blew up.

The cougar wolfpacks growled and lept forward upon orders to destroy the Atlases. Their high speed and ability to dodge with catlike movements meant that the Atlases would have a hard time bringing their weapons to bear on the cats as they moved to leap upon the mecha and slash with their chainrazor claws and bite with their teeth, especially on the legs and cockpit. In the meantime, the larger Sabercats and AT-TE walkers concentrated their firepower on the other lance of enemy forces, using high-speed slugs and turbolasers to dish out damage, especially towards the legs.

All of the suicide bombers failed to reach their targets--but for every one that fell, five left the city. A second wave of five hundred or so suicide-bombing 'civilian' vehicles left the city, with the sole objective of blowing up as many Coredians as possible, their drivers holding the gas pedal down. After all, as the first wave left, the remaining infantry had had more time to carjack and load with presents...

Meanwhile, melee attacks on the Atlases turned out to be a very bad idea. The 'MechWarriors inside refused to fall for the enemy dodging, instead firing right when the enemy mecha leapt to attack, using their AC20s as massive shotguns with four-hundred pound shells. With the enemy within ten or fifteen meters, the Atlases didn't need to be terribly accurate, and their heavy weapons simply reloaded while the enemy took evasive manuevers. When the enemy returned to melee, the heavy autocannons unloaded again.

However, the melee attacks did have their effect; the Cougars managed to chew off about a third of the Atlases' aggregate leg armor, in addition to the third that had burned off in the massive fireball a few minutes earlier. One of the enemy Cougars managed to gnaw off a decent chunk of the cockpit armor of one of the Atlases, even as the 'MechWarrior inside fired a massive AC20 at the thing--and the Cougar in question was practically right on top of the torso-mounted barrel.

Said shot would be that 'Mech's last as its pilot ejected following the shot.

Meanwhile, the heavy Timber Wolves unleashed another carefully targeted Alpha Strike against the enemy Sabrecats, unloading their PPCs and missiles, while continuing to fire their heavy pulse lasers, flushing coolant as necessary. One 'Mech's leg completely severed as its armor slagged and sheared from the hypersonic rounds, while another was knocked down, its right leg displaying red to the 'MechWarrior's HUD. However, this one got back up as the other two unleashed their weapons again, and the third, eager to smite the enemy, joined in...

"Yeah, that seems about accurate." Taylor replied with a nod.

"If that is the case, we'll have to deal with Batangas in the same manner that we liberated Sablayan, but I'm going to request another round of recon just to make sure," Keith replied. "This seems almost too good to be true from my experience, but empirically speaking, the enemy almost certainly is tied up. And do be a bit more careful this time, Taylor, because South Batangas Bay also has three oil refineries in addition to fossil-fuel-burning plants. Don't do it again, and I'll keep things nice and quiet, mmmkay?"

All of the suicide bombers failed to reach their targets--but for every one that fell, five left the city. A second wave of five hundred or so suicide-bombing 'civilian' vehicles left the city, with the sole objective of blowing up as many Coredians as possible, their drivers holding the gas pedal down. After all, as the first wave left, the remaining infantry had had more time to carjack and load with presents...
If anything, the Marines intensified their firepower to try and match the larger numbers charging at them. LAATs swooped low and sweeped their beamlaser cannons across to slice-and-detonate enemy cars, while fighters moved to strafe with their laser cannons. It was only a matter of time before the Marines could start moving in, judging from the infantry assaults.

Meanwhile, melee attacks on the Atlases turned out to be a very bad idea. The 'MechWarriors inside refused to fall for the enemy dodging, instead firing right when the enemy mecha leapt to attack, using their AC20s as massive shotguns with four-hundred pound shells. With the enemy within ten or fifteen meters, the Atlases didn't need to be terribly accurate, and their heavy weapons simply reloaded while the enemy took evasive manuevers. When the enemy returned to melee, the heavy autocannons unloaded again.

However, the melee attacks did have their effect; the Cougars managed to chew off about a third of the Atlases' aggregate leg armor, in addition to the third that had burned off in the massive fireball a few minutes earlier. One of the enemy Cougars managed to gnaw off a decent chunk of the cockpit armor of one of the Atlases, even as the 'MechWarrior inside fired a massive AC20 at the thing--and the Cougar in question was practically right on top of the torso-mounted barrel.

Said shot would be that 'Mech's last as its pilot ejected following the shot.
Whenever a Cougar died, its reactor detonated violently, causing small mushroom clouds to rise up into the sky. The Cougar chewing on the cockpit armor detonated the moment the AC20 slug ignited, producing a devastating fireball for the enemy. The remaining cats continued to bite through the legs of the other mechs to try and mission-kill them.

Meanwhile, the heavy Timber Wolves unleashed another carefully targeted Alpha Strike against the enemy Sabrecats, unloading their PPCs and missiles, while continuing to fire their heavy pulse lasers, flushing coolant as necessary. One 'Mech's leg completely severed as its armor slagged and sheared from the hypersonic rounds, while another was knocked down, its right leg displaying red to the 'MechWarrior's HUD. However, this one got back up as the other two unleashed their weapons again, and the third, eager to smite the enemy, joined in...
A volley of turbolasers aimed at the highly injured mech and then fire from the sky rained down once more on the heavy mechs to deal with them once and for all. In return, two mech/tank companies were decimated in the attack.


"If that is the case, we'll have to deal with Batangas in the same manner that we liberated Sablayan, but I'm going to request another round of recon just to make sure," Keith replied. "This seems almost too good to be true from my experience, but empirically speaking, the enemy almost certainly is tied up. And do be a bit more careful this time, Taylor, because South Batangas Bay also has three oil refineries in addition to fossil-fuel-burning plants. Don't do it again, and I'll keep things nice and quiet, mmmkay?"
"I see." Taylor nodded. I'll have to try something different, then...

If anything, the Marines intensified their firepower to try and match the larger numbers charging at them. LAATs swooped low and sweeped their beamlaser cannons across to slice-and-detonate enemy cars, while fighters moved to strafe with their laser cannons. It was only a matter of time before the Marines could start moving in, judging from the infantry assaults.

Whenever a Cougar died, its reactor detonated violently, causing small mushroom clouds to rise up into the sky. The Cougar chewing on the cockpit armor detonated the moment the AC20 slug ignited, producing a devastating fireball for the enemy. The remaining cats continued to bite through the legs of the other mechs to try and mission-kill them.

A volley of turbolasers aimed at the highly injured mech and then fire from the sky rained down once more on the heavy mechs to deal with them once and for all. In return, two mech/tank companies were decimated in the attack.

Well over ninety percent of the suicide cars blew up as the Coredians frantically fired upon them, but there was a slight degree of safety in numbers, and about twenty made it through to make their deliveries. Meanwhile, one last wave of seven hundred or so suicide bombers sped forth from the city, seeking to deliver another round of incendiary presents to the enemy...

The last seven thousand or so infantry in the outskirts of the city wired going-away presents of their own, to make last deliveries upon the arrival of the soon-to-be-victorious Coredians.

A couple of miles away, the Atlases shrugged off the Cougars' detonating reactors. They had stood through, and easily survived, a massive fireball consuming multiple square miles; a few pinprick reactor detonations were nothing in comparison. These 'Mechs were designed almost purely for intimidation, and the ability to shrug off such detonations was an important component of said mission profile. A thin layer of their armor slagged off from the detonations; perhaps the most important consequence of the reactor detonations was a large spike in heat. Fortunately, ballistic weapons wouldn't do much to compound said heat problem.

The three Atlases continued to fire their massive AC20s upon the Cougars molesting them; however, the incessant chewing gradually wore down their remaining armor. However, the AC20s were capable of reloading and firing every five seconds, so the Atlases would nonetheless leave no shortage of going-away presents...

Another Atlas succumbed, one of its legs finally having been chewed off, but its pilot remained, firing several Alpha Strikes in rapid succession, even from the knocked-down 'Mech, to drive up heat and leave more going-away presents for the enemy. Its pilot overrode automatic shutdown, even as he continued to fire weapons at whichever target said weapons happened to be pointed at, and a few seconds later, the Atlas' reactor overloaded and detonated in a massive fireball, as if to retaliate against the Cougars for using that tactic.

Meanwhile, the siege lance continued to unleash the full brunt of its weapons against the enemy. The turbolaser fire from the Star Destroyer, aimed at the damaged 'Mech, ended up slagging its upper missile racks instead of striking its heavily damaged leg, its weak spot. Nevertheless, after about ten seconds, said 'Mech fell to the ground. The Star Destroyer, after switching targets (ooc: I assume you'll do this rather than stop firing), was fortunate enough to score two turbolaser headshots within a few seconds of each other, a notoriously difficult feat from orbit. However, the pilot therein left one last round of PPC fire for the enemy to contemplate.

The third and last, as if in defiance of the enemy, stood and held position, unleashing more Alpha Strikes upon the enemy as soon as weapon recycle rates would allow...

"I see." Taylor nodded. I'll have to try something different, then...

"OK." Keith simply nodded, as if to let Whitfield deal with the young Jedi, the Jedi that he still could not quite bring himself to trust, at least not until he backed up those words he had just spoken with actions. He left the two to themselves, so that he could send a transmission to the Admiral requesting updated Star Destroyer recon of the Batangas area in silence.

As he waited for the reply and the recon, he started preparing the six Coredian pilots to move out.

Well over ninety percent of the suicide cars blew up as the Coredians frantically fired upon them, but there was a slight degree of safety in numbers, and about twenty made it through to make their deliveries. Meanwhile, one last wave of seven hundred or so suicide bombers sped forth from the city, seeking to deliver another round of incendiary presents to the enemy...

The last seven thousand or so infantry in the outskirts of the city wired going-away presents of their own, to make last deliveries upon the arrival of the soon-to-be-victorious Coredians.
The twenty detonated, blowing up another two companies of infantry and then the air assault moved forward into the city itself, slicing at any and all vehicles that moved, and missiles and lasers lashed out at the infantry in the outskirts whereever they saw them.

A couple of miles away, the Atlases shrugged off the Cougars' detonating reactors. They had stood through, and easily survived, a massive fireball consuming multiple square miles; a few pinprick reactor detonations were nothing in comparison. These 'Mechs were designed almost purely for intimidation, and the ability to shrug off such detonations was an important component of said mission profile. A thin layer of their armor slagged off from the detonations; perhaps the most important consequence of the reactor detonations was a large spike in heat. Fortunately, ballistic weapons wouldn't do much to compound said heat problem.

The three Atlases continued to fire their massive AC20s upon the Cougars molesting them; however, the incessant chewing gradually wore down their remaining armor. However, the AC20s were capable of reloading and firing every five seconds, so the Atlases would nonetheless leave no shortage of going-away presents...

Another Atlas succumbed, one of its legs finally having been chewed off, but its pilot remained, firing several Alpha Strikes in rapid succession, even from the knocked-down 'Mech, to drive up heat and leave more going-away presents for the enemy. Its pilot overrode automatic shutdown, even as he continued to fire weapons at whichever target said weapons happened to be pointed at, and a few seconds later, the Atlas' reactor overloaded and detonated in a massive fireball, as if to retaliate against the Cougars for using that tactic.
Cougars noted the overload, and lept away from the mech before it detonated, moving onto another one. Still, the cougars have lost many of their wolfpacks, and only a few were left.

Meanwhile, the siege lance continued to unleash the full brunt of its weapons against the enemy. The turbolaser fire from the Star Destroyer, aimed at the damaged 'Mech, ended up slagging its upper missile racks instead of striking its heavily damaged leg, its weak spot. Nevertheless, after about ten seconds, said 'Mech fell to the ground. The Star Destroyer, after switching targets (ooc: I assume you'll do this rather than stop firing), was fortunate enough to score two turbolaser headshots within a few seconds of each other, a notoriously difficult feat from orbit. However, the pilot therein left one last round of PPC fire for the enemy to contemplate.

The third and last, as if in defiance of the enemy, stood and held position, unleashing more Alpha Strikes upon the enemy as soon as weapon recycle rates would allow...
The final stroke was a full ortillery strike upon the last mech, combined with hypersonic shells from the few remaining AT-TEs and turbolasers from the Sabercats.

"OK." Keith simply nodded, as if to let Whitfield deal with the young Jedi, the Jedi that he still could not quite bring himself to trust, at least not until he backed up those words he had just spoken with actions. He left the two to themselves, so that he could send a transmission to the Admiral requesting updated Star Destroyer recon of the Batangas area in silence.

As he waited for the reply and the recon, he started preparing the six Coredian pilots to move out.
In response, the Star Destroyer sent another batch of recon scans to the Lt. Colonel as it continued to strike at targets from afar...

The twenty detonated, blowing up another two companies of infantry and then the air assault moved forward into the city itself, slicing at any and all vehicles that moved, and missiles and lasers lashed out at the infantry in the outskirts whereever they saw them.

Cougars noted the overload, and lept away from the mech before it detonated, moving onto another one. Still, the cougars have lost many of their wolfpacks, and only a few were left.

The final stroke was a full ortillery strike upon the last mech, combined with hypersonic shells from the few remaining AT-TEs and turbolasers from the Sabercats.

As airstrikes commenced upon the outskirts of the city, the seven thousand remaining infantry committed mass suicide, leaving another ten-mile-long by two-mile wide massive firestorm, running from north to south on the city's outskirts, in their wake, even as the last wave of seven hundred suicide bombers sped out of the blast zone, their drivers holding down the cars' gas pedals the entire way. Another two million or so died from this last going-away present left for the Coredians, from a combination of flash-burns and flash-asphyxiation. At least the Coredians had lured the infantry away from the city center, except the command, which would only do limited damage in its seppuku-like rituals.

The Coredians frantically tried to kill the seven hundred suicide bombers before they reached the line, but once again, there was a small measure of safety in numbers, a margin larger than the last time because there were, after all, more bombers in this wave. For about forty-five seconds, they raced to the enemy line, as if to see who could get there first, about six hundred and fifty not making it to the finish line. Yes, the enemy had prematurely detonated more suicide bombers than before; however, this was more than offset by the increased quantity of bombers...

About fifty made it through to say their final, explosive good-byes to the enemy.

The final two Atlases fired more rounds of AC20s at the Cougars as they continued to chew on their legs, eventually, and finally, bringing both down; however, the Cougars had suffered enormous attrition in the process...

The final Timber Wolf fired one last round of parting blue energy bolts, even as the intense bombardment peeled off its armor, and the massive amounts of fire from the ground directed against it didn't really help, either. After a few seconds, the siege 'Mech finally succumbed, as it staggered under the effects of the hypersonic rounds and finally detonated in a massive fireball.

General Ypsilanti, finally facing total defeat, knew that he would die, either at the hands of the Coredians, or the hands of the Dark Lord for his failure, and so proceeded to personally light a few incendiary rounds inside the commandeered Eheayana Life Insurance Tower, flash-melting everyone inside said tower, and everyone within a couple of blocks thereof, in the process.

Smoke rose from Eheayana, City of the Steppe, as the last defenders killed themselves either to avoid the wrath of the enemy, the wrath of the Dark Lord, or both, or even because they were simply brainwashed into believing that death in the service of the Dark Lord was a glorious thing, indeed. The airport, and a swath of destruction leading from said airport to the field of battle, as well as a huge stretch of the outer suburbs, lay in flaming ruin. Some six million civilians had perished in the siege, taken by the maniacial 'defense' of the city, as Lieutenant Colonel Allaire had warned would happen; however, another twenty-five million or so would live to enjoy their liberation, or at least what they could enjoy, after losing a sixth of their brethren.

The inner eighty percent of the city lay largely intact, its normally gleaming white spires, architectually designed to complement the mountains that soared behind them, dimmed by the thick smoke rising from the outskirts. Nevertheless, said spires, seemingly dimmed by the dark and horrifying battle, remained, as if in defiance of the Dark Lord's will...

In response, the Star Destroyer sent another batch of recon scans to the Lt. Colonel as it continued to strike at targets from afar...

Keith analyzed the updated recon data. Sure enough, we've got a Sablayan redux, just about exactly in terms of mechanized units. He informed the rest of the unit that they would engage largely the same enemy, in largely the same manner, as they had last night in Sablayan. Keith ordered the unit to move out; they would reach the southern outskirts of Batangas Bay in about three hours.

Along the way, he reiterated to the Fire Knights, through telepathy, to expect to deal with incendiary presents, preferably, of course, with only the presents the enemy intended to leave behind and not civilian infrastructure that relied upon heat to do its job.

As airstrikes commenced upon the outskirts of the city, the seven thousand remaining infantry committed mass suicide, leaving another ten-mile-long by two-mile wide massive firestorm, running from north to south on the city's outskirts, in their wake, even as the last wave of seven hundred suicide bombers sped out of the blast zone, their drivers holding down the cars' gas pedals the entire way. Another two million or so died from this last going-away present left for the Coredians, from a combination of flash-burns and flash-asphyxiation. At least the Coredians had lured the infantry away from the city center, except the command, which would only do limited damage in its seppuku-like rituals.

The Coredians frantically tried to kill the seven hundred suicide bombers before they reached the line, but once again, there was a small measure of safety in numbers, a margin larger than the last time because there were, after all, more bombers in this wave. For about forty-five seconds, they raced to the enemy line, as if to see who could get there first, about six hundred and fifty not making it to the finish line. Yes, the enemy had prematurely detonated more suicide bombers than before; however, this was more than offset by the increased quantity of bombers...

About fifty made it through to say their final, explosive good-byes to the enemy.
Infantry ran out of the way of the cars, but it was futile, as the explosions killed more of them, and even took out a couple of APCs. From a full two infantry divisions, about one third was wiped out by the battle, which isn't boding well for the rest of the war.

The final two Atlases fired more rounds of AC20s at the Cougars as they continued to chew on their legs, eventually, and finally, bringing both down; however, the Cougars had suffered enormous attrition in the process...
Indeed, for out of seven wolfpacks or twenty-one cougars sent to destroy the Atlases, about nine were left, but limped away in various stages of damage. They'll certainly need repairs soon.

The final Timber Wolf fired one last round of parting blue energy bolts, even as the intense bombardment peeled off its armor, and the massive amounts of fire from the ground directed against it didn't really help, either. After a few seconds, the siege 'Mech finally succumbed, as it staggered under the effects of the hypersonic rounds and finally detonated in a massive fireball.

General Ypsilanti, finally facing total defeat, knew that he would die, either at the hands of the Coredians, or the hands of the Dark Lord for his failure, and so proceeded to personally light a few incendiary rounds inside the commandeered Eheayana Life Insurance Tower, flash-melting everyone inside said tower, and everyone within a couple of blocks thereof, in the process.

Smoke rose from Eheayana, City of the Steppe, as the last defenders killed themselves either to avoid the wrath of the enemy, the wrath of the Dark Lord, or both, or even because they were simply brainwashed into believing that death in the service of the Dark Lord was a glorious thing, indeed. The airport, and a swath of destruction leading from said airport to the field of battle, as well as a huge stretch of the outer suburbs, lay in flaming ruin. Some six million civilians had perished in the siege, taken by the maniacial 'defense' of the city, as Lieutenant Colonel Allaire had warned would happen; however, another twenty-five million or so would live to enjoy their liberation, or at least what they could enjoy, after losing a sixth of their brethren.

The inner eighty percent of the city lay largely intact, its normally gleaming white spires, architectually designed to complement the mountains that soared behind them, dimmed by the thick smoke rising from the outskirts. Nevertheless, said spires, seemingly dimmed by the dark and horrifying battle, remained, as if in defiance of the Dark Lord's will...
The battle ended, the guns slacked off, the bombardments stopped. The Marines tallyed their losses:
More than one third of infantry lost or wounded. One half of mechanized forces destroyed or heavily damaged. Two fifths of droid and light mech forces decimated. All in all, it was a fairly phyrric victory, a victory that at least allowed most of the city to survive.

Now switching to SAR and standing down until the next city, the Marine Corps stormed into the city, looking for survivors of the flames and alerting citizens to the change in control of the city as they moved to take control of radio stations and the like.

Keith analyzed the updated recon data. Sure enough, we've got a Sablayan redux, just about exactly in terms of mechanized units. He informed the rest of the unit that they would engage largely the same enemy, in largely the same manner, as they had last night in Sablayan. Keith ordered the unit to move out; they would reach the southern outskirts of Batangas Bay in about three hours.

Along the way, he reiterated to the Fire Knights, through telepathy, to expect to deal with incendiary presents, preferably, of course, with only the presents the enemy intended to leave behind and not civilian infrastructure that relied upon heat to do its job.
The unit began to move out as instructed.

Infantry ran out of the way of the cars, but it was futile, as the explosions killed more of them, and even took out a couple of APCs. From a full two infantry divisions, about one third was wiped out by the battle, which isn't boding well for the rest of the war.

Indeed, for out of seven wolfpacks or twenty-one cougars sent to destroy the Atlases, about nine were left, but limped away in various stages of damage. They'll certainly need repairs soon.

The battle ended, the guns slacked off, the bombardments stopped. The Marines tallyed their losses:
More than one third of infantry lost or wounded. One half of mechanized forces destroyed or heavily damaged. Two fifths of droid and light mech forces decimated. All in all, it was a fairly phyrric victory, a victory that at least allowed most of the city to survive.

Now switching to SAR and standing down until the next city, the Marine Corps stormed into the city, looking for survivors of the flames and alerting citizens to the change in control of the city as they moved to take control of radio stations and the like.

If there was any good news for the battered Coredian forces, it was that there wouldn't be much more of a war, at least for them, for the remaining enemy forces, divided between South Batangas Bay and the City of the Western Gulf, about sixty miles north of North Batangas Bay, would meet their destruction at the hands of Lieutenant Colonel Allaire's unit within twenty-four hours, even as the Coredians focused on search-and-rescue.

That which remained of the war would have to be shouldered almost exclusively by Jedi Whitfield, and the Force would reveal this to him in due time...

Some two million in the city survived the multiple firestorms, but still required treatment for heavy and severe burns, and they limped throughout the streets, seeking help amongst the light snowfall, even as more burned survivors struggled to dig their way out of debris. An eerie sight indeed for the Coredians...the survivors of the Eheayana Firestorms had literally been to Hell and back.

The rest of the city left the Coredians to themselves, as a contingent its citizens scrapped wooden furniture to make something resembling coffins instead; while certainly not everyone in the city was a craftsman, and those who were did not have the materials to work with that they would have preferred, the dead still required a proper burial...

Funeral processions filled the city streets, as the 'liberated' solemnly gathered the dead, put them in their coffins, and proceeded to the foot of the mountains for burial...

Celebrations would have to wait for anniversary dates, it seemed.

The unit began to move out as instructed.

About halfway through the journey to Batangas, Whitfield sensed the dark fear over Eheayana turn to mourning, as did Keith, the latter probably only because he had forseen this fate. Keith silently cursed himself, for he knew his planning had not saved the entire city, and guilt washed over him for not coming up with a better strategy for the Admiral. Of course, when facing suicidal enemies, there simply was no better strategy, and Whitfield had to remind Keith of that...

Nevertheless, Keith wished he had sent Taylor forth to strike out on his own, perhaps in Whitfield's X-wing, to do what he willed. Perhaps he could have helped Eheayana avoid his fate...

Colonel, if you would have sent Taylor out on his own, he would have been unable to handle it. Whole sections of the city still would have burned, or he would have frozen a few million to death in overcompensation for the huge scale of the fires. Whitfield's voice filled the young commander's head, and the politician was careful to keep his message secure from Taylor.

Regardless of Keith's feelings of guilt, his task still lay ahead of him. As the nine 'Mechs approached South Batangas Bay, Keith and Whitfield broke off, luring the two medium lances outside of the city and into the jaws of the seven waiting 'Mechs, including Taylor's, even as Whitfield started flash-freezing caches of white phosphorus within the city.

If there was any good news for the battered Coredian forces, it was that there wouldn't be much more of a war, at least for them, for the remaining enemy forces, divided between South Batangas Bay and the City of the Western Gulf, about sixty miles north of North Batangas Bay, would meet their destruction at the hands of Lieutenant Colonel Allaire's unit within twenty-four hours, even as the Coredians focused on search-and-rescue.

That which remained of the war would have to be shouldered almost exclusively by Jedi Whitfield, and the Force would reveal this to him in due time...

Some two million in the city survived the multiple firestorms, but still required treatment for heavy and severe burns, and they limped throughout the streets, seeking help amongst the light snowfall, even as more burned survivors struggled to dig their way out of debris. An eerie sight indeed for the Coredians...the survivors of the Eheayana Firestorms had literally been to Hell and back.

The rest of the city left the Coredians to themselves, as a contingent its citizens scrapped wooden furniture to make something resembling coffins instead; while certainly not everyone in the city was a craftsman, and those who were did not have the materials to work with that they would have preferred, the dead still required a proper burial...

Funeral processions filled the city streets, as the 'liberated' solemnly gathered the dead, put them in their coffins, and proceeded to the foot of the mountains for burial...

Celebrations would have to wait for anniversary dates, it seemed.
Search and rescue took a while to conduct, several hours of finding people and trying to heal them as best they could. But nevertheless, the people will always bear the scars of this war...

The Marines sent their main forces back to the base to recuperate and repair, and rest up for the final battle, the one to eliminate the very last resistors of Woodyeen. But with news of the friendly mechwarriors coming north, their morale would increase some, as they knew the Jedi could choke off the fires quickly.

About halfway through the journey to Batangas, Whitfield sensed the dark fear over Eheayana turn to mourning, as did Keith, the latter probably only because he had forseen this fate. Keith silently cursed himself, for he knew his planning had not saved the entire city, and guilt washed over him for not coming up with a better strategy for the Admiral. Of course, when facing suicidal enemies, there simply was no better strategy, and Whitfield had to remind Keith of that...

Nevertheless, Keith wished he had sent Taylor forth to strike out on his own, perhaps in Whitfield's X-wing, to do what he willed. Perhaps he could have helped Eheayana avoid his fate...

Colonel, if you would have sent Taylor out on his own, he would have been unable to handle it. Whole sections of the city still would have burned, or he would have frozen a few million to death in overcompensation for the huge scale of the fires. Whitfield's voice filled the young commander's head, and the politician was careful to keep his message secure from Taylor.

Regardless of Keith's feelings of guilt, his task still lay ahead of him. As the nine 'Mechs approached South Batangas Bay, Keith and Whitfield broke off, luring the two medium lances outside of the city and into the jaws of the seven waiting 'Mechs, including Taylor's, even as Whitfield started flash-freezing caches of white phosphorus within the city.
The seven mechs including Taylor awaited the enemy forces and once more fought off the enemy in the same way they did for the last city. Taylor was also more careful with the freezing powers of his, using the Force to better discern between the heat of the power plants and refineries and that of the white phosphorus.

Search and rescue took a while to conduct, several hours of finding people and trying to heal them as best they could. But nevertheless, the people will always bear the scars of this war...

The Marines sent their main forces back to the base to recuperate and repair, and rest up for the final battle, the one to eliminate the very last resistors of Woodyeen. But with news of the friendly mechwarriors coming north, their morale would increase some, as they knew the Jedi could choke off the fires quickly.

As the hours wore on, more and more funeral processions filled the streets of Eheayana. Military veterans from the decades before the war prepared honor guards for as many of the dead as they could, but there simply weren't enough to give the slain innocents the honor guards that the entire city felt they deserved...

Nevertheless, they cleaned off their old rifles from decades ago, ranging from antique World War II carbines to early twenty-first century combat rifles, and everything in between. These would have been little more than ceremonial arms to the Coredians, which in effect they were; nonetheless, their bearers remained careful to carry them in the ceremonial positions that an honor guard would, and avoided pointing them at the occupying forces, for obvious reasons.

As the community brought its dead to the foot of the mountains for burial, the afternoon waned into evening, and the community prayed over the dead, even as more of the civilian dead arrived. As sunset approached, twenty-one gun salutes for many of the dead pierced the eerie silence otherwise pervading the city.

The seven mechs including Taylor awaited the enemy forces and once more fought off the enemy in the same way they did for the last city. Taylor was also more careful with the freezing powers of his, using the Force to better discern between the heat of the power plants and refineries and that of the white phosphorus.

Whitfield brought down one of the enemy 'Mechs before devoting all of his concentration to rendering the white phosphorus rounds in the city inert, devoting only a minimal amount of attention towards getting his 'Mech out of the city and luring the enemy outside of said city. Keith, however, took down another three with precise headshots in the span of twenty-five seconds it took to lure the enemy outside.

However, the enemy succeeded in shearing off or melting most of their rear armor with the Hollanders' Gauss Rifles and the Shadow Cats' PPCs. When the two reached the seven waiting 'Mechs, Whitfield quickly left the battlefield to concentrate solely on freezing incendiaries, by now a task mostly complete. Keith turned around to face the enemy, and finished off the last Shadow Cat, leaving the four Hollanders to fire their Gauss Rifles at the seven 'Mechs.

Meanwhile, a few WP rounds succeeded in igniting, but Whitfield once again used his cryokinetic Force powers to contain those fires to no more than a room or two...

As the hours wore on, more and more funeral processions filled the streets of Eheayana. Military veterans from the decades before the war prepared honor guards for as many of the dead as they could, but there simply weren't enough to give the slain innocents the honor guards that the entire city felt they deserved...

Nevertheless, they cleaned off their old rifles from decades ago, ranging from antique World War II carbines to early twenty-first century combat rifles, and everything in between. These would have been little more than ceremonial arms to the Coredians, which in effect they were; nonetheless, their bearers remained careful to carry them in the ceremonial positions that an honor guard would, and avoided pointing them at the occupying forces, for obvious reasons.

As the community brought its dead to the foot of the mountains for burial, the afternoon waned into evening, and the community prayed over the dead, even as more of the civilian dead arrived. As sunset approached, twenty-one gun salutes for many of the dead pierced the eerie silence otherwise pervading the city.
The Corps continuing to look for survivors were moved and saluted in response.


Whitfield brought down one of the enemy 'Mechs before devoting all of his concentration to rendering the white phosphorus rounds in the city inert, devoting only a minimal amount of attention towards getting his 'Mech out of the city and luring the enemy outside of said city. Keith, however, took down another three with precise headshots in the span of twenty-five seconds it took to lure the enemy outside.

However, the enemy succeeded in shearing off or melting most of their rear armor with the Hollanders' Gauss Rifles and the Shadow Cats' PPCs. When the two reached the seven waiting 'Mechs, Whitfield quickly left the battlefield to concentrate solely on freezing incendiaries, by now a task mostly complete. Keith turned around to face the enemy, and finished off the last Shadow Cat, leaving the four Hollanders to fire their Gauss Rifles at the seven 'Mechs.
That meant that there was a two-on-one advantage against the Hollanders, which were dealt with by volleys of PPCs, lasers and missiles. Taylor fought the last one, dodging Gauss rounds and spearing the enemy with PPCs of his own. Light to medium damage were reported on the HUD for the others.

Meanwhile, a few WP rounds succeeded in igniting, but Whitfield once again used his cryokinetic Force powers to contain those fires to no more than a room or two...
Taylor helped out in the freezing department as well, but at least it was a lot fewer than the last city.

The Corps continuing to look for survivors were moved and saluted in response.

I'll see if I can follow up on this later; for now, I'll leave it be, because time discrepancies are creeping up again in the RP...

However, you'll probably be stuck at Eheayana for a while, 'cause you have a couple million who need medical care for their scars from the firestorm...Keith's unit will likely get to the last city long before the Admiral does.

That meant that there was a two-on-one advantage against the Hollanders, which were dealt with by volleys of PPCs, lasers and missiles. Taylor fought the last one, dodging Gauss rounds and spearing the enemy with PPCs of his own. Light to medium damage were reported on the HUD for the others.

Taylor helped out in the freezing department as well, but at least it was a lot fewer than the last city.

Taylor and Keith fired on two separate targets, even as Whitfield recused himself from combat to concentrate on the incendiary presents instead. They brought their targets down quite easily, killing both of their pilots, while the other six 'Mechs easily overwhelmed the two leftovers, slagging their reactors into little more than fireballs.

The unit waited a few minutes, while Whitfield and Taylor disabled the last of the remaining chemical weapons through the Force. However, Whitfield still had a bit of work to do; he closed his eyes and shut himself off from the outside world as he devoted all his attention towards finding incendiary targets in both South and North Batangas Bay.

He found none.

Therefore, upon learning of this, Keith ordered the unit into the city, to clear out the enemy infantry as rapidly as possible. As he entered South Batangas Bay, he sent the Admiral a transmission requesting recon of the City of the Western Gulf, the last city that the enemy still controlled...

I'll see if I can follow up on this later; for now, I'll leave it be, because time discrepancies are creeping up again in the RP...

However, you'll probably be stuck at Eheayana for a while, 'cause you have a couple million who need medical care for their scars from the firestorm...Keith's unit will likely get to the last city long before the Admiral does.
OOC: Could always detach a mech platoon or two to assist, but otherwise, you're right.


Taylor and Keith fired on two separate targets, even as Whitfield recused himself from combat to concentrate on the incendiary presents instead. They brought their targets down quite easily, killing both of their pilots, while the other six 'Mechs easily overwhelmed the two leftovers, slagging their reactors into little more than fireballs.

The unit waited a few minutes, while Whitfield and Taylor disabled the last of the remaining chemical weapons through the Force. However, Whitfield still had a bit of work to do; he closed his eyes and shut himself off from the outside world as he devoted all his attention towards finding incendiary targets in both South and North Batangas Bay.

He found none.

Therefore, upon learning of this, Keith ordered the unit into the city, to clear out the enemy infantry as rapidly as possible. As he entered South Batangas Bay, he sent the Admiral a transmission requesting recon of the City of the Western Gulf, the last city that the enemy still controlled...
The final city in the war for Woodyeen Island was scanned once more by the Star Destroyer as the mechwarriors moved in to clear out the infantry.

The final city in the war for Woodyeen Island was scanned once more by the Star Destroyer as the mechwarriors moved in to clear out the infantry.

Lieutenant Colonel Allaire took about a half hour to analyze the new information appearing on his datapad as he sent the rest of the unit into a 'Mech repair bay in a northern industrial area to repair. A lance of Mad Dogs and a lance of Summoners, and, Keith assumed, some infantry to leave going-away presents that the Jedi would have to deal with.

After repairing his own 'Mech, he notified the unit that they could expect much the same battle that they had performed twice recently, but also notified those he commanded that they would be dealing with heavier units, warning them to expect missiles, for the Jedi to have fun with, and Gauss Rifles, along with an assortment of pulse lasers.

He ordered the unit to move from North Batangas around five in the afternoon. They would arrive around sunset...

Lieutenant Colonel Allaire took about a half hour to analyze the new information appearing on his datapad as he sent the rest of the unit into a 'Mech repair bay in a northern industrial area to repair. A lance of Mad Dogs and a lance of Summoners, and, Keith assumed, some infantry to leave going-away presents that the Jedi would have to deal with.

After repairing his own 'Mech, he notified the unit that they could expect much the same battle that they had performed twice recently, but also notified those he commanded that they would be dealing with heavier units, warning them to expect missiles, for the Jedi to have fun with, and Gauss Rifles, along with an assortment of pulse lasers.

He ordered the unit to move from North Batangas around five in the afternoon. They would arrive around sunset...
OOC: Then again, no need for Coredian mech platoons with this new info. :D

IC:
Soon enough, at five in the afternoon, the mechwarriors moved out once more to the final city.

OOC: Then again, no need for Coredian mech platoons with this new info. :D

I told you that most of the enemy ended up either in Rejaf or in Eheayana.:D

IC: Soon enough, at five in the afternoon, the mechwarriors moved out once more to the final city.

The last few rays of sunlight skimmed across the snowcover as Whitfield and Keith took up scouting positions in their Timber Wolf IVCs (again). Whitfield gave minimal concentration to avoiding enemy fire, concentrating instead on freezing the various incendiaries the enemy would soon try to light, while Keith ran full bore outside of the city, the two enemy lances pursuing him. Keith turned around briefly to fire an Alpha Strike right at the cockpit of one of the Mad Dogs, then turned around again to race towards Taylor's position, Whitfield not far behind. The missiles fired by the Mad Dogs had a nasty little tendency to drop straight to the ground as their propellent froze as a side effect of Whitfield's efforts to nullify the city's incendiary devices, and the Mad Dogs had to rely upon their pulse lasers instead to dish out damage, while the Summoners fired Gauss rounds at their enemies.

The Gauss rounds managed to shear off a bit of Whitfield's rear armor, because his attention was devoted to things other than evasive manuevers, but Keith found himself getting more and more proficient at drawing upon the Force to evade the enemy Gauss rounds, and only a couple bounced off of his armor at odd angles, doing little damage.

Keith turned around again, briefly, to launch another deadly strike against one of the Mad Dogs; by the time the two scouts reached the ambush point, two Mad Dogs and four Summoners remained. Whitfield continued devoting the bulk of his attention to flash-freezing the blocks of white phosphorus and other fun throughout the City of the Western Gulf...

I told you that most of the enemy ended up either in Rejaf or in Eheayana.:D [
OOC: Good thing.


The last few rays of sunlight skimmed across the snowcover as Whitfield and Keith took up scouting positions in their Timber Wolf IVCs (again). Whitfield gave minimal concentration to avoiding enemy fire, concentrating instead on freezing the various incendiaries the enemy would soon try to light, while Keith ran full bore outside of the city, the two enemy lances pursuing him. Keith turned around briefly to fire an Alpha Strike right at the cockpit of one of the Mad Dogs, then turned around again to race towards Taylor's position, Whitfield not far behind. The missiles fired by the Mad Dogs had a nasty little tendency to drop straight to the ground as their propellent froze as a side effect of Whitfield's efforts to nullify the city's incendiary devices, and the Mad Dogs had to rely upon their pulse lasers instead to dish out damage, while the Summoners fired Gauss rounds at their enemies.

The Gauss rounds managed to shear off a bit of Whitfield's rear armor, because his attention was devoted to things other than evasive manuevers, but Keith found himself getting more and more proficient at drawing upon the Force to evade the enemy Gauss rounds, and only a couple bounced off of his armor at odd angles, doing little damage.

Keith turned around again, briefly, to launch another deadly strike against one of the Mad Dogs; by the time the two scouts reached the ambush point, two Mad Dogs and four Summoners remained. Whitfield continued devoting the bulk of his attention to flash-freezing the blocks of white phosphorus and other fun throughout the City of the Western Gulf...
At the ambush zone, a hail of PPCs, lasers and missiles criss-crossed the area as Taylor, Ross and the others utilized a crossfire maneuver to defeat the enemies.

Hmm. I wonder... Taylor thought and focused on one of the Summoners. Instead of overloading the reactor, he flash-froze it with a blast of cryokinetic energy. Hope that works...

At the ambush zone, a hail of PPCs, lasers and missiles criss-crossed the area as Taylor, Ross and the others utilized a crossfire maneuver to defeat the enemies.

Hmm. I wonder... Taylor thought and focused on one of the Summoners. Instead of overloading the reactor, he flash-froze it with a blast of cryokinetic energy. Hope that works...

I've never thought about what would happen with a fusion reactor cryofreeze, but I'll see if I can't have a bit of fun with it.:D

As the enemy 'Mechs fired more rounds of missiles, Whitfield wasted no time in flash-freezing their propulsion, making said missiles fall harmlessly to the ground, even as most of his attention remained focused on the city ahead. The enemies also fired more Gauss slugs at Keith's 'Mech, which he wasted no time in dodging, and their assortments of pulse lasers.

The remaining Mad Dogs and two of the Summoners exploded in fireballs, overwhelmed by the fire from the Coredians.

Meanwhile, Taylor's attempt to freeze the Summoner's reactor had some interesting side effects. At first, it drained heat from the reactor, and the 'MechWarrior inside sought to use the sudden cooldown to his advantage, unleashing Alpha Strikes as soon as his weapon recycle rates would allow, firing pulse lasers for the entire duration of time between such strikes. This activity kept the reactor alive for a little bit longer, but eventually, Taylor overwhelmed the heat-generating capacity of the reactor, and the 'Mech's strobe lights flickered on and off, the Gauss mounted on the 'Mech lost muzzle velocity, and the pulse lasers, cut off from power, slowly weakened. Finally, the 'Mech simply fell to the ground, dead.

The process would have gone much faster if Taylor had simply went in the opposite direction.

As Taylor's target fell to the ground, Keith finished off the last Summoner, having borne the brunt of the enemy fire during this time. His damage display showed a smattering of yellow and orange, indicating moderate damage. The commander waited for Whitfield to give the all-clear for incendiaries, which came a few moments later, before ordering the unit to sweep the city.

He only expected to spend a couple of hours here before moving on...

Ooook...better stick with Overheat. Taylor thought as he simultaneously dropped the last technique and gave a name to the effect of overloading reactors.

In the meantime, when the all-clear from Whitfield was sent, the Mechwarriors moved into the city, mowing down enemy infantry and freeing the civvies from the grips of the Dark Lord.

As the 'Mech company finished sweeping the city of enemy infantry, Keith looked at his 'Mech's chronometer. Nine-thirty. We could make Eheayana right around midnight. Keith relished this thought, for it meant he could slip Taylor back over to Coredian command, and no one would notice if he transferred the rest of the unit, too.

The whole thing could, as Keith had promised, be kept nice and quiet as long as Taylor didn't piss him off too much in the next three hours. But Keith couldn't think of much that the two could conceivably argue over, at least until they arrived at Eheayana.

Then, Taylor would become someone else's problem anyway.

He grabbed his commlink and transmitted to the entire unit. "Finish sweeping the city. We move to rendezvous with the rest of the Coredian army at Eheayana as soon as patrols are completed, full throttle. It appears that our current mission is completed. We should be arriving around midnight. Logistical personnel, start moving up, you should reach Eheayana a couple of hours later, if that." Keith followed up with a transmission to the Admiral himself advising him of the expected arrival of his company.

Meanwhile, as there was no longer anyone to censor the news, reports of the fate of Eheayana started to circulate amongst the citizenry, as of the fate of Rejaf, Sablayan, et cetera...

Keith's unit would be long gone by the time the citizens of the City of the Western Gulf realized that the entire Woodyeen had been swept of the Dark Lord's forces...

...and with them, the last bastion of the Dark Lord's malice on Earth.

Taylor sighed as he and the mechwarriors (who congratulated themselves over a campaign well done) headed to Eheayana after their patrols finished. It's over...It's really over. Well, at least for Earth. Soon, we'll have to finish this war...But right now, we can rest.

---

The Admiral of the Master Yosho sighed in relief at the news of the Mechwarriors returning to Eheayana. "Now we can begin the rebuilding." He smiled. He made calls to Admiral Easton, who subsequently promised construction droids and other necessary items to help out.

The costly battle for Woodyeen has ended with death and destruction, yes. But it has also ended with one thing, one thing that held out in these trying times. One tiny mustard seed that would grow into a strong tree.

Hope...

As the unit hurried to make its rendezvous with Admiral Basque, Whitfield set his 'Mech to autopilot, to follow two hundred meters behind Keith's. He had much to think about on the three-hour journey, much to meditate upon...

He removed his biofeedback helmet as his 'Mech automatically followed the blue dot on his radar screen that represented his commander's 'Mech. And he closed his eyes, knowing that the battle for Earth was over...

...But the battle for White Diamond had not yet begun. And it would be his to fight.

He lost himself in the Force, embracing it, immersing himself in it.

He saw more death and destruction. The destruction of Tblipsi, the destruction of Wesilia. The Forgotten Continent, where fifty million slowly starved for want of a port with which to import food.

Mass graves. Lots and lots of mass graves. And more mass graves. Mass graves for the "dissidents" and "traitors," mass graves that were really more like landfills. Mass graves equal in scale to the mass grave of ash that lay a thousand or so miles to the northeast.

Still, there was something darker...

The Planet itself cracks under the influence of the Dark Lord. Once vibrant in the Light Side, an aftereffect of millenia of habitation by the Ascendants, Planet itself despairs...

...Autumn comes early there. Cold winds blow from the north, winds that blow in August when they shouldn't blow until November. Drought. Famine. New plagues never before seen. Clouds come, but only to obscure sunlight, never to produce rain. The planet itself is under stress, subverted by the Dark Side...

The Dark Lord saps the very Force energy left behind by the Ascendants and takes it for his own...

On a planet normally yielding a sixfold bumper crop, this year's crop will fail, lost to the Dark Side. At this rate, within a matter of years not exceeding single digits in number, the planet itself will become uninhabitable, as if blasted by an Eclipse-class superlaser.

And all of this is redirected into the Dark Lord himself. He grows exponentially in power as he sucks the Force from the planet dry...

...All this since the last Force war against him.

As the unit closed to within seventy kilometers of Eheayana, a voice spoke to him, not his own, not of his meditation, but an external voice, one that seemed to come from the Planet itself...

This task has been appointed to you, and to you alone, Jedi Whitfield.

As he approached Eheayana, he had much to think about. Partially how to get there. Taylor, how would I go about 'borrowing' a cloaked ship from the Jedi Council?

Meanwhile, within Eheayana city limits, the funerals continued, even as the volunteer honor guards returned home to gather more ammunition for more twenty-one gun salutes...

Going to deal with the Dark Lord himself? Taylor asked rhetorically. We'll need to talk to Grandpa and the Council into giving up a cloaked ship.

Then, talk to the Council, we shall, immediately after we arrive. I have had a vision, Knight Masaki, one in which the Planet itself spoke unto me. This duel...is the will of the Force. But I have to get there first.

You realize you just sounded like Yoda, right? Taylor answered, smiling.

Realize that, I do, yes. Speak with the Council immediately, I must.

As Whitfield transmitted this thought to Taylor, the still-smoldering ruin of Eheayana's outer ring of suburbs came into view, and the members of the 'Mech company looked on the destruction with their own eyes from the first time. A few city lights were visible through the smoke, but not very many...

Once again, Lieutenant Colonel Allaire mentally convicted himself of several million counts of negligent homicide, for he took the smoldering ruins personally.

Keith, given the forces of the Dark Lord, you gave Admiral Basque the best advice that you could, that any commander could. It is the Dark Lord who is responsible for this, not you.

A single tear ran down the commander's face. He knew nothing but war and destruction; the rest had been taken away from him...

Taylor just sighed when he came to the city limits. Days, perhaps just hours before, he would have had a spike of anger come up, but not now. It was more that of resignation, an emotion quite new to him. He recalled a common quote in military circles. It is good that war is so horrible...lest we grow fond of it...

Nevetheless, he was eager to report to the Council soon.

Keith wiped the sole tear from his face as he approached the city. He reached for his commlink, to send a transmission to Admiral Basque...and decided to try hailing him instead.

But not before Jedi Whitfield made his own thoughts on the matter known. Colonel, Taylor and I must speak with the Jedi Council with utmost haste.

Very well, then, I'll tell the Admiral of said request. He fingered his commlink again, pushing some button before speaking into it.

"Admiral Basque, our current position is two kilometers outside of city limits; we'll be there momentarily. The two Jedi have indicated urgent need to speak with the Jedi Council. Do you read?"

The young Lieutenant Colonel sighed, weary from the campaign, during which he counted himself fortunate if he got three hours of sleep a night. However, another thought crossed his mind, a thought that he didn't know what to do with. Now, he sounded like a politician.

"I read you. You'll have to use the ship's communciations, then. Only transmitters powerful enough to get direct to Jurai around here." The Admiral answered. "I'll send a transport, over."

"Acknowledged, thank you Admiral, and out." Keith cut the transmission as he ordered the 'Mech company to full stop.

Keith and Whitfield disembarked from their 'Mechs, watching the smoldering embers in front of them slowly burn out as they gradually exhausted all of their fuel. Jedi Whitfield slowly drained the heat from the flames back into the earth as he waited for the transport to come.

Soon, an LAAT came flying to their position as Taylor and the others descended their mechs.

Whitfield nodded in Taylor's direction. Our transmitter is here, what are we waiting for? And, you're the one with family connections...

As a former politician, Whitfield never failed to underestimate the influence of family connections. His lack thereof had made it infinitely harder for him to get anything done early in his political career five and a half decades ago...

Yeah... Taylor headed to the LAAT and stepped on board.

Ahem, Taylor, your family connections mean that you get to actually send the transmission, because you probably know a whole slew of priority codes that I don't. Whitfield let Taylor walk into the LAAT first, as if to emphasize his point.

Ahem, Taylor, your family connections mean that you get to actually send the transmission, because you probably know a whole slew of priority codes that I don't. Whitfield let Taylor walk into the LAAT first, as if to emphasize his point.
OOC: The point was to get to the Yosho before sending off the transmission. You heard the Admiral. Although I guess I could bounce the signal from the LAAT to the carrier to space...

I know that. Taylor answered. He went to the cockpit. "Need the comms for a bit."

"Sure thing." The pilot answered and gave him the comlink. Taylor entered in his personal code and then the signal was bounced from the gunship to the carrier and boosted with hyperwave trancievers in space to be beamed to Jurai.

-----
Patriarch's Office, Jedi Temple

Alexander Masaki was writing off a report when he recieved a call on the direct line with his comlink and knew who it was. "Taylor?"

"Grandfather." Taylor answered. "We've completed the Woodyeen Island campaign. Several million lost, though."

"Yes, I heard the reports. Terrible." Alex said. "I sense you need something."

"Whitfield needs a cloaking ship to get to White Diamond."

"Ah. That one last campaign before the whole country can truly be freed."

"Yeah. The Sith Lord." Taylor answered.

"Very well. I'll have a ship ready for you. It'll be a modified Lambda. Will be there in a couple of hours. Anything else?"

"No sir." Taylor said. "Nothing else."

"All right. May the Force be with you." Alex said.

"And with you." Taylor cut off the communications and nodded to the pilot. He hopped out of the gunship as it flew away and headed to Whitfield. "He's sent a ship. Will be arriving in a couple of hours."

OOC: The point was to get to the Yosho before sending off the transmission. You heard the Admiral. Although I guess I could bounce the signal from the LAAT to the carrier to space...

OOC: Sorry, I didn't realize that, it's getting late after all.

I know that. Taylor answered. He went to the cockpit. "Need the comms for a bit."

"Sure thing." The pilot answered and gave him the comlink. Taylor entered in his personal code and then the signal was bounced from the gunship to the carrier and boosted with hyperwave trancievers in space to be beamed to Jurai.

-----
Patriarch's Office, Jedi Temple

Alexander Masaki was writing off a report when he recieved a call on the direct line with his comlink and knew who it was. "Taylor?"

"Grandfather." Taylor answered. "We've completed the Woodyeen Island campaign. Several million lost, though."

"Yes, I heard the reports. Terrible." Alex said. "I sense you need something."

"Whitfield needs a cloaking ship to get to White Diamond."

"Ah. That one last campaign before the whole country can truly be freed."

"Yeah. The Sith Lord." Taylor answered.

"Very well. I'll have a ship ready for you. It'll be a modified Lambda. Will be there in a couple of hours. Anything else?"

"No sir." Taylor said. "Nothing else."

"All right. May the Force be with you." Alex said.

"And with you." Taylor cut off the communications and nodded to the pilot. He hopped out of the gunship as it flew away and headed to Whitfield. "He's sent a ship. Will be arriving in a couple of hours."

The old Jedi nodded. "Thank you, Taylor. I must rest, for what lies ahead, for you know I must leave as soon as that ship comes, to prevent more of the same on White Diamond. Though, considering I'll have to run without active sublight propulsion to bypass Woodian emissions-tracing sensors, I suppose I'll have more time to rest along the way."

Reverting a cloaked ship to nothing more than the conservation-of-momentum coasting of humans' initial spaceflight, oh, that'll be fun. Nevertheless, necessary...

Such was the old Jedi's last thought before he deliberately collapsed into a deep hibernation trance, a state of mind that allowed Jedi greatly accelerated rest.

OOC: Sorry, I didn't realize that, it's getting late after all.
OOC: No worries.


The old Jedi nodded. "Thank you, Taylor. I must rest, for what lies ahead, for you know I must leave as soon as that ship comes, to prevent more of the same on White Diamond. Though, considering I'll have to run without active sublight propulsion to bypass Woodian emissions-tracing sensors, I suppose I'll have more time to rest along the way."

Reverting a cloaked ship to nothing more than the conservation-of-momentum coasting of humans' initial spaceflight, oh, that'll be fun. Nevertheless, necessary...

Such was the old Jedi's last thought before he deliberately collapsed into a deep hibernation trance, a state of mind that allowed Jedi greatly accelerated rest.
"Heh, probably." Taylor smiled, then he disappeared to the tallest stable skyscraper in the city, where a chilly breeze blew around, but didn't bother him in the least. There, he meditated as well, awaiting the cloaked ship and watching the city from above like a hawk.

----

Three hours later, a dull black ship descended through Earth space for Woodyeen, given directions by the Admiral, and descended onto the City of the Steppes towards the old Jedi's position.

Taylor awakened from his mediative rest just in time to see a small black shape like a vulture descend. "Right on time." He said, and the snow swirled around the space he just left to get back to the ground.

Whitfield awoke from his hibernation trance as the modified Lambda-class transport descended through the Earth's atmosphere. For even in his hibernated state of mind, he sensed its arrival, for he had set its arrival as his 'alarm clock,' so to speak, in the Force.

He stood up, stretching a bit, before walking towards it, knowing what lay in front of him...

Thank you, Taylor.

OOC: I'm waiting for more info on what Taylor does before Whitfield buggers off next post. Almost time to pause the RP for Christmas break.

Your welcome. Taylor answered as he walked up to Whitfield. The shuttle side door opened and the ramp lowered.

OOC: Methinks Taylor is supposed to go too. Don't forget that.

Your welcome. Taylor answered as he walked up to Whitfield. The shuttle side door opened and the ramp lowered.

Whitfield waited for Taylor before ascending the ramp himself. Shortly thereafter, the deceptively nondescript shuttle ascended the night sky, leaving the destruction on the surface of Earth behind.

Only so its two pilots could see more destruction on some other planet, one that Taylor had never heard of until about two months ago.

Whitfield found himself entering manual coordinates from memory into the navcomputer, mostly because he wanted to exit hyperspace at a certain point within the system. With Taylor in the small craft, this was virtually a requirement, for he wouldn't like having to wait for a normally ten-minute hop upon leaving hyperspace take six to nine hours.

Had Whitfield not done this, it would be days, not hours. And all this in the name of avoiding the emission-tracing sensors designed to detect cloaked ships.

Much patience required. You will soon see why. The shuttle vanished into hyperspace.

OOC: Methinks Taylor is supposed to go too. Don't forget that.

OOC: Which is why I waited for his reaction to the arrival.

Whitfield waited for Taylor before ascending the ramp himself. Shortly thereafter, the deceptively nondescript shuttle ascended the night sky, leaving the destruction on the surface of Earth behind.
Taylor ascended the shuttle along with Whitfield and the pilot descended to let them take over. The young Major steeled himself for a long ride.

Only so its two pilots could see more destruction on some other planet, one that Taylor had never heard of until about two months ago.

Whitfield found himself entering manual coordinates from memory into the navcomputer, mostly because he wanted to exit hyperspace at a certain point within the system. With Taylor in the small craft, this was virtually a requirement, for he wouldn't like having to wait for a normally ten-minute hop upon leaving hyperspace take six to nine hours.

Had Whitfield not done this, it would be days, not hours. And all this in the name of avoiding the emission-tracing sensors designed to detect cloaked ships.

Much patience required. You will soon see why. The shuttle vanished into hyperspace.
Yeah. Taylor replied and showed him the cloak. "There's the cloak lever. You pull down, then turn it counterclockwise until it clicks. Then I push this button here. DNA coded to a specific person, in this case, me." He pointed to a small nondescript black button next to the lever. "Works even on the ground, so best remember the general location. The cloak's good for all but the best sensors."


OOC: Which is why I waited for his reaction to the arrival.
OOC: Noted.

"Push that button now. We need to come out of hyperspace already cloaked. I'll drop out of hyperspace and redo the calculations, if necessary."

"All right." Taylor said, pulling the lever down and rolling it until it clicked, then pushed the button. A slight hum occurred, a little stronger than the hyperspace engines, then ceased. "Cloaked."

A few minutes later, the cloaked shuttle dropped out of hyperspace, about four hundred thousand miles away from White Diamond's north pole. The two looked straight down at a new Sovereign-class Super Star Destroyer the Dark Lord had purchased; its black hull made quite a contrast with White Diamond Prime's polar ice caps. A few Immortal-class Star Destroyers, the same class that had wrought so much destruction upon the Coredian Fifth and Sixth fleets, could also be seen visually out of the viewport; a couple of others clustered around the south pole remained hidden from visual contact by the planet itself. They also saw a few Knossos-class destroyers floating around. A gleaming new Romulan Warbird also appeared through the cockpit's viewport, just off to the port side.

The Dark Lord had clearly gone shopping. Which meant that any new government would be without a treasury. Moreover, Whitfield sensed that some of the Dark Lord's purchases hadn't even been delivered yet.

Unless I replace it... Whitfield thought to the generous 'retirement funds' the government had lavished upon him during his tenure as Prime Minister, funds that had since grown into a fortune of a couple of trillion credits, held in various bank accounts scattered throughout the galaxy, through investing heavily in the industrialization of White Diamond following the commencement of the Prime Minister's space colonization program three decades ago.

"Don't raise shields, Taylor," Whitfield suddenly blurted out, "because that's another way for them to detect us. When we hit atmospheric entry, we'll just look like some random meteor."

As he looked over the ships, he saw the Forgotten Continent for the first time...the naked eye could discern a crack in White Diamond's crust at Wesillia. The Dark Lord's wrath reached all over this planet.

Moreover, Whitfield sensed the planet being drained of Force energy, at this very moment. The planet appeared visibly a bit more barren than it had the last time Whitfield had seen it from orbit...

Whitfield broke out pen and paper, and started writing out re-entry calculations, by hand, as he had learned as part of the space program that he proposed and oversaw as Prime Minister in the years immediately before training as a Jedi. Because he couldn't use shielding, he would have to enter the planet's atmosphere in the same manner that terran astronauts had before his time.

I did not discover my abilities in the Force until destiny led me here thirty years ago, Whitfield told Taylor telepathically. And now, the Dark Lord drains the overwhelming strength in the Light Side this planet once had--he drains the very reason why I became a Jedi.

OOC: Please post Taylor's reaction if you're still up. If not, this will be my last post until on or about Martin Luther King Day.

"Couldn't bring up shields if I wanted to. Would cut out the cloak." Taylor replied. Then he saw the planet, and sensed it's draining, and saw the scar. Damn. He's worked the place over like a bully...

OOC:
All right. Good night and good bye. Be safe and Happy Holidays! :)

OOC: Ah, what the hell, this is right about where we agreed to stop. I would want to respond to this with another fairly long, meditative post that I don't have time to type, and this is as good a stopping point as any, so happy holidays to you, too.:)

To the readers of this RP: It will resume on or about Martin Luther King Day. I won't have internet access until then.

Surprise! I'm at a convention right now, and as a result, I have unexpected Internet access through the night of 6 January, though I won't be able to post constantly, either.

Now, we shall discuss on exactly what scale the Dark Lord has drained White Diamond of the Force…and raise the stakes a bit. Enjoy the eye candy, folks.:D

Moreover, even though I’m in a mood to write Whitfield’s thoughts in the third person right now for some arcane reason, you can assume they remain open to Taylor, but no one else. Might rewrite in first person if I get around to it.

Regardless of his desire to avoid using the Force as much as possible until the right moment, and the hand calculations that currently occupied his time in the absence of a guidance computer (shut down to minimize power signature in the event of a random deep-scan that would otherwise detect the cloaked shuttle, the old Jedi sensed that Planet already had noticed his presence. The thought made him shudder, for he hoped that the semisentient planet didn’t inadvertently blow his cover; however, this thought did not surprise him, for Planet had, after all, revealed, or rather reminded, him that the task that lay ahead of him was his, and his alone. Nor could he find surprise in the planet’s extraordinary strength in and even influence over the Force, for he had resided here for two and a half decades prior to the war, before his exile. Whitfield strongly suspected that this was the reason why the task of dealing with a Sith Lord, a Sith who had drained enough energy from the planet to rival the most powerful of the Masakis in sheer power over the Force, a Sith Lord who had previously defeated him in a direct duel, was appointed exclusively to him; even though there were plenty of Jedi more powerful than he, he knew volumes more about White Diamond’s interaction with the Force than any other person in the Jedi Order, and he could, conceivably, use this knowledge against the Dark Lord in ways that no other Jedi could, in a sort of planetary-scale Vaapad [OOC: If you’re reading this and have no idea what I’m talking about, check out Wikipedia’s description of lightsaber combat (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lightsaber_combat)]. If Whitfield found himself forced to attempt this, and attempt it he would only as a last resort, he knew that he would have to be careful not to succumb to the Dark Side himself, especially considering he had only studied Vaapad from a theoretical point of view—and had never before used it in live combat or even in a practice duel at the Jedi Academy.

Nevertheless, he had derived his abilities to heat, cool, and spontaneously combust objects not from direct training at the Academy, but from experimenting, under his own tutelage, only days after reaching the Jedi Academy, the days immediately after his initiation as a Padawan learner, with combining the Force with knowledge previously attained, knowledge gleaned and remembered from chemistry classes he had taken to fulfill undergraduate requirements nearly six decades ago. From a failed experiment three decades ago, then a tiny flame not much more significant than a candlelight lasting only a second or two, he had mastered working with fire—and its reverse-engineered cousin, cryokinesis. Indeed, Whitfield was perhaps one of the most self-taught Jedi the Academy had seen in the last generation. Therefore, in his history lay some kind of precedent, at least, for such theoretical applications of the Force becoming very real. And, in this particular case, such precedent was also incredibly dangerous.

For Darth Ebolus, the influence of the Ascendants that inhabited this planet right up to the arrival of the Woodians was little more than a reservoir of power from which to draw. Sith Lords usually took advantage of such things—especially after being defeated in long-distance telepathic Force wars, the Force wars that Whitfield had initiated to liberate the six Wraiths, formerly enslaved to do the Dark Lord’s will.

Then again, perhaps the task was appointed to Jedi Whitfield not because of the unique knowledge he possessed, but because at times the Force acted as an omnipresent circle—a circle of defeat and victory, a circle of life and death, a circle of suffering and exultation.

Or, perhaps, a combination of the two—rarely did the Force deal in absolutes.

The old Jedi gave some thought to the ramifications of the duel that lay before him, a duel that would be incredibly close. Whitfield knew that he would have to offer up his life to the will of the Force to defeat the Dark Lord; whether or not he would actually become one with the Force this morning—difficult to foresee. Equally difficult to foresee was the outcome of the duel itself. Such things remained hidden from him.

For that matter, if the Lightning Master, Daniel Masaki, the most (in)famous member of the Masaki family if not the Jedi Order, dueled Darth Ebolus this morning, said duel would be close, and such a duel would probably kill a third of the planet. If Darth Ebolus defeated the aging Jedi this morning, so rapidly would he grow in power that even the Lightning Master’s chances of defeating him in Whitfield’s stead would diminish rapidly, by the hour.

If Whitfield failed, within three hours of the conclusion of the duel, Darth Ebolus would be powerful enough to cast aside fleets of Super Star Destroyers like children’s toys, for he would ‘inherit’ the secrets of the Ascendants, so to speak, if that inheritance meant ripping said secrets from an exhausted and overwhelmed Jedi’s mind right before the kill. Such knowledge, if turned to the Dark Side, would speed the draining of the planet ten thousand fold, leaving White Diamond a barren husk by the time Taylor Masaki could even flee back to Jurai.

The Dark Lord would then want more…to carve out his own Galactic Empire. Literally, with ‘Galactic’ defined as ‘the Milky Way.’

Nevertheless, the Dark Lord had only had about two weeks since his defeat in the Wraith-related proxy Force wars against Whitfield, and he had not yet drained the Light Side from the planet fully. The Dark Lord had only so far drained a fraction of the influence of the Ascendants outright; nevertheless, the remainder of said influence remained suppressed by the Dark Side.

Suppressed, but not yet corrupted.

Whitfield looked down at his calculations, wondering if bringing Taylor along was a mistake. The last thing the Dark Lord needed was a ready-made apprentice delivered straight up to him.

Moreover, the Dark Lord knew he would have eventually succeeded in mindraping the young, inexperienced Jedi earlier in the war, had it not been for the intercession of the elder Flame Knight, even if such a mindrape had taken a half hour or more. Whitfield, too, knew this, and hoped Taylor had gained enough foresight and experience from his mentoring to prevent such a fate at least long enough for him to reach the Dark Lord and give him more important concerns than mindraping Taylor.

White Diamond’s cracked polar ice cap by now completely filled the cockpit’s viewport, for even though the tiny shuttle by now was still three hundred thousand nautical miles from the planetary surface, the planet was, after all, nearly the size of [RL] Saturn. Whitfield would have to set aside his ruminations soon. As he realized his calculations were come to the point of requiring additional information to complete, he broke the eerie silence that had prevailed for the last hour.

“Hey, Taylor, I need some more information about this shuttle. What is its mass, and what is the hull’s completely unshielded, sustained heat tolerance? I need to know what kind of heat stress this thing can take, because I don’t want to create a disturbance in the Force by draining off heat unless I absolutely must.”

Whitfield paused for a second or so, letting Taylor process his request for information, before adding, “And this is going to be one incredibly volatile Force war.” That was the understatement of the year. “I must face Darth Ebolus, alone, though you already know that. You get to create distractions so I don’t have to split my attention between the Dark Lord himself and dealing with the entire garrison of Great Woody City.”

“Hey, Taylor, I need some more information about this shuttle. What is its mass, and what is the hull’s completely unshielded, sustained heat tolerance? I need to know what kind of heat stress this thing can take, because I don’t want to create a disturbance in the Force by draining off heat unless I absolutely must.”
"Hmm. I'm not sure of the mass. Make it about two hundred metric tons or so. And the sustained heat tolerance..." He tried to remember the specs. "I'd say about 25,000C. Just don't dive too sharply or that'll be overtaken too quickly."

Whitfield paused for a second or so, letting Taylor process his request for information, before adding, “And this is going to be one incredibly volatile Force war.” That was the understatement of the year. “I must face Darth Ebolus, alone, though you already know that. You get to create distractions so I don’t have to split my attention between the Dark Lord himself and dealing with the entire garrison of Great Woody City.”
"Heh. Distraction is my middle name." Taylor smiled confidently. He did understand that he was in the domain of the Sith Lord, and to act with heated emotion here would be to invite slavery of a nasty scale.

"Oh, I won't be making any sharp dives." Whitfield turned the craft to face the dividing line between night and day, then aimed for a spot on the planet a couple of hours before sunrise as an estimate. His destination, visible as the brightest city lights on White Diamond, appeared around the midnight position, but by the time the craft got there, it would be about four in the morning...

He ran some more calculations. About forty minutes later, after finishing these, he made finer adjustments to the shuttle's course, to account for his more precise data. "We'll come in at about six point four-zero degrees, initial velocity approximately sixteen thousand four hundred thirty meters per second. Peak heat of entry, approximately fourteen thousand, three hundred degrees Celsius. Expect entry to start in two standard Earth hours, twenty seven minutes, and last approximately five minutes, forty-seven seconds. Resist the temptation to play with the fire, Taylor."

Whitfield paused for a moment. "Welcome to spaceflight before hyperdrives and navcomputers, Taylor; though you wouldn't be able to tell from our ships, we've only been an interstellar civilization since about the time I started my Jedi training, only one generation ago. In the eight years before this, I served as Prime Minister, head of state, and I was the most vocal supporter of asking more advanced civilizations for help in colonizing another star system. At the time, we had severe overpopulation problems. As part of such program, I personally learned the old ways of doing things, before we had hyperdrives, in case our first voyage left us stranded somewhere...yes, I was on our maiden voyage into the stars."

Another pause. "That required humility, Taylor. Had I been proud, as you have been in the past, I never would have found this planet. I never would have found the Force."

Whitfield let Taylor ponder that for a moment, purposely avoiding extrapolating Taylor's past conduct, which he could not deny, into the future. "Welcome to the capital of Evil Woody Thoughts, where the old ways meet the new."

Taylor pondered the statements Whitfield made. The old ways? When people used chemical rockets and all that? Jeez, today's going to be rather interesting...

Whitfield smiled at Taylor's question. "Oh, it gets even better than that. The old days, when people used chemical rockets to propel them into orbit, and let conservation of momentum do the rest. And, you'll find it most interesting to know that had I not known the old ways of doing things, we would have been detected well before we reached the atmosphere, from drive emissions and power signature alone."

As if to emphasize his point, the old Jedi handed Taylor the notebook he had scribbled his fifty-six pages of calculations in, calculations that the younger Jedi, who had previously openly scorned the old ways when he found out the hard way that yes, coal-fired power plants still existed, probably had no idea how to read...

"Taylor whistled at all the calculations. "We've gotten too used to astronavigation to be able to do all this by hand, and the last time I did something like this was in school. The only person I know that still knows how to really do this stuff is my cousin Brianna aka Rina." He commented.

"The last time I had to do it was thirty years ago, but I made sure to use the Force to retain it in my memory, because I never knew when it would come in handy," Whitfield answered. "This isn't quite the situation in which I thought I would eventually use it, but it will work nonetheless. I'll admit the inefficency in old technology, but sometimes you need something to come back to, and sometimes, it is just cheaper to continue to use the old infrastructure instead of replacing it all at once."

"Yeah. Redundancy can be a good idea at times." Taylor nodded.

Whitfield nodded back at Taylor, having nothing more to say for the moment. He sealed his mind before thinking about where this conversation was going...at least he had gotten his point across regarding old technology that made the Woodians seem more primitive than they really were.

He had discussed some of the reasons for keeping the old, but didn't quite want to tell him that in some regions of Evil Woody Thoughts, coal power was simply cheaper per unit of energy than fusion, even taking environmental costs into account, on account of the national specialty in geology. Of course, this was not the case throughout the entire nation, but it would explain certain things regarding Evil Woody Thoughts that Taylor hadn't particularly liked.

But he had only gotten half the point...the other half, he sensed, would have to wait. And it would take ten years or more for Taylor to learn...

The old Jedi thought of the Christofascist War (http://www.forums.jolt.co.uk/showpost.php?p=9853971&postcount=5)...

A war that humbled a nation, his nation, when he was but an infant. Ten years after the war's conclusion, humility in economic policy had led to massive amounts of foreign direct investment, investment that had been banned before the war because of fear of economic subversion. And pride.

In those ten years, Evil Woody Thoughts had recorded some of the highest rates of economic growth in the world at that time.

A generation later, when Whitfield was Prime Minister, it was sudden, drastic climate change that forced a nation to set aside its pride and ask for help to solve a problem it could not on its own, and as a consequence, suffice it to say the Coredians would probably want to go shopping for technology after the war ended, even from a civilization that still operated coal power plants and all.

And now, pending the outcome of the duel, the cycle would repeat again...in Taylor's experience. Moreover, Taylor was one who could use a bit of humility...

A few verses from an ancient religious text* came to Whitfield's mind. If the followers of said religion had adhered to their own holy book, the Christofascist War would have been completely and wholly averted.

When someone invites you to a wedding feast, do not take the place of honor, for a person more distinguished than you may have been invited. If so, the host who invited both of you will come and say to you, "Give this man your seat." Then, humiliated, you will have to take the least important place. But when you are invited, take the lowest place, so that when your host comes, he will say to you, "Friend, move up to a better place." Then you will be honored in the presence of all your fellow guests. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.

A lesson that Taylor could most definitely use, and one that would unfold before him, first shortly after the war, then, in a fairly long process of national recovery.

...He decided to wait on the other point until after the duel, when the process of illustrating this could take place.

*OOC: Quoted from Luke 14:8-11 of the Bible (NIV).

Taylor sat back on his chair as the ship continued to free-fall, mulling over the events of the battles before, collecting the lessons he learned and filing them away to use them later. Right now, it was time to concentrate on the battle ahead. Even if he was only to provide the distraction.

The elder Jedi continued his ruminations. As the tiny shuttle coasted closer and closer to the planet, the visible effects of the Dark Side upon the planet became far clearer.

Normally, August meant the rainy season for the continent they skirted over, just to the south of the Forgotten Continent, the polar continent whose inhabitants were sentenced to die a slow death of starvation by the Dark Lord, for no other reason than finding the destruction of remote cities no one would remember fun. For, without a port with which to import food, the Forgotten Continent would be the first to see its entire populace dead--unless something even worse happened.

The continent to the south of the Forgotten Continent had seen full rains for the several years preceding; however, the rains this year had utterly failed, as had all of the August rains. For that matter, though Whitfield dare not scan the entire planet with his telekinetic senses for fear of announcing his presence prematurely to the Dark Lord, if he did, he would find that there was not a square inch to be found on the entire planet where the relative humidity was above twenty percent. And the only parts of the planet with humidity anywhere near twenty percent...the equatorial rainforests.

Normally, with a single failed rainy season, one that should still be in progress, plant life would only show the first signs of drought. Nevertheless, the effects of the Dark Lord's constant Force drain of the Ascendants' influence could not be denied.

For even though the drought itself was only two weeks old, its effects equated to twelve years of severe drought. Not locally severe drought, but a drought across the entire planet.

Whitfield broke his ruminations but said nothing. Yet.

240 nautical miles NNW of Great Woody City
Night, 20-21 August 2078, concurrent with the approach of Whitfield and Taylor

This night had not been a good night for five-year-old John Watsen. Another day of hell at what passed for kindergarten in this gulag, another day of forcing himself to show no emotion at all, to avoid the consequences of any form of disapproval of anything related to the Dark Lord.

Nevertheless, he feared that his 'instructors' were starting to catch on...he feared he could not hide his thoughts forever.

After he had been shoved in his prison cell for the night and told to sleep, such fears filled his mind. The boy tried to find Whitfield using what little he knew about whatever mystical power he possessed, the mystical power for which he was probably persecuted. But his untrained mind could not penetrate the veil of the Dark Side that had enveloped White Diamond completely since the start of the Force drain. Nor could any Jedi sense him through this thick veil...yet.

For the Dark Lord had been very thorough in suppressing the Light Side in the last couple of weeks, and it didn't help that the only Jedi in the area were trying to avoid using the Force, so as not to announce themselves to the Dark Lord.

However, Whitfield had not sensed his death, either. Which meant that the Dark Side's grip over the planet had obscured Force-sensitives from his mind.

Therefore, with his mind filled with fear, the five-year old prisoner could not sleep. Unfortunately for him, some guards had noticed, and they simply threw the kid against the wall with enough force to knock him unconscious.

"Heh. Guess he's sleeping now," the guards snickered as John's head slammed against the prison wall and his body slumped to the ground. Blood oozed from the back of his skull...

...Any other five year old would have bled to death within minutes. But his blood clotted unusually quickly, a sign of the Force, even against the planet's dark backdrop...

...He lost about twenty percent of his blood before the clot, but the other eighty percent would at least keep him alive, if not conscious.

Some time later, the same guards noticed that the kid, left for dead, was still breathing. They knew he should be dead by now, and ordinarily, they would have finished the job, but they also knew that the Dark Lord sought...apprentices. For he had made this abundantly clear in the last couple of weeks to his underlings. The hushed voices of the guards overcame the silence of the gulag in the predawn hours.

"I think we should take him to the Dark Lord and let him decide what to do," one of the guards whispered.

"Yeah, this is odd. And he's looking for people who survive shit they shouldn't. Something about possible apprentices."

"Let's stuncuff him. The Dark Lord is only an hour away. We don't need to give him medical treatment if he's already survived this long."

"Yeah."

Two guards silently entered the cell, but when they touched the boy, he awoke, grogginess barely overcome by fear.

Help! The young one cried out through the Force for any help that would come, hoping to pierce the thickness of whatever energy oppressed the planet and made it despair, for he instinctively knew that his attempts to cover it up had just failed. Help me! He hoped someone other than the Dark Lord would hear...

------------------------------------------

Less than three minutes from anticipated atmospheric entry, the boy's call pierced the almost mournful silence of Whitfield's mind.

And, the cry for help had exposed the boy's injuries for Whitfield to sense through the Force, and he knew that now, it was a race to see who arrived at the Dark Lord's doorstep first...

To a five-year-old, Whitfield knew, and especially a seriously injured one, any lull in a response to a cry for help was an absolute eternity. He unsealed his mind only enough to establish telepathic communications with the boy, hoping that Planet wouldn't inadvertantly betray him to the Sith Lord. But it was a risk he knew he must take, especially considering the two Jedi were almost to their destination by now.

Young one, I return from my exile as we speak. Whitfield sensed that the boy was bound. They will not kill you. You are too important for that. Your fate is not to die in this war...

The boy nodded telepathically, as he knew that resistance at this point was not the best of ideas, not if Whitfield had returned...

Whitfield turned to Taylor. "Well, now you have to both create a distraction and find that boy, because unfortunately, other tasks have been appointed to me. Tasks that require my full attention."

Looking at his watch, he added, "Resist the temptation to play with the fire, Taylor." Taylor would be able to sense that he meant both the fires of atmospheric friction and the fires of anger--but not necessarily pyrokinesis, though he would have to be careful with it on this planet. "Expect entry in thirty-five seconds."

Help me! The cry jarred Taylor out of his self-induced cat-nap and he realized it was the kid.

Whitfield turned to Taylor. "Well, now you have to both create a distraction and find that boy, because unfortunately, other tasks have been appointed to me. Tasks that require my full attention."
"Right. That was my plan, actually. My reason for coming with you." Taylor confessed. "That kid...I had a feeling that I needed to help him sometime, and this must be it."

Looking at his watch, he added, "Resist the temptation to play with the fire, Taylor." Taylor would be able to sense that he meant both the fires of atmospheric friction and the fires of anger--but not necessarily pyrokinesis, though he would have to be careful with it on this planet. "Expect entry in thirty-five seconds."
"Right." Going against his natural instinct when it comes to fire, he forced himself not to help the ship along as flames started licking around it and they continued to descend.

Help me! The cry jarred Taylor out of his self-induced cat-nap and he realized it was the kid.

"Right. That was my plan, actually. My reason for coming with you." Taylor confessed. "That kid...I had a feeling that I needed to help him sometime, and this must be it."

"A good reason, but this planet right now is a powder keg. Be careful."

"Right." Going against his natural instinct when it comes to fire, he forced himself not to help the ship along as flames started licking around it and they continued to descend.

Only a couple of seconds after Whitfield had finished his warning, the shuttlecraft encountered the first gaseous molecules of White Diamond's atmosphere a bit faster than sixteen kilometers per second, just as the old Jedi had predicted. A few thin flames licked the ship's hull as it descended at the most shallow angle possible without skipping back into space off of White Diamond's exosphere.

"Prepare yourself for a bit of fun in about five minutes," Whitfield added as the flames of atmospheric friction thickened. The small flames of the exosphere rapidly intensified to a heavy orange streak, tens, then hundreds, of kilometers long, as if the shuttle had become a comet.

Orange intensified into more of an orange-white as the craft continued to descend further into the atmosphere; as the heat of friction continued to build up, the streak of fire behind the shuttle continued to elongate to more than a thousand kilometers.

Even as the fire visible through the cockpit viewport intensified further, gradually becoming more white than orange, the elder Jedi sensed the small, injured child become strangely calm, even as the guards carting him off brutishly shoved him into an enclosed transport, capable of making for the Dark Lord's residence in less than an hour. Even though the child had only met the old Jedi through vague telepathy, somehow he trusted him.

Meanwhile, something stirred deep within the bowels of Planet. A tiny spark of defiance amidst the mourning brought about by the permanant effects of the Dark Lord's constant Force drain, two new subduction faults and a planetwide drought that would take some five years to break...

Welcome back from exile, Jedi Whitfield. The telepathic message felt more like a mournful plea for help than a greeting, however...

Taylor watched the fires outside glow white with interest as a slight rumbling occurred while they streaked downwards, playing the comet streaking across the sky.

As the shuttlecraft continued to plunge through the atmosphere, some of the heat found its way through convection into the cockpit, where Whitfield broke out in a sweat. Suddenly, the cockpit seemed like Tatooine, even though only a negligible fraction of the heat reached the two Jedi, only enough to make them a bit uncomfortable. The temperature inside the cockpit rose to about sixty-five degrees Celsius as the white-hot flames raged outside.

Whitfield thumbed the reverse thrust on the main drive. He would need to engage it, if only for a second, when the time was right...and he couldn't say he hadn't warned Taylor to prepare for imminent fun.

Regardless, the Dark Lord himself awoke, stirred by the sudden spark of defiance within the planet. He made sure to suck out more energy for the duel he knew was coming...the duel for which he had made such preparations in the first place...

...Not to mention, he sensed that a suitable apprentice had been found. He would have to dispose of the newcomers quickly.

It didn't take long for Whitfield to figure out that the Dark Lord had discovered his arrival through Planet's rumblings...

Well, at least this didn't happen right after we came out of hyperspace, Whitfield thought to himself...

He counted down seconds. Six, five, four, three, two, one...

The craft's engines whined as Whitfield threw them from full shutdown to full reverse thrust...they would need a maintenance check after this most likely. Nevertheless, it would have the desired effect on the Star Destroyers in orbit...their crews would believe they had seen nothing more than a pretty meteor display, for now.

The craft rapidly decelerated from a few thousand kilometers per hour to a few hundred. The intense fire suddenly stopped, as if it had been nothing more than a candle blown out.

For what felt like the first time in eternity, Whitfield felt a smile cross his face as he realized they had come out of their fireworks display a mere sixty nautical miles from where he needed to be. It did appear that he would reach the Dark Lord before he could take delivery of the Force-sensitive child, the first good news in the last few hours...

...Defeating him, of course, was another matter entirely...

A small smile played across Taylor's face despite the heat in the cockpit, which soon trailed off. "You're right. It's rather fun." He rubbed his hands, as if in preparation for more fun.

"That wasn't quite what I meant--I was referring to rapid deceleration with something called sarcasm. And this is not a playground."

Whitfield let out a heavy sigh as he turned the shuttle to face the six-thousand foot skyscrapers, most, but not all, of them originally built by the Ascendants themselves, that formed the core of downtown Great Woody City, toward the government district that resided in a 'clearing,' so to speak, of the forest of twinkling lights reaching as high as a small mountain range.

Whitfield sensed that he would find the Dark Lord usurping the mansion that was intended to be the Prime Minister's residence...

Even with the dimmed lighting from the effects of curfews and martial law, the approach to downtown from the ocean just west of the city still retained some measure of its usual glory, for this was Evil Woody Thought's version of Coruscant, and though Taylor had no doubt seen it a thousand times on a thousand different planets, it might at least cause him to reconsider his attitude that Evil Woody Thoughts was some unworthy backwater nation, an attitude that had, at the very least, shown itself in Taylor's unduly harsh treatment of certain defecting military commanders, his newfound disdain for coal-fired power plants, and his shocked reaction to the handiwork scribbled a few hours ago in Whitfield's notebook.

For a nation of not even two and a half billion before the war, spread over only two planets, this capital produced one respectable view.

"That wasn't quite what I meant--I was referring to rapid deceleration with something called sarcasm. And this is not a playground."
"I know that. I'm just saying. Not that I'd want to try it again." Taylor said.

Whitfield let out a heavy sigh as he turned the shuttle to face the six-thousand foot skyscrapers, most, but not all, of them originally built by the Ascendants themselves, that formed the core of downtown Great Woody City, toward the government district that resided in a 'clearing,' so to speak, of the forest of twinkling lights reaching as high as a small mountain range.

Whitfield sensed that he would find the Dark Lord usurping the mansion that was intended to be the Prime Minister's residence...

Even with the dimmed lighting from the effects of curfews and martial law, the approach to downtown from the ocean just west of the city still retained some measure of its usual glory, for this was Evil Woody Thought's version of Coruscant, and though Taylor had no doubt seen it a thousand times on a thousand different planets, it might at least cause him to reconsider his attitude that Evil Woody Thoughts was some unworthy backwater nation, an attitude that had, at the very least, shown itself in Taylor's unduly harsh treatment of certain defecting military commanders, his newfound disdain for coal-fired power plants, and his shocked reaction to the handiwork scribbled a few hours ago in Whitfield's notebook.

For a nation of not even two and a half billion before the war, spread over only two planets, this capital produced one respectable view.
"Not a bad place." Taylor commented. "Actually looks something like an old picture of Alderaan I saw once, only somewhat dimmer."

Whitfield shot Taylor an uncharacteristically cynical facial expression. If Taylor overreacted to even a slight provocation, he would cause far more damage than he had at Sablayan, when he froze the city. Or cause Whitfield a distraction he really didn't want or need...trying to countervail Taylor's excess while fighting the Dark Lord. Even Whitfield would have some difficulty in adjusting to the planet's propensity to alter the Force, because the mixture of Light and Dark was so volatile.

Somehow, Whitfield found himself wishing Taylor had called in one of his more experienced brethren when he had called for the cloaked shuttle...but this was his own fault, for not requesting it, and he knew it.

He descended to two thousand feet, lining up with lights that would seem to indicate a traditional runway between the mile-high skyscrapers, but really indicated an aerial artery into the government district. Below him lay a more traditional street. Ordinarily, downtown would be bustling with activity even at this hour, but Whitfield and Taylor constituted the only traffic for several blocks...

...Despite the Force volatility within Planet, something seemed too quiet...

"Something doesn't feel right." Taylor frowned as the shuttle zoomed down over the streets of Great Woody City. The streets were empty, with nary a car or person in sight. It's possible, he thought, that the Sith Lord has detected them...

"Something hasn't been right here for the last month. I sense mass graves that aren't even graves. More like landfills, sealed off. People are too afraid to go out during curfew."

Something else stirred within Planet as the shuttlecraft followed the three lines of strobe lights, blue on the sides, with a line of green lights in the center that rapidly flashed inwards, towards the government district.

If the streets were dead, the government district was more so. Of all the buildings in the four square miles of the district, only two seemed to be active at all. Only a few lights blinked from the government district, for the Dark Lord had left the Parliament Building, still with the hole in the dome ceiling from a month ago, when Darth Ebolus had brought it down upon Whitfield, and all legislative offices completely dormant. It seemed like the only two buildings with any life at all were the eight-hundred foot tall Douglass Federal Building, or whatever the Dark Lord had renamed it, from which he ran the entire consolidated government, and the Prime Minister's Mansion, which the Dark Lord had claimed for himself...

Planet stirred again as Whitfield flew the craft closer to Darth Ebolus' location, but did not recognize Taylor. However, the Dark Lord, having subverted the will of Planet directly for the last two weeks, also sensed the sudden spark of defiance within Planet...

Whitfield was finally returned from his exile, one month and four days later, one month to the day after the first victory of the rebellion. And the Dark Lord knew it.

Unfortunately, the rebellion had been slaughtered in silence here, and the remainder of the population tried to avoid the government as much they could, out of fear of persecution.

"Yes, he knows I have returned. I don't know if he knows you're here or not," Whitfield told Taylor, as he sensed his concerns about detection.

"Yeah. If not then, he will know once I provide the distraction." Taylor answered, a slight nervousness evident in his voice, he definitely doesn't want to face Ebolus. "Hopefully, he'll be too busy with you to take notice of me."

"I tell you the truth, that what the Dark Lord does to me, you will feel also. Not sense, but feel. And it will imprint your mind so strongly that everyone in the Masaki family with whom you maintain any semblance of contact will feel it through you. The Five on Jurai will sense it from a galaxy away. Keith will be drawn to it. And the duel will awaken the entire planet, and every living thing on it."

Taylor whistled. "Now that's a duel to remember..."

"Yes," Whitfield replied as he selected a helipad adjacent to the Prime Minister's mansion on which to land the shuttle. "Careful, Taylor, because the last thing I need is to be forced to countervail you, in the middle of the duel, when your attempt to blow up a stormtrooper blows up half the government district instead."

Taylor looked at him in surprise. "You're serious? The Force is that strong here? Jeez..."

"It is a planet literally borne of the Ascendants, through whom I discovered the Force," Whitfield answered. "Of course, the current tension between Light and Dark, a tension that normally doesn't exist here, exaggerates it further."

The elder Jedi folded up the Lambda shuttle's two lower trihedron foils for landing, then set the craft down gently on the helipad, still cloaked.

"I see." Taylor nodded. He calculated to himself the amount of energy he'd need to use, taking into account the warning from Whitfield. So that means my normal-level powers will be too much here. A spark capable of knocking out a person will fry him to a crisp here...

I've only been trying to warn him of that for the last hour. Finally, he pays attention. Whitfield lowered the shuttle's egress ramp, and cold, dry air blew in...air that felt like winter in extreme latitudes on Tatooine.

I should have expected this with the Sith-induced drought, Whitfield thought to himself, but this is really bad.

"So, I am returned from my exile," Whitfield muttered, as if thinking out loud, while descending the ramp. He looked at Taylor, as if to say good-bye. "Go forth, and do that which is put in front of you."

"All right. May the Force be with you, then." Taylor said to Whitfield, and he swiftly walked down the ramp and started looking for places or people to start a distraction with. As well at the back of his mind was the little kid that screamed for help earlier...

"And also with you," Whitfield replied, not really knowing if he would ever see Taylor again. This would be close...

He turned towards the Prime Minister's Mansion, a mansion he almost certainly would have inhabited if he hadn't set aside his political career to become a Jedi only three years before the national capital had been moved here. For the Dark Lord waited for him there...

...and the Dark Lord knew he was there. The air itself suddenly flooded with overwhelming despair, the same despair that had crippled Whitfield's will the first time he had encountered the Sith Wraiths. The doubts inside the old Jedi's mind intensified.

You are too old for this.

Taylor will be turned to the Dark Side because his mental defenses aren't particularly strong, and you will be forced to fight both Darth Ebolus and Taylor Masaki.

This duel will kill half the planet, and Ebolus will kill the other half.

Darth Ebolus is stronger in the Force than the last encounter.

You have already failed. The deaths are on your hands, a direct result of your failure. Every last one.

The thoughts of doom careened through Jacob Whitfield's mind. But he could not despair, not now, not this day. He extracted his primary lightsaber from his Jedi robe.

Its long mithril hilt flashed in the lights of the mile-high skyscrapers that surrounded the dormant government district. It seemed to glow, even as Whitfield sensed another surge of defiance from the core of Planet, as if Planet was trying to pierce the veil of the Dark Side. As if to encourage him, even.

He continued to the mansion, using gentle taps of the Force to play Jedi mind tricks on the guards...it appeared the Sith Lord had run out of Wraiths. Of course, that would give his presence away, but by now, that was no longer a consideration. Whitfield further scanned underground with the Force, mapping out natural gas pipelines...as Taylor had found out the hard way at Sablayan, even future-tech nations could find uses for it.

As Whitfield entered the cavernous mansion, he stopped only a few feet inside the door. Calling on the Force to project his voice, the Jedi bellowed, "I summon you, Darth Ebolus, so that justice may be done upon you."

The response came immediately. A mental sledgehammer came upon him, replacing doubt with a direct attempt to purge Whitfield's mind. The Dark Lord had only grown bolder.

The old Jedi rose to the challenge, using the Force to recursively trace the location of the Dark Lord from the mindrape, even as it intensified. Whitfield then walked briskly towards the visually unseen Dark Lord, continuing to fight the mindrape. This was going to be interesting...

Both lightsabers ignited at exactly the same moment, and collided into each other, the Dark Lord's cyan blade clashing with Whitfield's amethyst saber...

The duel that would determine the fate of two billion souls was thus begun. And Planet stirred yet again, as if a volcano building up a dome of magma preceding an eruption...

--------------------------------------------------------------

Meanwhile, young John Watsen suddenly found his mind writhing in pain, and not from his head injury. Nevertheless, he tried to hide it. A single tear ran down his cheek, the only evidence of his intense pain. Fortunately, the guards in the transport didn't notice...

As the transport descended from one of the northeastern mountain passes, Watsen laid his eyes upon the national capital once again, for the first time since his parents had been killed trying to flee it. Whitfield had arrived there before him, he knew...

...As did the others connected to the Dark Lord.

Eheayana, Earth

For some reason, Keith's ears perked up. He had spent the eight or so hours since the two Jedi had left splitting his time between debriefings and helping to bury the dead, but something made him stop...

...He suddenly realized why the two had left so suddenly.

Jedi Academy Archives, Jurai

The five former Wraiths, exhausted from days of research into the history of the Jedi Order, with breaks only to fulfill the needs of food, drink, and sleep, set their books and datapads down as they vaguely sensed that their former slave driver suddenly had new concerns. They gathered together, wondering what was happening, in eerie silence...

Major Peter Sorensen was the first to speak. "New history is being made..."

OOC: I will be leaving Denver this morning, and with it, my surprise internet connection. This RP will resume, as originally announced, on or about Martin Luther King Day.

OOC: I'm back to my usual internet connection, in all its glory.:D

Taylor Masaki whistled a dramatic tune as he searched for trouble to cause and kept 'watch' for a certain little boy due to arrive any minute soon. In the meantime, he spotted a platoon of stormtroopers and grinned. Moving silently through the shadows, he swiftly advanced on them, putting on a pair of gloves with strange symbols on the palms. Unlike his ubiquious ignition gloves, they're used for a different purpose, alchemy. Since he's the twin brother of the Jedi Alchemist, Taylor knows a wealth of information on matter transmutation, although he's not as attuned to the subject as his brother is, being more inclined to thermokinetic matters.

The first thing the platoon of stormtroopers would notice would be a strange crackling of blue energy, not far off from lightning erupting from a corner. Moving to investigate, they would be inundated by spikes mountaining out of the ground and spearing for their vital organs...

Hey, knowing what I now know about your schedule, I'm going to get up earlier to see if we can't speed things along a slight bit despite your lack of time. Might not be a bad idea to sign into MSN if you can, so I don't have to fill up your TG inbox with what to expect--I do have this scene quite heavily choreographed. Oh, and you're gonna love the next one.

Taylor Masaki whistled a dramatic tune as he searched for trouble to cause and kept 'watch' for a certain little boy due to arrive any minute soon. In the meantime, he spotted a platoon of stormtroopers and grinned. Moving silently through the shadows, he swiftly advanced on them, putting on a pair of gloves with strange symbols on the palms. Unlike his ubiquious ignition gloves, they're used for a different purpose, alchemy. Since he's the twin brother of the Jedi Alchemist, Taylor knows a wealth of information on matter transmutation, although he's not as attuned to the subject as his brother is, being more inclined to thermokinetic matters.

The first thing the platoon of stormtroopers would notice would be a strange crackling of blue energy, not far off from lightning erupting from a corner. Moving to investigate, they would be inundated by spikes mountaining out of the ground and spearing for their vital organs...

The strange cackling of blue energy quickly became a strange explosion of blue energy, the effects of Taylor's Force alchemy magnified a hundredfold by a Force-amplifying, semisentient planet, a planet now especially sensitive to fluctuations in the Force. The EMP from said energy knocked out all electrical power for five miles or so, not to mention giving a few hundred thousand people residing in condominiums on the edge of the government district irregular heartbeats that would later need treatment. Taylor would find himself fighting in the predawn dark, the government district barely illuminated at all by city lights further out, for little light could filter through the thick skyscrapers, darkened by the power outage, surrounding the government district.

If there was any silver lining to be had, the three hundred meter wide ball of energy electrocuted instantaneously the entire platoon of stormtroopers, meaning that there was no one within Taylor's line of sight to investigate the strange phenomena...

...Luckily for Taylor, the Dark Lord had long ago expelled civilians from the government district itself, so collateral damage would not be measured in civilian lives tonight if he was careful.

The youngling sensed some great expenditure of Force energy before seeing a flash of light somewhere in the city. Fortunately, his guards wished to investigate it. Unfortunately, they called for backup from a couple of military bases ringing the city, and the boy would have to wait for said backup.

Taylor would soon have some more company...

Moreover, both Jedi, and the Dark Lord could sense this, and the resulting stirrings of Planet, for Planet knew that its fate, its life or its death, would be determined by sunrise...

------------------------------

I will break you.

The words tore through Whitfield’s mind even as he exchanged the first lightsaber blows with Darth Ebolus, the Dark Lord seeking to overwhelm Whitfield as he had last time with quick, heavy blows with his full physical strength behind them. Worse, the Dark Lord drew further Force energy off of Planet to amplify both his lightsaber reflexes and his mindrape attempt.

However, the old Jedi would not be so easily overwhelmed, for he had built his new lightsaber specifically to defeat the Dark Lord, and had designed it for that purpose and that purpose alone. Any other use Whitfield could obtain from his newly built, mithril-hilted lightsaber was merely a fringe benefit to him. The length of the amethyst blade never stayed the same for more than about a half-second, as Whitfield deflected Darth Ebolus’ attacks from well beyond his reach, taking advantage of the blade that could extend up to nine feet, then rapidly contracted the length of the blade for a counterattack, only to make it spring forth again. The Jedi shut off and sealed his mind to dull the Dark Lord’s attempts of mindrape, but found he had to continue some sort of mental defense against it anyway. Nevertheless, it helped him focus a bit more on the lightsaber duel. He found himself using mostly those arts of lightsaber combat he had mastered—blending the precision strikes of Makashi ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lightsaber_combat#Form_II:_Makashi) with the superior defense that the mastery of Soresu ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lightsaber_combat#Form_III:_Soresu) proffered, though his propensity to alter the length of his lightsaber blade two to three times a second to add unpredictability to his counterstrokes fell somewhat closer to the rarely-used form of Tràkata ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lightsaber_combat#Tr.C3.A0kata), an art of lightsaber combat emphasizing the shutdown and sudden reignition of a lightsaber to impale a particularly dangerous opponent before he can react. While some Jedi would call Whitfield’s blend of Makashi and Soresu Form V or Djem So ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lightsaber_combat#Form_V:_Shien_.2F_Djem_So), Whitfield refused to let any form of emotion rule him during the duel, and substituted great speed for brute strength that his seventy-eight year old frame did not have.

Nevertheless, the Dark Lord, drawing more of the Force from Planet, anticipated the fluctuations in Whitfield’s lightsaber length, allowing him to dodge the blade that seemed to try to weave around his own and jump out at him.

The great rooms of the Prime Minister’s mansion had yet to be lit by sunlight. Only by amethyst and cyan blurs were said rooms lit, as the two combatants made faster and faster moves, seeking to score a blow on the other before the other could block it. But such would not come to pass. The lightsaber duel stalemated, with neither party able to get through the other’s defenses, even after Whitfield started blending in heavier counterstrokes, with every bit the speed of his earlier ones. Neither could the Dark Lord penetrate the thick mental wall that Whitfield had erected, even as he drew extra Force energy from Planet.

Yet.

For the duel was only begun—and this was the easy part for Whitfield.

And, if the Dark Lord could not defeat Whitfield the usual way, he had other ideas…

Hey, knowing what I now know about your schedule, I'm going to get up earlier to see if we can't speed things along a slight bit despite your lack of time. Might not be a bad idea to sign into MSN if you can, so I don't have to fill up your TG inbox with what to expect--I do have this scene quite heavily choreographed. Oh, and you're gonna love the next one.
OOC: Right. I love it already! :D

The strange cackling of blue energy quickly became a strange explosion of blue energy, the effects of Taylor's Force alchemy magnified a hundredfold by a Force-amplifying, semisentient planet, a planet now especially sensitive to fluctuations in the Force. The EMP from said energy knocked out all electrical power for five miles or so, not to mention giving a few hundred thousand people residing in condominiums on the edge of the government district irregular heartbeats that would later need treatment. Taylor would find himself fighting in the predawn dark, the government district barely illuminated at all by city lights further out, for little light could filter through the thick skyscrapers, darkened by the power outage, surrounding the government district.

If there was any silver lining to be had, the three hundred meter wide ball of energy electrocuted instantaneously the entire platoon of stormtroopers, meaning that there was no one within Taylor's line of sight to investigate the strange phenomena...

...Luckily for Taylor, the Dark Lord had long ago expelled civilians from the government district itself, so collateral damage would not be measured in civilian lives tonight if he was careful.

The youngling sensed some great expenditure of Force energy before seeing a flash of light somewhere in the city. Fortunately, his guards wished to investigate it. Unfortunately, they called for backup from a couple of military bases ringing the city, and the boy would have to wait for said backup.

Taylor would soon have some more company...

Moreover, both Jedi, and the Dark Lord could sense this, and the resulting stirrings of Planet, for Planet knew that its fate, its life or its death, would be determined by sunrise...
"Damn..." Taylor chuckled dryly as the immediate area around him was sundered by alchemic energy, still crackling violently, changing molecules around to produce weird and different objects. "Can't say he didn't warn me. If I didn't know better, I'd think there was a giant transmutation circle in the city...Hope it really gets their attention..."

As he locked his senses on the approaching craft carrying young John and his captors and moved to prepare a place to see to the boy's rescue, what got his attention, and in extension, the attention of the Jedi Council on Jurai and the attention of the rest of the powerful Masaki Clan and other members of the Order, was the battle between Whitfield and Ebolus. They all could feel it within themselves, a battle to end all battles...at least around here.

John Watsen's captives waited for reinforcements to arrive from the two nearby military bases before continuing into the city to deliver him up to the Dark Lord. Within about ten minutes, an entire company of Mad Cat IVs showed up, as well as a few transports bearing a cumulative total of three thousand clonetroopers and military police, culled from those units created to deploy within five minutes to put down domestic insurrections, converged upon the meeting point.

After the "investigative" force consolidated itself, it departed to purge downtown of any dissent...and deliver up the young one to his new master. The 'Mechs took the lead, followed by the transports and the shuttle carrying the boy to the Dark Lord. Taylor would be quite busy soon...

The youngling's thoughts turned to grave fear as the duel between Whitfield and Darth Ebolus took a turn for the worse...

----------------------------------

You will die. Now.

Whitfield spoke to the Dark Lord for the first time in the duel. “That is not for you to decide, Darth Ebolus.”

You fool! No mortal can destroy me now!

Whitfield decided not to waste his breath responding to that arrogance. I’m not here to join the debate club, he thought to himself, even as his mental faculties occupied themselves in defusing Darth Ebolus’ incessant mindrape attempt. I will do what I must.

The two lightsabers continued to clash and try to weave around each other, even as this mental exchange took place. Whitfield gradually found himself becoming more aggressive, more desperate even, in his counterstrokes. The blue and violet light show continued, with no one else to observe it in person.

Unfortunately for the Jedi, the Dark Lord sensed the desperation, and decided to have a bit of fun with it. The mindrape suddenly ceased, for the Dark Lord had other ways of breaking Whitfield’s will.

The old Jedi would receive no mental reprieve. Suddenly, his worst nightmares forced their way into his mind.

White Diamond listlessly orbits its sun, its entire crust blackened by ash, its very classification changed from terran to volcanic. Deep red cracks crisscross the planetary crust. There is no life left here—and the Dark Lord is not yet done. Coredia falls as the Dark Lord fills his replacement fleet with clones obtained from the Galactic Empire, ever interested in doing business with a Sith Lord bringing its brand of ‘civilization’ to another galaxy. For the Empire always looks for ways to expand its influence, and Ebolus would be their proxy…

The Dark Lord, with his newly crewed fleet, mounts a surprise attack on Earth, the Super Star Destroyer’s superlaser making quick work of the planetary shield. The oceans of earth become lifeless, even evaporated into steam from turbolaser heat. For this is only the beginning of the war.

And there are precisely two survivors from these two planets. The Dark Lord and…

Taylor Masaki’s face flashed in Whitfield’s mind.

…his apprentice.

“No!”

Though the Dark Lord had not yet broken Whitfield’s force of will, he had managed to bring out just the slightest tinge of anger in the old Jedi. While Darth Ebolus had sensed Taylor the moment he used the Force, he had waited before doing anything about it…desiring to save Taylor for just the right moment. His voice cackled with glee, for this he had not foreseen. For now, he might be able to turn both Jedi to the Dark Side…

So, you brought along your little friend. How cute. Your thoughts have now betrayed him, too. Regardless of your fate, he shall turn over to the Dark Side, and if I do not kill you, he will.

Whitfield fought off intense pangs of anger as the Dark Lord seemed ever closer to turning him over to the Dark Side of the Force…

No, this cannot be! The old Jedi now became even more desperate, launching a series of aggressive lightsaber strikes, hoping to overwhelm the Dark Lord…

But some fell smile crossed the Dark Lord’s face as he sensed the anger behind those strikes, which he easily parried, not even bothering to counterattack at this point. Not when he was this close to snagging his prey alive. Moreover, the Dark Lord sensed that he could anger Whitfield even more by focusing his psionic war on Taylor instead…

…In seconds, the Dark Lord poured his cruelty, his anger, and his malice into one massive psionic sledgehammer and swung it directly towards the presence of Taylor’s mind…

As Taylor awaited young John and his entourage, he suddenly found himself whammed by a psychic sledgehammer more powerful than he ever dealt with before. His head snapped back, and the wave of malice and evil drove him to his knees, his one thought being that he's glad he chose a well-hidden spot. The Dark Lord's attack brought out images, nightmares of his fears and concerns, seeking to make him fear, which will bring out anger and twist it into hatred and finally, force Taylor to execute...suffering...

Images of his father's death by Palpatine's hand floated by him, evil cackling boiling his blood. Forcing his anger down, he then saw his mother fall as well, by a Jedi he once believed a friend. Then his elder brother Daniel's death-dealing electro-nuclear explosion. The thought crossed his mind that he could do the same to defeat this Sith Lord, but another whisper said 'nay, there is another way'. Though Ebolus' attack wanted him to go the destructive route, Taylor listened to the second voice and decided to stay his hand. With each successive blow, Taylor's sanity and resolve weakened with each attack, pushing him closer and closer to the edge of the abyss...

Images of Taylor's worst nightmares flashed through the Dark Lord's mind as his psionic war against Taylor drew them out. The Dark Lord relished them, noticing that they all had to do with Taylor's family, and implanted a single, overwhelming thought in Taylor's mind:

One by one, your relatives will fall.

Then the Dark Lord noticed something else in Taylor's mind--through Taylor (and his weak psionic defenses), Darth Ebolus could see Taylor's relatives, even a galaxy away, just as he had been able to 'see' his Sith Wraiths telepathically before Whitfield had dealt with them. Yes, a very powerful presence he noticed in Taylor's mind, a presence that would make a most excellent apprentice, a presence who had used the Dark Side when convienent...

There were others as well, but the Lightning Master, Daniel Masaki, Taylor's older brother, definitely seemed the most appealing target to the Dark Lord at this time. They would all either be his servants or dead anyways...

I see you. You shall serve me, and you shall do my will. One by one, your entire family shall succumb to the power of the Dark Side...

Darth Ebolus used Taylor's mind as a proxy, in the same manner he had used the minds of the Sith Wraiths as a proxy through which to direct his destruction. Though Taylor still attempted to fight it, his defenses were too weak to stop it entirely; the best he would manage would be some slight degradation of the mental connection that Ebolus had forced between himself and Daniel. And through Taylor's mind, the Dark Lord now poured his cruelty, his malice, and his will to subjugate all directly into Daniel's mind from a galaxy away, using the full Force-amplifying capabilities of the planet on which he stood to magnify and project his attack...

If there was one good thing about Ebolus' mindrape attempt on the Masakis, it had meant the Dark Lord diverted his mental energies away from trying to mindrape Whitfield. The old Jedi forced himself to set aside his anger at the near-fall of Taylor, and concentrate on the task at hand: defeating the Dark Lord. He forced himself to regulate his rapid breathing and calm down, even as the Dark Lord still somehow managed to find the concentration to defend against Whitfield's increasingly desperate and frenzied lightsaber attacks.

When Whitfield sensed that Darth Ebolus was now involving other members of the Masaki clan in his Force wars, he frantically tried to break Ebolus' concentration, using the Force to catapult Darth Ebolus into the wall with enough force to break his arm and cause his lightsaber to fall out of his hand, but before Whitfield could take advantage of the disarming of Darth Ebolus, he found himself slammed into the opposite wall, with about four broken ribs to show for it. The Dark Lord's attack against the Masakis would not be so easily undone. However, something fell out of one of his robe's many pockets and skittered across the floor...

Both combatants, on opposite sides of the great room, struggled to get up; however, this effort had not been enough to break the concentration of the Dark Lord as concerned the Masaki family clan.

Whitfield cast a glance at the object that had fallen out of his pocket, the cone of a sequoia tree that he had taken from the Sierra Nevada immediately before the forging of his lightsaber. And he was reminded of something...

Fire shall this cone awaken;
From the ash new life shall spring.
For while your government evil has broken,
Restoration the fire shall bring.

Your old blade lies shattered,
But a new one shall be forged.
While fires of death he has rendered,
In your death, his evil shall be disgorged.

Not coincidentally, that pine cone had come to a stop twenty-four feet above a natural gas line, seeming to mark its location, beckoning for the pyrokinetic Jedi Whitfield to use it...

Whitfield used the Force to haul Darth Ebolus against another wall, one that this pipeline ran under. He threw the Dark Lord into this wall with such force that his body bounced back off of it, and he fell about ten feet forwards. The Dark Lord responded by Force-throwing Whitfield across the room again, breaking more of his ribs, one of his arms, and Whitfield couldn't tell what else.

The Dark Lord ignored his pain, content that Whitfield was too injured to strike him, and continued his Force war to enslave the two Masakis...

Both combatants were now directly above the natural gas line...the time was come for Whitfield to offer up his own life to the will of the Force, as he had foreseen...

Taylor struggled with all his might, but he was powerless to prevent the assault from going through him like a conduit and strike out for his family, starting with his eldest brother.

But by striking for the Lightning Master himself, by unleashing a direct attack on the most powerful Jedi Knight the Order has yet produced, the Dark Lord has overreached himself. A mistake that would soon cost him...

In a training session with some younglings, I staggered backwards as the Dark Lord's evil and malice lashed out like a whip for my mind. Ignoring the cries of the] little ones, I gritted my teeth in concentration, pushing back the deadly blow with my potent abilities. Then I smirked the familiar Masaki smirk even as I summoned all my power against this Sith Lord, especially after hearing that familiar speech I've heard many times before.

I see you. You shall serve me, and you shall do my will. One by one, your entire family shall succumb to the power of the Dark Side...

Not on my life, Evil One. You shall not win this battle...

I counterassaulted, refusing to give one iota of ground to Darth Ebolus, driving back the Foe's attack and hopefully free Taylor from the momentary grip of this Dark Lord. No matter what it took, he must be stopped...or else...

No one would get off quite that easily, no matter how strong in the Force they are, there is the matter of the Dark Lord having his power amplified by a Force-amplifying planet and the Lightning Master not having comparable advantage, after all.:D

Also, Gaian Ascendancy, if you happen upon this, please check TGs if you haven't already...

While the Lightning Master was stong enough not to succumb to the psionic attack as Taylor had...for now...he was powerless to actually stop it on his own, especially with the Dark Lord sucking Force energies off of Planet itself and using it to amplify his attacks. Nor did Daniel's arrogant Force-smirk help things; the Dark Lord turned this arrogance against the Lightning Master, part of the reason why he had selected the most powerful target he could find in the first place...

The psionic attack continued, growing more powerful as the Dark Lord threw more and more of Planet's Force-amplifying capabilities behind it, for a few seconds, anyway. Whitfield, however, had other ideas, from a source he had not expected.

The Dark Lord had by now moved away from the natural-gas line that Whitfield had intended to use, so he flew across the room and bounced off the wall as Whitfield used the Force to correct this problem.

All it took was a tiny spark of flame.

The ground shook all over the government district as an explosion powerful enough to send the basement floor, then the floor upon which he and the Dark Lord stood, through the ceiling of the Prime Minister's Mansion.

Whitfield and Ebolus flew in opposite directions, thrown against the walls by the force of the massive explosion. It should have killed them both, but instead, it left both nearly completely physically paralyzed. The center of the room now consisted of one enormous natural gas fire, and Whitfield couldn't see much visually.

He looked to his left, and saw that pine cone he had brought here, in flames, not five yards from him.

Of course, his lack of visibility was more than offset by what he could sense through the Force, and it was not encouraging.

The attack that should have killed the Dark Lord did not, and while he now did have more to worry about than enslaving the Masaki family clan, he diverted his Force capabilities into sucking the Force out of Planet and using it to regenerate himself. Therefore, the Dark Lord postponed his attacks against Daniel and Taylor for a later time; the Masakis would have Whitfield to thank for forcing him into that position, at least for a few minutes. However, he drained life force quite rapidly, too; in a few minutes the Dark Lord would be well enough to fight another lightsaber duel. This, while Whitfield would be happy simply to break his paralysis.

Whitfield, too, used the Force to heal himself as best he could, but he was not a trained Jedi healer, and the Dark Lord would be ready to fight well before he could. Which essentially meant the duel was over, and he had lost it. Again.

Whitfield despaired. I have failed.

Before the Dark Lord could seize the moment and use the Dark Side to amplify the despair of the aging Jedi Knight, Whitfield sensed a surge of the Force within Planet, as if it was about to erupt to expel the Dark Side itself, or at least try. But, as long as Darth Ebolus lived, Planet would be unable to do this on its own, or it would have done it already.

The presence that he had started thinking of as the Voice of Planet spoke unto him.

If you do not find a way, Jedi Whitfield, no one else will.

He looked up, and saw daylight through the hole in the ceiling where the smoke from the fire did not smother it.

Whitfield turned his attentions to the Force volatility within Planet, and the draining of the Force itself from Planet, as the Dark Lord used it simply for a vast resivoir of power. He now knew what he must do.

He must deprive the Dark Lord of the source of power he had built up for himself; he must directly confront the Dark Side here. And he must drain every trace of its influence, all without being corrupted by it.

Or dying in the attempt.

He would have to offer his life up to the will of the Force, again.

Whitfield coaxed his broken body to stand up through the Force, and braced his mind for what was to come...

His voice, however, still seemed strong as ever as it thundered throughout the firelit chamber. "I purge you, Darth Ebolus, as poison is drawn from a wound."

It was a voice that reverberated through the Force on such a scale that all who once were bound to the Dark Lord through the Force could sense it, regardless of distance. It was a voice that Planet amplified on such a scale that everything connected to the Force that lived and breathed on White Diamond awoke.

Nearly two billion people awoke from their slumber, stirred by this voice, a voice that brought hope to those who had none. Young John Watsen found the wooziness caused by his head injury practically washed away by this surge in the Force itself. Squirrels dropped their acorns, wondering what exactly was happening, coyotes and cougars howled throughout the mountain ranges, and birds flew off into the sky wondering what was wrong with the ground.

It was a voice amplified to such a magnitude that even a few of the refugees huddled in the transports CoreWorlds had provided for temporary housing on Earth could tell that something of importance was happening, though they did not yet know what this "something of importance" was.

And Whitfield drove his lightsaber into the floor, as one drives a stake through the ground.

However, Whitfield did not need to worry about consciously drawing the Dark Side to himself. It came anyway, using his lightsaber as a conduit, in the form of enough dark electrical current to charge every planetary battery on White Diamond in less than a minute, expelled by the Will of Planet. For Planet now had a destination to which the Dark Lord's fell influence could be expelled.

The Dark Lord groaned as he suddenly found his ability to suck the life out of Planet and use it for his own healing was suddenly drastically interfered with, even cut off.

Whitfield's lightsaber could not absorb current of such magnitude; no lightsaber could. The old Jedi struggled to block the fell current from reaching past the lightsaber's hilt, pouring all of his mental capacities into the effort. A charge of billions of volts built up on his lightsaber, causing it to pulse with blue energy, energy that engulfed the amethyst blade in a pulsating energy conduit about a foot wide. The lightsaber itself seemed to grow heavier.

Whitfield found himself drawing upon the Force-amplification capabilities of Planet to continue the drain, albeit reluctantly, for there was no other way to continue.

The buildup on the lightsaber did not account for all of the energy of the Dark Side that Planet, in its upheaval against the Dark Lord, discharged. Tiny particulates fell to the ground as Light and Dark annihilated each other, so great was the scale of energy, in what could best be described as a reverse matter-antimatter reaction.

Nevertheless, Whitfield's strength began to falter, for the Dark Side began to numb his hands...Whitfield suddenly found himself doubting whether or not he could finish what he had begun...

----------------------------------------------------

Eheayana, Earth

Keith Allaire had been observing the battle of his time in his mind; as one connected to the Dark Lord, and as one who had received a tiny bit of elementary Force-training from Whitfield, just enough to start to attune his mind to these kinds of things, he could vaguely see an outline of what was happening seven hundred light years away. When Whitfield began his Force drain, his ears perked up, for he knew that the battle of his time was to be shortly decided...

...He went to find Admiral Basque, to ask him for transport to White Diamond. He had no ship of his own, but if Whitfield won the duel, the Lieutenant Colonel would do a lot more good on White Diamond than he could hope to do here.

The Five on Jurai were not quite this attuned to events, but they, too, knew that the fate of the Dark Lord was near to decision...

OOC2: CoreWorlds, since your Internet access is so sporadic, and for the sake of expediency, I request that you RP the conversation between Keith and Admiral Basque over transport to WD in its entirety, keeping in mind that Keith sees this as quite urgent.

Make enough ripples, and they begin to reverberate in the water in all directions. Enough of those make minor waves. Processes over and over creare larger waves, ones that can end up crashing into coasts with terrible effect.

The pebble thrown might not cause the tsunami. But not stopping it could cause worse.

---

*White Diamond/Sapphire - The Gaian Homeworld*

Upon the Ascendant jewel of all it's ancient jewels of the stars, the current residents of this one world, a master of thousands of galaxies around it, see the souls of many essence sensitive beginning to take note of something very wrong taking place in the Milky Way Core Galaxy.

The Jedi Knights and Masters of the Hikara Temple Complex began to take note of the first ripples a good while back. Where they do not immediately know, but the Force tells them to be wary. Masters take time from their schedules and training regimen to keep an eye on this ripple.

When the focus that was White Diamond, the name given to one of the worlds the Ascendancy Sphere once ceeded to the nation of Evil Woody Thoughts, began to be felt by the Hikari Trees, and correlated by earlier sensings from the Jedi, the mutual focus began to inform the Hikari Powers of something amiss.

The Ascendant Avian Lords, the ancient billion year old masters that created that inflicted world, once known as Tesh`irara III.3/V5, reacted with concern, but combined, the Gaians couldn't do anything at the time yet, due to the raging conflict of the Eternal War. Priorities between one world, and the rest of the universe made a dour tasting choice too easy to make.

By the time of the duel and the awakening of Tesh`irara however, times were changing.

--

*The Holy Palace Tree; Hikari Generation Alcove*

At the time the duel itself began on White Diamond-EWT, as the Gaians now labeled it, to differientiate between that world and the Gaian Homeworld, in this vast alcove of thousands of Hikari Trees, the baseline source for the entire Hikari Tree Network (including all Treeships, Shield Trees, the MindLink Network, Shield Grid Networks (both planetary and intergalactic,) and the mutual affinity link of millions upon millions of Trees and their Partners, and the infused link with the Intracellic Realm of Heaven along side.)

Here, the focus of the problem that seemed to be affecting more and more in ripples, along subspace links with the Force and the Hikari Link, was being discussed by the core Partnership far below.

"Can it really get that bad again?" Lord Aleaic said aloud, facing his Partner Tree Hikari, the Triad Tree of which the trunks of Aeo, Gulwenia, and Shanto shared with each other, and the Excellency Family as mutual Partnerships. The reply was rather stoic sounding in his mind. The melody of the Tree in his mind that of a growing storm, if one was to place music as the language here.

Aleaic reacted by rubbing his chin. He groans a bit. "Yeah, these Dark Lord types never stop with just one planet. Sooner or later we'd be invloved."

"Came to that same conclusion have you now love?" ..which makes Aleaic turn his head to his beautiful first wife Tsunami, responding deadpan back with. "This isn't the Exile Event. The attack is against a planet, not subspace this time."

Tsunami walks into the glowing lifewaters surrounding the thin walkways that crisscross the tree base, to stand next to her beloved of over a century. Her wisdom is as that of many others of the Holy Council. "Still, they feel the planet in turmoil. The Ascendants feel since we were the ones that gave away that planet in the first place, that we should make some form of attempt to rectify things."

Aleaic half nods, but adds.. "The Woodians were given their independance to solve such things on their own. Should we not give them the chance to do such themselves?

Or should we meddle again, and possibly make them feel lesser for it?"

Tsui leans on Al's left side, both standing in the warm waters with the Tree (yes barefoot..) the Tree singing it's opinion of what should be done. Tsunami listens on the same Link with Aleaic, and she nods. "It's a good point. I don't think they realize how much power they are meddling with themselves.

We could simply go there to..."

Aleaic finishes... "...observe. Heh, nice to know us Treeheads link alike." Tsui and the Tree giggle back in response. Aleaic then adds.. "Or at least you two Treeheads do."

Al just gets pushed into the water hard by Tsui for that one.

--

*Council Chambers, half an hour later*

Lady Yurika looks at the Excellency with an amused eye. "Dry enough yet?"

Al, while he keeps toweling his hair dry, flicks a hand at Yurika, as he continues on with his plan, most of the Council listening. Only Tsutsumi and Washu are not present.

"We'll be sending a flotilla from the Diamond Facet Fleet, two A-SSDs, and thirty Hikari Treeships with one Shield Tree. We don't know what intel indicates of the apparent star destroyer fleet at White Diamond-EWT, the effects of the fighting there, or any response will be when we arrive.

But.." Al says with a sigh. "...we had better know what the heck they are doing with one of our own planets. Formerly or otherwise. The planet after all, thanks to the Ascendants, is still partially linked to subspace due to the terraforming methods they once employed to construct the planet."

Lady Belldandy to his far right adds.. "We could indeed feel rythmic ripples from whatever is going on there."

"Worse, the drain quotient being detected could affect the Link at some point, if we don't check it out." Lady Skuld at the far end of the oval-U shaped table adds in.

Arashi on Aleaic's left pegs in.. "The fleet will be leaving within the next two hours. Tsunami-san and I will be going with Aleaic-chan, and Jennifer-san will be commanding here ion our place."

"Tenchi, Yurika and Akito, along with Master Tuta-Sar will be coming with us. Lady Seto will be on standby with a second wave of Hikari Treeships if needed, or if there's Infernal activity while this operation occurs." Aleaic imparts. "No matter what, we have to ensure that whatever is going on, doesn't spread beyond into the subspace links. We also have to try and save the planet as well if we can.

Any other queries?" ..the Excellency finsihes, with no objections. All know what's at stake.

--

The preparations are done, very quickly, once the final orders are sent.

The Gaians are coming.

While the Lightning Master was stong enough not to succumb to the psionic attack as Taylor had...for now...he was powerless to actually stop it on his own, especially with the Dark Lord sucking Force energies off of Planet itself and using it to amplify his attacks. Nor did Daniel's arrogant Force-smirk help things; the Dark Lord turned this arrogance against the Lightning Master, part of the reason why he had selected the most powerful target he could find in the first place...

The psionic attack continued, growing more powerful as the Dark Lord threw more and more of Planet's Force-amplifying capabilities behind it, for a few seconds, anyway. Whitfield, however, had other ideas, from a source he had not expected.
Damn...This one's getting stronger... I thought as bit by bit, the Dark Lord used his ever-increasing powers to bash me with greater and greater surges of dark power, and I would be soon at my limits. If this kept going much longer, I would be in serious trouble.

As it was, a break came along to save the day...

The Dark Lord had by now moved away from the natural-gas line that Whitfield had intended to use, so he flew across the room and bounced off the wall as Whitfield used the Force to correct this problem.

All it took was a tiny spark of flame.

The ground shook all over the government district as an explosion powerful enough to send the basement floor, then the floor upon which he and the Dark Lord stood, through the ceiling of the Prime Minister's Mansion.

Whitfield and Ebolus flew in opposite directions, thrown against the walls by the force of the massive explosion. It should have killed them both, but instead, it left both nearly completely physically paralyzed. The center of the room now consisted of one enormous natural gas fire, and Whitfield couldn't see much visually.

He looked to his left, and saw that pine cone he had brought here, in flames, not five yards from him.

Of course, his lack of visibility was more than offset by what he could sense through the Force, and it was not encouraging.

The attack that should have killed the Dark Lord did not, and while he now did have more to worry about than enslaving the Masaki family clan, he diverted his Force capabilities into sucking the Force out of Planet and using it to regenerate himself. Therefore, the Dark Lord postponed his attacks against Daniel and Taylor for a later time; the Masakis would have Whitfield to thank for forcing him into that position, at least for a few minutes. However, he drained life force quite rapidly, too; in a few minutes the Dark Lord would be well enough to fight another lightsaber duel. This, while Whitfield would be happy simply to break his paralysis.

Whitfield, too, used the Force to heal himself as best he could, but he was not a trained Jedi healer, and the Dark Lord would be ready to fight well before he could. Which essentially meant the duel was over, and he had lost it. Again.

Whitfield despaired. I have failed.

Before the Dark Lord could seize the moment and use the Dark Side to amplify the despair of the aging Jedi Knight, Whitfield sensed a surge of the Force within Planet, as if it was about to erupt to expel the Dark Side itself, or at least try. But, as long as Darth Ebolus lived, Planet would be unable to do this on its own, or it would have done it already.

The presence that he had started thinking of as the Voice of Planet spoke unto him.

If you do not find a way, Jedi Whitfield, no one else will.

He looked up, and saw daylight through the hole in the ceiling where the smoke from the fire did not smother it.

Whitfield turned his attentions to the Force volatility within Planet, and the draining of the Force itself from Planet, as the Dark Lord used it simply for a vast resivoir of power. He now knew what he must do.

He must deprive the Dark Lord of the source of power he had built up for himself; he must directly confront the Dark Side here. And he must drain every trace of its influence, all without being corrupted by it.

Or dying in the attempt.

He would have to offer his life up to the will of the Force, again.

Whitfield coaxed his broken body to stand up through the Force, and braced his mind for what was to come...

His voice, however, still seemed strong as ever as it thundered throughout the firelit chamber. "I purge you, Darth Ebolus, as poison is drawn from a wound."

It was a voice that reverberated through the Force on such a scale that all who once were bound to the Dark Lord through the Force could sense it, regardless of distance. It was a voice that Planet amplified on such a scale that everything connected to the Force that lived and breathed on White Diamond awoke.

Nearly two billion people awoke from their slumber, stirred by this voice, a voice that brought hope to those who had none. Young John Watsen found the wooziness caused by his head injury practically washed away by this surge in the Force itself. Squirrels dropped their acorns, wondering what exactly was happening, coyotes and cougars howled throughout the mountain ranges, and birds flew off into the sky wondering what was wrong with the ground.

It was a voice amplified to such a magnitude that even a few of the refugees huddled in the transports CoreWorlds had provided for temporary housing on Earth could tell that something of importance was happening, though they did not yet know what this "something of importance" was.
It was a voice that reached far into the cosmos, announcing it's Words even at Jurai. The Jedi Knights there heard the words, and even the normal people felt something odd within. Such was the power of the Voice of the Planet...

And Whitfield drove his lightsaber into the floor, as one drives a stake through the ground.

However, Whitfield did not need to worry about consciously drawing the Dark Side to himself. It came anyway, using his lightsaber as a conduit, in the form of enough dark electrical current to charge every planetary battery on White Diamond in less than a minute, expelled by the Will of Planet. For Planet now had a destination to which the Dark Lord's fell influence could be expelled.

The Dark Lord groaned as he suddenly found his ability to suck the life out of Planet and use it for his own healing was suddenly drastically interfered with, even cut off.

Whitfield's lightsaber could not absorb current of such magnitude; no lightsaber could. The old Jedi struggled to block the fell current from reaching past the lightsaber's hilt, pouring all of his mental capacities into the effort. A charge of billions of volts built up on his lightsaber, causing it to pulse with blue energy, energy that engulfed the amethyst blade in a pulsating energy conduit about a foot wide. The lightsaber itself seemed to grow heavier.

Whitfield found himself drawing upon the Force-amplification capabilities of Planet to continue the drain, albeit reluctantly, for there was no other way to continue.

The buildup on the lightsaber did not account for all of the energy of the Dark Side that Planet, in its upheaval against the Dark Lord, discharged. Tiny particulates fell to the ground as Light and Dark annihilated each other, so great was the scale of energy, in what could best be described as a reverse matter-antimatter reaction.

Nevertheless, Whitfield's strength began to falter, for the Dark Side began to numb his hands...Whitfield suddenly found himself doubting whether or not he could finish what he had begun...
Taylor gasped in shock, released from the dark grip of the Sith Lord for a time and breathed in deep breaths as if he nearly drowned. Man...that was tough...

You alright, Taylor? I asked, still connected to White Diamond by way of Taylor.

Yeah... Then a brillliant flash of energy erupted nearby, as Whitfield did what he could to stop the Sith...but I sensed that it wouldn't be nearly enough....

Taylor... Thinking quickly, I made a decision. My strength, I shall give you for this fight. Now don't argue with me. I know what that would cost me, but this is more important than either of us.

Taylor nodded acceptance and then he begn to feel revitalized, even strengthened as I poured my energies into him, leaving me weak for a short time. Now, let's see what we can do to thwart the Evil One's schemes...

----------------------------------------------------

Eheayana, Earth

Keith Allaire had been observing the battle of his time in his mind; as one connected to the Dark Lord, and as one who had received a tiny bit of elementary Force-training from Whitfield, just enough to start to attune his mind to these kinds of things, he could vaguely see an outline of what was happening seven hundred light years away. When Whitfield began his Force drain, his ears perked up, for he knew that the battle of his time was to be shortly decided...

...He went to find Admiral Basque, to ask him for transport to White Diamond. He had no ship of his own, but if Whitfield won the duel, the Lieutenant Colonel would do a lot more good on White Diamond than he could hope to do here.

The Five on Jurai were not quite this attuned to events, but they, too, knew that the fate of the Dark Lord was near to decision...

OOC2: CoreWorlds, since your Internet access is so sporadic, and for the sake of expediency, I request that you RP the conversation between Keith and Admiral Basque over transport to WD in its entirety, keeping in mind that Keith sees this as quite urgent.
OOC: I don['t have time to do this part, so you may assume that the Admiral has given Keith permission to 'hijack' a ship. I'll try to post again, but I just started a new job at a restaurant, so don't hold your breath.

Ooc: Your Back! You Have To Tg Me! Or Get On Msn!

Ooc: Your Back! You Have To Tg Me! Or Get On Msn!

OOC: WHAT HE SAID! We missed you man. Many things have changed since you left us my friend...

Indeed... get back on in full so we can start the ZOMGWAR thread back up.

Oh, and we REALLY need to MSN, dude...

Don't get too excited fellas, CoreWorlds has only been posting in here once every two weeks or so, and I have to pull his teeth over TG even for that.:D

--------------------------------------

The Force meld between the two members of the Masaki clan went virtually unnoticed by Whitfield. He had other concerns at the moment.

Nor could Taylor, despite his temporarily increased power, really do much short of extending the Force meld to Whitfield himself, for he was not actually at the scene of the duel; he was a bystander in it, a bystander who had been deliberately attacked by the Dark Lord earlier. He could try to initiate a telepathic Force war against the Dark Lord...but though he knew that Whitfield would soon fail unassisted, a nebulous voice in his head told him to wait.

And that voice was not of the Dark Side...this was perfectly clear to him, especially in contrast to the recent deeds of Darth Ebolus. Nor would he particularly want to initiate a Force war after recent events if he could help it...

...It was the muffled voice of a sentient but heavily distracted entity...just a whisper. However, the voice would not have Taylor wait as long as he might have expected for an explanation of the request...

Planet continued its massive dumping of leaching, poisonous Dark Side energy onto Whitfield. Since the Dark Lord had initiated the massive Force drain against Planet in response to his defeats in the telepathic Force wars over his Wraiths, Planet had quietly longed for a way to purge itself of the Dark Side...and Whitfield had offered to Planet a means of disposal. Yet, as Whitfield's own defenses against said energy started to wither, as his hands blackened and his forearms started to die, the Planetmind realized that Whitfield would soon fail and this new, mysterious presence, younger, more impulsive, like Whitfield might have been at the age of twenty or so, suddenly growing in power, was not in a position to immediately intervene.

However, the massive drain of the Dark Lord's resivoir of power did at least leave Darth Ebolus paralyzed, as well he should be with the damage his skeletal system had sustained being thrown about the room in the Force war of a few minutes prior.

Even if the presence of Taylor Masaki was in a position to intervene, it was still an unknown presence to Planet...and Planet had quietly adapted to Whitfield's presence over thirty years; it was a presence that could be trusted. This was the reason why the will of the Force had appointed Whitfield for this task...

Whitfield maintained his grip on his lightsaber, pulsating with energy on a scale that would take several hours for the blade to dissapate, only because the dead tissue of his hands had been so tightly wrapped around the hilt when the tissue was still alive.

As the old Jedi struggled to absorb this massive upheaval, the sentient Planetmind of Tesh`irara III.3/V5 realized something.

The survival of Jacob Whitfield was now bound to the fate of Tesh`irara, which ordinarily would not be cause for concern. The Ascendants were the proginitors of this planet, and ordinarily the Planetmind they had...constructed...would care less about those mortals who walked its surface. But these were no ordinary times...and more importantly, the fate of Tesh`irara was now bound to the fate of Whitfield.

If Whitfield failed, in a nutshell, this new Jedi, no matter his power or intention, simply wouldn't know what the hell he was doing. If Whitfield failed, this problem would fall to the Ascendants themselves...and the Ascendants were only now starting to mobilize, and would take at least two hours to get here...

Planet sensed this.

Therefore, even as Planet continued its discharge of the dark presence that plagued it, the Planetmind acknowledged that it now held a symbiotic relationship with the Jedi Knight...Whitfield had offered himself, thrown himself to the Will of Planet in one last, desperate attempt to drain the Dark Lord's power...and now it was up to Planet to intervene.

...The Will of Planet would not be undone. No matter what it took.

As the pulsating dark blue energy threatened to overwhelm Whitfield and jump to his chest and his head--something that would kill him nearly instantly--when Whitfield's need was dire, when he could not continue unaided, the Voice that had ninety seconds or so ago shook every living thing on White Diamond to its core and made its presence known across entire galaxies spoke again...to do something that in the multibillion-year history of its Progenitors, the Ascendant Lords, had never been done before. It was an act of desperation from a sentient planet trying to preserve its own existance as something more significant than a mere barren husk, drained of its power...

This Light I freely bestow upon you, Jedi Whitfield, the Light bestowed upon the Presence of Tesh`irara III, for use when all other Light fails.

What happened next was a tremor, or more like a flash, in the Force that would surprise even the Ascendant Avian Lords. For a split second, a charge of energy built up within the planetary core, as if it was static electricity building up to be discharged. The discharge of this power overwhelmed the great room in which Whitfield and Ebolus both happened to be in. The white flash of light resulting from this sudden surge dwarfed the black smoke of the natural gas fire pouring out of the ceiling for the split second that it existed.

For Planet, it was a tiny fraction of the power the Ascendant Avian Lords had built into its core, into its being, to tilt the outcome of Whitfield's attempt to drain off the Dark Side in Planet's favor.

For Whitfield, it was as if somebody had just given him a shot of pure midichlorians, the essence of the Force, the essence that meant the difference between a Force-sensitive being, with the potential to become a Jedi, and the vast majority of the population in the universe, not endowed with such abilities. It was, quite literally, a doubling of his midichlorian count, done at the will of a sentient, Force-amplifying planet out of sheer desperation. His mind, driven to breakdown by the massive amounts of Dark Side energy he had been called to outright absorb, suddenly found itself completely refocused, and cleared of doubts; the line that demarcated where Dark collided with Light in Whitfield's task of absorbing this energy suddenly jumped from a couple of inches away from his head and chest back past the hilt of his lightsaber.

Dark electricity continued to discharge into Whitfield's lightsaber, only to make it seem to grow even thicker than a foot, only to reach Whitfield's mental wall, annihilate with Light Side energy, and become a tiny particle of matter. But now, Whitfield would just barely have enough strength to make it through...

Planet continued pouring the poison of the Dark Side into its newly strengthened symbiote, a symbiote that still offered the absorption and discharge of what amounted to a slow, corroding poison.

The next twenty seconds or so seemed like an eternity for all involved, but when at last the last joule of the Dark Side was purged from Planet, some telekinetic force of will that Planet mustered heaved Whitfield's lightsaber out of the floor, causing Whitfield to stagger backwards from inertia. His deadened arms flew up into the air, and with that, his lightsaber, with a high-voltage charge of the Dark Side on it, now pointed upwards, at the hole that had been blasted into the ceiling earlier by Whitfield's Force-induced natural gas explosion.

In the half-second or so that Whitfield's lightsaber was in such a position, a relieved Whitfield let the massive charge upon his lightsaber discharge from it, in a straight line into the sky, like the biggest particle projector cannon bolt ever fired.

The streak of dark blue energy, comparable at least to a planetary-scale battery or two, thus departed from Planet, into the nothingness of space, where it would dissipate into nothingness over the course of a few billion kilometers traveled. Whitfield staggered backwards a few more steps before finally losing his balance and falling on his back to the floor. His lightsaber fell out of his hand.

Darth Ebolus, though his resivoir of power was now expunged, still lived, however...and another Force duel, between two weary, exhausted combatants, would still need to take place...

Ebolus had managed to heal himself just a little bit before Whitfield's Force drain had had its full effect, but not enough to fight. Whitfield, too, was in no condition to fight...at least not in the conventional sense.

Nevertheless, his lightsaber quietly started to float in the air, and positioned itself so that if the blade was ignited, it would be perpendicular to the ground, facing upwards. Ebolus could not see this through the fire and thick smoke from the natural gas fire...

If Whitfield was too weak for a conventional lightsaber duel, this would be a duel through telekinetic Force proxy.

Whitfield summoned some deep reserve of strength within the Force that Planet's infusion of Light had given him, to reach out with the Force for the presence of the Dark Lord...

The Dark Lord flew across the room as Whitfield tapped into the Force to send him on a path right over his lightsaber...and with another tap of the Force, a brief flash of amethyst made its own little afterglow in the room known.

The flash from the lightsaber seared the Dark Lord's chest and impaled his heart, killing him instantly.

The Sith Civil War was now over--but recovery was only just beginning...

Whitfield, exhausted, let his mind wander a bit as he prepared himself to become one with the Force. His arms lay limp at his side, blackened and deadened. The duel had left him physically too weak to get up. It was only now that he noticed that being thrown about the room through Force-telekinesis had led to internal bleeding along with his broken ribs. His body only had a few minutes of life left in it...

...It was thus that the Voice of Planet spoke unto Whitfield.

Why do you go into despair, Master Whitfield? The war is over, and you have stemmed the constant leaching of the Dark Lord.

Planet's use of the term "Master" escaped Whitfield...he was too exhausted to notice it. Nevertheless, Planet had its reasons for using that choice of words...

I came here to duel the Dark Lord, and this is finished...my body is broken.

Do not concern yourself with such things...your body can be remade.

My task is done and my time is done...I am here, in a burning building, physically too weak to get to a hospital...

Yet you still see...open your eyes.

Jacob Whitfield struggled to crane his neck to look around. To his left, he caught notice of the sequoia pinecone he had imported from Earth, from the exact location where he had forged his lightsaber. Earlier, he had seen it on fire, but the fire had burned itself out on the cone's heavily-fire-resistant wood.

He used the Force to draw it to him, for he was much stronger in the Force than he was physically at this point. He looked at it closely; a wisp of smoke still floated out. But, perhaps most importantly, he could see the exposed seeds. Without exposure to heat, those seeds would have remained forever trapped, locked up, in the protective shell of the cone. But now, those seeds, if thrown to the wind, would settle upon a piece of ground and germinate.

Whitfield could not help but think of the tree from whence these seeds had came...a tree dying of disease. Yet, these seeds were perfectly healthy.

Even in his exhaustion, he got the hint. But what to do about it?

You have attuned yourself to things that few have, Master Whitfield. You may not be a healer, but there are others...

Who might these healers be?

They still exist, even after you exiled yourself. But you are returned here. You need only preserve yourself long enough for them to find you...

Preserve myself? Whitfield was taken aback. Suspended animation?

If you wish to see what has been revealed to you, yes. You are not the last of the Jedi from your nation. You know this. Your destiny, freed from the Dark Lord, now is tied to one whom you have freed.

Then train him, I shall.

Planet did not respond, and all of this conversation with Planet had done nothing to actually heal Whitfield. His body was about to fail unless he acted upon this conversation. Therefore, as if the duel wasn't enough, he would have to attempt cryostasis--on himself. Worse, he was not a student of biology...but it would be difficult to damage his body even further than the damage it had already sustained. In short, he had nothing to lose.

Therefore, he used the Force to extinguish the flames from the natural gas fire, stifling the molecular motion of its fuel, sucking the energy out of the fire. The temperature in the room fell rapidly, causing Whitfield to shiver.

With the fire extinguished, Whitfield turned his attention inward, taking deep breaths, using the Force to gradually slow his metabolism, entering a gradual, controlled, hibernation trance, letting his body temperature fall. He braced himself for what was to come. His body temperature fell only gradually, as he gradually slowed his heart and breathing rate, to the point where his heart only beat twice a minute.

At this point, Whitfield shut down his own heart and lungs entirely, then, less than five seconds later, before this would be fatal, flash-froze himself to one hundred fifty degrees below Celsius.

His body lay upon the cold, hard floor neither alive nor dead, but in some state of hibernation in between, preserved and frozen in time.

------------------------------------------------------

The death of the Dark Lord immediately severed the mental bonds of slavery that he had imposed upon military officers by mindraping them—leaving mentally incapacitated shells of bodies in his wake. The admiralty that Ebolus had enslaved simply collapsed, its members unable to construe even a conscious thought to get up, simply strewn about where they had been standing previously. Civilians, too, who had been mindraped by the Dark Lord’s Sith Wraith proxies suddenly found themselves unable to construe any thought, and simply collapsed on the ground, their minds completely numb. Only a few captains had managed to escape this fate, and no officers higher-ranking than captain—which meant that the six military officers that the Jedi Whitfield had freed earlier in the war were suddenly the ranking officers in the Evil Woody Thoughts military. This left three Lieutenant Colonels, of which Keith Allaire was the most senior, and three majors in a position to command what was left of the Evil Woody Thoughts Armed Forces.

An insane amount of responsibility for people in their mid-twenties. All of the Six had mentally witnessed this battle, all had sensed the awakening of Planet, all had sensed the duel’s end, and all had sensed the mental bonds that tied the Dark Lord to his victims suddenly shattered. All were well aware of the responsibilities that were now laid upon them.

It was thus that the Five on Jurai, who had spent the last few days after Master Tsunade’s neuroregenerative treatment researching the history of the Jedi Order, quickly reached a unanimous decision to request admittance therein and training after the condition of the military in which they were commissioned to serve stabilized somewhat. In the meantime, they would simply go before the Council, or try to anyway, as five people who were freed from the war, to request transport back to White Diamond.

------------------------------------------------------

OOC: I don't have time to do this part, so you may assume that the Admiral has given Keith permission to 'hijack' a ship. I'll try to post again, but I just started a new job at a restaurant, so don't hold your breath.

Right.

Even as the final stages of the battle echoed and reverberated through Lieutenant Colonel Allaire’s mind, he found himself negotiating with Admiral Basque over what transportation could be found to White Diamond. His voice reflected extreme urgency that he was not completely sure that he intended, and the Admiral could see in Keith’s face that something was going on of extreme importance somewhere…the senses of those who were sensitive to the Force, he knew, were not to be underestimated.

Admiral Basque could tell from the strange mixture of relief and uncertainty on Keith’s face the precise second when the duel on White Diamond ended—indeed the Voice of Planet seemed to echo faintly off of Keith’s mind. Relief that the war was over, uncertainty about what exactly reconstruction held…It was a very unnerving sensation, one that convinced him to disclose a security code to access one of the X-wings that had provided air cover during the battle for Eheayana.

Keith wasted no time in saluting the Admiral, saying good-bye, and getting the hell out of there. He made his way to the X-wing that the Admiral had appropriated for him, gave the proper security code to the astromech “guarding” it, and, as the cockpit canopy opened, wasted no time in jumping in. The cockpit had a hint of familiarity to it; he easily figured out the controls this time and was on his way.

---------------------------------------------------

Those who were coerced into following the Dark Lord’s will, by their superior officers, but who were not mindraped directly had a problem of conscience on their hands somewhat akin to a former Nazi recovering from the brainwashing that went on in Germany before and during World War II.

There were many of these people, and suddenly, en masse, they realized they had blood on their hands.

Many in the military, out of shame, tore their clothes, then committed ritual suicide, and in this manner, the war claimed another few hundred thousand souls even after it was ended.

These souls included those who had been charged with delivering up young John Watsen to the Dark Lord, who shot themselves in the head with their blasters right in front of the five-year old.

As if the awakening of Planet wasn’t enough of a searing memory he would never, ever forget…he only knew in a vague sense that the planet itself had somehow rebelled against the Dark Lord and helped Whitfield defeat him. He had sensed this, but he didn’t know what to make of the experience except for this one generality; he was, after all, only five, and had experienced blunt trauma to the head on top of it all.

He stepped out of the transport, his hands still bound, dizzy from his earlier head injuries. He collapsed on the ground and fainted, but one of those who had been dispatched to provide extra “security” for his delivery to the Dark Lord in light of the explosion of energy in the government district decided to atone for what he had done not through ritual suicide, but by taking him to the hospital.

This nameless pawn of the war scooped the boy up in his arms, carried him up to the cockpit of his scout ‘Mech, and started off for the nearest hospital, so that the head injuries inflicted upon him earlier by the guards may be treated.

----------------------------------------------------------------

The duel between Whitfield and Ebolus had, quite violently, shaken the people of White Diamond out of their collective despair and replaced it with a collective uncertainty with regards to the future.

What to do?

Those who lived nearest to the Prime Minister’s mansion, where the duel had occurred, had seen the effects of Taylor’s Force alchemy, the explosion that blew the roof off of the mansion, the flash of white light that they also felt because its imprint on the Force was that strong, and the discharge of the dark energy off of Whitfield’s lightsaber blade, the dark energy that had smothered Planet in an aura of despair for the last two weeks, all from just looking out the window. The intervention of Planet, an intervention that finally broke the stalemate of the duel, was felt by every living thing on Planet, as was the voice of the Jedi Whitfield when the Planetmind had chosen to amplify and transmit it.

A few of these denizens ventured outside after everything suddenly fell silent. A small group of people walked into the great room within the Prime Minister’s Mansion where the duel had taken place, having little idea of what to expect. They found a charred hole in the floor, a block of ice in the shape of a human (who happened to be Whitfield, in cryostasis), his lightsaber, a seemingly random pinecone that had been burned open next to Whitfield’s side, and the intact body of the slain Darth Ebolus—a surreal scene.

One in the group called for an ambulance; when the paramedics came, they didn’t quite know how to handle Whitfield, for they had never seen, nor trained for, how to handle someone who had frozen himself as Whitfield had. They radioed their dispatchers, who told them to use the portable repulsorlifts stored in their ambulance to assist in getting Whitfield on the gurney, and then to take him not to the hospital they had expected to take him, but instead to take him to the University of White Diamond Medical Center, some five kilometers away. The UWD Medical Center, as the flagship research hospital of Evil Woody Thoughts, was the only hospital on the planet that had access to the proper equipment and expertise required for a case such as this.

Those who were gathered watched the paramedics carefully, with heavy gloves on, move Whitfield onto the gurney and load him in the ambulance speeder. They also took with them what they assumed to be his, i.e. his lightsaber and the mysterious pinecone beside him…perhaps it had held some significance that Whitfield could explain later…

...Meanwhile, the emergency dispatchers looked up the roster of doctor specialties at UWD Medical Center, until they found contact information for the research hospital's only cryobiologist. Fortunately for Whitfield, Dr. Deimos had survived the mass slaughter on White Diamond, and he would answer the call to treat a type of case he had never before seen...

--------------------------------------------

When Keith dropped out of hyperspace at White Diamond about twenty minutes after the end of the duel, the effects of the once-in-fifty-million-year drought were painfully obvious. The planet’s landmasses were visibly browner than what should have been…yet, with his new realization that Planet was indeed sentient, he sensed that Planet was sealing its wounds…

Fortunately for Keith, the crews of the fleet guarding the system were a bit too disorganized to bother with a single snub fighter at the moment, a direct result of the mental incapacitation of all high-ranking military officers, in turn, a result of the Dark Lord’s death.

He picked out a crack in the northern polar ice cap, too, and turned the X-wing’s scanners to investigate it; his senses in the Force were not yet even close to attuned enough to do such a scan through the Force, at that distance, instead. The scanners gave him only general information that the planetary crust there had been cracked, and that the crack went through a city.

It was the Forgotten Continent that Keith was scanning…and after reading the scan results, he knew exactly what happened to it. A tectonic deployment, the same thing that he had witnessed on Earth.

He set the X-wing on an entry course to the military base he was formerly stationed at, about a hundred kilometers from Great Woody City proper. He knew what he must do…

He landed at the base inconspicuously, using old passwords and clearances, to get to where he needed to go within the base. He tailored for himself a new military uniform, sewing a namestrip and the insignia of Lieutenant Colonel onto a battle dress from a closet normally reserved for issuing uniforms to new recruits. Knowing this uniform would be a far more familiar presence on the base, and give him far more credibility with command, he switched out the Jedi robe given to him on Jurai for this uniform. However, he did not abandon the robe; he simply decided to fold it up and carry it with him until it could be stored somewhere.

After this, he went to the base’s hyperpulse generator, and attempted to receive a news transmission from the local civilian channels. They had not yet been restored; he found only “snow” and static, but it was, after all, only twenty minutes after the war was ended, and the Dark Lord had completely dismantled civilian media. Nevertheless, he programmed it to receive the civilian news frequencies before the war, as they re-emerged, and automatically forward them as a live stream to the surviving civilian HPG in Eheayana, the idea being that the media outlets on Eheayana would disseminate recent news from White Diamond on Earth and put it on the Holonet.

After this task was done, Lieutenant Colonel Allaire revealed himself as the ranking officer on base; those soldiers who remained after the sepukku rounds were astonished to see him alive and mentally competent. He gave only a one-sentence explanation: “I was freed by the Jedi Knight Jacob Whitfield and consequently treated.” He gathered all of the men on the base and gave them orders to ready for deployment, not with guns, but with crates of MREs, portable fusion generators, prefab housing, and water filtration equipment…

…The Forgotten Continent would not long be forgotten.

OOC: It’ll take more than a couple of hours to repair the hax0rring that the Dark Lord ordered done to civvies media outlets…the Gaians will get there first. Not to mention I'm not sure if I have time IRL to RP the re-establishment of the WD media just yet, after spending a full day typing this.

Also, I broke the record set earlier in this thread for my longest RP post! w00t!:D

((OC- And so I finally can make an RP response. Blasted kidney stones have killed my rp spirit for a good couple of weeks now. =--= Still not sure I'm over them yet, at the time of this post. ))

--

*Tesh`irara III.3/V5, 200 million kilometers above orbital planar*

The Eternal Destiny, the Hato`shima, one major superscraper sized Shield Tree, and the thrity Treeships arrive in a gleaming flash of a Fold Jump from over the seven hundred million light-year distance from the Archonis Supercluster to the Milky Way Galaxy, and the Tesh`irara III.3/V5 Star System in particular.

In other words, a bunch of self assumed important quasi-ascendants arrive to check what the heck is making all this inter-cosmic noise.

Aleaic looks across the vast distance of space towards where the holodisplays indicate the planet White Diamond is. "Nice to know there's no flattery in the name of this planet here."

Tsunami leans on the rear end of the Command Platform as it is docked into the Main Walkway to Advisory One behind, where Arashi and Acrkonus are. Tsunami just notes. "Maybe they just like the name."

Aleaic shrugs, and looks back at Advisory One. "What's going on."

Ackronus.. "~ The subspace power wave has dissipated. Looks like we arrived at the end of the chapter here Master. ~"

Arashi adds from afar. "Do you think Whitfield won? I don't sense his signature at present." ..mentioning with the help of her part of the Triad-Hikari Tree sensing through the subspace layers that the Force 'acts' through. Since all power, psy, Force, Hikari or otherwise, are in essence a bunch of special frequencies and bandwidths in subspace and adjacent planar effects, they run through a gamaut of reverberating frequencies to sense with the appropriate 'antennas'.

Hikari and Jurai Trees are such antennas, if they are attuned as such with practice. Given the vast breadth of the Hikari Network, the 'gain sensitivity' is therefore nearly 'digital' in effectiveness. As such, such frequencies can be treated as like a scanner with the appropriate frequencies that belong to various services and entities. All users of such power then are technically a unique 'freqency' to sense, and 'that' is what Arashi is focused upon.

Almost no real 'beacon' can be sensed. It's worrying her, and therefore Aleaic within. Having to worry over a longtime friend does that.

Aleaic sighs, and imparts. "Keep sensing. All we can do is hope and pray.

And find out what that planet knows. We'll need to commune with the planet and it's Planet Memory directly to know what to do. Take us in Ackronus. Level Green-Four status please."

At that, the large flotilla begins to close in on Tesh`irara III.3 quickly. The distance traveled takes mere minutes.

Contemplating what to do next to help deal with the Sith Lord, Taylor and I soon heard a single word, a word from a Mind far older than any we've ever heard...

Wait.

So we waited, and we didn't have to wait long, for we saw and sensed the brilliant flash of energy erupt from the ground zero of the duel between Whitfield and Ebolus, then shortly after, a dark blue spear of light sped off into space like a particle beam.

"Wow..." Taylor breathed. My thoughts exactly.

I smiled. "Looks like it's over, little bro."

"Yeah. Sure does." Taylor answered, a peace befalling him as he felt personally the Dark Side lift its shroud from the planet. The Dark Lord was defeated, and the planet was free of his taint.

"I'll be there very soon, and I'll personally send aid to begin recovery." I said to Taylor. "Stick around and see how Whitfield's doing."

"Right." Taylor said, and then the link between brothers closed down. As Taylor moved off in search of Whitfield, I got up from my sitting position in the room and began preparing for Operation Recovery, the plan on the books for dealing with the aftermath of a dictatorship's fall. I had a feeling we'll be needing a lot of neurological healers for a while...

Something tugged at Keith's mind as the DropShip he piloted started to flip over in preparation for firing its massive retrorockets for re-entry...and it wasn't the Gaian fleet speeding towards the system. For the Gaians were old friends of the Woodians...at least they had been, before being distracted by other things...and they were not come in anger.

Rather, it was the Planetmind that held his attention. He looked up after keying in relevant re-entry coordinants...indeed, the recent activities of Planetmind were in the back of everyone's mind...but the young military officer sensed something...

Though he hated to do this, he gave up manual control of the DropShip, setting its autopilot as its massive retrorockets fired to slow it during re-entry for a tolerable landing along the massive northern crack in White Diamond's crust...the crack that had sent the coldwater port of Wesilia into the sea. A strange sensation he felt...as if he was going home.

Home.

Whaaa??? The single word from the Planetmind jarred him. For this was where he had been born, where he had grown up, no wonder why he loved cold weather so much...and the Planetmind had just told him, in a single word, of the memories that the Dark Lord had purged for him...

...The Planetmind of Tesh`irara III was far beyond his understanding, but nevertheless, as the DropShip shook a bit from the turbulence of the atmosphere it deigned to enter, Keith Allaire thanked Planet...and, having seen the drought that the side effects of the Dark Lord's grip had wrought from space, made a request, a request that Whitfield would have made anyway had he had the time. Whitfield had attained some kind of symbiosis with Planet as a last-ditch attempt to defeat the Dark Lord...now, his future apprentice sought to intercede on behalf of his people, who faced starvation if the drought continued. Keith felt strange about asking the Planetmind to address climate change, especially after the history of Earth, but nevertheless, he tried it...

I shall not confront Planet as an enemy, but shall accept its mysteries as gifts to be cherished. No longer shall I seek to crudely peel away its layers like the skin from an onion, but instead the wind shall blow and I shall bend. The sky shall open, and I shall drink my fill.

You saw the damage done from this war to Tesh`irara, earthallaire, yet your people rose against the instigator and for that were slaughtered. The skies shall indeed open, for Tesh`irara can no longer ignore the affairs of Men...and this fault ripped into the surface, a fault foreign to the Ascendants...you were born on it before it existed, and to it, you return...and yet you shall return again...

Keith tried to make sense of that last part. And "earthallaire." But he could not...at least not yet. In a year, he would know. In fifteen, he would be called here...again.

He waited for the DropShips to land on the cracked polar ice cap, near Wesilia, before busying himself with search-and-rescue operations. The fleet overhead made no communication with him or the Gaians, for its crews were too busy trying to establish a new chain of command...something difficult when the highest-ranking officers aboard the ships who weren't delerious were ensigns and lieutenants.

The Gaians were basically free to poke around, at least as far as defenses were concerned.

------------------------------------------

When Whitfield arrived at the University of White Diamond Medical Center, he was taken straight to the cryochambers...and Dr. Deimos arrived at nearly the same time as Whitfield. He hurried to the cryochambers, not stopping to catch his breath until he laid his eyes upon Whitfield's frozen body. Through the ice, he could see that Whitfield's arms were completely blackened, right up to his chest. It was a wonder he had survived long enough to even attempt cryostasis.

"Take two ice core samples--one from the finger and one from the right leg," Dr. Deimos instructed the nurses in the room. Apparently, Whitfield's legs were at least somewhat intact. "Set the cryochamber to match his current body temperature...we will take more readings once he is inside."

"Yes, Doctor," one of the nurses replied. Little activity did the cryonics ward usually see, and this case was the first of its kind...most of its activity came from clients seeking immortality, hoping to preserve themselves until some future medical advance came along.

Dr. Deimos oversaw the taking of the tissue samples, samples that would be used to program the nanomachines used in his treatment, as well as the transfer of Whitfield into the cryochamber. By now, convection had warmed his body up to about 120 below Celsius; the nurses heated the cryofluid inside, normally kept at -170, accordingly.

From the cryochamber, Dr. Deimos could conduct all kinds of scans upon Whitfield's body...and the results were quite disturbing.

While ischemic damage, or tissue injury caused by lack of oxygen, was minimized by Whitfield's foresight to ingest as much oxygen as possible before attempting cryostasis, Whitfield had only partially vitrified himself...his body had only had the benefit of the vitrification that occurs naturally upon flash-freezing. (Vitrification is a process to prevent ice crystals from forming in the bloodstream; it can occur naturally, but in MT cryonics, it involves the application of chemical agents, usually some form of glycerol, to accomplish this.) As a result, cellular damage across his entire body was so severe that he would die within thirty seconds of being brought out of cryo--the ice crystals had torn his cell membranes apart.

"Oh...shit." There was a long silence in the room. Dr. Deimos broke the silence. "He can't be brought out of cryo, or he will die. We won't be able to treat him quickly enough."

"What about bacta?" one of the nurses asked.

"Won't work. Bacterial medium--the bacteria will die at such cold temperatures, and the convection that would occur if we were to dump him in a bacta tank...he would slowly thaw. And die."

Again, silence overtook the room. Dr. Deimos stroked his beard, trying to figure out what to do. Whitfield's condition wasn't going to change anytime soon in that cryochamber, for better or (thankfully) worse...though it would slowly degrade over the course of months. He had a bit of time, but not enough for a huge research project, especially now that research grants would be practically nonexistant for a while...

Research.

Dr. Deimos again broke the silence. "I need every bacta specialist, microbiologist, and geneticist that can be found here in this room, now."

The nurses scurried to find the relevant people, at least those who were on duty. They contacted those on the roster who were not on duty; some were called up, while others could not be reached because they had not survived the war.

Dr. Deimos waited a half-hour before looking at the group of doctors and specialists who had answered his call. "We aren't going to get any special research grants for this one, but that doesn't detract from the needs of the patient we have. We need to find a way to make bacta fluid work at about a hundred thirty Kelvin, and we need to do it now, before Jacob Whitfield's condition deteriorates further. And we've got to do it using nothing but the equipment in this hospital. And we've got to come through on this one."

His colleagues nodded as he popped a stimpill. He would not rest until the solution was found.

OOC: Will post more later tonight.

As the Gaians searched for Whitfield's vanished Force signature in their bid to uncover just what exactly had happened, Whitfield lay frozen in his cryochamber...even his senses in the Force were frozen. Completely. Cryostasis was not to be taken lightly...his Force signature would not return until after he was awoken...until after he was resurrected.

However, the Gaians also were quite interested in what exactly what had happened to Tesh`irara...and the Planetmind knew exactly what had happened to the old Jedi, to Aleaic's old friend. And the presence of Aleaic was a familiar one to the Planetmind, if not one who had not visited in a little while.

As the Gaians came closer, the Planetmind thus fulfilled their requests for information.

Now comes Lord Aleaic Kerensky, the one who introduced Planetmind to the Jedi Whitfield...you are come seeking information, and counsel...

As for the fate of your friend, he sacrificed himself draining the poison that plagued and smothered the Planetmind. He now lies in the shadow of death, though his fate now lies in the hands of mortals. His body lies in cryostasis, waiting to either be ressurected, or to die in the attempt. His mind is flash-frozen at that point in time. This is why you cannot sense him.

As powerful as the Ascendants are, they lack the ability to interfere. As powerful as you are, you do not know how to interfere. No one knows, for such a case has never occurred before. His condition is too fragile to be moved again. And this problem is for the Woodians to solve, and theirs alone.

As far as what to do...do not worry about the surface wounds, the new fault lines, that task is appointed elsewhere. Concern yourselves, then, with restoring that which the Dark Lord drained from Planet...Whitfield capped the damage and sealed it, but he lacks the capacity to repair and heal it. The drain was not severe enough to destroy the regeneration capacities of Tesh`irara, though that alone will take half a billion years to replace what is lost...with the involvement of the Ascendants, the Planetmind can be restored in approximately six standard Earth months. The damage is not severe enough to warrant eviction of current residents...indeed, a new generation shall rise among them, a generation attuned directly to the Will of Planet.

As the Planetmind spoke to Aleaic, barometric pressure across the seas started a rapid and precipitous drop as Planet prepared to use its oceans as massive humidifiers to fulfill the request made on behalf of all Woodians...a request to break the drought...

And one bigass humidifier was needed...it would take even the massive capabilities of Planet several days to rehumidify the atmosphere enough for precipitation to reach the ground.

Yet, the Planetmind warned both the Ascendants and Taylor that, as far as such a cosmetic matter was concerned, no intervention was needed.

-------------------------------------

As Keith set his mind once again to relief efforts, several thousand nautical miles away in Great Woody City, technicians finally cracked the Dark Lord's censorate codes on local media and removed them. It had only taken five hours or so...

Shortly thereafter, the first newscast from White Diamond in a month commenced, and while the inhabitants of White Diamond knew of the Dark Lord's defeat and the awakening of Planet from earlier that morning, those offplanet who were not Force-sensitive would only have a vague idea...but Keith's earlier tinkering with the military HPGs meant that this broadcast, which should have only been a local one, was picked up and retransmitted live to another HPG at Eheayana...to Earth.

And it immediately attracted attention.

Eheayana

For the last three and a half hours, news crews had eagerly kept track of the relevant HPG, as it had been receiving a static signal from White Diamond...but no newsfeed. When the newsfeed started, it sent newsrooms all over the city into a frenzy, and every local news and entertainment outlet on the recently reconnected Holonet moved in unison...

"We interrupt this program to bring you live newsfeed from White Diamond, already in progress..."

Wherever there was a TV or holoprojector, everything stopped. An entire society, or at least what remained of it after the war, turned its attention to whatever media outlet could be found...and by now, this was being retransmitted across the galaxy. In Port Woody and other areas home to refugees huddled in Coredian transports and devastated by the artifically-generated tsunamis, everything stopped as the refugees crowded around the few TVs, radios, and holos that could be found.

A female newsanchor, visibly unnerved by the recent events of White Diamond, and confused as to how best to explain them, appeared in images across the Woodian territories on Earth...she had just begun her report. The newsroom looked as a mess, damage to the walls from military raids was visible on camera; half of the newsanchor's desk had been burned off by blaster shots...but the news would carry anyway.

"...is listed in critical condition at the University of White Diamond Medical Center. Doctors are unsure as to whether or not the Jedi Knight and former Prime Minister Jacob Whitfield can be brought out of his frozen state..."

A hush fell over the millions on Earth who were watching this...

"...He was found frozen this morning alongside Darth Ebolus, who was pronounced dead at the scene. The cause of death was determined to be lightsaber impalement, though severe burns and blunt trauma had weakened Darth Ebolus beforehand..."

Thus the Woodians who still resided on Earth, who had seen more than half their number meet their slaughter in this monthlong war, learned of its end...

"...Whitfield remains in the cryochamber of UWD Medical Center. He was found shortly after witnesses to the latter stages of the duel reported a deep sensation of upheaval, followed by a bright flash of light in the government district. This upheaval was preceded by two telepathic declarations detected by all in the government district whom I have interviewed, but no one knows what to make of them, other than that the Jedi Whitfield had assistance from an unknown source. Speculation names this source as the planet of White Diamond itself..."

A nation sat riveted to the Holonet as the newscast continued...the first newscast that had left White Diamond since the camera crews recording the coup d'etat that started the war in the first place became the first casualties of said war.

Aboard ISD Chimera

As the mighty Star Destroyer speeds through hyperspace, followed by a fleet of medical and SAR ships surrounded by members of the 1st fleet, I stand aboard the bridge, contemplating the events of the past few hours and thinking of portends to come. Somewhere in the bowels of the ship were the Five, those Jedi-to-be that were freed by the healers' medical skills. Speaking of healers, Master Tsunade, as the representative of the Council, is accompanying me on this little excursion to ascern the extent of the damage the Sith Lord caused, at least medical-wise. Me, I'm just there as the defacto head of state of Coreworlds since Grandfather's getting long in the tooth.

"Can't wait to hear Taylor's report on this whole thing." I said to myself. "Be interesting to hear the story...and that of Whitfield."

Definitely would be interesting indeed.

----

In the meantime, Taylor Masaki didn't forget about young John Watsen in the ensuing aftermath and saw that a soldier had scooped the kid up and took him to the nearest hospital via mech, a clear sign of the Dark Lord's demise. After following the mech and entering the hospital to check up on the kid, he decided to kill a bit of time by watching what amounts to the news and saw that Jacob Whitfield was somehow flash-frozen and is now one heck of a Force-trained ice cube.

"Would be interesting to know how he did that to himself." Taylor chuckled dryly as he continued to listen to the news as he awaits the arrival of his brother the Commander in Chief of the Coredian Armed Forces...

In some ways, mourning the dead would have been easier if a Death Star had come along and blown up White Diamond for eternity. But such was not the case.

Nay, on this twenty-first of August, the supply of wooden furniture was greatly diminished on White Diamond, as it was broken apart and remade into coffins. A few people who lived in relative poverty even gutted a room of their meager homes to salvage and scrounge together enough wood to remake into a coffin for deceased relatives.

This poverty was not a judgement upon the prewar society; nay, it was an effect of the chaos of war, of the gutting of economies, as people who lived in the wrong blocks simply met their slaughter.

The piles of corpses in the nation's landfills quickly disappeared as residents, overcoming the initial shock of the events of sunrise, brought with them implements with which to move the bodies, not coffins, but bodybags, and where bodybags could not be found, garbage bags. The piles of corpses vanished into hospital morgues as Daniel Masaki's Star Destroyer lumbered in hyperspace for White Diamond, where they were properly sterilized, and where DNA samples were taken, a process that by afternoon was televised.

People who had never known each other met in the streets with a single common purpose...to properly identify and bury the dead common to all. Soon, entire hospitals became morgues.

Some families simply made their own arrangements; they would transmit formal disclosures of their deceased to whatever government sprang up at a later time.

Nevertheless, there were still those that were overlooked, entire families vanished and disappeared, entire families mindraped by the Dark Lord's proxies and then left for dead in their own homes, unable to think even about thirst and react to it accordingly. These families included both young and old, infants and grandparents, yet would not be reached except by house-to-house search...

--------------------------------------------------

aboard the Coredian Star Destroyer Chimera

The Five aboard the Star Destroyer knew all too well what awaited them upon their arrival at White Diamond--much of what they were called to remedy was done by their hands, even if they had not had free will at the time. They knew full well that entire families had met their slaughter, and would never be seen again except dead.

They knew full well that a house-to-house search was required in order to obtain a full accounting of the war dead--and knew that the Coredians had little idea of what was going on. Sure, they knew about Earth, but White Diamond would present its own problems.

Therefore, Lieutenant Colonels Raúl Vigil and Kevin Dimitruk, and Majors Peter Sorensen, Chris Mrozik, and Walter Ryle, debated in the docking bay of the Chimera how exactly to conduct this search, how to inscript the proper notations upon searched houses, how to search condiminiums, et cetera. After little more than a half hour, before the Star Destroyer even reached the Milky Way Galaxy, they went together onto the bridge, one of them bearing a notepad.

The first page of the notepad bore the following:

date searched
searching unit informationXanimals/pets found dead
humans found dead

Following were instructions on how to elaborate when corpses were found inside buildings, inside apartment units, et cetera.

They selected Lieuteanant Colonel Vigil to formally make the request of the Coredians, all fully aware that the war had thrown them into five of the six highest-ranking postions held in the military, regardless of the insignia they had worn on their uniforms before their treatment on Jurai (Lt. Col. Keith Allaire was technically the highest-ranking left), because their superiors had been mentally incapacitated by the demise of the Dark Lord...their mindrapes had left them incapable of thinking outside of the Dark Lord's thoughts.

Lieutenant Colonel Vigil approached Daniel Masaki upon the bridge, recognizing him and knowing his name from the research he had conducted in the Jedi Archives just days and hours prior. As he approached, he saluted and identified himself before making his request.

"Unfortunately, this war has left us all that remains of our military command structure; everyone above us is currently incapacitated." He handed Master Masaki the notebook in his hand. "Therefore, the task of searching for the dead falls upon us, but, for reasons obvious, we do not know what we have to work with in the matter, and request your assistance. We know from what we saw...and were compelled to do...that a house-to-house search of the entire planet is necessary..."

If the Lightning Master needed verification of this, all he had to do was look to Tsunade, who had heard their stories...

Colonel Vigil suddenly thought of something else. "Oh, yes, and it might be helpful to switch IFF to the Evil Woody Thoughts escort codes, with which my colleagues and I can provide you, because we don't know what has become of the spacefleet defending the capital system."

---------------------------------------------

When Lieutenant Colonel Allaire touched down near Wesilia, one thing became quickly apparent. He needed more resources with which to work.

Therefore, after seeing for himself the four-hundred-foot dropoff that the tectonic missile had created, after seeing the port city submerged into a half-frozen sea, after seeing the coating of ash on top of the snow (thankfully the ash was only an inch or so thick, not the sixty feet on Earth), and after distributing that which he had brought to the survivors, he, too, turned his thoughts to searching the homes leveled by the earthquake but still reachable...

He went back to the DropShip and made the necessary transmissions to the White Diamond news media...the Forgotten Continent would now receive the news coverage it should have been receiving a week and a half ago.

And a week and a half was a long time when it came to survivors.

Keith ordered his unit to start searching, along the lines of what the Five had proposed to Daniel Masaki, and took part in the searches himself...

aboard the Coredian Star Destroyer Chimera

The Five aboard the Star Destroyer knew all too well what awaited them upon their arrival at White Diamond--much of what they were called to remedy was done by their hands, even if they had not had free will at the time. They knew full well that entire families had met their slaughter, and would never be seen again except dead.

They knew full well that a house-to-house search was required in order to obtain a full accounting of the war dead--and knew that the Coredians had little idea of what was going on. Sure, they knew about Earth, but White Diamond would present its own problems.

Therefore, Lieutenant Colonels Raúl Vigil and Kevin Dimitruk, and Majors Peter Sorensen, Chris Mrozik, and Walter Ryle, debated in the docking bay of the Chimera how exactly to conduct this search, how to inscript the proper notations upon searched houses, how to search condiminiums, et cetera. After little more than a half hour, before the Star Destroyer even reached the Milky Way Galaxy, they went together onto the bridge, one of them bearing a notepad.

The first page of the notepad bore the following:

date searched
searching unit informationXanimals/pets found dead
humans found dead

Following were instructions on how to elaborate when corpses were found inside buildings, inside apartment units, et cetera.

They selected Lieuteanant Colonel Vigil to formally make the request of the Coredians, all fully aware that the war had thrown them into five of the six highest-ranking postions held in the military, regardless of the insignia they had worn on their uniforms before their treatment on Jurai (Lt. Col. Keith Allaire was technically the highest-ranking left), because their superiors had been mentally incapacitated by the demise of the Dark Lord...their mindrapes had left them incapable of thinking outside of the Dark Lord's thoughts.

Lieutenant Colonel Vigil approached Daniel Masaki upon the bridge, recognizing him and knowing his name from the research he had conducted in the Jedi Archives just days and hours prior. As he approached, he saluted and identified himself before making his request.

"Unfortunately, this war has left us all that remains of our military command structure; everyone above us is currently incapacitated." He handed Master Masaki the notebook in his hand. "Therefore, the task of searching for the dead falls upon us, but, for reasons obvious, we do not know what we have to work with in the matter, and request your assistance. We know from what we saw...and were compelled to do...that a house-to-house search of the entire planet is necessary..."

If the Lightning Master needed verification of this, all he had to do was look to Tsunade, who had heard their stories...

Colonel Vigil suddenly thought of something else. "Oh, yes, and it might be helpful to switch IFF to the Evil Woody Thoughts escort codes, with which my colleagues and I can provide you, because we don't know what has become of the spacefleet defending the capital system."
"Thank you." I said. I sympathized with the Lt. Colonel. Being that his cohorts and this other chap Keith are effectively the highest non-vegetable ranking members of the military, they have an extremely big job ahead of them. Not even Coreworlds was that badly gutted, though it was tough back then. "We'll do everything we can to help you out, you have my word."

In the time between then and arrival, I distributed the plans to the field commanders who are tasked with the gritty job of going door-to-door in search of the dead, then as soon as we reverted to realspace with the IFF codes, we wasted little time in going down to the surface, (and meeting up with Taylor) and beginning the harrowing work of bagging all the bodies...

When it was noon in Great Woody City, the Coredian search-and-rescue fleet, bearing the commander-in-chief of the Coredian forces and five-sixths of what remained of the Evil Woody Thoughts military command, ended its long hyperspace journey on the outskirts of White Diamond system.

The five Force-sensitive Woodian commanders and Daniel all knew full well what had happened six hours prior here. Nevertheless, it was quite a different experience to lay eyes on the sentient planet that had risen up against the Dark Lord this morning.

One month ago, this world's continents had been lush and green; now they were more like a greenish brown...where there was a hint of green at all.

The Five laid their eyes upon Planet for the first time since they had been freed. There was something odd about this place, something humbling, yet something familiar. Yes, they knew where all of White Diamond's military installations were, and they knew of the geography around those installations, but there was nevertheless something here...

...The Planetmind remained quiet, at least as far as the newcomers were concerned.

However, that is not to say that the Planetmind lay dormant once again. Nay, faint wisps of clouds had developed over the oceans once again in the last few hours, cloud formations that wrapped around in circles a hundred kilometers wide.

Nevertheless, Planet's atmosphere remained far too dry for any rain to reach the parched ground.

Major Chris Mrozik looked at his four colleagues, a hint of nervousness on his face. "Oh, shit, what happened to this year's crops when we were gone?"

His deepest feelings revealed this to him. The other four didn't need to answer. The Dark Lord had drained Planet of its humidity in the process of draining its power...and this year's crop would fail completely, thanks to the Dark Lord's drought. With only a month until the harvest, no amount of rain could save it. The fate of the April harvest in the Southern Hemisphere was a bit more uncertain, but with only thin, high cloud formations visible from orbit, that wasn't looking too good either.

Nor did the Five know whether or not the Dark Lord had destroyed food reserves and rations. They certainly couldn't doubt the possibility; yet they could not be sure until they arrived on planet.

Therefore, when they arrived on the planet's surface, the Chimera's landing craft arriving at the same military base on the outskirts of Great Woody City that Lieutenant Colonel Allaire had passed through earlier, the five young military commanders were relieved to find a significant stockpile of MREs remaining, for LTC Allaire had lacked access to enough transport capability, even with the massive DropShips that he used, to move the entire ration at once. Yet, the Five had a feeling that what wasn't there was at least being put to good use.

Daniel Masaki would have a better idea...his Force intuition was, obviously, far better attuned than those who, Force-sensitive as they were, lacked training in how to use the Force for these kinds of things. What "training" the Dark Lord had provided had consisted almost entirely on killinng people.

The five officers appropriated for themselves military battle dress uniforms, as LTC Allaire had done only a few hours ago, before briefing those units that still remained on base on their new assignments. For that matter, LTC Vigil forwarded this order to every military installation on the planet that he could think of, knowing that it would be nigh impossible to search the entire planet for the dead from a single military installation.

The Five divided the forces available into six units, one each to command for themselves and one for Master Daniel Masaki to command, to consist of Coredian forces, and assigned themselves to six different parts of town.
Thus, the long search for the war dead, and more unwittingly, the first steps in a postwar census, began.

Looking over the damage done to the planet with a practiced eye and through the Force, I could appreciate the fact that the Woodians have their work cut out for them. Though the Sith Lord was defeated, the real work is just beginning.

Sending orders for the transports to descend, I had the troops and other personnel assist in the gathering of the dead even as Tsunade and descended to the planet in a personal shuttle and found Taylor waiting.

"Hey bro, Master Tsunade." Taylor said, bowing slightly. "Ready to begin the search."

"Yeah." I nodded, holding out a can of spray paint for him. He took it. "So how are the dead treated?"

"From what I saw so far, they're using body bags instead of just burning them." Taylor replied. So they prefer to bury the bodies, which makes sense from a never-forget point of view. "They bagged the animals too."

"All right, I'm pretty sure we brought enough body bags for everyone." Tsunade said, taking into account the pets. "Let's begin."

Three blurs disappeared from view and so begins the work of bagging the dead and tagging the homes as the Five suggested...

You were wearied by all your ways, but you would not say, “It is hopeless.” You found renewal of your strength, and so you did not faint.

Isaiah 57:10

-------------------------------

21 August 2078

And so the work of numbering and identifying the dead began...

LTC Raúl Vigil, the most senior Woodian officer present, assigned the Coredians one square kilometer of Great Woody City to search, explaining, “You’ll be lucky for everyone deployed from that Star Destroyer to search more than three buildings in that district before sundown today, as Great Woody City is built up far more than it is built out, as you might have noticed on approach.”

Following this, the Five then determined the areas that they would search, and that those subordinates which could be found would search, then dispersed to conduct that task which was laid upon them.

Major Walter Ryle’s was tasked with searching the town that immediately bordered the military installation upon which the party organized itself for the searches. A town on the plain between ocean and mountain it was, with the vast skyline of Great Woody City highly visible about eighty kilometers west. The other units, therefore, would receive extreme priority when it came to mechanized equipment. Major Ryle dutifully relayed the orders to the soldiers attached to him, soldiers that had been turned against the very citizens whom they now sought to identify. A third of their number had committed ritual suicide earlier that morning, as the shame of realizing their deeds was so great.

With a can of spray paint in his gloved hand, Major Ryle took part in the search alongside his men, as would the other former Wraiths.

On one hand, this town had been relatively quiet during the war…on the other hand, it was right next to a military installation, and as such, made a convenient target whenever the Dark Lord had gotten up on the wrong side of the bed.

When Major Ryle approached the first small house, he found he had to break the door open. No one home—but no one found dead either. Upon the outside wall, he spray-painted thusly:



21/8

WRX0--

0

Off to the left side, he spray-painted additional unit information…he only wished, knowing said wish was utterly in vain, for the fortune of being able to spray-paint this upon every house he encountered.

The residents were home at the next house he searched, and though they had not had a member of the household perish in the war, they still looked upon Major Ryle and those under his command with suspicion, as just three weeks ago, he and his subordinates had engaged in the very pillaging of this very town, a pillaging that those who remained would not soon forget. Though no one who lived in this household had died, the family, a mother, daughter and son, quietly were assembling a coffin in the living room, a coffin made from unfinished lumber procured from the household’s garage, presumably for a relative who had lived in another part of town. The mother quietly whisked her children away from the living room into one of the bedrooms when Major Ryle came; when Ryle went to search the bedroom, the family threw a dumbbell through the window and frantically exited from there, so afraid were they of the Woodian military. It seemed like there was nothing Major Ryle could do to calm them, for they would not be spoken to…except through yelling, which would make it worse.

Quietly, he finished his search of the home, refraining from disturbing anything, before going outside to give the home its proper markings. As he left, the family uneasily entered to find that he had meant no harm, and as he went to the house next door, an abandoned house, they saw what exactly he was doing. And they understood, and were no longer afraid. As suddenly as the military had changed after the coup d’etat, it had changed again.

As he looked at the next house before entering it, an icy chill went down his spine. He had been in this house before, and he knew what he would find. Immediately, he readied a bodybag for the unfortunate person who had lived there and two smaller bodybags for the two dogs who had lived with her.

A young college student had lived here, and Ryle entered her house to find her clothing torn asunder, as he had done in a fit of the Dark Lord’s rage three weeks ago, her body mangled on the floor, beaten to death by his hands, by someone else’s will. Sometimes the Dark Lord had preferred to observe the cold efficiency of a lightsaber through his proxies; other times, he had preferred the alleged entertainment value in watching physical “fights” that were more like one-way canned hunting expeditions. It would not be a scene that only he would see—all of the Woodians searching for the war dead would eventually find their own victims.

He bagged the young one’s body as respectfully as he could before calling for one of his subordinates to load it in the truck…when more bodies were found, they would all be taken for DNA testing, then given military burials. The family that minutes ago his very presence had terrorized watched silently from their porch as he handed off his victim and spray-painted the necessary information prominently on the house’s siding.

http://img234.imageshack.us/img234/231/spraypainthouse1av.png

One human, two animal casualties. The first of many he would find this day. The search continued.

---------------------------------

Major Chris Mrozik arrived with his men at 4150 East Waterwright, a medium-sized condominium complex—of course, “medium-sized” in Great Woody City meant a hundred and sixty stories to search. He divided up the floors amongst his subordinates, two to a floor. The building would take about four hours to search; he could start the next building over before sundown, but he would be unable to complete the search before darkness came.

As it turned out, 4150 Waterwright turned out to be one of the “lucky” buildings—the buildings largely overlooked in the random terrors. However, the families that Major Mrozik himself visited stayed their distance from him, a look of fear upon their countenances, taking their tools and wooden boards with them. Only a few families in the entire building, a few amongst tens of thousands, did not have dead to bury. Mrozik’s unit found quite a few bodies that did not die in this building, but bodies that relatives had exhumed just hours ago from the landfill piles that passed as mass graves dotting the city. Because funeral services were in such short supply and high demand, Great Woody City’s denizens were performing such services themselves, in their own homes.

This is not to say, however, that 4150 East Waterwright was devoid of its own terrors—Major Mrozik, after only a half hour of searching here, did find one of his many sources of shame—a politically motivated hit. He dreaded entering Unit #3145…but did it anyway, only to find a mother, a father, and four children sliced and diced by the hand of a lightsaber. His lightsaber. He bagged the bodies, all six of them, and quickly moved on to the next unit, resisting the urge to commit seppuku with the lightsaber given to him by the Dark Lord which he still carried…

He would find another hundred and eight of his victims by late afternoon…before moving to the condominium tower across the street, a tower with far worse results. Those were only his victims, not including victims that other people in his unit found.

4151 East Waterwright was affected by the random terrors, a terror that Major Mrozik himself had taken part in. He swallowed nervously before entering the building.

The difference: The street was a dividing line, a dividing line of political precincts to be exact. 4150 E Waterwright precinct had voted for the Übernationalizt Party; 4151 E Waterwright precinct, in contrast, had voted for the Social Democratic Party—and yes, the Dark Lord had seen it fit to conduct politicide based upon which precincts had voted for those politicians whom he saw as weak and corrupt tools for evil subversives seeking to cut the defense budget.

Upon opening the very first door into the lobby, he saw people whom he had sliced in half at the Dark Lord’s whim. He realized with a shudder that his unit did not have enough bodybags to complete the search of this building, and called for more. As it turned out, his unit wouldn’t be the only one held up by such shortages…

As he waited a half hour for more bodybags to arrive, he counted the bodies in the main lobby and bagged them, handing them off to the truck driver outside, who waited to take the bodies for proper DNA identification before military burial. Another seventy-eight victims. He still had bodybags left, but not the tens of thousands of them that he knew would be needed for the entire building, and thus took a few minutes to rest in the lobby after the bodies in the lobby were properly handled.

When the bodybags arrived, Major Mrozik went with his men up to the second floor to begin the search in earnest, where Mrozik personally found another few hundred bodies, bodies of those whom he had personally beaten to death, or those whom he had personally beheaded, all while subject to the will of the Dark One, all in the couple of hours until sunset…

-----------------------------------

Major Peter Sorensen could not suppress a shudder when he arrived at 5601 North Wainbridge, at the condominium complex that he was slated to search. One of the towers where he had blood on his hands, and lots of it, along with the hundred or so other slaves that had raided the building along with him. Indeed, upon entering the lobby, he found blood splattered on the walls.

He found eleven mangled bodies in the lobby alone. This raid had taken place around two in the morning, when most residents were in their rooms, isolated.

Eleven mangled bodies, their skulls cracked in, dried blood all over their heads. Their necks were snapped back, their limbs contorted in several different directions that they should not have been. Major Sorensen simply looked down. Most of these bodies were somewhat diminutive compared to his six-foot four frame; these people, he had killed in less than five seconds each. A cold efficiency that did not require a lightsaber. A cold efficiency that had pleased the Dark Lord. A cold efficiency that only someone bound directly to the Dark Lord, deprived of any free will or conscience, could possess.

There was no one to run away from him here. Everyone was already dead. Second floor. Three hundred ninety-two bodies, not including pets. Three hundred ninety-two bodybags. And each body was quite literally a bloody mess.

Third floor, four hundred and nine bodies, two hundred and twenty pets…

And so the search continued…

Finally, on the seventeenth floor, Major Sorensen found someone who had managed to escape from his rampages, someone whom he had missed. A seven-year old girl, now malnourished, but still alive, even amongst her slaughtered parents. She ran from him in terror, but only made it about twenty feet down the hall before collapsing; her legs were so weak that they had failed. Knowing that the ration bars in his possession were too rich for someone this malnourished to eat without getting sick, he instead produced a bottle of water and carefully poured it at a trickle down her throat, allowing her adequate time to swallow. He then called for a subordinate to take her to a hospital for intravenous feeding, so that he could continue the search, and continue the bagging.

That little girl was the only survivor found at 5601 North Wainbridge. Some forty-one thousand, seven hundred and ninety persons never made it out of that building alive.

----------------------------------------

LTC Kevin Dimitruk, in contrast, was fortunate enough to only have to worry about finding casualties resulting from specific hit orders. His unit searched the 9300 block of Lauzen Street, near the outskirts of the city, where most of the residential compounds were only fifty to sixty stories tall. Nevertheless, he received much the same suspicious and icy reception as had the other former Wraiths and those under them from the residents who happened to be home. Those who survived and continued to inhabit their residences avoided him, as well as all military personnel, whom they now feared. Hopefully, after the military released the information gathered to the media, the populace would better see what exactly the military was doing, and be somewhat less suspicious; however, nearly all of the people who were searching for the dead, Coredians excluded, were the same exact people who had killed, raped, pillaged in the name of the Dark Lord.

He was fortunate, of course, only in the sense that his unit did not have forty thousand dead to manage—more like four hundred dissidents and their families. LTC Dimitruk still saw those whom he had killed by his own hand. Such was a fate that few in the Woodian military, and no one who was directly enslaved to the Dark Lord, could escape with such an assignment.

LTC Dimitruk continued to bag those whom he had sliced, as well as those whose blood he had managed to splatter all over the walls.

He knew full well that there were buildings where tens of thousands had met their doom. He also knew he would have to search one of those buildings tomorrow…

-----------------------------------------

One could have wondered if LTC Raúl Vigil had been in a contest with Major Peter Sorensen to see who could conduct the most brutish executions. On that count, Major Sorensen probably won, if one could call it a victory, on volume alone.

The condominium that LTC Vigil’s unit searched only had six hundred and eighty dead bodies, and was home to many, many more survivors of the war, but the six hundred eighty dead were not recognizable. Not only was their blood splattered upon the wall; the floors of the units that the deceased had resided in were also covered in thick pools of dried blood. Their skulls were crushed on one side, their necks lay snapped back; in a few rare cases, LTC Vigil had completely ripped his victims’ heads off in the Dark Lord’s rage. The deceased had their arms not only snapped, but often ripped from their sockets. Their spinal cords were often snapped from the force of being thrown against the wall—and Raúl found plenty of holes in drywall that he had made.

Of course, considering that the Dark Lord had used him more often for political hits than mass slaughter of thousands, he had a bit more time to be “thorough” in his executions. However, fortunately for his conscience, not all of these gruesome kills were his—LTC Keith Allaire had also had a hand in these killings, and Allaire’s kills were just as gruesome. However, LTC Allaire was elsewhere, cleaning up someone else’s mess, as he had been stationed here and not on the northern continent…

LTC Vigil fought off thoughts of seppuku, knowing that it would destabilize the Woodian command even further. He forced himself to continue the bagging, right up until sundown.

But sundown held a surprise that he did not expect…

----------------------------

Sundown, 21 August 2078

If Taylor Masaki had thought that the Great Woody City lights were dim last night on his cloaked approach to the city, they were far dimmer tonight.

By now, news of the searches had made its way onto the news broadcasts, and those who heard the news were a bit less afraid of the military forces roaming the city, spray-painting on doors. They seemed to be friendly enough, even if they, especially those wearing Woodian military uniforms, did have a tendency to scare everyone off.

A single family, bearing a coffin, stepped out onto Canal Street, in the heart of downtown, and started walking south, its members carrying the coffin of some deceased relative. Almost as soon as mother and sons stepped out onto the street, their neighbors spontaneously emerged as well, bearing lit candles.

A group of twelve people, four carrying a coffin, and eight bearing candles, immediately attracted attention. More people came out with candles, for this mother’s sorrow was shared by all, and a few who had managed to assemble coffins for their own deceased relatives emerged as well, and the funeral procession of one quickly became the funeral procession of many.

The group paused for a moment at the edge of the government district…

http://img99.imageshack.us/img99/6069/candlelight5kv.png

The small group swelled into a group carrying not only caskets and candles, but also backpacks of water, shovels, and makeshift grave markers bearing the names of the deceased consisting of wooden pikes or homemade crosses. After accumulating to a few thousand in the government district, a process that only took fifteen minutes, the gathering, carrying its dead and supplies to dig graves, and supplies for a long trek, started south again.

By now, the nascent news media had found a gathering of thousands of candles amongst the dim city lights most difficult to miss, and the gathering was reported live as breaking news, images of the caskets bathed in candlelight transmitted live as the mass funeral procession grew visibly, it seemed, by the second.

This same media had also begun reporting on the military house-to-house searches late in the afternoon; therefore, as the young military commanders in charge of the operation started wrapping up operations for the day, individual citizens caught up in the whole thing invited the four Woodian commanders actually in the city to participate (Major Ryle had searched in towns outside of the capital city, and thus was not present). Therefore, despite a separation of several kilometers, Majors Mrozik and Sorensen, and Lieutenant Colonels Dimitruk and Vigil, all reached the same decision—they ordered their units to perform honor guard duty for as many as the deceased as their numbers would allow, and the four officers themselves took up the caskets of the deceased, and in concert with their subordinates, draped the flag of Evil Woody Thoughts over them and started to carry them. It was the least that they could do, considering that their hands were involved in a great deal of the slaughter, whether willingly or not.

The procession continued south to Highway Three, where it turned southeast…towards the mountains, the foothills some sixty kilometers distant. Nevertheless, the procession, by now numbering some six million, the largest mass demonstration in Evil Woody Thoughts history and fully a tenth of the city’s surviving population, proceeded beyond the city limits, and marched across the plain, slowly and without a word. People continued to pour out of the city, as if an evacuation order on foot had been given, to the southeast, across the windswept plain…

The images of this mass procession/vigil were broadcast live, across the planet and beyond, to Earth, where the Woodian Remnant had already been bombarded by catch-up news broadcasts from White Diamond; nevertheless, they continued to watch with the same attention they had devoted to the initial newscasts…

By the time the procession reached its destination, the sun was risen again, and the skyline of Great Woody City loomed large but distant to the northwest. The millions stopped at the foothills of the Bitterwind Range, and started digging. No one claimed this land, and so by popular consensus, this land was appropriated as a war memorial cemetery.

This morning, some three hundred sixty thousand were buried here. More burials would come; indeed, the March of Sorrow seemed not like one single march, but rather, like a constant procession…

The four Woodian commanders present ordered their units three hours of rest, knowing full well a sixty-kilometer march bearing the load of a casket warranted it, followed by a return to the city for more searching…

Meanwhile, at White Diamond University Medical Center...

Whilst the army of candles and caskets made its exodus from Great Woody City, Dr. Deimos, along with the best geneticists, microbiologists, and bactabiologists Evil Woody Thoughts had to offer, worked slavishly to genetically engineer the bacta bacterium to perform its functions under the harsh conditions of a cryochamber. Fortunately, part of their work, the mapping of said bacterium's genome, had been done a long time ago...

Nevertheless, engineering microbes normally accustomed to room temperature to not only survive, but perform their usual functions, at temperatures of only a hundred forty Kelvin or so, was not an easy task. The research team popped stimpills throughout the night into morning, something they were quite accustomed to. What they feared was exactly how long this research would take.

When the lead geneticist reported a specimen that survived at 126.50 Kelvin, late in the afternoon of the 22nd, the research team practically jumped. But there was one little problem. The bacta bacterium specimen had survived, but only in hibernation. Further tests involving "damaged" synthtissue revealed that this specimen would not be effective for treatment at the temperature demanded...

Dr. Deimos would have to experiment more with the altered genome of this specimen. Nevertheless, the members of the research team knew they were on the right track...

-------------------------------

22 August, near Wesilia

While the military searched for dead across White Diamond, Lieutenant Colonel Allaire knew that most of the dead around here were under a refrozen sea, for the tectonic deployment that had cracked White Diamond's northern ice cap had also plunged the coldwater port four hundred feet below sea level. As such, he knew, old census records would have to be used almost exclusively to determine just who exactly was "missing," and those records would have to be compared against who actually showed up in postwar society to determine who would be presumed dead. Moreover, he also knew that fairly large sections of the Woodian Archipelago, now buried under sixty feet of ash and highly unstable from a geologist's point of view, would be in much the same situation...

Aside from the now-underwater port, there were really only a few villages to search here, and he found himself distributing supplies from the DropShips just as often as he found himself searching for war dead. But the Dark Lord's reach had not extended here up to the deployment of the tectonic missile--then the Dark Lord's reach had suddenly and inexplicably ravaged the continent by depriving it of its economic outlet, not to mention destroying by far its largest city.

It was late summer here, twenty hours of daylight. As the sun started to fade only to leave four hours or so of twilight, Lieutenant Colonel Allaire turned his thoughts to what would become of those people who had been his superiors. He went back to one of the DropShips, to try to establish communication with the Immortals in orbit...

When we got our assignments and moved into the high-rises to search, we found more than enough bloody deaths caused by the Sith Lord to last a lifetime. For example, when I entered an apartment, I found a family of four dead from what seems to be a random purge. The wife was brutally assaulted before recieving a blunt-trauma blow to the head and it looks like the husband tried to protect her, but was put to the lightsaber, as were the children. All four people were bagged and the apartment was sprayed.

I must say, there's not a lot of places in the universe where this kind of thing occurs, but when it does, it's really horrible. I wondered how Taylor is taking it...

-----

Luckily for him, Taylor didn't have to observe quite as many dead persons as his brother, but he did see his share of rotting corpses and discerned their probable cause before bagging them and tagging the homes. A difference is that he's more capable of controlling his anger than if he had seen them a few months ago, thanks to a blossoming of maturity caused by this particular conflict. As it is, he moved quickly to secure his search area for the rest of his troops to carry out.

----------------------------

You were wearied by all your ways, but you would not say, “It is hopeless.” You found renewal of your strength, and so you did not faint.

Isaiah 57:10

Sundown, 21 August 2078

If Taylor Masaki had thought that the Great Woody City lights were dim last night on his cloaked approach to the city, they were far dimmer tonight.

By now, news of the searches had made its way onto the news broadcasts, and those who heard the news were a bit less afraid of the military forces roaming the city, spray-painting on doors. They seemed to be friendly enough, even if they, especially those wearing Woodian military uniforms, did have a tendency to scare everyone off.

A single family, bearing a coffin, stepped out onto Canal Street, in the heart of downtown, and started walking south, its members carrying the coffin of some deceased relative. Almost as soon as mother and sons stepped out onto the street, their neighbors spontaneously emerged as well, bearing lit candles.

A group of twelve people, four carrying a coffin, and eight bearing candles, immediately attracted attention. More people came out with candles, for this mother’s sorrow was shared by all, and a few who had managed to assemble coffins for their own deceased relatives emerged as well, and the funeral procession of one quickly became the funeral procession of many.

The group paused for a moment at the edge of the government district…

http://img99.imageshack.us/img99/6069/candlelight5kv.png

The small group swelled into a group carrying not only caskets and candles, but also backpacks of water, shovels, and makeshift grave markers bearing the names of the deceased consisting of wooden pikes or homemade crosses. After accumulating to a few thousand in the government district, a process that only took fifteen minutes, the gathering, carrying its dead and supplies to dig graves, and supplies for a long trek, started south again.

By now, the nascent news media had found a gathering of thousands of candles amongst the dim city lights most difficult to miss, and the gathering was reported live as breaking news, images of the caskets bathed in candlelight transmitted live as the mass funeral procession grew visibly, it seemed, by the second.

This same media had also begun reporting on the military house-to-house searches late in the afternoon; therefore, as the young military commanders in charge of the operation started wrapping up operations for the day, individual citizens caught up in the whole thing invited the four Woodian commanders actually in the city to participate (Major Ryle had searched in towns outside of the capital city, and thus was not present). Therefore, despite a separation of several kilometers, Majors Mrozik and Sorensen, and Lieutenant Colonels Dimitruk and Vigil, all reached the same decision—they ordered their units to perform honor guard duty for as many as the deceased as their numbers would allow, and the four officers themselves took up the caskets of the deceased, and in concert with their subordinates, draped the flag of Evil Woody Thoughts over them and started to carry them. It was the least that they could do, considering that their hands were involved in a great deal of the slaughter, whether willingly or not.

The procession continued south to Highway Three, where it turned southeast…towards the mountains, the foothills some sixty kilometers distant. Nevertheless, the procession, by now numbering some six million, the largest mass demonstration in Evil Woody Thoughts history and fully a tenth of the city’s surviving population, proceeded beyond the city limits, and marched across the plain, slowly and without a word. People continued to pour out of the city, as if an evacuation order on foot had been given, to the southeast, across the windswept plain…

The images of this mass procession/vigil were broadcast live, across the planet and beyond, to Earth, where the Woodian Remnant had already been bombarded by catch-up news broadcasts from White Diamond; nevertheless, they continued to watch with the same attention they had devoted to the initial newscasts…

By the time the procession reached its destination, the sun was risen again, and the skyline of Great Woody City loomed large but distant to the northwest. The millions stopped at the foothills of the Bitterwind Range, and started digging. No one claimed this land, and so by popular consensus, this land was appropriated as a war memorial cemetery.

This morning, some three hundred sixty thousand were buried here. More burials would come; indeed, the March of Sorrow seemed not like one single march, but rather, like a constant procession…

The four Woodian commanders present ordered their units three hours of rest, knowing full well a sixty-kilometer march bearing the load of a casket warranted it, followed by a return to the city for more searching…
By sundown, we have worked long and hard in searching for the lost. Hundreds of bodies were bagged, and fortunately or unfortunately depending on how you look at it, most of the apartments our military searched were either empty or were filled with living, scared people. They were fearful of the lightsabers on our belts, not that I blamed them, and we moved on quickly so as to give them time to do what they needed to do.

Which began with a somber surprise, if ever there was one. People took makeshift coffins and began placing the dead reverently in them, then heading down and out into the streets. Candles were lit and people carried them, becoming a part of a procession that we Coredians will never, ever forget as long as we live. Following the example of what remains of the EWT military, I had our troops perform honor guard duty as well, helping to carry the caskets through the procession all the way to the aptly named Bitterwind Range, where they were buried. All through the night, millions of people dug into the dirt and thousands of dead were laid to rest, the procession broadcast live not only to Earth, but Jurai as well. By the time the sun rose, and despite protests from the soldiers, I too ordered rest for the weary, for we have a lot more to go...

By the time the mandatory three-hour rest concluded, it was midmorning on the 22nd of August, and the Woodian troops were ready to double-time it back to the city. In the interests of expediency, the remnants of the military command decided that the southeast quadrant of Great Woody City should be searched today, a move that would cut about ten kilometers away from the return, a consideration because the unit would move on foot.

Civil wars, after all, work wonders for a country's logistical capacities, the four commanders thought to themselves.

It took just under three hours for the Woodian units to make the fifty-five kilometer journey back, and much the same process as yesterday repeated.

And, if anyone thought that the city's residents were even close to burying their dead, they were sorely mistaken, for the previous night's March of Sorrow, moving as it was, had so far only seen about one and a half percent of the city's dead properly buried. Nor was it confined to the night hours, though perhaps it was a bit more visible (from orbit!) then, because as the Woodian soldiers double-timed it back to the city, they saw a seemingly endless stream of people and caskets going the other way.

More high-rise buildings to search.

More death. By the thousands and tens of thousands. As it turned out, the southeast section of the city was probably the hardest-hit by the seemingly random purges, most of which were at least somewhat based upon voting returns by political precinct (the southeast section of the city was also its most liberal section)...

And so the search continued, a search that made it evident that the Coredians had brought only a few days' worth of bodybags with them, for there were so many millions of dead...and between the Woodians and the Coredians, the search went through about eight hundred thousand of them a day...

When nightfall came, more candles filled the streets, more people filled the highway leading to the Bitterwind Range, in a demonstration even larger than that the night before. By now more families had found and exhumed their dead from the piles that dotted the city, such that the piles were by now almost completely disappeared into either morgues or relatives' homes--if the latter, by now said relatives had scrounged together enough materials to manufacture a casket. It quickly occured to the Woodian commanders at least, if not the Coredians as well, that this March of Sorrow would not be limited to a single event, but rather would be some mournful cycle. Even in the near future, after all of the body disposal piles were fully exhumed, families would obtain the remains of their loved ones as they identified them in the morgues that dotted the city, providing a steady supply of bodies to bury for at least the next couple of weeks...

Major Sorensen took about fifteen minutes, while gnawing on a ration bar for dinner, to watch TV with the family whose home would be the last he would search today, a family that would soon join the others with the casket of their own relative, a family that knew of at least three others currently in the morgue waiting for burial. Of course, for reasons obvious, the news was on, and it sent a chill down his spine, for Great Woody City was not the only place where such searches were occuring, thanks to LTC Vigil's earlier forwarding of the search orders to military installations planetwide.

"Approximately 14,530,000 bodies have been counted in hospital morgues in the Federal District alone, of which less than a million are so far identified, with the military disclosing an additional 636,932 bodies found in yesterday's searches of Great Woody City. Another 2,840,400 bodies have been found in Yenisey Province, 3,273,100 in Ragnarok Province, 2,035,700 in Kebec province..."

The news anchor continued the body count by provinces reporting before adding, "We wish to emphasize that the true number of dead is much higher, as the search is just beginning, and the vast majority of these bodies have not yet been identified..."

Major Sorensen finished his ration bar and prepared himself for another overnight honor guard journey to the Bitterwind Foothills...the casket he would carry tonight lay in front of him.

Another day, another search to conduct. I thought as the break ended and the troops headed back to work helping the WD military clear out the dead. At least Tsunade had it relatively easy. She 'only' had to deal with the living, give them the expert medical advice she can deliver, and handle more serious cases with her assistants. It's a Council Member's perogative, I guess, but someone had to do the job for the dead as well.

As we moved into the second day, it was beginning clear that we underestimated the number of bodybags that would be needed for burial and in a week, that will soon run into problems. I wryly thought that the funeral industry will be getting a boost in sales in the next few weeks as the bookkeepers from the Chimera estimated how many bags we will need every day on average. It runs well into the millions. The scope of the Dark Lord's wrath is just...overwhelming at times, but we must go on. There's no other choice.

21 August
Near Wesilia

Lieutenant Colonel Allaire made his way to the DropShips to attempt to establish communication with the Navy...and waited for a response.

And waited.

Finally, after what seemed an eternity but was more like thirty minutes, a second lieutenant answered his hails, and when said junior officer saw the rank insignia of the person hailing him, he found it impossible to hide the look of panic on his face. "Second Lieutenant Jensen, EWS Abrogator, here, sir," he stammered.

"This is Lieutenant Colonel Allaire. Calm down; I know the chain of command is a bit out of whack right now. Are you the highest-ranking, competent person on your ship?"

"Uh, let me check that for you, one moment please, sir." He scurried off to try to find out who was in charge of his ship. He came back with First Lieutenant Thierry...the purge of the officer corps had left its mark.

"First Lieutenant Thierry, acting captain of the Abrogator, sir."

"Lieutenant Thierry, do you have unconscious higher-ranking officers aboard your ship?" Keith asked.

"Yes, sir. They seem to be complete vegetables, sir."

"I was afraid of that. Move them to sick bay and feed them intravenously. They will be transferred to the nation of Coreworlds for treatment. That fleet that appeared a while ago broadcasting a friendly escort IFF? That was their fleet. They are an ally, is that understood? Await the proper chain-of-custody orders."

"Yes, sir."

"Excellent. Now, relay this order to the entire fleet, Lieutenant. This order applies to the entire Navy. I know no one higher than the rank of captain escaped the purge."

"Right away, sir. Anything else?"

"Yeah, got any weather reports?"

Lieutenant Thierry looked confused by Lieutenant Colonel Allaire's request, but nevertheless looked out of the bridge viewport at the planet of White Diamond. "Well, there are several places out of the ocean where storm systems seem to be forming, sir..."

"Deploy dropsondes to those storm systems from orbit, and relay the data to all military installations and all receiving civilian frequencies within five hundred kilometers of Great Woody City."

Another strange request, but not one that could easily be questioned. "Yes, sir." The young Lieutenant saluted, and Keith returned the salute before cutting the transmission.

Keith only had a few more days' worth of work here, mostly distributing the remaining supplies. Then, he would return to the national capital to see what he could do there...

22 August
At White Diamond Medical Center

While Tsunade made herself available to dispense advice, there really wasn't much advice for her to give, at least not much advice concerning Whitfield, as cryonics was a rare specialty indeed...much less combining cryonics with genetic engineering of bacteria. Dr. Deimos and his research team continued their efforts, acknowledging Tsunade's presence but for the most part not letting that presence distract them from the task at hand.

At the very least, Tsunade might find this research, and the treatment methods to come, quite...interesting. Comparison of treatment methods amongst elite hospitals from two different cultures usually was a subject of interest for doctors visiting a hospital in a nation they had never visited, or even read all that much about, before.

Whitfield had never really revealed to the Jedi Order much about the nation of Evil Woody Thoughts before...only, it seemed, that information that he had to reveal. Certainly, Whitfield had not disclosed much about Woodian methodology regarding medicine or research (not that he would know much about the former, but as a former head of state with his finger in research appropriations, he would know quite a bit about the latter). He had made it clear, thirty years ago, when he began his training, that he was retiring from politics, and instead becoming a private citizen...evidently, he had meant the word private as he mostly kept to himself until the clouds of war had started gathering. Moreover, there was the little problem of the old government's massacre at the hands of the Sith Lord...It would be an interesting topic of conversation with Tsunade when Whitfield finally regained consciousness, but that was a while in coming.

23 August

When Keith left the formerly Forgotten Continent, having done all he could do for the time being (namely stave off immediate starvation), and made the suborbital DropShip flight back to Great Woody City, he saw clouds out of the craft's viewports.

Lots and lots of clouds, over the oceans, still a thousand or more kilometers from land. But clouds nonetheless, and thick ones, clouds that seemed to swirl around deep points of low pressure before his very eyes...clouds that, due to the disarray amongst the normal gatherers of weather data, had gone unnoticed except from his earlier order to deploy dropsondes to the centers of low pressure.

By now, raw data had arrived in Great Woody City, but Keith had a feeling he would have to get it analyzed, for his society had suffered from so much information overload recently, in the wake of the Dark Lord's demise, that no one really noticed a stream of raw numbers and data.

Upon arrival on the same military installation from which he had departed a couple of mornings ago, he quickly retrieved it, and forwarded it to the media outlets that had popped up in the last couple of days with an attached message that storms were forming over the sea and the data was of utmost importance.

He then turned his attention to gathering news on the search efforts, and coordinating them, before the gale watches for the 25th and 26th came out.

It was going to be an interesting week.

24 August
Great Woody City

By now, Keith had gone into Great Woody City itself to assist with the bagging and tagging...though he had yet to encounter the Coredian units. He had more important things to worry about than where Taylor was, however, like searching for dead bodies. Apparently his fellow commanders had already given the Coredians their own search assignments, and if they were searching as well, he did not want to interfere...

The burials at the Bitterwind Foothills continued, on a twenty-four hour basis. The March of Sorrow was unceasing.

Meanwhile, at UWD Medical Center...

"I think I got it!" Dr. Deimos' voice filled the laboratory. The specimen in front of him not only survived at 120 Kelvin, but at 130 Kelvin, it had managed to repair damaged synthtissue, albeit slowly. His announcement quickly attracted the attention of the others in the room.

He handed over a copy of his handwritten data. "See if you can replicate this," he instructed the others in the room...

An hour later, he had his corroboration...a suitable cryobacterium had been created, albeit one that only rebuilt tissue at about ten percent of the rate that a standard "control" bacta solution would. However, thermodynamics introduced problems of molecular motion at cryostatic temperatures...indeed this was the point of cryostasis in the first place, to preserve the body...so Dr. Deimos knew it wouldn't get much better than this...

"Breed enough of this bacterium for five hundred fifty liters of cryobacta fluid," he instructed the bactaspecialists in the room. "Enough for one cryochamber." Turning to Tsunade with a profound mixture of exhaustion and relief on his face, he said, "I do believe that we have discovered cryobacta fluid, which should allow us to stabilize Jacob Whitfield's condition enough to bring him out of cryostasis and apply more conventional treatments."

Tsunade was definitely intruged by the breakthrough in medical technology that the geneticists have discovered. She could already think of a few applications when one combines cryostatic tech and this new cryobacta.

Necessity is the mother of all inventions. She thought as she smiled slightly. "It is good to know that Mr. Whitfield here will get out of this. How long do you think it will be before he revives fully?"

"Difficult to say, because this is so experimental. We do know that it will work much more slowly than bacta at standard temperature, but how much more slowly is difficult to say. The results we've had so far indicate roughly ten percent of the...efficiency...of standard-temperature bacta, but we've only had small sample sizes to date," Dr. Deimos replied. "It will take roughly six hours to produce enough of this new cryobacta solution to fill Whitfield's cryochamber, but bear in mind that this is not a full-scale production facility. How long Whitfield will spend in cryobacta is difficult to say, but we will revive him as soon as his condition is stable enough to survive the process. After that, we will use a combination of bacta and nanotherapy to regenerate his body. We have already taken ice core biopsies so that we can customize this therapy to his specific DNA. You will find that this method is approximately twice as fast as one-size-fits-all bacta treatment."

He paused to let Tsunade take it all in. "We should be ready to flush and refill the cryochamber in about seven hours. If you know anyone else interested in Whitfield's condition, you may wish to contact them. I've been somewhat of a hermit lately."

"Understandable, and thank you." Tsunade answered and moved off to contact the people who know Whitfield best and give them an update. She first spoke to Taylor, who seemed relieved that Whitfield will be all right and gave him the update, followed by Keith, who is in the city somewhere. After she contacts them, she moved on to check on other patients.

Seven hours later

By now, Keith had received Tsunade's message, and as his colleagues already seemed to have the search well coordinated, he made his way to the hospital after finishing his own search of a building, and seeing the very bodies that he had mangled once again.

He realized he needed to speak to Tsunade anyway, and was obviously curious as to Whitfield's condition. Namely, how he seemed to have disappeared from the Force.

He arrived at UWD Medical Center just as Dr. Deimos was making final preparations to flush Whitfield's cryofluid and replace it with the new cryobacta. A slight smile crossed his face as he saw Tsunade and he bowed slightly. With a slightly wry tone in his voice, he addressed her. "Hello, Master Tsunade, I think I recognize you from somewhere...and I also need to talk to you regarding certain therapies you have been known to perform of late..."

Checking on a young patient, Tsunade stopped to regard Keith with a smile. "I see. Are they coming to this hospital?"

"Ah, unfortunately, that presents logistical issues. I've ordered that our higher military commanders be fed intravenously in sickbay until they can be transferred over to you," Keith, still wearing his military uniform, replied.

"I understand. I can await them." Tsunade nodded. "I told you a little bit about Whitfield's condition a little while back, but let me tell you the details..." And she began to talk with him about the cryotech the doctors are conducting for the Jedi Master.

----

Meanwhile, Taylor Masaki, after a little cleaning up, remembered the little kid that he was tasked to protect and headed toward the hospital with a *pop*, leaving a small cloud of smoke. He reappeared at the front doors and headed inside, inquiring at the front desk about John Watsen.

"I understand. I can await them." Tsunade nodded. "I told you a little bit about Whitfield's condition a little while back, but let me tell you the details..." And she began to talk with him about the cryotech the doctors are conducting for the Jedi Master.

By this point, the changing of Whitfield's cryofluid to the experimental cryobacta was completed, an unceremonious process that took only a few minutes and was akin to draining and refilling a bacta tank. It looked deceptively routine, until the realization of what exactly was being pumped back into the cryochamber hit.

Upon completion of this process, Dr. Deimos could be heard giving orders "to formulate Nano I and Nano II;" even Tsunade would only have a vague idea of what these two treatments were. Dr. Deimos joined in the conversation, explaining that Nano I referred to the solution of nanomachines that would be present in the bacta itself, along with free-floating amino and fatty acids so that the proper materials needed for Whitfield's body to be rebuilt, from the inside out, were readily available, and explaining that Nano II meant an actual injection of nanomachines into Whitfield's bloodstream immediately after coming out of the cryochamber, custom-manufactured within the confines of the hospital for maximum efficiency in working with his DNA profile. For such cases, elite Woodian hospitals did not use the standardized bacta that Coredians and much of the universe were used to.

After all, this was the best research hospital in the country...

All the while, Keith simply nodded. A medic he was not, but at least he had some idea of what was going on now. He advised Tsunade that he would sign the chain-of-custody forms for the military officers that required her treatment, but it was up to the Coredians to provide transportation to their own facilities. After all, a poor, overwhelmed lieutenant was presently commanding the fleet in orbit.

Meanwhile, Taylor Masaki, after a little cleaning up, remembered the little kid that he was tasked to protect and headed toward the hospital with a *pop*, leaving a small cloud of smoke. He reappeared at the front doors and headed inside, inquiring at the front desk about John Watsen.

The receptionist looked at Taylor, eyeing his lightsaber, and it probably was a good thing that Taylor didn't have the lightsaber turned on, because the receptionist assumed, correctly, that he was of CoreWorlds, the nation that had reportedly provided so much assistance to the rebellion on Earth. (The people of White Diamond were only now learning of these things, so the stories of the Earth campaign still carried with them the aura of rumor.) She typed in a search query into a computer before answering him. "John Watsen, five-year old male? The system is showing both parents and all relatives confirmed dead. He is the last survivor of his family. Medically speaking, he is ready to be discharged, but we don't know who to discharge him to. Are you interested in adoption?"

By this point, the changing of Whitfield's cryofluid to the experimental cryobacta was completed, an unceremonious process that took only a few minutes and was akin to draining and refilling a bacta tank. It looked deceptively routine, until the realization of what exactly was being pumped back into the cryochamber hit.

Upon completion of this process, Dr. Deimos could be heard giving orders "to formulate Nano I and Nano II;" even Tsunade would only have a vague idea of what these two treatments were. Dr. Deimos joined in the conversation, explaining that Nano I referred to the solution of nanomachines that would be present in the bacta itself, along with free-floating amino and fatty acids so that the proper materials needed for Whitfield's body to be rebuilt, from the inside out, were readily available, and explaining that Nano II meant an actual injection of nanomachines into Whitfield's bloodstream immediately after coming out of the cryochamber, custom-manufactured within the confines of the hospital for maximum efficiency in working with his DNA profile. For such cases, elite Woodian hospitals did not use the standardized bacta that Coredians and much of the universe were used to.

After all, this was the best research hospital in the country...

All the while, Keith simply nodded. A medic he was not, but at least he had some idea of what was going on now. He advised Tsunade that he would sign the chain-of-custody forms for the military officers that required her treatment, but it was up to the Coredians to provide transportation to their own facilities. After all, a poor, overwhelmed lieutenant was presently commanding the fleet in orbit.
"That can be arranged." Tsunade said as she listened to Keith and glanced at her assistants, who began sending the orders immediately. "A SAR ship will bring them down here for me to treat."

The receptionist looked at Taylor, eyeing his lightsaber, and it probably was a good thing that Taylor didn't have the lightsaber turned on, because the receptionist assumed, correctly, that he was of CoreWorlds, the nation that had reportedly provided so much assistance to the rebellion on Earth. (The people of White Diamond were only now learning of these things, so the stories of the Earth campaign still carried with them the aura of rumor.) She typed in a search query into a computer before answering him. "John Watsen, five-year old male? The system is showing both parents and all relatives confirmed dead. He is the last survivor of his family. Medically speaking, he is ready to be discharged, but we don't know who to discharge him to. Are you interested in adoption?"
Taylor, having never thought of having a girlfriend, much less a family of his own, was surprised by the question, though he composed himself quickly. Everyone is always harping on me to get a girl, or at least an apprentice to train. Said, I'd 'mellow' out or something if I have one or the other. Besides, this kid John has nowhere else to go. This world is no place for an orphan like him, especially with all that needs to be done. Well, everyone, looks like you got your wish.

With a slightly bemused smile, he answered. "Yes, I'm interested."

"That can be arranged." Tsunade said as she listened to Keith and glanced at her assistants, who began sending the orders immediately. "A SAR ship will bring them down here for me to treat."

"Excellent, can your SAR ships fit in a four-hundred meter docking bay? I'll have to go back to a military installation to let the fleet know what to expect. Do you wish to treat them here, at this hospital?"

Taylor, having never thought of having a girlfriend, much less a family of his own, was surprised by the question, though he composed himself quickly. Everyone is always harping on me to get a girl, or at least an apprentice to train. Said, I'd 'mellow' out or something if I have one or the other. Besides, this kid John has nowhere else to go. This world is no place for an orphan like him, especially with all that needs to be done. Well, everyone, looks like you got your wish.

With a slightly bemused smile, he answered. "Yes, I'm interested."

The receptionist slid some paperwork across the table; old paperwork it was, old emergency adoption applications, issued by a government that was upended, but it would suffice because there really wasn't anything to replace it yet. "I need you to fill out these forms and provide identification," the receptionist replied, before sending for John.

While she waited for Taylor to fulfill the request, a nurse brought the five-year old kid out. No trace remained of the blunt trauma to the head he had received a couple of days ago; by now, the stitches in his skull had been removed, for there was no longer any need for them. If Taylor didn't know better, through the Force, he wouldn't have known this kid had required hospital treatment at all, for the nanopaste that doctors had used along the crack in his head had been so effective, it didn't even leave evidence of scarring. John Watsen, not really knowing what was going on, simply seemed resigned to his fate, whatever it was. He knew he had no family left, but at least that dreadful war had ended...

"Excellent, can your SAR ships fit in a four-hundred meter docking bay? I'll have to go back to a military installation to let the fleet know what to expect. Do you wish to treat them here, at this hospital?"
"That will be yes to both questions." Tsunade answered.


The receptionist slid some paperwork across the table; old paperwork it was, old emergency adoption applications, issued by a government that was upended, but it would suffice because there really wasn't anything to replace it yet. "I need you to fill out these forms and provide identification," the receptionist replied, before sending for John.

While she waited for Taylor to fulfill the request, a nurse brought the five-year old kid out. No trace remained of the blunt trauma to the head he had received a couple of days ago; by now, the stitches in his skull had been removed, for there was no longer any need for them. If Taylor didn't know better, through the Force, he wouldn't have known this kid had required hospital treatment at all, for the nanopaste that doctors had used along the crack in his head had been so effective, it didn't even leave evidence of scarring. John Watsen, not really knowing what was going on, simply seemed resigned to his fate, whatever it was. He knew he had no family left, but at least that dreadful war had ended...
Pulling out his Jedi Knight ID and a pen, Taylor began filling out the forms. Gonna take a little bit...

"That will be yes to both questions." Tsunade answered.

"OK, I'll make the necessary arrangements," Keith replied. He bowed respectfully before leaving Tsunade to do those tasks which she had appointed to herself.

Upon reaching the nearest military installation, he ordered the transfer of the vegetable Woodian admiralty in orbit to the Coredian SAR ships. But he learned of some very significant complications...

By now the oceans of White Diamond were teeming in white, with cloud tops reaching up to nearly fifty thousand meters, far exceeding the highest climate records for the planet. Landmasses were still fully visible, however, but these massive storms threatened to engulf them in a few days. Nevertheless, these storms would be necessary if Planet was to have any chance of breaking the massive drought that the Dark Lord had placed upon it. Keith didn't want to risk his superior officers getting caught in this, especially considering that the University of White Diamond Medical Center was only about ten meters above sea level; yes, risk was a part of military life, but he figured they could wait until the storms passed. He relayed a message back to Tsunade to expect weather-related delays, along with some raw data about what was brewing just couple thousand kilometers to the west.

He also dispatched numerous weather warnings, since he had no idea what the civilian meterological sector was like after the war, or even if it still existed. As he spent hours pouring over data from the Star Destroyers in orbit, data that the defending fleet continually sent and had been continually sending for twenty years, he marked out various watches and warnings for hundreds of thousands of kilometers of coastline across ten continents. Those weather warnings he issued for the immediate vincinity of Great Woody City included gale warnings, brush-fire watches (brush fires likely in the next forty-eight hours), flash-flood watches, and the like.

If there was one thing Woodians knew how to deal with even after the ruinous effects of a civil war, it was inclement weather, for it was inclement climate change back on Earth that had brought them here in the first place. The populace took severe weather quite seriously; many people in Great Woody City had been through the infamous Polar Cyclone Arlene on Earth, a storm that had struck right when Evil Woody Thoughts had started its offplanet colonization effort, a storm that had dumped about ten meters of snow across its earthen territories, packing 300-km winds in the process. Therefore, people didn't have to be told twice to finish their burials at the foot of the Bitterwind Range either really quickly, or to hold off on such burials until after the storms abated. No one wanted to be caught on Highway Three, marching down that flat plain, with high winds and brushfires. The March of Sorrow, which had maintained continuity since the night of the 21st, quickly dissapated, to be resumed at some later time.

Pulling out his Jedi Knight ID and a pen, Taylor began filling out the forms. Gonna take a little bit...

The receptionist waited for Taylor to complete the paperwork before taking his ID and verifying the information. While Evil Woody Thoughts had not really maintained any formal diplomatic relations with CoreWorlds in the past, its only real connection with CoreWorlds being through Whitfield, the receptionist still didn't see a problem in releasing John to a Coredian, especially considering recent events would likely lead to diplomatic relations once a government had established itself. Besides, she had heard of this Taylor Masaki on the news in the last day or so...

He took part in the Free Woody Thoughts ground campaign, didn't he?

The photo ID, the information on the forms, and Taylor's face, which she had seen on the news, all matched, so she released young John Watsen into Taylor's custody.

The young one said not a word as Taylor claimed him.

Three days later, 27 August

Though Keith Allaire couldn't claim to be a meterologist, the sky indicated that he at least had some idea of what he was doing three days earlier. The winds had turned from out of the north to out of the southwest, off of the ocean, a day or so ago, slowly increasing the humidity, which still remained far below normal. By now, the winds howled through the city and the plains outside of the city at some seventy kilometers per hour, and they were strengthening quite rapidly.

The skies were quite grey, and a hint of green could be seen in the clouds out over the ocean. Highway Three, the now-infamous route of the March of Sorrow, now lay completely empty, and it was a good thing, too, because when lightning struck just about ten meters away from it, it ignited the tinderbox-dry brush, brush that had had every trace of moisture wrung out of it by the Dark Side-induced drought. The winds picked it up, and the fire burnt some hundreds of acres within a minute; fortunately it started ten kilometers north of where the burials had occured, and the winds were blowing more or less from southwest to northeast.

It seemed like drastic action on Planet's part to whip up these kinds of storms, and indeed it was. But such was necessary, because the Dark Lord had left Planet's atmosphere that screwed up.

Still, as more lightning struck, brush fires seemed to pop up all over and practically surrounded Great Woody City...

By now, all of the former Wraiths, deeming the forthcoming weather too dangerous to conduct searches in (winds were forecast to whip up to two hundred kilometers per hour, at least), gathered near Whitfield's cryochamber, along with Tsunade, Daniel, Taylor, and his new charge. Something in Taylor's mind nagged at him not to interfere with weather-related events outside. For that matter, that nagging sensation also quietly infiltrated Daniel's mind; both recognized this quiet Voice as the same that had told them to simply wait during the duel between Whitfield and Darth Ebolus.

John Watsen, upon seeing the six former Wraiths, seemed to cling to Taylor, for he was afraid of them. He had scarcely spoken to anyone, including Taylor, since his discharge from the hospital, and could have easily been mistaken for mute were it not for his very occassional expressions of some need, usually something to drink. The six noticed the child's fear of them, for they were indeed curious about him, and tried to show that they were quite harmless, but John still hid behind Taylor to avoid eye contact with them. Eventually, the six military officers, realizing nearly in unison that it was probably the military uniforms that they wore that scared the kid so much, as the military had caused him no end of problems during the war, simply let the kid be, and watched Dr. Deimos assemble the preparations to bring Jacob Whitfield out of cryostasis. A bacta tank had been brought into the room, already filled with that custom solution that Dr. Deimos had told Tsunade about, and a nurse stood ready with Whitfield's "Nano II" injection.

The atmosphere outside was still too dry for rain to actually reach the ground, but nevertheless, minutes before Dr. Deimos was ready to initiate the process that would reanimate Whitfield, those assembled heard the sudden, thundering noise of heavy precipitation bouncing off the roof--the unmistakeable sound of hail.

The skies were opened, for the first time that people had seen since the Dark Lord had started draining Planet.

Three days later, 27 August

Though Keith Allaire couldn't claim to be a meterologist, the sky indicated that he at least had some idea of what he was doing three days earlier. The winds had turned from out of the north to out of the southwest, off of the ocean, a day or so ago, slowly increasing the humidity, which still remained far below normal. By now, the winds howled through the city and the plains outside of the city at some seventy kilometers per hour, and they were strengthening quite rapidly.

The skies were quite grey, and a hint of green could be seen in the clouds out over the ocean. Highway Three, the now-infamous route of the March of Sorrow, now lay completely empty, and it was a good thing, too, because when lightning struck just about ten meters away from it, it ignited the tinderbox-dry brush, brush that had had every trace of moisture wrung out of it by the Dark Side-induced drought. The winds picked it up, and the fire burnt some hundreds of acres within a minute; fortunately it started ten kilometers north of where the burials had occured, and the winds were blowing more or less from southwest to northeast.

It seemed like drastic action on Planet's part to whip up these kinds of storms, and indeed it was. But such was necessary, because the Dark Lord had left Planet's atmosphere that screwed up.

Still, as more lightning struck, brush fires seemed to pop up all over and practically surrounded Great Woody City...

By now, all of the former Wraiths, deeming the forthcoming weather too dangerous to conduct searches in (winds were forecast to whip up to two hundred kilometers per hour, at least), gathered near Whitfield's cryochamber, along with Tsunade, Daniel, Taylor, and his new charge. Something in Taylor's mind nagged at him not to interfere with weather-related events outside. For that matter, that nagging sensation also quietly infiltrated Daniel's mind; both recognized this quiet Voice as the same that had told them to simply wait during the duel between Whitfield and Darth Ebolus.

John Watsen, upon seeing the six former Wraiths, seemed to cling to Taylor, for he was afraid of them. He had scarcely spoken to anyone, including Taylor, since his discharge from the hospital, and could have easily been mistaken for mute were it not for his very occassional expressions of some need, usually something to drink. The six noticed the child's fear of them, for they were indeed curious about him, and tried to show that they were quite harmless, but John still hid behind Taylor to avoid eye contact with them. Eventually, the six military officers, realizing nearly in unison that it was probably the military uniforms that they wore that scared the kid so much, as the military had caused him no end of problems during the war, simply let the kid be, and watched Dr. Deimos assemble the preparations to bring Jacob Whitfield out of cryostasis. A bacta tank had been brought into the room, already filled with that custom solution that Dr. Deimos had told Tsunade about, and a nurse stood ready with Whitfield's "Nano II" injection.

The atmosphere outside was still too dry for rain to actually reach the ground, but nevertheless, minutes before Dr. Deimos was ready to initiate the process that would reanimate Whitfield, those assembled heard the sudden, thundering noise of heavy precipitation bouncing off the roof--the unmistakeable sound of hail.

The skies were opened, for the first time that people had seen since the Dark Lord had started draining Planet.
Such power. I mused as I heard and felt the storm pass overhead. As a lightning specialist, I can detect the amount of energy a storm has, and this was one of the bigger ones, almost Kaminoan in strength. I knew the planet will need it, for the drought will have to be broken if there would be any chance of a harvest in the next year. For now, people will have to subsist on hydroponics, I suppose.

I looked around at the motley little group waiting for Whitfield to return to room-temperature reality. I smiled as I noted an irritated Tsunade with not much to do. Learning that she had to wait to treat the vegetable leadership of the EWT fleet has dampened her mood, but luckily, she's composed...for a gambling-addict, sake-hosing, vain old bird. At least Sakura and Shizune are more amicable than she is...

I looked to Taylor, who's currently trying to talk to the newest member of the Masaki family, young John Watsen-Masaki. The kid went through quite the ordeal, I could tell, but if there's anyone who can turn Force-sensitive (and not so Force-Sensitive) orphans into strong, smart, and stable people, it's us Masakis. As a father and trainer of apprentices myself, I could understand the challenge that Taylor has ahead with John. Well, perhaps I'd like to meet my new nephew now, get to know him.

Walking over, I asked Taylor. "How is he?"

"Quiet." Taylor sighed. "I'm not sure what they did to him, but it's keeping him clammed up like a shell."

I nodded. "Alright. Let me try."

"Good luck, bro." Taylor said, then spotted Keith and sighed. Let's get this over with.

As Taylor moved towards Keith to talk, I bent down to John. "Hey. How are you? I'm Daniel, Taylor's brother."

OOC: I'll let these little side conversations finish before actually bringing Whitfield out of cryo, partly because I don't have time to RP that process right at the moment.

----------------------------------------------------

Young John looked up at Daniel, not really sure of what to say. Strangers, these people were, but he had no choice, for he no longer had family, other than someone whom he had only known for three days. If there was one thing that Taylor and Daniel had going for them, it was that they weren't wearing the uniforms of those that had caused him so much misery.

He managed one word, in an uncertain tone of voice. "Confused?"

As Keith noticed Taylor moving towards him, he thought, Don't tell me he wants to run off his mouth again. Nevertheless, he maintained enough discretion to simply say, "You wish to speak with me?"

Young John looked up at Daniel, not really sure of what to say. Strangers, these people were, but he had no choice, for he no longer had family, other than someone whom he had only known for three days. If there was one thing that Taylor and Daniel had going for them, it was that they weren't wearing the uniforms of those that had caused him so much misery.

He managed one word, in an uncertain tone of voice. "Confused?"
I nodded. "I understand. What do you like to do?"

As Keith noticed Taylor moving towards him, he thought, Don't tell me he wants to run off his mouth again. Nevertheless, he maintained enough discretion to simply say, "You wish to speak with me?"
"Uh, well..." Taylor seemed to be uncomfortable. Apologies don't come naturally to him. "I'd just...well, I'd like to...well, I've been thinking that we started off on the wrong foot when we first met and I'd like to start over."

I nodded. "I understand. What do you like to do?"

This question presented John with a bit of a problem. He didn't know what he liked to do; he was only five, after all; his family was gone, and they were really the only ones who really knew what to do when John was bored. Moreover, he would have just entered the public school system this August if the civil war hadn't left it in a shambles, so he hadn't had much of a chance to make friends outside of his family, either. Just when he should be at that age where he should be figuring out what he likes to do, he suddenly found himself utterly rootless, without an anchor.

"I don't know," came the meek reply.

"Uh, well..." Taylor seemed to be uncomfortable. Apologies don't come naturally to him. "I'd just...well, I'd like to...well, I've been thinking that we started off on the wrong foot when we first met and I'd like to start over."

Keith, ever since meeting Taylor, had pretty much seen him as an arrogant asshole, so this surprised him. He thought for a moment about how to respond. Finally, he managed, a bit more coherently than Taylor did, "Yeah, I was hoping such an oppurtunity would arise."

This question presented John with a bit of a problem. He didn't know what he liked to do; he was only five, after all; his family was gone, and they were really the only ones who really knew what to do when John was bored. Moreover, he would have just entered the public school system this August if the civil war hadn't left it in a shambles, so he hadn't had much of a chance to make friends outside of his family, either. Just when he should be at that age where he should be figuring out what he likes to do, he suddenly found himself utterly rootless, without an anchor.

"I don't know," came the meek reply.
"Hmm." What do you do with a five year old who lost everything? I wondered. Give him something to do. A rumbling of thunder sounded. Well, after the storm abates.

Keith, ever since meeting Taylor, had pretty much seen him as an arrogant asshole, so this surprised him. He thought for a moment about how to respond. Finally, he managed, a bit more coherently than Taylor did, "Yeah, I was hoping such an oppurtunity would arise."
"Yeah." Taylor held out his hand to shake.

"Yeah." Taylor held out his hand to shake.

Taylor's gesture reminded Keith of when the two had first seen each other, of the time when Keith had offered his hand to Taylor, and Taylor, not knowing anything of him other than his physical appearance, had refused to shake it. Keith never asked why, but now, it seemed that he didn't need to.

Also recalling what Whitfield's hand had looked like in the seconds after Keith's handshake, i.e. red and half-crushed, Keith extended his hand out to Taylor. He was surprisingly gentle; he didn't want to bite, especially with Taylor's adopted son around, a little one who seemed to be afraid of him.

"Hmm." What do you do with a five year old who lost everything? I wondered. Give him something to do. A rumbling of thunder sounded. Well, after the storm abates.

The little one remained quiet, simply waiting. Existing. Wondering what, exactly, was going on around him.

If Tsunade was irked at Keith for not wanting to bring her would-be patients into the hospital, perhaps she would change her mind when an uprooted lightpost clanged against the thick walls outside, leaving a dent in the building's siding, but fortunately not much else. Woodian buildings were designed to withstand these sorts of storms; climate change tends to influence building codes.

Meanwhile, nurses scurried about to make the nanopaste, the same kind of nanopaste that had been used to treat John's head injuries, available, to set Whitfield's broken bones, of which there were many, so that they would heal properly in bacta. Obviously, Whitfield had been unable to do this before freezing himself.

"His condition is now stable enough to survive outside of the cryochamber," Dr. Deimos announced. "He is still in serious condition, however. We are reviving him so we can apply more precise treatment methods."

He sat down in a chair behind an instrument panel; it read 150.2 K, the K standing for degrees Kelvin. Whitfield would have to have his body temperature raised to 310.0 K; John looked nervously at the equipment as the military officers who scared him so much by their very existance simply looked at the cryochamber, silent.

A red light started to blink on the cryochamber itself. "Reanimation process has begun," Dr. Deimos called out as the number on his instrument panel started to slowly climb. A couple of minutes later, he called out, "273," as Whitfield's body temperature crossed the freezing point of water. Thereafter, the party heard the whooshing sound of the cryobacta draining from the chamber.

At this point, the rate of temperature change slowed. "290." The last twenty degrees Kelvin seemed like an eternity; finally, at 302, Dr. Deimos noted the resumption of brainwave activity.

However, a certain ten people in the room were able to tell this for themselves, as Whitfield's Force signature returned--and the effects of that bright flash of light that had so imprinted itself upon the minds of Daniel and Taylor, to say nothing of John or the six former Wraiths, made themselves known.

Keith, having known Whitfield for at least a couple of weeks, immediately noticed a difference. While physically weakened and still injured, Whitfield seemed far more powerful in the Force. Indeed, despite his half-comatose state, Whitfield's far more distinct Force signature radiated some kind of reassurance to young John, who had had a little bit of telepathic contact with him during the war. Even a Force-sensitive five-year-old kid could tell that whatever Planet had done to end the duel, it had made Whitfield far more powerful. So strong were the lasting effects of Planet's intervention in that duel, that Daniel was left to wonder if he now had a rival for the title of "most powerful Jedi."

"306, heart restarted."

About thirty seconds later, the cryochamber opened as Dr. Deimos announced, quite simply, "310." The assembled nurses immediately extracted his body from the cryochamber.

His breathing, while steady, was a bit shallow; it was clear that the nurses probably shouldn't waste their time in getting Whitfield prepared for the bacta tank. His arms were still completely black and deadened from the duel; his skin looked of a pale yellow, as if he had jaundice. His last-ditch effort to drain Planet of the Dark Side, by all rights, should have killed him; it did exhaust him, and here he lay...

John and the six whom he was so afraid of bowed their heads. It was then that John realized that he had something in common with these men who scared him so much...

He had drawn reassurance from Whitfield during the war. But, he realized, these six men also acted as if they were tied to him in some way.

The Six owed their very freedom to this man who lay comatose before them.

The nurses set Whitfield's broken arms and ribs as efficiently as they could; even applying their nanopaste to the deadened tissue of his arms, along the bones there. The nurse holding the Nano II shot quickly administered it to him.

Within ten minutes of his reanimation, Whitfield was transferred to the bacta tank waiting for him.

OOC: You still there, CoreWorlds?

Taylor's gesture reminded Keith of when the two had first seen each other, of the time when Keith had offered his hand to Taylor, and Taylor, not knowing anything of him other than his physical appearance, had refused to shake it. Keith never asked why, but now, it seemed that he didn't need to.

Also recalling what Whitfield's hand had looked like in the seconds after Keith's handshake, i.e. red and half-crushed, Keith extended his hand out to Taylor. He was surprisingly gentle; he didn't want to bite, especially with Taylor's adopted son around, a little one who seemed to be afraid of him.
While it was uncertain still that Taylor and Keith would ever be considered friends in any real sense of the word, the two men, having reconciled here, have taken their first steps towards a time of friendly acquaintance.


The little one remained quiet, simply waiting. Existing. Wondering what, exactly, was going on around him.

If Tsunade was irked at Keith for not wanting to bring her would-be patients into the hospital, perhaps she would change her mind when an uprooted lightpost clanged against the thick walls outside, leaving a dent in the building's siding, but fortunately not much else. Woodian buildings were designed to withstand these sorts of storms; climate change tends to influence building codes.
Tsunade winced slightly, not as used to storms as I am, and thought better of Keith's foresight than before.

Meanwhile, nurses scurried about to make the nanopaste, the same kind of nanopaste that had been used to treat John's head injuries, available, to set Whitfield's broken bones, of which there were many, so that they would heal properly in bacta. Obviously, Whitfield had been unable to do this before freezing himself.

"His condition is now stable enough to survive outside of the cryochamber," Dr. Deimos announced. "He is still in serious condition, however. We are reviving him so we can apply more precise treatment methods."

He sat down in a chair behind an instrument panel; it read 150.2 K, the K standing for degrees Kelvin. Whitfield would have to have his body temperature raised to 310.0 K; John looked nervously at the equipment as the military officers who scared him so much by their very existance simply looked at the cryochamber, silent.

A red light started to blink on the cryochamber itself. "Reanimation process has begun," Dr. Deimos called out as the number on his instrument panel started to slowly climb. A couple of minutes later, he called out, "273," as Whitfield's body temperature crossed the freezing point of water. Thereafter, the party heard the whooshing sound of the cryobacta draining from the chamber.

At this point, the rate of temperature change slowed. "290." The last twenty degrees Kelvin seemed like an eternity; finally, at 302, Dr. Deimos noted the resumption of brainwave activity.

However, a certain ten people in the room were able to tell this for themselves, as Whitfield's Force signature returned--and the effects of that bright flash of light that had so imprinted itself upon the minds of Daniel and Taylor, to say nothing of John or the six former Wraiths, made themselves known.

Keith, having known Whitfield for at least a couple of weeks, immediately noticed a difference. While physically weakened and still injured, Whitfield seemed far more powerful in the Force. Indeed, despite his half-comatose state, Whitfield's far more distinct Force signature radiated some kind of reassurance to young John, who had had a little bit of telepathic contact with him during the war. Even a Force-sensitive five-year-old kid could tell that whatever Planet had done to end the duel, it had made Whitfield far more powerful. So strong were the lasting effects of Planet's intervention in that duel, that Daniel was left to wonder if he now had a rival for the title of "most powerful Jedi."

"306, heart restarted."

About thirty seconds later, the cryochamber opened as Dr. Deimos announced, quite simply, "310." The assembled nurses immediately extracted his body from the cryochamber.

His breathing, while steady, was a bit shallow; it was clear that the nurses probably shouldn't waste their time in getting Whitfield prepared for the bacta tank. His arms were still completely black and deadened from the duel; his skin looked of a pale yellow, as if he had jaundice. His last-ditch effort to drain Planet of the Dark Side, by all rights, should have killed him; it did exhaust him, and here he lay...

John and the six whom he was so afraid of bowed their heads. It was then that John realized that he had something in common with these men who scared him so much...

He had drawn reassurance from Whitfield during the war. But, he realized, these six men also acted as if they were tied to him in some way.

The Six owed their very freedom to this man who lay comatose before them.

The nurses set Whitfield's broken arms and ribs as efficiently as they could; even applying their nanopaste to the deadened tissue of his arms, along the bones there. The nurse holding the Nano II shot quickly administered it to him.

Within ten minutes of his reanimation, Whitfield was transferred to the bacta tank waiting for him.

OOC: You still there, CoreWorlds?
OOC: Yep.

IC:
The moment Whitfield's Force Signature returned to life, Taylor, Tsunade and I all blinked in surprise at the power that he wielded now. Even knowing of it beforehand hasn't taken away the glow in the Force that we could see.

Heh. He's definitely powerful. Might even rival me. I smirked slightly. Can't wait to finally be able to talk to him after all this.

There really wasn't much for the party to do, at least not until Whitfield regained consciousness, at which point they could all talk to him. Tsunade, at least, could visit other patients and dispense her advice, but there wasn't a whole lot for the rest of the party to do other than talk amongst themselves. If there was any conversation to be had, it would be between Daniel and Taylor, and possibly Tsunade, because young John stayed quiet, and the six men whom Whitfield had liberated were quiet as well, taking advantage of a prime oppurtunity to rest after several days of searching and hundred-kilometer-roundtrip honor guard duty routes.

Dr. Deimos and the specialists who had helped him in his research also let the nurses relieve them, as they had gone several days on stimpills alone, and there wasn't a whole lot more they could do...the bacta fluid had already been formulated, and now Whitfield's treatment was just a matter of time in the tank.

After about three and a half hours, the hail stopped, but the winds continued to howl at hurricane force, off of the ocean. No, the sun still would not come out; the clouds above the hospital reached to thirty thousand meters still; if Daniel reached out with his senses, he would find more fun on its way, with cloud tops by now reaching to sixty-five thousand meters near the center of the storm, a rapidly deepening storm for that matter, a storm that by now was in the middle stages of forming a hundred-fifty-kilometer-wide eye. It was clear that everyone would be holed up here for a while, because the storm center was still nearly fifteen hundred kilometers away; indeed it was big enough to swallow an entire continent. Nor was it the only storm raging on Planet; these types of storms now encroached upon nearly every coastline on Planet, and those near the equator were even more intense.

A couple of hours later, the relative humidity suddenly spiked, enough for rain to reach the ground at last. And reach the ground it did, ten centimeters of it per hour, enough to blow and make little waves on the burnt plains outside of the city; the fires that had managed to last through the hailstorm were quickly overwhelmed. However, the power did not do so much as flicker, probably because a great deal of Great Woody City's power infrastructure was underground, where wind could not affect it--and, surprisingly enough, despite previous assurances from the Gaians and the Ascendants that the weather here was never this extreme, it was not even affected by flooding yet, because Evil Woody Thoughts had insisted upon building flood-control measures at least comparable to those that existed in the Netherlands back on Earth. It helped, of course, that the parched ground eagerly absorbed this water.

After about nine hours of boredom for all involved, Dr. Deimos emerged from his rest, and took scans of Whitfield's body, primarily for the benefit of Tsunade, scans that showed the bones in his arms, arms that still looked dead, like they still needed amputation, from the outside, were once again producing bone marrow, and also scans that showed that the major veins and arteries in his arms had been restored. However, many of the nerve endings and nearly all of the muscle tissue in Whitfield's arms remained deadened, but this would change as the nanomachines inside Whitfield worked in conjunction with the bacta microbes to rebuild his entire body from the inside out. As he handed the scan results to Tsunade, he remarked, "Another eight hours or so, and he should regain consciousness. He probably won't complete treatment for another two days and a bit, however."

The wait therefore continued; at least Daniel could busy himself by observing the storm that raged above, a storm that would soon have the city's water pumps pumping contraflow, pumping water in the sewage system back into resivoirs. Yes, retreating the resivoirs afterwards was a pain, a major expense, but it could be done, and for far less than the expense of dealing with a flooded major city and even more lost lives. Fortunately, the water system hadn't been affected much by the war; on White Diamond, the war had affected the population far more than it had affected its infrastructure. While Tsunade's "official" patients were not yet arrived, she at least had the ability to roam the hospital and actually know what she was doing; doctors are like that. However, Taylor's favorite wildfires were by now long extinguished, and with John not talking at all, there wasn't much for him to do, other than possibly talk with Daniel.

On the plains, with nowhere else to go, the water started cutting streambeds into the ground as it sought to find its way back into the ocean. Yes, so powerful was this single storm that cartographers would have several new streams and creeks to name afterwards, right outside of the city. Inside of the city, water tended to just find its way into canals and such.

28 August
0745, local time

At long last, Jacob Whitfield's eyes fluttered open, as he felt some stirrings of life within him, once again. He tried to move his arms, but they only moved about an inch...

"Careful, there. Your arms will regenerate themselves in time." Dr. Deimos didn't miss a thing, especially since he had had a chance to rest himself a while ago.

Whitfield, however, sensed he wouldn't really be resting, for in front of him were six bored Wraiths, one bored Taylor Masaki, one bored Tsunade, and one bored Lightning Master, not to mention the young face of John Masaki Watsen. Yes, Whitfield sensed that Taylor had formally adopted him right away, and while the boy didn't say anything quite yet, Whitfield knew the silence in the room wouldn't last long...

Ah. Finally. I smiled as I noticed Whitfield return to the land of the living. Aside from normal healing necessities, he looked ready to talk. "Hey. How are you?"

Whitfield used his legs to propel his head above the bacta so he could actually talk without swallowing it. Fortunately, his legs still had some degree of function left in them...a few days already served in the hospital probably helped.

He had not expected the most famous Jedi in the Order to show up.

"Ah, you must be the Lighting Master...I don't believe we've ever met before. A pleasure, this is. As for my own condition, I'm just happy to still be around. I must confess I thought I would have to end my own life to end the Dark Lord's and came quite close to that point."

"Guess the Force has other plans." I smirked. "Oh yeah, there seems to be a few people who want to meet you."

Taylor was next. "Hey. Glad to see you're back."

"Hello, Taylor." Whitfield gave a wry grin. "You haven't been stirring up trouble with the brushfires, have you?"

Though he was completely comatose when the brushfires had actually occurred, Whitfield had sensed the storm overhead, and knew this planet had been so dry before that any lightning strike was liable to start one.

"Not this time." Taylor smiled. "Too wet out there, anyway. Ask him." He pointed a thumb at me.

"Please. Much as I'd like to do it, I didn't either." I shot back good-naturedly.

"You're the type to do it." Taylor replied wryly.

"And you aren't?" I asked, making a good impression of a certain dry-witted Kenobi.

"Touché." Taylor chuckled.

"When you boys have finished your banter, I'd like to input something as well." Tsunade came along and turned to Whitfield. "The formal ceremony can be done later, but let me be the first to congratulate you on your promotion, Master Whitfield."

I grinned. "Welcome to the club." I noticed lil' John hanging in the background. "Well, there's one more little guy that would like to see you."

Whitfield could only smile as Taylor and Daniel more or less blamed each other for the storm. Then Tsunade added her own news.

Suddenly, the smile on Whitfield's face disappeared as his mood became much more solemn. "I am honored," Whitfield replied, "though I would certainly hope such things could wait until after I get out of this bacta tank. Speaking of which, where's my lightsaber?"

Dr. Deimos replied, "EMTs found it by your side at the scene of the duel. I'll go retreive your belongings from storage now."

"Thank you," Whitfield replied as the doctor went to get it. Daniel and Tsunade would soon see his emergency handiwork for the first time.

The little one did not escape Whitfield's notice, but when Daniel yielded to him, he still remained quiet, though his countenance wore an expression of deep respect that his young vocabulary could not adequately express.

Whitfield, sensing this bottleneck in communication, broke the couple of seconds of silence. "And, young John Masaki Watsen, congratulations on your entrance into a club that I will never, ever belong to."

"Thank you." John smiled for what must have been the first time in ages.

"Oh, yes, and regarding that storm..." Whitfield reached out with the Force to ascertain just exactly what it was up to. Partly because it was no ordinary storm, but instead a storm deliberately created by the will of Planet, his senses shot out over the entire storm system more or less instantaneously, and he realized that it was far more powerful than Daniel and Taylor were letting on. "...Yes, the storm. Its eye, nearly ninety nautical miles across, will make landfall in about twelve hours. The storm surge will be at least ten meters, if not fifteen."

Keith blinked at Whitfield in shock. He had expected the storm to be strong, but he still had little idea of what exactly Planet was capable of.

Whitfield interrupted the awkward silence. Addressing him formally as a military commander, he asked "Colonel Allaire, is the surgeshield active?"

"Yes...though I had no idea it would get this intense."

Tsunade would have even more reason to respect Keith's judgement now. Daniel would just have to resist the temptation to go outside and actually watch the thing.

Meanwhile, the whooshing sound of massive water pumps suddenly filled the background. The contraflow pumping of floodwaters back into the city's drought-emptied resiviors was begun.

OOC: Since it doesn't look like I have MSN for a while to tell you things like this, I would like to emphasize Planet's role in Whitfield's amplified senses, hint hint hint.

OOC: CoreWorlds and Godular, please check NS TGs for some extremely important information.

OOC: Bump; I'm still around! Only I have to use a different computer, that's all.

As I sat back and stretched my feelings out to the storm outside, a couple things had occurred to me. How did Whitfield know so much about the storm so quickly? Last I checked, he's a retired politician, unless he's a closet meteorologist. Of course, the Force helps, but still. And the other thing. He called John, John Masaki Watsen instead of the other way around. I wondered about that too.

I got the necessary information concerning Daniel's reactions from CoreWorlds himself over MSN, and have his permission to post that here so this will move slightly faster.

Whitfield gave a wry grin as Daniel's mind raced with questions. The latter had made no effort to shield them from Whitfield; otherwise his questions would have gone unanswered.

"Questions about what I have said, have you?" The newly minted Jedi Master needed no response, however; his colleague's face gave it all away.

"Our customs of naming people seem unfamiliar, yes?" Once again, Whitfield derived Daniel's response through the Force. As a retired politician, he should be expected to be good at this.

"Hmm? Yeah." Daniel replied. "I was just wondering about that, and of your knowledge of the storm too."

"There is some history behind that," Whitfield replied. "When I was three months old, our old capital was severely damaged by a nuclear weapon." He paused. "More recently, it was ground zero for the tectonic detonation on Earth. After the original nuking, Evil Woody Thoughts had a lot of orphaned children to place, so the system of naming children was reformed--the adoptive name was seperated from the patronymic, and placed before it. This left the decision of which name to use up to the child--and also allowed the child more control over who knew about the adoption and who didn't."

"What's that?" John asked, referring to the word patronymic, but not wanting to try to pronounce it.

Whitfield smiled. "Your patronymic is the last name of your biological father. Yours would be Watsen. Mine...I haven't used my patronymic since, oh, before any of you were born." He suddenly fell silent, as if in deep thought, before he spoke again. "Yes, John, I was orphaned and adopted too, as I was one of the displaced...my patronymic, which I have not used since high school, is Ryenne. As I have not used it since my high school graduation, the Jedi Order has no record of it. The only record that remains of my patronymic is my permanent record from primary school, which I suspect was destroyed in the war; even my birth certificate is changed now."

Keith looked quite surprised, but said nothing.

Whitfield cracked another smile at Daniel. "As for the storm, let's just say that I've known the Planetmind since my first promotion to Knight, as I set up my residency here and encountered it in my meditations. If you want to know how I was able to derive such a precise forecast, speak to the Planetmind. It listens."

"Yeah," Keith nodded, having communicated with the Planetmind once before, ironically, to request rain to break the drought. "He isn't kidding."

"Heh. I suppose I can do that." I smiled back at them. I then reached out and attempted to contact Planet. Uh, hello?

Once again, I've been on MSN talking to CoreWorlds about Daniel, in an attempt to reduce the one-liners...I hope you have fun with this one, CW.

Daniel's vague inquiry was but a prick upon the vast Planetmind. An unfamiliar prick, albeit one that stood near a more familiar presence, that of Whitfield. Even Keith, though he had only interacted with Planet once before, was more familiar to the Planetmind, for he had been born on the Planet, his abilities in the Force heavily influenced by Planet's will. For that matter, so had all six of the young military commanders present in the room...Planet was funny like that.

No immediate response was forthcoming from Planet, at least not one that Daniel could discern. But Planet was simply looking for more information...

Master Whitfield, do you know this strange presence?

Yes, it was the Awakening that drew him here...he is one of the most powerful and influential Jedi in the Order. He was the most powerful outright until the Awakening...now it's more difficult to tell.

You say he is a Jedi? Not a Sith?

That is correct...I would be willing to trust him with my life. Had the task of Darth Ebolus not fallen to me, it likely would have gone to him...

Planet remained silent, digesting the information for a few minutes, evaluating it, before determining how to proceed.

The silence from Planet made Daniel a bit nervous. Am I doing something wrong?

No response.

Great. The first time I try to talk to the Planet and it's a quiet one.

But Planet was merely deciding what to do, how to handle this new presence...

Planet did not formulate its response into words. Instead, it overwhelmed Daniel's mind with visions. His Force senses suddenly, and quite involuntarily, shot out over the entire planetary surface, and he saw not only the storm directly overhead, but twenty-five cyclones across the planetary surface, all at once, the ones in the tropics even more powerful than the one that currently raged over his head. He saw flashbacks of the drought...and then he saw what Planet should be.

Planet widened Daniel's Force senses farther, extending to other star systems. White Diamond was one system in a cluster, created by Ascendant progenitors...and now, it was acting as a nexus for twenty or so other Planetminds...minds which had not been under assault from Darth Ebolus. And suddenly, the reason why Planet had bestowed upon Whitfield so much power became clear. If the Dark Lord was powerful enough to give Daniel a run for his money after draining one planet, Daniel could only imagine how horrendous it would be had Darth Ebolus gained the ability to drain multiple Planetminds...

Upon these other jewels, Daniel saw more healthy climates, indeed, what White Diamond's climate had been like a mere two months ago, before the civil war. These were uninhabited planets; technically, Evil Woody Thoughts had sole right to claim four of them, but Evil Woody Thoughts had not acted upon this claim, its previous leadership preferring instead to settle on White Diamond. Lush forests, Daniel saw, jungles in the equatoral regions, that covered areas equivalent to the surface area of an entire hemisphere on Earth.

Now, Daniel would know to just what standard exactly the Planetmind was trying to restore its surface to.

Whoa. Now that's an answer. I almost chuckled as the headrush of Planet's images filled my mind. Not only did I see what happened to Planet and what it's trying to do to restore itself, I also saw the visions of several nearby planetary systems, all perfectly healthy.

I understand. You want to restore yourself to the health of your friends and/or neighbors. I smiled as I thought.

This time, Planet answered Daniel in words...

For a billion years have we slumbered, not caring about the affairs of Men. Our problems were not your problems; you were simply ants scurrying about the surface, and all was well, for a billion years. As long as our sentience was not tampered with, we were content to slumber. The thirty years that we have known Master Whitfield, while a lifetime for you, are but a few seconds to us...

You saw but our skin... the Planetmind paused for a second to tap Daniel's mind, to learn how he was known... Master Daniel. Yet our skin is insignificant, the last thing to heal, something that by all rights should not occur for a million years. Yet we divert our attentions at the request of one who stands before you, and it is not Master Whitfield...the one whom I speak of went through his own dark enslavement, and arrived here shortly after The Awakening. For if there is one thing that Master Whitfield has taught us, Master Daniel, it is your history, a history that dictates that when your kind starves, a demagogue, such as another Dark Lord, rises up...we can no longer ignore the affairs of Men.

This time, Planet answered Daniel in words...

For a billion years have we slumbered, not caring about the affairs of Men. Our problems were not your problems; you were simply ants scurrying about the surface, and all was well, for a billion years. As long as our sentience was not tampered with, we were content to slumber. The thirty years that we have known Master Whitfield, while a lifetime for you, are but a few seconds to us...

You saw but our skin... the Planetmind paused for a second to tap Daniel's mind, to learn how he was known... Master Daniel. Yet our skin is insignificant, the last thing to heal, something that by all rights should not occur for a million years. Yet we divert our attentions at the request of one who stands before you, and it is not Master Whitfield...the one whom I speak of went through his own dark enslavement, and arrived here shortly after The Awakening. For if there is one thing that Master Whitfield has taught us, Master Daniel, it is your history, a history that dictates that when your kind starves, a demagogue, such as another Dark Lord, rises up...we can no longer ignore the affairs of Men.
Wow. Those final words stirred something in me, a vision of Light outshining the Darkness. My smile turned into a grin. And that, my planetary friend, is what is affectionally known as the Will of the Force, that Light triumphs over Darkness. Welcome to the club, as I like to say.

Light can only triumph over Darkness when Light does not fall into complacency.

With that, Planet fell silent, leaving Daniel to contemplate its words as the storm raged outside...

By now, Dr. Deimos had arrived with Master Whitfield's personal effects, and Whitfield, having nothing better to do, let his newest creation float up in the air and hover just outside the bacta tank. He eyed his mithril lightsaber, realizing it was just a tad too utilitarian for his tastes...because he had been in a relative hurry when he forged it, it looked little more than a fourteen-inch-long cylinder with a couple of buttons sticking out.

It could, Whitfield admitted to himself, use a little decoration. "Um, Taylor, resist the temptation to have too much fun while I conduct certain business; remember what happened with the stormtroopers." Taylor would soon sense what exactly what Whitfield was talking about.

Whitfield closed his eyes and fell into deep meditation inside his bacta tank; the lightsaber remained suspended in midair just a couple of feet away. A delicate operation this was; too much heat, and he would melt some of the lightsaber's internal components, too little, and nothing would get done. Nevertheless, the hilt started to glow a dark red. Young John Masaki Watsen, having little else to do and still not wishing to chat, watched with interest. The six whom Whitfield had freed remained quiet, observing.

Over the next several hours, inscriptions engraved themselves on Whitfield's lightsaber. Quite fittingly, these inscriptions read, "THE FLAME OF THE SIERRA NEVADA," the mountain range where Whitfield had originally forged the lightsaber...and found the pinecone that stared at him from the other end of the bacta tank, finally ready for its seeds to be dispersed.. But the soil was not ready. In Basic, Japanese, and Elvish did these vertical inscriptions appear over the course of a couple of hours.

By the time the lightsaber was sufficiently cooled to be wielded (Whitfield, like when he had first forged the lightsaber, was too cautious to flash-cool it), the attention of the other Force-sensitives in the room was diverted to the storm...again. The hospital was filled with the howlings of 250-knot winds, but its walls and roof managed to hold...the massive polar cyclones that drove the Woodians to seek a home outside of Earth had also resulted in some of the most stringent building codes to be found anywhere outside of Godular. The massive two-thousand meter condominiums and office complexes of downtown swayed in the winds, but not more than about fifteen meters; they were in no danger of collapse either. The Gaians and Ascendants had called the Woodians insane for spending the money to retrofit existing buildings to such insane building codes when Planet had never before seen storms of this magnitude...now, it seemed, the Woodians were right after all, something that the all-knowing Ascendants, seeing Woodians as a young, inexperienced people, much like teenagers, would have to acknowledge.

The Ascendants likewise had thirty years ago screamed bloody murder when Woodians, settling upon this planet for the first time, had built the first levees on Planet, as flooding had never before been a problem. Until the fourteen-meter storm surge that this massive, drought-busting storm produced...and storm surges elsewhere on Planet were even higher...

The local levees themselves, at twelve meters in height, were overtopped. The wall of water hit them, then sprayed for a hundred meters in the air, then gushed over them. But, that was not to say that Great Woody City would find itself inundated in two meters of floodwater, either; this was where the surgeshields that Whitfield had earlier asked Keith about came in. A high-capacity canal lay between the levees and the surgeshields; the excess water crashed into the invisible surgeshield barrier, diverting it into the canal, where it could be pumped away...

Suddenly the winds fell quiet, but the hum of water pumps was still heard all over the city, and for that matter, all over the planet. That ninety-nautical-mile eye was now over the city itself; a trip to the rooftop to stare would yield a view of a seventy-thousand meter swirling cliff of clouds. The storm was only half over...

Whitfield, still in the bacta tank, looked down at his arms. A few patches of new skin he saw, poking up through his charred black arms; a few scabs of burnt tissue floated throughout the tank. He would be well again before the storm ended...

Light can only triumph over Darkness when Light does not fall into complacency.

With that, Planet fell silent, leaving Daniel to contemplate its words as the storm raged outside...
Those words recalled the history lessons I had as a kid, the history of the Old Jedi Order as we know it. It was nearly destroyed because teh Jedi have gotten to complacent and sure of their own abilities, allowing Palpatine to take over and slay all but a few of them by the time Luke Skywalker came to his own. While we don't have that problem due to the galaxy being a very dangerous one and combat training is standard for all Jedi (kudos to the shinobi), we too must maintain vigilance or else the same fate would befall us as well...

By now, Dr. Deimos had arrived with Master Whitfield's personal effects, and Whitfield, having nothing better to do, let his newest creation float up in the air and hover just outside the bacta tank. He eyed his mithril lightsaber, realizing it was just a tad too utilitarian for his tastes...because he had been in a relative hurry when he forged it, it looked little more than a fourteen-inch-long cylinder with a couple of buttons sticking out.

It could, Whitfield admitted to himself, use a little decoration. "Um, Taylor, resist the temptation to have too much fun while I conduct certain business; remember what happened with the stormtroopers." Taylor would soon sense what exactly what Whitfield was talking about.

Whitfield closed his eyes and fell into deep meditation inside his bacta tank; the lightsaber remained suspended in midair just a couple of feet away. A delicate operation this was; too much heat, and he would melt some of the lightsaber's internal components, too little, and nothing would get done. Nevertheless, the hilt started to glow a dark red. Young John Masaki Watsen, having little else to do and still not wishing to chat, watched with interest. The six whom Whitfield had freed remained quiet, observing.

Over the next several hours, inscriptions engraved themselves on Whitfield's lightsaber. Quite fittingly, these inscriptions read, "THE FLAME OF THE SIERRA NEVADA," the mountain range where Whitfield had originally forged the lightsaber...and found the pinecone that stared at him from the other end of the bacta tank, finally ready for its seeds to be dispersed.. But the soil was not ready. In Basic, Japanese, and Elvish did these vertical inscriptions appear over the course of a couple of hours.

By the time the lightsaber was sufficiently cooled to be wielded (Whitfield, like when he had first forged the lightsaber, was too cautious to flash-cool it), the attention of the other Force-sensitives in the room was diverted to the storm...again. The hospital was filled with the howlings of 250-knot winds, but its walls and roof managed to hold...the massive polar cyclones that drove the Woodians to seek a home outside of Earth had also resulted in some of the most stringent building codes to be found anywhere outside of Godular. The massive two-thousand meter condominiums and office complexes of downtown swayed in the winds, but not more than about fifteen meters; they were in no danger of collapse either. The Gaians and Ascendants had called the Woodians insane for spending the money to retrofit existing buildings to such insane building codes when Planet had never before seen storms of this magnitude...now, it seemed, the Woodians were right after all, something that the all-knowing Ascendants, seeing Woodians as a young, inexperienced people, much like teenagers, would have to acknowledge.
Watching the procedure, Taylor couldn't help but admire Master Whitfield's command of the flames, on par (reluctactly admitted) with his own Master. Taylor could learn a few more tricks from the ex-Prime Minister after all.

The Ascendants likewise had thirty years ago screamed bloody murder when Woodians, settling upon this planet for the first time, had built the first levees on Planet, as flooding had never before been a problem. Until the fourteen-meter storm surge that this massive, drought-busting storm produced...and storm surges elsewhere on Planet were even higher...

The local levees themselves, at twelve meters in height, were overtopped. The wall of water hit them, then sprayed for a hundred meters in the air, then gushed over them. But, that was not to say that Great Woody City would find itself inundated in two meters of floodwater, either; this was where the surgeshields that Whitfield had earlier asked Keith about came in. A high-capacity canal lay between the levees and the surgeshields; the excess water crashed into the invisible surgeshield barrier, diverting it into the canal, where it could be pumped away...

Suddenly the winds fell quiet, but the hum of water pumps was still heard all over the city, and for that matter, all over the planet. That ninety-nautical-mile eye was now over the city itself; a trip to the rooftop to stare would yield a view of a seventy-thousand meter swirling cliff of clouds. The storm was only half over...

Whitfield, still in the bacta tank, looked down at his arms. A few patches of new skin he saw, poking up through his charred black arms; a few scabs of burnt tissue floated throughout the tank. He would be well again before the storm ended...
Ahh. The eye passes over us. I smiled as I 'saw' the eye. Man, it's a big storm. Bigger than the hurricanes back home...

For about two hours there was peace over the hospital, before the winds and the walls of rain and hail commenced yet again. There was nothing to be done, other than wait the storm out. And even if there was something to be done, it wasn't like Master Whitfield would get out of that bacta tank too far before storm's end. Therefore, he contemplated what to do next; as a former politician of this country, one of very few, if not the only one, the Dark Lord had failed to purge, he knew that the war wasn't quite over yet, and much of the postwar responsibility would fall to him, retired or not. He had retired specifically so his Force powers would not entangle themselves with political power, but now that seemed all but unavoidable, at least temporarily.

So wait they did, waiting for the storm to end, waiting for Whitfield to heal, having little better to do than watch more dead tissue scabs fall off Whitfield's regenerating arms and float around the bacta tank. A grotesque scene, to be sure, one that John Watsen probably shouldn't have been watching, but he had seen it all already, and the dead tissue needed to be shed somehow.

Major Chris Mrozik, one of those whom Master Whitfield had freed from the Dark Lord during the course of the Earth campaign, one who would soon begin his own Jedi training after his obligations here were discharged, jumped when a loud thud was heard against the hospital's wall...it turned out to be a particularly large speeder. But the hospital wasn't going anywhere...

After about another sixteen hours, the storm finally ended right as Whitfield was ready to leave his bacta tank. Master Whitfield was most pleased to see his bacta fluid, complete with chunks of dead, electrocuted tissue floating around in it, drained, never to be seen again. Doctors brought him to a regular hospital bed, where he ate the first real food he had had in weeks (no, ration bars eaten during the Earth campaign didn't count). A couple of hours later, he was ready to be discharged from the hospital.

Before leaving, he investigated the storm's effects with the Force. Outside of the city, where the brushfires had burned, he 'saw' that the soil, rendered dry and infertile by the drought, now was a rich, muddy, black silt, with several creeks and brooks running through the vast, darkened plain. Surprisingly, there was little standing water; that rain which fell inside the city had been pumped out; that rain which fell outside of the city had been absorbed by the parched earth.

All of it. All seventy-four inches that the storm had dropped...at least according to the official readings. The ground had been that dry before...and this was only the first installment. Whitfield inquired of the Planetmind whether or not future installments of rain were forthcoming; the reply came that the drought, despite appearances, was still not broken, for the soil was still not fully restored...

Keith informed Tsunade that with this storm over, it would be possible to complete her patient transfers within twelve hours, and wasted no time communicating those orders to the rest of the military. For that matter, all of Keith's colleagues proceeded to make arrangements for continuing the door-to-door search for bodies, and Keith would be able to participate this time. But Daniel Masaki, who had commanded the Coredian units in the original search that had been put on hold due to weather, would have other concerns.

Master Whitfield, now fully healed of his injuries, turned to Master Daniel and said, "I believe your presence will be required, unless Master Tsunade wishes to exchange medical treatment of the Dark Lord's former slaves for diplomacy. We have to figure out who you're going to be negotiating reconstruction details with, because it won't be me. Taylor will want to come too...follow me."

"All right." I nodded. Glad to relieve ourselves of boredom, Taylor and I followed Whitfield to whereever he needed us.

"All right." I nodded. Glad to relieve ourselves of boredom, Taylor and I followed Whitfield to whereever he needed us.

Whitfield, upon discharge from the hospital, led the Masaki trio to the old Parliament building, knowing full well what they would find there. Moreover, Whitfield knew, for better or for worse, that what five-year old John would see there was not particularly worse than what his young eyes had seen in the Dark Lord's gulags... Meanwhile, Lt. Col. Allaire began the execution of patient transfer orders from orbital sickbay to hospital, for he knew that the weather-related delays in patient delivery had tested Master Tsunade's patience. Tsunade would have all of her known patients in the hospital within the next six hours; of this Keith was sure. The five other Force-sensitive military commanders directly under him resumed coordination of their search operation; Keith would join them as soon as Master Tsunade had all of her patients, patients who were comatose because they had had their brains purged of the ability to do anything but the basest of autonomic functions, such as regulation of breathing and heartbeat. For such was all that was left after their mindlink with the Dark Lord was severed...

Meanwhile, Master Whitfield arrived at the locked front doors of the Parliament building; by now, he had attracted somewhat of a crowd simply by virtue of his presence; the presence of Taylor Masaki, known from the Earth campaign, added a little to this effect. However, while there was a news cameraman or two to be found in the crowd, as could be expected when a former Prime Minister who disappeared for a month, only to come within a minute or so of death upon his return, shows up. The building, still with its hole in the roof, a hole from when the Dark Lord had brought the ceiling down on Whitfield's head in their first duel, was locked, as Darth Ebolus hadn't wanted the populace to get certain uppity ideas. But now the time for such uppity ideas was come.

Master Whitfield reached out with the Force, using his senses to read the configuration of the heavy locks that bound the doors shut, essentially a combination of deadbolts that massed a few hundred kilos each. However, mass was no concern for a Jedi Master; after about thirty seconds of concentration and thought of how the lock could best be picked, the party heard several loud clicking noises in the seconds immediately before the door creaked open.

Master Whitfield entered the rotunda, where he saw security guards with blasters burned in their chests. Yes, he had known exactly what he would find here, for he was here when the Dark Lord had dissolved the Parliament. He, unfortunately, had failed to prevent it, and now, the lives of untold hundreds of millions were lost, because he lost the first duel.

Flashbacks pierced his mind.

My back tingled, but all I could do for the time being was wait. Finally the inevitable came. "And now," the voice of Mike Frazier echoed through the chamber, "we shall consider Appropriations Supplement Number 48, a measure to fund the Ministry of Defence for Fiscal Year 2078."

Like clockwork, the sound of blaster fire could be heard from just outside the chamber. I fingered my lightsaber. Seconds later, the Sith Lord that had for two months plagued his thoughts entered the room, followed closely by four columns of stormtroopers. A hush fell over the Parliament session.

Wait, those aren't stormtroopers, they're clonetroopers.

In front of him lay the bodies of those who were killed by this blaster fire...

The Sith Lord ascended the Prime Minister's podium, and filled the chamber with an evil, crackling voice that I should have recognized, but didn't. "Regrettably, the Parliament meets today to consider a bill that would weaken national security and deliver us right up to our enemies. I am here today to ensure that does not happen."

Immediately, shouts of protest filled the building, for the MPs saw this event as nothing more than a military coup, which was, in my eyes, exactly what it was. If ever there was any doubt, bolts of dark blue cracks in the Force issued from the Dark Lord's fingers.

I stood up on the balcony and sent his original lightsaber forth from my hand. It flew towards the podium, waiting until the last minute to do anything else, until Whitfield, through the Force, remotely depressed the activation button.

A purple-white blade flashed before the Dark Lord, intercepting the deadly stream of Force Lightning before it could do serious, permanant injury. Whitfield leapt down from the balcony, fingering his newly made spare lightsaber, keeping the original one activated and suspended in midair. As he drew closer, he recognized the face of the dark figure...

Bielski. Memories flashed through my mind...the young sergeant, who, at the time he discovered his abilities, was afraid he would be corrupted by them. He would be but an obscure figure had he not been the first citizen of Evil Woody Thoughts to set foot on this planet. But now...none of that mattered. Admiral Bielski was now his own worst fear from thirty years ago.

I said as such. "Admiral Bielski, how ironic it is that you have become your very own worst fear. You refused Force training because you were afraid that you would be corrupted by it. You have become your own worst fear."

"That name no longer has any meaning to me. I am now called Darth Ebolus." Ebolus snapped his fingers, and the doors leading into the Parliament chamber locked themselves, then ignited his lightsaber.

I couldn't help but wonder what the clonetroopers were waiting for as he continued to approach the Prime Minister's podium. As I approached, Darth Ebolus demanded that the Prime Minister yield his position on the podium.

Prime Minister Frazier made a point of speaking directly into the microphone. "Today is not the day that this great nation yields itself to tyranny." Thunderous applause greeted this last statement, but Frazier found his throat constricting, and the microphone amplified the sickening choking sounds so that the entire chamber could hear them.

By now, I had ascended the steps to the raised platform that housed the Prime Minister's podium. "You will release him. Immediately."

Ebolus let out an scornful, contemptful laugh. "You have no power over me."

I deactivated the purple lightsaber blade that I had kept between Ebolus and the Members of Parliament and returned it to my hand. Ebolus threw Frazier aside and slashed at me with his cyan blade.

I jumped over the slash, and landed behind Darth Ebolus, and as Ebolus turned around to strike again, I reignited my own lightsaber. Ebolus' lightsaber bore down upon me, but I quickly intercepted the chop. Ebolus attempted to force it through sheer strength, but the cackling lightsabers did not budge...

"Surely you must know by now that you have already failed to protect those weaklings you hold so dear." Ebolus snickered as his head turned towards the unconscious Prime Minister.

I stepped back and pulled my lightsaber out from underneath from Darth Ebolus' blade, which cut through thin air before reaching the floor.

I made a quick thrust, but found that Ebolus' lightsaber could rise just as quickly as it had fallen. I staggered back as the uppercut managed to knock my lightsaber out of my hand.

As Lord Ebolus raised his lightsaber again to slice me neatly in half, I called my second lightsaber from utility belt to right hand, and more sparks flew as Ebolus' cyan blade collided with my new amethyst blade.

Darth Ebolus responded by hacking and slashing at my lightsaber, attempting to use his greater size, reach, and physical strength to overwhelm my defences. I parried and counterthrusted until, to the gasp of the Members of Parliament in attendance, I was finally overwhelmed and knocked down.

Ebolus let out an evil cackle as he raised his lightsaber to impale me right there. But his split-second of overconfidence and hubris was all that I needed. Ebolus flew backwards into the wooden podium, which collapsed under his weight. His lightsaber clattered to the ground, and rolled off the raised platform.

As I got up, Ebolus let loose with a terrifying jolt of Force energy, most of which I caught on my blade. However, a draining shock managed to reach my shoulder, and I found himself momentarily distracted by the pain...

I willed it away and charged Darth Ebolus, who responded by sending me flying into a wall at such force that Whitfield felt a couple of vertabrae fracture. As Ebolus got up, he hobbled to the microphone, obviously injured by crashing into the podium. He found the microphone on the floor. "Commander Number 580923, open fire on Whitfield!"

The clonetroopers present responded by firing their blasters at me; I had just gotten up. While I artfully deflected the blaster bolts back to the clonetroopers, it bought Ebolus the distraction he needed...

Above my head, cracks appeared in the vaulted ceiling. I looked up, still using the Force to guide my lightsaber, but it was too late...

Master Whitfield swallowed uneasily, knowing what he would find in the Parliament chamber itself---the bodies of Prime Minister Frazier and of every Member of Parliament, most of whom he had known personally, a few of whom he had worked with when he had been the Prime Minister. He stopped before entering the Parliament chamber, and faced the crowd.

He said nothing. He knew from their collective feelings of the shortage of wood as of late. Therefore, the seventy-eight year old Jedi entered the hallway leading to the Parliament chamber itself, not saying a word. He stopped again before the hallway's mahagony walls.

And he used the Force to tear them out, and as there was not enough to manufacture coffins for all of the dead bodies in the building, he started crafting pyres instead, before even entering the Parliament chamber.

Fully cognizant of the shortage of actual coffins, Whitfield finally spoke. He knew at the very least that the Dark Lord had killed off the Parliament in its entirety; he used the Force to sense how many support staff had died here. "We need two hundred and sixty-four urns, one for Prime Minister Michael Frazier, one hundred for the Members of the Forty-first Parliament, one hundred and sixty-three for media and Parliamentary support staff who happened to be present." He turned to Daniel before adding, "Including three members of the Coredian press corps."

Whitfield finally entered the Parliament chamber shortly a few minutes later; sunlight still shone through the hole in the ceiling the Dark Lord had created, the Prime Minister's podium was still splintered and broken from when the Dark Lord had crashed into it, the bodies were still there, as was the debris from the ceiling collapse. He said nothing as he started the process of transferring the bodies of the Members of Parliament to their pyres, identifying each body out loud. When all lay on their pyres, he would identify, in writing, each and every one.

All knew that the members of the Forty-first Parliament of Evil Woody Thoughts, as well as their support staff, would lie in honor in the Parliament rotunda for a period of time before their cremation...that was why Master Whitfield had requested the urns. This was common knowledge to everyone present, left unsaid, but felt by all in the air itself.

During all this time, young John Masaki Watsen said not a word.

Nodding solemnly upon notice that the three Coredian newsworkers are indeed dead, I moved to their bodies to legally confirm it so. I then took a long look at the other members of Parliment, remembering how they were killed by the Sith Lord and gave them a silent prayer to their souls. The Force be with you...

After that, Taylor motioned to me and we went away from the bodies to talk.

"You know, that reminds me. When we begin negotiations, you have got to get the military to accept a few neat toys I was privy to use." Taylor said.

"Oh, really?" I raised an eyebrow, siginifying my interest. I've heard of the Immortal Star Destroyers through the survivors of the battle, but when Taylor tells me that the military would love the stuff he's used on the ground...

"Yeah." And then Taylor began to tell me about the 'Mechs he used during the Earth campaign...

OOC: Continue thread here (http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showthread.php?t=479296) Now cometh the sequel...the reconstruction.