dust

Warsloth · Posted: Wed Jun 14, 2006 8:14 am Post subject: dust

If you don’t know Whar by now, you could probably find out all you want to know by asking a resident of Nocturnus. Whar is one of the few remaining ties to the nearly defunct Midnight Coalition, and a former member of The Nuclear Deuterium Industries. He is listed by Imperials as a high profile target, but has managed to constantly elude them. His life on the run has meant long stretches of time away from the place he considers home. More recently, he was specifically targeted. They tried to kill him using a living copy of his late wife, but he managed to avoid the bait.

The copy had disappeared, and things seemed to have quieted down, so Whar decided to visit his home.

Whar traveled to Lok on a public transport, and shuttled to Nocturnus.
He walked into the town wearing a worn habit and his usual turban.
A lot of things had changed since he had left. The view from the stoop of his hotel was completely different, but the hotel itself had not changed. A droid kept up some of the maintenance inside. Outside, the steps had almost become buried in the drifting sands.

Whar retrieved some armor from a locker in his hidden office and made his way to the abandoned Midco hangar. Several ships were still moored there, and after swapping some parts and firing up the reactor, one of his fighters was ready to go…
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Warsloth · Posted: Thu Jun 22, 2006 6:34 pm Post subject:

"Normal life... that's funny," Whar thought to himself.

He stood in the back of a room where people were discussing "replicants" and a funeral of some sort. A little digging, and Whar found that it was intended to be a funeral for Isleh, but there had been some mistaken identity, a cloning, and any number of other odd occurances. Whar walked away from the gathering with a small bearings on where things have gone without him.

Imperials mingled through the crowd. And there was tension, just not the tension Whar would have expected. The Imperial garrison would surely make things difficult for him.

A day or so later Whar found Isleh had returned to the temple. So he walked up to her and began to question her on her loyalties. Whar got the reaction he wanted, and she was getting hostile. He decided it would be a good time to reveal his identity.

Isleh was able to laugh off his trivial introduction, and then they started to catch up on what had been happening. Then she brought it up...

Xyryn joined the conversation as they began to discuss Chianna, who Whar regarded as something else. The Chianna they knew was just a facsimile of the one he had loved.

He told them he had checked Imperial records on her situation, and that the last information stated she was being detained on Talus. Isleh's reaction was very unpleasing to Whar. She actually wanted to rescue "It". Whar assured Isleh that he would give her all the information he could, but not to expect him to make any personal effort to liberate the abomination they called Chianna...
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Isleh · Posted: Fri Jun 23, 2006 1:52 am Post subject:

Isleh could understand Whar's reaction. What he saw was an abomination of something he loved. But she had spoken to it.

It had memories of what it once was and based on those memories, it had showed compassion and abandoned it task.

Upon Isleh's request.

For that, the Chianna that wasn't, deserved something more. Whar would probably never see it that way, but Isleh did.

Sai'nu · Posted: Fri Jun 23, 2006 4:10 pm Post subject:

Their talk had been a little long but to the point. Whar was looking into the Replicants and most likely as a freelancer Batak suspected. He'd been edgy at first feeling a steady heat scanning over him. He'd raised his pistol to not so politely ask him to cease what he was doing.

In Whar's own tent behind him stood Rhian and Jordyn whom Batak had ordered to wait in ambush if Shensen should pass back this way. Cryil was off to the side examining the R.I.S. wearing rodian.

"You shot me once," had been the signal. It was Whar.

As the conversation ended he came back to one thing. Something these Replicants were making Batak feel more strongly about. He agreed with Whar that they were an abomination that had to be destroyed. If certain tightly gaurded histories were anything to go by he felt it to be true.

Which is why he puzzled. Mention of Chianna and his Isleh wanting to help save her? He wasn't sure if when the moment came he could keep himself from ending the clone's life. She could be one of... Them!
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I don't know half of you half as well as I should like; and I like less than half of you half as well as you deserve. ---Bilbo Baggins.

Warsloth · Posted: Tue Jul 04, 2006 2:30 am Post subject:

Whar relayed all the information he had collected on Chianna to Isleh. He wasn't particularly enthusiastic about Isleh's determination to free Chianna, but assumed the best way to deal with it was to help.

Whar didn't like when someone didn't follow his advice. Sometimes when he was sure someone was going to screw up, he felt it best to at least help them screw up. But, he knew Isleh, and knew her capabilities. If anyone was up to this task, it was her.

The detention facility was not unfamiliar to Whar. He had attacked it a couple times with the alliance while he lived on Talus. The information he collected indicated that not much had changed there, and the garisson should be light enough for skilled operatives to tackle. He was worried a little by the large base that could send in support troops in a matter of minutes.

A bomber was still among Whar's handful of ships. He thought it best to have a look at it, and get it stocked with ordnance.

There were other matters on his mind all the time. The replicant ordeal had kept everyone busy in the past weeks. But it wasn't the replicants that really concerned him. He had seen a lot of stress on the members of temple that he had encountered. They had been targetted at least twice, and they were tearing themselves apart.

Whar wasn't a born military leader, but he was a quick learner. If someone were going to do something to the communities on Lok, this mess had surely distracted them. And as always, Whar's eye was on the Inquisitor, and the empire. Their willingness to assist with the ordeal was noble, but certainly questionable.

"Since when does the empire concern itself with a bunch of pirates, and pilgrims?" he had pondered.

(I lost MS word, so sorry if there are typos... Rinna)
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Warsloth · Posted: Fri Jul 07, 2006 2:08 am Post subject:

Whar and Rinna had discussed checking cloning centers for evidence of replicant activity. Whar seriously believed that there would be some kind of discrepancy in the maintenance records, or some strange occurances in the computer logs. His droid uncovered nothing after scanning the Nocturnus cloning center.

News from the first clone war indicated that Nym had been a very important target, and that his cloning center was also used. Whar figured that it would be best to assume history might be repeating itself, and traveled to Nym's stronghold.

He looked around as his R2 droid linked into the computer system, and then decided to search around the bacta tanks. He really hadn't considered the chance of finding physical evidence, but when he spotted a small wafer at the base of an empty tank, all that changed.

He carefully picked up the wafer and began to walk it back to the droid when a loud noise came from the cloning chamber. The cloning process had engaged, and a body appeared in the churning bacta. The cloning completed and the figure quickly made for the exit before Whar could even catch a glimpse of him.

Whar had the droid finish it's scans, then examine the wafer. The droid's limited capacity determined that the wafer contained nano-probes.

When Whar saw this, he knew that it was the source of the replicants. What he didn't know was the source of the wafer, and who had placed it.

He rushed back to Nocturnus to inform Rinna, but only found some of the temple members gathering before Schola. He told Batak what he had found and asked that he pass the info along to Rinna, while he worked at examining the wafer further.

After that he dissapeared into the Lokian sands, knowing the wafer must not leave his care...
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Warsloth · Posted: Fri Jul 14, 2006 3:12 am Post subject:

The Ryll den was a great place to meet interesting new people. But the Kreetles also draw in several repeat followers.
When Whar would wander in under cover, he spent a lot of time studying the Inquisitor's habits. This time he disregarded his paranoia and left his cover behind.
Whar came as himself, and the Inquisitor's guards payed him little notice.

Then came Schola night, the same week, and Whar again went without cover. This time however, he had brought a bodyguard.
Onissosk gladly accepted the job and the danger that came with it. Whar felt pretty confident that Oniss would be a good deterent to those who wished to do him harm.

The Schola, as usual, was a debate over one question; "Is Jabe a Replicant."
Whar used what evidence he could conjure to convince everyone that he was in fact a replicant. Yet no one believed him and the priestess Xyryn. So Whar used an opportunity while everyone was arguing, to slip away. He noted earlier that Nyvveck was whispering to one of his cohorts, and assumed that he had finally taken notice of him.

Over all, any danger seemed to have been avoided. There was still an odd tension lingering in the air around Whar. Something was afoot, whether he knew it or not...
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Warsloth · Posted: Sat Jul 15, 2006 10:03 pm Post subject:

Whar was charging hard on even the slightest whims of the Priestess, Xyryn. Often, he acted without a second thought to his other problems and responsibilities.

The After Midnight Hotel was not even breaking even, and the alliance's hopes for him were fading. He had become a ghost. He materialized when there were problems, or he had answers, and then dissapeared again into the dust...

It was daytime in Nocturnus, and Whar emerged from the floating sand. At the moment the town seemed vacant, but somewhere storm troopers were trying to enforce the new decree of martial law.

Whar tapped the end of his sword on the tip of his boot, as sand crackled against the brim of his helmet. He looked out across the deserted street and thought about what his next move would be. He had so many loose ends to lock down and time was slipping away. Time was illustrated by streams of sand that swirled and drifted away from him, and a strange feeling drifted up his spine.

Something had been different in Nocturnus the last couple days. It was not the clamor over replicants, and it was not hostages. Something had changed, and Whar sensed it.

He tightened his grip on his sword and sheathed it, there was more work to be done...
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Warsloth · Posted: Thu Jul 20, 2006 1:14 am Post subject:

Xyryn and Shensen seemed to think that Rinna could have been turned into a replicant. After they voiced this, and their reasoning to Whar, he came up with a quick plan to test her.

Whar talked them into meeting at the After Midnight Hotel. Unexpectedly Inquisitor Orlad was waiting there, sipping on a Ruby Bliel. Whar tried to ignore him, and usher everyone downstairs to a special room.

As it would turn out, Rinna doesn't like being held captive on a whim. This became brutally apparent to Whar as he tried to explain himself to her. His plan had been to lure her to a hidden holding cell, then run his scan on her while he asked questions. It was backfiring and Whar had some serious damage control to do...

After trying everything he could to calm her down, her anger and frustration continued to build. So Whar looked to Xyryn to explain and calm Rinna.

Shensen had stepped out of the room for an unforseen reason. Meanwhile, Whar quickly forgot he had left given the ordeal he was facing. Rinna was raging like a red-headed rancor, and Xyryn wasn't much help.

Whar again appologized, and disengaged the field of the cell. Shortly thereafter, Whar heard a message that seemed to come across his helmet comm:

"I NEED F*CKING REINFORCEMENTS TO THE NOCTURNOUS CITY HALL STAT! ALL AVAILABLE PERSONELL REPORT TO THE F*CKING CENTER ON THE DOUBLE!!!"

The voice sounded like Cryil, and Whar thought he heard gunshots in the background. It surprised him, and threw him into high gear.

"Rinna, there's no time to worry about this, I just got a message from Cryil. We have to get to the city center right now!"

Whar pulled a blaster out of the back of his belt and tossed it to Rinna. For a split second he thought this might help to reconcile some of the angst he had just bred in her. Such a blatent gesture of trust had to account for something, he thought.

As they rushed out the door and into the hallway, Whar noticed Shensen was talking with Orlad.

Making his way by them Whar said, "You guys all relax here. We have something to take care of!"

After that Shensen and Xyryn followed, but Orlad wasn't to be seen again.

The lack of any activity near the city center was odd enough, but the message was even more out of place. Whar and the rest were baffled when they arrived to an empty street, and vacant city hall.

The other occurances took precidence, but Whar's thoughts lingered on the message...

Later Whar had a chance to check his helmet, and his communications systems. Nothing was out of the ordinary, and no message had been recorded, or even logged.

Whar opened a bottle of brandy and sat in his office thinking about the weight on his shoulders. Too much was happening, and too many people needed him not to fail.
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Warsloth · Posted: Wed Jul 26, 2006 9:27 pm Post subject:

A lone storm trooper had stopped briefly along a street in Nocturnus. He watched for passers by as he collected himself and rested. He saw no one on the vacant street, and relaxed his stance.
He thought about checking by the cantina after his shift to have a drink, and wondered what the local girls were like.
His thoughts were interrupted as a sand storm whipped the dust into the air around him.
The roar of the wind, and the blinding cloud of sand was almost mesmerizing. The young trooper went back to his thoughts of recreation, but was abruptly torn from them by loud noise.
*THWACK!*
The trooper felt a horrid sting in his abdomen, and looked down. A blade had practically pinned him to the building he was in front of. He looked around but could barely see at arms length in the storm. He began to utter a panicked shout, "HELP, OH.... For the love of..."
A hand emerged from the dust, and gripped the sword. A figure became visible at its end. The blade was torn from his bowels, and he fell to his knees.
The trooper looked up, "What are you doing? I am dieing!"
The brown figure wore an RIS helmet, and paced from one side to the other before raising the blade in the air with a flourished spin.
The brown clad soldier pointed at the ground and said, "That uniform pronounced your fate, the moment you put it on."
The trooper raised a shaking hand, "Wai--"
*CRACK!*
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DR886 · Posted: Wed Jul 26, 2006 9:47 pm Post subject:

DR886 had come to be known only as Chianna now. She was reluctant at first to accept the name now that her purpose for it had been discarded.

She had been hiding away under the care of different members of temple, hiding from Whar, or anyone else that may seek to harm her. One thing she now knew is that she could not hide from the empire.

Xyryn had become a great aid to her survival, and seemed very interested in keeping her alive and safe.

It was such a pity she thought, to betray her so constantly. It was not right for her to treat her benefactor in such a way, but it seemed unavoidable. She had her reasons, but did they outweigh the feeling of remorse?

DR886 wondered how she was going to be free of her current concerns, and thought about the conditions of her release...

Would it be safe to just be honest about everything to Xyryn and the others?
Or would it just plunge them into the same servitude she now faced?

Many questions had arose, and she lacked the understanding to adress them fully. Memories tried to flood her conscience, but she focused on something else. If at all possible, the memories she had hoped to force away.
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Warsloth · Posted: Sun Jul 30, 2006 6:54 pm Post subject:

Whar somehow managed to capture the inquisitor. He had the aid of his new friend Ferian.

The Inquisitor maintained a constant sarcastic attitute, even when Whar had cut him, burned him, and threatened to destroy the only thing he cared about.

Going into this, Whar knew that he would not easily volunteer information. He also felt it was pointless to question him and waste the time torturing him, when he already knew most of what he wanted.

Even though he tried several different techniques, Whar failed to get any reaction from him. Whar didnt want to waste the time skinning him, or physically torturing him. So he decided to take away his favorite possession, his ancient sith blade...

"I am going to destroy this, the only thing you care about in this universe, if you don't answer me," Whar taunted.

Nyvveck scoffed, "You don't think I would betray the emperor for a blade do you?"

"Oh well, I am going to destroy it either way."

Whar glanced at his gauntlet and the data-display, then announced that he would return to take care of the blade. Then he left...

Upon his return, Whar walked to the corner where he had placed Nyvveck's sword outside the cell. But the sword was gone.

He yelled at Nyvveck, who gave him another smart remark, then proceeded toward his office. When he got to his desk he checked the surveilance files for what had just happened. Sure enough someone had come to the inquisitor's aid after Whar had stepped out. It was not a trooper like Whar had expected, but a familiar purple rodian...

Whar was angry. To say that he is angry really doesn't do it justice, because he wrecked several expensive things in his office before going back down to Nyvveck.

Nyvveck mocked him as he deactivated the holding field. Whar didnt say a word, he simply raised his rifle and opened fire. He managed to dissapear before Whar could finish him off, but he was not at the top of Whar's concerns.

For DR886 things would not be so easy...
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DR886 · Posted: Sun Jul 30, 2006 7:19 pm Post subject:

She couldn't understand why the Inquisitor hadn't left when she came, but followed his orders anyway...

She found him after watching Whar make his way from the shuttleport to the hotel, then waited for him to leave. After reading on the holonet that he had gone missing, She could only suspect that Whar was to blame.

She opened the force-field for Nyvveck, but he instructed her to move his sword inside the cell, and leave him there. Apparently he expected someone else to come to his aid.

Chi'anna did as he said and left him there. She got herself out and went back to hiding right away.

When she finally emerged from Xyryn's basement a couple days later, she found a small crowd gathered outside the cantina.

Isleh, who was among them was shocked to see her. Batak acted with indifference, and Xyryn simply stated that Chianna had been there in Nocturnus for a while. As a storm moved in, they took the conversation inside the post office.

After a short discussion about replicants, they began discussing Chianna's presence. Before they could get anything decided Vanz and a dark looking Zabrak interrupted. Chianna couldn't find a way to leave without everyone deciding to escort her to Xyryn's house.

Before the crowd wandered away, Whar arrived and spoke with Batak. Batak and Whar have developed a trust in eachother that is uncommon in such dissimilar people. Batak told Whar exactly what he needed to know.
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Believe what you hear, or believe what you have seen someone else see?

DR886 · Posted: Tue Aug 01, 2006 1:14 am Post subject:

Casualty of Whar

DR886 stuffed a few more items in her small pack, and looked at her new helmet, lying on the futon. The helmet was a used older model, but it was new to her.

She closed the bag, sat on the futon, and looked at the door.

"I have to get away from this. I can't put Xyryn through this, and she doesn't deserve it. If Nyvveck wont help me, I will sleep outside his bunker until he gets sick of me," She said to herself.

She looked at the cieling as an explosion and crash jolted her senses. She heard heavy footsteps above, and reached for her helmet. She heard another crash, and the steps echoed to the stairway. Her heart jumped into her throat, and raced. Her hands clawed for her second hand carbine to no avail. The locking mechanism on the door glowed, then gave as the door buckled and slid open.

Whar stepped through a small cloud of smoke, she recognized his armor.

As she sat shaking on the futon, she could barely raise her hands to gesture her surrender. She tried anyway.

Whar raised his flame thrower, it made a shallow whistling sound. He pointed it at her for a second before speaking, "You are not life, but I am now your death."

Plasma and flame poured into the room. Whar thoroughly filled the room, so much that the fire sucked air down the hallway behind him. Chi'anna could not see anything through the blinding waves of fire. She only felt the intense heat surging through her armor.

Whar released the trigger, and waded out of the thick black smoke into the sunlight of Lok.

Meanwhile Chi'anna rolled back and forth on the floor. The fuel the weapon had left on her still burned, but her armor had protected her from most of the damage. The armor was now becoming a problem though, as it began to break down. She felt it starting to give and melt, and the plasma started to eat through it.

She clawed through the section of armor around her waist, and flung a comm onto the floor. Then she started to free herself from the smoldering pieces, that had started to cling to her. The seconds became precious as she tore, and clawed. And several times she considered just giving in to the searing pain. She pulled of the helmet, but still couldn't see. Her entire body seemed to be boiling. She clawed in the smoky darkness for the communicator.

When she found it she was only able to get out the word "help" before falling unconscious, and the communicater succumbed to the damage it had recieved.

Darkness and pain were the last things she remembered.
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Believe what you hear, or believe what you have seen someone else see?

xyryn · Posted: Tue Aug 01, 2006 2:32 am Post subject:

The Kiva was watching Isleh for signs that she was "hearing" what Orlad was silently saying when her comm started vibrating. She quickly snatched it off her belt, thumbing it to receive and heard the painfilled "...HELP...". Chi'anna's voice! And the sound of fire?

Orlad's head snapped around to look at the commlink. Isleh was slower to react, but she went for her helmet. "We have to go, Chi'anna's in trouble!"

The three raced for the door of the lift, and then to the outside. Orlad screamed as he plunged into full daylight and fell to the ground. He quickly tried to crawl back to the doorway and Xyryn ran to him.

Isleh cast a quick glance at Orlad. "You take care of him, I'll go to Chi'anna! Where is she?"

Without thinking, Xyryn answered, "At my house." As Isley mounted her bike, the Kiva knelt beside the extremely sunburned Orlad and pulled a bacta tube out of her kit. She bit off the end and started to spread the gooey stuff on Orlad's exposed and blistering skin. "At my house," ran through her mind and she suddenly realized that Isleh might think she meant the Sanctuary.

"I have to go, Orlad! Keep putting this on."

Orlad grabbed the tube. "Go!"

Xyryn dashed outside again, jumped on her bike and kicked it into high speed. Almost laying the bike over on it's side, she headed home. As she passed the Temple's street, she glanced up it, saw Isleh, and kept going.

Arriving at "Our House, in the Middle of Our Street", she dove off her bike before it completed slowing down and, only taking the time to unsling her carbine, ran through the smoking ruin that had been her front door.
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