“…the underworld is never travelled alone.”
― Pollux Hax
Manuk strode the autowalk, the fact her heavy boots made no sound on the pavement was not testimony to her link to the Force but instead – of all things – her ballet training as a youth.
Speeders, swoops, and aircars roared above her in un-ending streams, the motorised circulatory system of the planet’s heart. Skyrises, bridges, lifts, and plazas covered the entire surface of Coruscant to a height of kilometres, all of it the trappings of a wealthy, decadent civilisation, a sheath that sought to hide the rot in a cocoon of duracrete and transparisteel.
But Manuk grew up here and easily smelled the decay under the veneer, and for some time had considered an act to show the galaxy the price of weakness, of complacency. She’d chosen not to participate in the train station incident. It was, for her, a menial act of thuggery. She wanted a far grander gesture of the Sith’s return to power.
She wanted it to all burn.
She would lay waste to Coruscant.
Memories floated up from the depths of he mind. She recalled a pilgrimage to Korriban, remembered the profound sense of holiness she had felt as she walked in isolation through its rocky deserts, through the dusty canyons lined with the tombs of her ancient Sith forebears. She had felt the Force everywhere, had exulted in it, and in her isolation she knew that only a truly grand gesture would be appropriate for the Sith to stamp their claim to retake control of the galaxy. The time for hiding was over – the acts of others had seen to that. But instead of mindless violence, Manuk had been planning. How to lay waste to an entire city – and one that covered a single planet.
To that end, she’d been seeking out and killing scientists and engineers. Their deaths were necessary as once she’d gained the necessary knowledge from them they had to be silenced.
Her last three murders were here, in the underworld and she was en route to her next victim. Not a scientist or an engineer, but a black-market trader. The amount of explosives she’d need wouldn’t come cheap – but credits were not an issue. But sourcing them was.
So, she strode to the cantina she’d identified as his local drinking-hole, her black cape drawn tight around her leather bodysuit, so as to ensure nobody saw her saber. For once she wore her hood up, her blonde hair too much of a beacon down here – and today she wanted to be as inconspicuous as possible.
Crowds thronged the plaza in which she now walked, laughing, scowling, chatting. A human child, a young girl, caught Manuk’s eye when she squealed with delight and ran to the waiting arms of a dark-haired woman, presumably her mother. The girl must have felt her gaze. She looked at the Sith from over her mother’s shoulder, her small face pinched in a question – why have that woman’s eyes turned yellow? Manuk stared at the girl as she walked and the child looked away, burying her face in her mother’s neck.
Other than the girl, no one else marked Manuk’s passage. The sheer number of beings on Coruscant granted her anonymity. She walked among her potential prey, cowled, unnoticed, unknown, but steadfast in her purpose.
@ModernMarvel
― Pollux Hax
Manuk strode the autowalk, the fact her heavy boots made no sound on the pavement was not testimony to her link to the Force but instead – of all things – her ballet training as a youth.
Speeders, swoops, and aircars roared above her in un-ending streams, the motorised circulatory system of the planet’s heart. Skyrises, bridges, lifts, and plazas covered the entire surface of Coruscant to a height of kilometres, all of it the trappings of a wealthy, decadent civilisation, a sheath that sought to hide the rot in a cocoon of duracrete and transparisteel.
But Manuk grew up here and easily smelled the decay under the veneer, and for some time had considered an act to show the galaxy the price of weakness, of complacency. She’d chosen not to participate in the train station incident. It was, for her, a menial act of thuggery. She wanted a far grander gesture of the Sith’s return to power.
She wanted it to all burn.
She would lay waste to Coruscant.
Memories floated up from the depths of he mind. She recalled a pilgrimage to Korriban, remembered the profound sense of holiness she had felt as she walked in isolation through its rocky deserts, through the dusty canyons lined with the tombs of her ancient Sith forebears. She had felt the Force everywhere, had exulted in it, and in her isolation she knew that only a truly grand gesture would be appropriate for the Sith to stamp their claim to retake control of the galaxy. The time for hiding was over – the acts of others had seen to that. But instead of mindless violence, Manuk had been planning. How to lay waste to an entire city – and one that covered a single planet.
To that end, she’d been seeking out and killing scientists and engineers. Their deaths were necessary as once she’d gained the necessary knowledge from them they had to be silenced.
Her last three murders were here, in the underworld and she was en route to her next victim. Not a scientist or an engineer, but a black-market trader. The amount of explosives she’d need wouldn’t come cheap – but credits were not an issue. But sourcing them was.
So, she strode to the cantina she’d identified as his local drinking-hole, her black cape drawn tight around her leather bodysuit, so as to ensure nobody saw her saber. For once she wore her hood up, her blonde hair too much of a beacon down here – and today she wanted to be as inconspicuous as possible.
Crowds thronged the plaza in which she now walked, laughing, scowling, chatting. A human child, a young girl, caught Manuk’s eye when she squealed with delight and ran to the waiting arms of a dark-haired woman, presumably her mother. The girl must have felt her gaze. She looked at the Sith from over her mother’s shoulder, her small face pinched in a question – why have that woman’s eyes turned yellow? Manuk stared at the girl as she walked and the child looked away, burying her face in her mother’s neck.
Other than the girl, no one else marked Manuk’s passage. The sheer number of beings on Coruscant granted her anonymity. She walked among her potential prey, cowled, unnoticed, unknown, but steadfast in her purpose.
@ModernMarvel