Open Coruscant Well... They're Not Using It

[Kaldar]

Kaldar gunned it like a madman between the upper tiers of Coruscant's skyscrapers before seeing what he was looking for and diving. The speeder went down at an alarming, gut wrenching speed as it hurtled into one of the open maws that led to the bowels of Coruscant's undercity.

They were swallowed up in the darkness and poverty before long, and Kaldar pulled the speeder over eventually at what looked to be an abandoned building, hopping out as he pulled inside and helping unload the Jedi before tying him up.

He's gonna have a bad night, he muttered to Serene. You have any experience with interrogations and torture? he asked. There was nothing quite worse than being fully conscious of everything going on around you and being unable to do anything about it.

I want to find out information about the militia's movements and strongholds. A little sabotage helps keep the galaxy on its toes, he said.

@Darasuum

 

[Serene]

Serene's frame was pressed into the seat cushion as the speeder accelerated rapidly into the bowels of the planet. Even as a trained pilot and used to moving at high speed, Serene tensed as the vehicle moved rapidly under Kaldar's control. Her stomach rose into her throat and then the next moment felt like it was in the bottoms of her feet.

She looked over her shoulder but did not see any remaining resistance members give chase. If there were more airborne hunters they would have a tough time keeping up with the Sith Master's high speed maneuvering. Thankfully there was far less traffic on Coruscant under the present circumstances.

Eventually the two Sith plus their victim came to a stop at one of many abandoned buildings in the undercity. It was a vast change from the Republica 500 building. But the relative isolation would give them the privacy they needed to conduct the interrogation.

The Jedi was already having a bad night but it was about to get worse. "Yes." she answered her superior. "I've used the mind shard technique to extract information but never from a Jedi, let alone a master." She raised her hands, flexing her fingers in preperation as she reached for the Jedi. Serene was confident in her own abilities but this was somewhat uncharted territory for her. She did not know how well it would go but she wanted to measure her expectations and Kaldar's. Despite the injuries and paralysis the Jedi's mind could still prove stalwart against her attempts.

"We will learn it all. One way or another." A nod from her helmeted head and proud tone assured the man his desires would be achieved. They had the same goals in that regard. She proceeded to heft the maimed Jedi Master, carrying him into the unoccupied building.

Inside the building the woman guessed it may have once been a private residence or group home. But the building may have been abandoned even long before Raze and his abominations came. Faded paint markings and signs of vandalism indicated it had been converted into a gang hideout or thieves' den. Piles of junk were hoarded in a few corners but the woman dropped the Jedi on a ratty looking couch. Dust rose around the man's severed limbs but they remained motionless, still under the affects of the poison. To be on the safe side, Serene sliced the man's collar bone in a shallow cut to reintroduce the paralyzing agent to his bloodstream. "We don't want you going anywhere." She spoke to her subject in her ominous voice.

Moving around to be at the Jedi's head she stood over him and placed a hand on either side of his temple. Taking in a deep breath she prepared herself and focused on the mind before her. Like a hot needle the Sith Champion's touched the mind of the Jedi master. The pain immediatly made him tense. His veins bulged on the side of his neck and any motor control he had left reacted to the unavoidable torture.

Deeper she went, boring into the master's mind from both sides. Everything the lightsider knew of the local resistance on Coruscant was her fixation. She drove towards that, ignoring the man's screams with a frighteningly indomitable concentration. She knew not to try and take too much information herself. Her own mind could only efficiently process and retain so much. She did not want the target to die or be turned into a vegetable just yet either. "I'm getting it."

@Phoenix

 

[Kaldar]

Kaldar stood back to let her do whatever she needed to do. He was perfectly happy to let her do her work of cutting through his mind as he watched. He could sense the tension in the Force as the man's mind strained against the bending and warping force she put on it.

But he was strong. He wasn't someone who would easily be broken, and Kaldar simply watched. His face didn't flinch as he watched the man's mind begin to twist in ways that wouldn't be mended, and he lit his lightsaber in his hand.

He plunged the saber through the man's leg, causing him to cry out both from the rending of his mind and the physical pain. It radiated in the Force and Kaldar drank it in. The smell of burning flesh filled the air, and it tore at the Jedi's focus, opening him up for Serene to rip free the information.

Whether the man's mind survived the collapse in on itself or not, Kaldar would take his head off. Did we grab his lightsaber? he asked, not wanting to leave it behind if they had. If not... well, unfortunate, but not the end of the galaxy.

Did you get a location?

@Darasuum

 

[Serene]

Serene's guard rose slightly at the ignition of Kaldar's saber. But she controlled herself and tried to remain focused on the difficult task before her. The Sith interrogator used the dual physical and psychological pain that wracked the Jedi's entire being. Their entire reality become nothing but torture.

Beads of sweat had formed on the woman's brow but the signs of her exertions were mostly hidden by her cold helmet. Eventually she pulled away and leaving the Jedi Master clinging to life and sanity. Stepping away, Serene placed a hand against the side of her armored temple. The raw emotions and images took time to process and she was tired from the effort.

The state of the Jedi ended up not mattering as Kaldar decapitated him in a brutal and effective strike. Serene looked at the headless corpse and then up at the Sith Master and reminding herself of who she was with. "Indeed." Technically she had gotten it and disliked the use of we. It was really minor comment that had probably meant nothing. But the champion dared not correct him and instead held the hilt out for him to take if that was his intention. Perhaps he was implying he wanted to see it.

"Many in fact. Safe houses, supply schedules, armories, they knew a lot." Desperate times had called for desperate measures and that meant some people were unable to compartmentalize their intelligence. A few key individuals could unwittingly share vast information with the enemy if they fell into enemy hands just as this master had.

Serene continued to try and sort the images in her head and prioritize one target over the other. "He had a personal hangar and uses it to get people off planet. The Resistance will use that as a means to come and go from Coruscant sooner or later." There were other locations they could visit first or instead that may prove even more harmful to the Resistance.


@Phoenix

Spoiler: Dice

Rolled for Jedi state after mind shard: still alive and "ok" (even though I realized he dies either way)
70/100

 

[Kaldar]

Kaldar could feel her bristling in the Force at the lightsaber hilt discussion, and as she held it out, for a minute he considered just taking it for himself. In fact, he really considered just taking it for himself, but he had already told her she was welcome to keep whatever she picked up and carried. In this case, he deemed that to include the lightsaber as well.

Good, was all he said. At least it hadn't been left behind and wasted.

The information about all of the supply routes and safe houses was... actually, excellent. Of course, he had a choice to make in that regard. Was he going to try to take them all down? He wasn't sure. Maybe he would at some point, but he felt like there were things that were more pressing. The planet was probably going to fall sooner or later, right? Perhaps not, though. The abominations here were still strong, and dismantling some of the resistance could still be helpful.

Well, that won't do, he said with a "tisk" noise at the mention of the resistance using all of these locations.

Ultimately, though, the Jedi would die. Alone and forgotten as Kaldar drove his saber through the man's head.

Can't be having the Jedi screwing around here, can we?

@Darasuum

 

[Serene]

Serene waited patiently for Kaldar to take the jedi's weapon but the moment never came. The Sith Master allowed her to keep the tool. She was glad he refrained from claiming it but made at the same time it made her curious as to his reasons. Mostly she wanted to know what uses he had for it. Now Serene had the freedom to bleed it or use it in a later experiment.

Returning the jedi's lightsaber to her own belt Serene waited for Kaldar to decided on what course of action to take. She read his body language and how he was feeling. The vibe she was getting was he wanted to act with certainty against the Resistance but not commit to a full scale war on the planet. Perhaps a single strike before the Sith duo left the planet and returned later at their discretion.

After the brutal execution but before the smoke stopped flowing from the neck stump she patted the master down more thoroughly to be sure there was nothing else they had missed. Serene took Kaldar's question to be rhetorical and did not answer. Aside from his lightsaber the dead master only had a simple jedi utility belt and disposable commlink.

"To his hangar then?" The Champion wanted to make sure she understood his intentions. She knew its location and would be able to navigate their way towards it safely.

Spoiler: Dice

Rolled for bonus loot on Jedi Master
barely a success 30/100

@Phoenix

 

[Kaldar]

Kaldar paused a moment in thought as she suggested the hangar. It was the logical course of action, but they didn't have an army at their backs... per se. He took several moments of thought about how to go about this. He wished he could just drag the abominations across the way to lay waste to it, but that wouldn't work.

If we take a ship from one of the nearby hangars and destabilize the core, set it on autopilot, and just... crash it into the hangar, then all of our problems are solved, he said with a shrug. Fight smarter, not harder.

Blow them all up. I'm not worried about collateral damage, he said. It seemed like a good plan to him, and he shrugged again.

@Darasuum

 

[Serene]

At first the Sith Champion had expected him to want to take one of the ships or steal information from it. But instead the Sith Master only desired destruction. They could not keep everything for themselves, at least not today. After all was said and done Serene knew she had gathered a great deal of intelligence. Even if Kaldar was the one to reap the monetary rewards, Serene would come out of this better than before as well.

The helmeted sith nodded her cold agreement to Kaldar's plan"at first. She knew enough about ships and their refueling to make the blast magnify effectively. "I can cause it to set off a chain reaction." They had a stockpile of rhydonium from what Serene had seen in in the Jedi's memories.

The woman led the way back towards the speeder they had taken to get there. It would only take a few short minutes for them to arrive at the same block as the hangar. It was mid-level and adjacent to an industrial sector which continued to have some automated droids floating through skyways. Their repulsors kept them well out of the way of abominations though their programming had forced them to continue their flying march in the absence of any actual work. Aside from the floating automatons the Sith seemed to be alone.

Serene returned her awareness to her surroundings now that they had returned to the jungle consisting of concrete, glass and metal. There were a few resistance members armed with blasters and some modicum of armor. They were well armed like the ones that had chased the two Sith earlier. A a few utility droids that were there to primarily service the ships. Serene looked towards Kaldar and waited. She would follow his lead on how to approach the situation.

@Phoenix

 

[Kaldar]

Kaldar returned with Serene to the location where the militia had holed up, and they simply watched quietly for a time. He crouched low and took deep, steadying breaths. A frontal assault was suicide, but there were other ships and hangars in the area.

He motioned across to the hangar one lot over. The rhydonium should trigger with a big enough detonation, right? Do you know where in the hangar it is? I don't really want to try to break in there and get gunned down. Rather drop an unstable ship in from one of those hangars, he motioned to one of the ones nearby, waiting to see if she objected.

If she didn't, he would head over "next door" so to speak and begin poking around before finding a light freighter in some state of partial destruction.

This thing has seen better days, he muttered as he looked at the panels falling off and the exposed wires.

What a piece of junk. But as long as its got a working power core that's all that matters. How are you with ships and engines? he asked. He figured they could probably get it up and running, although mechanics were not his specialty.

We just need to get it into the air, he said.

@Darasuum

 

[Serene]

Enough time passed that Serene was able to sort through more of the information she had viewed through the dead Jedi's mind. Her stamina in the Force had slightly recovered but there were still some aches in her body after the skirmish with the Resistance fighters from before. They served to remind her to not underestimate those ahead and it seemed Kaldar was considering the same.

Behind her dark helmet the sorceress closed her eyes and pictured the approximate location. The champion nodded as she answered verbally in kind. "Yes, Virious." She used the name he had given her. "There should be bright red barrels secured in racks in the back." Even the Resistance had the common sense to wisely store their fuel in a relatively safe and less accessible part of the hangar. Otherwise anyone and their mother with a cigara flying by in a airspeeder would blow up the place.

Serene followed Kaldar to the next door spot where a parked light freighter would be easy to board. "Today will be its last." She remarked after seeing the state of the ship. It only needed to fly once more and its life would be over. "I dabble." She said humbly. The woman was a student of many subjects but she never had a particular talent for the engineering of a starship. However her affinity for the Force helped her learning curve as she interfaced with its onboard computer via technometery. Lights blinked on and diagnostics would indicate the vessel would be ready to fly in a matter of minutes.

@Phoenix

 

[Kaldar]

In the back, he said in such a way that gave away that he wasn't thrilled about that. Couldn't be simple and accessible, of course. He sighed quietly but was at least glad for the information.

On the bright side, it seemed that she was good at dealing with ships, and that was a good thing in this case.

Good, he said. If they could take out a threat to Raze losing control of the planet, then that was great news to him. Even for the rest of the Sithings in the galaxy, the deeper darkness that lingered on these worlds would only heighten their power and weaken the Jedi. After all, look at how the Dark Side had caused the Jedi to falter and stumble in foolishness over the previous years.

Where you off to after this? Wrecking a Jedi outpost or exploiting some new company or something? he asked. He had nothing else to do for the moment besides a moment of chatting, so he figured why not?

@Darasuum

 

[Serene]

Serene only shrugged her lightly armored shoulders to confirm the man had heard her right. It was all that the Jedi Master had remembered relating to it. But Kaldar seemed to accept the reality of the situation all the same rather than make impudent comments. So far Serene found working with the man accommodating if not a bit tense, to say the least.

Coruscant still had an adbunance of traffic that came and went. Most of it were daring private companies on a literal fool's errand but there was a reason the Resistance was fighting to protect it. The history, its culture, the galactic placement on the map and even the people that remained were not going to go away overnight. But neither were the abominations. Raze's spawn would live on after their creator's demise. Serene had come close to studying on on Adumar and wanted to learn the secrets of Sith Alchemy. Without Darth Raze Serene felt she would have a harder time learning the secrets of the exalted but it was still possible. Serene felt there was a way, she just needed to find it.

"I have not decided yet." There were a few places and groups that needed a visit. But they did not need her attention immediately. "Have you ever been to Bal'demnic? They mine cortosis there and from what I am told there's a Sith Temple on the planet as well." It would probably be that world or Umbara. Thule had those pesky mandalorian mercenaries still lurking about so she thought it best to steer clear for now.

The core readings began to climb after the champion made the adjustments. She would be able to trigger the auto-pilot once they got off the ship. "It is ready." She signaled the Sith Master and disembarked with haste. Raising her right arm and splaying her fingers out she reached her influence across the ship and triggered its take-off procedures. Her arm maintained its elevated state for a bit longer, cycling the shields around the rickety bucket of bolts to give some momentary added protection against any Resistance defenders.

@Phoenix

 

[Kaldar]

Kaldar took note of the name. Bal'demnic. No, he had never been there, but it was worth making a mental - and probably physical - note of for the future.

Can't say I have, he said. Cortosis was valuable for plenty of things as well. Seemed like a logical enough place for her to go.

Gonna break into mining operations? he asked, though moments later she stated that it was ready to go. He started moving quickly as she triggered the autopilot sequence and he climbed into the speeder again. He didn't want to be here when that thing triggered.

He zoomed off in the other direction and glanced in the rearview mirror to see the double balls of fire that consumed the hangar. The initial detonation was moderate in size, but the subsequent one... oh yeah, that was extraordinary.

Death hung in the air and another job well done.

 

[Serene]

"Something like that" She admitted though not to much. There would be time to share information later in a more calm scenario. Serene concentrated primarily on finishing her work quickly. Everything seemed to be going according to plan as she hopped into the speeder with Virious again.

The woman's senses reached outward as the vessel carried them rapidly away. She felt the chaos and confusion left behind, the terror and panic. The first explosion led to more but the second partially silenced it as numerous lives were wiped out in an instant. The rumbling would be felt far away by anyone on the ground. Serene was satisifed. Coruscant belonged to the abominations and to the Sith. The Resistance would not soon forget it.

End Thread​