Ask Flashpoint Denon Blood On Your Hands

[Ailis Drast]

Ailis stood there on her knees as the other men died to Varyn's blade and he showed just a bit of mercy to the remaining irregular who looked like he was going to shit himself. Ailis hauled herself to her feet, drawing on whatever reserves of strength she had to half stumble to the lander as she tried to maintain an air of strength. For who, she wasn't sure.

Her still lit saber grazed near the soldier's face as she passed him without a look and she heard him whimper for a moment before going quiet behind her as she climbed into the lander. Her vision swam and she nearly keeled over as she climbed up into the ship, but she steadied herself with a hand on the door panel, breathing painfully as she stepped up.

Ailis fumbled for the door control as soon as Varyn was inside, and closed the door to the lander before finally deactivating her lightsaber. She glanced at Varyn through pain hazed eyes and spoke through gritted teeth. "Drive."

She didn't know where. Didn't care where. Anywhere but here. Anywhere with some sort of medical capabilities would be preferred and she shakily clipped her lightsaber to her belt and grabbed hold of a rack as she looked around for a medical kit of some sort. This was a troop transport, it should have some sort of first aid kit at the minimum... right?

She hoped it had narcotics.

The thought ran through her swimming head as she grabbed the kit and dragged it with her up to the cockpit before letting herself fall into the co-pilots chair before immediately regretting that decision as pain lanced through her chest.

"I've decided... that getting shot... Is not fun." She gasped out as she started to shakily rummage through the med kit before stopping when she realized she didn't know what more than half the stuff in it was.

@Phoenix

 

[Varyn Atrix]

Varyn jumped into the lander, closing the doors behind them and lifting off. He silently wondered about the fate of the man they had left behind. Most likely a POW, in which case he would do fine. Varyn only hoped that... an explosion obliterated the top of the building, and Varyn's heart sank within him. He watched as glass, smoke, fire, and debris poured down from the upper floors. He could only assume the man had detonated what was left of the explosives rather than be taken alive. And how many FWA troops had he taken with him? The young Knight was left to wonder what he was doing and what the best choice really was. Trust them and let them come on the lander? Execute the man? Leave on their own? How many people had just died as a downstream of his actions? He pushed the thoughts aside, knowing they would plague him when he was alone. When he had that luxury.

He turned back to look into the passenger compartment as Ailis looked for a medpack. He had one of his own, but it looked like Ailis had already found one, commenting on how it wasn't fun to be shot.

No, it sucks, he shouted back, forcing the ship into a rapid descent to avoid upcoming blaster fire. Small arms only, but he still didn't want to strain their shields lest they end up really needing them.

The ship angled down, settling near one of the medical centers that was still under Imperial control, though likely not for much longer.

The ship set down quickly and by extension not all that smoothly before Varyn turned to help Ailis.

We need to get you some bacta, he said. You should be able to move after a night of bacta and painkillers, he said, hopeful. They needed to report what had happened to command, but Varyn also wanted answers for himself. He just hoped Ailis would be up to investigating in the morning.

 

[Ailis Drast]

Ailis grunted and nodded, perhaps in agreement to Varyn's statement that getting shot sucks. It did suck. She pulled at the ruined mess of her blast vest and nearly passed out from the pain as armor material fused with skin pulled free, sending blood down her chest as some of the burnt and cauterized skin ripped.

She ripped open the vest anyways and fumbled with an antiseptic spray, wincing as it burned before putting a bacta patch on the scorched and blackened patch on her chest where the blaster bolt had blown through the armor The vest had saved her life, no doubt about it.

"Sounds like... a great party." She hissed through the pain and held on through the rough driving for dear life, wincing and gasping raggedly with each shake of the shuttle. She wasn't sure if she maintained consciousness through the entire flight and she felt a sting of pain and then a numbness sweep over her.

Her eyes fluttered open and she looked up at a nurse looking down at her from the ceiling of the lander, or rather the ceiling was behind her head. A needle pulled out of her arm and a warmth washed over her as she heard shouting that seemed to fade away. Her eyes were heavy and her chest hurt, but not as much with the heady warmth that spread through her body.

-​

Ailis swam. It felt like she was swimming through a great void. Where was she. She struggled for the surface as her lungs screamed for air, breaking free of the water and climbing out onto the streets of Coruscant. She was fighting. Someone hit her in the gut and she returned the favor angrily, a strange power surging through her as she slammed her fist into his chest and he went flying. Tumbling over the rail with a scream.

She turned and walked away from the scene and into a stairwell. Two men charged up the stairs and two men she sent tumbling to... something. Somewhere. Some fate. She didn't stop to look as she turned away from that and the room exploded behind her. She didn't face it to see what she had done.

There were another two men in front of her, and her chest burned. Screaming. She sent another man over, tumbling to some fate that she never acknowledged. Never saw. Out of sight, out of mind. The other one. He stared at her with terror in his eyes as she buried her saber in his chest, his screams echoing in the fog as he slid from her blade, or it slid from him. But his eyes were still staring.

-​

Ailis coughed and sputtered as her eyes flashed open, liquid splashing at her face as the tank began to drain and she spat a breathing apparatus from her mouth. She looked around, eyes wild as she reached for her lightsaber that wasn't there, instead grasping at the shorts that she had been garbed in for her dunk in the tank.

The tank hissed and opened above her and she sat up gingerly as she shook the fog of narcotics and dreams from her head, an image of eyes staring her down in terror flashing across her vision as she closed her eyes for a moment. A droid brought over a robe and laid it over her shoulders as she sat there.

She was alive.

Ailis looked around the empty room as she wrapped the robe around her. It was a small unit with a bacta tank and little else except some chairs, an uncomfortable looking couch, and a small table. A set of folded clothes was on the table and had the appearance of a Sith military uniform of some sort.

She glanced down at her chest to admire the miracle of bacta. The blackened and charred blaster scorn flesh was gone, and instead in its place was a faded and blotchy burn scar with a big dot just to the left of her sternum, only a few inches above her heart. So much for all the low cut shirts in her closet back on Dromund Kaas.

@Phoenix

 

[Varyn Atrix]

Varyn had been exhausted but unable to sleep for more than what felt like a few minutes at a time. His mind wouldn't stop churning over what had happened in the building, second-guessing if he'd made the right decision and what decision he even could have made that would have been better. He knew he shouldn't dwell on the past, but he had to.

When he'd finally fallen asleep on that uncomfortable looking couch, it hadn't lasted long. Finally, after waking up in a position from which his left hand was asleep and every muscle in his body hurt, he just decided to get up and wander down to the cafeteria to find a breakfast burrito and a caf.

He was exhausted, he was angry, but he was alive. And so was Ailis who he returned to find was out of the tank and moving.

Good, you're up, he said, stuffing another bite of burrito in his mouth as he flopped down into one of the chairs.

I reported our... incident back to command. They want us to look into it. No reports of the Commander ever pointed to him being a traitor so they're spooked, he said.

@Arcangel

 

[Ailis Drast]

Ailis quickly closed the front of her robe as the door slid open and Varyn walked in. So he was still alive too. She looked at him from her seat on the edge of the bacta tank as he flopped down and talked with a mouth full of burrito which elicited a small smirk. She thought back to the incident for a moment, the incident that had brought her here, to the bacta tank she was leaning against.

She had survived, that was what mattered. She tried not to think about the men she had killed, the rage she had felt as she buried her saber in that last soldier's chest. That rush of power that had coursed through her even as she stood on death's door. It was like a hit of a drug more powerful than any crude or narcotic. She felt hollow now as she sat there and her eyes were drawn as they met Varyn's.

"Good. I want to know why I was shot." She said as she felt a small dose of anger filter into her mind and voice. It felt good to feel something after waking up feeling devoid of emotion. She shook her head as she thought about it however and let her feet find the ground as she got up out of the bacta tank. "How do we even investigate this though?" She looked at Varyn before starting to pace.

"The Commander led the guerilla irregular cell, but his men didn't immediately fire upon us until we were a threat to their survival." She paced back and forth, the tails of her robe swishing with each turn as she thought. "That implies that they weren't in on it, or perhaps they merely feared for their lives after we dispatched the commander and tried to maintain their cover."

She stopped, rubbing her lower lip in thought. "I think its safe to assume the Commander was probably under deep cover..." She turned her eyes back on Varyn, they seemed to have more life in them as the thrill of the question took hold, "This is exciting, have you done anything like this before?" She asked before her stomach growled and she glanced down before looking at the burrito in the other acolyte's hand, the smell of it starting to overcome the stink of bacta in her nostrils. "Are you gonna finish that?" She asked, pointing at the burrito with a greedy look in her eyes.


@Phoenix

 

[Varyn Atrix]

Varyn could feel the anger within Ailis, something he hadn't felt earlier on. The incident on the building had changed things, and not for the better. Though he couldn't really blame his fellow acolyte for being angry at being shot... he'd have been angry as well.

Yeah, I was thinking we go back and link up with the rest of that militia. See if he had any personal effects or something, he said. He shook his head thinking about the deep cover angle.

But why? If he was deep cover, why blow it to kill a pair of nobody acolytes? he asked. It was a very good question. He took a gulp of his iced caf and then another huge bite of his burrito.

Kind of, but investigations aren't really my specialty, he said, somewhat truthfully. They had their work cut out for them as far as he was concerned.

She asked about his burrito and he looked down at it. Uh... yeah, but there's more down in the caf. You good to move? he asked, tilting his head to the side. She'd nearly been killed, but that was why she wore armor: faster recovery.

He pulled out his datapad and held it up before turning it toward her. That's the current RV point. There's more regulars there, too, so if this gets shifty we'll have backup. Question them, look at his belongings, see where it leads, he said with a shrug. It really wasn't a great plan, but it was the only one he had at the moment.

 

[Ailis Drast]

Varyn responded to each of her points and Ailis mulled it over as she eyed his burrito before turning her attention back up to him. "The caf it is." She announced before pausing at the follow up question. "Uh... I think so." She said with a little uncertainty, she hadn't exactly had time to do a full diagnostics check on her meat suit.

Standing there, she stretched around a little with her upper torso, twisting a little bit. It wasn't exactly comfortable, but she wasn't spitting in pain either. "Good enough. Besides, if we're going right back out into it" She said with a shrug as she walked over to the table at the end of the couch first grabbing her old suit that was sitting there and holding it up. A ragged hole was blasted in the middle of it.

She glanced at Varyn's datapad as she held up the suit, squinting as she tried to make out what was on the screen before fumbling in one of the pouches on her old armor, pulling out a pair of glasses, sliding them on before taking another look at the map. She tried to locate the facility they were currently in, noting the levels and blocks between them and the RV point. "Well we aren't walking that. Maybe theres a few swoop bikes we can requisition or something." Could they do that?

Finally putting down her suit, she picked up the new set provided by command. It felt a bit bulkier, heavier. "I agree, the militia is the best place to start, but I have to wonder..." She didn't finish that sentence, instead glancing around suspiciously before looking at Varyn. His point about the, well the pointlessness, of a deep operative blowing his cover for a pair of pointless acolytes had her thinking. "I'm gonna change." She said before ducking into room's small bathroom.

Inside the room she opened up the armor and took a careful measure of it, examining its cut an make and all the nooks and crannies in the breastplate until she found what she was looking for. Satisfied that her paranoia was perhaps not entirely unfounded, she pocketed the small listening device that had been planted on the armor before dressing in it. The room didn't exactly have a full size mirror but she gave herself a once over to make sure it didn't look terrible.

"Alright, let's go I'm starving." Ailis said as she emerged from the bathroom wearing a fresh-ish and shiny-ish sith uniform. It didn't have blaster holes in it so that was an improvement, though the chest plate felt heavier than her blast vest and the uniform was a bit on the tightish side, though not to the point of being uncomfortable. "Lead the way." She told Varyn with a smirk, he knew where the caf was after all.

@Phoenix

 

[Varyn Atrix]

He watched as Ailis got everything sorted and disappeared into the other room to change, munching away and finally finishing off his burrito in a few more bites. He sipped at his caf as she reemerged, new clothes and glasses on and asked about travel time.

I dunno, he said with a shrug. He hadn't ever requisitioned speeders before but it seemed like something they could probably do. One thing he did like about the Sith was he didn't have to load his lightsaber into the weapon system of any ship he flew. Seemed like a much better system than neutering yourself that the Jedi had picked. He pushed that thought aside, standing as she said she was ready to go to the caf.

Alright, he said, nodding and leading her in that direction. He would wait as she got her food and then head outside, milling around as he tried to decide how they were going to get to where they were going.

After a few minutes they managed to find a transport heading in the direction they were going, and they managed to hitch a ride.

This is less flashy than our own speeders, he muttered as the transport zipped along the streets. He looked out once again at the destruction all around them. Rubble littered the streets and people sat on the side of the road, no doubt displaced from their homes in the wake of the war's destruction.

These people have had it bad, he said to Ailis as he watched them passing by on the way to the outpost.

 

[Ailis Drast]

Ailis let Varyn lead the way to the caf where she got herself a burrito and caf similarly to the other Acolyte. Her mind was rather occupied both by the food and the whats and whys of the small device she had found on her Sith issued armor. She glanced at Varyn a few times, wondering if it was his doing before dismissing the thought. He had been just as surprised and betrayed as she had by the irregular commander's actions.

Glasses stowed safely away in a case, coffee and burrito finished, the two of them managed to secure transport to the front line militia base aboard a transport already heading there with supplies. Not exactly as glamorous as cruising the city lanes with the wind in their hair.

"Speeder's would have been much more fun." Ailis agreed as they zipped along. Her mind was elsewhere when Varyn brought her attention to the destitution that surrounded them, people lining the streets with empty looks in their eyes as the sith transport carried them along. Her eyes scanned the crowds for a moment, her mind considering the real cost of war... something she hadn't really given much thought before.

"Yeah..." Ailis started, a somber tone in her voice as she continued. "Honestly though... if it weren't for the distant sounds of explosions, or the fact that I got shot yesterday... Well this just looks like home to me." The lower cities of Coruscant were likewise lined by vagrants sleeping in alleys and doorways, their eyes empty of meaning in their life. It was all so eerily familiar and yet jarringly different.

"I guess it's different for these people though. They knew what it was like to live better, only to have war rip it away from them." There was a mix of empathy and bitterness in her voice as she looked at the crowds. At least they had known comfort for most of their lives before the war came for them.

Whatever happened to these people, it wasn't important to their mission. What was important was the tiny listening device that she pulled out of her pocket and gave Varyn a nudge to covertly reveal it to him. She tapped on her armored chest piece to indicate where she had pulled it from. Pulling her phone from her pocket, she opened a blank text and typed out a quick message that she angled for him to see before deleting it.

<I think we're being watched.>

@Phoenix

 

[Varyn Atrix]

Varyn wondered about her comment that it looked like home, suddenly wondering where she had come from.

He knew her statement could have easily described one of thousands of places. Poverty like this was, unfortunately, not uncommon in the galaxy. Varyn, too, was familiar with it and unknowingly had extraordinarily similar roots to the acolyte next to him.

As she pulled out the listening device and typed out her message his head recoiled and his brows furrowed in confusion. That confusion quickly gave way to a sense of panic before he got himself under control again a moment later. Was this an investigation of him? Did they know who he was? Or rather what he was?

He shook his head and typed his own message.

Where's home? he asked, letting normal conversation continue to carry on before showing her the message.

Why would they be listening in? Is this a test? Or some sort of counter intelligence op where we're the bait?

Suddenly, he had the feeling that they were caught in the middle of a much wider conspiracy, and he could only hope that the goal wasn't to catch him.

 

[Ailis Drast]

Ailis' eyes were on Varyn as he saw the comlink and read her message. She watched the furrowing of his brow, the confusion in his eyes. She almost thought she caught a flash of panic shoot through them, though she couldn't be sure. At this point she wasn't sure who to trust, for all she knew Varyn could be in on it and just playing clueless.

"Coruscant, but not the shiny bit up top." She said, her tone casual as she watched him type. "I don't think I saw the natural sun until I was... eight? nine? maybe ten?" She couldn't remember how old she was but the memory existed as a vivid picture, framed in her mind.

All of those at once? Everything is a test.

"How about you, where's home?" She echoed his question back, partially because it meant she didn't have to think of anything about trying to pretend to be normal, it was an easy question. She was also curious, and if she was going to be depending on him for the duration of... whatever this was. Well she wanted to know who she was going to be trusting.

Could be that they knew the commander was a spy and ordered him to take us out, so that we would take him out. Of course they could have also just been trying to take us out... She typed as she talked. If there was a known rat, ordering him to take out a pair of troublesome acolytes was a quick and easy way of solving one or maybe even two problems at once. Kill the commander or kill the acolytes.

I think we're bait. She typed out after a moment of thought. It made sense. They had survived and command seemed to have decided that at least herself was worth keeping alive at the bare minimum with a courtesy bacta bath. If they had wanted her dead dead, then they would have just killed her while she was out.

@Phoenix

 

[Varyn Atrix]

Varyn had to do a double take when he heard that Ailis was from the undercity of Coruscant. Sure, there were billions of people who lived there, but in a galaxy of nearly innumerable planets, it was still quite a coincidence.

No way, I'm from Coruscant, too, he said, almost forgetting about the whole "spying" thing at this most recent revelation. What level? he asked, now quite captivated by this conversation and having to force himself to refocus on the message she was typing.

He nodded as he looked at her messages, agreeing with her assessment of the situation, and that provided its own problems. If they were bait, then for what? And to what end? Just because the Sith didn't value anyone's lives? Or was it because they suspected him?

No, they had no reason to suspect him. No one paid attention to an acolyte. No one even saw acolytes because they had no power, and they were disposable.

The transport pulled to a stop at the forward operating base, and Varyn looked around. Armed men milled everywhere, most of them in Imperial armor. Varyn was even fairly certain that he spotted at least one Sith in the area based on how emo he looked.

Guess we need to start with the commander's tent, he said with a shrug.