Fresh Jerky

[Jason Vaiken]

Endor is a world covered by forests, full of primitive life, and most likely deadly fauna and wildlife. One particular species in this uncivilised and underdeveloped world has been a constant annoyance. Yet, their meat is also a rare delicacy, one that has been recently begun to be appreciated by the Supreme Leader of the Brotherhood herself. So here we stand, having to hunt down and acquire an adequate supply of Ewok meat. While it is certainly not a glamorous task in the slightest, doing anything for this important personnage is a must, after all, if you leave a good impression, you never know what could happen. But, this does not mean that one doesn't have regrets.

Aethoria, a newly minted Sith of the Brotherhood is contemplating why she decided to take this mission, the heat is awful, the constant noise is preventing her from thinking straight, and wearing these stupid robes was an awful decision. Yet, at least she isn't alone in her suffering. For her and a companion have both decided to undertake this prestigious mission. As she scouts the location for a trail, Aethoria can't help but muse if making a connection with this Moff would be a wise idea or not. After all, she doesn't want to seem grasping or forceful but at the very least, they will need to work together and to do that one would need to strike up a conversation. She resolves to do so by activating her comm-link and she decides to ask her about the rendezvous point.

"Your Excellency, if you would be so kind to inform me about where you have landed so that we may rendezvous, that would be very much appreciated."

She is immensely curious on why a Moff would even bother with such a trivial task, but, hey, it won't be a bad thing if she makes a positive connection with the Moff and work on establishing a connection.

@Lady Sendrenis Autumn

 

[Lady Sendrenis Autumn]

A break was something she needed. Two explosions during the same week, one building falling apart for no reason and twenty deaths by accident because of a malfunctional droid on an assembly line. She basically spent a whole month on damage control. It has been exhausting and she really needed to clear her head from all of this. Fortunately, she was a Moff. It allowed her many things, like, for example, to decide when her holidays would be. So... 'Now', she thought. Perfect time.
The quiet moon of Endor was a perfect place to do so. She heard about that absurd mission consisting in killing ewoks and cooking them for the supreme leader. Who even wrote this ? Was this a joke ? She would probably never now. She didn't really cared about it actually. She was only here to let go of her stress and have some fun. The joke was on the idiot who tried to be funny, for she was going for it and intended to enjoy her little hunt and accomplish the objectives.

The small barge's roar could be heard miles away as the ship landed on the soil. The vegetation cracking under the rigid metal. Slowly, a large ramp appeared from under to lay on the ground. The rusty main door opened with an unbearable grinding, revealing it's - for now silent - occupant.

INITIALIZING // PLEASE WAIT

SYSTEMS ONLINE

...

...

...

MAIN ALIMENTATION DETECTED

COMMANDS READY

WEAPONS READY

SECONDARY SYSTEMS READY

...

...

ALL SYSTEMS GO // WELCOME BACK LADY AUTUMN

The walker started moving. Slowly making it's way out of the ship to reach the dirt, branches and whatever would be crushed under it's massive legs. The WA-12 was entirely white, so much for camouflage. A large logo was printed on it's right side as well as it's serial number : 4U-T-UMN. Obviously custom-made. The walker stepped forward and started moving around in circles. It's path forming a closed one when he came back to it's first position. The machine became silent again. A perfect silence that laster a dozen of seconds before the environment came back to life. Some animal sounds invading the space as if it never stopped.

"Autumn here to orbital command. I landed. Mission begins. I repeat, mission begins. Over."
​

Some green light indicated her that the message was sent and received. Quickly, an officier would give her vocal confirmation that she could begin. Just for the sake of it, she opened fire on the nearest tree, devastating it's trunk so fast that what was left of it simply fell on the burning ground like a leaf. Now, she was one hundred percent sure she was ready. She glanced at her helmet, thoughtful. No need for that. It was hardly necessary and it would be a shame to ruin her hair. Actually, she was only going to kill a lot of barely sentient animals. What could possibly go wrong ?

She received the sith's transmission immediatly after. Sendrenis reached her communicator to switch the frenquency and answer to her new companion. How thoughtful to assign her a sith everywhere she went. Although they all seemed pretty reliable until now. She was either loved by the Sith Order or very lucky.

"Moff Autumn here. I am a couple hundred meters north of your position. On my way to join you."
​

The machine began to walk again. Time to meet her new friend. Not exactly in person, but... close enough.​

 

[Jason Vaiken]

Aethoria didn't mind waiting for the Moff, after all she can use this time productively. While waiting she was able to identify a path and possibly find a forage party of those animals she'll have to murder. At this point, it's kind of getting normal the whole, "Murder this and interrogate that." She decides to force leap up to a tree and sit on a secure branch awaiting her new companion. As she sat in the tree branch she saw a walker come by and couldn't help but be mildly impressed. Here she is trudging through the hot and damp forest while she gets to be in a climate-controlled walker. The perks of rank it would seem. Yet, they are still waiting one more person and as the walker makes it measured trek over to her location. She contemplates if this person will even show.

@Cainhurst Crow.

 

[Cainhurst Crow]

The air on this world was thick with oxygen, fresh and clean from the planets dense forests and hardy trees. If one were too accustomed to a world with a thin atmosphere, it'd have probably made them sick to their stomach. Vicar Tantibus was no stranger to this however, in fact, Endor was the kind of world she enjoyed being on. It reminded her of home, her real home, not the one she had been forced to live in exile with for nearly a century. She appeared to be aged, deep blue skin and red tattoos on her face that appeared almost faded with age, her white hair long and flowing past her shoulders, and her purple and gold robes kept close to her, giving her an ethereal appearance as the hood stayed close to her head, giving her yellow glowing eyes an otherworldly quality to them.

She had been a member of the sith for many, many, years, and rarely did she get involved with the pursuits of conquest that her fellows enjoyed. She preferred to research the arts that some would consider to be unnatural, rather then to risk her life on the front lines like her kin. But, something had happened. There had been a death of someone who shared her name, someone close to her accursed brother. The last of the Volfe, not even a proper knight, or real member of her kin, had died in agony and anger, and his fall to the dark side had been felt by her as he passed into death. After such an event, and the realization that she was truly now the last of her name, she felt a bit of stress relief to be in proper order.

She took in a deep breath of the air once more, enjoying the scent of unspoiled nature, as she heard a noise behind her. There was a stream nearby, one she was almost tempted to take a drink from for old times sake. Instead, she held out her hand and thrust it up, pulling up one of the fuzzy creatures that they had come to kill. It looked at her with wide brown eyes, and she could feel its fear, its anger, its bafflement, and most of all, its loathing of her being here, on its world. The ewok was thrust into the deeper part of the stream, the force holding it there as it thrashed to get out, but could not, and she got on her comm-link.

"I appear to have scored the first kill of these things..." She said, the faint sound of splashing on her end as the ewok intensified its struggle, in vain, "I will rendevous with you two shortly." She said simply, the ewok slowing more and more until eventually, it simply stopped moving. Tantibus flicked her wrist, sending it sprawling onto the ground, now lifeless as she passed it. It was almost more a glide then a walk, as she made her way towards the walker, and her fellow sith, the uneven terrain not even breaking her stride as she got closer and closer to the others.

 

[Lady Sendrenis Autumn]

The cold metal crushing everything on it's path was a satisfying sound to her ears. She felt powerful in the machine. She had only to push some button to unleash a couple of red laser bolts and turn nearly any living being on this moon to ash. Yet, she didn't for now. In fact, she didn't come across any ewoks as she was enroute to her allies.
Finally reaching destination, she noticed one of them from behind the semi-transparent laserproof glass. Siths. No mistake possible. She opened her built-in comlink again.​

"I have not encountered any target on my way here, it is possible that the noise frightened them. I suggest you go first, i'll take care of the ones you might have missed. Hiding won't save them from me." She declared coldly. Her usually smooth and gentle voice distorted by the machine. Stripping it from all subtety.
​

 

[Jason Vaiken]

She links up with her fellow Sith Iosefka Volfe and greets her with a nod. "Welcome to Endor, as you are well aware, we have been tasked with hunting some of the natives and gathering them up to... Well I'll have my chef prepare the jerky. But, think of it as a hunting excursion." She sticks out her hand, "I have the pleasure of being Aethoria Tyradell and I am glad to make your acquaintance." She gives a thin slash of a smile and points to the forest. "Shall we begin? I feel that we should follow the stream. This might be one of the places in which they go and collect freshwater."

There is no harm in being friendlish, after all, having some allies is a good thing. Yet, it is always a risk in a way to lower your guard to a fellow Sith. The paradoxes of the Sith are truly amusing. The question though is if they will truly find enough of these Ewoks things to get a good supply of the jerky. Well, we'll see how it goes.

@Cainhurst Crow

 

[Cainhurst Crow]

Tantibus was silent as she studied this younger sith, giving a nod of her head as she spoke in her aged voice, "You have good manners to yourself? That is good. Many sith do not respect their elders..." She said, a fact that had been made apparent to her as she kept up her guise, and some sith felt it appropriate to use her as an attempted stepping stone on the way to power. Those who did found themselves either possessing the right qualities for her to yield to them, or found themselves dead.

Good manners was one such saving grace, for her.

"I am known as Tantibus, but please, call me Vicar. Tis a shame that I cannot spread the truth to these primitives. They'll have to settle for feeding the converted, rather then joining them..." She said, taking her moniker of Vicar quite seriously. The force was a pathway to many things, and like all pathways, only the faithful and properly converted could understand and walk the path of the force. All others were doomed to walk in darkness, and be prayed upon by the creatures of the world.

She walked forward, seeming to glide along the ground as she moved forward, the robes never parting to show her legs as she kept her arms hidden beneath the large cape of her robes as the air around her radiated with an unnatural coldness. Her glowing yellow eyes scanned the area, speaking as she looked for more, "It is possible these creatures are watching for us. Waiting with patience for us to pass, or leave ourselves vulnerable. The lone scout I encountered may suggest the bulk of them are somewhere further in..." She said, giving the ewoks credit as a dominant species of this world.

She was alive for many, many, decades. There were those who knew who hunted ewoks, or had at least heard stories of. They came back with tales of savage, viscous beasts, who ate the flesh of any who trespassed, if given the chance. Now the tables would be turned, rather poetic, if she said so herself.

 

[Lady Sendrenis Autumn]

Kept a relatively low profile and lurked severals hundred meters behind the positions of the two siths, letting them go first to avoid scaring them too early. She kept on meticulously inspecting the surroundings, on alert to find any hiding creature. Her companions did not provide any response to her suggestion, probably prefering to talk to eachother. 'Fine', she thought, understanding that it would probably be more convenient for them to stay with their own kind. They were not truly under her command after all. She would not allow this little setback to spoil her fun. Her missile launcher had been replaced with capture nets throwers. Not that she really intended to use it on living ewoks anyway. But now that she thought of it, she still could leave some where the most well hidden dead targets were.

She opened fire randomly, sometimes burning entire loads of bushes just to make sure she would leave no one behind. The only fact that she was instantly burning everything down amusing her more than any funny things she could have done combined in the last couple of years.
​

 

[Jason Vaiken]

She leads her fellow Sith further in, rapidly advancing and soon she felt the hairs on the back of her neck stand up and a stone-tipped arrow comes whizzing at her with a deft flick of her wrist she alters the trajectory ever so slightly so that it missed her chest by a few centimeters to the left and then activated her primary saber, the familiar hum brings a thin slash of a smile to her lips as she prepares to engage the Ewoks in combat.

@Cainhurst Crow

 

[Cainhurst Crow]

Tantibus did not want to waste the power of the force on such lowly creatures. She also didn't feel it worth the time to draw her saber, and risk exposing her true form to these strangers. She instead reached into her robe and withdrew her VBP-17 blaster, and setting it to stun rather then its normal blaster setting. "Remember you two, we want them for food and fur. Disintergration does us little good. And burn marks are hard to work out of fur." She said over the comm link to both Lady Sendrenis and Aethoria as she closed her eyes, feeling for life in the force and her ears peeled for sounds.

They twitched she she heard a sound behind her, turning and firing her blaster as the blue rings shot forward. The stone arrow left the bow as the rings hit it, sending it to the ground, now paralyzed from the shock meant to incapacitate a full ground human being applied to its small body. The stone arrow passed by her check, and she glared as she looked around for more ewoks to take down. "These are crafty little devils. It seems they have a tenacity to fight." She said, appreciating their desire to kill them. A species was good when it showed the proper bloodlust.

@Lady Sendrenis Autumn

 

[Lady Sendrenis Autumn]

To be honest, Sendrenis was not really interested in either the food nor the furr. There would be enough dead bodies around to cook something decent for the Supreme Leader anyway. She kept on shooting everything that moved, taking great pleasure in devastating mother nature here, far away from her usual responsabilities and duties. It was just like a child's game : Shooting, hunting, crushing. What a mess.

Fortunately, she was now far enough from the two siths to act freely without disturbing their side of the hunt. Before long, she could finally see her first ewok. The creature threw a rock at the walker's leg. A rock. Giggling, she moved forward to chase the creature ; firing randomly around it to watch it panic and struggle. She finally carbonized it down in a single shot, for she was too close to miss. She succumbed to her primal instincts as she used the machine to step on the poor dead thing in a predatory stance. She could not really savour the moment for too long, though ; a few more rocks were thrown to hit the metal. Sendrenis smiled and moved the commands around once more. At last, she could truly unleash and enjoy herself in this pleasant vacation.​

 

[Jason Vaiken]

With a quick smile she activated her shoto and threw her lightsaber and decapitated three of them cleanly and called it back to her and decided to engage them in close combat. Unfortunately she can't do more fun methods in this since she doesn't want to ruin the meat. Yet, this clump is certainly enough to make quite a lot of jerky. With deft slashes, more and more Ewoks die and she can't help but grin at the ease in which these savages die.

@Cainhurst Crow

 

[Cainhurst Crow]

There were four that came this time, heading for the vicar with spears raised and cutting swiftly through the brush, moving far faster then something as oddly proportioned as they were should. She fired her shots at the ewoks, scoring hits on three of them as they dropped to the ground, fully paralyzed, but the fourth she picked up and flung. It sailed and struck a tree hard, crumpling to the ground as the vicar's ears twitched beneath her false cloak;s hood. She could hear it in the distance, a noise that came most likely from these things, but in an echoing number, too many to make out.

There was no visual on them, the tall vegetation blocking them from sight, but they were around, making their annoying noise as the vicar decided to get a better look at the situation. She spotted a downed tree covered in vines and moss and with a quick leap was upon it, heading upwards as her partner began to engage the ewoks in close quarters. The vicar stopped, now 40 feet above the ground level, as the saw the shifting greenery and the occasional spear head or tuff of fur that would emerge. The vicars eyes went wide as she counted the number, a wide circle many meters thick of circling flesh had surrounded the small circle. How long had they been here? How long had they taken to gather?

"There are a lot of these things. And we are quite surrounded by them..." She said, taking a look around as one of the unseen foes fired a stone arrow, then another, the striking close to where she was as her sensitive hearing picked up the noise of rustling cease for a moment. She felt a warning and leaped off the log, just as a hail of arrows came up from the shrubbery and crashing into the log, some of the arrows burying themselves deep into the bark as she looked up. "We may have underestimated these things a bit..." she said, putting aside her blaster as she drew her two curved lightsaber hilts.

This race was premitive, but it was no joke. Through numbers, tenacity, and a surprising use of gurellia and military tactics, it seemed the two sith had managed to get corralled into something akin to an open air kill pit. The arrows came overhead once more, and suddenly the vicar was gone. In her place was someone younger, with different skin and eyes of red instead of yellow. She moved swiftly in her black hooded coat, crimson sabers activating as she unleashed a flurry of blocks and slashes, moving swiftly in a serpentine motion as a volley of arrows came her way.

Iosefka had needed to get serious in this matter, and had needed to drop her illusion. And she very much hated, being forced to drop a persona she rather enjoyed playing. She darted towards the crowd, leaping into the air a moment before coming down with a wide spin, a move from shii-cho, but most effective in dispatching a crowd of 7 ewoks who had been moving within the tall vegetation, one of many it seemed, who had come to face down their invaders with an attempt at overwhelming numbers.

 

[Jason Vaiken]

-A Few Violent Skirmishes Later-​

The last few Ewoks were taken down by Vicar and herself in a violent display of lightsaber combat. The two of them worked quite well together and had a smooth connection when it came to dispatching the Ewoks. They went for efficiency as the remaining Ewoks fled in terror only to be hunted down and exterminated. She glances around, "so, let's go and get a few of our people here to go and skin these animals?"

She went and began to drag them into a few big clumps taking a step back to admire their handiwork.

"Not bad for a days work eh?"

She couldn't help but allow a smile to break out as she said that.

This was certainly fun besides the Supreme Leader will certainly enjoy the meat.

@Cainhurst Crow

 

[Cainhurst Crow]

The vicar stood breathing a moment, her sabers out as she enjoyed the silence that followed the battle. The carnage after a battlefield when the metallic odor filled the air and one could allow their body to feel the ache of strenuous work was one she enjoyed. In a moment, she was herself, youthful and powerful with raven colored hair and red eyes staring at her own handiwork.

The next moment, she began to shift once more, her face becoming enveloped by shadows in an unnatural way, as if they crawled and slithered across her features until none could be seen through the darkness. She sheathed her sabers, giving both a spin before she slipped them onto her own belt and picked up one of the dead ewoks by the scruff of its neck.

She was wordless until the two began to leave, where she spoke 1 simple sentence as she passed by Aethoria, "You did well for a young one. Now, let's get someone to clean this mess up." Despite the lack of a face, one could swear they could hear a smile from within the darkness as she spoke.

-fin-