The Battle of Coruscant -- The Jedi Temple: Temple Hangers

[ShadowWalker]

All hell had broken loose on Coruscant, and Phiro felt like it was his fault. He had been charged to bring his brother back, and he'd lost him to a Sith cult. And now this was happening, the Temple was burning, and the Jedi were on the run. Phiro felt like this was his fault, his problem, something he should have changed, stopped. He felt like he should have done something. He called to the pilot of the ship, a man named Destro Vulcanis. He'd only too eagerly signed up for this job, and volunteered this ship, the Wolf Fang for the job. Phiro sighed as he heard the hails. He had to protect the younglings, the future padawans, the future knights. It was his duty to stand and fight for those that couldn't, and he had to do that, or die trying. If only Draco were here, at his side. Surely he could turn the tide, one thing that Draco seemed to notice was that the further Draco fell, the more he embraced the traditions of the Mandalorians. He fought like them, wore their father's armor, he could tell he wanted to become one so badly, that he would join his worst enemies, if only to gain strength to prove himself. Phiro shook the thought from his head as he walked to the ramp of the light freighter.

His battle armor shown softly as the ramp opened, and the young Jedi Knight readied himself to drop. He called to the pilot.

"Cover the younglings, they are the mission,"

"Yes sir," he paused as he switched on the loudspeaker system for his ship "This is Air Smuggler, would all Jedi younglings proceed to the giant floating thing in an orderly fashion, and please don't push or shove, there is plenty of room for everyone," He called out sarcastically, and the underside gun began to open fire on the Sith Trooper positions, the blaster cannons reporting loudly as they tore into their cover "Oh and before I forget, let me please remind all you Sith troops out there to keep your heads down, or so help my copilot, he'll knock them down," The pilot sounded madly calm as he spoke, which was a little unnerving.

Phiro ran down the ramp, and stood at the edge. He surveyed the situation quickly, and then with a force leap, he catapulted across the empty space to the landing deck. Mid flight, he activated his twin lightsabers, and moved quickly to assist the padawan. He shouted at the top of his lungs at the younglings as they cowered in cover, ushering them to move forward. The Mandalorians had got a couple pot shots out at him, but if they didn't miss, Phiro deflected them as he moved to the padawan's side.

"Your ride is here, move now, I'll cover,"

With that he took a combat ready stance, his twin blades humming as he assumed his hybrid form. It was almost a perfect match for Draco's, except that it was with two blades, not one, and was much more aggressive and graceful. He deftly deflected several more oncoming blaster shots as he awaited for the eventual assault of the Sith Acolytes, and maybe the Sorcerer if he so pleased, which would definitely get interesting quick if he had to fight two of them plus the Sorcerer.

 

[Sisk_Renelo]

More and more Jedi were arriving. Sisk's mind became cold, the tactical possibilities swirling through his neural pathways until he found a solid path. His visor slammed close, and a quick blink opened up a comm channel. //Aerial support to Jedi Temple.// He close the channel, and adopted a ready stance. "Surrender has never been one of my strong suits. You should know this." A quick glance at his HUD showed the Mandalorians still advancing, the warriors having switched to pistols and melee weapons as they closed with the GA troops. Another group of Mandalorians, former Protectors all, should be making an entrance through the main doors at any moment, blocking the chance to move to another hangar. Once positioned, the Mandalorians should be in a perfect flanking position to round up the younglings and protect them from the Sith.

But Sisk had bigger problems. He stood facing a Grandmaster. A former Grandmaster, but a Grandmaster nonetheless. This would push him to the very edge of his abilities. He cursed himself silently for allowing his abilities in the Force to become unused. If he walked away from this, they would no longer be neglected. For now, he would have to rely on his tech and armor to keep him alive.

Sisk kept his eyes on his opponent as he moved forward a step, a flick of his wrist bringing his beskad forward in a lightning strike aimed at the Jedi's stomach. As his arm reached extension, a blink click activated his dart launcher, sending one of the sopoforic darts piggybacking the Death Stick concentrate towards the Jedi. His mace remained tucked, ready to move to intercept a return strike, his weight balanced on the balls of his feet.

 

[Emerald Iris]

The compliment that the Lector made about how it was a shame that Sionann ended up a Jedi and not a Sith, made the padawan's stomach churn with unease. She did return the bow of respect and thanks towards the Lector, at least to show that they may have been enemies, but they both have honor. She did not answer his statements though, but rather took the younglings along with her. By now they were terrified from the Sith Sorcerer being so near to them, but they were still cognizant enough to know that Sionann was protecting them from the Lector.

She gestured for them to follow with her, and that was when another starship arrived, a ship carrying actual friends to the Order arrived.

"This is Air Smuggler, would all Jedi younglings proceed to the giant floating thing in an orderly fashion, and please don't push or shove, there is plenty of room for everyone, Oh and before I forget, let me please remind all you Sith troops out there to keep your heads down, or so help my copilot, he'll knock them down,"

The comedy of the man's sarcrastic voice was appreciated for a few seconds when the arriving ship opened fire upon the Sith soldiers in the area, that was even more appreciated. Even better, a fellow Jedi landed next to her and ignited twin blades just in time to catch a stray blaster bolt that almost found its mark.


"Your ride is here, move now, I'll cover,"

"Your ride is here, move now, I'll cover,"

In unison and in both ears Sionann heard these voices, one came from Jedi Knight Phiro and the other was none other than the voice of Gunny the exploration droid, through the comlink, as the Ghost Avril arrived. She could see the silvery hull of her ship slowly looming closer into view, though it was too big to get any closer than the launch pad outside the hanger gates with all the commotion inside.

"Yes my ride is here," She happily exclaimed as her heart felt the joyful thought of surviving this hornets nest of hell for a moment. "Come on, all of you get going!" Sionann called back to the children pointing her blades towards Phiro's ship while she began advancing towards her own. "We need to get out of here fas...." She was cut off by a blaster bolt grazing past her leg and knocking her off balance.

The padawan landed into a forward somersault that allowed her to stand back up, just in time to see that the bolt had come from a Mandalorian reinforcement unit that had just arrived, halting the advance to the Ghost Avril, and they looked ready to keep her from living much longer. To further complicate things, Sionann did not have any cover from her very open position other than the cover of the Force.

Her reflexes became lightning quick once again as the Force flowed through her body with as much protection as it could offer in this stage. Adrenaline began to pump as the world seemed to slow down and the coordinated blaster fire began.

Sionann began to spin into an acrobatic display of evasion and deflection, flipping about and rolling while keeping the Mandalorian reinforcements from surrounding her, or cutting her path of escape back to where Phiro was. She focused on staying alive rather than attacking, though that too became jepordized when it was made plainly obvious that mass-blaster fire defense was by far one of Sionann's weakest skills.

Bolts of heated plasma were getting passed her defenses and grazing parts of her clothing and skin, causing very mild wounding, but even minor wounds at this point would begin add up as the padawan vaulted backwards to avoid a very high caliber shot from a more advanced rifle. Sliding backwards she began to lose ground towards the Ghost Avril and even away from Phiro and the younglings, closer to the edge of the platform and a rather long drop. She began to slow the loss of ground with sheer determination and the fact that one of the Mandalorians' rifles had jammed, but it was not enough to stem a soon to be lost battle.

 

[ShadowWalker]

Phiro twirled his blades as he backed up slowly, dueling with a Sith Acolyte, parrying the young Sith's blows as he took step after step back, doing a good job to make his fighting retreat not too quick. When he heard the fire coming from behind him, he spun knocking the acolyte back a few steps, long enough to catch a glimpse of what was going on.

He saw a Mandalorian assault team pinning the padawan he'd just fought to relieve, and she was getting ready to fall. Phiro finished his spin to face the acolyte before him, and he could feel his anger rise at the pestering of this Acolyte. His movements suddenly became ruthless, as he quickly and efficiently swung his left blade in a vicious arc that would sever the boy's head from his shoulders. He blocked it, but Phiro's lightsaber knocked the boy's own aside, leaving him open for the next strike. Phiro cut the Acolyte down, and began to run towards the girl.

The force began to flow to his arms, and his anger began to flow unchecked. He was angry because the Sith had brought this destruction down upon the Temple, his home. He was angry because he couldn't do anything to stop the fall of Coruscant. He was angry because the Mandalorians, a people who were built on honor through combat, were resorting to focus fire tactics such as this. Phiro's run turned into a sprint, and a roar escaped his mouth as he leaped into the air. He readied a force blast in his right fist, and as he landed, slammed it into the ground, unleashing a shockwave that sent the four troopers next to him flying, and the other two stepping back for balance. It also sent the padawan backwards, knocking her off balance, and without thinking, Phiro grabbed her with the force, and flung her over by the younglingys. That taken care of, he viciously attacked the other two Mandalorians, twirling his blades as he spun. He rushed the still staggered Mandalorian to his right, and cut off the man’s arms finishing with a kick to the stomach, sending him flying off the edge of the platform. When he turned to the other Mandalorian, his demeanor was foreboding, and his anger had completely overcome him. The Mandalorian was waiting, blade and pistol drawn, and he yelled a war cry as he charged. Phiro parried his blows as he once again was locked into a duel, and the Mandalorian's friends began to recover. Phiro's blades were a blur as he exchanged attacks with the Mandalorian, and deflected blaster fire that also came his way. Then their blades deadlocked over the Mandalorian, and Phiro struck again, his rage now guiding his movements. He headbutted the Mandalorian, causing him to stagger back shortly. But it was just enough. Rage fueling the force, Phiro lifted the Mandalorian with the force, and tossed him about like a rag doll, slamming him into several walls, before through him at the one dueling the former Grandmaster of the Order. The rest of the squad then returned to the fight, blades drawn, and blasters blazing. His lightsabers making huge dazzling circles around him, Phiro deflected the blaster bolts aptly, even returning some to their owners. Then several came into striking range, and Phiro arched backwards as a blade swung across where stomach used to be. His feet then ran up the Mandalorian, ending with a kick, and allowing Phiro to backflip into a more defensible position. Phiro's rage then released him, and he realized that he'd just tossed the padawan who was probably hurt in the midst of the younglings, and that he now had to get her over to the ship. However, he also had the pressing matter of the Mandalorian warriors trying their best to bring him down. He slowly took steps back, making sure his posture was never compromised, but that he was retreating towards the padawan. As he came across groups of younglings, he stood in between them and the fire, encouraging them to run towards the ship. The blasters were beginning to graze his armor, but his form was yet to be compromised, so he wasn’t in any real danger. Yet. He continued his fighting retreat, using the force to fuel his arms as they continued to move the lightsabers in defensive swings to deflect blaster fire. If Draco had been there, he’d have decimated the whole squad with a single force wave Phiro thought. And here Phiro was, making a fighting retreat, instead of charging the enemy head on.

Then several grenades landed and exploded on contact between Phiro and the soldiers, with several more releasing a smoke screen. Phiro turned to look back when he found Destro, the crazy pilot of the ship with a grenade launcher in hand. He smiled and waved at Phiro, all the while cackling madly. Phiro knew it wouldn’t take long for Mandalorians to move through and start more shooting, so he ran towards the padawan, having the younglings stay in front of him so he could shield them from stray blaster fire. He finally reached the padawan, and coaxed the younglings to go on further. He called over the pandemonium to the girl.

"Are you alright? Can you walk?"

 

[Emerald Iris]

Ground was being lost once again, what little there was left to give. Sionann steeled her mind, looking for other options as she put all of her arm strength into spinning her blades and deflecting as many blaster shots as she could. That was when Phiro let loose this roar and unleashed an unexpected invisible wave of energy that caused the Padawan to lose her last bit of footing. A fall from this height would have been fatal to just about anyone, even if they had the Force on their side, however she did see several metal bars and potential safe points should she had fallen, the Knight had another idea.

Sionann felt her body gripped by a strong invisible hand and flung back onto the platform towards the children she had been protecting. It was an awkward angle to be thrown at, but the padawan pulled her saberstaff back and stretched out a free hand. She landed on that outstretched hand bending into to reduce the force of the impact while thrusting her body upwards into a flip that had her back on her feet and back up into a Juyo ready stance.

She watched as Phiro made short work of several of the Protectors in what seemed to be the most controlled rage possible. And with this man as a Jedi Knight it was clear he knew what he was doing. It amazed Sionann how one could be so in control as the "animal", but then again, she did not have the same amount of experience that Phiro had. His rage seemed to subside after a moment while covering fire was laid down for him by a not so stable comrade. It seemed he had just remembered the person he had just saved and was now walking over to her.

"Are you alright? Can you walk?" Phiro called to her with a look of concern on his previous rage infused face.

"Yes, I can," Sionann downplayed her situation, knowing that all the mils grazes she took had added up to cause her a fair amount of pain but she looked ahead of the Knight towards the Ghost Avril. "I will not need to fight m..much longer, I just need to get to my ship. They will come with me as I am not staying any longer to fi..." She was cut off by a resurgence of fire from the remaining Mandalorian Protectors that were on the platform having to immediately deflect a couple of bolts that came their way.

One of the Protectors had either deliberately missed or just had a bad shot through the smoke, but either way, there was a bolt that came screaming past Phiro and Sionann and went into the spot where the younglings were huddle together. One of the older children, a miralukan boy no older than about the age of thirteen was struck in the neck by the bolt and he went spiraling down to the ground. She could hear the others suddenly shouting his name "Rornir!" trying to see if he was alright. Her eyes went wide at the sight of the wound, but he was still alive, and that what mattered most. However, this skirmish on the platform had to end now.

Sionann took to the offensive this time, sprinting past the more experienced Knight who had just saved her from what would have been a very unfortunate relationship with the ground below, and back into the fray against the three remaining Protectors. She ran with her body as low to the floor as possible while her lightsaber was swinging in front of her to keep deflecting anything that came her way. A blaster bolt grazed down her back leaving yet another burn to clean up later, but the padawan had finally come into the range of attack she needed.

Plowing her shoulder straight into one of the Protectors, Sionann knocked him completely off balance while the other two drew out their melee weapons. Her blades came upwards in a diagonal strike that fatally cleaved the imbalanced warrior across his chest allowing her to turn and parry the weapons of the remaining two. Sionann did not have the physical strength to hold a deadlock with one Mandalorian warrior, much less two, so she extinguished the one blade to allow the one warrior to lose balance and pass her while she took the opportunity to pull from the other with a flip over the first one's back. She landed and quickly relieved the first one of his legs while rising upwards to meet the second one again, still with only a single blade ignited.

Pulling the warrior into a rhythm of parries and blows, Sionann went back and forth with the last of the Mandalorians on the platform for several rather long seconds till she decided to change the attack pattern. She pulled when she would have attacked and quickly came back in with a strong overhead slash that deliberately missed the warrior and his weapon, only for her to turn change her grip and re-ignite the second blade once more as she came up for a strike that was emulated by her knowledge of the Force in the sheer amount of speed it possessed. The very deceptive and dangerous "Farrow Bird Reversal" as it was called found its mark by cleaving through the torso of the warrior at an upwards angle to be followed by an ensured kill with a horizontal strike to the chest cavity.

"Come on!!" Sionann called in as a commanding tone as she could muster through now beginning to fade smoke. "Bring the wounded boy into my ship, we are getting out of here now!"

It was enough of a command to get the younglings to move, each of them working to carry the barely conscious Rornir towards the Ghost Avril. They were almost out of here, and all still alive.

 

[Sisk_Renelo]

Sisk whirled as the two other Jedi entered the fray, moving to take on his Protectors. Stupid fools! So eager to spill blood that they didn't even think to check what was truly going on. He watched the new arrival slam Tray around the walls, before throwing him at Sisk. Sisk reached out with the force and slowed the young Protectors momentum, and then caught him gently, laying him on the floor. He looked back at the former grandmaster, and bowed his head slightly. "This is what your precious order has become. So eager to prove themselves that they care not for any but their own. Watch your order die, Lecchamemnon." He turned back to Tray, and laid the young man down, his rifle still clutched in his hands. Sisk rose slowly, and a dark fire grew in his eyes. They would pay for the blood they had spilled. All Sisk was trying to do was keep them safe from the predations of the Sith. It was why he and his brothers had come here. And they repaid his mercy with death. This would not stand. Sisk's heart went cold, and something inside him, the last hope he might have held for the Jedi gone. Although he had fought them, broke them, and killed them, he had held out hope that they might keep their honor. It was painfully obvious this was no longer so.

He slung his mace, and drew from the pouch on his left side his old lightsaber, the silver blade igniting with a snap hiss. They would learn what a Mandalorian could do. He opened a link to the Tor. //I need reinforcements to the hangar. Gunships and Basilisks. Full load.// The reply came back. Several gunships, fully loaded, were in the area. ETA: 90 seconds. Sisk and his remaining 15 could hold out that long. Sisk roared above the chaos, his voice clear above the din. "CHARRICS AND GRAVITON! NOW!" The remaining Protectors stepped back, and changed weapons. The new ones they drew were Jedi Killers, built to ignore lightsabers and armor. There was no longer mercy. Sisk ignited his jet pack, and in a burst of movement, interposed himself between the Padawan and the Protector. His lightsaber met hers, and his beskad came up to catch the inevitable follow up blow. Juyo, trained, but not to an advanced level. Sisk had been trained to kill Sith, and he was most familiar with the form. His mouth opened in a growl, and when he spoke, it was without his amplifiers. It was menacing, angry, and utterly cold.

"I tried to save you. I tried to give you a better life than the Sith or even your own order could. And you spit on my mercy. There will be no more."

 

[Jaqen H'ghar]

The Lector had been arming his detonite charges this whole time, walking silently from pillar to pillar, using the force to avoid any stray blaster bolts. Perhaps his lack of joining in the actual frey of battle was why no one had noticed him, perhaps they were just to interested in murder. He looked over the group, the young padawan had made good work of many of the Mandalorians. In truth Lector cared very little for those left. He wondered how they would survive. He had started at the pillar farthest from the lift, and worked his way placing six of them along the various structural weak points as he went closer and closer. Finally he was depleted of half his satchel of explosives. He watched as the ship containing the younglings left, his word was fulfilled though one of the mandalorians had wounded a youngling, he was sure it was on accident. Still, accidents can not be tolerated in a strong sith society

He didn't wave, or give any indications of his plans, no warning whatsover was given. Unlike some Sith, The Lector preferred not to give long monologues about the power of the darkside. He preferred to let actions speak. Words are just wind, after all. He pushed the button as he stepped on the lift, the lift carried him up and away from the hangars as the explosion shook the building to its core when the demolition charges went off. He knew that since he couldn't fix them to the hangar doors there was a chance as the bay collapsed people would escape, but he knew that no one else would be leaving once the rubble and debris collapsed around the rest of the ships. He had taken away the one dependable escape route the Jedi defending other parts of the temple had and that was enough, really.

 

[Denzein]

(OOC: My bad, busy life.)

Time slowed, or perhaps Lecchamemnon got faster. The Mandalorian before him swung for his gut, before firing off a shot from a wrist mounted dart launcher, no doubt filled with some vile poison or another. The former Grandmaster had focused on his opponent to the point that he heard the click of the firing mechanism even as he stepped to the side, even as the Beskad came swinging for his entrails. The sword slashed the air, and the dart followed suit, pinging harmlessly into the hull of the Spectre. He was about to follow up, thus locking the Mandalorian commander into a fight he ultimately had no chance of breaking free from, let alone winning, before the man went for another, igniting a lightsaber with that distinctive snap-hiss. He threw himself between a fellow Mandalorian and certain death, deflecting another's Jedi's blow. His men, of whom there were precious few left (when stacked up against the likes of Lecchamemnon), drew unique and expensive looking weapons at his order. There was no reason for this, unless these new tools could bypass traditional Jedi technique - which meant they likely bypassed Lightsaber partially if not completely. Lecchamemnon almost smiled, before realising he was still required here. More Jedi may yet come, from the commander's orders (That Lecchamemnon had unceremoniously eavesdropped on, thanks to his focus) he had about ninety seconds before overwhelming reinforcements arrived to really ruin his day. He could stay another minute at the maximum, if he still wanted to leave afterwards.

He willed the force to speed any last few errant Jedi to the hangars. They did not have much time.

A group of padawans fled on another ship, leaving for the gauntlet of the war in heaven. He could do nothing for them, but wish the force go with them all. He didn't, however. He had need of the force himself. Casting his focus wider, he saw that one Sith was dead and another was doing his best to remain unnoticed, calmly moving around the hangar with cold efficiency. He left a charge behind every time he sauntered past a pillar. Lecchamemnon was no fool, he saw what was happening, no matter how badly the Sith wanted to remain in the background. He did not waste time. Summoning reserves of energy he waited, letting the battle rage around him while he did as the Sith did, taking the fact that the Mandalorian commander had switched his focus from the former Grandmaster as a boon. He stood and waited, watching as the Sith made for an elevator away from his blast. He would have to be quick.

Jedi broke from cover, taking advantage of the tiny number of Mandalorians left to run for his ship. He ignored them as they fled inside, one getting clipped by a stray shot and crawling up the ramp. Still, Lecchamemnon paid them no heed. They were irrelevant, when compared to his current task.

The elevator's door shut, with the Sith inside it, and Lecchamemnon acted. Prising every charge he had found from its mooring (the last six to be placed), he telekinetically flung them from their vital locations - undefended as they were, relying purely on not having been noticed. He threw one into a group of Mandalorians closing on an isolated padawan near the mouth of the hangar, another as hard and fast as he could out of the hangar door (in the vague hope that it might strike some of the Mandalorian reinforcements), two at the turbolift shaft to try and blast the Sith that had placed them to smithereens, and two at the Mandalorian commander that had dared turn his back. The padawan he was fighting was well within the blast radius, but Lecchamemnon threw these two in such a way that they would land behind the Mandalorian, thus shielding the padawan from the lethal explosions.

The charges went off, and at once Lecchamemnon noticed two things. For one there had been other charges he had not noticed, and for two the Sith in question had fine taste. The blasts were catastrophic, tearing through whatever they had been attached to or even near with ease. Several charges went off across the roof, but thanks to Lecchamemnon's tampering only a few areas actually began to collapse (those near the actual blasts). Pillars cracked and splintered under the strain of holding the hangar together, but hold they did. The roof around Lecchamemnon's ship, and towards the lip of the hangar, was looking intact, if not sturdy. He allowed himself a smile, at long last - something useful had come of his meddling here. Without waiting to see what happened to the Mandalorian who had been near a pair of the blasts, or how the Sith had fared from his own explosions that he surely couldn't have seen sailing directly towards him while ensconced in the lift, he went to work. A pair of Mandalorians aimed at him, realising the blasts must have been his work somehow - and he was on them in a heartbeat. They fired twice and hit air before the master had carved the pair of them to ribbons, neither having the skill or reaction to avoid his frighteningly quick blade.

Time was ticking away before Mandalorian reinforcements arrived. His ship had a few Jedi aboard, but not nearly so many as he'd hoped. He still considered this a victory however, safe in the knowledge that he had aided a ship's worth of padawans already escape. Anyone else he could get out was a bonus.

Another protector came for him, and Lecchamemnon killed again. The dark side within him twitched fitfully, but he held it back as a drunkard holds down vomit. This was penance, not play.

 

[Emerald Iris]

Sionann continued to hold her ground against any further oncoming assaults while the younglings made their way towards her ship. She was in a very deep Juyo stance, but a defensive posture primarily. That was when the Mandalorian Leader issued his command and came flying towards the padawan. She saw the silvery blade of his lightsaber, but had no time to question it when her blades came in contact with his. She felt his anger and rage towards her, rage for his fallen comrades in arms.


"I tried to save you. I tried to give you a better life than the Sith or even your own order could. And you spit on my mercy. There will be no more."

"And your kind attacks unarmed younglings, how is that saving them?!" She fired back as the small group that was with her finally made it up the ramp of the Ghost Avril, taking the injured miralukan boy with them. "You never had mercy, liar! You promise nothing but blood and war!" Another quick parry as her reflexes heightened themselves back to that beyond super human tier in order to help even the field that obviously favored the Mandalorian leader. Sionann was no match for Sisk, but she was going to try as hard as she could, try for the ones she had just saved. "Then again, we Jedi must do what we have to do in order to protect those who cannot protect themselves! Not that you would understand that!"

Her words were brash, filled with inexperience for the Mandalorian way, but Sionann didn't care at this point. After seeing the miralukan boy get shot by one of the Protectors, they had proven themselves almost as bad as the Sith, then again it was a Sith that allowed them safe passage past him. The Mandaloirans were the ones stopping her from leaving, and she could feel her determination rising into anger, an anger that she suppressed.

The padawan applied her advanced knowledge of Juyo against the Mandalorian Leader by feinting several strikes against him before spinning into an upward slash to meet his blade and hopefully close enough to at least put a nice hole in his armor, if he was that close. However, things changed drastically when the explosives went off.

Sionann had been so locked into not being killed by the enraged Sisk that she did not notice the charges that landed behind him until they exploded. The force of the blast sent the padawan flying off her feet, across the platform and against the side of the loading ramp the younglings had just raced up. She felt the sickening crack of her back against the metal and sound of it gouging into her, her lighstaber blades deactivating. A scream of pain left her throat as the agony brought about that warm harsh feeling of blood starting to come down her lower back. It was a stunning sensation, but adrenaline had further kicked in enough to make the padawan scrambled for the ramp to her ship.

The Force guided her with enough strength to crawl onto the ramp and into the Ghost Avril. "Gunny!!" She screamed while entering the ship. "We..a.re....in! Go!"

"Roger, up over and out of here!" Came the rapid reply as the ship began to lift off as the ramp went up with the padawan laying on it.

Sionann continued to crawl up the ramp, her legs having given out from the pain, but she was completely inside when it finally shut and the main engines of the Ghost Avril ignited with a bright blue blaze and took off towards sky in a rapid ascent away from the temple and towards leaving Courscant's atmosphere.

 

[ShadowWalker]

Phiro covered the last of the younglings on board the other ship. The Mandalorian calling upon more of his brethren sent a fresh wave of rage through him, which was only stifled when the explosives went off. Phiro pulled back to the Fang, the lower laser cannons still barking at the ground of the hangar. Phiro scrambled up the ramp, and yelled toward the cockpit.

"GET US OUT OF HERE!"

Then the comms cackled to life, and Phiro heard a distress call.

"This padawan Silvus, I have younglings with me, we need extraction now! We are trapped on the upper levels!" the poor padawan called out. Phiro just looked at Destro, and he nodded. The Fang rose on its repulsor lifts lining itself with the signal. Phiro called back in to the padawan.

"Padawan, get those younglings away from the walls, cavalry's here,"

Blake didn't wait another second as he began firing his cannons into the building before him, tearing away at the walls, and finally getting a hole large enough to get the young jedi through. Phiro sprinted to the ramp, and waved them through. The small children ran terrified of whatever was chasing them. The door at the opposite end was being cut through as the padawan finally got on board. That's when the Basilisks showed up, screaming through the air as they approached at high speeds. The freighter pulled away from the building, and several Basilisks broke off to pursue. Destro yelled back to Phiro as his hands flew across the control panel, turning on avionics, and disabling safeties.

"ON THAT GUN NOW!! Better strap yourselves in back there,"

Phiro was just inside the gun position, when Destro slammed the throttle to full, and banked left. Phiro took hold of the gun, and began firing at the Basilisks that were chasing them, both them and the freighter bobbing and weaving in and out of buildings. The Basilisks began to return fire, and Phiro felt the ship enter a barrel roll to try and avoid the fire. It also made tracking targets nigh impossible. What Phiro would have given to have Draco piloting a fighter escort. The ship then quickly pulled up in a high G turn, grabbing sky as it literally went straight up. The Basilisks did the same, once again firing laser cannons at the now open target of the ship. Shots began to land, but the shields thankfully held for now. Then, the engines seemingly died, and the ship rode its momentum for several seconds, when Destro hit the air brakes, causing it stop, then stall. The Basilisks overshot, screaming past as the tried to correct, right into Phiro and Blake's guns. Phiro pulled the trigger on his laser cannons as they sent shot after shot into the Basilisk, first causing its shields to fail, then tearing through its armor. Finally a shot smacked into the Basilisk's underbelly, and caused it to explode spectacularly. Phiro whooped as he got the kill, but then realized, they were still in free fall. Terror gripped him as the ship re aligned itself so the nose was facing the planet. He could hear the mad cackling of Destro at the pilot's chair, and immediately knew that he had to be up to something. He called over his headset.

"What, are, you, DOING?!?!?"

"Still got troops at the HQ, figured we get who we could before they got creamed as well,"

Phiro was about to protest, when a distress call came over their comm channel.

"This is soldier John Sarton of the Alliance military, my men are pinned and need extraction. Command has been lost, repeat, Command has been overrun,"

Destro called back over the comms.

"We read you John, on our way,"

Phiro brought his gun around to face another set of Basilisks and Sith Fighters. He hoped this would be quick.

 

[Sisk_Renelo]

Sisk allowed the explosion to throw him into the air, activating his jet pack and bringing himself to a stop 10 meters in the air. He drew his graviton rifle, and began to pick shots at the Jedi in the hangar. He was done with them. They had shown their true colors. None would survive. Jedi after Jedi fell to his pulses, bones breaking and organs pulverizing as they were hit. The young one he had been fighting with crawled into a ship, as Sisk's comm activated with a buzz. //10 seconds! Brace for impact!// Sisk barked out orders, and the remaining Mandalorians leapt into the air, activating their packs, and flew towards the ceiling, their weapons barking at alliance and Jedi alike. The two ships lifted off, and Sisk cursed, even as his bolt took off the head of a knight who was dancing through the storm of bolts. Several more dropships in Protector heraldry dropped in, disbarking troops who added fire to the fray.

//Bring in fighters to the following marked targets!// Sisk pulled back, and threw two small trackers, guiding them with the force and allowing them to impact on the hulls, the magnetic clamps latching tight. //Force them down, and bring any survivors to me!// confirmation came back from the Tor, and as the ships left, Sisk dropped back to the ground, his rifle slung, and his beskad ready. A foolhardy Jedi made a dash for him, and a quick block and backhanded slash separated the Miralukan's head from his shoulders. Another swing, and a Twi'lek padawan dropped, her intestines spilling from her cut midsection. Sisk was no longer playing games, it was time to finish this.

Sisk strode to the banks of lifts, his beskad flashing, red arcs being thrown by the blade as it found flesh. He was in his element, his place, and he became nothing but death itself. But then, he paused. He stopped in his tracks, his mind lighting up like a fireworks show. She was here. On Coruscant. Close at hand. the impression she left in his mind was different than before, but the feeling he had come to know so well was still there, buried underneath the darkness. Sisk shook it off quickly, and raised his beskad in the nick of time, warding off a blow meant to take his head, and his left arm lashed out, the blade buried in the gauntlet extending, and cut through his attackers windpipe, and then ripped sideways, nearly decapitating his assailant. With a blink, he opened his comm channel. //Secure the hangar. Any prisoners of war are ours to deal with. Any Sith who argues otherwise can deal with me.//

With that, he entered the lift, and mashed the button that would take him to the deepest levels, the abandoned training rooms. As he did, he sent a silent message to the presence he knew so well. 'Come find me.'

 

[Brandon Rhea]

Across all means of communication, be they nearby HoloNet screens, personal communication devices, military communication systems, and more, a small hologram of the injured Alliance Chief of State, Nathanaeu Bastele, appeared before everyone who could see it. His face was shredded, with one of his eyes practically hanging from the socket. His body was torn apart, with his insides visible. It was a gruesome sight, showing just how bad the battle was. If the Chief of State could be this hurt, anyone could. Anyone could be killed.

But he had a message to send, one more important than what happened to him. It was garbled, with the chaos of the battle and Sith jammers preventing it from fully being reached, but there was enough to understand what Bastele was saying:

"This is Nathanaeu Bastele. A Sith warship… descending… Jedi Temple. I don’t know… planning but... If you can hear… evacuate or head underground… all costs. Coruscant… gone. The Alliance is falling. Save yourselves and… Force… with you."

With that, the transmission faded away. The end of the Alliance had come.

 

[Brandon Rhea]

Life itself was dying. Coruscant, in this moment, was the closest any mortal would ever come to understanding what it would be like if Death reached out its cold hands and reaped the Force, or God, or nature, or whatever it was that made the universe spin. On the surface, and even in orbit, every living thing felt the destructive power of what the two tiny figures atop the hull of a Star Destroyer were doing. Life was being drained, sucked into the blackened and decrepit soul of a curse called Skywalker.

Those adept in history might have drawn a comparison to the ancient Dark Lord of the Sith called Darth Nihilus, a devourer of worlds, and life, and all the energy around him. Like that Dark Lord of old, Andraste was a wound in the Force, craving all of its energy and devastating everything in her path. No being escaped feeling its impacts; they felt drained, weak, like even the simplest of tasks required strength of herculean proportions. Escaping Coruscant, or even hiding, would feel like an eternity.

The planet itself was breaking. As the Empress drained the life and energy from all around her, the Dark Lord Vereor was ravaging the surface. A storm of pure Force energy was growing; lightning, real lightning and not artificially created from satellites, struck down from the clouds from all directions, in all streets and crevasses in the city, tearing swaths through buildings and dirt. The energies even reached into space, tearing apart ships and disrupting systems on so many others. The wind howled all through the sky, and tornadoes formed to destroy the artificial world that they were touching down on.

The temperature was dropping. At once it felt sickeningly hot but also colder than the snowy wastes of Hoth. The rain falling from the sky froze, turning into shards of ice as it fell, stabbing through the heads and bodies of countless thousands, if not more. The carefully constructed weather of the once-great capital of the Republic and the Alliance was torn asunder. The planet itself was now just as much the enemy of the Alliance as the Sith.

Yet at the center of all this madness was something beautiful. At the Jedi Temple, above which the Imperial Star Destroyer sat, a beautiful aurora was forming. Dark and dangerous energy collided into a green display of dancing lights, one that could have been a calming sight were it not for the life being drained from everything below it. At the core of this beauty, though, was something rotten, for the light was not a mere byproduct of the attack. It was the attack itself. The dark energies and lightning being displayed was the eldritch energy sucked into the very heart of this labyrinth by the Dark Lord himself, a reflection of the souls being sacrificed for more power.

Anyone with any sort of psychic awareness, be they Jedi or anyone even remotely attuned to the Force, could feel as those souls were taken and twisted into a dark purpose for which the Force should never have been used. It was a warning, a reminder of what the Chief of State said across the HoloNet.

Leave or die.