"The Mok'ra Combat - Part 1"
By Connor Moonsgrave
Tor'turus - NPC
Ni'sorun - NPC

Location: Drogen Shipyards
Date: Selene 27, 5 ABY

***

Connor's ideas of creating a Drogen Front and use the lodge to hide the operation seemed to have strong affect on Logan and the rest of the gang, since many of the people that were part of the gang lost some close to them to the guns of the Jau.

The process of transition was quickly and efficient, with minimal loss of life, but the fact remained that there was loss of life, in the side of the people that wanted to protect their homes, against an unknown invader. Connor had buried in his mind when those four bastards that still are in sort of exhibit to show how efficient was the resolve of the Jau.

Connor had left the hideout of Logan and his men and made way towards the Lodge, when along the way a group of Jau passed by him. At first Connor passed by them with no problem, but then a small kid appeared and throw something at the Jau that Connor had no time to see what it was, but it was something like glass, since when it hit one of the Jau it broke into tiny glass pieces the sparkled in the dime light of the location.

The Jau stopped immediately and turned around to see who was the responsible and they saw both the boy and Connor. The boy seeing the faces of the Jau quickly run off into a darker corridor, leaving Connor alone with angry group of Jau, that quickly assumed he was the person in charge for this incident.

The leader of the group, a male Jau called Tor'turus told something in their native tongue and the four others quickly pointed their guns towards Connor, at the same they shouted in their lack of basic speech for Connor to raise his hands.

"You think it's so funny to throw things at, hater of Jau?" Tor'turus said as he approached Connor.

"I'm not hater of Jau, I wasn't the one responsible for the incident," Connor stated in way to prove his innocence.

Tor'turus looked into the eyes of Connor for few moments. "You show honor in your eyes, human. I believe that the one responsible is the child." Tor'turus turned towards his men. "Ni'sorun, search the area! Not even if we have to knock down every door and drag the people on to the street. I want that child found."

"Yes, sir," Ni'sorun said and he began to move in the direction of Connor with two other Jau warriors to enter in the dark street.

As Connor heard this order, he saw that a lot of confusion could make loss of life. It was at this point the Connor used a balance inside his head to see what was more important, the Drogen Front and the Lodge or to prevent the loss of life that night might occur. Connor was now depending on the same balance that made him act to kill Urren in the first place.

Connor step in front of Ni'sorun and the other two Jau Warriors, his balance inside him has made the choice for him. "I can't let you do that!"

Ni'sorun turned to face Tor'turus, that had face of somewhat surprise. Tor'turus moved to the side of Ni'sorun. "Why are you protecting a young boy, which you don't even know?"

Connor looked to the Jau's eyes. "You are observant..." With the threat of Ni'sorun slight movement Connor when directly to the point. "If it means sacrificing my life to save a few lives that perhaps your warriors in the heat of the moment could kill, then so be it."

Tor'turus blinked his eyes in surprise to what Connor had said. It was the first time he saw a man selfless to protect the lives of others, a human that had some nobility and honor. Tor'turus never saw this in a human he fought before but now there was one right in front of him. Tor'turus smiled and looked to Ni'sorun he backed off. "Selflessness is a noble act, indeed a rare one, among your species human."

Tor'turus looked to Connor and could find not scared of his figure like others, he could see the horrors of war in his eyes, like Tor'turus saw in his years of youth. "As much I value honor and nobility I can't overlook an incident like this that shows pure hate to the Jau. So I'm afraid you have to take the place of the little boy."

Still to Tor'turus didn't fell right to take Connor with such high regard to lives of others. "I tell you what I challenge you to Mok'ra combat."

Connor noticed the reaction of the other Jau. He saw Ni'sorun to approach Tor'turus. "Are you crazy Tor'turus, why don't we just take this weak human and search for the boy anyway..."

"Are you challenging my orders?" Tor'turus voice came in angry mode, towards Ni'sorun. "I'm your commanding officer and if I decide to face a human in Mok'ra combat, then so be it."

"Yes... Sir." The voice of Ni'sorun's words seemed to have difficult time to pass through his throat.

"Your attitude and lack of honor, are my shame. I have worn of such attitude, Ni'sorun, but your lack of learning it disturbs me," Tor'turus stated.

"Yes..." Ni'sorun had mix of shame and anger in his eyes, his words just simply died. Connor could see that clearly, but Ni'sorun controlled himself, he simply moved to the side and obey Tor'turus' orders.

"What is exactly a Mok'ra combat?" Connor asked curiously.

"It is hand to hand combat... to the death!" Tor'turus said, with smile.

"I see!" Connor said, but he had no alternative in escaping this combat, he had already taken the boy's place and if he backed up, would be against of his inner values. "Our fates are sealed; there is no escape from this. I'm ready when you are."

Connor was disarmed by the Jau warriors, keeping his eyes on Tor'turus at all time. He saw, that Tor'turus being disarmed, but he left the sword that was hanging on his back to be in place. Connor knew that Tor'turus was honorable person and he would not use his sword in this fight, a fight to the death.


"The Trickster"
By: Gideon Kherris, Jedi
Ron'amon, Jau agent [NPC+]

Location: Outside Thanatos, Jau Detention Encampment
Date: Selene 27th, 5ABY

***

Gideon slowly awoke. His head was pounding, like a herd of bantha on a stampede through his skull. He blinked his eyes repeatedly as he tried to ascertain his surroundings. His body was stiff and he felt more aches and pains than he could ever recall having before. He tried to sit up, but severe pain shot through his left side. He groaned and tried to roll over, but he soon found that he was shackled. He tested his bonds only to find new pain. He cried out. His right hand felt swollen and as if every bone had been crushed.

He sighed. He found his center and took several deep and calming breathes. He touched the Force and let its waves wash over him.He needed to be calm. Something inside of him told him that at least several days had gone by since...

It took him a moment to remember what had befallen him. Jeron? he wondered. He last remembered being out for supplies and milling around Thanatos for any information as to their plight. The Jedi had become renegades, criminals of the planet. They had scattered. He and Jeron had found themselves going into the desert until they could reunite with the others from the temple.

His injuries brought on a whole new set of recollections...the aliens, lizard-men. Outcast or not, he was still Jedi and had a duty. He happened upon some sort of patrol, they had prisoners. From all he knew of the world and the many species of the galaxy, Gideon had not the first clue of who they were, but his instincts told him they were trouble and that they didn't belong.

How surprising when the confrontation turned aggressive, that his lightsaber failed him. Something about the creatures, and they seemed just that. His senses through the Force screamed with rage and malice, blind allegiance and devotion. There was nothing humane about them. Pure ruthlessness. He had seen such failure in a lightsaber before, when he had been with the Jensaari. The Jensaari wore armor with cortosis alloy, the only substance in the galaxy known to have such resistance to laser technology, and the lightsaber. Those creatures he encountered in the desert must have had some similar armor.

Gideon had many skills other than the lightsaber, but the shock of its failure and the rage he felt through the Force had given the creatures all the advantage they needed. They took him with brutal force and uncanny speed, like Voornskrrs after having caught the scent of blood.

"You are wake?" a harsh yet feminine voice asked.

Gideon had not even realized there was anyone nearby. He should have felt her presence. He opened up with the Force, focusing. Still he could sense her. There was something, but not a presence...more like an absence in the Force.

Odd, he thought at the lack of perception.

"P-please, if you wake. If you hear. Speak," the voice asked with a tremble. "I have fear, I alone. Scared. P-prisoner, likes you, yes?"

"Prisoner," he repeated.

"Jau," she said. "Prisoner of Jau."

"Jau?" he asked, his voice cracking from days without water. His throat was rough and soar, his mouth dry and pasty, lips cracked. "Is there water?"

"Drink?" she asked, then there was a shuffle of movement.

Gideon had trouble focusing his vision. He could sense movement, though he could not perceive the presence of the person through his Force senses. It bothered him greatly.

A hand lifted his head slightly and he felt something cool and wet touch his lips.

"Help, yes?"

Gideon opened his mouth slightly and pressed his lips to the cloth. A cool sweetness awoke his tastebuds. He was careful not to be greedy, though his body yearned for more. He did not want to become sick from drinking too much, nor take too much of what could very well be all these Jau had allowed them.

"Help?" Gideon asked.

"You Yeti? I hear talk. Talk of Yeti."

"Jedi," Gideon corrected. "I'm afraid you are mistaken. I'm no Jedi."

"Yes, so you say. I know. Yeti enemy of Jau. You no Yeti, heeeheee."

Gideon began to feel a numbness, his breathing become labored. He tried to focus his thoughts, his inner feelings through the Force. He didn't know if it was his injuries, maybe he was hurt more than he had known. Or was it...The water?

Gideon swung his arm out, but it was slow and there was nothing but air.

"Feisty," the voice growled, having lost any of the innocence there was before.

"Who...r oo?" Gideon tried to ask as a violent wave of vertigo engulfed his senses.

"Do not fight it Jedi, and do not worry. You are not dead...yet."

"Wut...wan?"

"Information. You will give it. Do not fight the drug, please me and I will grant you a warriors' death. Quick. Struggle, and you will know great Pain," Ron'amon assured him.

***

The villip quivered and it began to glow, just slightly, with bio-illuminescence. Ron'amon stood before the creature, she caressed its outside shell. Her master was calling. Her true masters. By its contractions and the weakness of its iridescence, she knew it would still be some time before the connection could be fulfilled. The creature's sister villip was millions of light years away. Unlike the communication devices of the infidels of the galaxy, the villip was purely biologically. Engineered, but biological. It was no less efficient, but its telepathic properties were not as quick as the communication relays the blasphemers used over such great distances.

Ron'amon fingered the masquer that covered her face and body. It was a bio-engineered creation, a creature itself, that allowed her to walk among the heretics in the guise of one their own. The old crone facade loosened from her face. The masquer responded to her stimuli, its tendrils began to retract from her pores. It slumped away to the ground, to reveal her true form. She was Yuuzhan.

She gathered the masquer and placed it into a basin made of a hard crustaceous material, smooth and pearly on the inside, like a large oyster. The fluid inside was gelatinous and it glowed with an iridescent blue. The masquer quivered within the liquid, absorbing nutrients and rehydrating itself.

Ron'amon turned to the glass mirror. Being among such infidels day after day, year after year...she never saw her own people. It made her ill. She liked to look at herself when she could, and it was not often for she had to don the masquer for days on end. Now that the Jau had taken the planet, she had very little time to her self. Jau servitude was near endless. She didn't know what sickened her more, the heretics of this blasphemous galaxy or the bastard Jau whose insolent plans at conquest of the galaxy threatened the plans of her Yuuzhan masters. It was theirs, the Yuuzhan, for the taking.

Several years before she had been approached by agents of the Jau, to work for them. For over twenty years she had been a Yuuzhan spy, laying down the workings of her masters for their own conquests, and now another race was making claim. Her masters demanded she halt her mandates and investigate these Jau. They were indeed a threat.

She almost laughed. It was comical, and she silent offered a praise to Yun-Harlaa the Trickster Goddess. Soon she would have contact with her Yuuzhan masters. They would not be pleased with all that had transpired. The Jau had stepped up their plans by taking the world of Tae'Karada. It seemed that Yun-Harlaa was testing the Vong. Always did they have to prove their worth to their gods.

The villip quivered more frequently and with greater urgency. It was nearing a climax, at which point she would have contact.

She grasped a snake-like whip from the table. It slithered awake in her grasp. She took it firmly and with purpose. She had to cleanse herself before standing before her master. She was filthy, filthy from the day-to-day presence of abominations and heresy. She was forced, in her allegiance to the Vong and her servitude to the Jau, to praise false deities and soil her hands and soul with blasphemous technologies.

She began to flog her self with zeal. The pain was welcoming. She had long known pain, and she did not fear it. It made her stronger, it made her thoughts and her resolve clearer. she continued to strike herself, the snakelike heads of the amphistaff tore into her flesh. She did not cry out, she did not flinch. She took it all in with relish devotion to her people and her gods.

The villip climaxed, its glow was steady and strong. Her master demanded contact. It had been nearly two years. She dropped the whip, its snakelike heads ceased to wriggle without her physical and mental contact. She took the villip in her hand. She caressed it, stimulated the creature to open and obey her masters call. The mollusk like shell opened. The fleshy insides quivered and bulged to reveal the head of her master. The villip's flesh created a near perfect model of the Yuuzhan who communicated from afar. Like herself, the face was vaguely humanoid with a myriad of scars that covered the face. Her own face was transmitted, far away to reveal her own likeness by which to communicate.

By the infidels standards her face was a gross collection of mutilations, but by Vong standards each scar, each gouge, was a testament of worth and accomplishment.

The villip spoke, her master demanded that she report.


"Back to Nature"
By Omri Kedemoth

Location: Arcadia
Date: Selene 27, 5ABY

***

Omri strapped the last of his gear onto the speeder bike. It was an older model, but one he had used as a rebel scout, and he knew it would do the job. He leaned back against the bike, looking at the skyline and scratching his short beard. He knew very little of this place, this planet he had wandered into. But he did not believe it was by accident, fate had brought him here. Here to meet Kai again, to learn her terrible secret. To meet Tara Darellia and return her ship. Here to bring him to a place of desperation and frustration. The incident at Thanatos was the last straw.

Omri had decided to take a Talach. In the tradition of the Nexi warriors, the Talach was a solitary journey to re-center the body spirit and mind. It was a time to focus on the Nexi virtues. To leave behind the guilt over his wife, the distraction of Tara, the confusion of war. He had decided on the desert to the north for his Talach. He learned what he needed to survive the harsh climate and acquired the necessary gear. Now it was time.

He climbed onto the speeder bike and activated the repulsor engine. With a loud whine the large bike shot off past the cities outskirts and towards Tae'Sollar.