Lightning shatters the sky and strikes the spire atop the cloning complex towering before anyone who steps off their ship and onto the rain-slick landing platform. Kamino, the Planet of Storms, is known for its roiling seas and constant torrential downpour. The fall of the Galactic Empire hit the planet’s primary export of military cloning projects extremely hard, but the Kaminoans remained afloat, both figuratively and literally with contracts to galactic warlords and the brilliant engineering of their iconic seaborne cities.

The initial landing pad is a wide circle designed to accommodate a variety of ships, and is connected to a series of other platforms as well. Every surface is slick with rain, but avoids flooding due to the sloped edges that allow the water to run off into the sea below and away from the center-point.

The cloning facility’s exterior is characterized by similar slopes, and raindrops rapidly transform into steam as they touch against the series of lightning rods around the platform, much like they would if they dripped onto a lightsaber blade.

History tells of the fateful encounter between Obi Wan Kenobi and renowned Bounty Hunter Jango Fett. The doors of the facility are sealed, which means that whatever challenge awaits will have to be faced in the heart of the omnipresent rainstorm.

Torrential winds whipped up waves to crash against metal. Tall platforms extended out of the raging sea. Lighted panels reflected off chrome metal plating. Kamino's cloning facility was not where she wished to be. Pacing beneath her landed frieghter was a woman of firce renown. By her side stood a black colored KX unit, her only company aside from the abysmal weather. Thunder rolled in the sky, clashing with the turbulent rain and resounding in the air around her. Satsi Tameike couldn’t ignore the annoyance she felt for her Consul as the never-ending rain crashed against her face.

Frakken karker just had to order me out here, didn’t he? I’ll get that frakken Ryn for this!

In the distance a loud humming could be heard; the humming of an approching vessel. Noticing the incomming ship, an Interceptor, as it entered the area and landed on a nearby platform, Satsi turned to her black as night droid. She gave PB a hard look and ordered ‘him’, “Monitor me while I’m out. If things seem like they’re getting dicey, get me outta there.” PB simply nodded before returning to the nearby freighter.

Satsi walked away from her ship, and headed across the slippery platforms to find a black garbed figure stepping out of the starfighter. As lightning flashed it reflected its brilliance off of hi meatllic arm. A familiarity of her time as Consul, she recognized the newcomer. She had used his skills several times in the past.

“You’re late, you lazy Kark.” She spat out, clearly annoyed.

“My apologies, Mistress Tameike, something came up,” the figure said in a voice that was being modified beneath the full faced helmet he wore. The disrespect he held for her was clearly present in his tone. “Now that we are both here, our mission begins. Our objective: discover if the rumors are true that a DNA sample of our fallen Consul Atyiru has found its way to the Kamino cloning facilities. If the rumors are true, we must destroy the sample and apprehend the responsible parties.”

His words were direct and his position was immovable. Satsi couldn’t help but roll her eyes at his professionalism. She honestly wanted to break his teeth whenever he spoke around her.

“Mother fraker, I don’t know why that blasted Ryn sent me out here,” the woman said under her breath, unaware that her company was paying attention. “Certainly some other peon coulda gotten the job done.”

“If I’m being honest, Mistress Tameike, I don’t know why you’re here either,” Aiden said beneath his mask, a small amount of disdain in his tone.

“Excuse me? What that frak did you just say?”

“No offense intended, but you’re not exactly the most level-headed individual in our Clan. I could easily take care of this situation myself,” Aiden faced Satsi as her face contorted with rage. He saw the emotion scrawled across her features and smirked slightly beneath his helmet, before turning to walk towards the cloning facility. “And to be frank, I don’t understand what Lady Atyiru ever saw in you. The way you led the Clan, the way you treated her apprentices; she would have been ashamed of you.”

Lightning flashed, almost blindingly so, and Aiden felt the Force shoot a warning through him. He spun around and caught a fist to the chest. Even with his lightly armored attire, the blow stung. Satsi’s assault continued as she swung blow after brutal blow. Aiden allowed the Force to flow through him, using its assistance to weave through the woman’s fists.

He swerved to the right, barely dodging a left hook to the face, but he wasn’t quick enough to notice the knee that caught him in the gut. As the force of the impact made him bend forward, Satsi grabbed hold of his cloak and held him as she pummeled him with continuous blows to the gut. Aiden closed his eyes as he felt the multiple hits being chained together. He closed his right fist and channeled the Force around him into a tight coil within his grasp. Pulling himself free of his cloak, and backing away from the Ex-Consul’s blows, Aiden smashed his fist down to the metallic platform. Opening his hand on impact, he released the contained energy into a shockwave that threw Satasti to the ground.

Gathering his breath, and trying to ignore the bruises forming on his torso, Aiden jumped into the air as he adjusted his wrist slightly. With a subtle shing a skinny hidden blade extended from his wrist gauntlet. As he descended towards the downed woman, Aiden plunged his weapon toward her with the intent to skewer her abdomen. Satsi rolled away, receiving only a cut from the sharpened edge. Both Arconan’s got to their feet and faced each other.

“You’re as good as I’ve heard, Mistress. Who knew Atty would be a breaking point for you.” Aiden taunted, his eyes blazing with lust behind his visor.

“You know nothing. I’ll be happy to show you just how badly you’ve frakked up today.” Clenched in her hand, hidden from sight, was a thermal detonator. She couldn’t wait to rip this Force User to pieces, starting with that metal arm.

Her anger was a sound between her ears like a starfighter's engines screaming. It was a tight vice around her chest. It was hands that ached to do violence.

Violence had already been on her agenda for this mission, if the Kaminoans had wanted to put up a fight. But that had just been indignation at some scientist freaks bastardizing her not-friend's body. Now, her anger was burning cold and white, and something was going to get taken to pieces. Aiden's arm really did look like a good place to start. Then his face.

Grief was a funny thing, sneaking up no matter how well she knew it. It could immobilize, or it could fuel whole starships. It was good then for stoking the chill fires of blind rage. She couldn’t have formed more words even if she wanted to. Her limbs carried the tension of a spring about to snap.

Satsi launched herself at the Gray Jedi with an anger so bright it felt almost like joy.

He caught her quick-drawn dagger with beautiful precision, the thin blade in his gauntlet reinforced enough to stand the force of the blow. Just as quickly, he flowed backwards a step, disengaging, his circuitous footsteps silenced by the pounding rain. She chased after him, slashing and swiping while spinning crescent kicks aimed to crack into his his sternum and diaphragm. The man kept moving fluidly away, just not there where she attacked, dodging more than trying to parry. Her knife scored across his cybernetic limb with a soft, barely-audible scree in the storm.

Satsi bared her teeth at him, spitting a mouthful of water. Visor shining in the glaring lightning, Aiden merely lunged at her, arm extending in a refined jab. It didn't reach, however -- a move more suited to his saber than his short blade? -- and as the man recovered in that heartbeat of a stumble, the ex-Consul reversed her grip and slammed the hilt of her weapon into his bracer, breaking the stilleto's housing and sending the weapon skittering off across the platform. A modulated sound of pain awarded her bruising blow as the Jedi cradled his flesh arm quickly to his chest and slid swiftly away.

Behind her back, Satsi just barely heard the rapidly accelerating beepbeepbeep of the detonator she'd activating readying to blow.

Her shoulder whipped around, arm winding back. Though she couldn't see Aiden's face, she saw him go rigid in surprise-anticipation-danger only the way Force-users ever did. He threw up his hands. The grenade sailed from her fingers.

Deshra tried to divert the projectile; it started to change course mid-air, pushed by an invisible, indomitable force. But it wasn't enough. She'd cut the countdown so close for a reason. The device exploded between them in a riptide of heat and power, a secondary explosion of suddenly-converted steam making a burning, hissing supernova. Aiden shouted as he was blown back, and Satsi did the same, intense pain radiating over her skin and straight to her nerves with the deep sort of agony only burns could produce. A moment later the drumming rain returned, its cold an instant balm, but only just.

The mercenary rolled onto her side, water streaming down her nose and chin and hair, and pushed herself up despite the screeching pull of her flesh. It was just pain, clean and bright. She threw herself to her feet and ran right into the shallow crater left in the durasteel platform, superheated metal still spitting and hissing as the storm quickly cooled it. There was movement on the other side, and a crackle of light, and she dove for it blindly, water blurring her vision. Her limbs made contact with a body that thrashed in response, and a strong hand wrestled at her, snagged in her hair, beat her back. The man's palm closed over her face as he tried to shove her off and she jerked violently, latching her teeth around the soft, meaty tendon between his thumb and forefinger. She tasted blood and his scream and bit harder, anchoring herself by her aching jaw while she scrabbled to climb atop him, to pin him better.

The karker was strong, though, and had stamina enough to match her. He nearly slithered free and she lost her grip, spitting a flap of skin and gagging in pain when something slammed into her ribcage. It wasn't a punch, but it was a hard blow, like being driven into a knee. She gasped for air and saw the Jedi twist again to bring the mangled edge of his metal arm around to slam into the side of her head. The hand fixture wasn't gone, just mangled, melted into a clump, the rest of the metal plates scorch-marked and scathed but intact. She got a good look at it while it was pressing into her windpipe, her vision washing with blackness.

Aiden rolled them over with one massive heave. Satsi writhed even as he struggled to pin her in turn, sitting on her chest and shoulders to trap her arms and spreading his legs to hook hers open flat. The position gave her no traction, and for most people, it would have been a trap.

But she'd been pinned down more times in her life than most, and Aiden, while strong and precise, was no brawler.

The woman twisted her hips sharply to the side, sliding a knee up enough to free it, then quickly repeated the motion so she could plant her booted feet. Before Dresha could adjust, she was rolling her hips with all the power of her muscled body, pushing off the platform with feet and back, the motion rolling through her abdomen and thighs and throwing him off of her completely, over her head. Aiden landed hard, helmeted skull clattering as he splashed down, and Satsi was on him again like a manka cat leaping.

Aiden felt the full pressure of the insane woman as she pinned him down beneath her. She raised her fist and swung hard impacting against the side of his helmet. Even with his head guarded, the Balance-follower could feel the force of her assault. She was trying to kill him.

Satsi continued to land blow after blow on Aidens helmet. She ignored the painful burns that covered her skin, and the bloodied knuckles she now sported. To Aiden’s surprise, he could see a crack forming on his visor. She was going to break the helmet off of his face. Trying to compose himself and forget about the throbbing pain emanating off his freshly bitten hand, he looked around for anything that could help him. In the distance, distorted by the crashing rain, he could make out a set of glowing red eyes framed by black-as-night coverings.

Vizierian you pile of scrap, you're enjoying watching this aren't you? he thought to himself. His infiltrator droid was just watching his pummeling.

A glistening at the far edge of the platform caught his attention. Aiden reached out willing the Force to do his bidding. He grasped the broken blade with his mind and looked again to Satsi as she delivered another strike that broke the helmet. She grabbed the destroyed armor piece and ripped it from Aiden’s head. His nose and lip bled as his eyes began to bruise. Satsi snarled as her fist drew back, but before she could destroy him a lithe sharp knife flew through the air from from behind and embedded itself in her arm.

Satsi let out a howl of pain as Aiden used his strength to push her off of him. Clamoring away, he watched as she pulled the blade from her flesh and threw it off of the platform. The silvery blade sailed through the air, crashing into the waves below. She walked towards the Force user when a pure black robotic body leapt between them, a zhaboka in its grasp.

“What the frak are you?” She snarled.

“It’s about time you got here, Viz. What took you so long?” Aiden asked the E-XD Infiltrator Droid. “I thought you were gonna let her kill me.”

The droid let out a sound that was reminiscent of a cackle. “I almost did and I’d have finally been free of you, master. Unfortunately my programming requires I keep you alive if possible.”

“Well, stop her. I need to get out of here. In my current state, I don’t think I’m much use.” Aiden turned tail and hobbled away towards his ships platform.

“If only I could kill you myself, meat bag.” Vizierian mentioned in a hushed tone.

With mechanical limbs in a whirl of movement, the Infiltrator droid attacked. The double bladed weapon spun and slashed, nearly slicing into Satsi’s flesh as she went on the defensive. The droid seemed specifically trained with this bladed weapon and wasn’t letting up on its attack. Staying on edge, the female Arconan weaved through the quick sweeps of the droid.

Where are you when I need you, you frakken bucket of bolts. she thought, PB on her mind.

As if hearing her thoughts, a slight clunking could be heard. Metal feet colliding with a metal platform. PB was running towards them, intent on following Satsi’s orders. Vizierian halted its attack on Satsi and defended against the Enforcer droid who was programmed for combat. Steel struck steel, as the two drois fought at a stalemate.

Satsi scoured the surrounding platforms. Her body ached, and the rain distorted her vision, but she could make out Aiden’s from heading towards his ship. The ex-Consul knew that he would take off before she caught up to him, so she doubled back to her own ship. She had a present for the Gray Jedi.

Stepping back out into the rain, Satsi held in her hands a rocket launcher. She steeled herself for a moment, taking aim at the ship of her prey. Once she felt the launcher was properly readied she pulled the trigger and the projectile was released. A rocket sailed out of the open end of the launcher.

Aiden was preparing his ship from launch. He looked to where he had fought and the two droids were still at it. Viz had stabbed the Enforcer with one end of the zhaboka, but PB just kept coming. A noise caused Aiden to turn more, and what he saw made his eyes go wide. Approaching quickly was the rocket launched by Satsi. Aiden watched helplessly as the missile collided with his ship.

BOOM

The collision caused a fiery explosion, the force of which threw Aiden back off of his feet and sent him careening over the edge of the platform. His face was blistered and red from the heat of the explosion and he fell, unconscious, through the air. His body felt the cold as he crashed into the raging seas below, bones shattering from the distance he fell. His lungs filled with water as they tried to take in air. The Gray Jedi sunk down, into the seas. Only a set of red eyes seen coming his way would show him any hope.

Satsi watched in delight as her will was done. She felt much better now that her fight was over, but now her sights were turned on the frakkers who were trying to clone her not-friend. Someone else was about to pay, and she couldn’t wait.

Satsi slammed them to floor.

"You. Mother. Frakker," she snarled, punctuating each word with a vicious punch to the face. Her knuckles busted open, skin breaking while bone showed white, cut against the strong plastic, but she didn't care.

The visor cracked under her assault, and its shards embedded in her fist, in her opponent's cheeks. She finally paused to just tear the helmet off and keep punching. The pale, bloody countenance that greeted her only made her madder, those green eyes of his alight with a fire she wanted to smother, purpling cuts and swelling bruises making them pop.

"You don't know anything about me and her," spat Satsi into his face, spraying bloody spittle. You don't know sithspit. You don't know what she thought of me, I know what she thought of me, she karking loved me, she loved me like I didn't deserve and she used me 'cause she knew I knew it because that was her! That's what she was, that's who she was, she LOVED US. And you think you know better? Frak you. You knew her for a second. I loved her for years, and I didn't even have a choice. But she did. She chose to love me, chose to trust me, chose to use me, and you, you slime, don't get to take that away from her."

Deshra just grunted as she beat at him, enduring, squinting past swelling. His jaw was locked tight even as she swung a fist into his eye with all her weight, producing a very loud crunch. One of those green eyes disappeared under a concave dip of bone and blood, but the other glared up at her.

He hissed at her, "Stop!"

The voice was authority. Above him, her hand stilled.

"Stop. I command it,” he ordered, power lacing his words.

In her mind, something old cracked, reset, took over.

OBEY MASTER.

Wait.

COMMAND.

Wait.

OBEY.

The body did not move. The body remained still. The voice was not correct. Words unfamiliar. Master did not call the body "our Doll." But the voice was authority. Master was authority. It was the Master.

MASTER.

Awaiting Master's will.

OBEY.

"You will stop."

But I don't want to.

MASTER ORDERED.

OBEY.

But.

MASTER.

"Stop. Get off of me. Walk to the edge of the platform."

ORDER GIVEN. ORDER STOP, MOVE. OBEY.

OBEY.

"Yes, my Lord."

The Doll stood up. The Doll walked away from the Master and stood at the precipice and stared into the water. Waited.

Wait.

But.

Wait. No.

The Doll— Satsi. Satsi jerked. Nearly fell. Her arms pinwheeled, stomach lodging in her throat. She couldn't tell the cold sweat from the rain soaking her but she was shaking hard, heart pounding.

When did I—

She scrambled away from the ledge, turned, and saw Aiden standing back, bleeding.

"WHAT DID YOU DO TO ME?!"

"WHAT I MUST!" Aiden shouted back, stormwinds swallowing his words.

"FRAK YOU, YOU MIND-RAPING SLEEMO!" the woman screeched, voice ripping from her throat more of a sob. The tears streaming down her cheeks burned compared to the icy rain as she tore her pistol out of its holster, aimed, and fired.

A silvery lance of flame erupted from a curved hilt and smote the bullets from existence with smooth flicks of the wrist. The clip emptied with the other Human still crouching there, saber held diagonally across his body, guarding himself. His breathing was labored, his face ballooning. He collapsed to one knee but remained grim and determined.

Satsi screamed again in a haze and dropped her gun, snatching up another grenade.

There wasn't' any thought. She just triggered the thing and threw.

What happened then, she didn't know. The shockwave blew her straight into open air, and then there was impact. Hard, fast. Then weight, pressure, water. Swallowing her, shoving her down, down. It flooded her mouth and lungs. Her chest and eyes burned. Everything spun. Nowhere was up and the blackness was everywhere.

And then, something shifted. The waves, or her. But it wasn't just senseless churning anymore. There was direction, consistent. She was moving up.

Her body broke the surface and she gagged, vomiting salt water, barely cognizant of the fact that she was floating back onto the platform. Blearily she saw a figure, growing closer. But then she choked on her briney spew and blackness washed up again.

---

Satsi jerked with a gasp of agony.

"Careful, careful," warned an exhausted tone, someone helping her roll onto her side to spit and heave. Fingers touched her face. She was shivering so hard she nearly bit them off.

Aiden Dresha helped her sit up then moved back, slumping. He looked like utter hell, beat half to death and exhausted. But...he'd saved her dumbass from drowning herself.

"Why," she croaked.

"It's what Atyiru would have done."

Satsi stared at him flatly, disdain evident in her curled blue lip.

"And," the Gray Jedi relented at her discernment, "for the Balance. I felt it, when you fell. The Force trembled. Whatever you are, the universe is more equal with you in it. Unfortunately."

The woman barked a laugh, wheezing and wet. "Sithspit, Deshra."

"It's only true. Though why I'll never understand. Regardless...we are in no state to complete our mission. We ought to return to the remaining ship, thanks so much for destroying mine, and await a second team."

"You might be down and out, gimpy, but I'm good to go. I just gotta catch my breath."

The battered Jedi rolled his working eye.

"Disgraceful. Stubborn."

"Atty called it reliable. And you're just all about her, ain'tcha?"

Aiden grunted, not deigning to respond to her insults. He started limping for his vehicle, then gave up and summoned his droid to carry him. Satsi just slumped back and breathed as best she could. She'd get up and kick some Kaminoan doors down in a few minutes while her companion fell asleep and never woke up, if she was lucky.

In a minute.