Fiction Activity Overview

A panic-stricken woman, child in tow, rounded a smoldering building. Her hair was dark and tears welled up just beneath her magnificently blue irises. Her child cried and held onto her head with one hand as the ruby red fingertips showed through the constriction of her mother's embrace.

She exuded a sigh of relief as familiarity amidst calamity blanketed her. A man ran up to her as he climbed over the remnants of a casino wall littering the street. Before he could utter a word she hugged him and firmly pressed her lips to his.

"Daddy!" The little girl exclaimed through sobs as she hugged him tight.

"Wh-where were you, how did you get awa-?"

She led him into the quietest alley she could find and the group sank to one knee.

"I-it was incredible. I had no idea what was happening. Sadie and I were walking down the street and all of a sudden-"

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It was an ordinary night. Stirring of high-ranking members of a mysterious organization meeting in Canto Bight had been the talk of the town. Sadie was hungry and it was late so cooking was out of the question. Her favorite Mantell Mix stand was still open. You know Herun stays open all hours, that Ithorian never closes shop. So I took Sadie to get a snack.

Then it began to rain neon beams that obliterated or set fire to whatever they touched. It was a bombardment that nobody saw coming. The visitors brought death and destruction with them. It was chaos. Borl didn't make it, his family was trapped inside the wreckage of the Seaworth Apartment Complex. It's completely destroyed. The whole east street strip was laid to waste. As if that wasn't bad enough, dropships came. They carried troopers spouting some strange message. If you didn't agree or showed any sign of resistance there was no hearing, they just gunned you down. Three of them approached Sadie and I when we were heading back home. They cut us off and tried to separate us.

=======

"Yeah, then what?" The man eagerly questioned his wife.

"Did you do what they said?"

"I didn't have a chance to utter a single word."

The man twisted his head and raised a brow.

"One of them reached out to grab me but he froze in place and dropped to his knees right in front of me. When he fell to his stomach he had something sticking out of his back. It looked like an ornate skeleton in a seductive pose."

"What??"

"I-it was a handle, a dagger maybe. I don't know, it happened so fast. The other two fired their rifles into the night, all I could see were glowing purple eyes, piercing the black. He was like a phantom."

"A phantom?"

"Th-they kept firing, I saw this as a chance to get away but one of the men grabbed me and planted the barrel of a pistol against my temple. They demanded that the man in the dark show himself.. they were going t-"

She began to cry.

"He didn't let them. He stepped out of the shadow. His armor was as black as the darkness he used as cover and the purple lights brightly twinkled from pauldrons that looked like the heads of dogs."

"What did he do?"

"He walked up to them with his hands out as if he was going to surrender. Then I heard… I'll never forget the sound. It was the croak of a bird, like a caw. Like a streaking entity a bird swooped down causing the man holding me to momentarily lower his weapon. As he did, the phantom drew a pistol from beneath his long black cape and before I knew what was happening, purple beams streaked past my face and I no longer felt the man gripping me but I heard him fall. Frightened, the other invader began to run but the phantom threw something. A rope maybe?"

"A rope?"

"Yes, a rope. It wrapped around the soldier's ankle as he tried to get away but he couldn't, he just fell. Then this mysterious stranger began dragging him closer and closer as the trooper clawed at the ground. Then…"

"Then what?" her husband was entranced.

"The phantom ended him with one swift stroke. I remember seeing blood dripping from the blackened blade of some kind of curved sword. He then turned to me and with the deepest voice I think I ever heard, almost robotic in tone, he told me I was safe and to go home. My Savior, a man in black, I wanted to thank him. I never even saw his face. As quickly as he showed up, he vanished."

"Like a ghost?"

"You could say that, yeah, a ghost."

"Come on, we need to get to the shuttles, they're evacuating as we speak."

Corusca Conference Center
Canto Casino
Cantonica System — Corporate Sector
40 ABY
Hector Von Ricmore

A frown adorned the face of Hector Von Ricmore. He had much to be irritated about. Peace talks between the Consuls had been interrupted by an unexpected arrival of ships bearing Plagueian IFF tags. The last transmission from the Concordia listed the ships as "Two Victory-class destroyers, six Aquitens cruisers, and a pair each of Strike cruisers, Nebulon-C frigates, and Corellian corvettes.”

Truth be told, the human wasn’t worried about the situation in space. Their own representative ship, The Concordia, was arguably the greatest non Superweapon ship ever designed. It was easily the equal of an ISD 2, but its triple shielding and immense weaponry made it far greater in Von’s eyes. Plagueis may have the advantage of numbers but no single ship they deployed was equal to Vizsla’s flagship.

But something was wrong. Plagueis could be aggressive but these tactics were sloppy even for them. It would have been far easier to take out the consuls and their aides through an explosive or ambush.

They wouldn’t have bothered with the facade of peace talks. Why go through the trouble of limiting the delegations weaponry and armor only to begin a space battle and not slay them in the conference room?

No, this was something else. The situation reminded the mandalorian of a recent event, a false flag attack aimed to discredit. It slipped his mind of who was impersonating who, but such a scenario occurring once again was not impossible.

“Korvis. There is a chance that this isn’t Plagueis. You recall the false flag attack from a year or two ago? I can’t recall who impersonated who, but we shouldn’t rule out the possibility of it occurring once again.”

The Consul paused in thought. “It is not an impossibility. The Brotherhood as a whole, not to mention a Clan of slavers would have many enemies. Regardless, we should evacuate to the hangar.”

Hector nodded in agreement. “I suppose the clans will all move separately, hard to trust each other after this fiasco. Just give me a few minutes to rig some weapons together, Plagueis didn’t allow me to carry much.”

As part of the negotiations Korvis was allowed to keep his armor and weapons. In return He forfeited bodyguards. Hector was allowed in the room as an advisor but his armaments where limited. No armor, a striker slugthrower pistol they knew he was unproficient with (to provide the appearance of a weapon), a fiber cord whip, blinding dust and jet boots for an escape, a glass bottle of Corellian whisky, a nerf towel, a spotlight glow rod, and a hydrospanner for his amusement.

Hydrospanner in hand, the Junker disassembled the glow rod and slugthrower. He then reassembled the items together in the form of a makeshift blaster. While he lacked Tibanna gas the blinding dust could work as a substitute.

Entering the Casino’s kitchen the human heated the dust into a gas before trapping it in a nearby container. The gas was then placed in the makeshift blaster.

Hector then realized he needed a suitable melee weapon. He took several swigs from his whiskey before smashing the bottle on the counter. He then broke off one of the chair legs and fastened the bottle to the leg using the wire from the fiber cord whip.

With a set of weapons fashioned the pair left the room. Hector moved behind Korvis; the lack of armor ensured he had to be careful.

The pair moved through the Casino taking down dozens of sentients in Plagueis garb.

The duo arrived at the hangar and moved to one of the LAAT/I transports used to transport Plagueis troops. Korvis provided cover fire with his Westar pistol, sending blaster bolts at the Plagueis forces.

Hector made use of his Hydrospanner and mechanical expertise to Hotwire the vehicle. While he couldn’t slice the software he was able to manually gain access through the hardware of the vehicle.

The duo settled into the pilot and copilot seat before lifting off into the air. Once they cleared the atmosphere the communications jamming stopped, they had left the range of the blackout. Korvis flew the ship towards the Concordia, while Hector transmitted their IFF to the flagship so they would not be shot down by friendly forces.

Mandalorian painted X wings clashed with various Tie craft in Plagueis colors. 2 squadrons of Mandalorian Star Vipers emerged from hyperspace. One reinforced the X wings while the other escorted the LAAT/I back to the Concordia.

The duo exited their ship in the hangar.

“Allow me to reclaim my armor, then we have a battle to win.” Hector proclaimed.