The Anchorage
6 hours ago
Vivackus pulled at the collar of the form-fitting fabric. It had been a long time since the Consul had donned tactical gear. He had forgotten how uncomfortable it was. As he donned the light armor vest over, Vivackus sensed another person had entered the locker room. His suspicions were confirmed with but a glance, and Vivackus didn’t bother to turn as he continued with the light armor.
“Wrong locker room,” He said nonchalantly. “After all, you probably should change into something less arbitrarily impractical.”
Selika Roh smirked. “Is that an order, sir?”
Vivackus finally turned, his expression slightly annoyed. “Unless you believe that Teylas would have returned by now if he had shown more cleavage, yes.”
Sensing she was getting nowhere, Selika changed her tact. “You really think Teylas is that important that it is necessary to send most of the Clan down after him?”
“I think it is important enough to know what happened to him.” Vivackus corrected.
“And you’re getting your hands dirty to do it. Funny. I’d never pegged you as one to lead from the front. Leaving Kz’set in charge of everything, no less.”
Finally, Vivackus thought, she’s reached the point.
The Anchorage
Now
The Consul struggled for a moment before collapsing again on his back. Reaching into the pouch, he pulled out a syringe and plunged the needle into his thigh. The pain rushing through his leg subsided within moments. Only then was Vivackus able to fully comprehend his surroundings. He was surrounded by plants. Living plants. Some part of the station had remained operational - and running - all these years.
Vivackus struggled to his feet before crumpling once more. Though the painkillers had numbed the feeling, his leg was definitely broken. Even with the Force, an injury like this would take hours to heal. Vivackus was fairly certain that he didn’t have hours.
“Consul Kavon, do you copy?” His earpiece buzzed. Vivackus looked upward, and could see the beams of light from his team’s tactical flashlights penetrating through the reach of the large tree in the place where branches had temporarily broken his fall.
“Roger.” He responded. “But I don’t think I’m making it back up to you on my own.”
“Copy that. Hold tight.”
In the ensuing silence, Vivackus looked around. If plants could survive here, other life could as well. After about a minute, Taranae Rhode descended, repelling down along a cord, followed shortly after by Selika, and Kul’tak.
“If you had wanted to get away from us so badly, you could have just asked.” Selika quipped while Kul’tak helped Vivackus up with his arm around the Zabrak’s shoulder.
“Shh!” Taranae hissed, her lightsaber in her hand. “Do you feel that?”
His rollmaster was right. Vivackus could feel it too. They were not alone, and it whatever it was, wasn’t Teylas.
Kul’tak readied his blaster with his free hand while Vivackus couldn’t do anything except feel helpless.
“Red team, gold team, do you copy?” The transmission was met with static. Wherever the other teams were, they were out of signal range.
Suddenly, all light in the arboretum vanished….
Teylas Ramar had been wandering the lower levels of the Anchorage, alone, for nearly three days now. The gash on his face was throbbing and the large wound on his arm, after having nearly been torn off, was only somewhat healed. He surmised that his ability to use the Force to mend his wounds was somehow hindered either by the presence or direct contact of the Sithspawn. It was an encounter he was lucky to even survive.
Most would've been unnerved by the darkness, the isolation, that had befallen Teylas the past few days. For him, it wasn't any of those things for he knew that he was being watched, stalked, and analyzed by the Sithspawn. Moreover, he had found a bit of solace in his situation. As much as the Sithspawn stalked him, he learned about them: they're movements, habits, tactics.
Moving quietly through the corridors of the Anchorage Teylas was alerted by the sounds of boots pressing hard on the deck plating in the distance. Not a mistake the Sithspawn would make.
Pulling his lightsaber to the ready, but not activating it to draw unwanted attention, he quietly leaned on the wall to listen. The footsteps were growing closer. He wondered if Sithspawn survived down here for who knows how long, could something -- someone, else? Closer again… almost on top of him. It was time.
Activating his lightsaber in a single swing as he rounded the corner he savagely took a swing. The light of the lightsaber was bright, but the lights coming from some unknown source was almost blinding to someone who had been enveloped in darkness the past few days, causing the Anzat to miss.
He went to swing backhanded when his lightsaber illuminated a familiar face. He immediately dropped his lightsaber and sighed, now seeing the unknown light source to be familiar wrist lights.
"Furios," he sighed.
"Well, I guess we found you," Furios responded, "How are you holding up?"
Immediately regaining his wit Teylas responded, "The vacation I always dreamed of. Where is everyone else?" he asked looking at the small team Furios had behind him.
"There are several other teams. We we're actually on our way to rendezvous with the Dread Lord. We gather some sort of accident from the comm chatter, but were too far out of range to respond. Nothing major. Looks like it was somewhere near this arboretum," Furios explained showing the map of the Anchorage he had on a datapad.
"I know it. We need to hurry. The beasts use that as some sort of… recharging area. The flora have some sort of connection to the Force which only enhances them. If someone is in there, they'll be drawn to it like watchmen. I know…" Teylas trailed off a bit.
"Beasts?" Furios queried with defined interest.
"I'll explain on the way. We must hurry."
Teylas, Furios, and the rest of the extraction team watched from a distance as Vivackus' team descended into the arboretum where he was hurt to render aid. Furios, also ready to render aid, began to walk towards the Dread Lord before being pulled down back under hidden cover by Teylas.
"No, this is now a trap," Teylas explained as he placed his hand firmly on his Aedile's shoulder, pulling him back down. "There are at least 4 of them, but I believe there to be 6."
"Of those Sithspawn things you were telling us about?" Furios asked and got an affirmation nod in return.
"They like to hunt as a pack, or at least in teams. They won't fight me one on one but will flee, which tells me that they win in sheer numbers, not power. They--" Teylas was cut off by the familiarity of the darkness he was used to in the rest of the depths of the Anchorage. "They're about to attack. Prepare yourselves. When they begin, we attack."
Teylas could hear Vivackus shouting orders from the other side of the large room, but the distance was too much to make it out. The room glowed slightly at the activation of lightsabers - a mistake - one that the Anzat made quite a few times before realizing they were drawn to it and used it against him. They were cunning, agile, and intelligent: all qualities that could easily be used to describe Teylas as well. But they lacked training, experience, a will to fight alone and strength to overcome their enemy; something that they would never gain having been stuck in the Anchorage for untold millennia.
Then the Sithspawn showed themselves.
They attacked.
Vivackus and his team were able to aptly hold them off as the Sithspawn took nibbles at the group, but it was only a matter of time until they pounced.
Teylas and Furios waited, gathering position locations on all of them an a total count. "I think that's all of them."
"We should strike now, and hard," Furios firmly whispered.
"Don't activate your lightsabers until you're about to strike. We have the element of surprise. Let's keep it," Teylas nodded as they broke cover and began their strike. The fury of lightsaber strikes, growls, cries, and cauterized flesh was filling the domed arboretum like an echo in a cavern. It was quick and intense, but ultimately over.
Teylas, torn and beaten, but not broken, walked up to the Dread Lord and kneeled down. "I didn't realize I was going to be sent on a rescue mission today," he joked.
Vivackus managed a chuckle, but only barely, "Once again you proved invaluable, but recent developments in the past few days have shown that I will need you to prepare yourself once more to be by my side, my friend," he said grabbing the nape of Teylas' neck in a friendly gesture.
"What is it?" Teylas asked, somewhat worried about the posture and body language Vivackus was displaying. It wasn't so much a personal concern for Vivackus as much as it was for himself. Anything that was a threat to the Dread Lord or Clan Plagueis, was a threat to him. But being that personally close to Vivackus was also reminding the Anzat of how much he was… hungry.
"War… war is coming."
Not much to say here because less reading here, more doing Great Jedi War stuff!
So concludes the Anchorage storyline. As I said in my last report, it was a lot of fun to do. The start included Viv's fiction, and incorporated parts of others. So you'll notice some of your own work there.
I'm not going to harass you about Great Jedi War stuff. Viv has been yelling at everyone via e-mail the past week. You have 100+ e-mails in your inbox about it. So I won't harangue you about it any further. Go team! Bring victory! So say we all!
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