LOTF: The Hunted/Part 1

Part 1: The Search
Nyri Tacon

Dathomir 

Making her landing approach, Nyri felt almost overwhelmed by the dark side merely by being on the planet. There was such power here, yet it was all used for evil. She couldn't help but entertain the thought that if these Nightsisters served the light side, the war would already be over. Perhaps it would never have started in the first place. Regardless, Nyri had to focus on the task at hand. She needed answers about her vision.

Nyri stepped out of her ship and directly into a puddle, dirtying the bottoms of her robes. Looking down, she saw her own reflection staring back. She looked, by all accounts, to be a normal human. Her age was beginning to line her once bright, youthful face and while most of her long hair was still the same black it had always been, it was beginning to gray at the edges. No doubt her concern about Yula was only accelerating the changes. The only true giveaway of her species was a green tattoo running down her left cheek-- the mark of a Kiffar.

Nyri stepped out of her ship into the nearly impermeable fog, relying mostly on the Force for guidance as she began to move into the dark, swampy forest. The forest was laden with plants growing in grotesque shapes and sizes, making navigating the area all the more difficult for her. The mists played games with her eyes, leaving her constantly uncertain if she was seeing figures in the distance moving about or merely being deceived. In the Force, she felt a calling, a presence reaching out towards her. She followed it, careful not to let it drag her in.

At last, the fog began to give way, revealing a large temple, dark in both color and presence. Lining the temple were various Nightsisters, wrapped up in their red robes and aiming their bows at Nyri. She drew her lightsaber but did not ignite it. For a moment, the two sides stood motionless, prepared for combat but not initiating it. At last, a large door began to open, slowly sliding upwards to reveal another witch. Unlike the others, her clothing resembled robes, and she was visibly much older than the other Nightsisters. "Drop your weapons," she calmly ordered. One by one, the Nightsisters lowered their bows and retreated, disappearing again into the shadows. "You too," the woman said to Nyri. She put her lightsaber back on her belt and approached the woman. "Nightsister," she began, "I come in request of an audience."

"Yes... I have foreseen this meeting. I am Talzin. Come." Talzin beckoned to Nyri, who followed her into the temple. As Nyri entered, she felt herself more and more encumbered by the weight of the darkness surrounding her. They walked down dimly torch-lit corridors as various Nightsisters watched, suspicious of the outsider.

"You knew I was coming?" Nyri finally asked.

"I have seen a storm gathering," Talzin replied, "and with your arrival we are both enveloped in it." Finally, they descended a flight of stairs before arriving in a wide chamber. "Why are we here?" Nyri asked. Talzin chuckled.

"I will show you the truth."

Cyana Bastra

Coruscant

Standing at the door to the Supreme Chancellor's office, Cyana found herself observing her reflection in the stainless metal separating her from her fate. She had made sure to look as perfect as possible for this meeting--more than she even did for her husband, he jokingly told her--as she had never met the Chancellor in person before. Being a Republic spy (like her husband, Barak,) she had taken missions for him over the holo, but something was different this time. He had contacted her, telling her the information was too vital to risk being leaked even over their nigh-impenetrable encrypted frequency and to come alone. Now, here she was, checking her red hair for any imperfections and making sure her makeup blended right with her naturally tan skin. She couldn't help but briefly chuckle to herself at the pettiness of her situation as the door opened.

She walked in past the two red armored guards, towards Palpatine, who was facing her in his chair. "Mrs. Bastra," he greeted her. "We have much to discuss." He looked towards his guards. "Leave us." They walked past Cyana as she entered, the door closing behind them. Now that they were alone, Palpatine seemed to lighten up a bit. "Please, have a seat.," he told her. As she sat down, she decided to ditch the small talk. "Why the secrecy?" The Chancellor's face shifted to a much graver image; his voice made a similar change in sound. "This assignment must be the best kept secret in the history of our Galactic Republic."

The sudden shift in tone and the gravity of the situation actually startled Cyana, though she made every attempt not to show it. "What is it?" she asked.

"Do you remember the Cerrano case?"

"Yes."

To say yes, however, was quite the understatement. She'd followed the case closely as it developed. The story went as such: Hans Cerrano, a fresh recruit in the Coruscant Security Force and son of the Senator Berloc Serrano, had returned home one night to find his mother had been murdered. With the assistance of Captain Taran Ragnan, he managed to find the suspected killer (Dak, a friend of his father's) and exposed for the first time a criminal group that would later be known as the Brotherhood. Then, in a shocking development, it was discovered that Hans himself was the one who was behind the entire thing, but he vanished immediately after. Unusually, about a year after this incident, Taran was promoted to Rear Admiral in the Republic Navy, where he had been working since. "Then you may be familiar with this face." A holoprojector on the table between the two activated, creating a blue image of Taran Ragnan. "Yes," Cyana replied, "The ex-detective."

"We believe he is much more than that. For the last six months, I have been slowly placing spies into the Brotherhood, and they believe Ragnan is in fact a puppet for their leader."

"Ragnan is one of them? Does that mean..."

"Yes. Hans is innocent. That, however, is irrelevant. Your mission concerns Ragnan." Palpatine leaned on his desk, folding his fingers. "Cyana, I will not force you to take on this assignment, but should you accept it, there are sacrifices you must make. Crimes you will have to commit."

"What do you mean?"

"This mission will require possibly years to complete in its entirety, and you must have no contact with anyone other than me. Cyana Bastra must die."

Cyana's first thoughts went to her husband. "Even he cannot know." Palpatine had correctly guessed her next question.

Cyana weighed her options. The Republic knew little about the Brotherhood, only what they had learned from the Cerrano case. They knew the Brotherhood operated somewhere on Coruscant, and had operations on other planets. Additionally, judging from the new information, they had a strong influence in the Republic. What was Ragnan giving them? Who else did they have implanted behind the scenes? "What do you need me to do?" she asked.

Sen Qorbin

Umbara

Not far from the Umbaran Airfield, Qorbin stood in front of a vent. The vent had been cut open long ago, as it should have; it was the planned entry point for the mission. Qorbin had yet to see the airfield, but he decided sneaking in was preferable to being seen. Though he did not sense any danger in the path ahead, Qorbin held his lightsaber in his right hand as he jumped down. The vent grew darker as he descended for a brief moment before landing on the floor of a pitch-black room. He activated his lightsber, filling the room with a dark green and exposing the remains of battle droids and scorch marks on the walls. Qorbin quickly deduced the room had been in this state for some time through a combination of his senses and the Force: he could tell through the heat signatures of the objects in the room they had not been interacted with in weeks, and in the Force he could faintly sense an echo--the Jedi's presence. He began to follow the echo, illuminating more darkened hallways decorated with the scattered remains of droids the Jedi had no doubt taken out. Eventually, the stench of decay reached him, and he was briefly worried, but he could sense it was not the Jedi he was smelling. The smell came from a few dead Umbarans, standing outside what appeared to be some sort of hangar. Stepping over the bodies, Qorbin now found himself looking through a large, but empty room (save for some more destroyed droids) out at the rest of the airfield. The anti-air weaponry was definitely destroyed, along with a multitude of additional Umbaran ships and tanks. The vehicles were still outmatched by the number of battle droids and Umbarans littering the airfield, but Qorbin cared little for either detail. He was now following the echos away from the airfield and towards another source. In the distance, he saw four tanks on the outskirts of the base, damaged but not destroyed.

As he reached it, the echo became clearer, more resonant. He was on the right path. Though any sign of footprints or the like from the Jedi had since faded, he could tell from the heat patterns on the ground that someone had recently been through the area. He began following their footsteps, and upon feeling the trail in the Force become clearer, picked up his pace. Now, he could feel something else, a darker presence looming over everything, not acting but there all the same. As he ran, he began to enter a thicker part of the planet, with more grotesque plants and spikes growing in the area, but he followed along a narrow path that had been cleared out up a hill until he finally saw a figure in the distance. The dark presence felt much closer, but yet, Qorbin's instincts told him it was not the figure he sensed.

Now moving more stealthily (fortunately for Qorbin, the figure's focus was shifted elsewhere), Qorbin crept closer, seeing in better detail the man ahead of him. He was a human, with light skin and red hair. He was tall but slim, and he was hunched over looking at something on the ground. The man was dressed in red, white, and black robes, and a double-bladed lightsaber was clipped to his belt. A Sith, Qorbin realized. He continued his silent approach, but froze as he felt the man's presence reach out and feel his. The man looked up and at Qorbin, and Qorbin could now see his face was decorated with tattoos, and his eyes were a bright green. Seeing Qorbin, he turned the rest of his body to face him, revealing a small pyramid-shaped device levitating in his left hand-- a Sith holocron.

"Oh my," the Sith spoke. His voice was thickly Coruscanti accented, and he spoke with an almost gleeful tone. "This day just keeps getting better."

Dylan Antiunknown

Brotherhood HQ

The leader of the Brotherhood sat in his chair on the bridge of the Brotherhood HQ space station. Few people ever joined him in this room; at the moment the only others were the dozen other crew members in charge of watching over the station. Each one of them had a specific job- navigation, maintenance, supervising entering and departing ships, and so on. Just as each of these twelve answered to him, each one of them had their own subordinates and so on, composing the power pyramid of the station, and to some extent, the Brotherhood.

The room was large and positioned on the very top of the station, and the room was adorned with multiple screens. Each screen streamed a camera facing that direction from the top of the station, and together they gave Dylan a panoramic view of the outside of the station. At the moment, the station was merely drifting through space, and Dylan was surrounded by stars in every direction. He looked out at the galaxy, towards trillions of beings impossible distances away. All those people couldn't know what they had coming.

The front screen (the one directly across from Dylan's chair) suddenly changed, displaying Moras Hedinin, Dylan's head of surveillance. Moras was a cyborg, and the majority of his face, as with the rest of his body, was covered in pieces of machinery. The top right corner of his face was still mostly untouched, save for a silver mechanical eye, gazing with a green iris. Even to Dylan, it was strange, but Moras got better results than anyone. "Boss," he spoke, through a deep synthesized voice, "There's been an alert on our Dantooine feed."

That couldn't possibly be good. "Show me."

The screen flashed, now showing an overhead perspective of ruins, presumably of a temple of some sort that had existed on the planet long ago. Dylan knew Galen Slarwalker visited this place from time to time, but this time, the screen showed four different individuals approaching the temple. "Who am I seeing here?" Dylan asked.

"Aside from Galen, we don't know." The screen split off into three different pictures, each displaying one of the three unknown persons- a Zabrak and two humans. "Who do we have available?" Dylan asked.

"The only assets we have in that sector are Taran Ragnan and the crew he just picked up off Coruscant."

"Get Ragnan on a comm line with me immediately."

"Yes, boss."