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Thread: Shadows of the Republic: The Underground

  1. #1
    Serena
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    Shadows of the Republic Closed Shadows of the Republic: The Underground

    Memories... A river of time, flowing from the future to the present and then into the past...

    Padawan Serena Laran leaned back at her desk, rubbing her temples with her fingertips. A datapad slipped off the pile in front of her, crashing to the floor, starting a chain reaction that scattered 'pads containing youngling profiles all over the ground.

    She gritted her teeth in contained frustration, before relaxing her shoulders, closing her eyes and exhaling slowly. Peace. Her commlink buzzed, and she floated it to her hand with the Force.

    "Yes?"

    "Padawan, meet me in Senator Do'lek's rooms at the Senate as soon as possible," The gravely voice of Thalios Dremmel, her master, came through the small hand held communication device. As usual he did not bother with pleasantries or small talk. The Twi'leki junior senator from Ryloth was not who the Jedi diplomat was supposed to be working with, so Serena raised her eyebrows.

    But she merely said, "Of course. I will be there as soon as possible." The transmission ended and she sighed, looking down at the mess in front of her. With a sharp movement the 'pads were shoved into an uneven pile on the polished wood floor, and the padawan was drawing on her cloak and leaving the room.
    Last edited by Serena; Feb 18th, 2010 at 12:51:01 PM.

  2. #2
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    Two tall figures in Jedi robes stood waiting in one of the hundreds of opulent parlors in the massive Senatorial office complex. One was at rest, his eyes closed in meditation, a perfect portrait of serenity. The other stood facing the wall-to-wall plexisteel window, squinting through the setting sun at the rows and rows of ships rising silently into the distant sky.

    "What are your thoughts, my young Padawan?" asked the meditating man. His hood was down, revealing a bronzed, angular face and long, black hair tied neatly into a queue. He wore unassuming gray robes and the anachronistic shoulder armor that identified him as a Jedi warrior. Over his right eye was a complex tribal design, a mark of his Kiffar heritage.

    His companion was rangy young man, long-limbed and athletic. His arms were crossed as he stoicly watched the air traffic, not out of defiance, but because he knew his nervous hands would give him away if he didn't keep them still.

    "I'm just wondering why we're here, Master Tau," he replied.

    "Mmm. And why do I sense this is only half the story?"

    The young man cleared his throat and glanced sideways at his master. His eyes were still closed. "I'm wondering why we're here," he said, "and not out there."

    Master Soren Tau opened his eyes and joined his Padawan's gaze out the window. "Are you so eager to go to war, Sol?"

    "I'm eager to do my duty, master," Sol Iman said. "To defend the Republic. I don't feel right watching others go fight my battles for me."

    "We rarely have the luxury of choosing our battles," Master Tau replied. "More often, it is the battle that chooses you."

    "But I know we could make a difference on the front," Sol persisted. "Master, is... is it me? Does the Council doubt my abilities?"

    Master Tau stopped him with a cautioning glance. "Do you doubt them?"

    Sol hesitated. "I'm still learning, Master," he said. "But I trust your guidance. And it doesn't seem right that you should be left here while Master Kenobi, and Master Windu, and all the other great warriors of the Order are fighting."

    "War does not make one great," Master Tau replied. "Of all the paths a Jedi can walk, the path of the warrior leads him closest to the Dark Side. To fear. To anger. To death. Do not rush too quickly onto that path, Sol, or you may find it easy to lose your footing."

    Abashed, Sol bowed his head. "Yes, Master."

    Before Master Tau could respond, the door to the Senator's chamber slid open.

  3. #3
    Serena
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    Walking as quickly as she could without running, Serena ducked into one of the many turbolifts in the Senate complex, pressing the button for the appropriate floor. After the doors swished closed, she smoothed her long red hair down, wishing she'd had time to tie it back.

    Although he had not given her a time to appear at the Senator's rooms, Serena knew he expected her to arrive promptly, and adverse traffic conditions had made the trip longer than usual. She calmed her racing heart while the 'lift traveled upwards, inhaling and exhaling and letting her anxiety dissipate. The doors finally opened, and she stepped out onto the opulent dark blue carpet of the Senate grounds. The white simstone walls were hung with tapestries, new and old, depicting first contacts, wars, and other political scenes. She walked briskly by them all, turning a corner just in time to see two Jedi disappearing into Senator Do'lek's offices.

    As the door closed she picked up the pace, running until she was a few yards away and then walking up. Master Dremmel opened the door, giving her a raised eyebrow. "Padawan," he said, stepping aside to allow her entrance.

    A pink skinned male Twi'lek and a pair of females, green and blue, respectively, were sitting on the far side of the office in what was meant to be an informal area. Senator Do'lek and his aides. Even junior senators had aides, though their office suites were much smaller than the full senator's.

    Two Jedi stood close by. One was a dark skinned padawan with closely cropped hair. His long padawan braid indicated his training was close to completion. The other had a bronze complexion, and a complicated looking design stained into the skin over his right eye. A... Kiffar? He appeared to be a Jedi warrior, and was most likely the padawan's master.

    "Please, join us," intoned Dremmel, leading the trio of other Jedi to the sitting area. Once the Knights were seated (the padawans stood slightly behind their masters, due to a lack of chairs) the Jedi diplomat gestured to Do'lek. "Senator Do'lek has discovered an unsettling breach of security within the Senate."

  4. #4
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    Sol met the female Padawan's eyes as she came in, her hair mussed and her cheeks slightly flushed. She struck him as somehow familiar, but he couldn't put a name to her face. But then much of his training with Master Tau had been off-world. He set those thoughts aside as Master Dremmel introduced the senator.

    Senator Do'lek was young for his position, but he'd clearly wasted no time indulging in the comforts the rank of Senator could afford. He was richly dressed in colorful silks, and his hands were a constellation of jeweled rings; even his lekku were adorned with gold and ivory bracelets carved with symbols for power and virility.

    But for all his ostentation, he was nervous. Sol could sense his tension humming in the air, and he was certain his fellow Jedi could, too.

    "Your Graces," the Senator said, tilting his lekku respectfully, "I thank you for your prompt attention. I regret I was not able to tell you more over comm. channels, but I had to be certain our communication would be secure."

    There was a buzz like a cloud of hornets as a small, airborne sentry droid hovered by and set about scanning the walls. Do'lek fitfully followed its progress.

    "You see, I and a few of my colleagues, for... security and accountability purposes... have been keeping a record of all the defense contracts the Senate has approved since the beginning of the war. Unfortunately, it is a grim reality that during such grave and, er, expensive times as these, there are some individuals in this very Senate who would take advantage of the situation for their own personal gain. Hence the need for independent record-keeping."

  5. #5
    Serena
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    Knight Dremmel nodded, though Serena could sense a little bit of duplicity in the junior Senator's words. He was nervous as well, the tips of his lekku twitching as the security droid circled the group and then returned to a place near the outer door.

    "And these records..." prompted her master, "For record-keeping purposes they are still highly sensitive materials."

    "Y-yes," mumbled Do'lek, his sharp teeth glinting as he smiled nervously. "My aide," he indicated one of the females beside him, "uncovered a databug implanted in my computer. Here, in the Senate!" He recovered enough to become indignant at the thought of such an intrusion.

    Serena frowned lightly, looking sideways at the other padawan. Surely it wasn't... she seemed to remember him, but couldn't quite place from where. Perhaps just from about the Temple. She chided herself for losing focus, and returned her attention to the senator.

    "The bug was transmitting information to an offsite location," Do'lek continued. "I was going to destroy it, but Jedi Dremmel convinced me not to." He looked at her master.

    "Yes, I did. Because it would be more useful to trace the transmission and then follow it to the source." He turned slightly in his chair, addressing the other Knight. "I started the electronic trace as soon as Senator Do'lek contacted me, and I have a location. The transmission was bounced off several different servers, but the actual endpoint appears to be deep in the Under-City."

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    "But why there?"

    The words spilled out of Sol's mouth almost before he realized it. Suddenly, all eyes were on him, and he knew he'd spoken out of turn.

    But Master Tau gave him an encouraging nod. The Padawan's mind raced as he put his thoughts in order and pressed on.

    "These records do no one any good in the Undercity," he said. "No one down there is equipped to act on them, except maybe in the form of blackmail. And we're not talking about a case of blackmail, are we?" He leveled his eyes at the Senator, who glowered at him beadily.

    "No," Do'lek replied. "Our fear is that these sensitive data materials may fall into Separatist hands."

    "They'd have a ready-made distribution map for all Republic personnel and matériel," Master Tau surmised.

    "To say nothing of the economic havoc the Banking Clan could wreak with this!" Do'lek sputtered.

    Sol felt his nostrils flare. Of course the Senator would be more concerned about his bottom line than all the lives his incompentence had endangered.

  7. #7
    Serena
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    Dremmel's gravely voice cut into Do'lek's near-hysteria. "We do not want word of our discovery leaking out, which is why we've contained the information thus far, and told only a necessary few."

    Serena drank in all the information, but did not feel like she needed to speak. Master Dremmel often told her only to speak when she was sure of what to say. Hasty comments could not be taken back.

    "I believe that if the Separatists are behind this intrusion, then the Under-City collection point may be an enemy stronghold here on Coruscant. Chancellor Palpatine agrees with me. We will travel there and collect what information we can, as well as destroy the data copies." He leaned forward slightly in his chair. "Do not fear, Do'lek. We will do our best to secure this leak. But you must make sure that this does not happen again."

    "Of course, of course," the Twi'leki nodded, lekku bouncing. "I had all sensitive information removed from my system immediatey upon discovery of the bug. I have had my aides discretely run searches for more databugs on my collegues computers, and we have not found any more."

    Serena looked down at her clean robes, imagining what they would look like after traisping down into the Under City. Yuk.

  8. #8
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    "We shouldn't go to the Undercity in our robes," Master Tau advised. "We'd be far too conspicuous."

    They had left the Senator's chambers far behind and were speeding through the Coruscant skylanes in an official temple transport, a lightly armored Sorosuub with limousine seating so each Master-Padawan team faced the other. It was a few hours' flight from the Republic Center to the coordinates where Dremmel had traced the databug, and then it would be another several hours' climb down to the bowels of the city. It was hard to imagine that they could be on the same planet as the Jedi Temple and yet be so far away.

    "My thoughts exactly," Dremmel replied. "In fact, I've already arranged for a Republic operative to meet us at the landing site with some civilian clothes."

    Tau nodded in approval. "Good thinking. You know, Thalios, I don't think we've given our Padawans a chance to really meet each other."

    Sol caught a prompting look from his master. Tau had never been shy about putting him on the spot. Smiling awkwardly, he leaned over the aisle to offer Serena a hand.

    "Padawn Sol Iman," he said. "Warrior-in-training."

  9. #9
    Serena
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    "Padawan Serena Laran." She smiled, still trying to place him in her memory. "Diplomat/healer..." Serena reached out and shook Sol's hand. Their masters got into a conversation with each other, and she sat back a little in her seat.

    "I'm sorry, but you seem very familiar to me..." She smiled quizzically. "I can't seem to remember why, though. Perhaps... youngling class..?" As she said it she knew it was true. "With Master Yaddle!"

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    It took Sol a moment to sift through his memories - it seemed like such an awful long time ago, and he seemed to recall several red-headed girls in that class, but -

    "Yes - Serena! I can remember..."

    He paused for the briefest of moments, since the first thing he remembered was putting a pinch beetle in her hair.

    "TK trials together. I was really bad at them."

  11. #11
    Serena
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    She laughed quietly, her green eyes sparkling. "Yes, yes... I seem to recall a bug in my hair as well. Your TK wasn't that bad."

    Serena fell silent after a moment, her thoughts returning to the mission. Dashing through the underground of Coruscant wasn't exactly what she'd been trained for. But she had been trained to be ready for almost anything. "Do you find it unusual that they are sending two full Knights and their padawans on this mission, as opposed to... clone troopers?"

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    Sol had wondered the same thing - more to the point, wondered why they'd paired up a combat team with a primarily diplomatic team, but before he could respond, Master Tau broke in.

    "Clone troopers would draw too much attention," he said. "The spies haven't transmitted their data because they know we'll see it when they do. If they know we're on to them, they could transmit their intelligence in one data burst. We need to stop that from happening."

    "But four Jedi seems like overkill, Master," Sol said.

    Tau and Dremmel exchanged glances.

    "Master?" Sol said. "What sort of resistance are we expecting?"

  13. #13
    Serena
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    An hour or so later, the four Jedi were climbing down into the Under City. Serena was wearing a dark blue jumpsuit, the others were similarly equipped in civilian clothing. Master Dremmel was wearing a wrap shirt and vest like many Corellians did, his lightsaber clipped inside the vest. He looked like he was enjoying this.

    Serena worked on following the others. The Force aided her reflexes as she ducked through some low pipes. She was a calm leaf on a river... she was a ripple on a smooth pond in a meadow. She was the slow moving sap in a tree. She wasn't worried at the possibility of encountering serious droid resistance at the ...

    She jerked, nearly hitting her head on something foul. Sol grabbed her arm and guided her around an obstacle, and she accepted the help graciously. Droidekas. And along with droids they were almost certain there were sentient beings at the site as well. The thing about droids is that once you entrenched yourself you could always build more troops, if you had the right equipment. They weren't sure how many were on Coruscant, but the word "Many" came to mind.

    Serena was a feather on the wind. She was calmness herself.

  14. #14
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    Whereas Sol was a coiled spring, a prowling manka cat. It was a different kind of calm, the peace that comes from force under control, harnessed and directed toward a single purpose. He had been under fire before with his master - against mercenaries, slavers, privateers. He knew he was ready for droids.

    They had passed without incident through the lower levels. By the time they reached the Undercity, their disguises were immaterial - they would stand out just by being there. The Coruscant Undercity was a labyrinth of foundational supports, mechanical works, sewage, and refuse. Only the most desperate, the most reviled, would seek refuge in a place like this, where the waste of the whole ecumenopolis seeped down and pooled into toxic lakes and filthy debris heaps. There were unspeakable things living down here, if you believed the word on the street - junkworms, cthons, dianogas, flesh-eating slimes, twisted and horrible forms of life.

    Sunlight never penetrated at these depths. The only light the Jedi had was from flickering service lights and an occasional smear of bioluminescence clinging to the filthy walls. They made their way down maintenance ramps and catwalks encrusted in sludge hanging like algae. It seemed unthinkable that even a group of droids could survive in such a place.

    At last they came to the level where Dremmel had tracked the signal, only six stories up from the surface. The Knight pointed out their destination - the base of a forbidding black tower on the other side of a broad alleyway. Their only access was a long, steel bridge across a black, oily lake oozing far below.

    "Keep your senses open, everyone," Tau whispered, and in the darkness it was almost deafening.
    Last edited by Sol Iman; Nov 20th, 2008 at 06:10:17 PM.

  15. #15
    Serena
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    It was tempting to want to summon a light, but Serena knew better. Even a momentary flash might overwhelm their extended senses in the darkness, or start some sort of monstrous chain reaction in the environment. Draw predators. That sort of thing.

    As the quartet of Jedi began to move across the long bridge, she looked down twenty metres into the oil stained wastewater. Something was moving underneath the surface. She focused away from the lake, re-centering her attention to the tower. A dim blue light blinked from a broken window, as though it was weak, or perhaps reflected from some inner chamber. Master Dremmel pointed noiselessly at it, and the light disappeared.

    Master Tau nodded, quickening his pace. His Padawan, Sol, matched his speed, and Serena hurried so as not to get left behind in the middle of the lake.

    A loud splash echoed across the chamber, and the oily lake began to glow as an enormous dianoga stirred up bioluminescent algae in the water. Serena was distracted, and slipped on an oil slick and fell close to the edge of the bridge. The padawan steadied herself on one knee and her fingertips, regaining her balance and trying to reach out to the creature's mind with the Force, to calm it and send it away before it gave them away.
    Last edited by Serena; Nov 20th, 2008 at 06:11:41 PM.

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    Sol's senses were so far extended that he could feel his fellow Jedi's heartbeats, the subtle variances in their composures - Master Tau, advancing with the patience and power of a glacier, Master Dremmel, shrewdly and dispassionately monitoring their environment, Serena, out of her element but resting in the strength of the Force which reached even these toxic depths. As for him, he was sharply aware of everything - smell, sounds, the feel of the durasteel mesh beneath his feet, the weight of the lightsaber just inside his jacket, something stirring in the waters below the bridge.

    When Serena stumbled, he turned back to help her. But then he sensed something else, something that brought an iron taste to the back of his tongue and made his hair stand on end, as if the local oxygen had been replaced with vacuum -

    Tau sensed it, too, and spun around to say, "Sol, wait-"

    But Sol had already dove at his fellow padawan, tackling her to the metal grating as a massive, blinding bolt of plasma roared out of the darkness and carved a molten rift through the bridge between masters and padawans.

    Sol and Serena's side of the bridge shuddered and pivoted sideways away from their masters, and then, with a deafening groan, its distant supports gave way, and the whole structure swung downward toward the oily lake.

  17. #17
    Serena
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    Sol slammed into her, sending both of them tumbling backwards along the steel grating and scraping her face as he crushed her to the bridge. She heard a roar and a flash of reddish light, and then the bridge groaned and started to swing and dip downwards. Sol rolled off of her, and Serena struggled to her hands and knees, looking up to see Master Dremmel ignite his lightsaber as another plasma bolt sizzled down towards them from the tower.

    She squinted against the light show as the bolt was caught on his blade and deflected away. Thalios grunted with the effort, but suddenly she had other things on her mind as the weight of the padawans sent their side of the ruined bridge plunging the twenty meters to the lake.

    Serena gathered her feet underneath her, and leapt upwards, using the Force to enhance the jump, and tried to regain the bridge where their masters were. Tau seemed to have run into the tower, and Dremmel was edging in that direction as the walkway rumbled. She hadn't had any time to truly gauge the distance as the section of bridge she was on was still swinging downwards, and only managed to hook her fingers into the grating at the edge of the walkway.

    Grunting in pain as her hands and shoulders took the brunt of her acrobatic maneuver, Serena kicked her legs and tried to get an arm up on the bridge. Her master shouted something, and she gritted her teeth, swinging her right arm over the walkway and getting her forearm on top of it.

    "Drop Serena!"

    She looked up as Dremmel's voice cut through the confusion, and without question released her hold on the bridge and plummeted towards the darkly glowing lake. A plasma bolt ripped through the steel grating where she'd been dangling moments earlier, disintegrating it and spraying globs of molten metal in several directions.
    Last edited by Serena; Nov 20th, 2008 at 07:41:36 PM.

  18. #18
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    Sol hooked one arm over a rail support as the severed bridge hung from its twisted moorings far above him. He looked down and braced his feet against the next support pylon - if he could just find his footing, he could climb back up, find a way to join Masters Tau and Dremmel by another route.

    He heard blaster fire. Battle droids appeared in the tower windows and were gunning for him, and for Serena in the water. Small-arms fire from the tower, artillery from a neighboring building - perhaps a spider droid perched on a ledge to sweep the alley - the Separatists were more entrenched than they'd thought.

    There was no way Sol could defend himself clinging to the bridge. He leapt backwards, kicking off with his feet to put some distance between himself and the durasteel railing, and twisted into a graceful dive into the lake as blaster bolts sent up clouds of steam around him.

    He didn't dare open his eyes in the tainted water. But he opened up his senses and quickly located Serena.

    And she wasn't the only other life form in the water.

  19. #19
    Serena
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    She landed feet first in the oily water, spreading her arms and legs once underwater to stop her descent and propel her body back towards the surface. Serena extended her senses, the noise of the firefight above muffled by the wastewater, trying to locate a safer area to swim to.

    She could hold her breath for a few minutes with the aid of the Force, but the more energy she expended swimming the less time she would have. Energy spikes around her indicated plasma bolts hitting the water. Serena swam away from the bridge, knowing that she did not want the twisted metal structure collapsing on top of her, and felt something brush her leg.

    She had been too focused on what was going on outside of the lake. The Padawan kicked hard for the top, her foot making contact with something else just as she broke the surface of the lake. Drawing in a deep, ragged breath, she was not surprised to find that she had swum about thirty meters from the bridge. Her master was nowhere to be seen, presumably he was inside the tower finishing the mission with Master Tau.

    There were still droids peering from broken windows, looking for targets in the lake. As she tread water, the algae around her began to glow in the turbulence. She turned around, looking for Sol. He was nowhere in sight.

    Serena grabbed her lightsaber from its D-ring as the Force gave a split second warning, but a fleshy tentacle snaked around her waist, squeezing her arm to her body and yanking her underwater.

  20. #20
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    Sol's head broke the water a moment later and sucked in a deep breath, though he nearly choked on the acrid air. He looked straight to the spot where he'd sensed Serena, but all he saw was a cloud of bubbles rising to the surface.

    The Padawan clawed for his lightsaber under his jacket, but he knew it would never ignite underwater. Thinking madly, he looked back at the ruined bridge.

    His hand shot out of the water toward the bridge, and a jagged length of handrail began to twist away from its weakened support pylons. With a monumental effort, he torqued the rail to its breaking point, and the length of metal came hurtling toward him.

    He grabbed it before it sank into the murky water. It was about a meter and a half long, and the blast that had severed the bridge had left it with a wickedly tapered point on one end.

    Gripping the makeshift spear, Sol dove back under the water toward the spot where Serena had gone down.

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