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Till the Next Day Comes
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| Daneira_Farris | Date: Wednesday, 13 Jul 2011, 2:35 PM | Message # 16 |
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| Daneira was too busy with both hands on the wheel to give a rude gesture in response to the obscenities that showered over them as the other speeders had to split their lane to get around the jet black speeder that she and Karth occupied. "You didn't tell me that Silas was with Gratus, Karth!" And if he had, she likely didn't hear him or had blacked it out. The last few hours were not really there in her mind, her rage having erased most of it. "Yeah he will need us to bail him out, if he is still alive." She commented. The thought occurred to her that if Silas had been captured also, that he could be with Atrya.
"And yes I am sure I should drive...." She retorted just before the blaster fire began ringing out. "Holy cr...." She jerked the wheel to the left to try to avoid the blaster fire that was barreling towards their speeder. It wasn't fast enough though, and the engines were struck. Thankfully, she still had some power going to the steering, though it was not much.
"Go right!"
"What the hell good is that going to do?!"
"I don't know!"
Daneira jerked the wheel to the right, cutting off another speeder as the smoke began to billow from the engines of their own. They had to have, despite the fact that the pair was rapidly losing altitude, still been at least 100 feet up. 100 feet. That could kill a couple of people if the ground was hit wrong. She knew that her ability to use the force wasn't enough to cushion the fall completely, or try to control the fall at all, but maybe if they worked together it was possible. "Karth....." She started, but didn't finish her thought, as she was concentrating on trying to steady the speeder with the controls, and through the force.
"We're gonna have to jump!" Dani jerked the wheel again, scraping the speeder against the side of a building and shooting up a spray of sparks from the contact between the metal and the permacrete. There were some balconies and landing pads above, and a few below, so they would likely just have to choose the right time, and hope that the speeder didn't do too much damage on the less busy street that it was now aimed down.
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| Karth_(Padawan) | Date: Friday, 22 Jul 2011, 6:31 PM | Message # 17 |
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| Thankfully for the both of them, Dani's driving was far better than expected. Well, it was as good as it possibly could have been; considering that they were plummeting towards a sudden and bloody end. Dani would have been far-too concerned with steering the dying craft than with possibly slowing it; and despite his best Force-related efforts, Karth could do little to deter a hunk of flaming metal spurred on by that accursed gravity. As those last words left her mouth, the Jedi knew what he had to do, and he really hoped she didn't smack him for this.
A wave of his hand, and their seatbelts disengaged and snapped against the shuddering doors. He threw a hand around her waist, waiting as the speeder listed heavily to one side, and jumped. The resulting collision was rather painful, mainly for Karth (as he'd twisted in mid-jump to absorb the shock of the fall); and he felt the explosion of tendons in his shoulder as it dislocated. The speeder, meanwhile, flew into a (hopefully) empty shop and ignited, blasting anyone in the vicinity onto their collective backs.
Bells rang against the cacophony of screams and blaster fire; and as Karth shakily rose to his feet, his hand instinctively flew to the hilt of his saber... only to realize that it wasn't there.
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| Daneira_Farris | Date: Friday, 22 Jul 2011, 7:13 PM | Message # 18 |
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Lieutenant
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| There was no time for her to protest, and the next thing that Dani knew, she was on top of Karth on the street that they had been above just moments before. The heat from the explosion of the speeder could have been felt where they were, and instinctively, she turned her head away from the heat, also shielding Karth from it. Seconds later, she pulled herself to her feet and her hand went to her lightsaber and ignited it.
The emerald blade hummed to life and in only a few graceful movements, she deflected some of the blaster fire that was coming towards the pair. It was then that she realized that Karth did not have his lightsaber. "Again? Really?" It wasn't much of time for teasing, but she couldn't help herself. Instinctively, Dani moved back, her steps slow and deliberate.
"Into that building, Karth." She said, nudging him gently towards the building behind them. The glass had been shattered out of the doors, but there was at least a little protection from the violence that had erupted in the streets of Belassa. Dani ducked into the building and deactivated the lightsaber, draging her friend along with her. "Dammit....you're hurt." She murmured.
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| Karth_(Padawan) | Date: Tuesday, 26 Jul 2011, 7:26 PM | Message # 19 |
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| He had never truly experienced pain such as this before; his mouth twisted into an anguished grimace as Dani half-dragged him into the shelled-out building. Karth collapsed against a wall, fighting back curses as he ripped at his cloak, desperate to fashion some sort of sling. "Dammit!" he hissed as his remaining hand worked in some futile attempt to tie the cloak around his injured arm. The fact that he had lost his saber only (literally) added insult to injury; in the span of a few moments he'd gone from deadly warrior to straight-out liability.
He flashed Dani an appreciative look; managing to hiss out "Are you hurt?" between sharp bouts of pain, he cringed involuntarily as blaster fire ricocheted into their makeshift bunker. The specifics of their predicament were still unknown to him; simply that a war had erupted in the streets of Ussa, and the two young Jedi were caught in the ugly middle. He reached out for his master with the Force, searching for any sign of him, but he found nothing. They were completely cut off from any support.
Without asking, Karth slid a hand to Dani's waist, gripping the handle of her blaster pistol and returning fire into the street. "We have to get to the Parliamentary building!" he shouted amidst the din of battle; though he was unsure if she could even hear him.
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| Daneira_Farris | Date: Wednesday, 27 Jul 2011, 4:24 PM | Message # 20 |
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Lieutenant
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| Daneira cringed as she caught a glimpse of Karth struggling to fashion a makeshift sling for his grossly dislocated shoulder. She could have, she thought, helped him snap it back into place, but she knew that when he inevitably passed out from the pain of it, she couldn't carry him to the parliament building. Instead, she moved over and clipped her saber to her belt loop and set about helping him.
"Stop wiggling, Karth." She said quietly, despite the noise that was nearly overwhelming the pair from outside. "This will go a lot faster." Dani said as she fastened the fabric around his shoulder tightly, so that he couldn't move it. He grabbed the blaster holstered at her waist and instinctively, she turned into him further as to get away from the shots he was making.
In being that close, yes, she heard him. "Alright...alright. We can do this....sure....without getting....shot." Dani gave him a worried glance, but it only lasted a moment before more blaster fire tore through the building that was supposed to be a refuge for them. It was, for a few minutes at least. "Lets go....we can't stay here anymore. With that, Dani pulled away from him and unclipped her lightsaber, ignited it, and slipped back out into the street.
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| Karth_(Padawan) | Date: Saturday, 06 Aug 2011, 3:59 PM | Message # 21 |
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| He couldn't help but smile at her lowbrow humor; she was always quite apt at making light of a dangerous situation. He hoisted himself up against the wall, watching as her saber sprang to life and became an emerald blur amidst the smoky haze of the night air. "Don't worry about me, I got it," he said at length, wincing from the pain and taking off in her direction, firing erratically at their mysterious attackers. Despite his best efforts, the tremendous pain in his shoulder hindered his ability to keep up with her, but to his credit he managed to lag behind by only twenty feet or so.
Off in the distance, sirens continued their wailing; the Jedi finding themselves hard-pressed to make it through the main streets of Ussa without succumbing to heavy resistance. Eventually, Karth caught up to Dani, grabbing her arm and pulling her into a side alley just as a rocket hurtled into the street corner where they had been only seconds earlier. He brushed the dust off his robe, obsidian eyes scanning the dark alley for any potential attack points. "Let's stay off the main roads, shall we?"
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| Daneira_Farris | Date: Monday, 08 Aug 2011, 4:22 PM | Message # 22 |
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Lieutenant
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| Daneira did her best to deflect blaster bolts away from both her and the injured Karth. It wasn't perfect, so she was grateful when he pulled her into the alley and just out of the line of fire of the rocket. "Thanks." She murmured, catching her breath through heavy heaves of her chest. The dust and the smoke had made breathing difficult, not to mention the stench of burnt flesh from the few bodies she had seen littered across the street.
Her gaze went down the dark alley, and Daneira reached out with the force to try and sense if there was anything there. "We should be alright." She said to him before she slipped her fingers under the top of the sling to try and straighten it to make it more comfortable for him. "And we have to get you to a doctor." The Padawan had a minimal amount of medic experience, so she could have probably popped the shoulder joint back into place, but it would hurt him alot more than she wanted to. She had already hurt him enough, though that wasn't physical.
"Stay behind me?" She had the lightsaber, and he was hurt, so Dani proceeded cautiously down the alley. The saber was in her hand, but not ignited.
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| Karth_(Padawan) | Date: Thursday, 22 Sep 2011, 9:04 PM | Message # 23 |
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| "Well," Karth hissed between gritted teeth, "this could be a problem."
At current the Jedi pair sat peering over the ledge of a blasted-out office building, two sets of eyes peering over just enough to witness an amalgam of B1 Battle Droids corralling what looked to be captured Bellassan soldiers and herding them into transports. The battle -- if it could be called that -- had died down in the hour or so it took the two to reach the parliamentary building on foot. The outlook was rather grim; if Karth's gut instinct was right (and it usually was), they had no friends left within the city. Laboring onto his back, the Padawan brought the sleeve of his robe up to wipe the grime off his forehead and cast a worried glance in her direction.
"And you think this is Gratus' doing?" he asked at length, white-knuckled fingers gripping the nearly-depleted pistol at his side. Oh, how he wished he still had has lightsaber on him, nothing's ever easy. What troubled him more than anything was the fact that he couldn't feel his master anymore, not since the battle began. It only served to further twist the knife he felt in his gut; now he had two people to find, as opposed to one. Nothing's ever easy. The rising sun cast light on the destruction that now dotted the once-resplendent capital. As the sun had set, Ussa was at peace -- no longer.
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| Daneira_Farris | Date: Friday, 23 Sep 2011, 4:33 PM | Message # 24 |
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Lieutenant
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| Daneira nodded in response. "I am positive, Karth. Positive. I was there. Remember?" She said as she peeked over the edge of the building again to assess what was going on. Of course it did not look good. There was no way that the two of them could get past all of those battle droids with one lightsaber and half charged blaster. "We can't stay here though....Something isn't right." The entire situation felt even worse than it did when the fighting started.
She flopped back down and out of sight as she tried to think of what their next move should be. There was likely a back entrance, or at the worst, they could likely sneak in through the storm sewer system. In any case, unless they had some dumb luck, it was going to be hard. There was a sick feeling turning Dani's stomach, but she pushed it aside for the moment.
The ill feeling came from knowing that she was going to have to kill Gratus in the end. Politician or not, she was almost sure that was what it would come down to. Hopefully not, but in her mind it was the most likely scenario. Especially if Atrya was dead. She hadn't sensed her Master in so long, that Dani was unsure if she was alive or not, but she still held on to the tiny thread of hope. "I'm going." She annoyed hastily before she pulled herself over the side of the building and descended a rusty escape ladder that was held on by a few mere bolts.
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| Karth_(Padawan) | Date: Monday, 03 Oct 2011, 7:40 PM | Message # 25 |
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| "I don't think that's a good- oh, you're not even listening. Just like old times." He spoke the words more to himself, Dani had already clambered onto the ridiculously dangerous-looking ladder that couldn't possibly have passed any safety inspections. Funny, for all its pomp and its high cost of living, Ussa really wasn't the arboreal paradise that's often advertised. Frowning, Karth kept his eyes on the dwindling number of droids in the plaza; hoping that none of them picked up on the grating squeals of Dani's rusted-out ladder. He soon turned back to collect himself, wondering just what he did to deserve being in such a mess. "Well," he began to mumble, "-sure beats getting shot at."
***
His boot connected with yet-another suspicious pile of black goo, and the normally-reserved Karth soon found himself retching. They'd sneaked past the B1 droids well enough, that was the easy part. What De'Qora hadn't planned for was to be hunched over in a sewer, much less a sewer with the most revolting stench he'd ever smelled in his entire life. To her credit, Dani didn't seem fazed much at all, though he would admit the fact that he couldn't see her current expression influenced that assumption. His black robe dragged behind him, the edge sloshing about under the sewage and the resulting osmosis causing him to retch further. He'd have to burn this robe before the night was done.
"So," he began at length, a wry smile plastered across his youthful features in some vain attempt to provide some levity in this grave situation. "This ranks up there with some of your worst ideas. Ever. Almost as bad as the time I dared you to steal Master Yoda's cane... almost." The memory brought back a momentary chuckle, things seemed so different now. He wasn't sure if it was simply how long it'd been since they'd last spoken, or perhaps just a sign of Karth maturing -- the gap between them was as wide as space is infinite.
Message edited by Karth_(Padawan) - Monday, 03 Oct 2011, 7:40 PM |
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| Daneira_Farris | Date: Tuesday, 04 Oct 2011, 7:22 PM | Message # 26 |
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Lieutenant
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| It wasn't as bad as Karth was making it out to be. Honestly, Dani was starting to worry that he was going to choke on his own tongue. "So....you were going to what? Walk up to the front door?" She paused in her step to let him catch up. "You want to ring the bell, or should I?" She joked as she trudged through the water again. "It's just a storm sewer, Karth. Sure there's some.....ew...." Dani grimaced a little before she shook it off and moved on. The silence between them, aside from the occasional gagging sound from Karth, was bothering her for some reason. She was not comfortable with the seeming awkwardness between the two, seeing as how they had been so close before. Part of her wondered, absently, if they could ever get that back or if there would always be this gap. The thought hardly pleased her.
Finally, they would come to a junction in the system. "Uh...let's go....this way!" She decided. The water coming from that direction was markedly cleaner and it didn't smell as rank. Lo and behold, about 100 yards in, there was a hatch in the low ceiling, with a short ladder extending. From what she could figure, it would come up somewhere in the parliamentary commons. If not, she was way off in where she thought that they were.
Spontaneity took over rather quickly then and without so much as a word to Karth, she jumped up and caught the ladder and pulled herself up so she could push the hatch open. Of course it was stuck, because why would it be easy? A few hard pushes with her shoulder flung it open though and cautiously Dani peeked out to find herself in the corner of the parliament building courtyard. A few droids were patrolling, but other than that, nothing else was in sight.
Dani ducked back down and looked to Karth and grinned. "I told you this was a good idea...you should really listen more often." And that being said, she pulled herself up the ladder and out of the grate onto the grass.
Message edited by Daneira_Farris - Tuesday, 04 Oct 2011, 7:24 PM |
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| Karth_(Padawan) | Date: Tuesday, 11 Oct 2011, 9:59 AM | Message # 27 |
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| "As a matter of fact, yes, I was going to knock on the front door. I even baked a casserole for them, of course it's ruined now..." Pausing, Karth finally decided he'd had enough. With some horribly uncoordinated twists and turns, he disposed of the rancid cloak and deposited it into a nearby run-off tunnel, watching as the poor garment sailed gracefully down the streaming river of human waste. Sighing, Karth turned back in Dani's direction--or rather, the direction she had been--and noticed that she'd taken off down another tunnel. The fact that she soon found a way out of the sewer only compounded his misery; she'd forced him to trudge through the sewers, and it ended up being the right thing to do. He'd never hear the end of it, if they lived through this ordeal.
As she hoisted herself up onto the grass, Karth found himself watching her hips more than he should. Perhaps it was just the way they swayed as she climbed the ladder, or perhaps how the pants she was wearing left little to the imagination; either way, he was soon chastising himself for it. He was a Jedi, as was she--and she was his oldest friend! He couldn't fool himself into believing that the years hadn't been good to her, but, he had to remind himself of just how things were. The very fact that he found himself wishing things weren't so tense at the moment only served to further increase his self-loathing. Shaking the doubts from his mind, he followed Dani up the ladder, making sure to close the hatch behind them, just in case a droid came around that way.
"This is the Commons," he said at length, "-If Gratus really did take Master Kyza'an, and Silas, there'd be holding cells somewhere. Maybe on the top floor... or below us." His voice trailed off as he spoke, eyes scanning the cobbled walkways that ran across the commons at various angles. He drew upon the Force, shutting his eyes and the rest of the world out with them, entirely focused on the here and now. It was a Jedi technique, being able to see what could not be seen by the naked eye, but what truly shocked him was he found himself unable to pinpoint the location of Gratus, nor Atrya, nor his Master. It was a guessing game at this point, and that troubled him. "Dani," he began again. "I can't feel them, there's something wrong here, and not just the fact that there's battle droids looking to cook us."
Message edited by Karth_(Padawan) - Tuesday, 11 Oct 2011, 10:00 AM |
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| Daneira_Farris | Date: Wednesday, 12 Oct 2011, 3:51 PM | Message # 28 |
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| As Karth followed, Dani paused and whipped her dark locks into a tight ponytail to keep them out of her eyes for the moment. "Do I have to keep reminding you? I was there, Karth. He has her...or had her...." She trailed off as she gazed across the commons. There was a moment where Dani tried to sense Atrya through the Force herself, but she was unsuccessful as well. It bothered her, but she had grown used to not being able to sense Atrya anymore. That did not make it hurt any less, however.
"They could be cloaking them somehow. I don't know." She said. "But I am not going to stand here and just hope to feel something when I could be looking." Dani paused and then turned her blue-gray gaze back to Karth. What she could feel was his upset and confusion, and she didn't like it. "I'm sorry." Daneira shook her head. "But I am going. So you can either come with or hang out here and fend off the battle droids with a dead blaster." She flashed him a knowing smile and started towards one of the entrances to the building that wasn't far off across the commons.
***
There were a lot of droids patrolling the Parliamentary building, though Dani did not expect anything less than that. The first one she was able to disable, she took the weapon from and handed it back to Karth. "Not a lightsaber, but...it'll do?" She said as she pressed her back against the wall and took a peek around the corner. "I think one of the upper levels..." She wasn't really sure though because at that point she was just guessing.
Her gaze went back to Karth again as she looked for his help, and a moment later she realized that she was staring at him. Her oldest friend, her oldest and now handsome friend. All grown up now. Finally Daneira tore her gaze away. It had lingered too long. "If we're going to go, we need to go now...it won't be long until we are discovered." With that, she disappeared around the corner.
Message edited by Daneira_Farris - Wednesday, 12 Oct 2011, 3:52 PM |
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| Silas_Cairne | Date: Friday, 21 Oct 2011, 9:42 PM | Message # 29 |
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| Meanwhile...
"You know," Silas hissed between gritted teeth, "-I've been in these types of situations before. This is usually when you lay out all the details of your master plan." As he spoke, one of the two IG-86 sentinel droids flanking him quickly brought the butt of a rifle against the back of his skull; causing the Jedi Master to stumble over his last few words. To his credit, Silas bit back a growl, choosing instead to trace the pacing figure before him. At current, the Jedi was hunched down on the cold floor of the detention cells that ran beneath the Parliamentary Building, his hands bound by stun-cuffs and a choke collar around his neck. While he had the capability of escaping, the fact that the city was now rampant with battle droids--coupled with the fact that his lightsaber had been taken from him--was what kept him from attempting anything.
Ahead of him, the frail form of Chancellor Gratus paced about the room. It was strange, when they'd first arrived, Gratus had looked so much healthier than he did now. It looked as if his form struggled beneath the weight of his crimson robes, his face seemed to have aged overnight, fraught with a filigree of age lines.
"Master Jedi, if you believe that to be the case, then you've watched far too many holovids."
Silas snarled. "Thought it was worth a shot. You don't strike me as the megalomaniacal sort, but you can't fault a guy for trying."
"Quite," Gratus mused, crooked fingers tapping the cleft of his chin. "You're awful lippy, for a Jedi... much less a Jedi Master. Now I see where your apprentice gets it from."
Frowning, Silas shifted uncomfortably within his robes, earning yet-another rifle whip from the droid behind him. This one seemed a tad harder, and he could feel a slight trail of blood forming at the base of his skull. "Speaking of Karth," he began after a few harsh breaths, "-I notice he's not here. Don't tell me he gave you the slip."
The Chancellor's expression remained neutral, but through the Force Silas could sense a slight flicker of annoyance. Still though, Gratus' thoughts were impossibly difficult to read, and the Jedi Master found it troubling that his senses were clouded in such a manner. Where had Gratus amassed the manpower, much less the nerve, to stage a political coup? Almost as if he heard the man think, the Chancellor turned back to Silas and spoke again, his tone chiding.
"We'll find the boy, that doesn't trouble me. You and I, however, have some things to discuss."
"Can't see as if I have much of a choice..."
"You really, really don't. Place Master Cairne in the force cages until I come for him again. I want a battalion stationed here at all times." The droids carried out the order, roughly throwing Silas into the cage and raising the electrical field. Smiling, Gratus bent down to meet him eye-to-eye. "I have a prior engagement, if you would excuse me, Master Jedi." As he turned about and sauntered towards the exit, the Chancellor half-turned back in the Jedi's direction, aiming to get in one final jab.
"And remember, that collar is tied to me. So much as a palpitation in my heart, and, well, it's not going to be pretty."
The door slid shut behind him, leaving Silas to the lonely companionship of battle droids.
Message edited by Silas_Cairne - Friday, 21 Oct 2011, 9:42 PM |
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| Karth_(Padawan) | Date: Thursday, 17 Nov 2011, 8:57 PM | Message # 30 |
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| From their position on the balcony above, the two young Jedi watched as Chancellor Gratus exited the holding cells. The first thing Karth noticed was how aged the man looked, a stark contrast from just a few hours ago. He bore a wicked smile that said more than words, and Dani could most likely hear the low growl that escaped his lips as he noticed a man dressed in strange-colored armor deposit a glinting saber hilt into Gratus' outstretched hands.
"We found this in the city plaza, sir, not sure who it belongs to."
Gratus examined the weapon with a bemused smile, eventually tucking it into the folds of his robe and waving the armored man off.
"That's my lightsaber, the sithspit has my lightsaber..." Karth muttered between gritted teeth. Turning back to Dani, he offered a resigned sigh before speaking again. "Looks like you were right, Gratus is definitely behind this... but I can't get a read on him." He watched as the Chancellor sauntered away in the opposite direction, Karth's attention turning back to the pair of battle droids stationed by the holding cell door. Normally, he'd have stormed in there lightsaber flailing about, but without his weapon he felt empty, like a part of him was missing. Jedi were very attached to their weapons, to lose it was to lose a part of yourself. It wasn't an easy feeling.
"There's gotta be another way in," he breathed, creeping closer to the edge of the balcony and noticing another pair of battle droids patrolling just below them. "It looks like that air duct runs straight inward, if we can get to it, that might be enough." Easier said than done, of course, who knows what was waiting for them beyond that door. He reached out with the Force again, eyes closed and mind totally clear; and though it was faint, he could make out the tiny oscillations of energy in the room beyond, a good six droids at least. "They're guarding something," he assured. "Could be Silas, could be your Master, or it could be a trap. Probably a trap, our luck really hasn't been good tonight..."
Message edited by Karth_(Padawan) - Thursday, 17 Nov 2011, 8:58 PM |
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