You got very messed up, Rand. VERY messed up. 🤨
"Kuylen was a great man!" Galder scowls maliciously as he snaps an attack on the remaining Gunman, scissoring across the chest with both lightsabers. He then moves to confront Doon.
"You will not find an alliance in me, Doon," Galder snarls viciously. "You never would. You would only find a great enemy..."
Galder kills the last gunman.
Jena goes for Takuan, then. -1 is a miss. Going for him a second time is dodged on evens.
Doon's shot on Galder is -3 for a miss also.
Rand gets +2 on his roll... not enough.
-----
Situation at: Thirteenth Sequence, Frame 11
Main Lounge
Takuan: 14/42/9
Galder: 8/41/11
Rand: 12/27/7
Jena Lantarnas: ?/4/7
Melkus Doon: ?/09
-----
You need to roll well to pull that off, Rand! +3 is still enough for her to dodge it.
Still, gives Takuan another hack at her... though she fortune dodges that again as well.
-3 from Jena at Rand is a miss!
-8 from Galder is a total miss as well, but at least Doon wasted the fortune.
"This is typical of you people!" says Doon. "No sense, no value, no POINT! All you can do is destroy!"
Doon uses a fortune point to fire back... but still misses!
-----
Situation at: Thirteenth Sequence, Frame 6
Main Lounge
Takuan: 14/42/3
Galder: 2/41/6
Rand: 8/27/4
Jena Lantarnas: ?/4/2
Melkus Doon: ?/0/5
-----
Ok, repeating tactics!
+3 from Galder... that's nasty. It beats Doon's dodge.
Jena, blowing another force point, stays safe from Takuan, but can;lt get a shot back.
Galder is frustrated by another fortune point spend from Doon as well., but stays safe himself.
-----
Situation at: Fourteenth Sequence, Frame 13
Main Lounge
Takuan: 14/42/10
Galder: 10/41/13
Rand: 14/27/10
Jena Lantarnas: ?/4/12
Melkus Doon: ?/13/11
-----
Frankly, I know what Galder is going to do. +2 from his Strike is dodged, with more Fortune, as is a -2 after that.
Jena goes for Takuan again; -4 misses. She then fires at Rand, and she hits! He has to Pain that.
-----
Situation at: Fourteenth Sequence, Frame 9
Main Lounge
Takuan: 14/42/9
Galder: 6/41/9
Rand: 9 (8)/27/8
Jena Lantarnas: ?/4/8
Melkus Doon: ?/13/9
-----
Eh, Rand is pondering what Ush decided regarding the switch to Dark Emotions - Rivalry...
Until then, Rand will attempt to Combat Push again, just to blow the Pain points. Force Dodge for Jena or Doon.
Then, after that defense, Rand will Blur in to close the gap, then attack with a Strike at Jena. Same defense.
You don't have the power Rivalry, Rand! You picked Fear! What was going on in the Citadel was a result of the emotional response you showed to your hallucinations. But we can talk about that in a little while- just not for this fight.
Ok, Jena is still having to grip onto her gun to avoid Rand... and this time, Takuan rolls +4, a hit.
And one of the combos on Doon is a hit as well! That impairs him.
Galder then force dodges two attacks from Doon. Looks like they are all out of fortune!
Takuan slashes at Jena again, misses, then Rand goes for her again... and he rolls +8! She lost her guns! She has to frame out trying to get them, and then a rather unexpected +6 from Takuan runs her straight through.
"Damn it..." is all she says.
And then Galder closes in on his last blow as well, as Doon falls to the side of a sofa.
With everyone else dead, and three rather angry Dark Siders by him, even the dullest-witted would know the game is up. All Doon can do now is laugh to himself, as he sits beneath Galder's blade.
He lights a death stick.
"What are you going to say, that it's bad for my health?" he explains. He inhales, and blows out smoke.
"Man, what a way to end it. So damn close. But I can't pretend it wasn't a blast. Even if it was only for a few days, I managed what Siva himself did- to deceive the Masters of deception themselves. No matter what ou do, you can never take that away from me. Just like the Sith could kill Siva, but they could never change what he did. When it came to the battle of the minds, I won. If it wasn't for your freaky powers, I'd have been home and dry. It just goes to show, everything and everyone is vulnerable.
"And what I have done will reverberate through the Galaxy for decades, maybe centuries. People will remember this. And me. That's not a bad way to go out on, I think. And you... no offence to any of you... but I don't think anyone is going to remember you guys once you are gone. A footnote to a small part of history. The Galaxy is bigger than all of you, by quite some way. You have to understand... there is nothing here for you. Nothing anywhere at all, any more. You had your run, with Kuylen, and you saw where it ended. That's where it all ends, really. This is just the post script, before you all vanish from creation and history altogether."
Behind Doon, Galder, the ghostly figure of Kuylen is fading fast. He holds up three fingers towards you.
"Three," he says, quietly. And then he fades to nothing, and is gone forever.
The sabre comes down.
And so it is done.
They are all dead. Everyone who has opposed, annoyed or crossed you. Yago. Vigo. Helkin. Jena.
And Doon.
He was a remarkable man, no doubt about it. He was playing with the Devil himself and got within an ace of winning it. But playing with fire comes with a risk. You guys… well, enough of you anyway..,. passed your test in the Ghost Citadel. The Force is with you, the Force favoured you, and the Force saved you. The staggering coincidence of crashing by AKs ship on Kuoni… lucky? Well, you guys know, there’s no such thing as luck.
If Doon had been a force sensitive… well. You don’t want to think about it.
But that is it then. You guys are done. You have won your survival and the right to be proud. But there is no Kuylen. No secrets. No reward. No hope. The End of the Road, Doon called it. And you don’t know what the ‘New Order’ Helkin spoke of is, but if the Bureau is just the start, what purpose do any of you serve any more? You can’t live in the Republic even now, and if it gets worse?
There’s nothing for you outside. Anything that is ANYTHING works, at least in part, inside the Republic, and you can’t touch it with a barge pole. You have no home, no facilities, no money, no-one to work for or with. No-one will even make use of you any more, the Bureau has closed that down too- no-one will dare.
Heck, you may as well just close the doors and stay here, in this secure secret mountain fortress that no-one else knows about.
In this..
…
Hang on…
You can’t help thinking you have missed a certain upside to this!
---
There is a world, outside the Republic, outside of known civilisation. Few know of it, for unusual gravitic anomalies from nearby stars hide it from most sensor readings. And those who might come across old records of it… so what? A world too far away to be interesting with nothing but primitive life forms on it.
Enough food to supply you indefinitely. Enough fuel to run your ships for a decade. The defence system is smashed but you guys can look after yourselves. Best of all, the Holy Grail- a fully functioning shield generator, powerful enough to deflect any orbital attack…
A smuggler lived there once. He was a member of a powerful criminal organisation, but it has fallen on hard times. It will re-build, they always do, but all in it who knew of this world died when the Smuggler did. Dealing with the wrong type of people, people said. He always took risks like that, and no-one’s luck runs forever. No-one is interested in revenge. There is too much re-building work to do- and who is going to take the risk anyway? If they come causing more trouble, then something can be done, but for now… just live and let live.
You’ll have to scrap his ship, Scorpio. A shame, but yours are more important and what you are going to be desperately short on is hi-tech parts, of which it has loads. Same with the orbital defences; you broke most the controls in the attack anyway. Keep the security system, the orbital scanners, DEFINITELY the shield… everything else can go.
The people who live there, the Epireans, are primitive, but not uselessly so. They are in a Bronze Age stage of development- they have nothing the Galaxy would recognise as technology, but they have small towns, basic technological rudiments such as sanitation and water management; they can communicate just fine. They even know of space travel; the Smuggler used to bully them now and again into doing the odd menial task, or sometimes he would bribe them with odd stuff from afar. But the newcomers are different.
They are the perfect slave force. Large, strong, powerful, and utterly unable to oppose you. Best of all, their civilisation is violent, split, disorganised. They fear both your powers and your strength- it is almost as if they were destined to follow you. Subjugating them will take a little time. You can’t OWN them, you don’t have the infrastructure, but making use of them when you need them- that can be arranged.
Later, Epireus got a reputation for having other inhabitants. They lived high on a mountain, where the Smuggler’s base was, for the pressure of the world was too much for normal life forms except on the mountains. There they were left to themselves. They sometimes traded with nearby organisations; pirates and smugglers, running credit from the famed droid AK. But they always refused to do business in the Republic, and never let anyone visit their home. People thought this was odd- not working in the Republic at all must reduce their opportunities; they could never meet anyone important, and they would get very poor prices. But that is how they wanted it- and people soon learned that it was best not to argue with them.
A base, a centre of operations, somewhere to live and to plan… and maybe even to expand. No system is perfect. The vice that closes you in, forces you out, there must be cracks. Let them forget you. You now know that the destiny of the Force will truly guide you. No mere legal organisation can eventually prevail against that. Those who have died are weak and unworthy. You are proven. The Force accepts you. And so now a difficult task for you all- Patience.
Your day will come.
There is a world, outside the Republic, outside of known civilisation. It is called Epireus. And those who have come to live there make one thing very clear indeed.
“Epireus is ours now. And that is a fact that will, in time, distinguish it in but one way.
That is was the first.”
End