STAR WARS: RETROSPECTION- Broken

"You're asking the wrong person that," Rianna snaps back, frustrated.

"So you've no idea why he wants you, of all the Jedi?" Arneth asks.

"If I knew, would I have asked you?" Rianna replies, deciding to make an attempt at retrieving her lightsaber, knowing that she's at least somewhat safe right now.

When you do so, Arneth firmly grabs your wrist and twists hard.

"Stubborn," Arneth says. "You don't give up easily. Whatever it takes to win, right?"

"Let go of me..." Rianna hisses. "And I never would have gotten anywhere if I gave up easily..."

"Sadly enough, you haven't gotten anywhere. What have you and the other Jedi really uncovered, here? Nothing."

"Not for a lack of trying..." Rianna replies, trying to pull out of his grasp. "What happens now?"

"You keep chasing," Arneth says, then promptly cracks the pistol across your forehead...

Now Vera needs to catch up.

Sensing no immediate danger to her comrade, Vera-Kin decides to continue clawing her way up the rubble pile to what remains of the command area that crowned the Fort. She has her lightsaber ready, expecting to use it to cut people free of the wreckage.

You move onwards and upwards, picking your way through the hazardous rubble and avoiding live wires and jagged debris and the like. Every so often you see parts of bodies protruding from the rubble, unmoving, but you sense they are dead rather than unconscious. A fall from the height of the tower's command center would kill you, and being lower on the ground would have just put you underneath more rubble. You sense survivors in the direction of the barracks- sturdy structures, they were- but not in the pile itself.

Except for one person... though he is fading fast when you reach him.

General Hirget lies bleeding profusely, impaled by the debris and his legs crushed by another. He is conscious, but laying on his front.

"Master Jedi... how nice of you... to join me," Hirget gasps.

"General!" Vera-Kin says sharply upon seeing him impaled upon something inside the remains of the command center. "Hold on, I can save you..."

Vera-Kin closes her eyes and raises a hand toward the debris that has pinned the General's now mangled legs, intending to levitate it away from him.

You levitate the section of the roof and shunt it away from the General, revealing that his legs have indeed been mangled, crushed by the weight.

"No..." he says, wincing. "It is too late for me. I could not have known that your criminal would come for me. Nor did you."

Vera-Kin also winces when she sees his legs, assuming that he will never be able to walk again.

"I did not foresee it, and we were distracted with what we thought was his true objective," Vera-Kin says. "But why would he attack you?"

Vera-Kin ignites her lightsaber, intending to sever what has impaled General Hirget so that it can be removed easier.

The General must be lifted to cut the offending piping that has gone straight through him, and he cries out, but you sever it.

"I... haven't the slightest," Hirget grunts. His breathing is shallow. "Unless... they were working with my only true enemy in this world!"

"What could Astrune gain by your death?" Vera-Kin asks.

Vera-Kin is going to leave the pipe through his chest in order not to hurt him further or cause him to bleed out, but she will try to stem the flow of blood and Sense if the pipe has hit anything vital.

"Everything," Hirget says. "My policies die with me, and it goes to an election to select the new Head of State."

You cannot sense what it has specifically punctured, but something vital has been hit. A Medicine roll tells you that the positioning of the pipe indicates that it has most likely damaged his heart.

"Who stands to replace you?" Vera-Kin asks.

Is there anything Vera-Kin can do without a medkit to mend this on the spot?

"Nehmen," Hirget says. His breaths are becoming hurried. "You must protect him. He becomes the intermediate Head of State until the election is held. Don't let them get him."

"What happens if they do?" Vera-Kin asks.

"I don't know," the General says. "Anything could happen... but... I am sure... it won't be good."

There is nothing you can do to help General Lan Hirget. He will not make it to the hospital in time, his wound is too grievous. He fades out of consciousness shortly, and his old and weary heart stops soon after.

Rand has decapitated the government of Ord Coridari.

-

Rianna comes to in the hospital, where she has received bacta treatment. Despite the healing qualities of bacta, extra care has been given to the blast wound that Arneth inflicted; it has been put in a special med-wrap to speed up the process. It is incredibly painful but time is of the essence.

Vera-Kin is now in meeting with the intermediate Head of State, Major Bradox. He is a young officer, like Nehmen, and the military has granted him a decent amount of leadership skill, but he completely lacks any political aspirations. Additionally, you are meeting with him at the hospital because he is receiving treatment for shrapnel wounds- he has been out attempting to quell the riots too.

"I don't know what you want me to do," Major Bradox says. "Right now we are managing to contain the worst of the rioting, that's all you can really ask of me. I'm not cut out for this Head of State nonsense, and it's going to be hard enough trying to coordinate our efforts without Fort Ine's transmitter!"