Endor

[wraith]

Ashen caught the saber in his hand quickly and reignited it's blue blade. It had an misty like aura around it from the invisible gas. He however wasn't' fast enough over the bodies of dead yuuzhan vong to get to Nia. She seemed to be having trouble of her own staying awake through the gas which gave him pause. She managed to say a few words and he had a bad feeling he knew exactly what she had told them.

"Stang.." he thought to himself as he communicator. It still might have come in handy even though now it might soon cost him, Atto, and Nooktul their lives. All of his experience in these kind of things told him to kill Nia Shul now least she cause he, the others, or anyone else she came across anymore trouble. The hum of his saber gave him focus as he stood close to the yuuzhan vong woman watching her crawl. No he wouldn't take her life. It wasn't the jedi way or his own but he would take that device away. He stepped close to her and stepped upon the hand he saw holding the small communications device. He'd already taken a few of her fingers already today hadn't he..

As he moved closer he lifted his foot and stepped on the top of her hand. A shout of pain and and she dropped the vilip which was soon followed by some yuuzhan vong words he could only assume were curses. He leaned down and brought the hilt of his saber hard against the back of her head and with a thud she hit the floor unconscious.

"Too bad the saber didn't remove the rest of your hand before.."

Stepping away from Nia Ashen searched for Nooktul and Atto through the force. The voice in the back of his mind that he had to hurry kept at bay he found them. Below! How deep the floor was he did not know but he knew the fastest way to get there. Reigniting the lightsaber he turned the hilt around in his hands he stabbed it down ward into the floor and started cutting through the coral floor.

Atto. Master Nooktul! Look out below! He spoke to them through the force as he started carving through the coral ceiling in a circle. As he completed the circle the living ceiling started to fall. He lowered himself down into the hole and leapt down. Using the force to ease the fall and landing. He lifted his head to look toward the two other Jedi. Both of them looked as if they had been through hell. That would make his news even better for them...

"We're about to have company.."

[attomemhuhvoo]

"Master Wraith!! I knew you were alive, thank the force!!"

Nootkul reminded Atto, with a sharp gnash of needley teeth, that they didn't have time for such enthusiastc reunions. He nodded curtly to Ashen Wraith, quickly acknowledging his own relief at seeing the other master safe , then hoisted his captive higher on his shoulder and continued through one the grashals naturally formed air cavities.

A thundering of feet in the shell layer above hastened his step.

"You are correct Ashen Wraith. Company is coming. Now. Quickly , we must get through! Down at that end, where the light is showing through. The wall must be thinner there."

Earlier efforts to cut through the grashal down here were testing to say the least. Atto felt sweat curl off of his smooth haired belly as he twisted the blade of Nootkul's saber to and fro into the strong porcelene like surface. At first, the plasma blade merely glanced off of it. Only now, had it just started to chip away.

The y-eskii-ill boy darted over to the translucent inner lip of orangy pink that anchored the grashal to its holding on Endor. He began to see the planet's rich soil appearing in dark clusters, mixing with the giant mollusk's frothy mucus.

He pushed the saber blade through effortlessly and started to cut out a round. One large enough for him and the others to escape through.

It was then that a dozen yuuzhan vong warriors boiled out from the hole in the ceiling above. Mean, sunken eyes darted about in pasty faces, with eyesacks flushed an excited electric blue. They dropped to the level and started to charge, wearing their anger on their faces like flags of war. Nootkul had seen wounded karabbac charge with less determination.

"Steady Atto, keep going as you are, buck..."

The kaleesh could of swore he heard the unconcious warrior on his shoulder sigh, as if annoyed, or perhaps, even embarassed. He held her tighter, and couldn't help but think of dolphins as his fingertips skudded over the dark cetacean 'flesh' of her suit.

Just outside, a commander and his army slaughtered innocents unmercilessly, who before today, had never set eyes on such unadultriated evil.

And they had known the Empire in it's glory days..

OOC- Dont know if grashals are really 'snails' per say but I like to think of them that way..

[Blue but beautiful]

(OOC: i've always imagined the Grashal shell to be snail like myself, i'm sure there is a book with how they are grown somewhere.)

A large booted foot crushed down upon Nia Shul's outstretched hand, forcing it to open and let go of the villip she'd been grasping. She let out a cry of defiance and irritation, hoping to the gods that Seinheild - or anyone for that matter - had heard her words.
Her hope was short lived though.

She had barely risen to her knees when the hilt of the Jeedai's lightsaber came crashing down upon the back of her skull, sending her plummeting into a spinning darkness, a thin trickle of black blood oozed from her nostrils.
Before unconsciousness gripped her completely, she'd heard his last words,
"Too bad the saber didn't remove the rest of your hand before.."
This Jeedai would pay with his life, even if it was the end of her.

Nia Shul's last thoughts turned to an impending failure, but no matter how hard she fought the darkness, it consumed her regardless of her need for it not to.

[Elmira Val]

(forgive me if I'm godmoding)

Elmira felt the feeling return to her body as an unfamiliar hand stroked her ribs. It wasn't the first time, and perhaps not the last. Only, who was it exactly? She tried to recall who it was she wanted to see. There was very little room for imagination; the stinging pain from her head wound jolted Elmira awake to see the mother-of-pearl floor staring back. The veiny folds around her muddy green eyes felt alien, as they did after every night.

Although it was scudded from being walked upon, her reflection was still recognizable. She squinted, still feeling the heavy hammer of sleep.
Why am I leaning over? she thought, but did not sound convincingly conscious.
The last thing she remembered was lying on the floor. Perplexing.

Elmira was dissappointed to see the red mud lizard's robes scrunched against her left cheek, realizing what it meant.

"...urrrrg."

There was shouting, no doubt from her fellow warriors. Facing them was going to be highly unpleasant. They felt disgrace that did not belong to them, Yuuzhan Vong they might be. What would be less pleasant?

Seinheild, of course. What would have she done if it had been his hands? She struggled against the master Jedi who was still clutching her midsection tightly. It gasped, but refused to let go. She scrabbled at its exposed skin with her hands, but much to her frustration the fingertips were blunted from years of chewing. Instead, Elmira caught the red creature's forearm by the teeth, and bit down.

However it was staring the other direction undaunted; the Yuuzhan Vong had them surrounded.

[attomemhuhvoo]

In comparason to his earlier torture, the bite inflicted by the waking warrior felt to Nootkul as insignificant as an insect's sting. The kaleesh master turned his long face to meet Elmira's. Muddy green eyes smouldered like tempestuous storms under her lowered brow.

In return to the newly wakened glower, Nootkul quirked one scaled eye ridge as if to scold Elmira's bad behavior. Reptilian blood streamed from his arm, but he refused to look. Instead, he smiled down on his squirming piece of collateral, then over at Atto who had just kicked out the piece of the grashal's far wall.

Ashen and Nootkul were surrounded, and the closing circle of yuuzhan vong warriors threatened to encompass the y-eskii-ill boy as well. Nootkul's plumage prickled with the force. He changed his prisoner's position, holding Elmira Val against his chest tightly as one would a loved thing. The pod of warriors rushed forward in a blur of pale and dark..

"Attomemhuvoo!! Trade!!"

Atto understood at once. Without hesitation, he lobbed the still lit saber, where it sailed above the warrior's heads toward his master. Nootkul in turn, lifted a struggling Elmira and tossed her high into the air as one would a child's doll. She sailed gracefully, swimming through air, until she decended at the other end of the grashal where the padawan stood waiting.

"Don't let her leave your side.. and beware the commander! We will be along shortly..."

Atto heard his master say as he tumbled backwards out of the hole, the female yuuzhan vong in his hands. He couldn't be sure, but perhaps he had groped her in an inappropriate place. Wherever that might be on as strange a being as this one, he hadn't a clue.

Elmira stiffened. At first she was shocked, then she started to fight ..

OOC- You're not godmoding.. but I hope I'm not doing it. Ok, so I'm not pushing YV with the force but I have tossed one in the air using my own force strengthened muscles. Wouldn't that be like throwing any other weighty object? Blue, let me know.

[Blue but beautiful]

(OOC: Atto would be able to aid his actions by using the force on himself and the elements of native life around him. He would only not be able to use the force when attempting to effect the Yuuzhan Vong, or any of their life, directly. Hope that makes sense! )

[attomemhuhvoo]

OOC- Yes, but is it ok that Nootkul tossed Elmira?

[Blue but beautiful]

(OOC: I knew that... Again yes if he was using the force to aid an action that directly effected his own strength and not actually how Elmira traveled through the air, if that makes sense? please don't hurt me! )

[wraith]

He was a bit surprised to see the yuuzhan vong warrior being held bye the kaleesh master but that soon passed as their current situation became even more dire and the yuuzhan girl was tossed over to Atto. Nooktul was strong for a kaleesh.

Lightsaber ignited and held forward in his right hand defensively he pulled the two rebreathers he hand from his utility belt. The one he had only used shortly above and the back up.

Master Nooktul catch. There's some sort of gas that's coming into these rooms. Toss one to Atto too he'll need it.. he thought to the kaleesh master and tossed them both up for the kaleesh jedi master to catch. Ashen of course had no idea how much of the gas these two had already breathed in and what it's effects might be. He found it odd however that Nooktul seemed to be using a yuuzhan vong as a hostage especially since when he had felt him last he was in no condition to fight. None of them were. Not this many anyway.

"It'll do you no good you know they'll have no qualms going through her to get to Atto and us." he whispered next to Nooktul as his hands returned to his saber hilt. Holding it in a defensive form ready to fight if need be and there seemed to be more than a need for the yuuzhan vong. He didn't comment to master nooktul the non jedi implications of using someone as a shield though that crab armor was quite a good one. His mind did not leave all the wounds and pain he felt from Master Nooktul earlier and now being held by the yuuzhan vong as he was.

"Nooktul take my belt it's a stealth unit..you can use it to get you and Atto out of here. I'll hold them off."

He felt cold..death coming from outside! They hadn't followed him had they?!

[Elmira Val]

(Oi, she is actually rather heavy, should have mentioned that. And not a "girl" )

Elmira groaned. Their landing had not been graceful. And the pod had seen witness to her embarassing treatment. What was more, she had been handled in a most distasteful manner, and by an infidel! That Jedi master had held her too close.

Realizing she was in an equally compromising position, Elmira let out a warning yelp and batted at the ampibiesque face of the Jedi boy staring into her own. She struggled to get up, still disoriented from the period of immobility sleep had brought. Their elbows where propped against each others, and Elmira swore, wrinkling the skin of her upper lip, he wasn't exactly unhappy.
"Perhaps I have picked the wrong conversation for you earlier."

They were outside the grashal, Elmira could see as she angled her neck to the right. Soft yellow light shone from the ovoid wound in the animal's living shell, illuminating the ground an armspan away. The air wafted with the heat of smouldering explosion sites and resounded with the anguished shouts of sentients.

Elmira stood up, balancing the grey-pelted boy who was holding very tightly to a chitinous belly plate, unsure whether it was appropriate. She shrugged him off, but the vonduun crab come free. Hadn't it been secure the last time she checked? The warrior cast him a beastly aspersion, if the darkness arund the encampment did not conceal the glint of her eyes.

He lunged again, but Elmira caught his hand. The foliage cover of Endor was far off, the forest edge obscured. They wouldn't flee there; if anyone saw that she was less than abiding of Yuuzhan Vong honor codes, they would be slain outright.

The soldiers to the distance had yet to notice them, but the ones left in the grashal had seen her dragged along by the two Jedi. It was likely they would kill the Master, and report her shameful incompetence to someone higher up. She would have to get to Seinheild first, so that they would be the ones discredited. The killzone was not far. Elmira dragged Atto for a footspans, but was met with great resistance at the second step.

[attomemhuhvoo]

If it wasn't so serious a situation, the little scene currently acting out on this patch of Endor soil would have been roaringly hilarious. But as Elmira Val was a toughened warrior, one physically stronger than the fourteen year old boy holding her, the situation was particularly grim.

Atto had to hold her until master Nootkul and master Wraith escaped the grashal. He had no doubt that they would, but when?? Elmira was a slippery catch. She writhed and escaped his grasp like a furious eel. He focused the force again and again, but to no avail. Whatever void these beings projected around themselves, it wouldn't budge, and the force couldn't penetrate or persuade.

In a frantic movement to keep her contained, Atto reached out with both hands and wrenched at her frontal armor, hoping the tug would bring her closer to him. Sharp edged crab chiten sliced into his fingers. Foolish. He should have seen that!

But even more disconcerting, was the fact that his hard pull forced already loosened harnesses attaching the chiten to break. The vonduun crab belly armor gave way, and Atto gazed for a few seconds at Elmira's pale sinewy torso. Beautiful tattooed pictograms meshed with purposeful scars. Scars much like the ones he had seen across master Nootkul's shoulders. Even in vicious application , they were thoughtfully placed. How horrible..and yet beautiful an art. He watched as she furiously tugged down her thoracial armor, totally obscuring the fleeting glimpse he had of bilateral slits running down each side of her pale chest.

Atto went for her again, trying to get his arms around her neck. Her firm hand snapped around his wrist, stopping that motion. The y-eskii-ill squeal barked and dug his horn covered toes into the soil.

"You people have to stop this war and leave the planet! What ....errrahhgg..what is it you want? A new home ? Resources? Just tell me why you are doing this...Elmira. Your name is Elmira...right?"

The female warrior started to drag him away from the fray, away from the eyes of others. Did she have some secret desire to kill him in private? Water a sacred glade of ferns with the blood from his cut throat? He tried to hold her back, he had to hold her, just a few more seconds....the master's would return to him. But she was too strong, and was winning this game of tug of war.


Inside the grashal, master Nootkul and Ashen Wraith raised their sabers and met eyes in the moment before combat.

"It will do you no good you know, they will have no qualms going through her to get to Atto and us."

Nootkul tested the rebreather and was about to affix it to his face..

"You are right of course, about the majority of them. I am not a gambling kaleesh, however... there is one yuuzhan vong I am wagering on who will not allow her to be destroyed."

Rebreathers in place, the two jedi turned from each other to face the onslaught. Sixteen of them, and no more coming for the moment. Yuuzhan vong rushed forward, amphistaffs coiled and struck, and subsequently lost their heads. Next would be their owners..


Above, in the gas filled chamber, an elite rescue team prowled about like lean howlrunners. The leader of the sent team, Voh'nn Seinheild's own firstborn Sai'dul, paced through the thick sensislug gasses with impatient purpose. Multi tentacled lavender gnulliths clung to his and his men's faces, protecting them from the poison's effects. Sai'dul's ice blue eyes, the color of his dead warrior mother's, searched the floor for the one his father had sent him to retract.

There, close to the wall. With a rough motion he rolled Nia Shul over onto her back and looked at her face in disgust. He snarled under the gnullith, and it gripped his cheeks and jaws tighter in order for it to keep a good seal.

"Naturally, you are beautiful. My fathers lust's will be his undoing. If I am not it first.."

From under his sleek armor he pulled another gnullith. He rubbed the little beast as if to waken it, then thumbed open Nia's blue lips. The fleshy star snaked its protracted tube past her teeth and into her throat where it proceeded to deliver life saving oxygen.

Job done, Sai'dul took one last look at her then motioned to his men.

"Get her out of here."

[Blue but beautiful]

In the dull state of unconsciousness, Nia Shul floated through the endless black. She felt no pain, could sense nothing. All she was aware of, was a deep sense of anxious need. The need to get back.
But all she had felt when she had slipped into this state was a numbness. Was this death?
No, there were no gods here, no one but herself and her thoughts.

As if to signify that matter, sensation started to slowly come back to her, and then her face and throat stung like fire. Something had been shoved against her mouth, the cilla contained within it's tentacles attaching to the pores it sought.
Then came the sickening urge to recoil as it launched a fleshy tube down her throat, causing the intendant to gag despite herself.
The endless black was replaced by a sharp white light, and then...blurred images, voices all around her.

Nia Shul remembered...the Jeedai!

Strong hands had grasped her wrists then, and without thinking she lashed out at their owner in a feeble attempt to claw them in some way. The intendant was abruptly dropped to the floor again as a string of garbled insults were hurled her way, followed up by a weighty kick to the ribs with a spike booted foot.
The insults she heard...they were Yuuzhan Vong. In her state of half awareness she forced herself to be still, Seinheild had obviously received her message. This could be neither bad, nor good, she thought to herself.
Fact still remained though, she wasn't dead yet and while she drew breath, there was still a chance she could turn things around.

[Elmira Val]

He had said her name.

"Because," she said letting the torn seam of her ooglith suit hang loose. It would heal itself eventually.
Members of domain Val's consortium on Baanu Odanan wore the customary skinsuit of rank out of habit, unless its removal was warranted. Albeit, what was underneath was not anything to hide. The sight certainly appeared to intimidate this one. She had hoped so, although it was rarely exposed.

"the Gods will it."
It pleased her to have a willful comeback after the long series of mishaps she had experienced throughout the day.

Elmira had the young Jedi's arm grasped firmly, grinning triumphantly. Although the youth was strong-willed, he was not a challenge for a fully Yuuzhan Vong; warrior training had seen to this.

"But, I suppose you are not under their wrath. I would see to that." she continued, freeing the claws he had embedded on the side of her face, beneath the veiny blue cast around an eye. With another tug and a step back, the creature lost his footing and dropped backwards, held by the arms. He protested loudly against the voluminous background noise.

"Your name?" she continued nonchalantly, spotting the silhouettes of members of domain Grahois surrounded by the furry dwarves from the early evening. A stray blaster bolt darted past their silhouettes, causing Elmira to duck down. She realized her amphistaff was missing when within hearing distance of the two others.

"You! Why is this infidel with you?" shouted the first angrily. Soon, this one lost footing, dragged down by the petty creatures.

[Blue but beautiful]

LEGACY OF TORMENT, ORBITING GARQI.

Confined to his quarters, under strict instruction not to leave until he had spoken with Commander Shedao Shai, Tln'aa Shoolb waited, villip before him, his fate now in the lap of the gods.
He had no word about the Jeedai as yet, but he knew for certain they would show...his spies had noted a ship had entered [the system and it's current trajectory was headed for Endor. He didn't need the dark Jeedai anymore and would delight in ending him should the chance arise.
What he didn't know however, was that Drevin was not with them.

Stroking the creature before him to life, he waited for commander Seinheild to pick up on the incoming communication.
A rather diminutive smirk played across his scarred lips, giving life to an otherwise gaunt and emotionless face.
Everything was working perfectly....for once.

[attomemhuhvoo]

His menacing bootheel never passing up an opportunity, Commander Voh'nn Seinheild quickly dispatched the squirming resistance fighter by fracturing his cranium into multiple fragments.

"Zhaetor-zhae.." He muttered to himself as he watched the final movements of the dying human settler. This planet Endor was easily taken, and the commander was eager to return to the familiar comfort of the worldship. Perhaps he would be candidate for an escalation, as reward for a job well done. How he hoped for it! He had dreamed of a marvelous implanted limb of the shaper's finest crafting. Many nights he had visions of the tracer spineray's regesterings. A perfect match. A work of art. One step closer to perfection through pain and metamorphosis!!

However ready he may have been to return, something remained that would keep him here, unless of course he was ordered by the warmaster to return immediatly. Seinheild hoped he didn't, pushing the shame of such a thought deep back into his mind.

Fire breathers continued to belch their gelatinous flaming strands, incinerating all in a terrible show of yuuzhan vong- shaped might. Surviving ewoks retreated into the forest in terror, not to be followed. The little beasts had already been shown, painfully so, that they were now owned along with their planet. They witnessed first hand the will of the yuuzhan vong gods, and now resigned themselves sadly to their fate . Whatever it may be.

A trio of mounted quednaks rumbled into view. The six-legged reptilian behemoths shook the ground as they ran. Their riders waved and roared victory cries as they passed, and Seinheild could see that each warrior held a trophy head or limb, mostly of the human persuasion. Human beings were some of the worst scum in the galaxy. They spread their sickening technologies like vermin spread disease. And they were everywhere. More reason for the praetorite to continue it's work, until the end of time if need be.

He envied the merriment of his warriors. They would imbibe on honeyed wine tonight , celebrating the victory. Seinheild, on the other hand would not be , unless he happened to return with the one who's reappearance in his life, made his very core alight with glee. Seinheild's rictus sneer intensified as his warrior son returned, the intendant carried by one of his team. The commander's onyx eyes met the pale blue orbs of his offspring. The two men shared blood, although no love for one another.

He had sent this specialized team out to retrieve two, and his heart sank against his spine when he didn't see ....

"Where is she ?" He feared the worst, news of Elmira Val's death. Sai'dul would love to report that, wouldn't he...

The young yuuzhan vong warrior held his head high in the prescence of his commander father. He didn't flinch or subjugate himself, but knew his place. The day would come when Voh'nn Seinheild would fall, and Sai'dul would patiently await it.

" Belek tiu. We searched as you ordered, and have found no evidence of her. Two jedi are cornered in the bottom of that grashal." He pointed with a straightened arm to the besieged mollusk.

"The other jedi has escaped. The pup, commander. Imaginably so with Elmira Val. It is my opinion that she will handle him without difficulty."

"Your opinion?" Seinheild's anger boiled to the surface. "I don't remember ASKING for your opinion!!"

In a flash of rage, Seinheild flexed both forearms until the veins in their smooth muscled surfaces webbed under the pale blue-gray skin. He yowled in sweet pain as two fighting claws exploded forth from the knuckles of his right hand.

Sai'dul bravely braced for the attack. He wasn't ready to challenge his father just yet..

The full force of his sire's wrath came down upon him in a flesh rending strike. The other warriors watched with intrest, more than glad they themselves were not the subjects of the commanders rage. Sai'dul's dark blood spattered their faces like warm rain.

After the strike, Seinheild stood still, breathing heavily and looking at his wounded offspring. The young male didn't make a sound. Not a whimper. He stood bent slightly forward, holding his gash rended bare upper arm. The cut went deep, through skin and into muscle, and Sai'dul was grateful that his father in his anger blinded state, hadn't attacked his belly region. Such an attack would have surely disembowled him. He put both fists on opposing shoulders and bowed stiffly. "Belek tiu, except my apology. What else do you ask of me and my team?"

Seinheild saw the murderous intent in his son's eyes. He laughed to himself, ignoring the threat. "You had best reconsider any thoughts of taking me on young one. It will be the last thought in your head."

"Find her. She must be in the forest and cannot be far from here if that jedi pup has just escaped. She...she has important information which cannot be lost." He lied.

It was then that Seinheild's personal villip alerted him to an incoming message. The brownish pod on his shoulder trembled and started to evert. The commander straightened and calmed himself, preparing to speak to whoever was now hailing him.