A giant fraking crystal bird-reptile motherfraker thing was trying to eat their fraking ship.
So great. Such a great time. Optimal mission conditions.
Yippie.
“STOP. RIDING. MY. REAR! You shabuir!” Minnow snarled in her seat like the Mandalorian she was as the assault vessel rocked precariously again, a scraping thud of impact from the stern. “Why would you bite a thruster?! It burns you! Go away!”
“Shake it off!” Vreva snapped from beside the tiny Nautolan pilot, clutching at the other seat of the cockpit by the very tips of her fingers and crouching in the seat more than sitting in it, like a barbarian. Every time Minnie moved, Vreva twitched, as though to grab the controls herself.
Poor choice, Vreva. Minnow was the superior pilot out of the whole squadron, nevermind their motley crew.
“Been shaking off the hater, babes, thanks,” Minnie replied yet again with a forced, saccharine cheerfulness that matched her vicious expression and concentrated glare forward. She jerked the yoke, and the ship rotated 557° and descended at an approximate 11° angle.
It turned out Vreva could shut up, as long as stomach/esophagus were lodged against trachea.
Foxen himself merely braced, the abrupt shift in gravitational direction practically normal at this point. They had already encountered the strange polarity of the floating fraking islands. Because what did physics matter.
So great. Such a great mission. So much actionable intel. Oh, yes, spooky spirits and gravitational fluctuations and sudden Force powers. Just amazing. They could do so much to prepare for that.
- A gloved hand touched his, and the Nautolan-Chagrian hybrid’s sanguine eyes knifed down, finding home. Flyndt looked only a little greener than his olive complexion normally did from all the extensive aerial acrobatics, and his sunset eyes were fixed on Foxen, the crest of his new feathers pressed firmly down; they had been nearly smashed flat to his skull in tension since they first stepped through the portal to this place.
O.K.? the Omwati asked him, making the sign. You are making faces.
Agitated, the older Mandalorian answered, the obsidian and slate slab of his features blank to most people. Flyndt knew better. Hate this.
Flyndt blew out a breath that ended in a hooting sound. “Hoo, me as well. Rather we be doing something.” His bird was coiled, nearly vibrating with energy, beak clacking occasionally in a way that meant dread. It was a dread that had haunted Flyndt for weeks, months now, growing ever stronger. And not just him.
Red eyes juked over – along with the stomach, as Minnow maneuver them around so that gun turrets could be aligned with the Whatever the Hell That Beast Was – over towards the cockpit. Bril was silent, sitting with his back to Minnow’s seat, allegedly meditating. The jediit had spoken of visions, of great danger and loss and fear, powerful in the Force. It was a concern Flyndt shared. It was part of the reason they were even in this literal actual other realm of terribleness and crystal animals and undead enemies, fighting towards an already deeply entrenched, more powerful enemy army to the enemy stronghold.
Oh and all the magic.
Just. So. Great.
As if sensing Foxen’s glare, the Zabrak opened his eyes suddenly. Blue met red, not challenging but chill, and a second later it snapped as their vessel jolted with the slight recoil of blaster cannon fire.
- “Paum, big daddy dummy thicc, will you please, please SHOOT THAT MOTHERFRAKER,” Minnie hollered into her headset.
From their position in the cabin, Foxen and Flyndt could both hear the Herglic man say something about never calling him that again and trying to indeed shoot the monster out of the sky.
The Nautolan hybrid huffed to himself and rechecked his weapons yet again. It was no longer for preparation or efficiency; he was prepared. It was merely frustration at this point. Beside him, Flyndt muttered mutinously.
“We could go,” he began, tapping his kyuzo petar, one that matched Foxen’s. “Out hatch, yes? I make jump. Like Drakor.”
While the idea of Flyndt doing a mid-flight jump to their attacker’s back and mounting it like he did his karadeek was as appealing as it was absolutely horrifying, it was not a practical suggestion. Should the Omwati succeed in slaying the creature, 87% chance he would only go down with it, unable to make the leap back onto the moving ship from descending animal in time, even if Foxen was standing out there to catch him. Too high risk. Denied.
He shook his head, but consoled, Would be…cool. But deny.
Flyndt offered him the barest, sickly smirk that fell in less than 2.3 seconds.
“Cool,” he agreed, trying for the both of them, and Foxen slipped their hands together and squeezed carefully. Flyndt’s talons sank into the back of his where their fingers meshed.
The cockpit was a storm of cursing, backseat piloting, and general malfunction. Minnow reached back and smacked at Bril’s shoulder, getting his attention.
“Kitty, Kitty grab on to something, we’re – KARK! BRACE, COPY, BRACE!”
Suddenly the lightless sky in front of them was full of crystal maw and beating wings.
The Ghtroc 720 Light Freighter careened through the skies, spinning port to starboard as the golden Nautolan pilot fought to stabilize the ship against the momentum and weight of the giant Chirodactyl latched onto it. The sound of leather and hard crystalline claws scrapping against glass and metal could be heard just barely over the screeching klaxons. A clicking echo piercing the hull unlike any of the working machinery in the cockpit.
Slamming a massive thick knee against the dashboard of the gunnery station, Paum uttered a rumbling growl. The red overhead lights caught pale spots on his dark grey-blue shoulders as he hunched his bulky form in concentration, trying to keep upright while aiming.He feather-fingered the controls, waiting until crosshairs lined up not with black painted metal or open sky but mutated grey flesh.
“Laser cannons weren’t bloody made for this—,” the Herglic cursed under his breath.
“JUST SHOOT IT!!!”
Vreva’s commanding yet panicked voice reached his ears in time of the big guy finally drawing a bead on the beast. Two crimson bolts slammed into its shoulder, charring leathery skin and peeling it back just enough—
—KRR-SKREEE—
The light freighter clipped the underside of a floating island, scrapping against the underside for several stalled heartbeats. Time seemed to freeze as the ship slowly descended to a skidding landing onto the Shattered Plains.
As everything stilled, the klaxons replaced by creaking metal of the off-kiltered vessel, nothing and nobody stirred in the cabin. Five seconds passed. Ten. Thirty. No sign of the Chirodactyl’s presence returning.
It was difficult to discern the beast’s presence. His senses open to the Force drew upon a static haze over their surroundings, sharp and angry and every changing. At times the Omwati could make out the auras of his comrades clear as crystal, then the next see barely even a faint halo of their presence let alone a giant bat bigger than even his keeradak —A flash of white-orange light, like that of the dawn sun cresting the horizon, pierced his mind’s eye. Flyndt yanked away from the Force reflexively, his gaze falling down to where his hand still clenched around Foxen’s, talons sinking into dark flesh.
“I fracking better be or I won’t give the schutta a choice to leave again,” Vreva commented as she threw off her harness and leaping upt. “Paum? Hey, old man, you good—” she paused as she rounded her chair, catching sight of the behemoth of a man smooshed up against the back of it and getting his feet under him. A wave of a hand and a nod that included a dip in the shoulders as much as his head answered her. “Good. Gotta see what fracking damages there are and get this sithspit done.”
“Leave the repairs to C1-INT and I, you lot focus on the job,” grunted the Herglic. The freighter shifted slightly with a groan as the man hefted finally onto both feet.
Foxen, who had peeled his own bracing grip to keep from squishing Flyndt beside him in the crash from the overhead panel, gestured to the shorter man and his sister.
“Foxy says the ship must be either against or wedged haphazardly against a fissure,” Minnie relayed as Bril stood beside her. She twisted to reach past the Zabrak to grab a datapad from the pack beside him, pulling up coordinates and details from the reconnaissance team. “Where are we compared to this? Um…sec, having a hard time getting it to work, interference.”
“–The Fortress is that way,” stated Flyndt, pointing confidently to his right, towards the direction he sensed the crack of light from, “Wherever they are, it is closer to that yes?”
When the light freighter finally came to a skidding halt in the shattered plains, Bril released his grip on the railing to his right and let himself take a much-needed breath. “That … was too close for comfort,” he muttered before reaching out to gently touch Minnie’s shoulder as a way of ensuring she was alright and to let her know that he was, as well.
“Let’s not wait around to see if that thing is going to come back,” he said before making his way toward the freighter’s rear side door. After putting on his helmet, he tapped the button to open the doors with an audible hiss, and stepped out into the Shattered Plains. The light conditions were poor save for a few motes of light shining in the distance, but his helmet’s provided him with a slew of telemetric data on his surroundings. A few minor adjustments to the S.T.P module’s settings allowed him to establish an encrypted feed to his teammates, granting them access to real time updates to said data should they need it.
“So far, so good,” he noted. Each step propelled the young zabrak higher and farther than what was typical on most planets–a piece of data he made sure to communicate to the team vocally in case they missed it on his data feed. When he reached out with the Force to scan his surroundings, he was surprised by how far his senses extended. Like an overclocked computer, his mind swept across a vast distance in search of other lifeforms, but he found none. Unusual. He expected to sense something, at least. “Not picking up any signatures in the Force besides our own, either, but I wouldn’t bet on that.”
-
In the lead up to this incursion, Bril had familiarized himself with all the available data on the Ethereal Realm. Everything he’d read told him that to over-rely on his equipment or the Force was a mistake, a mistake he couldn’t afford to make because it could potentially endanger himself or worse, his friends. He unhooked Concord, his crossguard saber, from his hip while walking forward. His impromptu scouting trek brought him quite a ways away from where the ship was, though not so far that he couldn’t see it anymore. Once he was content that he’d scoped the place out enough, he decided to turn around.
“I think I’ve seen enough for now,” he spoke into his comlink, “I’m headed back.”
Retracing his steps, Bril moved much faster across the terrain this time, ensuring that he remained as quiet as possible as he did. And he would have continued doing so had he not heard something to his immediate left. It was a whisper from a voice unfamiliar to him but inviting nonetheless. He stopped in his tracks and ignited his saber, pointing it in the direction he’d heard the sound. The energetic hum of his saber and the readings it emitted surely came through on his teammates’ datapads as priority data.
Narrowing his eyes, Bril called upon his heightened Force sense again but this time, he detected nothing at all; in fact, it was as if his senses had been dampened … deafened. That was concerning.
Then, he heard another whisper in his other ear. This one was clearer than the last. It spoke in a saccharine tone, beckoning him to follow.
“Nope. Been down this road one too many times already,” he said to himself before taking off toward the ship. As he ran, he tapped his comlink to send another message. “Something’s definitely out there. Not sure what. Tried to lure me in, though. Likely a trap.”
-
The last thing that could be heard before the transmission cut out was the sound of a terrible screech echoing in the distance. When Bril glanced over his shoulder to see what it was, he saw the distant silhouette of the massive chirodactyl circling above. Luckily for him, it didn’t seem to notice him, giving him enough time to dive into a large hole in the ground approximately two-hundred feet from the ship. It looked like it was searching for something, but he wasn’t sure what. Nor did he want to know.
“Exercise caution if any of you exit the ship. The chirodactyl is still out there, too. Although it seems distracted for the time being.”
“Yeah, I can hear the schutta! Copy.” Vreva’s voice came over comms with an air of exertion. The red zabrak approached the hatch with her rifle slung over her shoulder. She pressed her hand against the ship’s hull to steady herself. Though her guts felt like rubber, she was eager to use her rifle at the first glimpse of motion. The chirodactyl’s screech and echolocating clicks thundered in her skull and merged in a cacophony with the low drone she couldn’t shake since entering the Ethereal Realm. It set her on edge with a tension coiled in every muscle of her being. The briefing could not prepare her for this assault on her senses. She felt sick. She felt mad.
Still, she had a job to do. She had pushed back worse pains before. “Going to poke my head out. Rifle ready.” Vreva braced herself as she stepped out, still dizzy from their tumble through the skies.
“Don’t shoot at anything before we tell you to,” said Flyndt with some urgency.
Vreva scoffed, a hint of a smile at the corner of her mouth. “That Foxen talking?” The Zabrak leaned out of the hatch, neck craned to look upward. The creature had made a pass and was hidden from sight.
“Both,” Flyndt replied. She could hear the nervous clack of his beak as he spoke.
“Tch. Fine.” She flipped the safety on her rifle back on, though she kept a firm grip on it. “But if that thing swoops back around, I’m–” Movement to her right brought her abrupt silence as her gaze snapped in that direction. She dropped low as her yellow eyes made a focused sweep of the area.
“You cut out, hon. What was the last bit?” Minnie’s tone carried concern. Vreva could hear footsteps inside the hull of the ship as no doubt the others were coming to investigate.
“Spotted movement. Going in to check it out.”
Not alone! A message from Foxen flickered on her commlink a bit too late. With speed amplified by whatever power this realm had, Vreva made her way quickly up and over the edge of the fissure. They were well-wedged indeed from what she could see before a cast shadow from above alerted her to hurry to the next cover. A screech sounded as she slid through the dust into her makeshift shelter. No claws came after, however. She breathed a sigh of relief.
Vreva jolted upright when she felt a hand on her shoulder, but Bril’s face soon followed in her periphery. “Caution?”
“I saw something,” Vreva replied with a shrug and a gesture forward. Bril’s gaze followed as she pointed across the way. Neither could see anything other than the circling shadow of the beast above. “Doesn’t help that everything is in overdrive. Feels like everything around us is going to give us the jump.” She shuddered as if a chill had run down her spine. “I don’t like this.”
Bril held up a finger, pressed against the glass of his helmet. Vreva mirrored the gesture and kept her gaze sweeping the field with his. What could Bril sense that she couldn’t? She focused on the drone of sound that persisted in her mind and closed her eyes, desperate to halt any interference. As she opened herself to the sound, the source became more apparent. Thousands, hundreds of thousands, millions of voices all converging in discordant wails and shrieks.
Vreva clenched her jaw and breathed sharply through her nose. She shook her head to clear it, but the deafening sound continued. A breath later it stopped, not of its own accord, but as if someone had stilled it. A vacuum where once was thunder. Vreva stood and leveled her rifle toward what she believed was the source of the nothingness. Its crystalline gaze met hers.
She pressed the trigger. Click. Safety was still on. She fumbled with her rifle as Bril readied his saber. The figure darted to the side and into shadow. “Sithspit! We have company!” Vreva shouted as she readied her rifle again.