[SWTOR] The summit

[Jhared]

OOC information:

Hello! This is a closed RP, however you will be very welcome to join if you want to. Just send Zak or me a poke saying so, then we will figure out how to pop your character into the story. There is no time limit on posts or specific post order in this RP. I will take on a dungeon master role and provide the generic tools for the story (NPCs, environments, plot points, etc.) - that said you are welcome to add your own if they fit in. Oh and the story takes place post the class-stories. So that means a lot of dead people and a more unstable galaxy.



The summit

Master Remann watched the gathering around the holo-terminal carefully. Even if he looked calm he sensed something was wrong, however the Dark Side of the Force clouded what exactly. Danger perhaps. It usually was, but from where? He sniffed abruptly. This was quite different from how his life had been just a couple of months ago on Tython. Quiet peace and meditation. A false peace in these times, he knew it, but he was getting old and weary of the conflict that had been waged for most of his life. Sometimes he played with the thought of going into exile on a small colony world, or maybe a jungle like Kashyyk. Played because he knew that exile would be a false one. It was not in him to stand back and watch, a trait that had gained him some flak as padawan, knight and master. And he knew it was that trait that one day get him killed.

It was strange how the force had guided him to this place, a new padawan after so many years without one. Truly a troubled boy, Master Remann never seemed to get the easy ones. A troubled boy and yet the reason everyone was gathered here was because of Zakerias - or rather his former master. Remann knew now that Zakerias' former master had trained the padawan poorly on purpose, she encouraged traits that was more skin to a Sith than Jedi. Luckily she had left him on Tython when she went on a mission to betray the Republic. Months had passed without her reporting in until finally Zakerias had asked Remann for help.

He took it to the council, of course, and bludgeoned them until they finally decided to tell him what had happened: Zakerias' master had gone MIA weeks ago on a classified mission and yet they had done nothing. Remann had consequently taken on the role as master for Zakerias and went searching for his Padawan's former master, yet what they had found confirmed Remann's suspicions. She had turned to the dark side and slaughtered Republic soldiers for Empire. What worse was who she was working with. Her new master. Darth Valkarn. With the information of a rogue jedi master and a darth behind it... The Jedi Council could ignore it, so Remann thought and he was partly right.

Partly because their chosen path of action had been a summit to discuss the possibilities of arresting Darth Valkarn with Master Remann leading it. And that led him here to this space station in the middle of nowhere. And it was nowhere. The only other celestial bodies to keep them company were the stars and galaxies far, far away. The location of the Temal Station was its best defence and also the reason for the summit to be held here. It used to be a research station, but these days the only activity the station saw were its automated droids overseeing maintenance and the occasional visit of scientists.

Again Remann let his eyes go from person to person at the summit. Not a traditional summit though, there was no diplomats here but a couple of jedi. In fact the only reason the Council had used the word had probably been because they were Jedi. They were about twenty, although he only recognized a few of them. It was a mix of jedi, vigilantes, bounty hunters and special forces. In fact the only ones he recognized was Zakerias and three black haired people, a woman dressed in a mostly black combat outfit, a jedi and a trooper with a small mark left by a lightsaber beneath his right eye. Remann gave another sniff before he started talking. "Most of you know why this summit has been called, some of you don't. For those who do not I will make it simple. Darth Valkarn needs to be stopped. It is not an easy task, for while the Dark Council has been suffering loss, he has been winning ground. He has begun to fill out the vacuum left after the war reignited. Recently with the turning of a jedi master the Jedi Council has finally seen sense and called his summit of how to halt this man's advance.

He is a dangerous Sith, and one of the few Darths left who took part in the Sacking of Coruscant. He is very secretive about his location, but I believe we can find out where he operates from and arrest him as the Jedi Council desires."

A cold, apathetic voice broke Remann's speech. It was the soldier with the mark. "With all due respect, Master Jedi, leaving this man alive is unwise. He should be liquidated."

The jedi beside the soldier simply shook his head. "It is not the Jedi way to kill if you can avoid it."

"Avoid killing a darth?" A question blurted from a scarred blonde woman, the armour clearly identified her as Mandalorian. "You might as well ask a Gungan to put up a proper fight. However sad I am to admit it the Caeyrn is right. Leaving this man alive is just asking for more trouble."

"Enough." Remann's voice cut through their bickering. "He is only to be arrested if we can manage it. If not we will be forced to kill him. Arresting remains our objective - the question is how we get to him."

The old master suppressed the desire to sigh. This was going to take a while. He just knew it.

[Zakerias]

Zak sat brooding as he listened to the bickering around him. His familiar scowl rested on his brow as he shifted uncomfortably in his seat; the conversation had turned towards killing this Darth Valkarn. He was vehemently against this. While Master Remann was convinced that Zak's former master had turned to the dark side, Zak wasn't so sure. In fact, he was finding it impossible to believe any of this was true. He couldn't put his finger on why; maybe it's the fact that he was an orphan, left on the doorstop of an orphanage by his parent's shortly after birth. Maybe it had to do with the fact that after the destruction of the orphanage during the sacking of Coruscant, all of his fellow orphans had gone their separate ways, leaving Zak alone & homeless at the age of six. Now, his 'former' master had done almost the same, after three years of training. Regardless, Zak had learned one thing in all this, everyone leaves. Soon, it will be Master Remann's turn. It begged the question, 'What was it about Zak that made everyone leave?'

'No!' His master did not abandon him; she wouldn't have done that, 'would she?'

Zak glared down at the data-pad in his left hand. He had been searching for weeks to find some shred of proof that his master was just doing her job. She was undercover after all, she would be a crappy undercover agent if she didn't act like a Sith when the Sith demanded it. No, she wasn't Sith; she wasn't a traitor. Zak was finding it hard to believe otherwise, even after the Council could. After all, Zak had been her Padawan. What would be his fate if Zak was wrong about her? He shook his head; it did no good to dwell on that. For now, the Jedi Council had seen fit to have Zakerias continue on his path as Master Remann's Padawan and be a part of this summit.

Master Remann's voice cut through the turmoil erupting within Zak over the self-scrutiny of the situation before him. He glanced around the room and studied each face, again. When Master Remann finished speaking, Zak frowned, "If we kill this Darth Valkarn, we won't be able to locate my master, get her out and safely back to Tython."

[Jhared]

Valkarn. The mere name set Jhared's mind ablaze. Caeyrns did not usually feel emotions as others would, they were purged out through an invasive doctrine throughout childhood and if they did feel anything it was so subtle, so barely noticeable that it was easily discarded for whatever the doctrine told them to do. Jhared was not like most Caeyrns, in fact his siblings were oddities too. The doctrine's hold on Jhared was fractured by a lifelong struggle against it, but even then everything he did was justified by the doctrine and going against it was like going against every principle he ever had. The Caeyrn Corporation had exploited the human mind like a crafty cyber-terrorist would exploit a computer. Instead of teaching a child how to play they taught them how to hold a blaster. Instead of teaching compassion to the children they taught them indifference. They taught them how to walk, talk, think, who to trust, who to respect and who to kill. And when they grew up they served the Caeyrn Corporation and in extension the Republic. When they got children they would send them to the Caeyrn Academy where they themselves were brainwashed, and then the cycle would repeat itself.

If it was not for widespread corruption within the Republic, blackmailing and the occasional assassination the Caeyrn Corporation would have been reprehended long ago. Not to mention the Republic needed troops constantly which the Corporation supplied in thousands. But for now, like they had done for centuries before that the Caeyrn Corporation stood strong and profiteered from the war.

Most Caeyrns would have an almost programmed loyalty to the Caeyrn Corporation and the Republic, but Jhared did not. The doctrine did not control him. He had his own desires even if he did not always understand why. But he understood one thing and that was his desire to see Darth Valkarn dead. He hated the man and had faced him in more than one confrontation and every time it just got a bit worse. In fact it was getting to the point where he was wondering if his hate was controlling him instead of the doctrine now, and the doctrine was just a way to justify his actions to himself.

He kept his composure however, the cold and indifferent stance that had been drilled into his mind from birth, so much that trying to be anything else felt unnatural to him. Apathy was just how Caeyrns acted, and presumably how they all should feel towards everything. Jhared stared the elderly jedi at the other end of the holoterminal down. He knew the man. And Jhared knew he was old, very old in fact. He looked the part too, even if he still carried a grey haircut and beard. Master Remann. A fairly unusual jedi Jhared had come to admit, and perhaps a bit crazy in some respects. The old jedi just looked over the participants before speaking in a calm tone, as if he was talking about the weather.

"Most of you know why this summit has been called, some of you don't. For those who do not I will make it simple. Darth Valkarn needs to be stopped. It is not an easy task, for while the Dark Council has been suffering loss, he has been winning ground. He has begun to fill out the vacuum left after the war reignited. Recently with the turning of a jedi master the Jedi Council has finally seen sense and called his summit of how to halt this man's advance. He is a dangerous Sith, and one of the few Darths left who took part in the Sacking of Coruscant. He is very secretive about his location, but I believe we can find out where he operates from and arrest him as the Jedi Council desires."

Arrest Valkarn? It was... Stupid. The man was slippery like a wet fish in a hurricane. If you got the chance you killed him, not allowed him to escape and wreck more destruction on the galaxy. Jhared could not keep quiet. "With all due respect, Master Jedi, leaving this man alive is unwise. He should be liquidated."

Aldric, Jhared's big brother was the one to disagree with him. A Caeyrn jedi was perhaps as rare as a Sith Pureblood jedi. Almost non-existent. The man shook his head and spoke as calmly as Master Remann - not at all like a Caeyrn. "It is not the Jedi way to kill if you can avoid it."

"Avoid killing a darth? You might as well ask a Gungan to put up a proper fight. However sad I am to admit it the Caeyrn is right. Leaving this man alive is just asking for more trouble." A Mandalorian woman responded. Jhared knew who she was. She had once been one of Valkarn's bounty hunters until he double-crossed her. From there on Jhared and her had worked together on more than one occasion. Though they only really got along because they wanted the same man dead and could not do it alone.

"Enough. He is only to be arrested if we can manage it. If not we will be forced to kill him. Arresting remains our objective - the question is how we get to him." Remann's voice cut through their bickering. What Jhared heard was a loophole in the orders. Caeyrns were good at that. If the mission parameters allowed them to take no one alive they would kill everyone in their way. Telling a Caeyrn to 'save everyone they can' in addition to a primary objective was like giving those people a death warrant. Unless they needed someone for intel of course. To Jhared this only meant that Valkarn was even more of a viable target. He was satisfied.

"If we kill this Darth Valkarn, we won't be able to locate my master, get her out and safely back to Tython." A peculiar young padawan that Jhared recognized as Zakerias said. He had helped the kid before, not out of charity though. Jhared had only done it because of Remann's request. He did not care about the kid or his lost master. Jhared only had mind for one thing and that was killing that darth.

"... That is another primary objective, thank you Padawan." Remann continued before anyone else could get a word in to argue for or against. It was obvious he had been in similar situations. "However, as we all know then there is not but one set path to follow in life, this mission is no different. We may or may not need Darth Valkarn alive to get to our lost jedi master. We do know that they are linked and one will lead to another. Since we have no leads on her location, but know that she works with the Sith Lord I suggest we provoke Darth Valkarn enough to reveal himself." Remann brought up the holoterminal to show a strange artefact shaped like a pyramid.

"This is a Rakata artefact." The old jedi said and had a few holographic squares appear around inscriptions on the pyramid. "The inscriptions clearly indicate such. We do not know what it is or what it does, however young Zakerias and I were fortunate enough to discover that Darth Valkarn is searching for these. For that reason alone it is worth investigating, as when Sith decide to seek out old ruins it is not for the sake of cataloguing. He has a goal and whatever it is I think we should make sure it fails."

The old man gave pause to let others speak, but a young woman standing beside Jhared took spoke up before he could get a word in. His little sister Elisa. Of all the three of them she was the one who acted the most like a Caeyrn should. "If you will allow me to use the holoterminal for a moment, Master Jedi."

It was not really a question as she immediately put up a galaxy map with several stars highlighted in red and orange - all with names shown. "I am Elisa from Caeyrn Intelligence. If you decide to join Master Remann in his quest here I will be the one guiding you with intel and provide covert ops back up. Caeyrn Intelligence has taken upon itself to share its dossier on Darth Valkarn and some of our progress in hunting him down."

Jhared exchanged a look with Aldric, they were both thinking the same thing. That she came on behalf on Caeyrn Intelligence was not good. It was a part of the Caeyrn Corporation and it often worked with SIS, however they were far less restrained than them and perhaps even less so than Imperial Intelligence. Of course they could not match either on sheer size and resources, but it did not mean they were not dangerous. It was likely that Caeyrn Intelligence saw this summit as a way to get to Valkarn and everyone here was expendable to them for that purpose alone.

One that Jhared did not know grunted from the other side of the gathering. A large fellow in blue heavy armour, looking mostly like some kind of bounty hunter or vigilante. "Yeah. Like I will let Caeyrn Intelligence lead me around. Might as well sell myself to the ******* imperials while you are at it. If you Caeyrn shits think for a moment I will let you play me around like a puppet you're as dumb as a duster."

The outburst did not seem to touch Elisa, in fact she only blinked at the man before talking on. "Regardless of how you feel about us, Mr. Laven then you might find this intelligence invaluable to the missions you wish to join. Now. The systems indicated in red are Imperial systems that we know Darth Valkarn has operations on, small or big. The orange ones indicate independent systems. Of those worlds only one has any archaeological significance."

She zoomed in on a system so the star and its planets was shown. "The Ymelion System has an independent garden world that has recently uncovered ruins that some say are twenty-thousand years old. In other words... From the time of the Infinite Empire. Do with it what you will."

With that she went silent again. Jhared was not sure what to think of it. It seemed like something Caeyrn Intelligence could handle, so why put them on it? They must either be planning something or very busy with something else. Remann nodded calmly, seeming open to the suggestion, not everyone did however. "Thank you, Elisa."

***

OOC: Decided to leave a small dossier with some info on Valkarn. Also think I got carried away writing there. <.<

***

DOSSIER: DARTH VALKARN

Biography: Past before he became Darth Valkarn is sketchy. This is known: He was a Jedi Knight named Teren, a close friend of the now president of the Caeyrn Corporation - Marcus Caeyrn, his sister Helene had three children with aforementioned - All three are alive. Due to unknown circumstances the man betrayed the Republic during last war and managed to climb the Sith ladder to power. During the Sacking of Coruscant he led the attack on the Marcelian District, leaving most of it in ruins. With the significant chaos caused in the Cold War with notable figures dying he has now become a darth of noticeable influence within most of Imperial Space. He prefers to act through agents and his motives remain mostly unknown.
Appearance: Dark side corruption visible. In recent years he has taken upon himself to carry a mask. His hair seems dead. About one meter and eighty centimetres tall. He seems to have started using a purple lightsaber in favour of a red one lately.

** Some classified information has been redacted! **

[Catri]

Catri Sage stood near the back of the group rubbing her temples and wishing she had grabbed some painkillers to replenish her depleted medical supplies before she left her ship. All of the arguing was working wonders for the pounding headache she had earned for her most recent efforts to make the Imps' lives "interesting." She had just settled in for what she hoped would be her first good night's sleep in more than a week when The Wildcat's comm system let out a shrill chirp to inform her of a message from her contacts in the Jedi Council requesting her presence on this remote, Force-forsaken space station for a "summit" to discuss the problems caused by a certain Sith Lord. Catri would have preferred, basically one summed up by "Let's blast the kriffer out of the galaxy and get on with our lives.", but she had learned enough about Republic politics to know that was too much to hope for.

Catri pulled her attention back to the discussion at hand when Elisa Caeryn spoke up. She slipped closer to the holoviewer to get a better look at the star chart.

"So, how likely do you think it is that we'll find Valkarn playing in the dirt on this planet?" Catri asked, "It might be a long shot, but I would sure as frell prefer searching for the son-of-a-monkey-lizard on an independent planet than one in Imp space."

[Jhared]

Eyildr was not particularly fond of the Republic in general. To her it encouraged decadence, corruption, weakness and deceit. All things she had a great distaste for, but they did provide her with an ample supply of foes to gain glory from slaughtering. So she was not particularly against them either. She felt about the same of the Empire, except the Empire encouraged dishonour instead of weakness. They were both awful systems built be weak minded people. People who were nothing next to the great Mandalore. However she had learned to put such petty things aside when hunting, and right now she was hunting to get her honour back from the Sith who stole it.

She hated talking things to death, but a plan of action had to be taken for a hunt to properly begin so she kept vigilant in the politics for now and stopped herself from a snide remark as a woman from Caeyrn Intelligence passed on intel. Luckily others were willing to pitch in. Eyildr did not like the Caeyrns in general, they painted out the absolute worst in the Republic.

"So, how likely do you think it is that we'll find Valkarn playing in the dirt on this planet?" A woman who had slipped her way to the holoviewer. Eyildr did not recognize her, and perhaps that might have been for the best. "It might be a long shot, but I would sure as frell prefer searching for the son-of-a-monkey-lizard on an independent planet than one in Imp space."

"Small. However his interference is guaranteed. Likely through an apprentice or group of loyalists. They might give up some useful information if we... persuade them." Elisa finished her answer with a smile that was as empty of emotion as her words.

"You mean torture." Eyildr stated bluntly in response, but not especially moved. She just disliked dancing around the subject.

"If necessary-"

"It won't come to that, Elisa." Remann stated, his tone making it abundantly clear that it was not up for discussion.

"Very well, Master Jedi." She continued unwavered by the denial. "Regardless of how we make them talk, then catching someone of importance within Darth Valkarn's organization would be imperative if we are to lure him out."