The Calm Before The Storm

The Calm before the Storm


There was a sort of peacefulness one would attain from traveling through space for extended periods. Though this was usually the calm before the storm, because any extended trip on a ship such as the Valkyrie meant only the possibility of a painful demise or worse….you could live through it.

Aeon arose from his slumber in his quarters quite suddenly. The ship was seemingly being rocked with explosions. Aeon rushed to his wardrobe, fetching his robes and donning them as fast as he could. He moved to his nightstand where his light saber and COM link was. Aeon made a motion to grab them but was suddenly thrown against his wardrobe door and knocked unconscious.

Several days had passed since Aeon had been knocked unconscious. When he awoke, he was in a strange world indeed. There were massive trees surrounding him and the light that shown through them seemed to blind him as his eyes had not fully adjusted yet.
He could make out the faintest of voices though they were muffled and seemed far away. Aeon managed to push himself up, though it took some effort as his entire body ached from lack of activity.
“Hey Aeon’s awake….HEY GUYS! AEON’S AWAKE!” He heard a voice crack the serenity of silence like a hammer smashing a piece of glass.
Aeon then heard some footsteps and tried to rise to his feet but only managed to get to his knees.
“You’ve been out for some time kid.” He heard a voice grumble from his left side.
Aeon shook his head, rubbed his eyes somewhat, and looked at the owner of the voice. It was Pontifex Braecen Kaeth Kunar, the person who had been leading the endeavor.
“How long exactly?” Aeon managed to choke out.
“About 3 days.” Braecen said looking to his mandalore guard standing directly behind him to the left. “Report?”
“Survivor count at 350 sir, We currently have 150 known casualties.” The Mandalore hesitated and then responded. “We can’t find Rasilvenaira.”
“What!” Braecen growled. “Double your search parties. I want every man and women who can walk looking for her, NOW!” he roared. He closed his eyes and began searching for her through the force, though he could not sense her in the immediate area. He turned and left going back towards what seemed to be a huge chunk of metal in the ground.
“What happened?” Aeon asked getting to his feet.
“We crashed.” A fellow Dark Jedi by the name of Asaugu said from behind Aeon.
Aeon turned to face the man and sighed. “How? What caused it?”
“Apparently one of the ships engines just up and died and the power strain put on the other two caused them to super heat and destroy the entire engine room.” Asaugu replied as he leaned against a nearby tree. “Though some say they heard an explosion before the engine quit, they are saying its some sort of sabotage. They don’t know what they are talking about though. In the confusion of the ship failing and the multiple explosions caused by the engine overheating, they could have been wrong.”
Aeon simply nodded and rubbed the back of his head. . He had a massive headache. He could only guess it was from whatever knocked him unconscious, though he couldn’t remember exactly what it was.
“I suppose we should get started looking for Rasilvenaira huh?” Asaugu suggested pushing himself off the tree and walking towards Aeon.
“Yes I suppose so.” Aeon replied while looking for his effects. He found them laying beside where he had gotten up several feet away.
Aeon put his hand out and his light saber and com link pushed up into the air and came to him. He put his saber on his belt as well as his com link.
“Where should we get started?” Aeon asked looking at the search parties going off in many different directions. He looked behind them seeing the remains of the huge shuttle. “Lets go that way.”
“You want to go to the shuttle?” Asaugu asked hesitantly.
“No, behind it. I can’t sense anyone heading in that direction.” Aeon explained then began wading through the plants towards the shuttle, Asaugu in tow.

Pontifex Braecen was becoming more and more impatient with every growing moment. These imperial morons kept screwing everything up. He had half a mind to blame them for the engine failure and kill every last one of them. “No you idiots, the logs have to go over there. I’ve been explaining it to you the entire time!” He roared.
“Sorry Sir.” The storm troopers echoed in unison and moved the logs to the area Braecen had pointed to.
They had started construction on a makeshift shelter for the injured. Although it was coming along decently it didn’t seem to be making fast enough progress. Braecen wanted off this island and he wanted off of it 10 minutes ago.
He looked around them, surveying the landscape. They were in a valley of sorts. Perhaps he could find some sort of civilization should he make his way to the top of the valley wall.
Braecen turned to his guard and nodded towards the valley wall. “We’re going climbing.” He said. He moved towards a strong 5 foot long stick and picked it up. They began heading towards the valley wall. It was a decent 200 yard walk before it started ascending.

Aeon and Asaugu were a bit past the ship when they met a valley wall. Asaugu looked at Aeon as if suggesting to go back. Aeon simply smiled and shook his head. “You meet a simple obstacle and you turn back? Its only a 240 foot drop. Not that big.”
“But Aeon, our grapple lines only reach 100 ft.” Asaugu reminded. “What are we going to do for the next 140 feet?”
“Adapt and overcome my boy, that’s what.” Aeon took Asaugu’s grapple line and tied it to the bottom of his. “ Now we have a 200 foot grapple line. Go tie this to that tree” he ordered as he strapped the end of his to his belt.
Going towards the tree Asaugu reminded “ That still leaves 40 feet unaccounted for.”
“So?” Aeon said and stepped off the side of the cliff before Asaugu was even at the tree.
“Damn!” he growled and threw himself at the tree, tying the line around it and hooking the grapple to the other side of the line just as line went taught and snapped.
Down below he heard several branches snap but he didn’t hear the thud of a body hitting the ground. He turned on his communicator and talked into it. “Aeon are you alright?!”
[ I’m fine ] The voice came back through the communicator. [ You can slide down the line, it snapped about 50 feet above me. I’ll just lower you to the ground once you get to the end alright? ]
“Alright.” Asaugu replied hooking his communicator to his belt and moving to the line. He laid on his stomach and grasped the line as he began sliding down it.
Just as he was about to the section where it snapped he looked up to see two faces staring down at him from where he had left go. His eyes widened as he saw one of them pull a knife out and cut the line.
The last thing Asaugu remembers was the feeling of his ribs closing in on his organs and crushing them like a vice. Then everything went dark and he was dead.

Aeon had been watching Asaugu’s decent from the tree he had landed in, luckily for him. He had minor scrapes and bruises though nothing to worry about. He was inspecting his com when he heard the line snap again and looked at Asaugu as he fell. Aeon tried to slow his decent with his telekinesis but it was too fast of a fall. Asaugu hit the ground and died instantly.
Aeon looked up to where the line had snapped to see two figures turn and leave the ledge. “HEY! HEY GET BACK HERE! I’LL KILL YOU!” Aeon roared as he made his way down the tree slowly but surely.
Once he reached the bottom he made his way over to where Asaugu’s body was and inspected it, without touching it.
“God damn it.” He growled. He removed his communicator as well as his training saber and began moving in the direction he had planned on going in, he figured he would pick up the body on the return trip.

Rasilvenaira hand slowly crept down her side. Her fingers finding the hilt of her light saber she managed to unclip it from her belt. She could sense the beings in the room staring at her thought they were un aware of what she was doing. Her arms were held at her side by bars as were her legs and neck.
In a split second she had ignited her light saber as well as focusing on a staff one of the intruders was wielding, she managed to pull it form his grasp using telekinesis. The staff flew towards a switch on the wall. Once it collided with it, the switch instantly released Rasilvenaira from her restraints.
She rolled off the table and held her weapon in both hands in a defensive stance awaiting an attack.
She was met by nothing.
The room was completely empty now.
Rasilvenaira powered down her weapon and hooked it to her belt. “What the hell?” she commented looking around the stone shaped room she stood in. It was reminiscent of the Jedi Academy.
She shrugged it off and figured the answers would present themselves before the day had ended.
Rasilvenaira began moving towards the door which was sealed shut. Once again she ignited her light saber and cut her way through the door. This led her to several more passage ways with sealed doors.
She wiped the sweat off her brow and moved towards those with a sigh.

Braecen and his Mandalore guard were half way up the valley when suddenly it felt as if someone had smacked him in the head. ‘Rasilvenaira’ He thought to himself looking out across where he had just crossed. ‘She’s alive’ he looked up the valley then back again where he could sense her. “Make your way in that direction, Rasilvenaira will find you. I shall continue and look for some way off this cursed rock.”
The Guard nodded and began moving in the direction he had been ordered to go in.
Braecen wiped the sweat from his brow and continued trekking up the valley wall, poking his stick into the ground and pushing himself that step closer towards finding a way out of here.

Aeon wiped the sweat off his brow as he pushed his way through the forest brush. He had made it several hundred yards from Asaugu’s body. The forest seemed to be opening up to some kind of old ancient structure.
“Looks like the Jedi Academy…” Aeon said to himself. He stopped momentarily and surveyed the structure. It seemed to be rather wide but not so much wide. “Maybe there’s some….”
Before he could finish his sentence the rock covering the entrance into the building exploded outward and landed some hundred yards away.
Aeon stood back and looked at the door in surprise as who was walking out of it.
“Rasilvenaira!” he cried and ran towards her.
She looked rather startled to find him there. “What are you doing here Aeon?” She asked seeming to be in a relatively kind mood.
“We are all looking for you.” Aeon responded.
“Who’s we? And where are we?” She demanded.
“Everybody. We split up into teams to go looking for you. Asaugu and I went this way. I don’t know where everyone else went. Braecen was pretty upset at your disappearance….” Aeon was explaining before he was interrupted.
“Where’s Asaugu?” Rasilvenaira questioned again.
“He’s dead. Someone or something cut the line he was rappelling down with.” Aeon said in a low voice as to show sorrow for his friends death.
“How do I know you didn’t kill him?” Rasilvenaira growled unclipping your light saber. She was unsure if he was an illusion like the others or not.
Aeon took a step back. “I would never do such a thing.” He responded, though he reached for his and Asaugu’s light saber just in case. He focused on her and felt her muscles tightening…she was about to attack.
She lunged at him with her blade ignited. The sword fell vertically downward upon his head. Aeon crossed both of his blades to create an X and stop the blade from slicing him from stem to sternum. “Rasilvenaira please stop!” he growled and pushed her backwards disconnecting their lock.
Rasilvenaira put out her hand and sent a shockwave through the force that sent Aeon flying across the field and into the rock she had thrown out in front of the door.
In an instant she was upon him though she disengaged her light saber and offered him her hand.
He was unsure of whether to take it or not but figured there was a method to her madness and reached for her hand.
Rasilvenaira pulled Aeon up and dusted off his shoulders. “I apologize Aeon. I had to make sure you weren’t an illusion”
“Couldn’t you have figured that out when I blocked your attack?” He questioned leaning against the rock and wincing in pain. He could feel his broken rib pulsing with pain though he didn’t have the energy to heal it.
Rasilvenaira moved to him and placed a hand on his chest. “This may hurt a bit.” She warned before her hand began to glow and his chest began to burn.
“AHHHH” He roared as his rib was replaced and the bone partially fused back together along with some of the muscle being repaired.
“There that should be enough to get by on.” Rasilvenaira said and began moving in the direction from which Aeon had come.

Too Be Continued……