Into The Storm...

This will be a Runon Competition for the Battleteam Souls of Darkness only. Aside from the current battleteam members, myself, and Yzarc, no one else is to post to this thread.

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Aboard a shuttle,
Somewhere in space

Clinging tightly to the small bag containing her travel gear, Lys’Tarrl huddled into her seat as the shuttle was rocked by laser fire again. Still so very far from her destination and she had no idea why the shuttle was under attack now, the Tinnel flicked her bejeweled ears back against her skull as the sounds of the alarms grew to fever pitch, the soft jingle of the rings lost in the cacophony around her.

“Main engine is gone, overheated from the strain, and our shields are almost gone. We can’t fight them.”

The words from the shuttle's pilot only further unnerved the small feliniod. One shaky hand pulled out her comlink, pressing one button she sent an urgent distress signal into space, hoping that at least it would reach Ptolomea since she would not be able to. Although she was uncertain of whether or not the StormRaven would deem the information she carried important enough to look for her if Lys’Tarrl didn’t reach her destination in person.

*******************************
Ptolomea,
Quaestor’s Quarters
Serpentine Palace

Twisting spirals of energy swam through the darkness, crashing over upon themselves in an endless symphony of chaos… Countless blurred faces and images...

*BEEEEEP* *BEEEEEP*

Obsidian hued eyes snapped open as the nightmare’s grip was shattered by the shrill call of the com unit. Shaking her head to bring the reality of the present moment into focus, Rasilvenaira growled under her breath and stood up. Grabbing her robes as she crossed the room, she slapped the com unit on.

“What now?” she snarled.

“Sorry to disturb you at this hour, Quaestor, but a distress signal has been received and its encryption matches one used by the House.”

“Track it down, I’ll be right there.”

As the silence returned to her quarters, the Battlemaster sighed, “And people wonder why I generally don’t bother trying to sleep.”
She finished dressing and left for the second floor.

*******************************

Security Command Center

A cautious journeyman approached the still seething Sith as the distress signal was replayed again. The Acolyte gingerly held out a bottle which was promptly snatched from his hands with a wave dismissing him. Not wanting to stay any longer than was needed, the young Krath hurried from the room.

Taking a long drink from the bottle of rum, the Quaestor studied the charts that showed the nearest approximation to where the signal originated. Rasilvenaira recognized the encrypted signal as the one she had instructed one of her many contacts to use. Growling, the Sith paced across the room, ignoring the wary security personnel that stayed out of her way. This particular contact had sent one short message to her the night before saying that she had acquired some valuable information that she felt Rasilvenaira would be interested in, something too valuable to transmit openly.

Lys’Taarl had been in route to Ptolomea but apparently from the distress signal, something had happened to change that plan. The Battlemaster looked at the charts again, considering her options. The nearest recognizable planet to the last known coordinates for the signal was Mimban.

Whirling around Rasilvenaira slammed the bottle of rum on the nearest desk, nearly missing it entirely, except for a trooper’s quick reaction that set the bottle upright on the desk for her. Pulling her comlink from her pocket, she flipped it on.

“Malaki!!”

****************************

Souls of Darkness planning room

Malaki had assembled the Battleteam upon the Quaestor’s cryptic command, and they were gathered in the planning room wondering what their leader needed from them. The door slid open and the last of the Battleteam members stepped in, ducking as he did so. Fionn took his seat as the Quaestor swept into the room right behind him.

“Alright, I will apologize up front for the lack of details on this mission and the short time window you have in which to operate. However, we received a distress signal from an operative I was expecting to arrive here on Ptolomea. Something happened, and I have no clue what, the signal didn’t provide any details, just signaled that something was wrong. I have received no further contact from this operative, and so I must assume that the situation is serious.”

“What do we know, Ras?” The blue haired Aedile asked as he toyed with a dagger.

“What we know is that the nearest planet to where the signal originated from is Mimban, at this point I don’t even know if the vessel she was on survived if they were attacked, or if they made it to the planet, or if they were captured and taken elsewhere. Which I know does not leave you guys much to go on.”

“How important is it to find this operative?”

“Extremely, Xath, the last contact I had from her indicated she had some very important information for me, something too big to risk transmitting over open communication channels.”

The members of the team glanced at one another, and then back to her, waiting for the Battlemaster to continue.

“I need you guys to go find out what happened. If there is a chance that this operative is still alive, she must be found.”

“So what’s the plan?” Malaki stepped forward.

“The plan is for you to be ready to roll in two hours. I have a ship on its way that will serve your needs for the mission. A Sentinel class landing craft is on its way as we speak, and will be landing in roughly two hours. Now, get to work, I suggest you make preparations for anything you might need, as I have no way of knowing what you might encounter along the way.”

The knight handled his saber hilt in his hand, slamming his fist on the table. Feeling faintly tempered, mainly because it was too early and well just the whole scenario.

“Another swamp land planet, oh how fun.” Cethgus rambled on.

Looking at the zabrak in shame, he sighed quite loudly and then focused on his mistress’s voice as she spoke. He knew little of the planet except from a temple there known as the Temple of Pomojema, to him it was just another world.

“Malaki……Hello?”

The knight quivered as he heard the demanding voice of his Aedile, forgetting that he let his mind wonder to much.

“Yes?” he simply replied

“Get to it then!” Yzarc demanded before his Quaestor could.

Malaki scrambled to his feet, dismissing his battle team. As he was just about to leave himself, he was barred by Rasilvenaira’s stressed voice.

“Malaki, before you go I wish to talk to you alone with Yzarc in private”

“Ma’am before you say anything, who is this operative, what’s her business here?” The Sith knight replied curious of her intentions.

*** Skies above Mimban***

The vessel had looked as if it was batted enough to be a flying wreckage, it soared through the atmosphere shoddily. The pilot tugged at the ships controls, losing jurisdiction.

“Arghh, Ma’am I cant get control back, with the damage we took its looks like we are going to have to recover on Mimban. Well that’s if he ships holds together on a crash landing.” bellowed the pilot

“Dam it!” A female voice replied faintly as it was silenced to another blast shot.

The pilot tried his best to recover the vessel but failed as its path scattered into the murky sky of Mimban. There were no pursues as the ship shifted itself unsteadily through the air, its crew clenching to their seats for safety.

Within a blink of an eye the ship bashed through the desolate jungle, scrapping a path through the colossal size tree’s. It smashed into the grubby waters of a swamp, sliding along gaining resistance till it finally came to a stop.

*** Souls of Darkness Office ***

Malaki booted his desk harder than he has ever before, nearly breaking its cupboard door he sighed as foot tingled in pain. As he pulled out some documents on Mimban, something suddenly hit him hard in the brain. Throwing bits around to find his comlink, he scuttled it to his mouth.

“Archangel, I need you in my office prompt, if you can find any information on control of Mimban bring it with you….something might be there what we don’t know about!”

He read the briefing through again, quivering slightly as he felt a coldness in the air. Looking at his data pad, time was running short.

Ptolomea
Souls of Darkness Office
Serpentine Palace

Archangel placed the paperwork on Malaki's desk. The Commander took a quick look at the environmental printouts the Warrior had given him.

"Thank you, Arch. Let's hurry to the hangar, don't want to leave the Quaestor or Aedile waiting."

They left the office and proceeded toward the hangar.


************************************
Ptolomea
Quaestor's Office
Serpentine Palace

Yzarc looked at his immediate superior in her office. “Do you think that they will be able to pull this off without our help?” he inquired of the Souls of Darkness.

“I do, Malaki is a competent leader, and they aren’t tasked with anything difficult. However, I want you to see them off Ptolomea, and be prepared to go and help out, just in case,” replied Rasilvenaira.

The blue-haired human nodded, lifted his hood up and stalked off towards the lift to go to the exit of the palace, blue trimmed robes trailed behind him. He exited the lift and proceeded to the exit of the Palace. The Aedile made his way to the hangar. On his way, he thought about Malaki’s reaction. The Commander seemed too excited to be given command of this mission. In his head, Yzarc knew that the reason Malaki was excited wouldn’t happen. Malaki was looking for a war, there wasn’t going to be one. The Aedile was unsure of any battles, either, however, they were far more possible.

The Coruscanti stepped into the crashed Imperial Star Destroyer that doubled as the Caliburnus hangar. The Aedile’s usually narrow eyes opened wide. A Sentinel Class shuttle? Wow, Ras must really want this information, whatever it is, he thought to himself. The Quaestor was really pulling strings on this one.

As the blue-haired man approached the elite battle team, he stood up to his full height, to make himself appear more menacing.

Malaki turned to face the Aedile, and as he did, the Souls of Darkness turned, too.

“Alright, these orders are from the Quaestor. Go, find the information, bring it back. If you are in need of help, hit me up on the comlink,” he gave Malaki the codes for transmitting over long distance to his personal unit, “I don’t think you’ll need much in the way of reinforcements, this looks like it can be really, really easy.”

The team nodded.

“Okay, Souls of Darkness, get on board the shuttle and your ships,” Malaki ordered.

Then Xathia, Fionn, Nokkon, Corin, Syphoc and Tyno entered the shuttle, and after a long look at Yzarc, Malaki followed. Archangel and Cethgus got into their respective TIE/Defenders. The shuttle’s exit ramp closed and the engines of all three ships came online as the Aedile turned and headed back toward the Palace, doubts in his mind already.

“Control, this is Darkness 1, requesting departure clearance” Archangel said, his hands settling into their usual positions on the flight controls of the TIE Defender which would be his vehicle for this mission. He had forgone the usual Imperial Pilot garb, but instead was dressed in full Souls of Darkness armour. This would be one of the first real uses of the armour since their addition to the battleteam’s arsenal.

“Clearance granted, Darkness 1. Good luck out there” came the curt reply from the hanger control officer.

“Thank you, Control. We’ll be back before you know it.”

Brent twisted the acceleration yoke, his TIE Defender gliding slowly out of the hanger, whilst still on repulsors. As he reached the mouth of the hanger, he cut the repulsors, and jammed the yoke forward, causing his Defender to shoot out at a rate of knots. He grinned to himself as he snap-rolled to the right, curving back into formation with the other two craft.

“Yes, we know you’re good,” said Cethagus, piloting Darkness 2, another TIE Defender, “Don’t need to show off”.

“Arch, try not to destroy your fighter before you can be useful in it” said Malaki, on board the Sentinel landing craft which bore most of the battleteam. Archangel could’ve sworn he’d heard a faint shouting in the background of Malaki’s transmission, a female voice shouting “Don’t break my machines!”.

“Oh, and Xathia says hi” Malaki said, diplomaticly.

“I didn’t say hi, you nerf face!” Xathia shouted in the background, along with a quiet din of struggle.

“I won’t break your babies, Xathia, don’t worry. Two, form up on the Sentinel. Let’s get going.

Nokkon sat back in his seat and grinned as Xathia yelled at Mal for putting words in her mouth. That dude really should learn… the thought remained unfinished as Xathia turned her gaze to him.

“And what are you laughing at?” The fire in her eyes should have been a warning, but Nok’s mood was slightly dangerous today.

“Just admiring the way your eyes light up when you get excited Xath.” His insolent grin probably didn’t help matters and the conversation in the shuttle stopped as Xathia slapped the Obelisk across the face.

“You keep your mind on the job and off my eyes…” Xathia seemed to lose her thoughts as she slowly lowered herself into the seat beside Nok, who just smiled and rubbed his jaw slowly.

“So Mal, are we picking up the agent or the information the agent has? I mean is this just a case of the team picking up someone whose ship had a failure or what?” Nok stretched his feet out and didn’t wait for the Team leader to respond. “Cause I got loads of stuff I could be doing rather than going to pick up some cat that can’t fix a ship’s power supply.”

“How about you do what your told for a while or I set Cethgus to watch over you again!” Malaki’s voice was threaded with anger and something else that Nok couldn’t quite place. He glanced at Xath, sitting next to him but she seemed lost in her own thoughts and didn’t seem to catch the tone of the commander and so Nok put it off to his own edginess and closed his eyes in an attempt to sleep the rest of the way.

"Archangel, you still with me over there, not going to sleep I hope" Cethgus voice came over to the second TIE.

The Iridonian was wearing his Souls of Darkness armour ready to push it to the limits to see how much it could withstand .Feeling vulnerable in the cockpit of the TIE defender, his weapons were being held on the landing craft. Flying the TIE was only reminding the Templar of how much he preferred to be on the ground fighting. Looking across at Darkness 1 only to see the blank masked face looking his way. Sighing he couldn't wait until they were able to step foot onto ground and out of these ships. Suddenly a funny thought rushed through the Obelisk mind, turning back up on Ptolomea with only the landing craft left and seeing Rasilvenaira's face.

Inside of the Landing craft the pilot checked around the cockpit knowing they would be arriving in the Mimban star system soon. He checked his instrument panels, making sure that everything was functioning as they should be. There was a lot of talk going on in seats of the Souls of Darkness members. Most of the younger members were excited about going on a mission, while Loc sat there quietly. Nokkon was sitting asleep in his seat as Malaki strode past him. The closer they got, the more people started to become aware of the fact that soon they would be arriving at their destination, and no-one knew what awaited them on this planet.

"Entering the Mimban system now." the pilot's voice was heard as they ships came into the system.

Everyone was on full alertness looking for an explanation to why the distress signal had come from this area. They were still quite far away from the actual planet itself and knew that the closer they came to the plane, the more likely they were of being attacked.

Originally known as Cicarpous V, the planet natively called Mimban is located in the Cicarpous Major System in the expansion region. Points of interest: the Temple Pomojema, and the Thrella Wells. Native species include Mimbanites, Coway, immigrated humans, and (extinct) Thrella. Planets terrain is mostly swamplands and jungles. Major exports are dolovite, and swamp gas.

Warrior Nal’kethar looked closer as he read the lasts lines of his datapad: Affiliation: Galactic Empire, New Republic, and the Yuuzhan Vong Empire.

“Xathia…” whispered the Sith as the murmuring in the shuttle died down. “Look at this!” Corin tossed the datapad to the Huntress. “The Vong have been here…expect remnant forces, everyone…”

Xathia squinted her eyes as she read the information over again, “Yeah,” she said, “and its good cover for them too…we best be careful…These Mimbanites and these Coways,” asked the Krath, “are they hostile?”

“Negative…even if they were,” answered the Warrior, “they’re weapons would be stone axes on wooden sticks held together by vines…easily defeated, and not a threat even to unarmed civilians.”

“Good…” was he simple, short answer.

***********************

The shuttle began to descend as the Souls of Darkness battle team planned out their strategy. It was simple: get in, get out, or, if necessary take the information and run. That was the plan, however, but plans didn’t always go as one would hope.

“Corin,” stated Malaki as the shuttle entered Mimban airspace, “you’re on point. I want you to scout ahead for any hostiles. Report back via comlink.”

Corin nodded slowly. And so it began…

“Get up you big lug,” Xathia elbowed Nokkon in the ribs “We’re here.” She finished. Nokkon rubbed his eyes and looked around. The shuttle had landed and Corin was already heading out the door, rifle in hand.

“Have I ever told you how nice it is when you wake me up Xathia?” Nok grinned at the look on her face as he rubbed his ribcage. He picked up his gear and headed past the unusually quiet Omwati towards the door.


Stepping outside Nokkon looked around and grunted. Cethgus and Arch were locking down their TIEs and everyone waited for Malaki to decide on something. The team leader was looking off after Corin and seemed willing to wait for a scouting report before moving.

“This reminds me of the Blood Forest and the Vong.” Nok had an edgy tone to his voice. “Not a scene I am ready to repeat.” The Obelisk moved off a bit from the team and watched the forest. “We’ll never see them coming in a place like this.” The last statement was almost too quiet to be heard by his companions.

“Alright people, lets move, Corin has nothing to report yet,” Mal turned towards Nok “So we can all stop worrying quite so much.” The team leader gave Nok a withering look and moved off into the jungle.

The shuttle was being torn apart around her, fear and panic gripped the small Tinnel’s mind as the human shoved her roughly into the single escape pod and closed the hatch, sealing her in. Darkness and the silence that followed the escape pod’s departure from the shuttle did little to ease the fear that gripped Lys’Tarrl’s mind. Pain added to that fear when the pod landed roughly on the planet below.

Dazed, confused and hurting, the small feliniod crept from the escape pod, for a moment, forgetting the satchel she had guarded so closely until now. Noises quickly surrounded her as many humans closed in around her. Unable to fight back, Lys’Tarrl was bound, gagged, and dragged away by her captors.

Sharp pain jarred the Tinnel back to the present moment, and the memory induced nightmare faded. Another harsh backhanded strike forced her to her knees with a whimper. Her limited grasp on the basic language made understanding what her captors sought difficult. She did not know if they had found her travel gear and the satchel she had intended to deliver to the StormRaven, or if it still lay forgotten in the escape pod. Wiping the blood from her lip as she tried to regain her feet, she hoped and prayed that it had not been found, and that by some chance, someone would find her.

“I don’t even know where here is.” She thought to herself.

She was dragged back to the cell where they had been keeping her, apparently further irritated by her lack of answers to their questions. Curling up as tightly as she could, Lys’Tarrl buried her face in her hands and cried, feeling an ever increasing fear that she would be killed whenever her captors either found what they were after, or tired of her.

[center]**********************[/center]

Malaki and the others began to move off into the forest, but the landing craft’s pilot stopped, them.

“Hold on you, now before you go off, just remember one thing. I don’t answer to anyone but the StormRaven, so I’m not some flyboy you can boss around. You’re just lucky the Lady has deep pockets. If you go off and do whatever it is you’re here to do, keep this in mind, if 48 hours go by and I don’t hear from you guys, I’m leaving. Clear?”

“Understood, we’ll check in every 24 hours, hopefully the scanners will pick something up to give us an idea of what we’re looking for and we can leave soon.” Replied Malaki.

The pilot, Varuun, nodded, and began checking his ship over after the landing.

“I just hope there’s something left for us to find, given the amount of debris that we saw on the approach to the planet, whatever ship was here was hit pretty hard, so they likely didn’t have much of a nice landing.” Nokkon shifted his gear and settled himself into a relaxed stance as he waited.

“Archangel and Cethgus are flying over to see if they spot anything from the air and Corin’s still not back maybe we should set up a base camp here, before we go rushing off to do something when we don’t know what we’re after yet.” Xathia leaned against a tree and tried to talk some sense into her comrades. The planet was dangerous enough without making rash decisions.

Fionn stood off to one side, apart from the others, seemingly lost in some private meditation. The others all looked around, and looked at each other, and then the attention fell on Malaki once more.

“Maybe Xathia has a point, let’s set up camp here and wait for the others.”

“Mal, you guys better get over to me in a flash. We found something.” Corin’s voice came over the comm. unit as the team was debating the idea of a base camp. The commander grabbed his own comm. unit and asked for details. The Warrior’s voice answered fast, explaining that the flyover had found the escape pod and directed Corin to it, were he found the multiple tracks of humans that seemed to have taken whoever or whatever was in the pod.

“Let’s move guys, places to go, people to find!” Mal called out to the team as the others gathered around the commander. “Corin gave me his position and the path over is all clear, so lets regroup there.” Mal pointed to Nok for point man and the Souls of Darkness moved out. The shuttle pilot watched them, shaking his head.

*************************

“Over here Nokkon, you make as much noise as a bantha.” Corin taunted Nok from the side of the escape pod. Nok just grunted at him in reply.

“Loosen up Nok” Xathia came up behind the Corellian and smiled up at him, “we might as well enjoy this little trip for what its worth.” She stood by him as Mal came along to check out the pod. Corin was quick to point out the tracks and where they seemed to lead, but didn’t go as far as suggesting the obvious to Mal. The others just calmly waited for the commander’s decision as to what course of action to take. The sound of the TIE Defenders in flight cut through the forest noise for a brief moment.

“And now anyone in the area knows we are here.” Nok grunted quietly to himself. Xathia looked at him and wondered just what was eating at him.

“OK guys, let’s see who took our passenger and what we need to do about it.” Mal spoke to his command and motioned for Corin to take the lead. The Sith hefted his rifle and began following the tracks away from the pod.

Malaki glanced over at his battle team behind him, Nokkon was still edgy and restless, Corin was just being him self, and the scout he is. A faint flicker of words came though the knight’s comm., it grew stronger as Arch’s voice ranted on.

“Malaki, about a mile north to your position there’s an abandoned imperial mining facility….”

“Arch, fly over there, at least find a decent place to land and scout your way through the facility, it’s a hiding place in there…and report back to me.” Malaki replied quickly

“But sir……”

“No buts, flight leader, my orders, go scout out the facility with Cethgus now!”

Malaki cut the conversation, and aimlessly caught up with Corin, who was staring into the wilderness of this desolate swamp jungle. He had his hands gripped around his rifle, steadily searching for something out there.

“You alright, you looked as if you’ve seen a ghost?” Malaki said briefly.

“Huh…oh I'm fine…Well actually no I’m not…I feel as if there is something out there watching us” he replied snappy like.

“Ah Ok then, Arch and Cethgus are going to investigate an abandoned Imperial facility about a mile north from our position…we should carry on searching along this track hey?” Malaki replied

Corin smirked briefly, cutting through an over grown bush like a sword with his stride. Malaki followed walking through its unearthly posture that blocked their path. A rotting stench of death filled the knight’s lungs, it was repulsive. The scout crouched down in front of what seemed to be the fresh rooting corpse of a Mott, a native creature to Mimban.

“Its scars and wounds are fresh but it’s been dead for a while, what thing could have done this!” Corin spurted out load.

“Be quiet!” Malaki shouted back.

Hearing cracks of footsteps that didn’t come from the battle team, the earth felt as if it shook each time he heard it. The Battle team leader look over at Corin…

“Corin, out of the way now!” Malaki shouted.

A huge furry creature burst out of the jungle in front of them, the scout scrambled away just before it landed where he crouched. The creatures muscles pulsed, its roar rumbled in the hearts of the battle team. It was blocking there path and look like it wasn’t going to let them past.

“My god” Corin whispered

“What?” Nokkon replied nearly whimpering to him self as he saw the beast

“It’s a Veermok!” The scout replied putting away his rifle and activated his saber.

******Imperial Mining Facility*****

“Cethgus there’s some sort of landing platform to the east, we will land there and scout the area!” Arch ordered the Zabrak over comm.

“I thought Corin’s job was to scout not ours!” Cethgus replied.

Archangel sighed as he set his Tie-Defender down onto the landing pad, jumping out he gazed around at a glum facility that look as if it hadn’t been used for centuries. Cethgus set his fighter not far away from Arch’s, jumping out of its cockpit and ran over to his comrade.

“Well this is going to be fun” He said sarcastically.

(OOC: Veermok’s can be found on Mimban as well, if you don’t believe me check it out on Wikipedia.)

As soon as his rifle was securely slung around his shoulders, Corin sprung to life, igniting his saber and narrowly missing the wrath of the Veermok’s massive two-fingered paws. Why was a non-sentient creature such as the Veermok, which are native to Naboo, here on Mimban? Why was it attacking them? Why was the Veermok in this swampy area when it preferred open plains like that on Naboo? This questions, and others that stirred in the Warriors mind, had to wait as the Sith was forced into action.

The Veermok flailed its arms about, nearly decapitating Malaki, the Souls of Darkness Commander. It was only through Malaki’s wariness of the animal that his head was saved.

The present equites also jumped to action to aid their fellow Sith Warrior. Corin’s blade flash to and fro as he avoided the monster. Using several opportunities to glean some information from the creatures mind, Corin decided to end the fiasco.

The long arms of the Veermok blocked Corin’s path as the Proselyte attempted to mount the beast, in hopes of stabbing it where it counted. Corin’s agility, however, proved efficient as he grabbed hold of the large paw as it was retracted again to the beast. Corin lunged from the paw and landed on the beast’s furry spine. Corin climbed up the figure of the creature. Holding his emerald blade aloft, Corin placed his hand upon the creature’s large skull. Immediately, the animal’s arms halted in mid-swing. Corin’s eyes were closed, and he was controlling the animal.

In Corin’s mind, he was plunged into an echoing flow of memory and instinct. Corin needed something; a memory of some sorts that would give him a clue why the beast was so far from home. Nothing. The beast, either on it’s on accord or by its lack of memory, refused to give any information to the Warrior. Breaking the link with the monster, Corin sunk his emerald blade into the back of the Veermok. It would not so easily surrender, however, and, with one swift motion of its massive club-like arms, Corin was swiped off the animal and thrown somewhere among the trees, his lightsaber landing dangerously close to his head. Corin would not surrender so easily either. Snatching his saber from the earth, Corin lunged at the beast one more time, this time sinking his blade into its chest.

The Veermok gave a deafening roar, as it stumbled for balance. Its head swayed to and fro as its huge frame slowly fell to the earth.

The victorious Sith retrieved his saber from the corpse of the Veermok, his tattered robes and armor revealing several wounds upon his body. Taking one look around at his companions, Corin slowly fell to the earth, unconscious and bloody.

As Corin collapsed, Nok lurched into action. He dropped his rifle and knelt at the fallen Warrior’s side. A quick check of vital signs showed the Obelisk that Corin would be fine, so Nok bandaged the minor wounds and glanced at the team leader. Mal seemed distracted by the beast Corin had dispatched.

“Well Mal, what now?” the Corellian asked. He watched the team leader for any response, but Malaki seemed to be lost in thought.

“Is he alright Nok?” Xathia spoke from behind the medic; there was a sound of concern in her voice.

“Ya Xathia, he seems fine,” Nok glanced at the form of Corin. “I think he’ll wake in a couple minutes.” The Corellian rose to his feet, grabbing his rifle as he did. The natural sounds of the jungle still hadn’t returned after Corin’s fight with the Veermok. The team seemed to be stuck in the moment, waiting for Corin to wake, or Mal to do something.

The jungle sounds started to come back, and Corin stirred on the ground, as Malaki seemed to shake whatever was going on in his head off. He turned to the team and called out for Nokkon to take point so Corin could recover, and the team headed off again, heading for the mining facility to the north.

Ah. Not again! Thought Corin as he came to. As his eyes began to focus, he noticed the group that was surveying him. Quickly jumping to his feet, Corin glanced around at his comrades. He jumped up a little too quickly, and his head began to swim. “What happened to me?” He asked aloud.

No one in the group could find a good explanation why he collapsed. “You must have had too much, I guess…” was the only possible reason. His right side pained him as he breathed, but it would have to do for now.

Nokkon had taken point, but Corin dismissed him of his duties and continued his scout work. “Corin,” called out Malaki as soon as Corin was a little away from the main group. “Are you sure you’re alright? That was a nasty fight, you…”

“I’m fine!” assured the Warrior as he put the butt of his rifle up against his shoulder and continued forward.

The swampy land of Mimban was eerily quiet as the Battle Team moved forward. Nokkon had done his job right, fixing Corin up, but there were still a few wounds left untreated. They would have to wait. His job was more important, and his sister was counting on the team to retrieve the information that was so coveted.

As Corin led the team through the Jungle, he couldn’t help but wonder what the true meaning of the mission was. Having worked with his Master and Sister for so long in the past, he knew that nothing was ever as it seemed and nothing was done for one reason. It wouldn’t be like her. he thought, to send us out here without another motive…

Corin halted for a moment, his comrades following his example. Placing his hands on his head, Corin concentrated. Nothing he said to himself. no life… Something was wrong…