Presius Sector



There was a world once that teemed with life. Settlements of sentient beings representing every race discovered dotted the surface, each one growing all the time. Amid forests and valleys factories did form; plains and meadows were criss-crossed by rail networks and Roadways. Looking down on it all were the eyes of engineers and businessmen working and living in orbital platforms from which cruise liners and freighters came and went. Yes, these were heady days for the world. Exploration of the galaxy as a whole seemed only to bring more force and fire to the economy which then boomed and boomed into surrounding worlds and systems - soon the sector itself thrived as if success was a virus that would spread without pause.


Yes, the world once teemed with life. Once long ago. The Republic was at its height, the Jedi watching over everything the Senate could not see, guarding and protecting with their lives and souls. It was a good time in the galaxy, some thought. Life along the Perlemian Trade Route got better and better, until the Route became what it was today. Hyperspace hubs and re-mapping points became obsolete when a craft could drop out, recompute, and vanish again. Things weren't so good after that.


The world that teemed with life stalled in tis tracks, but did not decline - at least at first. No, the Tion Hegemony kept trade rather regular and that helped to fill in the blanks the Route had created, that was until two hundred years ago when they were found.


Initially no one knew who they were or what they were, only that they killed without mercy if you dared transgress against them. Some said they were holy warriors, others devotees to the machine gods, no one knew for sure. Rumors drifted Core-wards on the tongues of captains and mates of the wild debauch and murder at the hands of the Dragons as they were increasingly called. Then the Tion Cluster fell, then fought back, then fell again and again over the years - trade dwindled, then died. And the world that teemed teemed no longer.


Maxa Rush kicked a bolt from her path, sighing as he watching it tumble end over end until it slammed against the transparisteel viewpanes with a rattle that filled the chamber. She sighed again - no one cared. But why should they? She grabbed her mop and shook off excess water then popped it down on the steel beneath her foot. What a job - cleaning the floor for seven credits an hour for an obsessive supervisor who thought he was god on a space station housing a hundred Braytell employees. Maxa sighed again - the stationed once held twenty thousand people, or so she was told. It was before her time.


The mop squeaked and squeaked as she slobbed more water onto the cold steel, pushing it back and forth, back and forth. Such was life, living under the threat of Imperial conquest one moment and Confederation annexation the next: could either be worse than now? Living on a space station because crime on Cestat had gotten too bad? Was that a life, or would it be better to salute the Emperor? Maybe be a Confederate citizen?


Something has to be better than this, it has to...




*OOC Note: Thread beginning about six months before the 'present' TRF time. Events will be denoted by time to keep things in sync as we will be going back and forth with the storyline. Enjoy*

" Ms Rush, I'm sorry, there is nothing I can do. Upkeep costs on this station have gotten too great for the company to bear. You're not the only one displaced."


" Right, we are, but you'll get a reassignment. Nice deal, dungbreath."


Maxa stood as angrily as she could, storming out of the administrator's office. She looked angry all right but before her jumpsuited form had cleared the doorway tears were streaming down each cheek. To her a left there was a line of those who had yet to receive the news, each one nursing the hope that he would be the one spared, that he could get to stay. Around her as she ran towards her quarters were those who's hopes had evaporated, who saw there was no hope at all.


The young woman packed her scant few belonings into a faded yellow bag and went off into the corridor, to wander aimlessly until a shuttle docked. But where would she go?


Where could she go?





The poster read out to any who glanced at it, almost mocking in its exhortation. To what point and purpose, that was the common response when the passing figure dared avert his eyes from the filth and muck of the streets. To those whose despair was total, an arm would be flung out to tear the flimsiplast sheet down in disgust - somehow, though, new ones managed to be born from thin air, none seeing who put them up.


Maxa looked at the poster as she walked towards a hotel in Lakaria, a once-thriving industrial town nestled in mountain's valley. She managed a laugh, a laugh devoid of humor. The sounds of a city were all around, rushing trams, sirens, yelling - she ignored them all, even the horn of a speederbus that came within a meter or two of putting a quick end to a terrible day. She trudged up the steps and took a key from a clerk after giving him the seventy credits that would guarantee her a rat-shared room for the next week. Half of her savings were now gone, until she replenished it somehow. How? That was the question, wasn't it.


The young lady sighed again, and sighted the entrance to a dank little room even more dreary than the sparsely funrished anteroom that had once been the palatial reception area for guests from governors to rich grooms. The hotel bar may have seen better days, but watered down liquor was an excellent way to forget.


" Tall tonic, double."


A server droid clicked acknowledgement as it turned on a rusting pivot to take up the appropriate bottles. Gears bereft of oil squeaked loudly now and then, breaking up the shrill music from a dust covered sonic foundry on a nearby wall. After much noise, the droid turned around and scooped up the credit chip for the drink, a watered down amber concoction in a tall glass.


Here's to...nothing.


" You look like hell."


Maxa had no friends in Lakaria, no family. No acquantencies except for the former coworkers with whom she'd landed, but even those has disappeared when the stale city air whooshed in through the airlock. Crime was rampant in the city with only a few police remaining and all but a few of them corrupt. She took no chances and wrapped her long fingers around a vibroblade handle sticking out of a thigh-pocket as she turned to face the voice. It came from a amn maybe her age, maybe a little older: she couldn't tell from the sheen of scruff around his chin and the fading scars on his cheeks that could have come from stray sparks and smithing work.


" What?"


" Like I said, you look like hell. But you're still the prettiest thing here. I'm Jiit."


" Jiit?" Maxa asked, keeping her grip on the blade's handle firm. Scruff and all, he wasn't unattractive in his reddish vest and brown dirty pants. He was human, or at least humanoid - she didn't cringe too much when he sat next to her.


" Yeah, old man's name. Never seen you here before."


" Well that's cause I've never been here before. Your eyes work okay?"


The man smiled, a broad toothy smile that was inviting in a way, but odd at the same time. Something was out of place, but she couldn't decide. Maxa regarded him again and found it when he took a sip of his own drink - his teeth! They weren't as dirty as she'd expected, nor nearly as dirty as hers. Dental work was expensive and there were few 1B droids in the whole sector that still functioned well enough to do it. He spoke before the thoughts could go any further.


" They're fine. Hey, I gotta run, you wanna have a drink later?"


" Where you going?" Maxa asked, now letting the blade's handle go entirely. Of course, her hand moved over an inch towards her lap, well within response time should something...happen...she didn't like.


" Nowhere. I mean..." The man, Jiit, fumbled for a second, and tried to back away. His leg caught a bar stool frame and down he went, ninety kilograms hitting the floor with a good bit of force. Maxa couldn't contain her laughter and rocked back and forth - until she saw a few rolls of flimsiplast fall out of his pockets. He tried to gather them up, stuttering as he went, but one rolled close enough to her leg that she leaned down, swooped it up, and unrolled it. There were the words again: Have you lost hope? Don't! We're down, but not out!


" You're doing this?"


Jiit snarled and snatched the paper from her hands. His smile had disappeared, replaced by a look almost scared but flecked with forgotten confidence.. " Yeah, I am, what of it? I ain't gonna live in shit my whole life. Something better is coming and I want in."


" Better? Want in to what?"


Maxa couldn't help but feel the tug of curiosity, and stood to look the man in the eyes. His fear evaporated quickly and his smile, or a fragment of it, returned. " I'll show you. C'mon."

Xynadda - a world in the Presius Sector




The world didn’t strike her as impressive, no matter Jiit said. From orbit, it looked like a purplish orb with a cloud strand or two flaked out here and there for effect only. A nameless documentary watched on a sleepless night long ago had told her of vast canyons that crisscrossed an otherwise flat surface which itself was punctuated on occasion by a towering mountain or city-dome. Not impressive, at all.


“ Why are we here?” she asked, turning away from the window. The padding in his jacket was as inviting as the pillow behind her head, so she rested a cheek on him and closed her eyes.


“ I’ve told you my dear, I have to meet some friends. They’re helping us.”
Maxa did not want to be rude so she decided against sneering openly, though inside the gesture could not be silenced. Us was a relative term, meaning the movement to which he belonged and had unqualified faith in; it certainly did not include her. She could not be interested in an anti-government movement no matter how much she wanted to, but she was interested in him. He cared about something the black haired woman found distasteful, but at least he believed in something. That made him the only male she’d met in far too long a time to see beyond himself. It was…endearing…if not skewed. Maxa sighed and fell asleep, four years’ experience coming and going from an abandoned space station allowing her to sleep right through the atmosphere entry.





“ Only united can we hope to stand against those who would do us harm. We know damned well what is coming – not even a blind man could miss it! And how will we resist? With words? Good luck friends; there aren’t enough to speak out! With guns? What guns? Even if we had them, will you stand with your neighbor? Will you fight by his side? Of course you wont! I’m not sure why I’m wasting my time…”


The speaker trailed off, turning to leave the stage; catcalls from the audience kept him at his post, shaming him on one hand for failing to believe, commending their own resolve with the other. Maxa did not understand exactly what he was driving at, but then he was the fourth such man to mount the dais at the crowd’s center and yell forth. The first man had been raving, screaming and gesturing wildly as if he were at some rally of fanatics; the second had been quieter, more intelligent, more collected, but also long winded, the third was a mix of the two. This man seemed almost insulting but far more down-to-the-rocks than the others, even dressing as if he were right out of the crowd of disenchanted wretches gathered around. She was not exactly in her element, but Jiit was, screaming at the right moments and conversing loudly with those around, those she doubt he knew, about the rights and wrongs of what was being said.


“ So maybe you will fight when the time comes and the enemies descend, maybe you will. But it will be too little too late. However comes first doesn’t matter, Imperial or Confederate, but make no mistake they are coming. We are in a vice, remember that. We have enemies on both sides who have been too lazy to conquer us, but that will change. We cannot fight them off now and maintain our freedom, who knows – maybe we can. Should we? Is this freedom?


“ Ah, there’s the point, isn’t it? Sure, we have freedom now, but is being free like this worth it? We send our children to dilapidated schools, we call corrupt cops when we get robbed, we pay taxes to which we see no progress. The roads are still shoddy, the hospitals still dirty, the government still weak. Is this freedom? Is this good for us? I say no. I say no! Too long I’ve been living in filth and no one has helped me. So now I will help myself. If the bosses cant do the job right, then we need new bosses! Now is the time to stand up and say no!”


The words kept coming and more and more Maxa realized what the man was saying, the point driven home by the increasingly wild yells of those around her. Beings of all sorts thumped appendages on chests, shouting their willingness to follow and act. She realized now just what the man was saying – revolution was the only way to improve things. Maxa wasn’t a smart woman, nor was she stupid. She was, however, smart enough to realize that no matter how bad a revolution could be, any future was better than no future. Try as she might, she couldn’t scream out that it was madness, or stupidity, or foolish. Was it better to live in filth, fearing the next few moments, or die trying to improve how those precious remaining minutes were spent? She had to say the later sounded appealing. Companies got bigger and bigger, fired more and more people, and left the masses in the lurch. A few held all the wealth and the rest did all the suffering.


Maybe they’re right. Not realizing it, Maxa squeezed Jiit’s arm just a little tighter.





The crowd had disappeared, going by groups and throngs into the night. They would return. Some stayed behind in the dark warehouse to carouse some more, and Maxa had a chance to see the last speaker up close. He was a tall man, a human, with sharp cheeks and a strong jaw that hutted away from his face almost comically so but impressive all the same. He had deep-set blue eyes and a shaved head and did not seem friendly at all – but he did seem confident, there was no denying that. Others, almost everyone she had ever met, slouched or trodded where they went. This man held his head high and kept his back straight.


“ You’ve given the less serious ones something to think about, Sir.”


“ Thank you, Citizen, I only speak the truth. Live in filth or die in filth, I promise nothing. Only hope is here to guide us.” Jiit shook the man’s hand feverishly as if the middle-aged human was a holo-actor known from Rim to Core. Maybe not well known to others, Jiit was certainly star struck, his eyes wide as a school boy’s that Maxa couldn’t help but find cute.


“ Who’s this?” the man asked, turning to Maxa and flashing a toothy grin. His teeth were craggly to a point, but not nearly as bad as hers, a point she had never really be embarrassed about until now in the presence of someone with a more appealing visage. Jiit’s smile was wider and just as toothy – and almost as clean. Maybe they’re relatives.


“ She’s Maxa, my girlfriend. She believes.”


Maxa didn’t like being spoken for, but she let a grin grow on her face as the human kissed her offered hand. Manners, too – she hadn’t seen that in a while. She was about to say something nonchalant when a crash came from the door a hundred or so meters away.


“ Down, now!” yelled someone in the distance, audible over banging and clanking around beyond the threshold. A single blast shot ended the banging, the bolt heralding a stampede of footfalls. A few men standing around like bodyguards rushed to the door while another came from outside and screamed “ everybody out, they’re here!”


“ Who?” Maxa asked, turning. Jiit grabbed her by the arm without an answer, dragging her across the floor as best he could. She walked with him then ran, turning as she did. Xynadda did not welcome the rally, apparently, for in stormed black robed officers of the local police in the company of blue-uniformed soldiers wielding long-barreled blasters. The police fanned out and two-two-one over powered the bodyguards who tried to stop them. A few grabbed stun batons, others chemical aerosols and quickly arrested those who resisted. The soldiers seemed content to let the civilian authorities do the work until they saw the clump of frightened people running away, trying to squeeze through a set of doorways behind rows and rows of crates. Rifles were leveled, then fired.


“ Come on!” the bald speaker yelled, waving his followers on with him towards the doorway, not retreating himself until his friends were with him. The shots missed him, though a few came close. Jiit smiled towards the man, and stood with Maxa to dash for the door. One bolt sizzled a crate-lid next to him, the following shot striking him in the left side of his head. Burning flesh filled the air, and Maxa stumbled down with her lover. She cried openly, but didn’t grasp the fact that all life had drained from the man’s face – what remained of it, anyway. Grief or panic-stricken -which was irrelevant – she just sat there, cradling his head on her lap while others dropped to the concrete floor around her.


“ Let’s go!” yelled the speaker, waving her on through the doorway. All but two or three of his bodyguards, those with weapons who were shooting back, were either deead or in custody. The police would be on them in moments. “ Now!”


Maxa still sat there, cradling Jiit’s head in her lap. The bald man ran over and hauled her to her feet, blood now staining his jacket as well as hers. She screamed, hammering him with her fists, but he held on tight and drug her outside where repulsor cars and trucks were scrambling about trying to break free of police pursuit or he surveillance of a shuttle overhead. He threw Maxa in the truck waiting for him, and sped off into the night. As darkness eclipsed her thoughts, she vowed to get even. She would have her vengeance.





“ A brilliant idea, Colonel Valorm. Tipping off the authorities to the rally at the right moment solidified my claims.”


“ Thank you, Major, thank you. It was difficult to convince them at first of the scale on which I spoke, but they acted as I directed.”


“ Only one negative; Agent Fissik was killed by a local.”


“ Pity, he was a good man. The Director will not be pleased.”


“ The Director expects casualties, that we haven’t had any yet will please him and offset the news. I must go before the signal is traced. Good luck.”


“ Of course. Keep me informed.”


The holo-projector cut off, and a scramble sequence took the image’s place before going totally dark. The last thing seen before he darted away was the reflection of a stray ray of light on a bald man’s head…

Six weeks later/Approximately five months ago…


The air was thick, its life-sustaining composition choked out by the smell of cordite and smoke. Tendrils of flame raced each other up into the night as if they wanted to lick the stars themselves. Huge ventilation plants, manned by non sentient droids, worked on as if nothing had changed, toiling away to purify the air under the thick city-dome. Maxa inhaled deeply, trying to imitate the work of the ventilation plants, but was far less successful, coughing and retching as she did. She realized her mistake and re-donned the blackened helmet in her hands.

“ It is done.”

A man walked up to her and removed his own helmet, repeating her attempt at inhalation only to succeed where she had failed. It did not surprise her in the least; she’d forgotten how, perhaps. In the span of a month her senses had been deadened. She spoke the words past him not necessarily at him. Her eyes were glazed over like those of a spice-addict, her new found poison a lust for vengeance she had yet to satiate.

Helmetless, the man ran a gloved hand across his bald head and looked over at the female to his left. Even though her face was dirtied, flecked here and there by a piece of ash that penetrated her respirator, she maintained a presence of beauty even against the backdrop of fire smoke and death. He shook the thought from his head, turning to the task before him. Yes, the day’s bloody business was over, but the struggle had only just begun. Many lives had been lost when they marched on the King’s palace but numbers and will had forced open the gates, passion and drive had defeated the guards manning repeater cannon and concussion mortars – cries for justice, a shrieking call for vengeance had turned all the peoples’ ears deaf when the old king begged for mercy; none cried when the bald man ended his reign with a single blast bolt. Xynadda was free of a tyrant’s grasp, and the people could work on building a new future. That future was uncertain, but there was hope. To the people, starving and poor, that was enough.

“ The day’s work is done, Miss. Our life’s work has only just begun.” The bald man in turn put his helmet back on his head, locking it in place. Over the communication channels clicked a message from the seized switchboard: a pocket of the dead King’s guards were trying to fight their way to an airlock. Wordless, Maxa turned around and moved off, the bald man right behind her.

It has begun indeed…





Meanwhile, behind the Seventeenth Moon of Ravadus

“ I don’t like your tone, Mr. Del Valle.”

Sitting at the head of a table of people in various ensembles from rags to thrown together uniforms more fitting a wax museum than a meeting, a short, pot bellied man dominated the conversation, squinting his deep-set little eyes at the only one who dared disagree with him. Had he have yelled something his jowels would have shook like a Hutt’s head; he knew this, unconsciously perhaps, for he kept his words even, his tone measured and calculating.

“ Too bad. This cannot work!”

The fat man pulled at the sleeve of his own shirt, the insignia-less tunic that would have belonged to a militia officer of Colonel’s rank. In fact, it had belong to a militia colonel necessitating its thorough cleaning before re-wearing as the stench of death did not help when a man wished to resonate power. The size is a bit too large, but it is…fitting…on a level they cannot understand.

“ Your words speak cowardice, Mr Del Valle, a lack of resolve. Perhaps you do not believe in what we are doing? Is there a chance you would like to see this not work?”

The face of the man, Del Valle, became red with indignation, but before he could argue another at the table, a Quarren with pistols slung across his chest, slammed a squid-like hand onto the table top. “ You keep suggesting we divide our forces, and we all know that to divide is to conquer. Traitor!”

The fat man chuckled to himself though his face remained quite impassive. With barely a pair of sentences spoken, the entire assemblage had turned against Mr Del Valle. He had gone from a voice of reason, an old civil war veteran with experience speaking through aged lips, to traitor quite rapidly. Try as he might to defend himself, it only got worse as those around grabbed at facts from thin air and twisted them to indicate his disloyalty to the cause of revolution. Another at the table had had enough and signaled his escorts, a burly pair of Twi’lekki males, grab him by the arms and haul him bodily from the chamber. A quick end awaited him.

“ Gentlemen, I believe we have dispensed with all the non believers, then. To your ships, we attack within the hour!”





A look out the viewports showed just how dire the situation had become. Of seven ships sent against the station, only three survived and each of those only barely at that. That the craft in question was a motley collection of merchantmen outfitted with a gun or two and given armor plating by a quick welding of a sheet of pite-steel here and there was not the issue, for the quality of the Red Front’s Navy was beyond question. Even if the equipment was not of the best quality, the men were filled with revolutionary spirit and that was always enough to drive the enemy from the field.

" Are any of those ships capable of going back?”

The fat man shook his head slowly in the negative. “ What do you think has caused such a travesty? Four waves sent, four waves repulsed. I wonder how this is possible?”

“ Please tell me you see? I know you do not like to see the dark side of a man’s emotions, but Del Valle informed against us! They were waiting!”

The fat man again shook his head, feigning disbelief. His measured tones and the extra movement of his left hand to his wide brow brought a tap on his shoulder from the ship’s thin captain in sympathy. Inside the situation was quite amusing, and it took every bit of training, every second of experience, to keep from bursting out and laughing in the face of those around him so easily pliable were they. Each one to a man was a puppet, and he was the marionette. None was any the wiser and their zeal made everything that much more comical. But he held on true, adjusting himself in the Colonel’s uniform.

" Very well then, we will show them our full fury. All ships, on us! We advance!”

The crewmen on the bridge of the four hundred meter fuel tanker-turned-battleship cheered, turning to their controls and pushing the ship forward with it tried old engines. The reactor strained under the demand for momentum but the ship pushed forward anyway, over a dozen of its comrades in various states of disrepair following as best their could. All at varying speeds and with varying armaments, the amalgamation could hardly be called a fleet, its formation not resembling any kind of order. It was, befitting its attack on the space station from which the Director of the Ravadus Mining Cooperative and de facto ruler of the world below sat lording over all, a mob.

The stations guns opened up as it had every attack since the crowd had assembled, felling one then two freighters with little trouble. The employees of the Cooperative’s defense force were well paid, well fed, and well equipped, at the expense of the families and merchants who came over the years to service and support them. Another salvo from the six twin-turbolaser cannon broke the back of a long ore-hauler that was feebly firing off old heavy blasters into the station’s impressive shields.

“ Look!” the thin captain of the ‘flagship’ yelled, pointing out the window, The largest of the assembled ships, a bulk freighter produced only two decades ago by CEC, pushed forward, protecting two smaller transports with its mass.

The six turbolaser batteries on the station concentrated on this plodding threat, smashing it apart with precision that was very uncommon in the private sector. Blast after blast weakened what shields were up; with the shields gone, the nose of the freighter was blunted and opened to space. Cargoes and not a few helpless crewmen were sucked into the stars suffering the horrible death of suffocating or flash freezing only to have their bodies vaporizing by the following shots. When the Corellian ship could take no more it turned to run only to have its hull pierced aft of the thickest bulkhead. A fire started when a reactor line was breached and what had been a ship ceased to be so in three minutes flat.

Having concentrated on the bulk craft, the station had ignored the transports behind which shot forward to point blank range and opened their cargo doors. No propellant was necessary as the vacuum of space itself sucked out a whole mess of proton bombs. The bombs drifted against the shields, collapsing them in several places then all at once. What bombs had not yet hit the shields slammed home against bare hull, ripping the superstructure of the platform apart. Amid cheering, the remaining ships of the Red Front fired off everything they had until the station was a lifeless hulk drifting above Ravadus, one more chunk of metal in orbit.

“ Hooray!” yelled the men on the bridge while the fat man sat, immobile. In silence he appeared contemplative and smiled briefly at those who rushed from their stations to congratulate him. The thin Captain too came forward after damning Mr. Del Valle to the heavens and beyond. The fat just sat there, knowing full well had they have listened to Del Valle, the station could have been taken and far less lives lost. He knew though, that glory did not depend on tactics as much as it did heroic deeds that until could be sung about for the rest of Time. Now the Red Front had something to sing about, and they thought to a man they had him to thank for it.