Kamon nodded to Gash.

"As ready as ever. I still don't like it, but we have a job to do."

He put his arm to his chest his hand in a fist.

"This man will not let down his duties."

I stood to the right of Kamon, and about a step or two back from him, and had my hand clasped nehind me back. I was nervous, sure; maybe I was even a little bit scared, but that was all part of it.

"I am ready."

I gave my hallmark lop-sided grin, and my eyes flashed.

Time to do what we were trained for.

His part done, the small village lay in silence kilometers behind the Executor.

In short order the town had been isolated and destroyed by Nox Anor and his voxyn cohorts. He had carried his orders out in secrecy and it was unlikely a single other Yuuzhan Vong had been aware of his actions, save for the ever watching eye of the Supreme Overlord. The mission had been to test the deployment seeds as they had been long out of use and then vanish without trace into the highlands outlaying the town. As such, he had promptly disappeared into the woods.

He stalked across through the forest as a predator of the night, and in the distance voxyn had followed. The path brought the Executor to a cache laid some weeks earlier, the supplies he would need for his next leg of the mission.

While waiting , voxyn lurking in the shadows beyond the tree line, he made ready for to move on at the word of his Warmaster. So, in the growing light of the morning, Nox awaited the stirring of his villip.

Corran smiled feeling a lot cockier than he used to.

"Have we ever not been ready?" he asked.

On his belt his lightsaber rested, ready waiting to do whatever it would need to do.

Ade-Ay Visic stood up from sitting against the back of the cold metal. He looked professional, without a smile. He walked up between Corran and Kamon looking at the familiar face. He brought his hand to his lightsaber as if he were getting ready for battle, checking to make sure he was indeed prepared for what would come. He nodded in return.

“Likewise.”

"Yes?"

Zeralin Lah strode calmly into the small, living command hut. At the center of the hut lay the origin of the dull glow which bathed the entire room; a small glowboard, glowbugs radiating their light off of it. The board showed the entire continent upon which they resided; on it, some bugs glowed blue for destroyed or enslaved villages, while others glowed varying degrees and intensities of red for enemy units and untouched settlements.

On the board, bugs began to realign themselves. In front of him, Kilraak Sovax bowed slightly, in a gesture bearing very little reverence. "Commander Zeralin Domain Lah," He said. "The warmaster sends a message." He motioned to the glowboard, as the bugs continued to hastily rearrange themselves. Slowly, they formed into a view of the entire Veresh system, complete with a complete readout of ingoing and outgoing ships.

One ship was a particularly vibrant, bloody red. Kilraak Sovax pointed to this, saying, "That vessel bears Jeedai, Commander. As," He continued, "do the ones around it. Seven vessels, all transporting Jeedai and, presumably, other infidel warriors."

Zeralin Lah stared down at the little glowbugs; if looks were able to take life, the entire living structure would have been utterly obliterated. "I believe that it is time to have a discussion with our planetary governor. The Coomb spores are not doing their job."

Kilraak Sovax looked at him. "No, Commander. The Yammosk forbids it. You know this."

Zeralin Lah said nothing for some time. "It may yet have to be done."

The subordinate officer merely stood in silent defiance.

"Send two battle groups. Kill them all."

Kilraak Sovax raised one of his hairless eyebrows. "They are Jeedai. If we cannot defeat them?"

"Then," Zeralin Lah said, turning and beginning to walk from the structure. "We will see how far my patience for the deception of these modified Coomb spores will stretch."

The craft Serenity lay a crumbled heap in a clearing far from civilization deep within the wilds of the planets untamed areas. Little more then a oblong hunk of dented and twisted durasteel some fifty meters in length, it was near impossible to tell that prior to her crash landing she had been 50 meters of potent freighter.

Along with bits of strewn ship, the crew of the Serenity lay scattered throughout the crash site. Some fifty individuals that were refugees attempting to escape their own world but, they'd arrived just in time to crash land this planet with its' own terrors.

Their emergency transponders blared for help across the subspace channels, those who did not recieve immediate medical attention... would die. Some lay scattered across the crash site while fewer were trapped inside the Serenity while others remained trapped inside the ships bulk.

They would needed help, and soon.

The commlink on Gash Jiren's prosthetic arm blared loudly. "Jiren," He acknowledge, bringing it to his face.

"Sir, we're entering the Vereshian atmosphere, and we're being hailed by what seems to be the government. Shall I patch you through?"

"Yes," Gash replied without thinking. Before him, from a holoprojector on the mechanical limb's communications pannel, sprang the image of a very stern-looking human.

"This is Lieutenant-Governor Sivekk Mi'nosk," the man said. He spoke with only a slight accent -- an oddity for what seemed to be an isolationist world. "I order your vessel to remove itself from our atmosphere immediately." Gash looked over at Kasien Treseda, who stood beside him. The Lieutenant-Governor of a world, hailing an annonymous ship?

"I somehow doubt he personally greets all his visitors," Kasien commented.

"I am Gash Jiren," Gash replied, ignoring the Lieutenant-Governor's sentiments, "Of the Rogue Jedi Order. We've heard that you've had a string of attacks, and we'd like to assist --"

"We do not need Jedi assistance. Turn your ship around and leave, or you will be fired upon."

"If you fire on us, you will be violating Ossan Parliamentary Space Law. We are just a private, non-commercial non-military vessel seeking to land on your planet; I think you will find that this ship's credentials are quite in order, along with an ordnance from the Ossan Parliament permitting ship defenses above and beyond civilian limits."

The man looked conflicted for a moment, a grimace crossing his face as if he were under great strain. "I am warning you, Jiren, turn around now or I will not hesitate destroy your vessel."

"Then destroy us." Gash stated with utmost finality.

The look of conflict increased on the man's face, as the two engaged in a sombre staring contest, glaring silently at each other. "Fine. Mi'nosk out."

Gash looked ominously at Kasien.

The touch-down was anything but soft. Every Rogue Jedi aboard the Hermes could feel the cold ground scrape against the hull of the vessel, as it came clanking to a halt. Immediately, sounds of action errupted in the hangar; as the doors of the vessel's cargo bay clanged open, and sunlight flooded in, two words could be heard clearly over the din; "Move out!"

The Rogue Jedi did so, scrambling from the belly of the craft onto the planet outside. The sun was bright in comparison to the darkness of the craft; Gash Jiren squinted against it, but even so, the image around him was as clear and disturbing as ever.

They'd landed in the centre of a small village, and all around them, was the scene from the spy fighter redrawn in vivid, disgusting detail; a brutal depiction of cruelty and destruction at the hands of a menace more terrible than could be imagined. Blood covered the ground, corpses were piled as high as two men, and the charred hulks of buildings formed an eerie ghost down around it all.

Perhaps the Rogue Jedi had been expecting a fight as they rushed from the ship, or perhaps they were just anxious to retaliate for the atrocity at hand, but as the commotion of leaving the ship subsided, the odd silence of the area finally sunk in.

"What now?" Kasien asked.

Kamon surveyed the land. A queasiness in his stomach caused him to look away and right at Gash.

"Holy hell, Gash. How could anyone do this? This is disgusting. It is a sad day for this planet."

He surveyed the bodies one more time. He noticed the causes of death were odd. Wounds as if from stabbing. No blaster marks evident.

"Whatever killed them wasn't a blaster."

<span style="color:teal;">Ade-Ay jumped out and landed with swiftness to the ground. He straightened himself up and looked upon the ground.</span>

"I don't know." <span style="color:teal;">He said, then after a moment of silence,</span> "God."

<span style="color:teal;">He looked at the corpses with awe, he nodded at Kamon, then shook his head in almost disbelief. What an atrocity.</span>

"What kind of evil beings could do such a thing to the innocent. Master Jiren, do you have an idea who would do this?"


OOC: (Okay, shoot me. I accidently pressed the "Add Reply" twice...then I post with the wrong character on the second correction, then I do it with the wrong character. *Shoots CSC* They make it too simple to mess up. Sorry guys. I feel like an idiot.)<img border=0 src="http://www.ezboard.com/images/emoticons/eyes.gif" />