sssscccccaaaaarrrRRRRREEEEEEEEEEE......

It was the third time now, the air sirens had not been silenced since the attack began yesterday morning.

They had come out of no where, flashes of light in the sky and on the ground. Billions of credits in scanner technology rendeder useless in mere seconds. Undetected, without warning, they struck target after target worldwide. Thousands died within the first few minutes, the defense forces had reacted just to slow.

Raktus emerged from his office, griping the balconey's edge as he surveyed his city with tired eyes. He griped the rail tighter, his knuckles becoming white as his anger rose. Entire buildings gone, rubble. Smoking holes in the ground and flaming sides of buildings. They had not come for him, they had not come for his building, why?

"What right..."

He smacked a clenched fist down on the rail as he lowered his face in anguish

"What right did they have to commit such attrocities..."

In the first seconds the Gencores had fallen, never having a chance to have been activated, their flaming hulks testiment to their failure. Still yet, they protected portions of the planet. Engineers still in operation had done their best in salvaging what was left of the planetary sheilds to get anything over the survivng civilian population. What they did was a miracle beyond words, though they couldnt restore full coverage of the entire network back over the entire planet, they had managed to create a small honeycomb of sheild systems of interlinking weaker sheilds creating a strengthed defense at lower power cost, power that just wasn

"Sir, we've got The Nexus reinforced with additonal troops. I believe we're closer to shuting it down."

Raktus shook his head solemnly, this Enforcer was new, he could tell. Lifting himself off the rail he turned to face his protector.

"Whats the status of the fleet?"

"We lost the Agamemnon in the initial strike, the Cairo is reporting heavy damage and general supply problems as is the rest of the fleet. What should we do about this sir?"

He pulled a small PADD from inside his suit, thumbing the power he glided it over to Raktus's hand. Looking down he sifted through various high strung naval officer reports. The fleet was in shambles, still not quite recovered from the initial shock and still in combat with the intruders trying to keep them from the planet.

"What can we do? Any transport that goes up wont come back"

Rubbing his eyes with his palm he tried to think of something, anything, those were his men up there and he was responsable for each and every one of them.

"Tell them...tell them relief is on its way, to just hold in there. In the meanwhile see what our engineers can do in the way cover fire for a transport."

"Yes sir, you'll be addressing the general population later then?"

"Yeah, yeah later, get to your job Enforcer, GO!"

He jumped, he was new. He turned and charged back into the office

"Wait! Enforcer..."

Once again he stoped, in attention he spun on a heel and turned back to face Raktus

"Yes sir?"

"Where were you?"

"Sir?"

"This morning, when this happened, where were you?"

"With my girlfriend sir, celebrating her daughters 7th birthday, why sir?"

Raktus sighed, innocence lost, it couldnt be helped, not anymore

"Get back to your duties Enforcer"

"aye sir..."

Under the city, The Nexus was in shambles, the victim of a two prong attack. They had come through the gates, opened from the outside, beyond comprehension to IDT observers, and began to pour through them. The resulting havok that ensued will likely be scarred into the memories of those that survived for entire lifetimes. The dead and dying falling in hordes as the mysterious invaders swept upon them like sheep to the wolves. An entire city unto itself, murdered in minutes, without notice.

Since their first incursion into IDT space forces had been dispatched to guaruntee that the hellish destruction that befell the Nexus didnt emerge from the deep underground. Below the planet a war raged; lines of heroic IDT Enforcers laying their lives out to save the planet, wave after wave of demon invaders, pouring through the gate never ending unstopable. The Nexus was ruined, nothing more than a leveled battlefield for the damned, yet it was the only way off the world, with the airspace and space around the planet a haven of death for these beings.

"Give me the report, I've delayed this long enough..."

Raktus sat at his desk back in his main office. The voice recognition programs were slower than normal, likely due to the enormus taxing the computer was taking in recent days. Either way a list of names slowly scrolled across his desk, a death toll, he had to know how bad it was. He read them, each and every one, each a life snuffed out too soon, a flicker of a person stoped before its time. This couldnt be allowed, he had to find a way to stop this.

"Status of the sheilds?"

A clicking sound indicated that the line was transfering over live to site to site, most likely to the engineering corps currently working on the sheild matrices.[/]

"Sir?"

"I said what are the status of the shields?"

"Oh, hold on.... 47% sir, holding barely. Its a miracle the energy matrix is holding under the stress sir, ive got some of my top people working on redesigning a destroyed model with salvaged parts"

"Ok, keep me apraised of your progress, Raktus out"

The clicking sound signald the connection cut, if he could defend his people first and formost then he could worry about freeing his world from this ter

"Communications array status?"

"We still have no communications outside the system"

He sighed loudly, ever since it had started there seemed to have been a block on communications in the system. Either that ment they had larger capital ships out there, or they had powers beyond his. He hoped it was neither, but hope didnt move mountains, but he had

Jai Solo was leaned back in the captain's chair of her YT-1300, Millennium Jade Falcon, asleep. This, however, was nothing unusual for Jai when she was on a smuggling run. She, more often than not, always had to use hyperdrive to get from one destination to the other, and it was usually over a long number of hours or days. So, she napped. She trusted her ship and it's navigational system; she'd hooked it all up herself.

BEEP BEEP BEEP...approaching Reecee system, disengaging hyperdrive, will reactivate once clear...


"Whm?...Wha?....Oh, bah!" Jai had sat up groggily to listen to the alert, but she knew that they had to slow down at the Reecee system anyways. It was only common courtesy, and personal safety precaution, to do so. Once the alert had gone off, Jai snuggled back against her comfortable leather chair and yawned wearily. It had been a long journey, and she still had a long ways to go.

Then it happened...

Red Alert, Captain! Red Alert! Under Attack! Red Alert!

"Oh for the love of the Minions of Xendor...what n---"

But Jai didn't have time to finish her sentence before her little YT-1300 lurched horridly, throwing her out of her comfy chair and back into full conscienceness.

"What the frell?!!?"

Jai climbed back into her chair. All shields were up. Weapons on. And that was good because the hits kept coming. Jai looked out of the glass of the cockpit and froze for a moment.

What is that?, she wondered to herself. Was it a ship? It didn't seem to have any definite shape..or form..or was it even a ship? It was dazzling...in a evil way.

Sheilds down! Weapons hit!

"Oh shite..."


The rest was all a blur to Jai. There was an explosion in the back. The ships left. The Millennium Jade Falcon was in bad shape and, somehow, she had ended up making a unexpected and unannounced crash landing on Reecee. Was it even Reecee? Jai didn't know...the next thing she knew clearly was that she was laying in the floor of her cockpit.

There was smoke and the smell of burnt electrical wiring and spilled engine fluids. She sat up, holding her head, and looked around. She felt something wet and pulled her hand back, looking at it...blood. Her stomach did a double backflip and Jai shuddered. Anything but blood, especially her own!

She was hurt, and her ship was in dire straights, but her head hurt too much to think. Therefore she just laid back down against the durasteel plating of the cockpit's floor and waited for someone to come snooping about and find her and the wreaked ship.

Now, as fate would have it, Jai landed (or should I say crashed?) right smackdab in the middle of what use to be Reecee's capital city. The tirade which had previously ensued had left the once superior city in ruins. All that was left were bodies, smoke filled streets, toppling buildings, and the battered - but still standing - headquarters of IDTech.

Scavengers scoured the city and the burnt up stores citywide for anything that had been left or untouched by the fires and desecration. One such scavenger was named Toulouse Banfi. He was human, but not quite somehow. He was very tall, at least 8 feet, and very muscular. For example, he lifted up a crashed tank-like vehicle and moved it out of a doorway with ease so he could go inside and scavenge. He was big...to say the least.

It was in a large block of collapsed buildings where, on top of the piles of rubble, Toulouse spotted a smouldering ship. It was big, almost as big as the block itself, and it was circular, sort of. He trod over to investigate...It seemed to be damaged, probably from the attacks that had happened a few hours earlier. He couldn't see any signs of life inside, so he decided to go on in....but he found more than he expected.

There in the floor, face down, was a young woman. The pilot of the craft, no doubt, and badly injured from a blow to the head. He nudged her with the toe of his boot, and she groaned a bit, but didn't move. She was alive, but in need of medical attention. Toulouse knew that IDTech's headquarters had set up a relief station in the basement of the building for the injured and their families, and so he decided to take the young pilot there.

He lifted her gently and exited the craft, running swiftly and smoothly to the relief station.

His office was in shambles, datapads all over the floor, a constant runing death toll across his desk, not to mention team updates from all over the planet. Report after report to go though, checkups, orders to give. He wanted to be in the thick of it, part of the relief, something to do, something to take his mind off all... this.

"Distress call from Sheild Team 002 sir, shall I play the message?"

002, they were the ones working on the powermatrix for the honeycomb systems. Also working under the only sheild matrix in the southeast hemisphere, if it fell millions more lives would be in jeopardy

"Yes, play it immediatly!"

"csshhhhhhis is an emergancy, we need assistance here! A group of the intruders have somehow appeared under the shield, we dont know how, but if it continues no one will be left here to figure it out! Send..."

The screen sputtered with static and then cut to black

"Connection terminated at source"

"Just great, any space defense in that region?"

"Not any operational systems, at the moment the only operational defense system is the Ion Cannon operating in our vacinity"

"Anything in close orbit not currently engaged in battle that could reach them in time?"

"We have no ships not currently engaged in combat"

He had never had to sentance millions of his own men to death before, it was a very emotional situation. He held his face in his hand as he swore under his breath. Millions.

"Redirect one of the Star Destroyers there, full speed, I dont care what it takes, get them there and get them there now!"

"Sir, any minor fluctuation in the battle above the planet could pose a serious threat to our fighting forces there"

"These are millions of lives at stake down here! You get me that ship, you get that ship in place now!"

"Yes sir, the Dycotus is the closest still operational vessel. She should arrive within the minute"

He sat on his heels, makin nervous movements with his hands, the tension unbarable. Millions of people, it really was just a statistic if you thought about it, but it was also millions of families, children...[/]

"They are in position sir, heavily damaged from evacuating the battle above planet, engaging the Intruders now

There had been a man, maybe a doctor, and there had been injections, quite a few. There had been nurses, and a visitor. Everything was blurry and muffled, and Jai seemed to be watching it all from far away, as if it were all a dream.

She was laying on a cot in a makeshift hospital. The area in which the hospital was held was vast, tomb-like. The floors were cold and the whole place echoed any and every sound. The floors were also barren, as were the walls, void of any decoration or coverings.

It was a basement. She'd gathered that much. A poorly lighted, poorly heated, poorly stocked basement that was currently doubling as a hospital to care for and house the injured...but the injured of what. There were thousands of people squeezed into that basement. Some dead, some injured, some alive...but all victims of some horrific act of violence that was planet wide. Jai couldn't make it all out between her little slivers of conscienceness and the long periods of dreamlike blurriness.

It had been two days since she'd been carried in, and the doctors were worried. She'd received a nasty blow to the head during the crash, they'd say, and it was bloody good luck that that scraggler had brought her in. Toulouse, they called him. Her savior, really, for if she'd would have not received medical care when she did, she would have bled to death. Jai gathered that also from the muffled, echoing conversations that went on around her as nurses and doctors hovered over her cot.

It hadn't occurred to her to try to wake up. She was rather comfortable...but awfully hungry. This was really the only reason she'd bothered to wake up. Two days without food was quite long enough. Therefore, around noon on the third day, Jai blinked open her brandy brown, but currently hazy, eyes and looked around. She sat up slowly, and as she did a stabbing pain nawwed at the back of her head. She put a hand back there, and felt a thickly layered bandage.

A nurse spotted her and gasped, dropping the syringe she'd been filling up to give to Jai. The nurse tried to speak, but only managed to get out a high pitched squeak and run over to a doctor. They both came back and talked to Jai, telling her what had happened and why she was there. But it was nothing new to Jai, she'd heard it all before. They gave her a complete physical and checked the cut on her head. It was almost healed, and they went ahead and took the stitches out. A little ointment, some pain killer, and five hours of observation and Jai was given leave.

She was escorted out of the dingy basement and onto a brightly lit alley. She blinked her eyes at the light and slipped on a pair of sunglasses she happened to have in her jacket pocket. Yet, as soon as she had then on her nose just right, the left lens fell out. Jai looked down at it and rolled her eyes, tossing the frames and remaining lens to the ground. They must have been broken in the crash. The crash! The Millennium Jade Falcon!

Jai ran hard and fast. She vaguely remember the route that 'her savior' had carried her on to get to the relief station. After being turned around a few times, and getting lost once, she came upon it...the tattered ruins of her beloved ship. She walked up to it, and ran her fingertips over the battered hull. She took a step back and looked at it for a moment. It might sound a bit silly to you, but tears welled up in her eyes. Her father had given her that ship. It had remained spotless, good as new, for 5 years. It was her MJFalcon, her ship, her baby. However, it wasn't beyond all repair...but it would take alot of work. Jai sighed heavily and wiped her eyes with her sleeve...there were more important things to worry with now.

She went inside her ship and gathered what few items were left that were of importance to her and stuffed them in a knapsack. She then tossed the strap of it over her shoulder and aimed her steps back towards IDTech's HeadQuarters. Something terrible was going on, and she was going to help.

Reecee...


Of all the places Gue could have sent Misery, he chose Reecee. The Shadow Knight did not dare ever question her Master when she was given instruction.

She was surprised that Gue had not seen the disappointment in her eyes when she found out that she would be leaving.

It was not so much the leaving that bothered her, it was that she'd be going alone.

I can't believe he didn't notice! Of all the times he should be paying...

Misery let her thoughts wander away, there was no use dwelling on such a thought anyway.

She just wished he would have taken the opportunity to go with her.

Maybe another day...

She had become rather use to saying those words by now.

A job was a job, sometimes there just wasn't room for anything else.


She'd soon forget all about Gue, her duty, her mission and her life. It was amazing how just a few minutes could change everything...


Misery had flown her Corellian Corvette over a thousand times by now, never having one bit of a problem with the ship. Though by way of her feelings in the force, she'd begun to wonder if there was actually something wrong with the ship.

Of all the places something could go wrong, it would be on a planet she'd never been to before.

As she approached the planet closer, her feelings within the force grew stronger.

Something is very wrong here...

Off her sensors went, but she could see nor find anything.

What the...

Blaster fire. Had she really seen that or was she just imagining it?

There it was again.

She was being shot at and didn't even know it.

Great! I'll have to thank Gue for this later, if I get out alive, that is...

She was now being shot at from every angle imaginative, it all had happened so suddenly.

Damn!

Her weapon launcher was completely jammed.

Now what am I going to do...

She did not like using the force unless she really had to, but this seemed like a real emergancy.

If she could not fight back, she could at least get out alive.

Down she went, taking a rather large deep dive with the Corvette, swirving to get away from flying debris as she went along.

There were too many things flying around, not to mention blaster fire.

She never saw it coming, really....

Damn....

Ok, so she had, but by then it was too late. She didn't get a look at it, but she saw something, just in a big blur.

Everything went off inside her ship.

She thought.

What a way to die...

Her ship caught on fire, the whole damn thing just died on her. She wasn't exactly sure how fast her ship could go, but she was finding out.

With each passing second the pace of the ship quickened, spinning out of control.

The last thing she saw was a rather large building settling right into her viewport. She'd seen the buidling from a far away distance a bit earlier, it looked to be the largest buidling there was, well, that was still standing at least.

She crashed somewhere off to the right of the building.

If I die....I'm going to haunt Gue in his dreams...

That was the last thought she had before everything went blank...

Shadow Jedi Knight Empress Dark Emerald Jade had just fallen asleep in her quarters on her YT-1300 Jade's Dragon, her Corellian black panther females Sumohn and her mother Flavia sleeping at her feet, when suddenly she heard a loud bang.

A few moments later, the voice of her pilot for this trip comes over the loudspeaker.

Empress! We're under attack! We've been hit bad! Main systems are down, shields are failing! We have to land somewhere!

Jadey snarls and gets up, then is thrown into her mirrored closet doors as the ship lurches violently to one side. Her panthers fall off her bed with a loud yelp, but neither are hurt as they follow her out the door.

Evasive manuvers! Battle stations! NOW! she snarls through clenched teeth.

"Every time I try to sleep when I travel, I always end up getting attacked. It never fails." she complains as she and her panthers make their way to the cockpit while her ship lurches.

After a few moments, they crash land on Reecee, Jadey's newly fixed YT-1300 once again in need of fixing. She gets up off the floor of her cockpit as blood runs in her left eye. There is a bad cut open from her left eyebrow to left cheekbone, just missing her eyeball, the cut oozing pretty badly.

Ignoring the blood, Jadey walks to her hatch and opens it, her pets behind her once more as she steps out and looks at the carnage around her.

She sees she has crashed near the capital city somewhere and snarls again.

"I do NOT like the looks of this."

Without another word, she begins walking towards the HQ of IDTech to find her newest boss, Heir Raktus.


What seems like a few hours later, Jadey and her pets gaze up at the huge building in front of them. After a few seconds of that, Jadey and her panthers enter the building and speaks to the first guard who stops her.

"State your name and business here."

"Empress Dark Emerald Jade. Mr. Raktus is expecting me after a meeting we had recently."

"One moment while I confirm this with him, Empress."

Jadey winces at the use of her title and nods to the guard, waiting to be confirmed.

Jai had been picking her way through debris littered streets when a bright streak had fallen from the sky and crash-landed just meters away from her.

With a loud, frightened yelp, Jai had ducked for cover behind an overturned speeder as trash and fragments sprayed through the air in all directions. A bit clipped her thigh before she could get to safety, leaveing a deep cut, but she could still walk fairly well.

After things settled down, Jai peered out from behind the speeder and saw a downed Corellian Corvette. She, normally, would have passed on about her business. However, if someone hadn't of bothered to check out her ship, she would be dead now...so she figured it was only common human courtesy to do the same concern her 'savior' had shown her.

Therefore, she ventured forth to the crashed ship. The control pad for the gangplank was jammed, so she did the Solo thing and took her blaster, shot it, hotwired the circuts and lowered the ramp manually. Once inside she had a look around, no one seemed to be anywhere...that is, until she walked into the cockpit.

It was a woman, unconscience but still alive. She didn't show any outward signs of serious damage, but one never knew. Jai knelt down, and shook the woman gently.

"Ma'am?....Hey...Um...Hey, Lady, you ok?"

Ever so slowly the woman opened her eyes, though doing so with a little difficulty.

Her eyes fell onto Jai, a look of confusion spread across her face. She looked at Jai with questionable glance.

"Where...Where am I?"

Where was she, who was she was more like it. For the moment, asking where she was seemed more important.

How did I get here, where did I come from??...

Questions filled her brain, she felt scared and alone.

This stranger though, she didn't "feel" bad. She did not know what it was, but she could feel this woman, energy came from her.

The force user within Misery could not remember though.

She felt tired and weak as she tried to close her eyes, but her eyelids would do no such thing.

With her past so quickly now forgotten, Misery could do nothing more but search for answers.