Our voices screamed the message out with a great fury, not a single one of us would accept "denial" again. We were quiet for a moment, and spoke again, much more calmly. "We do appologise for the outburst, but we have had no contact for so long that we have lost the ability to socially be "acceptable" under such stress. We do not wish any of you harm, we only wish for acceptance, however mild or great it may be."

--------------------

My eyes cut to the still coughing Master, glared at him, slid then to Phalomir who was standing in stony silence.

I told you so! I screamed with every bit of body language I possessed.

Then I began inching backward, bit by bit, seeking to put as much space between myself and the three in this room who I suddenly found myself deeming as enemies to me and mine on an equal scale.

--------------------

“Galen,” he said, “I do not know why he did this, but the Master ceased to be my father long ago. Please, Galen, I know your desire to find your daughter is immediate, but we must deal with this situation.”

He lowered his voice and crouched, still holding his hand up to channel magick to the shield.

“This entity’s first words were far from what I experienced earlier. Believe me, I too mistrust it. I can shield us from harm, but we must do something else soon. I know you have the ability, can you draw the strength to put this pod back from where it came?”

He looked directly into Galen’s eyes, not quite sure what he was seeing but calling to her nonetheless.

“Galen,” he said calmly. “We are so close to finding her, please help me here. I swear to you, on my life, on my love for your sister, I will do everything I can to help you find your daughter.”

Through the shield came the raspy cackle of the Master.

--------------------

We did not move, and our expression was collectively as "mournful" as it could be, though this did little. "Leave us in our containment until your curiosity is sated and your fears removed, but do not place us back into our eternal solitude. We do beg you.

--------------------

"There has to be another way," Terrin growled. "I don't want Galen, or any of the rest of us for that matter, near that pod."

Falling silent for a moment at that, Terrin just leveled a questioning gaze at Phalomir, and waited.

--------------------

“Jharmeen cannot assist us, if anyone is to open a portal to shove this pod through then it must be Galen. If we cannot dispose of it, we shall either have to contain it or— or communicate with it further. Now unless you know how to activate a containment field of some type then please tell me what is this ‘another way’ you speak of?”

--------------------

“I thank you all for releasing me,” he continued. “And ask you one more favor -- deliver a message for me to Aelvedaar. His dream is folly, and the treaty with our realm is over.”

The Master stepped forward and touched the shield Phalomir had thrown. The Master’s eyes flashed and the shield imploded, almost as if it were being sucked into his palm. Phalomir’s eyes grew wide, then he was propelled backwards as if an invisible rancor had swept him aside. He hit the wall with a sickening thud, his eyes remaining wide open as he fell slowly to the floor.

With the shield gone, the Master strolled to where the sleeping Jharmeen lay. He snapped his head to look squarely in the eyes of Jasyn, who had dared to step forward.

“I still own you,” he said, most sinister. He brought his hand up in a flash, making Jasyn flinch, and paused. Cackling loudly, he then spun about and brought his claws down, and in one fluid lightning motion he seemed to rip a hole into the very threads of existence along the floor. He grabbed Jharmeen’s leg in his other hand and jumped into the hole he made, dragging her with him.

“And tell them both, we are waiting in the Dark Hall!”

The Master’s voice trailed as the portal closed, leaving behind a hint of sulfur.

A warning beep sounded on the console, signaling the ship was ready to depart from hyperspace.

((OOC: The Master and Graysith fall into Into The Out Of in this forum, thank you!))

...and, in the blink of an eye, snaping into sudden action as she whirled on her heel and went to the injured Phalomir. She reached out a healing hand to him, the thoughts she extended to him mirroring the words she now spoke. "We've got to get down and find Aeylmaar. Giving up is not an option."

--------------------

"Excuse us, but we are unfamiliar with the beings and other events that surround you. We realize we are most likely the cause of what has happened, and we appologise and take full responsibility for what has occured."

[ 04-18-2005 10:12 PM: Message edited 1 time, lastly by Onidorei ]

--------------------

I'm sure my own features mirrored those of the others, and to tell the truth I didn't really know what was the actual basis for that:

The fact that my sister, no matter how I spat and fought with her remained my sister, after all... the fact that she had been ripped from us with the ease with which one crushes a gleeberfly...

...or the fact that Phalomir's father didn't appear to be quite....

Sith.

I looked back up into Terrin's eyes, gave him a squeeze and left his side. Hurrying over to Shayla, I knelt beside her.

"Just a minute," I murmured in a low tone, and heaved a quick sigh of relief when she turned momentarily from her task to look at me.

"That-- that thing that just took Jharmeen was purportedly his father, and he sure as Khaandon made lil green worrts looked more like something along the lines of some demonic imps of my acquaintence."

I paused a shuddery moment, that thought bringing with it a flood of memories from that horrible time when I was in the Darker Realms, meeting Phalomir for the first time. My first inclination, that of distrusting Phalomir along with his disappearing daddy, suddenly spun a one-eighty in my head, and in my heart.

I reached out and laid a delaying hand on her shoulder.

"You know, there was something Phalomir told me, when we were in this awful dark other-dimension," I went on.

"He told me that his father was scared spitless of something, a threat to the Sith, I think the Vong were involved somehow.

"Anyway, he said that his father made a deal with some kind of dark forces behind some black river or other, that they would protect the Sith when the time came. But something happened: I guess his father tried to turn him over to these dark forces."

I paused for breath, chewing a little nervously on my cheek as I eyed the downed Sith lord.

"He said he'd meet both Aelvedaar and Phalomir in the Dark Hall--

"You don't suppose that this is another ploy to get Phalomir, do you-- or to kill them both in order to take over the Sith?"

My eyes widened as another thought struck me. I shuddered again, removing my hand from Shayla's shoulder move it to my stomach.

"H-He's there, Roan, in the Dark Place, that other dimension... where the Dark Hall is...."

Then my eyes widened further.

"And I know how to get there..." I breathed, shocked with myself to discover the truth in that last, surprising statement. On the heels of that came crashing defeat.

I slumped to the deck with a scowl.

"We can't; Korriban isn't here anymore," I growled, then sighed again and looked around at the others.

"I think Shayla is right; we have to find Aeylmaar. Pronto."

[ 04-20-2005 12:10 AM: Message edited 1 time, lastly by Galen ]

--------------------

He raised his drink to the sky, made a toast to someone named Phalomeed—or was it Alfafameer? It didn’t matter now, he was back home, and he was happy.

He noticed that his tan had started to burn, and thought now was the time to head back into the bungalow. As he turned away from the sun he saw just how red his arms had become, and thoughts of seeking out the med droid for some burn ointment crept into his mind. He reached up to scratch the sudden itch on his temple and was shocked to find –

“Horns!” yelped Panthar, his eyes fluttering open as he regained consciousness. He sat up, bewildered, trying to find himself in a world somewhere between the beach and the ship. His head slowly stopped spinning, and the pain in his hand brought reality down upon him.

“Ohhhh,” he moaned, “it wasn’t a dream…”

His leaned back against the wall, and in an absent minded observation he noted, “Hey, we’re out of hyperspace.”

--------------------

...and she was starting to feel the effects. "Welcome back," she said briefly yet not unkindly. Then she looked to Galen. "Aeylmaar is supposed to be waiting for us here..."

She paused, her look darkening, "...unless something has happened to him. Time for landing procedures, and then we can decide just what we are going to do, and how..."

Quite suddenly, Shayla's words dropped off, and realization dawned. Her hand shot out, and she took Galen by the arm, her eyes widening. "We can get to the Darker Realms still. Remember, the Temple of S'slan..."

--------------------

"Proceed with your questioning, then we will make no further interjections to your other business unless it is required or within reason to do so."

--------------------

“What the heck are you?” he asked.

--------------------

That did it.

"Wait a minute," Terrin growled, "Number one priority right now is getting to the surface of Kee'l Doba in one piece so we can find Aeylmaar or figure out a way to get to the Darker Realms--or both. And along with that, finding Darra is a top priority."

Here he paused, turning and addressing the thing. "I don't know if we can trust you, and until you've somehow earned that trust, I don't see reasons for us to start explaining what we are talking about to you. After all, we don't know what you are, or who you are...

...and we don't know who left you out here in this region of space, and why..."

[ 04-21-2005 08:19 PM: Message edited 1 time, lastly by Terrin Danner ]

--------------------

"Now, we cannot gain your trust further than words, something we know from long ago that can not be gained so easily. We are imprisoned in this shell, for this shell was the Onidorei's containment while we researched it. It is bound by several cables that restrain it by it's crainium and allowed us to input and take out information. These are the tethers that bond us now."

[ 04-21-2005 08:32 PM: Message edited 1 time, lastly by Onidorei ]

--------------------

He notices Phalomir lying on the floor, leaning against the wall. His eyes were wide open, his chest raised and lowered slightly, but he was otherwise still. Shayla was crouched beside him. Jharmeen was… well, hmm, where was Jharmeen? Did her and Phal have another tiff? She she run off and Phal took up with Shayla? Whoa, heavy.

Galen and Terrin were over by the controls, and Matt, Erik, and Jasyn were standing around looking bewildered. Good, he wasn’t the only one who was confused. He shook his head to try to clear it, struggled again for consciousness, then began the long road to standing. He spoke as he did so.

“Allright… so you’re a bunsch of people trapped inshide a— a thing. Whadya want with ush?”

He managed to stand, then stagger, then right himself. He smiled weakly at the pod and took another drink. His head flopped to the side to regard Terrin.

“And, um, whosh gonna land the ship?” he asked. “And where’sh the Stupor Shtar Destruy—Destrey-- where’sh the blockade?

--------------------

...and no ships.

He frowned. "Did we come out of hyperspace before we reached the system?" he queried, "Or have we managed to somehow get past them? Galen, you're the expert...

...and by the way, if we already covered it, I missed it...

...but is the Sith belt on? Unless, of course, we are going with Plan A. He turned and regarded Onidorei. "Were you created by the Empire?"

--------------------

--------------------

He turned back to Terrin, took a few steps in his direction, and spoke in a loud whisper.

“Don’t tell him, but I don’t like thish.”

[ 04-21-2005 10:13 PM: Message edited 1 time, lastly by Panthar Dantares ]

--------------------

"The thing that keeps you from being "sucked in" is the fact that we are not connected to you electronically in any way, nor is there an anomaly occuring, the nature of which we doubt will ever occur again. It was a sort of ripple in reality as we know it."

--------------------

"Fine!" I snapped irritably as I stomped over to the space the weird pod was occupying. It lay there in quiet mockery of the good a bacta tank is supposed to portray.

I crossed my arms.

"Seems to me that we are relatively safe from any approach you might make against us then," I commented, not really caring at the moment if this... thing knew I was aware of that little fact or not.

I glared at it, despising it for what it was.

To think, being locked up with other minds in a biomechanical construct for uncounted years....

I replaced a rising shudder with rising anger.

"Look, friends; I'm sorry for you guys and your brush with anomalies and all, but really, it's not high on our list of priorities at the moment."

I shot a look to Terrin, who only flashed me a quick smile before returning to his former, determined front.

"What concerns me is the loss of my sister, the fact that the father of one of our members is really the goony that I thought, and the fact that we've gotten to our destination and now need to make planet--"

I turned abruptly to Terrin, heading back to the controls and taking my seat there even as I spoke to him.

"I have no idea why we have managed to give the blockade an apparent slip; I do know that the field generated by this belt was barely large enough to take in a little Sith fighter. I really doubt it could cloak us effectively; maybe they're not stopping in-coming traffic?"

I touched a sigil-board in a peculiar manner, letting my fingers dance a fugue there. The forward screens flipped to aft, the port and starboard, and finally up and down.

Yup-- there they were, way off in the distance, lurking like the vultures they were...

...and behind us:

Myriad ships, all linked with tractor beams.

Now I couldn't repress the shudder that raised in response to the realization that we had indeed come out of hyperspace between the blockade and our target planet of K'eel Doba.

Now that wasn't something that happened everyday!

So why weren't we being hailed by the blockade? That's what I wanted to know...

"Maybe they're busy with something else," I muttered, not really believing it, but not wanting to hang around until they woke up. The fugue segued into a tarantella as I input a series of commands into the ship's computer. Lights blinked, relays clattered and clicked, and the view on the screen was promptly replaced with one of the planet.

It grew noticeably larger even as I watched.

"We're coming in, guys; better strap in."

The ship seemed to hear me, gave a little bump as it hit a small thermocline within the pausal layer we were passing through, then began to descend in earnest. Control was yanked from me like a rancor yanks it's prey; the ground approached with astounding speed, and I could swear I could hear the howl of the wind against our hull.

Suddenly, below us then, there hove into view the wonderful image of Ch'arlingua.

Sheesh, I never thought I'd be so happy to come back here....

"Brace yourselves, we're coming in hot and heavy!"

But the wonderful technology of the Sith proved to be at levels far beyond other sentients, even more than four millennia in the past. The ship fell to earth like a propelled rock...

...where, inertia and gravity be damned, it settled abruptly with the touch of a feather kissing the earth.

I sat there a moment, a little surprised at this.

"Wow," I murmured, then unhooked myself and powered down the ship. I was about to blithely open the hatch when unseen speakers popped into life.

"State your name and your planet of origin," came the command in Sith.

I frowned, then turned to the others and repeated what had been said.

"Anyone for a reply?" I quipped, pursing my lips then as yet another lizard-monkey wrench appeared to be tossed into our works.

[ 04-22-2005 01:20 PM: Message edited 1 time, lastly by Galen ]

--------------------

Panthar stood again, grinning. “Hey, you want me talk to ‘em?”

--------------------

"I don't think that would work," I began, cutting my look to Matt. He snapped to, moved quickly to Panthar and removed the green bottle from his possession.

Panthar's sap-happy grin turned into a grimace of annoyance; he was about to say something, undoubtedly as ridiculous as before, when I looked at his statement from another angle.

"They don't seem to recognize this ship as being Sith," I opened with, chewing on my cheek as I pondered further.

"We do need a Sith to reply if we are going to attempt anything along the lines of Panthar's suggestion, and at the moment he's the only Sith we've got..."

I trailed, then cut a frown toward the shell-shocked Phalomir. That big wuss still stood unmoving, oblivious to us or the predicament we were in.

What a time to lose the Big Guy--

Then I brightened.

"Hey, maybe we can lip-synch something? Or Panthar, do you think you can manage to scrounge up the slighest modicum of seriousness, if it indeed does exist within you?

"I don't think our Sith warrior friends are going to go for a comedy routine."

Unless it turns out to be more along the lines of a comedy of errors, something which I'm sure they would be only too happy to exploit.

--------------------

Panthar worked his jaw up and down several times, then licked his lips.

“Korris’ian,” he said, concentrating. “Yeah, I think I can do it. How’s this?”

He spoke slowly and clearly. “We are a special envoy with the new Dark Lord of Armorers, visiting K’eel Doba at special request of the Dark Lady of Warriors.”

He looked to Galen for approval.

--------------------