Post by Fierce01 on Jan 31, 2011 5:03:20 GMT -5
Day broke over Keldabe and as the rays of sunlight pierced through the trees and washed over his face, Celsus Ordo awoke to the first day of the rest of his life. As he sat on the edge of the bed he took a moment to look around the room. The house had been a gift from the clan leaders. They gave him his pick of several homes to stay in when he came to Keldabe. Most of them had been towards the center of the city, but he chose the only one they offered him on the outskirts. It was made of wood and was much smaller than each of the others he could have chosen from, but he and Motu were far more comfortable there.
Thinking of her, Celsus turned around to see his wife sleeping soundly. The auburn hair that normally fell to her shoulders had spread itself unevenly in messy wisps across her face. From the bridge of her nose down, her skin and what hair had caught the morning sun was glowing warmly in the light while her eyes were protected by his shadow. Making sure to block the sunlight, Celsus stepped across the room to the window and drew the shutters closed. Motu had been awake nearly all night tending to their children and now that she was asleep, he wanted to let her stay that way as long as possible.
Celsus changed from his cloth casuals into his armor, checking and re-checking to make sure he had every piece of equipment he would need. Once he had finished he stood, helmet in hand, over the crib holding his twin children. They both looked very similar to each other except for the few strands of hair that clung to the top of their heads. His son, Ferrus, had brown hair much like his own where his daughter, Asp, had hair closer in color to that of her mother’s, albeit much brighter. The two of them were fast asleep, which was very likely the reason Motu was as well. As he looked at them he couldn’t help but think that they were the reason he and Motu requested to be stationed here. They were the reason the morning light did not wake them up for the sabotage of a munitions depot or the assassination of a key officer. They were the reason he had to stand guard in the middle of a city for hours a day. With a smirk he thought, “There is nothing I wouldn’t do for you”.
As he donned his helmet and opened the front door, Celsus looked back into his room to catch one more glimpse of Motu. For just a moment he thought of waking her up. He imagined her green eyes in the morning sun and almost gave in to the idea before he finally convinced himself she needed the sleep.
As Celsus walked through Keldabe, rifle in hand, he took in the sights of the city. He had been given a cursory tour upon his arrival the day before, but he still found it somewhat difficult to navigate such a large place. Especially with so much of it built so similarly. He had always been very good at knowing where he was, but this city was not the kind of terrain he was used to. “It all just looks the same after a while. That tower’s about the only landmark around here.” The streets were filled with people to the point that he could barely see the buildings around him as he passed through the open square in front of the Oyu’baat Tapcaf. ‘Tomorrow is a market day, so you may find the streets to be a little crowded.’ He remembered the guide telling him as he waded through the masses of people and vendor’s carts. A short ways after he cleared the square he noticed that there were considerably less people around. “The market must be what everyone’s doing today.”
He continued on, soon finding himself at the starport, and swore in his native Mando’an. He looked for the tower again and found he was on the wrong side of it. ‘The pilots often use MandalMotors tower as a landmark to help them find the starport.’ The tour guide had been explaining to him. As he continued on, hopefully in the right direction, Celsus mumbled to himself, “That’s because it’s the only thing that stands out in this damn place.”
After he wandered a while longer past the tower, he made out the edge of a granite building around the corner a few streets away. “There you are.” He made his way around to a back alley behind MandalMotors hall where an unhappy guardsman was probably waiting to be relieved. To his surprise, when he approached the entrance, there was only one guard on post.
“Where’s your partner?” Celsus asked. His thick clan Ordo accent made the question sound far more intimidating than he meant.
“I’m looking at him.” The other Mandalorian barked, a little startled. “You’re late.”
“But, shouldn’t there have been someone else here?”
“Yeah, probably.” He replied nervously, “But he was getting pretty tired waiting for you so I just told him to go home.”
“Sorry about that. It’s absolutely impossible to navigate this place. I wound up at the starport before I got here.” He thought for a moment before adding, “You know that’s against regulations, right?”
The other man lowered his gaze. It was clear he was uneasy.
“Don’t worry” Celsus reassured him, “I won’t tell anyone, and I won’t be this late any more. I should have my bearings well enough now. Just don’t do it again.”
“Yeah, sure.”
After a few minutes of Celsus scanning back and forth down the alley. He realized that the man on guard next to him was acting fairly awkward. Out of his peripheral vision he saw his partner repeatedly glancing towards him and then quickly away again as if he wanted to speak but couldn’t convince himself to. “Must not be comfortable with silence.” He thought before asking him, “Why aren’t there any people around here?”
“Uh, most everyone that isn’t already doing something is at the market today. It’s pretty normal not to see anyone down this alley on market days.”
“Oh, ok. I suppose that makes sense. Just makes our jobs easier right?” He said laughing a little in an attempt to lighten the mood.
The other man chuckled awkwardly before saying, “Yeah. You would think more people would be coming to the hall today to hear Mand’alor speak.”
Incredulously Celsus asked, “Mand’alor is here today?”
“Yeah, he’s meeting with the clan leaders about something. It doesn’t really matter though. You and I won’t get to see him unless he decides to leave through this entrance and I wouldn’t pick the slummy alleyway if I were him.”
“It’s still a fun thought though. By the way, how did you know he would be here today? I wasn’t told during my briefing.”
“Oh, uh, a friend of mine who works inside the hall told me.” After a brief pause he continued by asking, “By the way, can I get you to do me a favor?”
“I already told you, I’m not going to tell anyone. It’s fine.”
“No, not that. Are you any good mechanically?”
“Yeah, I’m alright. Why?”
“The camera up there hasn’t been recording lately even though it says it is and the techs still haven’t gotten to it. Do you think you could take a look at it? There’s a ladder right inside the entrance there.”
“Oh, yeah sure. No problem.”
Celsus retrieved the ladder and climbed up to the camera. When he opened the access panel on the side, everything read positive and operational. “Hey, everything says it’s working.” He said to the other guardsman.
“That’s what it always says.” He replied over his shoulder “Here, try shutting it off and turning it back on again.”
“Uh, I don’t mean to a rules kind of guy, but that’s against regulations too.”
“Uh, naw, don’t worry about it. I have a camera installed in my helmet. I’ll run it until you get the thing back on.”
“Ok, that should work.” Celsus said. He found the main power switch and with a little force turned the camera off. After the loud metal clang that the switch made was finished reverberating down the alleyway Celsus thought he should keep the small talk going.
“I never did get your name.”
“I would prefer you didn’t know it.” The guard said behind him.
“What the hell kind of answer is that?” Celsus thought as he turned around on the ladder. When he saw the other guard, he had drawn his side-arm and barely settled it on Celsus’ head.
Celsus released his grip on the ladder and started to slide. As he did so, a blaster bolt grazed past his helmet, leaving a slight burn mark, and demolishing the camera he had been working on. When he hit the ground he bent his knees, fell, and rolled backward while drawing his own side-arm. As he stood from his roll, weapon in hand, another blaster bolt scored the street where he had landed at the bottom of the ladder. He leveled his sights and with a squeeze of his disintegrator’s trigger, the other man’s head burst into a gray dust and wafted away down the alley as his body collapsed to the ground.
“I should thank you for disposing of him. That’s one less fool for me to deal with.” A sick, muffled voice behind him resonated. With the weight of the voice heavy in his head Celsus turned to face a dark, cloaked figure holding a metal handle. A low rumble leeched from somewhere deep in his chest as he continued, “There is no place for traitors among our ranks. Now, I must gain entrance to this building. Stand aside or die like him.”
“Of course. Mand’alor.” Celsus muttered under his breath. While thinking to himself he looked back over his shoulder at the headless body behind him. “He betrayed Mand’alor!”
“Aren’t you clever?” Rasped the figure’s sarcasm laced voice. “Now stand aside. I will not tell you again.”
Celsus looked back at the shadow before him defiantly, reached for his stealth field generator, and disappeared.
“So be it.” The dark figure mumbled as he let down his hood. Celsus now looked into the red eyes of a Chiss, whose skin was closer to a sickly purple than the typical blue shared by the rest of the species. As the man’s handle burst into a crimson beam of light, it became apparent to Celsus that he was facing a Sith.
In all his years of military work, Celsus had never faced a Sith capable of wielding the mystical power they called “the Force” head on. But the lightsaber was a sure sign that this one was more than just capable. As the Chiss advanced forward Celsus flanked silently to his left. “With his saber in his right hand, he should have less reaction time if I strike from here.” He didn’t know much about the Force, but one thing he knew for certain was that lightsabers were no laughing matter.
“Your thoughts waste no time in betraying you.” The Sith grumbled aloud. “I know your strategy. Give up! You have already lost…”
“This is just psychological warfare.” Celsus thought. “He’s trying to get me to reveal my position.”
Celsus waited for a few precious moments, allowing the taunt to pass. He then took aim and sent three shots ripping towards their target. In blinding response the Chiss whirled and jumped backwards bringing his blade between him and the first shot. The second flew low by inches while he was airborne, and upon his landing the third dissipated into the red blade that rose to protect its wielder’s face. From behind the blade that complemented them, the Chiss’ blood red eyes gleamed malevolently at Celsus, whose stealth field had been dissipated by the blaster fire.
Celsus stared in silent terror. “What was that!?” He thought. “How can I kill something that fast?”
Without a word the Sith charged Celsus with his saber held down to his side. Desperately, Celsus charged in return, firing another two shots. His Sith opponent swept the tip of his saber across the ground in front of his feet, igniting a shower of sparks in front of him. Somewhere in the midst of this display, the red line of his saber intercepted the first shot. He then swiftly delivered a high backhand to the second to avoid losing his arm. “I have to try.” Celsus thought as he reached for the Sith’s wrist, which was outstretched and raised from his last deflection. To Celsus’ dismay, his opponent was far faster than he had hoped and the Sith easily retraced the saber’s path to meet him. Celsus realized his mistake and arched back only far enough to save his life. The tip of the lightsaber burned its way easily through Celsus’ armor and seared a line across the surface of his body the entire length between his left shoulder and his right hip.
The pain was no less than excruciating as it surged through his body. He had never, in all his experiences, had to feel a pain quite like this. He did not bleed, but it was little consolation. As the lightsaber burned his body, it cauterized the flesh and blood behind it, creating a scabbed wound roughly two feet across his chest. The combination of seared nerve endings and cracked skin and blood sent pain coursing through his body in an instant that seemed to him more like a thousand. The Sith turned to deliver a finishing backhand slash that slowly crept ever closer and still his thoughts were consumed by pain. Finally, for a moment, above his pain and his fear and all other things, Celsus’ thoughts rose to his family. “I will see them again!” He stopped the Sith’s swing halfway up his arm and slid his hands to his foe’s wrist. Similtaneously, Celsus deactivated the lightsaber blade and twisted the Sith’s wrist into a solid butterfly lock before clamping one hand on the Sith’s wrist, the other on his elbow, and throwing the him over his shoulder and several feet down the alleyway. After the Sith deftly regained his balance mid-air and landed solidly on his feet, he looked to his right hand to reactivate his lightsaber and found it was not there.
Standing defiantly between him and the entrance, Celsus took the burning crimson blade in hand and declared: “Stand down, or die like him.”
“You stupid Mandalorian! A lightsaber is simply a tool. The Force is what ensures your death today!”
Celsus charged the Chiss and with all his might he swung a blow meant to decapitate his enemy. However, as Celsus reached him, the Sith opened his palms, causing an unseen force to lift Celsus from his feet and fling him past the entrance and down the other end of the alleyway. He landed hard on his side, rolled over onto his stomach, and skidded the rest of the distance down the alleyway. Celsus involuntarily gasped as his fresh would was drug across the ground, bringing it back to mind once again. After he skidded to a halt Celsus lay in the dirt trying to summon the strength to stand and hoping the Sith did not kill him before he could. When he finally pushed past his renewed pain and recovered, Celsus saw the Sith in the same place he had been clutching his eye with one hand and the ground with his other. It seemed his attempt had not entirely missed its mark.
“Curse you!” His leeching voice hissed with wretched disdain, “With all the power at my disposal I will ensure you a slow, agonizing defeat before you DIE!” With that, lightning arced between the Sith’s spread fingertips and Celsus’ body. After only a few seconds of the torment, Celsus let go of a scream that felt as though it would split the fresh gash across his chest wide open. His body was on fire, his nerves were ablaze, his synapses sparked and crackled, and every second was composed of pulsing agony. His lungs contorted within him as his body made a futile attempt to continue his scream. At the very moment he felt he may actually die, a volley of blaster fire heralded the end of his torment. As he fell to the ground, he caught a glimpse of his salvation. Several Mandalorian guards emerged from the entrance between him and his opponent and set up a firing line. His vision began to fade, and the last image Celsus saw before he blacked out was the Sith’s fleeing figure.
When he awoke, Celsus sat straight up in preparation for some unseen threat that had been lurking in the back of his mind. This not only frightened the nurse attending to him, but nearly ripped the IV from his skin.
“It’s ok! It’s ok. You’re safe.” The nurse said in a soothing tone. She was a short girl with brown hair and kind eyes, but she also had a self-assured demeanor about her. As Celsus relaxed back into the bed, his chest reminded him of the events leading up to now. He grunted in pain and the nurse rushed to a cabinet of medicine to retrieve a large jar with a rubber top on it and a staggering amount of medical jargon written across it in small lettering.
“Here, let me give you some pain killers.”
“No!” He said, once again startling the girl who was already at the IV. “I like to stay alert.”
Rubbing his arm where the IV had tried to make its escape, he asked the nurse, “What happened? Am I in the hospital?”
“You sustained some very serious injuries, so they took you here. They’ll be back any time, but you should still stay in bed. Your wounds need time to heal.”
“Who are they?” He asked
“I don’t really know. I think some of them were from Deathwatch.” She said while returning the jar to its appropriate place. “They must have really wanted to make sure you were safe.”
“Am I really that bad off?”
“Well, to be honest, I’ve never seen injuries like these. Combat wounds aren’t exactly a normal occurrence here in the city. The only reason you still have your armor on is because some of it is still fused with your skin.”
The dull thud of combat boots announced the arrival of more company well before it arrived. As they drew near, Celsus saw 4 Deathwatch escorting another Mandalorian through the glass walls that looked out into the hallway. Two of the men posted outside with their backs to the room while the other two followed their escort in. The four Deathwatch were clad in the typical outfit. They were encased in highly customized armor, had a distinct liking for personal jetpacks, and of course, the symbol of clan Viszla was highly emphasized somewhere on their person. The Mandalorian they were escorting, however, was different. He bore no clan markings of any kind and his armor looked far more uniform than theirs, yet it was not standard issue. In fact, Celsus had never seen anything like it.
“Nurse, you may leave.” The man commanded through his helmet speaker. Abruptly nervous, the nurse left without more than an unintelligible stutter. “Now” He continued, “I know you don’t know who I am, so you may call me Nissek. All you need to know is that I am here to find out more about what happened today. You’re lucky to be alive.”
“Yeah, the nurse told me I’m not doing so hot.” Celsus coughed as he relaxed deeper into his raised bed.
“Oh, you survived your wounds well enough, but after a stunt like that several of my men wanted to make sure you never woke up again.”
Confused and incredulous, Celsus asked “Excuse me Nissek, but what are you-
-Don’t even start to play stupid with me son. I don’t want to play that game today. And address me as sir. I have you far outranked. Now, we’ve already surmised that you had a hand in the assassination attempt, the evidence was clear enough on that account. What I want to know are the finer details of the event. First of all, how did you manage to smuggle a Sith assassin within the confines of Keldabe?”
“This must be a bad joke.” Celsus thought. “There’s no other explanation for it.” He sat up and exclaimed, “Nissek, sir, how can you say I did this? I fought the assassin away from the entrance! My wounds have to prove it!” At this exertion his chest once again made its state known and Celsus tried his best to lay back.
“They certainly prove that you fought with the assassin, but alliances with the Sith are well known to be faulty at best. Anyone would have fought for their lives when faced with death as you obviously were.”
Exasperated, he removed his helmet and sat on the edge of the bed. He had a gruff face, but he was clean and presentable with black hair and stern eyes. In a very matter-of-fact manner, he began to explain. “Time is a precious commodity to a man like myself, Ordo, and you are wasting it. I already told you I dislike this game so here is where you stand. We have footage of you disabling the camera moments before the first shots that scrambled the guards to your entrance were heard. We have clear evidence that it was your disintegrator that killed the other guard posted to your entrance. It was a market day, which is a day well known to have very little traffic in that particular alley, and on top of all that, you transferred here and specifically asked to start work today. We know without a doubt that you orchestrated all this so don’t try to pretend you didn’t. You’ll only make it worse for yourself.”
Celsus’ mind was grasping for an answer, “It, it wasn’t me! It was the other guard! He told me to turn off the camera! He tried to kill me!”
“You would stoop so low as to blame him for this? Even after you yourself killed him? The man deserves better than that. Now, if you cooperate we’ll consider it as a measure of atonement that helps us strengthen our security in the future. More importantly, that means you’ll be granted a prison term rather than being sentenced to death. However, if you feel inclined to continue playing this game, I will feel much less inclined to offer you my aid.”
“Sir! You have to believe me, I didn’t do anything! I requested to work today so that I didn’t have to wait a few days with nothing to-
-Stop. I see you won’t take our offer, and I’m hurt by that. I think I’ve been very reasonable in trying to lessen this whole incident, but you obviously won’t cooperate.”
In only the past few seconds, Celsus had noticed a change in him that he couldn’t quite identify. However, as Nissek stood up from the bedside and walked away, Celsus couldn’t help the feeling that a different man was now leaving the room than had entered it. “Where are you going?” Celsus asked.
“I wonder if you really planned all of this on your own.” Hidden beneath its tone of musing the statement seemed pointed in its purpose, but Celsus could not decipher what he had meant by it.
Just outside the door, he addressed the two men who had posted there loudly enough for Celsus to easily hear him. “Stay here and make sure no one but me retrieves him. I’m going to visit his wife.” Just before he turned to leave, Nissek looked directly at Celsus for a brief moment. He gave him a slight, wicked grin, put his helmet back on and then disappeared down the hallway past the corner of his room.
“No!” Celsus thought. “He can’t!” But he could, and the echoing sound of footsteps had already faded away. The two remaining guards closed and locked the tempered glass doors before turning away from him to continue watching the hallway. As the latch clicked and the lock engaged a feeling of helplessness began to set in. Celsus panicked and reached for his holster only to find he had been stripped of his weapons. His stomach began squirming and his chest tightened in rage and fear, tearing and pulling at the edges of his fresh scar. “Damn! There has to be a way out of here! I have to get to them!”
“I could make a fuss and get them in here.” Celsus considered as he tried to quickly put together a plan of escape. “But then what would I do?” He scanned the room for anything he could use offensively, but all he found besides his helmet on one of the counters was a scalpel and a waste bin of used syringes. “Yeah, because I’ll win a blaster fight with those.” Then, he remembered what the nurse had said. ‘…the only reason you still have your armor…’, “I still have my armor!” He looked under the covers of his bed to find exactly what he was hoping for. Whoever had decided to leave his armor on had neglected to remove the stealth field unit from its waist. Celsus removed the IV, rolled over, and sat on the edge of the bed. As he propped himself up, pain shot through his chest like lightning. “This ought to be fun.” He thought while he disconnected the other monitoring equipment and activated his stealth unit.
While Celsus donned his helmet and stepped to the side of the door, the ringing noise made by the monitor slowly caught the attention of one of the guards, who glanced over his shoulder to find that the reason for his annoyance was that there was no longer a man attached to the other end of the machine. As the two Deathwatch rushed through the door to find him, Celsus threw the man closest to him to the ground and broke his forearm cleanly. The other, seeing his partner fall and begin screaming turned toward Celsus, whose stealth unit was failing due to the irregular movements required for combat. Celsus drew the grounded man’s side arm and lunged toward the other, sending a flash of pain through his body. As he fell face first over his grounded victim, Celsus felt the heat of a blaster bolt wash over him only inches from the back of his head. He stopped himself just short of the ground, recovered, and stood to face the guard a second time. With his left hand Celsus pushed the Deathwatch’s rifle straight up causing the second shot to blast a crater in the ceiling as he put the blaster in his right hand just under the man’s collarbone and pulled the trigger.
“I’m sorry” He told them as he removed their helmets to prevent them from calling backup. “These wounds should heal fairly well.”
Celsus reactivated his stealth field generator and snuck out into the hall. There was no one in sight, but from several of the rooms he could hear nervous chatter. “Someone definitely heard that.” He locked the doors behind him and began to walk down the hall when he heard several heavy footsteps running in his direction from somewhere far away. He got to a T-shaped intersection at one end of the hallway and flattened himself against the wall to watch a detail of one hospital security guard followed by four Deathwatch run past him and down the hall to his room. As he took a right down the joined hall and in the direction the detail had come from, Celsus heard radio voices echoing down from around the corner.
“Get Nissek on the line. Tell him Ordo’s escaped. You! Get a key for this door!”
“Damn, I don’t have a lot of time.” He thought. “I need to get home fast if I’m going to beat them there.” After memorizing the radio frequency the helmets were set to Celsus disposed of them in the nearest trash chute and settled into the best run he could manage while keeping both his pain under control and the stealth unit effective. A little ways down the next hallway, Celsus saw the same nurse who had been tending to him and when she wasn’t looking, deactivated his stealth field.
“Sir! What are you doing out of bed!?” She asked when she turned around. She was clearly surprised to see him.
Trying to breathe as calmly as possible, Celsus replied, “Nissek, er, the man who met with me gave me military clearance to leave when I feel up to it, and I do now. Where are my things being stored?”
“Well, they’re in security. You just go to the back of the lobby on the main floor and follow the signs, but I really think you should stay in bed with your condition. Why are you breathing so hard?”
“I’m very eager to go home. Thank you.”
Celsus hurried downstairs after re-activating his stealth unit and quickly found the security section. He snuck past the security desk, avoided the few guards not out looking for him, and eventually wound up at a room labeled equipment. Almost immediately after entering the room, Celsus spotted a box labeled “RIOT”. Most of the equipment he found there served little to no purpose for him, but one item stood out. In a bottom corner of the box, he found yet another box labeled “ADHESIVE” that contained several grenades. “This just might be useful.”
After rummaging through several boxes of miscellaneous contraband, Celsus finally found the bin full of his own equipment and was happy to discover that everything was there. While he armed himself for what was to come, he found they had even left the lightsaber.
Just then an important thought occurred to him. Everything he had done since his escape was the cause of impulse and adrenaline. “What am I going to do now? I have a pistol, a rifle, and a lightsaber against all of Mandalore. Even if I manage to rescue Motu we’ll be hunted down by the entire planet with no rescue coming. She can’t do that, not with Ferrus and Asp.” Then he made an even more important realization. “Nissek is only after them because he knows I care about them. But, what if I didn’t?” At that moment Celsus made the most important decision of not only his, but Motu, Ferrus and Asp’s lives. “Nothing I wouldn’t do…”
In a back alley behind the hospital Celsus entered the radio frequency that he had retrieved from the Deathwatch’s helmets into his own and muted his mic. He recognized it as a special operations channel that was reserved only for Deathwatch. The radio was busy with chatter and what information he could pick out the Sith had still not been captured, but the Deathwatch had enacted patrols to hunt him down. Celsus’ HUD read 19:52, which meant that he had been unconscious longer than he would have liked, but shorter than he had expected. “Now, where is that damn tower?” He thought as he scanned above the rest of the buildings. The sun was dipping low as it turned to dusk, which made the tower fairly easy to find as brightly lit as it was against the dark sky. From the look of it, he was very near the starport. “I hope I’m right this time.” He looked around to find the glow being put off by the high powered lights the starport used at night and set out.
As he made his way there with the aid of his stealth unit, he discovered the starport was actually very close. When he arrived, Celsus crept up to the wall surrounding the port’s military portion and hid in an alley while he assessed how to get in. Soon after settling, though, he realized a shape behind him hadn’t looked right. When he looked a second time, he discovered several hidden Deathwatch observing the Starport in much the same fashion he was. One in particular was only a foot away from him. “Son of a bantha!” he thought while preparing himself. But it quickly became apparent they hadn’t the slightest clue he was there. “Well… now what?”
He thought hard for a moment about what he could do to get to his prize on the other side of the wall. After several minutes of him hoping the Deathwatch would stay content to let him think, he managed to come up with just one plan. “This is going to be risky” Celsus thought. “I’m going to have to move fast once I start.” He took the time to go over it again and again in his mind. He counted out the number of Deathwatch in the alley. “Four, closely grouped. Good.” He breathed a muted sigh inside his helmet and readied one of the adhesive grenades. Slowly and carefully he crept back out of the alley observing the Deathwatch as they unknowingly watched him. When he reached the end of the alley, Celsus primed the grenade, tossed it between all four of them, and ran for the wall.
“Shit!” One of them yelled as the grenade detonated. If the grenade did its job, the four of them would be trapped in incredibly tacky fluorescent blue goo.
Wasting no time, Celsus activated the lightsaber and began cutting a hole in the exterior of the starport wall. His stealth field generator quickly failed as it attempted to conceal the beam of pure energy, leaving Celsus completely exposed on the outside of the wall. “Come on! Come on! That won’t hold them forever!” Chatter and alerts screamed across the radio while he continued cutting. One phrase in particular caught his attention. “We have a unit in proximity. We should be there shortly.”
While he kept pushing the blade of light through solid plasteel, Celsus’ chest shot lightning through his body. Each second alone was a test of will and endurance that threatened to ruin his plan. Time felt like a growing weight on his body as he imagined the Deathwatch somewhere out there closing in on him. Finally, everything lifted when the saber’s trail connected with itself and the section of plasteel teetered to the inside of the wall, making a loud “smack” on the solid floor inside. Relieved, Celsus stepped through the self-made door to his salvation.
It quickly became clear to him, however, that the threat he should have been more worried about was the one he would face on the other side of the wall. As he stepped through the fresh hole, he was greeted with the sight of roughly a dozen starport guards taking aim on him. He jumped back outside the wall barely in time to watch a hail of blasterfire streak through the night behind him. “That’s certainly not good.” Celsus thought while he tried to calm down and suppress the pain in his chest. Hearing a noise from behind him, Celsus saw four Deathwatch in splattered blue armor emerging from the alley to join another squad of four running down the street towards him. “And that is less so.” Reactivating his stealth unit, Celsus moved through the opening as quickly as he could.
He quietly made his way past the guards, who were still waiting for the threat on the other side of the wall to present itself once again, and started picking out starships. The problem was, he couldn’t decide which one would fit his needs the best. “Come on, this is no time to be window shopping.” His decision was made clear, however, when he spied a lone Bes’uliik starfighter in the back of the bay. As he hurried towards it, Celsus heard the sound of blaster fire behind him. He looked over his shoulder to see the starport guards having a standoff with the two Deathwatch squads and heard over the comm., “Someone get on the starport security frequency and tell them to hold their fire!”
The guardsmen were startled suddenly by the sound of a starcraft engine initializing, and turned around in time to watch a Bes’uliik liftoff. Celsus fled the starport as fast as the fighter would take him. As the veil of atmosphere lifted from his sight, Celsus called up the Deathwatch radio frequency and said, “Oh Nissek. You should learn to keep a better eye on your prime suspect. That was almost too easy.”
The radio that had been chattering frequently before was silent. After a few seconds of this, a single, stone-cold voice replied, “You must know your wife and children will suffer for this.” The words expanded and filled his head almost giving him pause. He swallowed his concern and continued.
“Well, if you feel like adding ‘victimizing innocents’ right under ‘practically handing a war criminal the key to his cell’ to your list of accomplishments today go right ahead, but it makes no difference to me.”
“It is a cruel man that can forsake his home and family.”
“I’m not cruel, Nissek. I’m just tired. I’m washing my hand of Mandalore and starting a new life.”
“I will burn you from the sky before I allow you to do that.”
“You can try.”
“I intend to do more than try, Mr. Ordo.” Several pings on Celsus’ radar and weapons trackers sang through the cockpit. The Mandalorian orbital defense fleet was moving to cut him off, as was weapons fire from a pair of Keldabe class battleships. He rolled starboard to avoid long-range fire from the Keldabe’s turbolaser batteries, but saw that a third Keldabe was moving to cut him off from the other direction. As if that weren’t enough, the dozens of new pings on his radar signaled the deployment of several squadrons of Star-Vipers. “Damn it!” Celsus thought “I need to jump!”
As the fighters drew near, Celsus dropped from his path of ascent and fell back to the planet below. With the starfighter squadrons in tow, he cranked the yoke back until he was skimming the planet’s atmosphere. After this, most of the fighters were still hot on his trail, but now he was putting distance between himself and the battleships. “I’ve only got one shot at this. They won’t fall for it twice.” Celsus put the fighter into full burn and began the process of slingshoting himself around the planet. While the Keldabe’s that had been following him fell out of sight and he passed well below the tractor beam range of any other battleships in high orbit, Celsus manually plotted the coordinates for his hyperspace jump.
The Star-Viper’s shape, which did nothing to slow them down in space, caught a tremendous amount drag in this much atmosphere. Celsus was easily losing them when a squeal from the radar warned him of an incoming satellite. He readied the firing controls, took aim, squeezed the trigger, and discovered why a perfectly operational Bes’uliik fighter had been grounded. He lost a considerable amount of speed in his efforts to dodge the obstacle, but remained right on course. According to his radar, however, one of the Star-Vipers behind him was not so lucky. “Was that a weapons malfunction?” Celsus thought, dumbstruck as he looked at the weapons console for a reason the weapons wouldn’t fire. To his dismay, he discovered that it was not a weapons malfunction. There were simply no weapons mounted. “Well that’s just great.”
As he rolled around the other side of the planet, Celsus saw that the three Keldabes had already positioned themselves to intercept him on his current path of travel. Nissek’s cold voice came over the radio again, “You should have known that would be a foolish move. I have you cornered now. Give up.”
“I really hope I’m going fast enough for this to work.”
Celsus continued his slingshot, but instead of letting the craft slip out of orbit as the typical maneuver would entail, he kept skimming low across the atmosphere. The Star-Vipers were now far behind with no hope of catching up to him. Now, however, the Keldabes descended from their position, coming dangerously close as Celsus continued to burn across the sky. An alert bonged loudly through the cockpit and he felt the starfighter groan against the faint tug of a Keldabe’s tractor beam as he passed through the edge of its range. However, the craft seemed as though it were staying on course. “Please be going fast enough.” The Bes’uliik strained and slowed for a few more seconds, but shortly after passing the Keldabe, it returned to full burn and left the three battleships behind.
“Alright, almost there. Here comes the hard part.”
As he pulled away from the Keldabes behind him, Celsus drew closer to the rear of one more that had been at the tail end of the line chasing him through his slingshot around the planet. He hammered his braking thrusters and hauled back on the yoke as hard as he could, causing the starfighter to pull back from the battleship, which had just deployed its own fighter squadrons and was in mid-turn coming about to face him. The forces inside the cockpit were crushing, but Celsus kept the yoke clenched as hard as he could. Status warnings from the internal components hollered and flashed across his HUD, pings from the radar sang through the cockpit, medical monitors screamed, and proximity and weapons alarms squealed as he continued to hang on to the yoke for his life. In addition to all this, the line across Celsus’ body felt as if it would rip open any second. “Almost, there…”
Just as the battleship in front of him and the three behind threatened to close in on him from all sides, he was able get the craft’s nose perpendicular to the path of his pursuers and straight away from the planet. The instant he managed this, Celsus maxed out the throttle and slipped through the one temporary hole in the blockade.
After easily dodging a few desperate volleys of long-range fire, Celsus put an orbiting moon between him and the pursuing fleet. He sighed in relief and tried to relax his chest as best as he could within the restraints of the cockpit seat. However, as he initialized the hyperspace sequence, something outside the cockpit caught his eye. Celsus turned to look and saw the last thing in the universe he had expected. Silhouetted against the moon was the shape of a Sith stealth fighter.
Celsus cancelled his jump to hyperspace and rolled the nose of his Bes’uliik over towards the Sith’s craft. He then readied the firing controls, took aim, squeezed the trigger, and remembered why a perfectly operational Bes’uliik starfighter had been grounded. “NO!” Celsus screamed inside his fighter. Without an astromech droid to plot the craft’s course, all he could do was watch helplessly as the Sith who singlehandedly ruined his life slipped away into hyperspace.
Feeling defeated, he re-initialized the hyperspace sequence. As he came around the other side of the moon, Celsus looked up at the sun and thought once more of Motu. The image of her lying in the morning sunlight returned to him and he imagined her green eyes in that same light. “I should have woken her up.” His thoughts wandered back to Keldabe, and as the rays of sunlight pierced through the cockpit and washed over his face, Celsus Ordo fled from the first day of the rest of his life.
Thinking of her, Celsus turned around to see his wife sleeping soundly. The auburn hair that normally fell to her shoulders had spread itself unevenly in messy wisps across her face. From the bridge of her nose down, her skin and what hair had caught the morning sun was glowing warmly in the light while her eyes were protected by his shadow. Making sure to block the sunlight, Celsus stepped across the room to the window and drew the shutters closed. Motu had been awake nearly all night tending to their children and now that she was asleep, he wanted to let her stay that way as long as possible.
Celsus changed from his cloth casuals into his armor, checking and re-checking to make sure he had every piece of equipment he would need. Once he had finished he stood, helmet in hand, over the crib holding his twin children. They both looked very similar to each other except for the few strands of hair that clung to the top of their heads. His son, Ferrus, had brown hair much like his own where his daughter, Asp, had hair closer in color to that of her mother’s, albeit much brighter. The two of them were fast asleep, which was very likely the reason Motu was as well. As he looked at them he couldn’t help but think that they were the reason he and Motu requested to be stationed here. They were the reason the morning light did not wake them up for the sabotage of a munitions depot or the assassination of a key officer. They were the reason he had to stand guard in the middle of a city for hours a day. With a smirk he thought, “There is nothing I wouldn’t do for you”.
As he donned his helmet and opened the front door, Celsus looked back into his room to catch one more glimpse of Motu. For just a moment he thought of waking her up. He imagined her green eyes in the morning sun and almost gave in to the idea before he finally convinced himself she needed the sleep.
As Celsus walked through Keldabe, rifle in hand, he took in the sights of the city. He had been given a cursory tour upon his arrival the day before, but he still found it somewhat difficult to navigate such a large place. Especially with so much of it built so similarly. He had always been very good at knowing where he was, but this city was not the kind of terrain he was used to. “It all just looks the same after a while. That tower’s about the only landmark around here.” The streets were filled with people to the point that he could barely see the buildings around him as he passed through the open square in front of the Oyu’baat Tapcaf. ‘Tomorrow is a market day, so you may find the streets to be a little crowded.’ He remembered the guide telling him as he waded through the masses of people and vendor’s carts. A short ways after he cleared the square he noticed that there were considerably less people around. “The market must be what everyone’s doing today.”
He continued on, soon finding himself at the starport, and swore in his native Mando’an. He looked for the tower again and found he was on the wrong side of it. ‘The pilots often use MandalMotors tower as a landmark to help them find the starport.’ The tour guide had been explaining to him. As he continued on, hopefully in the right direction, Celsus mumbled to himself, “That’s because it’s the only thing that stands out in this damn place.”
After he wandered a while longer past the tower, he made out the edge of a granite building around the corner a few streets away. “There you are.” He made his way around to a back alley behind MandalMotors hall where an unhappy guardsman was probably waiting to be relieved. To his surprise, when he approached the entrance, there was only one guard on post.
“Where’s your partner?” Celsus asked. His thick clan Ordo accent made the question sound far more intimidating than he meant.
“I’m looking at him.” The other Mandalorian barked, a little startled. “You’re late.”
“But, shouldn’t there have been someone else here?”
“Yeah, probably.” He replied nervously, “But he was getting pretty tired waiting for you so I just told him to go home.”
“Sorry about that. It’s absolutely impossible to navigate this place. I wound up at the starport before I got here.” He thought for a moment before adding, “You know that’s against regulations, right?”
The other man lowered his gaze. It was clear he was uneasy.
“Don’t worry” Celsus reassured him, “I won’t tell anyone, and I won’t be this late any more. I should have my bearings well enough now. Just don’t do it again.”
“Yeah, sure.”
After a few minutes of Celsus scanning back and forth down the alley. He realized that the man on guard next to him was acting fairly awkward. Out of his peripheral vision he saw his partner repeatedly glancing towards him and then quickly away again as if he wanted to speak but couldn’t convince himself to. “Must not be comfortable with silence.” He thought before asking him, “Why aren’t there any people around here?”
“Uh, most everyone that isn’t already doing something is at the market today. It’s pretty normal not to see anyone down this alley on market days.”
“Oh, ok. I suppose that makes sense. Just makes our jobs easier right?” He said laughing a little in an attempt to lighten the mood.
The other man chuckled awkwardly before saying, “Yeah. You would think more people would be coming to the hall today to hear Mand’alor speak.”
Incredulously Celsus asked, “Mand’alor is here today?”
“Yeah, he’s meeting with the clan leaders about something. It doesn’t really matter though. You and I won’t get to see him unless he decides to leave through this entrance and I wouldn’t pick the slummy alleyway if I were him.”
“It’s still a fun thought though. By the way, how did you know he would be here today? I wasn’t told during my briefing.”
“Oh, uh, a friend of mine who works inside the hall told me.” After a brief pause he continued by asking, “By the way, can I get you to do me a favor?”
“I already told you, I’m not going to tell anyone. It’s fine.”
“No, not that. Are you any good mechanically?”
“Yeah, I’m alright. Why?”
“The camera up there hasn’t been recording lately even though it says it is and the techs still haven’t gotten to it. Do you think you could take a look at it? There’s a ladder right inside the entrance there.”
“Oh, yeah sure. No problem.”
Celsus retrieved the ladder and climbed up to the camera. When he opened the access panel on the side, everything read positive and operational. “Hey, everything says it’s working.” He said to the other guardsman.
“That’s what it always says.” He replied over his shoulder “Here, try shutting it off and turning it back on again.”
“Uh, I don’t mean to a rules kind of guy, but that’s against regulations too.”
“Uh, naw, don’t worry about it. I have a camera installed in my helmet. I’ll run it until you get the thing back on.”
“Ok, that should work.” Celsus said. He found the main power switch and with a little force turned the camera off. After the loud metal clang that the switch made was finished reverberating down the alleyway Celsus thought he should keep the small talk going.
“I never did get your name.”
“I would prefer you didn’t know it.” The guard said behind him.
“What the hell kind of answer is that?” Celsus thought as he turned around on the ladder. When he saw the other guard, he had drawn his side-arm and barely settled it on Celsus’ head.
Celsus released his grip on the ladder and started to slide. As he did so, a blaster bolt grazed past his helmet, leaving a slight burn mark, and demolishing the camera he had been working on. When he hit the ground he bent his knees, fell, and rolled backward while drawing his own side-arm. As he stood from his roll, weapon in hand, another blaster bolt scored the street where he had landed at the bottom of the ladder. He leveled his sights and with a squeeze of his disintegrator’s trigger, the other man’s head burst into a gray dust and wafted away down the alley as his body collapsed to the ground.
“I should thank you for disposing of him. That’s one less fool for me to deal with.” A sick, muffled voice behind him resonated. With the weight of the voice heavy in his head Celsus turned to face a dark, cloaked figure holding a metal handle. A low rumble leeched from somewhere deep in his chest as he continued, “There is no place for traitors among our ranks. Now, I must gain entrance to this building. Stand aside or die like him.”
“Of course. Mand’alor.” Celsus muttered under his breath. While thinking to himself he looked back over his shoulder at the headless body behind him. “He betrayed Mand’alor!”
“Aren’t you clever?” Rasped the figure’s sarcasm laced voice. “Now stand aside. I will not tell you again.”
Celsus looked back at the shadow before him defiantly, reached for his stealth field generator, and disappeared.
“So be it.” The dark figure mumbled as he let down his hood. Celsus now looked into the red eyes of a Chiss, whose skin was closer to a sickly purple than the typical blue shared by the rest of the species. As the man’s handle burst into a crimson beam of light, it became apparent to Celsus that he was facing a Sith.
In all his years of military work, Celsus had never faced a Sith capable of wielding the mystical power they called “the Force” head on. But the lightsaber was a sure sign that this one was more than just capable. As the Chiss advanced forward Celsus flanked silently to his left. “With his saber in his right hand, he should have less reaction time if I strike from here.” He didn’t know much about the Force, but one thing he knew for certain was that lightsabers were no laughing matter.
“Your thoughts waste no time in betraying you.” The Sith grumbled aloud. “I know your strategy. Give up! You have already lost…”
“This is just psychological warfare.” Celsus thought. “He’s trying to get me to reveal my position.”
Celsus waited for a few precious moments, allowing the taunt to pass. He then took aim and sent three shots ripping towards their target. In blinding response the Chiss whirled and jumped backwards bringing his blade between him and the first shot. The second flew low by inches while he was airborne, and upon his landing the third dissipated into the red blade that rose to protect its wielder’s face. From behind the blade that complemented them, the Chiss’ blood red eyes gleamed malevolently at Celsus, whose stealth field had been dissipated by the blaster fire.
Celsus stared in silent terror. “What was that!?” He thought. “How can I kill something that fast?”
Without a word the Sith charged Celsus with his saber held down to his side. Desperately, Celsus charged in return, firing another two shots. His Sith opponent swept the tip of his saber across the ground in front of his feet, igniting a shower of sparks in front of him. Somewhere in the midst of this display, the red line of his saber intercepted the first shot. He then swiftly delivered a high backhand to the second to avoid losing his arm. “I have to try.” Celsus thought as he reached for the Sith’s wrist, which was outstretched and raised from his last deflection. To Celsus’ dismay, his opponent was far faster than he had hoped and the Sith easily retraced the saber’s path to meet him. Celsus realized his mistake and arched back only far enough to save his life. The tip of the lightsaber burned its way easily through Celsus’ armor and seared a line across the surface of his body the entire length between his left shoulder and his right hip.
The pain was no less than excruciating as it surged through his body. He had never, in all his experiences, had to feel a pain quite like this. He did not bleed, but it was little consolation. As the lightsaber burned his body, it cauterized the flesh and blood behind it, creating a scabbed wound roughly two feet across his chest. The combination of seared nerve endings and cracked skin and blood sent pain coursing through his body in an instant that seemed to him more like a thousand. The Sith turned to deliver a finishing backhand slash that slowly crept ever closer and still his thoughts were consumed by pain. Finally, for a moment, above his pain and his fear and all other things, Celsus’ thoughts rose to his family. “I will see them again!” He stopped the Sith’s swing halfway up his arm and slid his hands to his foe’s wrist. Similtaneously, Celsus deactivated the lightsaber blade and twisted the Sith’s wrist into a solid butterfly lock before clamping one hand on the Sith’s wrist, the other on his elbow, and throwing the him over his shoulder and several feet down the alleyway. After the Sith deftly regained his balance mid-air and landed solidly on his feet, he looked to his right hand to reactivate his lightsaber and found it was not there.
Standing defiantly between him and the entrance, Celsus took the burning crimson blade in hand and declared: “Stand down, or die like him.”
“You stupid Mandalorian! A lightsaber is simply a tool. The Force is what ensures your death today!”
Celsus charged the Chiss and with all his might he swung a blow meant to decapitate his enemy. However, as Celsus reached him, the Sith opened his palms, causing an unseen force to lift Celsus from his feet and fling him past the entrance and down the other end of the alleyway. He landed hard on his side, rolled over onto his stomach, and skidded the rest of the distance down the alleyway. Celsus involuntarily gasped as his fresh would was drug across the ground, bringing it back to mind once again. After he skidded to a halt Celsus lay in the dirt trying to summon the strength to stand and hoping the Sith did not kill him before he could. When he finally pushed past his renewed pain and recovered, Celsus saw the Sith in the same place he had been clutching his eye with one hand and the ground with his other. It seemed his attempt had not entirely missed its mark.
“Curse you!” His leeching voice hissed with wretched disdain, “With all the power at my disposal I will ensure you a slow, agonizing defeat before you DIE!” With that, lightning arced between the Sith’s spread fingertips and Celsus’ body. After only a few seconds of the torment, Celsus let go of a scream that felt as though it would split the fresh gash across his chest wide open. His body was on fire, his nerves were ablaze, his synapses sparked and crackled, and every second was composed of pulsing agony. His lungs contorted within him as his body made a futile attempt to continue his scream. At the very moment he felt he may actually die, a volley of blaster fire heralded the end of his torment. As he fell to the ground, he caught a glimpse of his salvation. Several Mandalorian guards emerged from the entrance between him and his opponent and set up a firing line. His vision began to fade, and the last image Celsus saw before he blacked out was the Sith’s fleeing figure.
When he awoke, Celsus sat straight up in preparation for some unseen threat that had been lurking in the back of his mind. This not only frightened the nurse attending to him, but nearly ripped the IV from his skin.
“It’s ok! It’s ok. You’re safe.” The nurse said in a soothing tone. She was a short girl with brown hair and kind eyes, but she also had a self-assured demeanor about her. As Celsus relaxed back into the bed, his chest reminded him of the events leading up to now. He grunted in pain and the nurse rushed to a cabinet of medicine to retrieve a large jar with a rubber top on it and a staggering amount of medical jargon written across it in small lettering.
“Here, let me give you some pain killers.”
“No!” He said, once again startling the girl who was already at the IV. “I like to stay alert.”
Rubbing his arm where the IV had tried to make its escape, he asked the nurse, “What happened? Am I in the hospital?”
“You sustained some very serious injuries, so they took you here. They’ll be back any time, but you should still stay in bed. Your wounds need time to heal.”
“Who are they?” He asked
“I don’t really know. I think some of them were from Deathwatch.” She said while returning the jar to its appropriate place. “They must have really wanted to make sure you were safe.”
“Am I really that bad off?”
“Well, to be honest, I’ve never seen injuries like these. Combat wounds aren’t exactly a normal occurrence here in the city. The only reason you still have your armor on is because some of it is still fused with your skin.”
The dull thud of combat boots announced the arrival of more company well before it arrived. As they drew near, Celsus saw 4 Deathwatch escorting another Mandalorian through the glass walls that looked out into the hallway. Two of the men posted outside with their backs to the room while the other two followed their escort in. The four Deathwatch were clad in the typical outfit. They were encased in highly customized armor, had a distinct liking for personal jetpacks, and of course, the symbol of clan Viszla was highly emphasized somewhere on their person. The Mandalorian they were escorting, however, was different. He bore no clan markings of any kind and his armor looked far more uniform than theirs, yet it was not standard issue. In fact, Celsus had never seen anything like it.
“Nurse, you may leave.” The man commanded through his helmet speaker. Abruptly nervous, the nurse left without more than an unintelligible stutter. “Now” He continued, “I know you don’t know who I am, so you may call me Nissek. All you need to know is that I am here to find out more about what happened today. You’re lucky to be alive.”
“Yeah, the nurse told me I’m not doing so hot.” Celsus coughed as he relaxed deeper into his raised bed.
“Oh, you survived your wounds well enough, but after a stunt like that several of my men wanted to make sure you never woke up again.”
Confused and incredulous, Celsus asked “Excuse me Nissek, but what are you-
-Don’t even start to play stupid with me son. I don’t want to play that game today. And address me as sir. I have you far outranked. Now, we’ve already surmised that you had a hand in the assassination attempt, the evidence was clear enough on that account. What I want to know are the finer details of the event. First of all, how did you manage to smuggle a Sith assassin within the confines of Keldabe?”
“This must be a bad joke.” Celsus thought. “There’s no other explanation for it.” He sat up and exclaimed, “Nissek, sir, how can you say I did this? I fought the assassin away from the entrance! My wounds have to prove it!” At this exertion his chest once again made its state known and Celsus tried his best to lay back.
“They certainly prove that you fought with the assassin, but alliances with the Sith are well known to be faulty at best. Anyone would have fought for their lives when faced with death as you obviously were.”
Exasperated, he removed his helmet and sat on the edge of the bed. He had a gruff face, but he was clean and presentable with black hair and stern eyes. In a very matter-of-fact manner, he began to explain. “Time is a precious commodity to a man like myself, Ordo, and you are wasting it. I already told you I dislike this game so here is where you stand. We have footage of you disabling the camera moments before the first shots that scrambled the guards to your entrance were heard. We have clear evidence that it was your disintegrator that killed the other guard posted to your entrance. It was a market day, which is a day well known to have very little traffic in that particular alley, and on top of all that, you transferred here and specifically asked to start work today. We know without a doubt that you orchestrated all this so don’t try to pretend you didn’t. You’ll only make it worse for yourself.”
Celsus’ mind was grasping for an answer, “It, it wasn’t me! It was the other guard! He told me to turn off the camera! He tried to kill me!”
“You would stoop so low as to blame him for this? Even after you yourself killed him? The man deserves better than that. Now, if you cooperate we’ll consider it as a measure of atonement that helps us strengthen our security in the future. More importantly, that means you’ll be granted a prison term rather than being sentenced to death. However, if you feel inclined to continue playing this game, I will feel much less inclined to offer you my aid.”
“Sir! You have to believe me, I didn’t do anything! I requested to work today so that I didn’t have to wait a few days with nothing to-
-Stop. I see you won’t take our offer, and I’m hurt by that. I think I’ve been very reasonable in trying to lessen this whole incident, but you obviously won’t cooperate.”
In only the past few seconds, Celsus had noticed a change in him that he couldn’t quite identify. However, as Nissek stood up from the bedside and walked away, Celsus couldn’t help the feeling that a different man was now leaving the room than had entered it. “Where are you going?” Celsus asked.
“I wonder if you really planned all of this on your own.” Hidden beneath its tone of musing the statement seemed pointed in its purpose, but Celsus could not decipher what he had meant by it.
Just outside the door, he addressed the two men who had posted there loudly enough for Celsus to easily hear him. “Stay here and make sure no one but me retrieves him. I’m going to visit his wife.” Just before he turned to leave, Nissek looked directly at Celsus for a brief moment. He gave him a slight, wicked grin, put his helmet back on and then disappeared down the hallway past the corner of his room.
“No!” Celsus thought. “He can’t!” But he could, and the echoing sound of footsteps had already faded away. The two remaining guards closed and locked the tempered glass doors before turning away from him to continue watching the hallway. As the latch clicked and the lock engaged a feeling of helplessness began to set in. Celsus panicked and reached for his holster only to find he had been stripped of his weapons. His stomach began squirming and his chest tightened in rage and fear, tearing and pulling at the edges of his fresh scar. “Damn! There has to be a way out of here! I have to get to them!”
“I could make a fuss and get them in here.” Celsus considered as he tried to quickly put together a plan of escape. “But then what would I do?” He scanned the room for anything he could use offensively, but all he found besides his helmet on one of the counters was a scalpel and a waste bin of used syringes. “Yeah, because I’ll win a blaster fight with those.” Then, he remembered what the nurse had said. ‘…the only reason you still have your armor…’, “I still have my armor!” He looked under the covers of his bed to find exactly what he was hoping for. Whoever had decided to leave his armor on had neglected to remove the stealth field unit from its waist. Celsus removed the IV, rolled over, and sat on the edge of the bed. As he propped himself up, pain shot through his chest like lightning. “This ought to be fun.” He thought while he disconnected the other monitoring equipment and activated his stealth unit.
While Celsus donned his helmet and stepped to the side of the door, the ringing noise made by the monitor slowly caught the attention of one of the guards, who glanced over his shoulder to find that the reason for his annoyance was that there was no longer a man attached to the other end of the machine. As the two Deathwatch rushed through the door to find him, Celsus threw the man closest to him to the ground and broke his forearm cleanly. The other, seeing his partner fall and begin screaming turned toward Celsus, whose stealth unit was failing due to the irregular movements required for combat. Celsus drew the grounded man’s side arm and lunged toward the other, sending a flash of pain through his body. As he fell face first over his grounded victim, Celsus felt the heat of a blaster bolt wash over him only inches from the back of his head. He stopped himself just short of the ground, recovered, and stood to face the guard a second time. With his left hand Celsus pushed the Deathwatch’s rifle straight up causing the second shot to blast a crater in the ceiling as he put the blaster in his right hand just under the man’s collarbone and pulled the trigger.
“I’m sorry” He told them as he removed their helmets to prevent them from calling backup. “These wounds should heal fairly well.”
Celsus reactivated his stealth field generator and snuck out into the hall. There was no one in sight, but from several of the rooms he could hear nervous chatter. “Someone definitely heard that.” He locked the doors behind him and began to walk down the hall when he heard several heavy footsteps running in his direction from somewhere far away. He got to a T-shaped intersection at one end of the hallway and flattened himself against the wall to watch a detail of one hospital security guard followed by four Deathwatch run past him and down the hall to his room. As he took a right down the joined hall and in the direction the detail had come from, Celsus heard radio voices echoing down from around the corner.
“Get Nissek on the line. Tell him Ordo’s escaped. You! Get a key for this door!”
“Damn, I don’t have a lot of time.” He thought. “I need to get home fast if I’m going to beat them there.” After memorizing the radio frequency the helmets were set to Celsus disposed of them in the nearest trash chute and settled into the best run he could manage while keeping both his pain under control and the stealth unit effective. A little ways down the next hallway, Celsus saw the same nurse who had been tending to him and when she wasn’t looking, deactivated his stealth field.
“Sir! What are you doing out of bed!?” She asked when she turned around. She was clearly surprised to see him.
Trying to breathe as calmly as possible, Celsus replied, “Nissek, er, the man who met with me gave me military clearance to leave when I feel up to it, and I do now. Where are my things being stored?”
“Well, they’re in security. You just go to the back of the lobby on the main floor and follow the signs, but I really think you should stay in bed with your condition. Why are you breathing so hard?”
“I’m very eager to go home. Thank you.”
Celsus hurried downstairs after re-activating his stealth unit and quickly found the security section. He snuck past the security desk, avoided the few guards not out looking for him, and eventually wound up at a room labeled equipment. Almost immediately after entering the room, Celsus spotted a box labeled “RIOT”. Most of the equipment he found there served little to no purpose for him, but one item stood out. In a bottom corner of the box, he found yet another box labeled “ADHESIVE” that contained several grenades. “This just might be useful.”
After rummaging through several boxes of miscellaneous contraband, Celsus finally found the bin full of his own equipment and was happy to discover that everything was there. While he armed himself for what was to come, he found they had even left the lightsaber.
Just then an important thought occurred to him. Everything he had done since his escape was the cause of impulse and adrenaline. “What am I going to do now? I have a pistol, a rifle, and a lightsaber against all of Mandalore. Even if I manage to rescue Motu we’ll be hunted down by the entire planet with no rescue coming. She can’t do that, not with Ferrus and Asp.” Then he made an even more important realization. “Nissek is only after them because he knows I care about them. But, what if I didn’t?” At that moment Celsus made the most important decision of not only his, but Motu, Ferrus and Asp’s lives. “Nothing I wouldn’t do…”
In a back alley behind the hospital Celsus entered the radio frequency that he had retrieved from the Deathwatch’s helmets into his own and muted his mic. He recognized it as a special operations channel that was reserved only for Deathwatch. The radio was busy with chatter and what information he could pick out the Sith had still not been captured, but the Deathwatch had enacted patrols to hunt him down. Celsus’ HUD read 19:52, which meant that he had been unconscious longer than he would have liked, but shorter than he had expected. “Now, where is that damn tower?” He thought as he scanned above the rest of the buildings. The sun was dipping low as it turned to dusk, which made the tower fairly easy to find as brightly lit as it was against the dark sky. From the look of it, he was very near the starport. “I hope I’m right this time.” He looked around to find the glow being put off by the high powered lights the starport used at night and set out.
As he made his way there with the aid of his stealth unit, he discovered the starport was actually very close. When he arrived, Celsus crept up to the wall surrounding the port’s military portion and hid in an alley while he assessed how to get in. Soon after settling, though, he realized a shape behind him hadn’t looked right. When he looked a second time, he discovered several hidden Deathwatch observing the Starport in much the same fashion he was. One in particular was only a foot away from him. “Son of a bantha!” he thought while preparing himself. But it quickly became apparent they hadn’t the slightest clue he was there. “Well… now what?”
He thought hard for a moment about what he could do to get to his prize on the other side of the wall. After several minutes of him hoping the Deathwatch would stay content to let him think, he managed to come up with just one plan. “This is going to be risky” Celsus thought. “I’m going to have to move fast once I start.” He took the time to go over it again and again in his mind. He counted out the number of Deathwatch in the alley. “Four, closely grouped. Good.” He breathed a muted sigh inside his helmet and readied one of the adhesive grenades. Slowly and carefully he crept back out of the alley observing the Deathwatch as they unknowingly watched him. When he reached the end of the alley, Celsus primed the grenade, tossed it between all four of them, and ran for the wall.
“Shit!” One of them yelled as the grenade detonated. If the grenade did its job, the four of them would be trapped in incredibly tacky fluorescent blue goo.
Wasting no time, Celsus activated the lightsaber and began cutting a hole in the exterior of the starport wall. His stealth field generator quickly failed as it attempted to conceal the beam of pure energy, leaving Celsus completely exposed on the outside of the wall. “Come on! Come on! That won’t hold them forever!” Chatter and alerts screamed across the radio while he continued cutting. One phrase in particular caught his attention. “We have a unit in proximity. We should be there shortly.”
While he kept pushing the blade of light through solid plasteel, Celsus’ chest shot lightning through his body. Each second alone was a test of will and endurance that threatened to ruin his plan. Time felt like a growing weight on his body as he imagined the Deathwatch somewhere out there closing in on him. Finally, everything lifted when the saber’s trail connected with itself and the section of plasteel teetered to the inside of the wall, making a loud “smack” on the solid floor inside. Relieved, Celsus stepped through the self-made door to his salvation.
It quickly became clear to him, however, that the threat he should have been more worried about was the one he would face on the other side of the wall. As he stepped through the fresh hole, he was greeted with the sight of roughly a dozen starport guards taking aim on him. He jumped back outside the wall barely in time to watch a hail of blasterfire streak through the night behind him. “That’s certainly not good.” Celsus thought while he tried to calm down and suppress the pain in his chest. Hearing a noise from behind him, Celsus saw four Deathwatch in splattered blue armor emerging from the alley to join another squad of four running down the street towards him. “And that is less so.” Reactivating his stealth unit, Celsus moved through the opening as quickly as he could.
He quietly made his way past the guards, who were still waiting for the threat on the other side of the wall to present itself once again, and started picking out starships. The problem was, he couldn’t decide which one would fit his needs the best. “Come on, this is no time to be window shopping.” His decision was made clear, however, when he spied a lone Bes’uliik starfighter in the back of the bay. As he hurried towards it, Celsus heard the sound of blaster fire behind him. He looked over his shoulder to see the starport guards having a standoff with the two Deathwatch squads and heard over the comm., “Someone get on the starport security frequency and tell them to hold their fire!”
The guardsmen were startled suddenly by the sound of a starcraft engine initializing, and turned around in time to watch a Bes’uliik liftoff. Celsus fled the starport as fast as the fighter would take him. As the veil of atmosphere lifted from his sight, Celsus called up the Deathwatch radio frequency and said, “Oh Nissek. You should learn to keep a better eye on your prime suspect. That was almost too easy.”
The radio that had been chattering frequently before was silent. After a few seconds of this, a single, stone-cold voice replied, “You must know your wife and children will suffer for this.” The words expanded and filled his head almost giving him pause. He swallowed his concern and continued.
“Well, if you feel like adding ‘victimizing innocents’ right under ‘practically handing a war criminal the key to his cell’ to your list of accomplishments today go right ahead, but it makes no difference to me.”
“It is a cruel man that can forsake his home and family.”
“I’m not cruel, Nissek. I’m just tired. I’m washing my hand of Mandalore and starting a new life.”
“I will burn you from the sky before I allow you to do that.”
“You can try.”
“I intend to do more than try, Mr. Ordo.” Several pings on Celsus’ radar and weapons trackers sang through the cockpit. The Mandalorian orbital defense fleet was moving to cut him off, as was weapons fire from a pair of Keldabe class battleships. He rolled starboard to avoid long-range fire from the Keldabe’s turbolaser batteries, but saw that a third Keldabe was moving to cut him off from the other direction. As if that weren’t enough, the dozens of new pings on his radar signaled the deployment of several squadrons of Star-Vipers. “Damn it!” Celsus thought “I need to jump!”
As the fighters drew near, Celsus dropped from his path of ascent and fell back to the planet below. With the starfighter squadrons in tow, he cranked the yoke back until he was skimming the planet’s atmosphere. After this, most of the fighters were still hot on his trail, but now he was putting distance between himself and the battleships. “I’ve only got one shot at this. They won’t fall for it twice.” Celsus put the fighter into full burn and began the process of slingshoting himself around the planet. While the Keldabe’s that had been following him fell out of sight and he passed well below the tractor beam range of any other battleships in high orbit, Celsus manually plotted the coordinates for his hyperspace jump.
The Star-Viper’s shape, which did nothing to slow them down in space, caught a tremendous amount drag in this much atmosphere. Celsus was easily losing them when a squeal from the radar warned him of an incoming satellite. He readied the firing controls, took aim, squeezed the trigger, and discovered why a perfectly operational Bes’uliik fighter had been grounded. He lost a considerable amount of speed in his efforts to dodge the obstacle, but remained right on course. According to his radar, however, one of the Star-Vipers behind him was not so lucky. “Was that a weapons malfunction?” Celsus thought, dumbstruck as he looked at the weapons console for a reason the weapons wouldn’t fire. To his dismay, he discovered that it was not a weapons malfunction. There were simply no weapons mounted. “Well that’s just great.”
As he rolled around the other side of the planet, Celsus saw that the three Keldabes had already positioned themselves to intercept him on his current path of travel. Nissek’s cold voice came over the radio again, “You should have known that would be a foolish move. I have you cornered now. Give up.”
“I really hope I’m going fast enough for this to work.”
Celsus continued his slingshot, but instead of letting the craft slip out of orbit as the typical maneuver would entail, he kept skimming low across the atmosphere. The Star-Vipers were now far behind with no hope of catching up to him. Now, however, the Keldabes descended from their position, coming dangerously close as Celsus continued to burn across the sky. An alert bonged loudly through the cockpit and he felt the starfighter groan against the faint tug of a Keldabe’s tractor beam as he passed through the edge of its range. However, the craft seemed as though it were staying on course. “Please be going fast enough.” The Bes’uliik strained and slowed for a few more seconds, but shortly after passing the Keldabe, it returned to full burn and left the three battleships behind.
“Alright, almost there. Here comes the hard part.”
As he pulled away from the Keldabes behind him, Celsus drew closer to the rear of one more that had been at the tail end of the line chasing him through his slingshot around the planet. He hammered his braking thrusters and hauled back on the yoke as hard as he could, causing the starfighter to pull back from the battleship, which had just deployed its own fighter squadrons and was in mid-turn coming about to face him. The forces inside the cockpit were crushing, but Celsus kept the yoke clenched as hard as he could. Status warnings from the internal components hollered and flashed across his HUD, pings from the radar sang through the cockpit, medical monitors screamed, and proximity and weapons alarms squealed as he continued to hang on to the yoke for his life. In addition to all this, the line across Celsus’ body felt as if it would rip open any second. “Almost, there…”
Just as the battleship in front of him and the three behind threatened to close in on him from all sides, he was able get the craft’s nose perpendicular to the path of his pursuers and straight away from the planet. The instant he managed this, Celsus maxed out the throttle and slipped through the one temporary hole in the blockade.
After easily dodging a few desperate volleys of long-range fire, Celsus put an orbiting moon between him and the pursuing fleet. He sighed in relief and tried to relax his chest as best as he could within the restraints of the cockpit seat. However, as he initialized the hyperspace sequence, something outside the cockpit caught his eye. Celsus turned to look and saw the last thing in the universe he had expected. Silhouetted against the moon was the shape of a Sith stealth fighter.
Celsus cancelled his jump to hyperspace and rolled the nose of his Bes’uliik over towards the Sith’s craft. He then readied the firing controls, took aim, squeezed the trigger, and remembered why a perfectly operational Bes’uliik starfighter had been grounded. “NO!” Celsus screamed inside his fighter. Without an astromech droid to plot the craft’s course, all he could do was watch helplessly as the Sith who singlehandedly ruined his life slipped away into hyperspace.
Feeling defeated, he re-initialized the hyperspace sequence. As he came around the other side of the moon, Celsus looked up at the sun and thought once more of Motu. The image of her lying in the morning sunlight returned to him and he imagined her green eyes in that same light. “I should have woken her up.” His thoughts wandered back to Keldabe, and as the rays of sunlight pierced through the cockpit and washed over his face, Celsus Ordo fled from the first day of the rest of his life.