Table of Contents:

• Part One: Vanya Urai:
• Chapter One: Solo Mission------------------------------------------------------------------Page 1.
• Chapter Two: Picking Up the Pieces------------------------------------------------------Page 2.
• Chapter Three: A New Beginning---------------------------------------------------------Page 5.
• Part Two: Rakan Kowl:
• Chapter One: Pandora's Planet------------------------------------------------------------Page 6.
• Chapter Two: Monster of the Mists-------------------------------------------------------Page 9.
• Chapter Three: Closing Pandora's Box--------------------------------------------------Page 11.
• Part Three: RO-0K, Raxle Alucard, and Bestin:
• Chapter One: The Delivery------------------------------------------------------------------Page 12.
• Chapter Two: The Betrayal------------------------------------------------------------------Page 14.
• Chapter Three: Meetings--------------------------------------------------------------------Page 18.
• Part Four: Cadena Ralvem, Sienna Ralvem, Magna Barda, and Aleena Ti:
• Chapter One: Out of Darkness-------------------------------------------------------------Page 22.

Part One: Vanya Urai.
Chapter One: Solo Mission
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In the last few moments before exiting hyperspace, Vanya runs through the plan again in her mind “land in the starport on the outskirts of the city, find the base of the planetary defense force, and get the intel. Find out what the separatists are up to in our sector. If all goes well, this will be my first solo mission completed.” The alarm sounds and she pulls back on the lever, dropping the old GS-100 Salvage Ship out of hyperspace. She feels her heart skip a beat as she is confronted by a large Separatist fleet. Nine capital ships, including a Providence, and several troopships.

Vanya scowls at the assembled fleet as she sets the GS-100 on approach to the spaceport, setting her sensors to record the data on the ships as she passes. What are you up to, way out here... she wonders aloud as she passes into the atmosphere. She keys the com and hails the spaceport's air traffic control, ATC, this is Salvage Ship NRS-99YS-QA, requesting birth assignment.

Copy, NRS-99YS-QA, you are cleared to land at pad Cresh-15. Transmitting coordinates now. The console beeps as it receives the coordinates and navigational data.

Acknowledged ATC, beginning my approach. She called, then switched off the com and proceeded to land in the designated pad. Once she landed, she powered down the engines, secured the controls, lowered the ramp. As she walked down the ramp, she pulled an old canvas poncho over her head and pulled up the hood and began walking the streets...

As she walked past shops and little stalls, she would pause and browse their wares and sample their food, looking for all the world as just another weary spacer sampling the local businesses.

She was absently munching some sort of fried meat on a stick when she came across the Planetary Defense Force's compound. She moved to a nearby shop, using the windows reflection to look at the security at the gate for a moment before continuing on along the perimeter fence to look for other ways into the compound...

After a quick look around, Vanya couldn't find another way inside, Well, She sighed, front door it is.. she made her way back to the front gate and reached to the Force, projecting an illusion into the minds of the guards, making herself invisible to their senses.. She carefully made her way past the two guard shacks into the compound, and made her way towards what looked like the main admin building..

As Vanya tries to snoop around the building, she doesn't see any obvious ways into the basement, but she sees a door near her. As she moves towards it, she hears a shout and whirls to look. A soldier (she thinks an MP?) is running towards her, drawing his sidearm. She grabs at the door, but it's locked.

Vanya growls, trying the handle again, with more force and weight behind it and miraculously forced it opened enough to notice the pressure switch in the door jam. Vanya's hand shot out, holding the pressure on the door as she slipped inside, pulling her hand out just as the door closes..

The door opened up into a small section just off the end of the hall. As the door clicks locked behind her, she peeks around the corner. She sees several closed doors before the hallway takes another turn, just past the refreshers. Directly beside her, however, is a stairwell heading up to the floors above her... and down to the basement.

Vanya slipped into the stairwell and headed down to the basement... at the basement door, she carefully opened it and peaked through. Across the hall was a man in uniform looking intensely at the screen of a data terminal. Just to be sure he wouldn't notice, she reached out again with another illusion and crept out of the stairwell. She moved carefully passed the man, glancing over his shoulder and noticed a datapad next to the keyboard. Listed were a short column of passcodes, corresponding to buildings and terminals. Vanya smiled to herself, Excellent she thought as she passed him to a terminal in the next room...

As she begins sifting through the data, she hears a door slam and feet pounding on the floor overhead.

Vanya looks up at the ceiling, following the sounds of feet.

No, no, no, no... she murmures, she sets up a data packet to be transmitted as soon as the transmitter aligns. As soon as she finishes, she shifts her bag and pulls out her bow, the mechanism snapping the bow open.

Vanya moves to the doorway and draws back the energy bolt back, preparing to fire..

Multiple pairs of booted feet clump down the stairs and three soldiers enter the room with pistols drawn.

Vanya let's loose an energy bolt, missing the intended target, smashing into the terminal screen in front of him.

Vanya swears, withdrawing back into the room and preparing another bolt..

The lead MP ducks as the bolt whizzes past his head, "There she is! Set for stun." They fire a volley of stun bolts, one of which catches her shoulder as she ducks into cover, forcing her to stumble back slightly. The man who had been at the computer terminal ducks out of the room, running back up the stairs.

Taking a breath, Vanya prepares a bolt, and comes around the corner into view of the three guards. She shifts her position slightly as she aims, lining them up in a row, releasing the energy bolt.

It flies across the room, passing across each of their necks, killing them.

More footsteps from above prompt Vanya to move behind a desk, with line of sight of the stairwell....

Six more soldiers burst into the room. As they fire on Vanya, pinning her down, one of them grabs his comm and yells into it, " She's trying to transmit something! Shut it down!" Under the barrage of stun bolts, Vanya starts to lose her grasp on consciousness as she realizes that the message won't get out...

In a desperate attempt, Vanya reaches out to the guards to put the illusion of her fading from sight as she moves toward the door.

All the guards blasters track her across the room.. except for one, who was looking to his companions, raising the alarm of her disappearance.

Vanya sighed as she brought up her bow and released a bolt, passing through one guard and grazing the other.

All the others fired together...blackness engulfed her as she passed out.

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Vanya opens her eyes. She heard something. Wait, where was she? Ah. Yes. That's where. From where she was lying, she glanced around the cell and grimaced. Her head felt like it was splitting open. And what had awoken her? She hears another scream, sounding very distant. That's what it was. She hears another scream, closer this time, but on the other side of her. She hears more screaming until the screaming becomes a chorus as her head feels like it will shatter under the pain. For a moment her skin feels like it's on fire, then some of the screams are silenced. There is more screaming, and then a pain in her stomach like she'd been stabbed, and the screaming fades until it disappears, leaving her with a profound feeling of loneliness she cannot explain, a feeling more severe than any she has never felt before.

Vanya sat there numb, tears streaming down her face... slowly, the realization dawned.. buy it took longer to sink in...

s...s-sisters?.... she whispers so softly that her could barely hear herself.. They're dead...all of them she didn't want to believe it, but ..somehow she knew it was true... Mother, what do I do now? ...I have failed..

In the back of her mind a voice calls out to her, she swears she can see a hint of green mist in one corner of the cell, but whenever she tries to focus on it, it fades..

Daughter... the voice is a faded echo, Vanya... it is time for you to follow a new destiny, child... we know what you tried to do for your sisters... and you will always be of the Nightsisters... farewell....

The echoing voice fades into nothingness into the back of her mind...

Mother... I'm sorry.. Vanya's whisper is a sad whimper as she slumps into the cold wall of her cell...

After several minutes, she hears the clump of approaching booted footsteps. A single person approaching, out of sight.

Vanya murmured an incantation, summoning her bow to her.. she raised her finger tips from the floor as wisps of green energy seemed to creep out of the floor. She raised her hand higher, her bow following up through the green mist.. as soon as it cleared the mist, she picked it out of the air, mist dispersing. She collapsed the bow and hid it behind her as she stepped back to a corner to wait for the individual in the hall...

A soldier, sidearm drawn, walks up to the cell and pulls out a key card. Alright, no funny business. You're coming with me.

And where would that be? She asked.