A Glimpse Behind the Veil: Howlader & Zoron

THIS THREAD IS FOR A TALDRYAN COMPETITION, IF YOU ARE NOT NAMED IN THE TITLE PLEASE REFRAIN FROM POSTING IN IT. YOUR POSTS WILL BE DELETED.

Rules:

• In order to qualify for a placement medal, you must complete at least 2 posts of 250 words.
• Consecutive posts ARE allowed.
• All completed fictions will be judged for inclusion. CIs will be awarded according to guidelines.
• Feel free to talk as much, or as little about the team of NPCs you bring with you, or any One Sith enemies you encounter.

A Glimpse Behind the Veil

It has been decided that you and a small team will embark on a stealth mission to Nicht Ka. Accompanying you are various members of Taldryan’s Elite Army Unit: the Darkfire Battalion. Your mission is to track down the so called spymaster that is orchestrating the One Sith’s efforts against Taldryan from Nicht Ka, and to find out details on the trap that they were planning to lay for us.

Take your team, infiltrate the planet, and return to Karufr with the intelligence we need to finally finish this war against the One Sith.

“You want me to go where?!” Howlader shouted across the desk at Keirdagh Cantor. “Have you not learned from the last…oh, I don’t know, half dozen hair-brained schemes that you have sent me on? What part of my history, that you are well aware of because you were there, of flying fighters and commanding fleets makes you think that I am good at this kind of stuff? Do I look like an Obelisk ground pounder to you?”

Taldryan’s Proconsul rubbed the middle of his forehead, as if trying to manually remove the irritation from Howlader’s rant from his brain, and finally let out a sigh: “You know what, Howie? I keep sending you on these missions because you keep coming back successful. You ever think about that? Maybe next time think about that before you let the rest of your team get killed or sent to the med bay!”

“They wouldn’t need the med bay if they had just listened to me! You remember where that got you, right? Proconsul for the finest clan in the Brotherhood - all from my wise counsel.” Howlader’s scowl turned to a glare as Keirdagh laughed at this. “I’m serious!”

Cantor snorted, followed by a retort: “By wise counsel, you mean poorly thought out hair-brained schemes that somehow, impossibly, work? Then yes. Somehow I always get roped in and end up on top. That’s all me, Howie. Nothing to do with the schemes.”

Howlader groaned, resolved to be sent off to another barren wasteland of a planet without a fleet, or a ship, or even a comfortable chair. “Fine. Fine. Who am I stuck with for this latest suckfest?”

“I’m glad you asked.” Keirdagh pushed a button on his desk. “Please send in Zoron.”

Seconds later, the large man strode through the door and smiled at the sour-faced Howlader. “Howie! Let’s kill something - preferably something that I can take a holo of with me standing on top of it.”

Howlader arched his eyebrows and rolled his eyes before hauling himself out of the chair. “Fine. Just make sure you don’t forget my stamps. I need them to hunt things.” In a rare moment of forethought, Howlader realized that he might be missing some key piece of information, and he turned his attention toward the Proconsul again. “So, Yacks. Anything else I need to know? Just Howie and Zoron off on some crazy adventure?”

Cantor sighed and pointed behind Howlader’s left shoulder, “No, Howie. Turn around. A Darkfire team will be joining you.”

“Darkfire?!” Howlader exclaimed with a note of panic in his voice, forgetting his surroundings for a moment.

“Not the same thing.”

“Oh. Good,” Howlader stated while turning towards the Darkfire Captain and Zoron. “Let’s go.”

Howlader woke with a start as the shuttle hit down hard. “Odd,” Howlader thought, “I must have nodded off.” He took a moment to get his bearings before grumbling about the quality of pilots and comparing them to his undeniable skills.

Zoron leaned over to Howlader and laughed. “Any landing you can walk away from is a good landing, right?”

Howlader made no effort to speak quietly and made sure the pilots in the cabin could hear him. “No. It certainly isn’t. I’d like these blasted shuttle pilots to set their standards a little higher than pile-driving us into the planet’s surface!”

Zoron had to stifle a laugh. “These blasted shuttle pilots, Howie? You do realize what chair you’re sitting in, right?” Zoron gestured to Howlader’s position in the cockpit, in the pilot’s seat.

“Oh. Well, that’s not what you want. Ah well, as you say, any landing you can walk away from!” With that, Howlader was out the door of the cockpit,

Zoron shook his head and followed. “Captain, get your troops armoured up. Make sure we have enough breaching tools and explosives to get through that structure’s walls.”

“In 3, 2, 1. Mark!” Breaching charges set on the exterior wall of the structure detonated in sequence, cutting a ragged hole in the ferrocrete.

“Move, move, move!” The Darkfire troopers flooded in through the gap and quickly established a beachhead.

A chorus of voices sounded across the secure comm channel. All echoed,“No movement.” Zoron and Howlader stepped through the gap and scanned around, finding much of the same.

Howlader scratched at his beard and pondered the situation. “The intelligence reports did say that there was something here, right? A spymaster? Attacks on Karufr?”

“Yeah, they sure did.” Zoron looked around again. “What’s that on the wall?” He walked over and brushed off a light layer of dust from some symbols. One was very clearly the outline of a human. The other was a single line.

“What do you think, Howie? Which way?”

“Well, if I were to hanker a guess - the Sith that constructed this facility did not want outsiders finding its secrets, so they would obviously set a trap.” Howlader pondered the situation for another moment: “but they would also be smart enough to know that their opponents would be aware of the trap…”

Howlader went silent for what seemed (to Zoron and the Darkfire members) to be an eternity. Then he just started walking in the direction that the single line was showing. Zoron and the other members the team traded confused looks and shoulder shrugs, and then followed Howlader down the corridor.

After several moments of uneventful walking, the team came across a relatively large room, with vaulted ceilings, and a single pedestal in the centre. On the pedestal sat a dramatically oversized lightsaber hilt, by both length and width. Howlader recognized it as the one described in the intelligence report.

“Huh. How about that,” Howlader commented aloud, “Anan’s intelligence goons were right for a change.”

“Oh, I get it now! The symbols,” Zoron said excitedly, “you know, the ones back at the entrance. A single line for the lightsaber. I bet the other direction was for that weird armour they talked about in the report too!”

Howlader only grunted in response to Zoron’s outburst. He was focused on the pedestal.

After a moment, Howlader walked up to the lightsaber and unceremoniously snatched it off the pedestal. Immediately the far wall lit up as a hidden vid screen snapped on. A hooded figure stood silently onscreen.

“Uh, Howie. Maybe put the lightsaber down.” Zoron whispered. Zoron started to back away carefully, but Howlader stayed rooted in place.

The hooded figure stirred. “Greetings fools,” boomed a voice from unseen speakers, “you’ve walked right into my trap. Whoever you are.”

Howlader snorted before responding. “Have we? Or did we trap you by walking into your trap?”

The figure cocked his head in confusion. “What?”

Howlader shouted in the general direction of the hooded figure. “You heard me! I am your worst nightmare!” Howlader continued to walk in front of the the figure on the screen, all while fiddling at his robes. “Now, tell me,” Howlader continued, “are you a god?”

The figure on the screen stared blankly at Howlader for a moment and then responded softly: “…no?”

“THEN…DIE!” Howlader shouted, as Force lightning leapt out of his fingertips towards the screen, causing it to spark up and finally explode into many smoking pieces.

After a few seconds, the smoke began to clear, and a small room appeared in place of the screen.

Zoron poked his head inside of the room, and noticed the communications equipment.“Howie, I think we discovered our spymaster. It looks like this communications equipment is routing messages to Karufr from…someplace else. We’ll need the spooks on this. We may not have found the spymaster, but this is a start.”

Howlader nodded. “Agreed. Let’s get back to the ship and send a signal.” Howlader turned on his heel and began to walk away.

Zoron shouted out of the room. “Hey, Howie! What was that all about anyway?”

Howlader turned around and smirked. “Don’t worry about it. Just remember, if someone asks if you’re a god: You say yes.”

“Fair enough.” Zoron still looked confused. “Another question. Did you know this would lead to the spymaster? I mean, how did you know to pick this direction from those symbols back there?”

Howlader shrugged. “I guessed.” He continued to walk back toward the entrance, leaving Zoron standing with his mouth agape in surprise.