We Will Make a Blackguard Out of You

Run-on Objectives:

1. Intercept the Collectives Weapon and ammo Crates
2. Steal the Crates
3. Get back to the freighter with the supplies alive

Damaged Damnation
Outer Rim Space
36 ABY

Calenhad and Syntari made their way from the docking hangar and walked towards one of the conference rooms aboard the Damnation. They had recently received instructions from Tasha’Vel to meet with her aboard the damaged flagship. Calenhad adjusted his goggles to make sure they were correctly in place as he confidently walked down the small corridor towards the Conference room. Silently walking behind was Syntari. She had her hood thrown over her to cover most of her features. Most looking would have seen a pair of white eyes staring at them. She walked with a purpose, though it still seemed she was missing a lot of details. Still, she was summoned by Tasha’Vel and she could find out once she arrived. Finally, they had arrived to the conference room and entered through the metallic door. To the right of the room stood the sapphire-skinned Twi’lek. She was wearing dark robes with the hood drawn back showing her face. As she looked at the two, her face showed no emotion as she spoke.

“Congratulations, you have both passed the qualifying exam and are now blackguards. That was the easy part. Your training will begin shortly, but first there is the matter of indoctrination. In order to do that you will be tattooed by the Consul himself, Bentre Stahoes.”

As they looked to the right, they could see a human male looking out the nearby window at the stars. His presence was cold and detached, until he noticed the duo approached him. As he slowly turned around, several scars could be seen etching across his face. Most notable were the clawing scars running up and down vertically across his eyes. Dark brown hair, tinged with a few streaks of grey, covered his left eye. He studied the two a moment before speaking.

“Who amongst you two will be the one to guard me?” Bentre Stahoes inquired.

“Syntari Bastiayn is the current Champion of the Blackguard. She will be guarding you, Consul.” Tasha answered, gesturing sideways to the Umbaran without breaking her gaze.

Stahoes raised an eyebrow as he absent-mindedly fingered the leather-wrapped lightsaber at his side. “Very well, Syntari. I once held the same duty that you currently hold. I hope that you will continue to prove yourself capable in the role. If you have proven your worth by Tasha’Vel,” the man’s eyes flashed with humor as he glanced at the Rollmaster, “you hold my confidence.” Something barely hinting at a smile twisted at the edge of the Consul’s mouth before he turned to watch space. “Was there something else that you needed?”

“Well there is the matter of tattooing the insignia of the Blackguard. As I said Bentre will be engraving the symbol onto your flesh. So where would you like him to place it?” Tasha replied as she looked towards the duo.

Looking up at the Consul, Syntari spoke quietly. “I will take the tattoo on my left wrist.” She extended her left arm and uncovered her left wrist.

Bentre turned from the window and walked over to Syntari. With a bit of concentration, lightning began to crackle from his fingertips. “This is going to hurt.” He stated as he began to burn the blackguard’s pattern into her left wrist. Syntari gritted her teeth as she smelled her freshly charred flesh. In a matter of moments, Bentre had finished the job. Looking down at her wrist, Syntari saw the new tattoo burned cleanly onto her wrist. She then covered her wrist again and stood waiting.

“And what about you, Calenhad?”

The Kel Dor exposed his left shoulder and bowed slightly. “I will take the mark here.”

“Very well.” Bentre then proceeded to etch the mark into his shoulder.

Calenhad felt intense pain traveling up his left shoulder as Bentre worked on the tattoo. He smiled while his eyes danced in ecstasy as the delicious smell of his burning flesh filled his nostrils.

Bentre was a bit taken aback as he noticed how much Calenhad was enjoying the pain. He finished and returned to the window seemingly unaffected.

“Is there anything else you need Tasha’Vel?”

“No that is all, Thank you Bentre.”

“Then I will take my leave.” He replied as he strode out the door.

Tasha’vel turned her attention to the two still standing in the room.

“All right my two Blackguards now that you have been branded, we are going to be training. For this we will be doing a lot of work and you both will be working together as partners for now. I have received word that there is a shipment of supplies for the Collective that is in Nar Shadda. These supplies are weapons and ammo. Our job is to intercept and steal the crates. I will have a freighter ready to take away the crates, but I will need you both to intercept and steal it for me. As a Blackguard, you are responsible for guarding the Consul and the ProConsul. In order to test your abilities, I am taking you into live action and real battle. This isn’t just some holo-program that protects you. These people are real and they will try to kill you. If you fail, you are dead. There is no coming back from this. Either you kill them or be killed yourself. That is your test. Now do you object?”

Syntari Bastiayn watched the Twi’lek’s mouth move and found every word to pass between those lips irritating and overly optimistic. She wasn’t sure why the cheerfulness prevalent in every syllable induced a cringe worthy of rancor’s rage and yet, here she was, desperately struggling to control the instinct screaming for her to…to…

To do what? Just what would she do if she plucked up the courage to follow that instinct? Would she bravely bring her lightsaber–that she couldn’t use–or hidden stiletto to bear against a woman who just recently had been an ally? She could imagine how that would go easily enough; the imagined death blow at Tasha’Vel’s hands made Syntari reconsider the accuracy of her instincts.

The optimism was still annoying, though. And that brand stung like a–

“Now, do you object?”

Wait, what? Object to what?

Tasha’Vel’s emerald eyes locked on her own as she spoke, gazing at the Umbaran as if she knew Syntari hadn’t been paying attention. “Since neither of you object,” she said, her voice venomously saccharine, “I’ll send you both the details. Remember, any failure will result not only in your death, but in our disappointment as well.” That piercing look shifted to Calenhad, and her next words made the Kel Dor’s so nervous he nearly yanked off his rebreather mask.

“And by ‘our’, I mean the Clan at large. All our eyes are on you both,” Tasha’Vel said. “May the Force be with you, and may you both return.”

She took her leave with the force of those words echoing in Syntari’s ears. She spared a glance at Calenhad. Saw that he looked ready to either run off and complete the mission with single-minded determination or faint, she wasn’t sure which. Her lip curled at the idea of working with this wrinkled abomination who couldn’t even breathe oxygen and, ah yes, who had been responsible for her amnesia. Her fury must have translated through her own moonstone eyes and into the space between them because the Kel Dor refused to look her way.

“I have my reservations about working with you, Calenhad.” Her tone made his very name a curse. She took the opportunity to approach him out of earshot of their charges. “If you think for one moment that I care about this as much as you do, you’re mistaken. I took the job to prove a point,” she said, hand drifting automatically towards the handle of her lightsaber, “and that point is now proven. Keep that in mind before you make the mistake of making me another test subject.”

She turned from him as the stench of him threatened to occlude her nostrils and retreated to the safety of her silence. There burned in her a lack of desire to keep the Consul safe, or to complete this mission because it was given to her by her Summit–her words to Calenhad were true, every one of them. In the end she had taken the initial mission to prove a point, but at first it had been a means of escape. A small part of her wondered if it was a secret worth keeping. Paranoid Umbaran instincts told her to jealously guard such weakness. One victorious moment in the desert was not enough to raise her from the perdition of her upbringing; at her core she was still the coward she had been weeks ago, when the call had first gone out.

No one here needed to know that.

She paused at the doorway. “This mission isn’t going to complete itself,” Syntari said in her midnight voice. Calenhad jumped, casting her a sneakily thrown look of disgust as he hurried towards her. Just as well. If he was so easily cowed by a few harsh words that were little more than vague threats she couldn’t follow up on then he was of no use to her or to anyone else, for that matter.

Her own words ghosted about what was left of her brain in a cancerous swirl nestling itself in her deepest fears: “If you think for one moment that I care about this as much as you do, you’re mistaken.” As Syntari left the room to begin a mission she shouldn’t have taken in the first place she couldn’t help but wonder if she would be the death of what could have been a good cause.

1 Week Later

House Shar Dakhan Marauder Class Vessel Korsin

Calenhad walked swiftly towards the bridge with Syntari following close behind. There was a clear energy in his step, born of a desire to get away from his former patient who seemed intent on reducing him to ashes with her glare. Now it’s not that Calenhad regretted his experiment on the comatose Syntari, he was even under orders to complete the operation. Still, there was something off about that woman. While not a licensed doctor Calenhad has treated enough soldiers during his time to know that this was more then a case of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. No, whatever the issue was, poking around in her head seems to have made him the target of her ire.

“Lost in thought again?” Syntari asked, smiling like the cat who caught the canary. Calenhad felt a shiver crawl up his spine. Everything about his fellow Blackguard was unnatural. From her smile to her very posture, Syntari screamed natural born killer. Calenhad shuddered and took a breath, which came out as a gasping wheeze due to his air filter. The Force flowed throughout his body, a much needed calming effect to the monster beside him. “All is well” he stated. The pair continued to walk in relative silence until they reached a closed durasteel door. Calenhad pressed his hand to his comm unit. “We have arrived Captain. Unseal the bridge doors.” There was a momentary pause until the doors began to lift with a hiss! “After you Syntari.”

The Captain approached the pair. “Welcome to the Korsin sir. The ship has been modified to fit your expectations.” Calenhad glanced around the bridge. Uniformed officers sat at a variety of counsels, ensuring the ship was operating at maximum efficiency. “Has an ATR transport been placed on board?” he asked the Captain. “Yes sir. And per your request we have transferred Sergeant Anderson and his men aboard.” Calenhad acknowledged the man with a nod of his head. “Captain set course for Nar Shada.” The officers bustled into movement to accommodate the order. “It will likely be a few days until we reach Nar Shada. Until then please make the Korsin your new home Syntari.” ‘And hopefully far away from me’ he added mentally.