Kartuiin
“You’re moping.”
“I’m not moping.”
Tegan Dargan-Cannele rolled her eyes, levering herself off the doorframe and moving toward her husband, who drifted aimlessly, rearranging papers in his small office on Kartuiin. “You’re moving papers back and forth that didn’t need moving in the first place. What’s chewing on you, Alek?”
Descending into the ancient mines, the surface world faded from existence so quickly it was like falling from the waking world into the realm of dreams. In the deepening black, the air took on a chill and all sound ceased, save that of his own breathing. It was an eternal darkness, where the planet slept and only rarely stirred, paying no mind to what went on outside. The darkness, the silence, the cool air that had hung unmoving for indeterminate years until stirred by his migration, wrapped around him, settling upon him and soaking in to his skin, sinking deeper and deeper until it was in his blood and bones.Climbing down, down, into the endless night where no star’s light ever pierced, meandering through a combination of natural caverns and manmade corridors carved into the rock millennia ago, he descended, following the signs written in the light of cultivated luminous lichen until he reached the deep darkness of the bridge.
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Les cinched up his haversack, packed with the bare essentials for his journey, clipped his lightsaber to his belt, and headed out the door of his room, down the columned corridor. He cast his eyes to the floor, focusing on his booted feet to avoid glimpsing Asya’s door as he passed, even though it was closed, as it had been since she shut it for the last time prior to heading back to Xenen.
But, no, that wasn’t right, he recalled; late on the first night back home, hoping a midnight stroll might clear his head so he could get some sleep, he’d heard his mother’s voice crying softly from the other side. Feeling as though he were intruding, he passed on by without interrupting her private outflow of grief.
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Cay Bel Iblis let himself into his chief engineer’s garage workshop, pausing a moment to regard the maelstrom taking place. Davil Bullian was throwing things for no good reason, it seemed, banging around and rummaging for tools where they clearly were not located. In the nearly nineteen years they’d known each other, he’d never seen his longtime friend with an expression quite like the one he was sporting at present. Davil didn’t acknowledge him-didn’t even seem to notice his presence-as he finally stopped at his workbench, where some bit of technology lay in pieces. He was muttering to himself as he reached out, groping for a tool that lay just beyond his reach.
“Stupid Dad…coming home…bastard…”
Cay shook his head, leaning against a shelving unit near the door. “Don’t hold back, tell me how you really feel.”
Two days before the wedding.
“Peregrine’s Claw, this is Wayfarer Station. You are cleared for transit to Xenen surface.”
“Thanks, Wayfarer. See you again in a couple of days. Claw, out.”
——
“He’s late,” Robert said.
“He is not late,” Talia replied. “Your chrono is fast.”
“Calibrated it just this morning. He’s late.”
“By all of two minutes,” Talia said as the Claw settled down on the landing pad. “Now hush.” Continue reading
Someone once said that the Force was, “an energy field created by all living things.” It surrounds, it penetrates. It binds the galaxy together. And some, going back deeper and deeper in the annuls of history, believed that the Force had a will of its own.
Of course, nobody really knows the will of the Force, or if they do they aren’t telling anyone about it. For all that is known, there might be an old man (or woman; the Force does not discriminate based on gender) on a mountaintop somewhere on an uncharted planet who knows precisely what the Force is planning and why it’s doing it. But since nobody knows this man or woman (should they even exist) it really has no bearing on the story. Continue reading
“How does it look?”
Robyn sighed, hanging up her jacket on the rack by the door, avoiding her husband’s gaze for a moment. He’d been waiting for her—she was late getting in. She shook her head slowly, finally looking at him. “Our defenses can’t stand up to an assault like the one against Xenen. They just won’t handle it.”
William Scarlett, governor of Conceli VIII, winced visibly. “What can we do about that?”
She shook her head. “I don’t know. Request a detachment of NRM forces, I guess, to keep an eye out for trouble. Get our evac plans in order. The military-grade reports that are being disseminated…”
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One thing that keeps you alive is the realization that nothing—nothing—is ever exactly as it appears to be. ~ Karinlyyn Bridger Kel-Solan, Auyn Warmistress
Her chest heaved as she moved through her blade forms, jumpsuit stripped to the waist with the sleeves tied there. Sweat streamed down her spine, her tank top sticking to the damp. She’d lost track hours ago of when she’d started. Her thoughts were tuned to her blade, to its movements.
Focus. Nothing but me, with this blade as an extension of my arm, of my will. She exhaled a breath, whipping the blade around, leading with it.
Clang!
The beginnings of the Vong War storyline have been uploaded in a .doc format. New members and those unfamiliar with the storyline are encouraged to at least skim over the storyline. Find it here.
Welcome to the Annals of the Aurora Force.