CHAPTER XXXXI: SITH DOWNFALL The The Dark Lord ordered the MD-13 to scan for Tirahn’s Engager on the planet. Within seconds the MD-13 had located what was left of Tirahn’s star fighter in a valley near a site where construction was beginning on a series of new holes. The Dark Lord was about to put the ship fully under MD-13 control when warning alarms sounded all over Out of nowhere the Sith destroyer Black Heart appeared aft of Defiance and unleashed a series of bursts from her T and M-Packs, striking Defiance’s hull near her RIP thrusters. The ship was jolted by the powerful explosions, but the hyper-plating was holding. Onboard Black Heart, Max-Ventor was screaming at the system operators in the bridge “pits” to knock out those guns when an alarm went off on the central control screen. Looking up, Max-Ventor saw a small object directly aft of his ship. It was not approaching but was actually backing away. “What the… was all Ventor could say before he watched long streaks heading for his RIP engines. Possh had quietly detached from Black Heart once Lord Kalore could not believe his luck. Somehow he must have hit something other than the destroyer’s big guns to cause the ship to veer off like that and then drift away. But in his mind, he never doubted that such a thing could happen. He had put all of his faith in Tirahn’s vision and even through all these difficulties it was still coming true. Having ordered the MD-13 and DD-33 droids to run the heavy cruiser, Lord Kalore quickly entered his personal shuttle Night Raven and sped off down to TaBora’s surface in search of Tirahn. Outstanding! thought Possh as she re-cloaked and followed the Dark Lord’s shuttle into the atmosphere of what looked to be the Bura’s world. The Sith are such arrogant bastards, I’m going to make them pay- literally. Five million Yaros will be in my hands shortly. Tirahn had sat on the obsidian ball for hours as the noise and vibrations of the Thumper went on every five minutes. Tirahn thought she was doomed to live out her life on this wretched planet when suddenly a glimmer of light was seen in the sky. The light was so bright Tirahn’s Kyrie helmet glare visor had been lowered automatically. But just then, she could make out the small ship, about the size of a scout- it was the shuttle Night Raven!!! My Dark Lord has survived and has come to rescue me! Everything is still going as planned. The vision is accurate. Then the unexpected happened. As Lord Kalore raced to the surface, sensors having detected the intermittent pulse of the light jumper, he was surprise to see Tirahn sitting atop it as if she expected him to come. But then there was a thunderous noise and smoke was quickly filling Night Raven’s cabin. Alarms and warning flashers came alive as the Night Raven’s engines were on fire and the craft was out of control. Veering left, the shuttle’s left wing struck the surface causing the craft to nose down into the ground violently then flip wildly as pieces of the ship came apart. Night Raven’s smashed and burning hulk came to a crashing halt several hundred feet from Tirahn. The working Buras in the distance saw the strange ship approach for a landing and an alert com message was sent to Takrat. All work ceased on the new tunnel. Meanwhile, Tirahn was screaming inside her Kyrie helmet when the shuttle first went down and quickly raced as fast as she could run even as an anomalous craft flew overhead to reach the crash site first. As she approached the burning wreckage she could see a mysterious star fighter parked beside what was left of Night Raven and a mysterious stranger pulling Lord Kalore from the wreckage. Fortunately for Lord Kalore, the impact shield had held long enough to prevent the Dark Lord from being ejected from the craft and killed. But now within visual range, Tirahn realized that the stranger wasn’t trying to save Lord Kalore’s life… only to preserve it. Tirahn had come face to face with the female bounty hunter Possh, who had caught her first prey. Doubtless, she would expect Tirahn to be her second. Sadly, thought Tirahn, her expectations would not be met. The Kyrie whip ball dropped. Possh had never fought a Kyrie before, and a female at that! Yet Sith overconfidence would be her undoing, Possh was certain of it. But first, business before pleasure. Removing a small Oynx pneumo-gun from her slung pouch, Possh pointed it down at the Dark Lord and hit him in the neck with a drug-tipped needle. Lord Kalore, still in shock from the crash, looked up and stared into a blank faceless form. Possh wore a non-revealing lectro-chromic oval-shaped helmet that had a sensor ring around the faceplate and was covered in luxuriously expensive plush Inka fur. Her body was clad in a U’Kian red, white,and blue Reba-suit, a ribbed form-altering bio-suit that acted as a natural repulser material in the colors of the U‘Kian flag. She had no need for armor with the absorption suit, but she did need weapons and gear. For this occasion Possh had selected only three items in her vast inventory: Tuskat urine, Tentaclaw grappler, and for firepower- her custom rifle, the Phantom poly-slug thrower. Possh seriously doubted that the fearsome Kyrie would stand up long against her selection. However, her lectro-chromic helmet sensors quickly identified the Kyrie’s weapons: whip ball, quad ballistas, six Revenger Spikes, and an unknown energy weapon mag-locked at her waist. Strange ball units were located all over her combat suit which led Possh to correctly assume she had some sort of cloaking system very similar to her own ship’s miraflage. How clever, maybe I might have underestimated this Sith. Nevertheless, she will fall. Like Ligris, I too have never lost a battle. As Possh studied the Kyrie Shadow suit Tirahn was studying the bounty hunter as well. The Kyrie was going to circle any minute but Possh wanted to take it slow. She backed up first and placed the Phantom rifle on the ground. She didn’t need it. Then, she advanced forward and waited for the Kyrie to strike first. With Sith anger welling up inside of her, Tirahn activated target mode and swung the whip ball right into Possh’s chest with force. Amazingly she wasn’t knocked down; even worse, the whip ball was embedded in the strange Reba-suit until it was literally absorbed and then pushed out. The ball landed to the ground with a thud. Possh remained silent and watched what the Kyrie would do next. Tirahn was agitated and let loose all four of her ballistas which sprung from their cylinders and lodged into the Reba-suit: two at the chest level and two at the stomach level. Within seconds, they too were repulsed and fell to the ground with multiple thuds. Tirahn was furious ,and lunging forward, tackled the bounty hunter and threw her to the ground with force. She yelled as she grabbed a Revenger Spike and thrust it with all her might into the space at the bounty hunter’s heart… but it would not penetrate and Possh pushed it back out with force simply by exerting her stomach muscles. Kicking the Kyrie off her, Possh went into action with a swinging kick to the Kyries midsection with one leg and then a kick to her helmet with the other one. Tirahn fell back, but Possh was unrelenting. As Tirahn was dazed, Possh slipped behind her back and wrapped her arms around the Kyries neck binder. Possh pulled back hard as she rammed her left knee into the Kyrie’s back. Tirahn winced in pain but then bent down with full force and flipped Possh over her. The bounty hunter landed flat on her back and as she slowly got up Tirahn lowered her wing guards and rammed Possh right in her midsection, lifting her up off the ground and into her star fighter. The serrated splayed wing guards held for the moment. Possh was pinned by the Kyrie, and as Tirahn went for her Black Fire weapon, Possh grabbed a feral glass grenade ball filled with liquid and broke it over the Kyrie’s helmet. Immediately, the helmet obturator and ventilators closed as the putrid scent of Tuskat urine made Tirahn want to vomit in her helmet. Automatically her wing guards retracted as she slowly backed off. The Kyrie suit’s oxygenators were on full blast and then Tirahn ordered her suit decontaminated. Powerful gas jets cleared her obturator and ventilator as the Tuskat urine was neutralized by decontaminate fluid spraying from the helmet mini-ports. But full decontamination took a minute or so. That was all the time Possh needed to grab her tentaclaw grappler and fire it at the Kyries gauntlets. The ten cord snake-like grapplers quickly ensnared Tirahn’s hands and forearms, bringing them together and locking them into place. Once secured, Possh detached the cords which now formed binders around the Kyrie’s hands and arms. Tirahn was unable to move them, yet she was still standing and moving backwards she activated the Shadow. But the dark matter generators could not conceal the bindings and Possh just reached for her pouch and brought out what looked like a weapon. But it wasn’t. It was an aural emitter and Possh aimed it at the binders. With a great flash the Kyrie was exposed. The DM generators strained to keep up the field generation but the light weapon had severely weakened them. Possh knew where the Kyrie was and aimed the emitter at her once more. Tirahn realized that she would lose the DM generators with one more burst so she de-cloaked and the light burst blinded her so much that she stumbled and then fell hard to the ground. It was over. Possh had enough “fun” for the day and now would have to drag two bodies up the ramp to her star fighter’s hold. That was the only “real” work Possh ever did. The rest of the time she went unnoticed as the rich Royal, Lady Vikka Bikkim back in U’Kia. She was a pleasure girl who loved all the luxuries money could buy and she was very beautiful too with shoulder length straight black hair, gray eyes, slightly upturned nose, wicked smile, and a body made for pleasure. But the Vikka lifestyle would have to wait until Possh loaded her prey into Passion Hate and headed back to Tirahnna on her own to claim her reward. There was no way she was going to turn over the two Sith traitors to any Supreme Commander on any Sith destroyer. She wanted to be paid on the spot, so Tirahnna was her next destiny. Then Possh would return to U’Kia and surface once again as rich Royal socialite, Her Lady-Vikka Bikkam. But she was wrong, deadly wrong… Sith confidence would see to that. TaBora had been her LAST destiny. Lord Kalore was one tough haul up the ramp, but the Kyrie would be easier. “I’ll just drag that one by her own whip cord” thought Possh to herself, laughing as she approached Tirahn’s paralyzed body lying in the dirt. But as she started to drag the Sith, she heard a noise in the distance. It was a group of armed Buras headed in this direction from a tunnel entrance not far away. Possh stopped what she was doing and waited for the Buras to get within range. Carefully, she lifted her Phantom rifle from the ground, made sure it was loaded with two wing mags, pulled back on the charging handle, and sighted the men riding on hursas! There were six of them coming with their rifles trained on her. She was about to fire but then heard a noise in front of her. Using her helmet lectrovision she could see several hundred Buras approaching from the construction area far ahead of her. So, she stood firm by her star fighter watching the mob from the west as she locked her rifle into her left shoulder mount and aimed it backwards at the men on hursas coming from the east. Using a fiber optic targeting line the rifle scope was perfectly tied into Possh’s helmet display. Without any effort whatsoever she targeted and shot each man down, one at a time. Pull, one down (shot in the head)…pull, two down (shot in the throat)… pull, three down (shot in the chest)…pull, four down (shot in the abdomen)…pull, five down (shot in the leg)… then disaster. All around her Possh could see Buras coming by the thousands! From all directions! That’s impossible, thought Possh as she quickly stopped firing the poly-slug gun and tried to target lock the men surrounding her. Nothing was registering with her tactical display. A serious malfunction must have occurred. The men were approaching so fast that Possh had to depart right that instant without the Kyrie. Possh ran as fast as she could and secured her star fighter, the ramp retracting as she took off in a blaze of take-off thrusters. She didn’t look back. But she should have. She would have seen nothing from the sky, because there really wasn’t anything approaching except one faithful Katarsh Warrior that had not been slain. It was Laral Utan who had deceived the infidel that was trying to take the Kyrie with her. As Laral’s men were being cut down by the infidel, he had pulled out his holomorphic false imager and aimed it at the stranger. This projected as many false images as one desired. Laral had it set to project 5,000 Buras approaching! The stranger was deceived and fled with the survivor of the downed starship, but the Kyrie was saved. Tirahn stared up at a familiar face and pondered her fate. But Laral only smiled and used a hot blade to cut Tirahn free from the cord binders. Tirahn was glad to be free but lamented the loss of her Dark Lord Kalore. She was now trapped again on TaBora with no way to save her Master. Looking at Laral Utan she asked, “Why did you rescue me after all the things I have done to you and your people?” Laral just laughed and said, “Woman, you are said to be the Chosen One and we Buras cannot disobey the sacred Orban, even though we do not understand this.” Tirahn could not believe what she was hearing. “How can I save your people when I cannot even rescue my own Dark Lord?” she cried out in anguish. Laral comforted her with these words, “In your heart you must believe; have courage AND faith, and it will be as you wish.” Orban - as it is written, so let it be “Come with me, Pakfaw is waiting. He will take us back to Takrat where you can rest and meditate on your own’, Laral said with sincerity. “But I am an infidel, remember?” Laral looked at her and said, “it is not my decision to question the sacred Orban. You have proven yourself and must fulfill the prophecy. The “Time of Our Trouble” is almost here.” Tirahn looked back at the light jumper unit with despair, but then suddenly realized that it resembled BOTH the sacred Orban and the Slayer’s R-Bomb, “Red Sunset”. In her heartache and despair Tirahn now KNEW how Lord Rexor would fall and how the Buras would be saved. The vision is accurate. As Tirahn and Laral made their slow way back to an Inner Passageway on Pakfaw, a large shadow passed over the dry, cracked soil and Tirahn stopped to look up at what was causing this. Overhead, she beheld a magnificent sight- it was Tirahn would be rescued after all. Laral could not believe his eyes. He had never seen a large starship before and this Sith vessel was immense. The ship could not land without a reinforced pad so the MD-13 kept it hovering in the air one hundred feet above ground. The MD-13 saw the Dark Seer Tirahn in her Shadow suit and activated an emergency alert com. To Tirahn’s utter surprise the emergency alert com antenna on top of her helmet auto-raised to receive a message from the MD-13. The MD-13 instructed her to mag-lock onto the light jumper’s ball shield and be prepared to be received aboard Tirahn jumped off Pakfaw and ran back to the light jumper, pouncing on it with maglocks activated. Laral shouted for Tirahn to stop; to come back; that she was the “Chosen One“. But it did no good. Laral watched in awe as the Laral Utan was filled with utter despair as he dropped to his knees. All hope was departing his world. He had actually believed in the Sith Kyrie. “Seek not your own understanding, but believe with all your heart that hope still lives- and it shall come to pass” “Hope without understanding is not foolishness, but faith”
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