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Dage Dakkara paced the armored-plated decking of her Kattov-Class combat warship Halat with great urgency as a myriad of moving tactical light displays projected above her head in a luminescent cloud of raw data. The tactical strata-streams were intense, and yet Dage was sifting through them mentally and methodically, searching for her prey in concentrated thought. This level of concentration reminded her of hunting wild Volverines and Dakirs back on her occupied planet Hybyss, but required much more patience and resolve. The incoming data was similar to the menacing triple-canopy jungles of her world that concealed those fierce beasts until that very last second when they lunged out to strike. The savage Dakirs always attacked in packs, so the Hybyssian hunters were taught to hunt blindfolded and to focus on the sounds of their surroundings while armed with a traditional hylyss- a long cellular steel pole with sharp crystalline steel paddle blades at each end. Dakirs always crounched before they pounced, and inevitably, their heavy weight crushed the dense foliage and branches strewn about the jungle floor. An ominous crackling could be heard before the Dakirs would spring into action. The hunters were taught not to trust their eyes, but their instincts instead, and would swing the hylyss with both disciplined inner guidance and raw gut instinct in bloody battles with the dark predators. More often than not, the hunters claimed victory. Hybyssian hunting was not so much a test of courage, but of trained inner discipline. Dage had proven to be an exceptional huntress and her mental skills were equally impressive enough to earn her the right to fight alongside the young males in traditional Hybyssian military combat training as she grew older. They had learned to respect her and included her in all the Hybyssian military rituals, even strapping her to the infamous Tree of Torment as each soldier cut her gently and then added pigment to the wounds to beautify her body as a living canvas of military glory. By the time she had become a woman, Dage had risen from a Falar Huntress decorated with fearsome pictographs to decorated commander of her first starship- the Hybyssian Fleet heavy military freighter Lemuriat. How Commander Dakkara had loved that ship of long ago and the forty-two souls aboard her… until one fateful day when the Sith heavy cruiser Tyrantha had crippled her aft engines and prepared to board her with armed Kyries. The ship’s crew had fought valiantly against the boarding party and when they repulsed the initial attack with Commander Dakkara ramming Lemuriat hard port directly into Tyrantha, the Sith Supreme Commander Max-Furor swung his heavy guns to starboard and tore the ship to pieces at point blank range. Dage stayed anchored to the bridge as the ship came apart, hurling bodies into space, but the Sith finally ceased firing and boarded her anyway. They killed the remaining engineers and the evil Max-Furor enjoyed torturing the bridge crew as a beaten and bloodied Commander Dakkara was forced to watch in agony. She was then gang-raped for days by the Kyries before the Sith departed with any military cargo they could salvage and left her adrift in space in total darkness- all life-support systems destroyed. They thought they had left her for dead, but Dage survived to fight another day, rescued by the ever-vigilant Bothan spy network. They had been tipped-off; curiously, by a wanted rouge Junkar scavenger… Today, Dage commanded the Halat, the last Hybyssian warship to escape the Sith invasion of their world in the Outer Rim. Though separated from her people as renegades, the Halat and Commander Dakkara had wreaked havoc with the Sith Fleet, sending out false distress calls along the photon guide ways to ambush Sith military transports and light cruisers. Halat had become so good at this over the last few years that Lord Rexor had commanded the destruction of her ship at all cost. The Sith populace had started to call her the “Hybyssian Hellcat “ which infuriated Lord Rexor all the more. He then found out through Varmin spies that the female commander of Halat was Commander Dage Dakkara, that pitiful young woman left for dead on what was left of Lemuriat so long ago. Lord Rexor ordered all Sith Supreme Commanders and Kyries to destroy that ship, but leave the woman alive for capture. He would personally have her fed to the Tyrengas for pleasure. A bounty was also placed on her head, but availed nothing. The notorious bounty hunter Cindax, known as the Sith Sentinel, had once infiltrated Halat while in port high above Iopa which was located deep in SS-4. The intruder had falsely assumed that Halat was inferior to Sith military warships as far as security measures were concerned and consequently set off the ground pressure sensors in a restricted area despite his extensive use of stealth. Dage personally hunted the Sith infiltrator down on the lower decks and, with one clean sweep of her custom combat hylyss, decapitated the Sith without so much as a fight. Dage had the severed head delivered personally to Hael- to the Ethada (Sith Secret State Security Branch). Fortunately, the more imposing threat of bounty hunter Ligris equally came to nothing as Lord Rexor had tried to contact him during Mangalore hunting season on Gilyad. A dedicated Kraal hunter, Ligris refused all contracts during this period which lasted for eight months every three years. Nevertheless, Lord Rexor was confident that their paths would cross again; in the meantime, Dage and her ship were hunted prey. Or so he thought… Lord Rexor was unaware that Dage Dakkara was the superior skilled huntress, and right at the moment she was hunting the former Max-Furor. As Lord Rexor, that name had long been forgotten on Tirahnna, but yet it was burned into Dage’s brain with the searing branding iron of injustice and revenge. She could not hope of killing him on Tirahnna as he was well protected and had Seers who would warn him. But ever since the lost battle with the Whills, Lord Rexor had discarded his Seers as the vigilant Bothans had revealed, and was presently not on Tirahnna, but high above it in orbit. Why? No one knew, but Dage had her heart set on tracking his exact location and hunting him down like the animal he was. She would kill him without mercy. He was a Sith Dakir as far as she was concerned, and now his time was drawing to a close. Dage could sense him, even from beyond the Outer Rim markers. Halat continued to move forward, the Sith Fleet conspicuously absent. This was the most opportune time for a hunt. In the frequent battles with the Sith military transports Halat had salvaged as much Sith weaponry and sensor equipment as possible to aid in the search. Halat was armed with multiple C, T, and M-Packs in addition to her own batteries of light-burst cannons and turbo-mack CF (Continuous Fire) guns - an awesome array of armaments supplemented with Sith sensor arrays and com gear for luring the unwary Sith transports into fatal ambushes. Dage was pouring through the Sith sensor data and com chatter using a light stream decoder wired to a neural pathway implant. This Araka device was both dangerous and illegal, but to Dage it was the greatest chance of locating her hated enemy. The constant headaches, blackouts, nausea, and infrequent convulsions were well worth it. Dage was bent on revenge driven by a passionate hatred of the Sith. She had become a tireless hunter. When she found her prey, Dage would personally tear Max-Furor’s heart out and bite a chunk from it. She longed to taste his vile blood on her lips and to carve her Double D initials into his black heart personally before taking it home and pinning it to the Tree of Torment as a victory symbol in the ultimate act of Hybyssian rebellion against the Sith occupiers. Eyes still closed in deep concentration, Commander Dage Dakkara ordered Halat to move cautiously into Sith territorial space. Any Sith sensor arrays encountered within range were to be targeted and destroyed at once. Although she could not yet pinpoint his exact location, Dage knew she was drawing ever closer. Lord Rexor felt another psychic disturbance high above Tirahnna in EVO-ONE. What was the meaning of these psychic tremors? Diprava MUST arrive at once! Lord Rexor summoned K-LOK yet again and ordered a status report on Diprava’s estimated time of arrival. K-LOK interlinked with the MD-13, but the news was not good. K-LOK reported: MY MASTER, NO WORD FROM THE SURFACE- NO RECORD OF DEPARTURE. DIPRAVA CANNOT BE LOCATED, NOR ANY OF THE AURALS AT THE Lord Rexor pounded his fists in rage on the nearest control console. Another betrayal by the Seers. They shall all be put to death after the destruction of Elysia. No mercy will be shown. Once we Sith rule the galaxy, we will return to the old path. One Master, one apprentice. No Seers, no Shamans. On the surface of Tirahnna, at Torenth, Diprava could sense the Dark Master’s anger and was now desperate to reach Max-Voyor. Across the galaxy heading towards Tirahnna, Tirahn could feel Lord Rexor’s anger as well. And onboard the Slayer, Kali had felt it too. Lord Rexor had thought he had taken away the Seers sight by imprisoning and disbanding them, but it was he who was now blind with rage and overconfidence in his Superweapon. Slayer had become his pride and obsession. Little did he know that even now he was being hunted as prey for the slaughter by both Dage Dakkara and Tirahn. The “Hybyssian Hellcat” had just been spotted crossing the Outer Rim markers by a Sith long-range tracking station. The sensors had detected her almost immediately, but were deceived by the friendly modulating tone signals of the ship’s IFF transponders. The mating of Sith weaponry and even obsidian hyper plating to Halat made the ruse all the more convincing… until she got to within visual range. It was then that the Hybyssian hull and markings were recognized. Halat in Hybyssian stood for Lightning and the golden hull with black lightning markings gave her away as an enemy ship. The most dreaded enemy ship on the prowl. Alarms sounded, but before the station could transmit its vital data, it was reduced to a scattered debris field after erupting in an intense fireball from the heavy fire of Halat’s forward batteries. Nothing remained of the destroyed tracking station except burnt and drifting twisted metal fragments and the carnage of mangled Sith corpses whose last sight was only that of a blinding flash of Hybyssian fury. Dage watched in delight from her forward view screen, smiled briefly, and then left the bridge to prepare for combat in her private quarters. Four of her Falar sisters awaited her there, all face-painted with crimson Dakir blood. The hunt was on. The Hybyssian warrior spirit had been reborn.
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