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katyakiryu · 5 years

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An Unexpected Wrath, Part 3

"Never forget who you serve, Captain."

"No, Darth Baras."

"What was that, Quinn?" Asha'lie asked as she strode onto the bridge.

"More Moff Broysc, my lord," Quinn lied. She raised one eyebrow and crossed over to him. To his own surprise, he found himself wrapping his arms around her. Her soft caramel hair brushed beneath his jaw.

It was often like this after she returned, now. She was always exhausted, even more so now that Baras had declared war and she was the target. Instead of her quarters, Asha now came to him. It was almost as if she needed a pillar of strength. Quinn had always seen her as strong and beautiful, a goddess that was unapproachable. Now she was just a young women who relied on him heavily.

How could he do what Baras asked? She loved him. He shook his head and leaned down to kiss her. Quinn couldn't let himself fall harder than he already had. Even if he loved her back, Baras was a force that wouldn't be merciful. She'd be dead soon.

But for now, Quinn allowed himself to savor her warmth. She sighed and leaned back. Her blue eyes were troubled. How had she been selected as the Emperor's Wrath? It was entirely unexpected. Especially since now he knew the truth-- that she embraced the light side. Asha'lie had opened up during one of their hyperspace talks. She'd wanted to join the Jedi, but saw the Empire as stronger. In addition, her family pushed her towards the Sith.

"We'll be on Voss soon," she murmured. "Do you want to come with me?"

"You always bring Vette," Quinn remarked, surprised.

"So? She'll be okay with Jaesa," Asha told him.

"I'd better stay with the ship. You cant expect that commando to follow protocols," he replied. She laughed and shook her head. A gentle kiss was pressed to his cheek, leaving him with his mouth open like a buffoon when she swept away. Quinn lifted a hand to his cheek. He should have taken her up on the offer. Perhaps she wouldn't be so exhausted if he was aiding her in the battlefield. He was trained, Vette wasn't.

His holo beeped.

"My lord," Quinn answered. "You have further instructions for me?"

"Kill my rebellious apprentice, Quinn. I've decided that you need a test of loyalty."

It was those words that left him staring endlessly at the ceiling of Asha'lie's quarters in the dark of the ship. Him? Kill her? She was unkillable! She'd faced Sith and Jedi alike and cut them down to their knees. She was a flurry of lightsabers and speed.

"I'm back," Asha announced, sliding beneath the sheets. She rested her head on Quinn's bare chest. Her arms wrapped around him. Automatically, his arm went around her. "I missed you."

"How did it go?" He found himself asking.

"Fine. I made a Sith diplomat very angry, but I know where he can shove his opinions," she chuckled. "You didn't rip Pierce's throat out?"

"By some chance, yes."

"We'll be going to Corellia, next," Asha'lie told him. Quinn gripped his hand in a fist beneath the sheets. He could make it quick for her. He owed her that much.

"There's a blockade around Corellia, my lord..."

And so he waited, waited for the warm and kind Sith that loved him to destroy her. Quinn took in a breath, squeezing his eyes shut. There would be tears later, and he cursed the thought. He wondered if Baras would let him bury her.

The doors slid open, leaving Asha'lie standing in the room with him. With another breath, Quinn unveiled himself.

He turned towards her surprised face. He avoided looking anywhere near her eyes. That would break his resolve, to see those clear blue eyes before she died.

"My lord, I could not hand you this fate without bearing witness," Quinn told her. Asha raised an eyebrow and began to approach him, stopping a few feet away.

"You can't stand to be away from me anymore, hm?" She teased, though her face was shadowed with concern. He held his cold facade. Quinn wouldn't allow her to break him.

"I have enjoyed your company and companionship, my lord," the captain said. Her smile vanished. "That's why this is so hard."

Quinn needed her to know. He needed her to know that this was necessary for his survival. He loved her, damn it, he loved her! Why did it have to be like this?

"It pains me, but this is all a ruse," he admitted. His breath was catching. He didn't want to do this. "There's no blockade, or special signal emitter. Baras is my true master."

Shock and pain crossed her gorgeous face. She looked towards her boots with gritted teeth. Her own breaths became shaky.

"He had me lure you here to have you killed."

Asha'lie's hands curled into fists.

"I thought... I thought what we had was real. I thought we cared about each other," she whispered. Quinn pressed his lips together.

"I didn't want this," he admitted. "But Baras has forced me and I must side with him to survive."

"Baras doesn't care about you!" Asha'lie snapped. "You're nothing but another Imperial to him, Malavai!"

He pointed his blaster at her in sudden fear. Quinn forced himself to relax as he called in the specialized assassin droids.

"I calculate a near zero chance that these droids will fail to kill you. Goodbye, Asha," he snapped.

She let out a fearsome scream and ripped her lightsabers free. Quinn thought that she would last a minute, but that was all the time she took to rip through both droids. She stalked towards him, seething with wrath and rage. He stumbled back as she swept at him. The gentle, warm love she'd given him was all gone, crushed beneath her bootheels as she continued to advance. Quinn fell to his knees and held up his hands.

"No... all I wanted was to end it quickly for you."

"You failed."

"I know it is meaningless to express my deep regret. I don't expect your mercy."

But Quinn did. In fact, he was depending on it. He was depending that she would fall on her old ways and take him back, promise to protect him and forgive him. She wouldn't kill him. She never had killed a surrendering foe before. Hope filled him as she turned off her lightsabers and holstered them. Quinn looked up into her clear blue eyes.

He found them dead and furious.

"You won't die. Yet."

Asha threw him into the wall hard. He gasped in pain as his shoulder cracked under her force. It was the last breath he was able to take for several seconds as she force-choked him into unconsiousness.

When Quinn awoke, she was standing over him with cold fury. Without a word, she walked away. Every time her boots rattled against the metal, the sound was a curse. He pushed himself up from the ground. Every muscle in his body ached.

"Will the crew be informed of this?" He found himself asking. Her damning footsteps stopped.

"No. It would compromise your ability to lead."

"Asha-"

"You are no longer welcome in my chambers."

"Asha'lie, I did not want this. Baras, he-"

She glared over her shoulder at him.

"Captain, address me informally again and I'll have your head," Asha'lie promised. Quinn lowered his head in shame.

The curses whispered by her boots echoed in his ears long after she left the station.

She was ice.

No warmth.

No smiles.

No sparkle in those clear blue eyes that Quinn loved.

Where she had once sat on the bridge felt like an empty void. He couldn't stand the silence. He wanted her with him. Surely there was some way to apologize, to attone for his betrayal. Quinn pressed his lips together and marched from the bridge. There was plenty of time before they reached Corellia. He could fix this. She was forgiving and understanding. She saw the good in people.

Quinn abruptly stopped when he heard Pierce's voice coming from her chambers.

His teeth ground themselves to dust. Asha and he had never gone past kisses and sleeping beside each other. Was this his punishment? Listening to Pierce, that savage, brutish pig-

Quinn turned and stalked away. She'd never forgive him. She'd never love him. He'd broken her, and things would never be the same between them again.

#malavai quinn #starwarstheoldrepublic #stwor #an unexpected wrath

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padawanlost · 6 years

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Hey, weird question. How come the Jedi don’t fight in coherent formations when there’s a large number of them? I don’t mean the battle formations of the regimental armies, I meant sword formations in which they could close ranks and work together so no one would have their back exposed. Instead we see them each dueling on their own, hacking and slashing. A formation would have been a lot more effective on Geonosis and the Jedi Temple. Just saying.

Hey! Thisquestion is not weird at all, it’s actually a pretty important one. The factthe Jedi were initially unequipped do face the droid army was one of the reasonwhy Palpatine wanted them to fight.

The Jediwere not a military force. They were not soldiers nor they were trained to be.They probably educated on military strategies but it would’ve been a purely theoreticalsubject. Jedi were trained to be diplomats. And even before the peace times they never hadto operate like an army the way they did during the Clone Wars.

They wentto Geonosis as a “rescue” mission, they were not expecting nor were prepared toface a droid army. They were outnumber, surrounded and were simply overwhelmedby the situation. By the time Yoda arrived with the clone army most of themwere dead and the remaining had never led a military unit before which, ofcourse, led to massive clone casualties.

“You had to be able to cross that threshold andbe ready to do absolutely anything to win. Fierfek, if stupid Jedi hadn’t used you as infantry on Geonosis, every singleone of my commando batch would be alive today.” Triple Zero by KarenTraviss.

By the timeGeonosis was over and the war was fully on the jedi were too spread out acrossthe galaxy to work as a unity. There weren’t even enough Jedi to command allclone unities, let alone enough for the Order to create one made only of Jedi.

Jedi wereprecious, they were given command positions despite having zero militarybackground whilst the clones who were bred for war became canon fodder. This wasnot an accident. The Jedi were not qualified to be generals but, as Yoda said,in their arrogance they jumped into a conflict they did not fully understand(or bothered trying). Plus, Palatine needed the Jedi in charge and overwhelmedfor his plan to work and they played right into his hands.

#ask #praetor-canis #jedi order #clone troopers #sw meta #meta: clones #txt

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cienie-isengardu · 6 years

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@cptalpha-17 replied to The audience applaude, with the exception of...

Can you explain what's going on in this scene? I've never read The Cestus Deception but I'm intrigued by this scene.

Sure!

During Clone Wars, new type of security droids have appeared on the market; the JK-13, by some called Jedi Killers. Due to their advanced construction, the droids had limited Force abilities that allow them to anticipate even Jedi's moves. What is worse, JK series was manufactured on Ord Cestus, planet belonging/allied to Republic and Separatists were very interested in buying such machines. What of course put Republic best interest in danger, so Chancellor Palpatine decided to sent team of clones under Jedi command to solve the problem - diplomatically, if possible or using violence if necessary.

Obi-Wan (Anakin, who at that time was still padawan) was removed from the front line and had he been called back to Coruscant, not really knowing what is going on. The appointed meeting place was the sporting arena, usually used for matches of Coruscant's most popular spectator sport - but for this gathering, it was sort of war council:

Today the vast stadium was empty, cleared and sequestered, hosting a very different sort of gathering.

As he emerged from the echoing length of pedestrian tunnel, Obi-Wan scanned the tiered stands. Most of the rows were as empty as a Tatooine desert scape, but a few dozen witnesses were gathered in the box-seat section. He recognized a scattering of high-level elected officials, some important but ordinarily reclusive bureaucrats, a few people from the technical branches, and even some clone troopers. Instinct and experience suggested that this was a war council.

The gathering’s goal was to demonstrate the prowess of JK-13 against Confederacy destroyer droid captured on Geonosis and reconstructed to original manufacturer specifications. It took JK-13 forty-two seconds to destroy the other droid. The droid against droid fight was just a way to establish a baseline, a reference point against an opponent both familiar and formidable for gathered people.

The next to fight JK-13 was Advanced Recon Commando:

On cue, a single clone trooper, a commando in full battle armor, armed with an infantry-grade blaster rifle, stepped forward from his hiding place beneath the lip of the arena wall. Clone Commandos were specialized troopers. They had been modified from the basic trooper template to allow for specific training protocols.

A blast helmet concealed his features, but his posture bespoke aggressive readiness. An uneasy mutter wound its way through the crowd.

The amphibian seemed taken aback. "I ... would not wish to be responsible for a death ..."

The technician fixed the Aqualish with a pitying gaze, as if every response had been anticipated. "Don't worry." Her motions were measured and relaxed as she manipulated a few controls. "The machine is calibrated for nonlethal apprehension."

Although that pronouncement quieted most of the witnesses, Obi-Wan felt even more uneasy. This droid, with its ethereal beauty and unconventional lethality, had something to do with his mission. But what?

"What exactly is the trooper's objective?" Obi-Wan called down.

The corners of Lido Shan's lips pulled upward. "To fight his way past the JK and capture me."

The muttering witnesses regarded her with disbelief and something more disturbing: anticipation. They knew they were about to witness something memorable. But which did they desire most? The JK defeated, or this snooty technician given her comeuppance?

So, the moment when ARC joined the test, most people were already excited about the fight to some degree. Except Kenobi, and Kit Fisto who also was summoned to the arena. After clone trooper was defeated, other clone helped him get up and took him off from arena, most likely to medic (the ARC's nervous system had been momentarily overloaded, and he had consequently suffered a few hours of irregular heart rhythm. Nothing alarming, but he had been taken to a med bay for observation for a few days)

Around that time, Kenobi had the short talk with few citizens of Republic; one of them said “Come now, sir. It’s just a clone, after all.” that brought Kenobi’s disgust.

Of course, the moment when JK-13 proven to be so great machine, one of witnesses asked Jedi for demontrastion. Kenobi and Kit Fisto didn’t feel like fighting just to satisfy the crowd but Kit decided to try the droid for himself. The JK was defeated and the fight was spectacular for viewers (some never had a chance to see Jedi in real action) but the whole affair left a bad feeling in two other ARCs Nate (A-98) & Forry, who talking about mission and related to it demo fight in arena that happened not so ago:

Nate triggered PLAY, and together they watched as the Jedi not only stood his ground against the JK, but actually forced it into retreat. Nate inhaled sharply as the Jedi beat the thing at its own game. In some ways his tactics weren't that different from those attempted by the trooper, but the results were impressively superior.

"Beat it."

"Umm-hmmm." Forry clucked admiringly. "Did you see that timing?"

"Uh-huh. Never seen reflexes like that, either. You're right: the machine was faster, but it didn't make any difference."

"Jedi." Forty laughed. It was hard to say whether the laughter was bitter or admiring. Perhaps a touch of both. "So they watched a trooper go down, and just had to get down there and show off."

Nate caught the implication: the Jedi might have even programmed the droid. How could the droid move faster and still lose? Unless it was instructed to lose ...

Nonsense. They both knew a Jedi would never do such a thing. This was nothing but lingering unease, a defensive technique to hide the slight feeling of inferiority troopers sometimes felt around Temple dwellers.

"They beat Jango," both of them said simultaneously. These three words were almost a litany. Whatever they could say about Jedi being strange, or egotistical, or bizarrely esoteric, in an arena on Geonosis they had slain the clone troopers' template, and that meant they were worthy of respect

Later, Nate, Forry and Sirty (the ARC that fought against JK-13 on arena) became part of clone squad sent with Kenobi and Kit to Ord Cestus to deal with the production of bio-advanced JK-13 series.

Hope it explain what is going on on the previously quoted part :)

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lazybarbarians · 7 years

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Moving Target by Cecil Castellucci and Jason Fry

Ragnell: This week we read Moving Target: A Princess Leia Adventure. It’s the YA novel for the new Star Wars canon set between Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi, a companion to last week’s selection actually, and actually has ½ the same authors.

The story takes place a few months after ESB, when the ship Leia’s riding on gets attacked. This sets up the background, which is that she and luke have been identified as symbols for the Alliance and are being moved around secretly and separately because they are massive targets. The entire Alliance has split into small cells that never stay in one place very long since the Hoth attack.

Leia’s being doing recruitment and diplomatic visits. She gets called to see the rest of Alliance High Command and finds out there’s a new Death Star being built, and the Alliance needs to gather the fleet and plan an attack before construction is complete, but they need to avoid Imperial attention. To that end, Leia volunteers to act as a decoy and draw Imperial attention away from the gathering by posting a fake recruitment mission and just basically being a moving target.

During this she speaks to Luke and Mon Mothma, which are very sweet scenes in which both characters try to convince her that it's perfectly acceptable to put aside her sense of duty to rescue Han. (Han’s rescue is not something the Alliance can afford to do, but no one’s objecting to a small volunteer force.)

After that she collects her team of dupes, a naive idealistic comm specialist named Kidi, a literal-minded mechanic named Antrot, the pilot Nien Nunb (Lando’s co-pilot during the RotJ Death Star run), and a commando named Lokmarcha, Lok for short. Lok is assigned by one of the Interchangeable Disposable Alliance Generals You Will Never See Outside This Story as a bodyguard for Leia, which she understands but is annoyed at. Only Leia and Lok know the mission is a decoy, the others are fairly earnest and a source of guilt for Leia.

They set up beacons using old encryption codes Leia knows the empire cracked at 3 different locations. The first one involves climbing up a chimney, the second meeting cool pirates, and the third a farmer matriarch who says she’s just gonna tell the Empire to go fly a kite as soon as they’re done setting this stuff up. Both the first and second meeting points get a very fast visit from a very bland villainess who has a Star Destroyer. Why she gets a Star Destroyer I don’t know. The third involves Leia breaking the truth to her whole team and helping the matriarch defend against the Imperials. Then she goes to the fake meeting point to warn away the recruits, and gets captured.

They come up with some plan to blow up the ship, but instead Lok dies in a grisly manner because he has a suicide EMP device in his chest, Leia stealing the bland villainess’s clothes and Antrot dies blowing up the ship so they can escape the Star destroyer. The recruits attack the thing to help them, Leia, Kidi and Nien survive and Leia calls Luke who tells her that they’re ready to start the third movie.

Oh, and Kidi and Lok got together so Kidi can be sad about Lok’s death and Leia can connect the whole thing to Han but there’s barely any page time spent on it.

So, this book is annoying to me because it could be a lot better than it is. And it has some good parts, mainly Leia’s characterization, and the scenes with Mon Mothma, Luke, and Nien. A few here and there during the mission too. But it falls short for two reasons for me.

First, it starts off implying that Leia and Luke have been traveling on different ships and not really doing much for the better part of the year while Han is gone. I don’t like that, it seems wasteful. This is prime twin-teamup time, and there should be room left for stories where they do even if this particular one is a Leia solo story. But it seems to position itself to account for most of the year, and while the interaction with Luke is wonderful the wistfulness implies that she just hasn’t been able to see him much since Bespin and I hate that. So right away, the book loses some points for me.

The second problem is that Leia is presented as needing a specific character arc in this. In ESB, we saw her open herself up to romantic love. We didn’t see her learn to put aside her sense of duty, a core concept of the character since her first appearance, to allow herself that time. And the writers have the best idea, they present this perfectly in the early scenes with Luke and Mon Mothma. We see Leia’s pessimism and cynicism contrasted against Luke’s faith. Then we get Mon Mothma pulling Leia aside to tell her it’s OKAY to want a life for herself, it’s okay to pull back from her duties to work to get that. So Leia starts out the book thinking it’s selfish to have romance and she won’t be able to have Han back anyway.

Over the course of the mission, she changes her mind. Which is the problem. There’s really not a lot in the mission driving this lesson home. The four parts of the mission itself never really give Leia reason to reflect on Han. She reflects on her time in the Death Star, and balances whether the ends justify the means but there’s not a lot to remind her what she’s lost. Instead it lets her get her mind completely off of Han while she’s working.

The background romance between Kidi and Lok reminds her of herself and Han when they catch them kissing, but there’s not a lot of groundwork laid during the bickering and honestly not a lot of parallels between either character and Han, or really either character and Leia. Lok’s death should underscore this lesson too, but we never see how Leia connects the dots. Really, the only character on the entire crew who reminds us of Han is Nien Nunb, who’s a little roguish and a source of humor, while the others are all aspects we see in Luke -- an innocent technician, a young idealist, and a badass commando who’s willing to sacrifice himself to give everyone else a shot.

It would’ve been better to shape the mission around something that drives home Leia’s central character arc, rather than have it be work that takes her mind off her problems with a brief interlude of two people with a situation that vaguely resembles her. Maybe more use of the one character with traits in common with Han, I know they can't kill Nien but they could have made Leia fear for him more. Instead we got a quick death for a character in a romance as a cheat to a lesson, and I know both Castellucci and Fry can write better than this.

Kalinara: I didn’t find the book quite as annoying as you did. But I do agree that there were a lot of missed opportunities.

The best part of the book were the canon characters, honestly. As you mentioned, the dynamic between Luke and Leia was lovely. Their scenes together shined. I also really liked the way Mon Mothma was used. She was a welcome maternal figure, one who wasn’t afraid to talk to Leia about her losses and encourage her to find happiness where she could.

The biggest problem for me was that it feels like this book basically shunts Leia to the side of any meaningful plot during this time period. I mean, Lando and Chewbacca are looking for Han. Luke is doing...Jedi stuff. Leia’s part of a distraction mission to hide the rebels’ true plans regarding the Second Death Star. A mission that we know is pointless, since the Second Death Star was a trap anyway.

Leia has strong, appealing characterization, but the characters that she’s stuck bouncing off of are basically stock placefillers. Kidi is the sweet ultra-liberal, tree-hugging stereotype girl, Lok is the frowning by the book military guy, the third dude, Antrot? Is basically whiny nerd comic relief so forgettable that I’m still not sure I got his name right.

Leia never has an opportunity to really connect to any of these characters, and there’s really no reason given that she should. The only one she has any sort of real connection with is Lok, and she does shine there, as she manages to smoothly assert her authority while still respecting his concerns.

I think it stands out to me because one of the best parts of the first (or maybe second) chapter was Leia musing about how her life in the Rebellion hadn’t given her the opportunity for friendship. Luke, Han, Chewie, the Droids, they were the first time she really was able to connect to people on that level. I expected that to mean something with these new characters. I expected to see Leia make friends. But it never really happened.

It’s not just a matter of these characters being OCs, because authors in both the Expanded Universe and the new canon have managed to introduce OC friends for Leia that worked very well. Winter was a staple in the old canon. And Ransolm Casterfo, for all the complications there, had a very vivid connection to Leia in Bloodlines. So it is absolutely doable. But it didn’t happen here.

Lok came closest, but he was still more archetype than man. Kidi and Antrot were too young and wide-eyed. Which is a bit weird to say, considering how Leia latched onto Luke. But Luke was a kid who rescued her and was never in her direct command, so there’s a subtle difference there. She and Luke and Han were equals in an emotional sense, and these kids are not.

Nien Nunb comes closest. He’s definitely the most vivid of the characters (I admit, I think of him almost as an original character because it took me ages to remember who he was. I fail Star Wars forever). And he and Leia do interact a lot more like friends, but there isn’t much chance to explore that relationship dynamic either. He always seems to miss the fun chimney climbing adventures, only to rejoin them again later.

I think maybe the problem is that the authors were trying too hard for the romantic parallel, which meant we wasted way too much time watching Kidi and Lok play Ollie and Hal on a road trip, rather than seeing Leia’s relationship develop with either character. They should have gone for a friendship parallel instead. Because that’s the thing, Han was Leia’s friend long before he was her love. And Leia isn’t just neglecting her feelings for Han during this time period, she’s also letting duty get in the way of being with Luke. (In that sense, I actually liked that they hadn’t interacted much during this time period. I think it fits with Leia’s theme.) She needs to learn that she can be selfish, so to speak, and value her friends, and be able to find happiness with them. Both the friend she loves romantically, and the friend that she doesn’t.

And honestly, I thought Lok’s death was rather disturbing for a YA novel. Maybe I’m just an old fuddy-duddy, but that was a bit much.

#Leia misses the fun again #Leia Organa + Nien Nunb teamup #Pointless Romance #Missed Opportunities #Dead men defrosting #A Disney Prince(ss) in Space #Star Wars #Moving Target #Cecil Castellucci #Jason Fry

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