Taris

The orb of wonderful green and blue dangled smoothly through the gravitational orbit of its host star. No signs of advanced civilisation could be seen other than the turbo-laser blasts of green and red, haphazardly exchanged between Republic and Sith fleets every now and then as they played a game of cat and mouse.

Yuna watched all of this with a frown on her face, this looked more like a war zone than an actual political dispute as she was lead to believe. The rapid beeping of the comms in her unmarked space-ship alluded to the fact that she was correct. Information had been wrong about this world.

"Are you seeing this Yuna?" She simply crossed her arms and inclined her helmet, the Mandalorians behind her having soft conversations through private comm channels.

"Yes I am, but you promised me Ecumenopolis, not deserted jungle world." The figure of Ned grimaced a little and rubbed the back of his head. His information not only had been incorrect, it had been a downright lie.

"Sorry! Look, my contact in the high-command was talking Taris up big, he showed me some information about the world and it showed that it was a city-planet as large as Coruscant."

"So you believe this info, before even checking it...?"

He looked away embarrassedly, Yuna cursed under her breath as Republic ships slowly began breaking off towards their gathering of ships, an open-band broadcast being received via external transponder relays.

~"Unknown vessels, this space is a contested war-zone. Leave immediately or submit to a search."~ The audio message cut out as the Valor-Class Cruiser, it's hammer-like design with massive city-like spires on the top and armoured plating around key sections, blotting out the view of Taris and slowly looming over everything before Yuna and Ned.

"Great, now what are we doing Ned.....?"

"Give me a moment, I'll contact the republic ship and request access to Taris, from there we may be able to do some missions for the Republic on the surface." The Mandalorians behind Yuna shifted uneasily, one of them tapping Yuna on the shoulder and starting a comms-link with her.

A frantic and angered voice scattered into her ears as this link was established. "We're working with the JEDI?" She almost spat the word like a slur, her emotions and feelings conveyed clearly for Yuna to understand.

'For fucks sakes Ned!' Yuna, was naturally frustrated and annoyed by the Naivety of the teenager, his voice starting to haunt her as he kept on fucking up constantly. 

"No, we are not, we are being hired by a group called the Hyperlane Hustlers, they are an independent faction that has members connected to the Republic. Our main mission is to protect a certain woman on that man's ship called Marilia." Marilia was the in-game name of Mark's character.

Moments passed by in intense thought before the female Mandalorian backed down.

"As long as we don't work with those treacherous bastards." The rest of her implied sentence hung in the air of both their helms until it was interrupted by Ned seconds later.

"I got us access to the planet, from there the contract will be upheld. I don't know how much of an 'underworld' can be created here, but I am sure 'Marilia' has plans. Either way, you can now officially count your mission as having been started."

The republic ship began to lightly ebb to the right, turning back on itself and traversing vast distance to re-join with its fleet. Turbo lasers scattered over armoured hull section as if water over a hotplate, following beams of heated gas fading into clouds of highly energetic toxic sludge just beyond the large cruiser.

Yuna and Ned's ship darted past the cruiser and made a dash straight for Taris's atmosphere, the turbo-laser planetary defences roaring off to the left of their descent, a swarm of sith fighters attempting to intercept them... Only to fail as the majority of them were burnt into cinders, fireballs crashing from low orbit into the stratosphere.

'The shit I do to gain levels...'

...

On the surface of Taris, somewhere...

A lightsaber cut through plastoid armour as plasteel crunched with a resounding crackle of energy, the remaining lightsaber blade melting through the trooper's body until the upper half plopped down onto the ground.

Standing over the corpse was Tony Stark, his red lightsaber humming in power as behind him the distinctive crunching of bones below teeth resounded, Khem Val leaning over the dead corpses of several Republic Commandos who had been patrolling the ruined section of the Eucomonpolis's once grand research sector. Once grand structures now harboured skittering bugs and alien creatures, distant mating calls of Rakghouls echoing off of rusted and crunched skyscraper remains.

Tony could swear that every now and then, below his feet, the cracking of glass. He wasn't just looking at the remnants, he was standing on them.

"Khem, come on buddy, we gotta save eating time for after the fight."

"Khem Val eat, when, Khem Val want." The brutish monster shrugged and snapped an ankle between his sharpened teeth, sucking sounds following as the creature enjoyed the taste of marrow.

Tony turned, resisting the urge to vomit as the noise continued. His attempts were failing but that was okay, he thought, since Khem Val had helped him tank a lot more than he thought would be possible.

He had come to this planet on the rumours that more Holocrons could be found here. Tales of Sith and Jedi alike using this planet as a haven from outside forces in the past, whispered like children stories into his ears from friends who also played the game.

Admittedly, he had taken to these stories and was currently walking through a Rakghoul infested jungle to find the mythical prize known as a Holocron, but that was neither here nor there...

"Buddy, come on, we have to continue..."

The monstrous creature licked its fingers before exhaling in delight, standing moments later to its full eight-foot height and walking over to Tony.

"Khem Val. Ready." Closing his eyes and secretly praying to god, Tony continued to trek forwards, his journey impeded minutely by jungle vines and local carnivorous flora. Nothing a light saber could not handle was present, yet, but that wasn't his main focus... It was time that was.

He had already spent three days searching this planets most dangerous ruins and had found next to nothing valuable, the only exception being a deactivated droid that had run out of power and was half covered in moss... he had no high hopes of gaining anything from that droid.

Artillery pounded in the distance for several volleys until it subdued and there was only the constant blare of insects once more. The war meant nothing to Tony as he was here for the tech... As it was he was already expanding his ideas for his Iron Man suit. Electrical resistance to EMPs and high temperature weapons... Melee capabilities using concentrated plasma projected from a nozzle on the top of his suit's arm. This game has provided plenty of inspiration and as it was, he wanted to create his own spaceships eventually.

An hour passed by in this fugue state of thought as he methodically, wearily, slashed down against jungle plants and carved a path for himself and his companion through the desolate jungle smeared scientific district of Taris.

*TSSSH-CHHHHK*

Glass shattered beneath his feet as he and his monster fell through a once intact window and landed into a tossed and shredded laboratory, critters warbling away in fear and surprise as Tony slammed into a metal table and fell head over heels straight onto his face, glass poking into the side of his character's cheek as red lights flickered on and off.

"Ohhh... Ouch..." He grimaced and sucked in breath through his teeth as the glass fell from his face and he pushed up against what was once a wall, now turned floor. The pain and anger he felt was enough to begin a healing wave through his body and any breakage or stabbing pain slowly faded into numbness.

 "Just had to fall through, didn't we...? It's all that big guy's fault for being heavy."

"Khem Val suggest, you shut, up, now." His eerie red eyes glowed in the relative gloom that now surrounded them, the musculature tensing as the monster popped out several large glass fragments. 

"Alright, alright..." Tony raised his hands and looked around. "What have we found here?" Khem Val grunted and scoffed with an exhale, his eyes tracking his 'master' as Tony himself jumped up to the table, crouching on what used to be the stand of what he could now identify as a dissection table.

His gaze wandered around the room as he noticed large vats, shattered green glass dusted with dirt and soil from time's march. No liquid remained from the inside of these chambers, but whatever it was, it was relatively large. Half the size of Khem Val or perhaps even Khem Val level if it were hunched.

"Is this where the Rakghouls came from...?" A bad feeling surged through him as he looked where he had fallen and noted the existence of a metal door, shut tightly but groaning under the weight of several large boulders.

"There is something down there. Buddy, could you move those rocks?" Khem just huffed and jumped down, picking up the boulders and chucking them to other segments of the room, the metal popping as dents were left in the wake of Khem's strength. 

'Perhaps I'll find something interesting down there.' Tony jumped down and took out his lightsaber, cutting through the previously intact, air-tight, door.

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