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(This post was last modified: 4 hours ago by Krassus Horuset.)
PART I: The Arrival
The shuttle emerged from hyperspace with a ripple of azure light and a sigh of energy, bearing the distinct crest of the Nam’ta Confederacy; a once proud emblem of independence, stability and armed neutrality in a galaxy torn by war; now dulled by the shadow of its ever-clearer surrender of autonomy. The striking green and gold insignia shimmered faintly on the hull, framed by flaking paint and other such 'scars' of lacking maintenance in times of war.
Flanking the craft in tight formation were two Nam’tees fighter craft, painted in old planetary hues of emerald and ivory, symbols of a government and armed forces still clinging desperately to an illusion of independence. Correcting their heading and tightening their formation as they veered into the steel-choked orbit of Horuz, the sky above the jungle planet became a sea of dagger-like silhouettes.
Harrower-class dreadnoughts stretched like armored leviathans across the horizon, their keels glinting with turbolaser ports and their hangars trafficked by supply craft. A warfleet returning from the Nam'ta Gambit's invasions of Fest and Spefik, now being retrofitted for further battle.
Amid them was the unmistakable flagship of Imperial control in the sector: The ISS Bloodwyrm.
Its bow was adorned with a massive crimson serpent, coils winding from hull to bridge, its fanged maw frozen in eternal strike. By Imperial standards it was an old ship by now, in service since the Cold War, its hull scarred from battles past. But its reputation was no less dreadful. Darth Zudikas, the Dark Council’s emissary, oversaw the entire Atrivis campaign from within its armoured walls.
And all knew that to see its presence was to lay eyes upon the far-reaching gaze of Darth Xarion, head of the Pyramid of Galactic Influence, made manifest.
The Nam’ta shuttle’s instruments pinged with proximity alerts as a squadron of Mark VI Supremacy-class starfighters closed in like carrion birds.
“Nam’ta shuttle,” crackled a voice across the channel. Imperial diction. Precise. Cold.
“Your escort will disengage immediately. Fighters Two and Three are ordered to separate for Hangars Four-Seven-Niner and Four-Eight-Zero respectively. Final approach to be completed under Imperial guidance. Acknowledge.”
Inside the cockpit, the Nam'tees pilot tensed, glancing toward President Kemma Ralter for instruction. She gave the slightest nod.
“Understood, Control,” the pilot responded. “Shuttle Confederacy Dawn releasing escorts.”
The two Nam’tees fighters peeled off wordlessly, veering toward their assigned docking zones like children dismissed from an audience with their betters. Only two Imperial interceptors remained, slipping into position beside the shuttle with surgical elegance.
No words were spoken, but the message was clear.
Below, the planet seethed. Horuz was a world of verdant cruelty, its jungles thick with choking vines and barbed thorns. Steam curled up from swamp basins and black lakes, hazing the sky like breath on a mirror.
In three thousand years, it would be renamed Despayre, after the moaning millions who would perish building the first Death Star. But already it was a prison world in all but name; its surface carved up by labor camps, ore drills, and fortified Imperial city towers.
And at its blackened heart stood the fortress-palace of Moff Maximilian Graush.
One of its shuttle pads extended upon the shuttle's approach as the Supremacy Fighters veered off. A squad of Imperial soldiers stood by for the arrival of the Confederacy's delegates. Unmoving as statues, expressionless visors set upon the lowering shuttle ramp.
As President Ralter stepped down the shuttle ramps, the heat struck her like a blow. The Horuz air was thick with humidity and the scent of rotting flora, overlaid with chemical tang from nearby refineries.
No one greeted her. Not officially. Not beyond the Imperial squad leader with a cold:
"The Moff has been waiting for you, President Ralter. This way, please."
They turned, and moved. The Confederate President and her Ambassador following close behind into the Moff's palace of horrors.
The hallways of Graush's residence on Horuz stank of antiseptic and embalming fluid.
Light flickered through cold transparisteel windows, casting twitching reflections on the museum of horrors that made up the palace's inner sanctum. Glass cases stretched the length of the corridors, each displaying an exhibit more perverse than the last.
Duros infants in jars of yellowing preservative. Bothan craniums surgically flayed to reveal neural patterning. A Gungan posed mid-leap, frozen in death, its skin stretched unnaturally taut across a frame of carbon-alloy supports.
Wookiee warriors in “natural” poses shielding their displayed “young.” A Mon Calamari in full Republic military regalia, dissected and split from throat to waist, with numbered pins stuck through his organs. In the next case: a Jawa curled in fetal position, eyes open but glassy, limbs curled around a scrap of metal.
It was colder than a morgue. Each alien corpse a display of the Moff’s hunting trophies or scientific curiosity into xenobiology.
President Kemma Ralter’s boots clicked smartly along the polished obsidian floor, each step defiant, despite the bile rising in her throat. She kept her eyes forward, refusing to meet the gaze of a taxidermied Rodian crouched in a “natural hunting pose,” blaster still clutched in its mummified hands.
At her side strode Ambassador Valco Reina, silent as ever. A seasoned career politician, Reina had held numerous positions across the Confederacy over his tenure in local politics—having served as mayor of one of Nam'ta Prime's northern districts and as a representative on the Confederate Council.
He was briefly considered as a presidential candidate for the pro-Imperial party, but was outperformed by Ralter, whom he now served as official ambassador to the Empire.
His eyes glazed over in apathy. This was not his first visit to the Moff’s residence...
The shuttle emerged from hyperspace with a ripple of azure light and a sigh of energy, bearing the distinct crest of the Nam’ta Confederacy; a once proud emblem of independence, stability and armed neutrality in a galaxy torn by war; now dulled by the shadow of its ever-clearer surrender of autonomy. The striking green and gold insignia shimmered faintly on the hull, framed by flaking paint and other such 'scars' of lacking maintenance in times of war.
Flanking the craft in tight formation were two Nam’tees fighter craft, painted in old planetary hues of emerald and ivory, symbols of a government and armed forces still clinging desperately to an illusion of independence. Correcting their heading and tightening their formation as they veered into the steel-choked orbit of Horuz, the sky above the jungle planet became a sea of dagger-like silhouettes.
Harrower-class dreadnoughts stretched like armored leviathans across the horizon, their keels glinting with turbolaser ports and their hangars trafficked by supply craft. A warfleet returning from the Nam'ta Gambit's invasions of Fest and Spefik, now being retrofitted for further battle.
Amid them was the unmistakable flagship of Imperial control in the sector: The ISS Bloodwyrm.
Its bow was adorned with a massive crimson serpent, coils winding from hull to bridge, its fanged maw frozen in eternal strike. By Imperial standards it was an old ship by now, in service since the Cold War, its hull scarred from battles past. But its reputation was no less dreadful. Darth Zudikas, the Dark Council’s emissary, oversaw the entire Atrivis campaign from within its armoured walls.
And all knew that to see its presence was to lay eyes upon the far-reaching gaze of Darth Xarion, head of the Pyramid of Galactic Influence, made manifest.
The Nam’ta shuttle’s instruments pinged with proximity alerts as a squadron of Mark VI Supremacy-class starfighters closed in like carrion birds.
“Nam’ta shuttle,” crackled a voice across the channel. Imperial diction. Precise. Cold.
“Your escort will disengage immediately. Fighters Two and Three are ordered to separate for Hangars Four-Seven-Niner and Four-Eight-Zero respectively. Final approach to be completed under Imperial guidance. Acknowledge.”
Inside the cockpit, the Nam'tees pilot tensed, glancing toward President Kemma Ralter for instruction. She gave the slightest nod.
“Understood, Control,” the pilot responded. “Shuttle Confederacy Dawn releasing escorts.”
The two Nam’tees fighters peeled off wordlessly, veering toward their assigned docking zones like children dismissed from an audience with their betters. Only two Imperial interceptors remained, slipping into position beside the shuttle with surgical elegance.
No words were spoken, but the message was clear.
Below, the planet seethed. Horuz was a world of verdant cruelty, its jungles thick with choking vines and barbed thorns. Steam curled up from swamp basins and black lakes, hazing the sky like breath on a mirror.
In three thousand years, it would be renamed Despayre, after the moaning millions who would perish building the first Death Star. But already it was a prison world in all but name; its surface carved up by labor camps, ore drills, and fortified Imperial city towers.
And at its blackened heart stood the fortress-palace of Moff Maximilian Graush.
One of its shuttle pads extended upon the shuttle's approach as the Supremacy Fighters veered off. A squad of Imperial soldiers stood by for the arrival of the Confederacy's delegates. Unmoving as statues, expressionless visors set upon the lowering shuttle ramp.
As President Ralter stepped down the shuttle ramps, the heat struck her like a blow. The Horuz air was thick with humidity and the scent of rotting flora, overlaid with chemical tang from nearby refineries.
No one greeted her. Not officially. Not beyond the Imperial squad leader with a cold:
"The Moff has been waiting for you, President Ralter. This way, please."
They turned, and moved. The Confederate President and her Ambassador following close behind into the Moff's palace of horrors.
The hallways of Graush's residence on Horuz stank of antiseptic and embalming fluid.
Light flickered through cold transparisteel windows, casting twitching reflections on the museum of horrors that made up the palace's inner sanctum. Glass cases stretched the length of the corridors, each displaying an exhibit more perverse than the last.
Duros infants in jars of yellowing preservative. Bothan craniums surgically flayed to reveal neural patterning. A Gungan posed mid-leap, frozen in death, its skin stretched unnaturally taut across a frame of carbon-alloy supports.
Wookiee warriors in “natural” poses shielding their displayed “young.” A Mon Calamari in full Republic military regalia, dissected and split from throat to waist, with numbered pins stuck through his organs. In the next case: a Jawa curled in fetal position, eyes open but glassy, limbs curled around a scrap of metal.
It was colder than a morgue. Each alien corpse a display of the Moff’s hunting trophies or scientific curiosity into xenobiology.
President Kemma Ralter’s boots clicked smartly along the polished obsidian floor, each step defiant, despite the bile rising in her throat. She kept her eyes forward, refusing to meet the gaze of a taxidermied Rodian crouched in a “natural hunting pose,” blaster still clutched in its mummified hands.
At her side strode Ambassador Valco Reina, silent as ever. A seasoned career politician, Reina had held numerous positions across the Confederacy over his tenure in local politics—having served as mayor of one of Nam'ta Prime's northern districts and as a representative on the Confederate Council.
He was briefly considered as a presidential candidate for the pro-Imperial party, but was outperformed by Ralter, whom he now served as official ambassador to the Empire.
His eyes glazed over in apathy. This was not his first visit to the Moff’s residence...
