The H-type Nubian Yacht descended elegantly through the scorched atmosphere of the broken moon of Jedha. Trails of dust and debris streamed from the chromate fins as the ship approached the pre-destined rendezvous point. Landing gear deployed with a mechanized whir as the ship touches down next to an ST-70 assault ship. The landing ramp extended with a hydraulic hiss as two slightly staggering figures strolled down to the rocky ground below.
The partially drunken Furios Morega and Nora Olen of Clan Plagueis approached the Palatinaean Vincent Brujah, who was finishing up a death stick he’d imbibed to pass the time, their meeting the result of an alcohol-fuelled bet made earlier at the onboard cantina of the Providence-class Dreadnought Goliath.
Vincent flicked the death stick into a nearby brush fire, taking a moment to enjoy the brightly colored flames. His usually stoic face was beaming with what appeared to be amusement. Reaching one hand into the air, Vincent watched as three bottles of Corellian ale floated out of the Punisher, their caps popping off as one was delivered to each of the three.
“All I brought were some ales, but if you can stomach them, feel free.”
He looked around the desolate moon, paying especially close attention to all the fire.
If you had told Nora she would be travelling to Jedha with her fellow clan mate Furios and two others from different clans in the Brotherhood, Eevie and Vincent, she would not have believed you. Yet here she was now off her fellow Plagueians Yacht, standing on the the destroyed planet completely drunk out of her mind. How the four of them met you ask? A silly bet onboard the Goliath. A bet to find a special artifact on Jedha that the Children of Mortis were rumoured to store. A bet was certainly not on her playing card for the night, but she had to admit she was enjoying herself quite a bit.
As soon as she stepped off the Yacht, dust blew around her. Nora could see rough terrain, jagged tall rising mesas, collapsed ruins, abandoned mines, and of course a massive ruptured partially collapsed temple in the center with a magma sea boarding it. The unstable Kyber Crystals laying around the temple sparked occasionally, drawing Nora’s attention away. She couldn’t help but admire the beauty of it all. The energy was palpitating.
As Vincent thrust a bottle of ale in her hand, Nora’s attention turned back to her crew. She snorted at his comment. “You think I can’t stomach some ale?” Nora blurted out, responding back to Vincent. “Watch me,” Nora chugged the bottle quickly, before smashing it onto the ground.
Eevie hadn’t drank that hard in a while…or maybe she just didn’t remember. Regardless the Sephi Mandalorian swayed as she approached the ramp of the ship before tumbling forward and rolling down to Jehda’s rocky ground. Her world was spinning slightly.
“That…was fun!” She giggled as she stood back up, righting herself and dusting off her Beskar plates. “Now..let’s get a moving on and findings these artifacts or whatevers.”
Vincent smirked at his colleagues for the evening. The effects of the death stick were ever present, but drowned out slightly by the effects of the alcohol they had consumed prior to landing on this desolate hellscape.
Following Nora’s lead, he chugged the bottle of ale and then tossed the empty bottle to the ground, watching it shatter into pieces. Reaching to his belt, he detached his helmet from the small hook it was resting on and pulled it over his head. With a high-pitched whir the helmet sealed.
“It’s party time. Let’s do this.” A deep voice bellowed out from the Dark Age Sith Armor.
After smashing her bottle, Nora laughed at Eevies shenanigan’s. Turning to Vincent, she nodded her head in agreement. “Lets do this indeed!” She yelled out, catching the attention of nearby fauna. Igniting her lightsaber, Nora held it in her grasp in anticipation.
Eevie followed the team, looking over her sniper rifle before smiling gleefully beneath her helmet. She skipped off with the others, more than happy to clear the vermin off off this partially devastated moon.
Looking ahead, Vincent spotted what appeared to be Skriton hole in the ground. He gave the crew a look and spoke through his helmet.
“Want to see a cool trick?” the Sith said.
Reaching to his side, he pulled out his RSKF-44.
“I learned this one in the ACC tournament!”
Brujah held his arm steady and pointed it toward the Skriton hole, the RSKF-44 ready to fire. With a squeeze of the trigger the blaster screamed out and a bolt fired, clearly above the ground. The Sith reached out with the Force and held the bolt in place just before it reached the Skriton hole.
The beast jumped out of the hole at the noise and Vincent grabbed it with the Force as well. Attempting to pull the creature through the blaster bolt that he was holding in place, he waved his arm, but in his drunken state he was overzealous with his arm wave and lost his balance.
Instead of pulling the Skriton through the bolt, he curved it around the bolt and nearly on top of himself as he fell to the ground. The blaster bolt fired off into the distance as Brujah landed roughly on the ground.
“Ow” he said, but then the Skriton grabbed Vincent by the helmet with its large claw and began thrashing him off of the ground.
Cursing and flailing the Sith screamed out.
“A little help here?!!”
Furios drew his saber and, with the casual smoothness of a particular level of drunkeness, skewered the skriton in one fluid lunge. Kicking the spasming, dying creature off Vincent, he lent him a hand back to his unsteady feet.
“Enough tricks!” the Epicanthix smirked, pulling a fresh bottle of clear liquor from beneath his cloak. Taking a large swig of the distilled alcohol, he wrapped his arm around his drunken comrade and gestured in the direction of the Children of Mortis’ base with the bottle. “I’ve got credits to win.”
The quartet of drunks shambled onward with the drinking, jesting, and laughing typical of such groupings, leaving the occasional empty bottle shattered on the shattered landscape. Finally reaching the edge of their target’s encampment, the four steadied themselves as best as they could for their inebriated smash-and-grab operation.
Watching the scene unfold in front of her, Nora couldn’t help but laugh to the point her whole body hurt. Nora did not think Vincent would get his butt handed to him by a Skriton. Thank goodness Furios was paying attention, Nora was too busy laughing along side Eevie.
The laughter continued for a while, and eventually ran dry as the group moved closer towards the Children of Mortis’ base.
Eevie saw the trick that Brujah had attempted, and her initial response was a drunken state of tears for fear of the poor creatures life. At seeing him fail so horrendously those tears turned into tears of laughter as she almost doubled over.
When Furios disposed of the beast so non-chantly, and kicked it away, the tears came back and she almost aimed her rifle at the Epicanthix. And the he mentioned the credits…her attention shifted on a dime again…she couldn’t lose the credits. Her gambling brain wouldn’t allow it.
“Cmon let’s kick sum asses!”
“What Eevie said,” Nora responded, heading towards the encampment with the group. The lightsaber buzzed as she held it in her hand.
It was a miracle that nobody in the Children of Mortis base had noticed the four inebriated enemies waltzing into their outpost with drunken abandon. The Truthwardens that held sway in the Mid Rim were busy with preparing what appeared to be some vital shipment off the collapsing moon. The likelihood that they were about to take some valuable artifacts off world seemed high and that simply would not do for the credits on the drunks’s alcohol-addled minds.
Furios took another large gulp of his liquor and charged in with his saber haphazardly drawn and his bottle gripped tighter, a sign of how his drunken priorities shifted toward the latter. Vincent and Nora followed suit, intent on winning those credits and not letting the Epicanthix have all the fun, while Eevie readied her rifle and drunkenly, yet steadily trained it on the nearest Child of Mortis.
Eevie’s sight blurred ever so slightly. As she saw Furios and the others leaping into action she let off a round from her rifle. It flew past her target, but hit a reflective plate and bounced back, killing the unsuspecting Child of Mortis.
“Get it together Eevie…” she chastised herself before firing again.
Furios, Vencent, and Nora were busy cutting down any Truthwarden that had the misfortune of getting in the way.
The Epicanthix had entered a drunken Force-fueled rage with a slice-slice-drink kind of method going, cutting through Aegises as well as his liquor supply. His significant height made him seem like a reaper wading through and scything grain. The quantity of severed limbs in his wake would have seemed uncanny if any of his comrades were sober enough to notice. The simple fact was that he couldn’t be bothered to think about anything other than offense in his drunken state and was simply swinging his saber at anything with joints to sever.
The Zeltron was alternatively weaving through opponents with a very relaxed ease, cutting down Children of Mortis and dodging anyone larger who was desperate enough to charge head on. She was at that peak of capable relaxation that came with the amount of alcohol in her veins and had no trouble slicing through her opponents. At one point she bumped into an Aegis and fell on her rear with a giggle, using the Force to telekinetically blast away a charging opponent with a wave of her hand before staggering back to her feet and brushing herself off.
The Human had followed suit with his fellow Marauder and was also attacking Children of Mortis in his own rage. Everyone he came upon was quickly dispatched by his suave yet drunkenly sloppy dueling form. When he came upon a single opponent, he tried to recreate his Sith party trick from earlier and tried to get everyone to watch him pull some poor Rectifier into a stationary blaster bolt, but only Eevie was able to see it through her scope but was too far away to offer praise.
. The Sephi was shooting at any Children of Mortis who attempted to catch the other three drunks unawares with ranged assaults. Though she still missed every third shot, each stray bolt had ricocheted miraculously into its intended target or into some part of the environment that caused a comedic end to his or her life nonetheless. One such unlucky Greyblade had climbed a scaffold and the bolt had struck some support beam, causing him to fall on top of Furios, who staggeringly recovered himself and smashed an empty bottle on his head before drawing another from under his robe.
Like a wave of death similar to the Destruction of Jedha City, the three Sith and one mercenary proceeded to drunkenly, yet systematically kill every last Child of Mortis at the outpost. Within minutes the four were stumbling around checking containers for the treasures that would win them their bet. It finally dawned on Vincent’s alcohol-addled mind that the loot they sought was probably already loaded onto the nearby quad hopper.
“Why don’t we check the ship?” he shouted to his companions. The other three simultaneously smacked their foreheads, each muttering some variation of “Of course!” and shambled onto the vehicle. Lo and behold, that’s exactly where their quarry was.
With the only piloting skills to speak of, Eevie got into the cockpit and attempted to take off. There was a severe jolt before she realized her mistake and giggled something about the parking brake. Getting her scattered thoughts together, she flew the three Sith and their freshly stolen treasures back to Furios’ yacht and Vincent’s gunship.