The skies over Wayland were a beautiful blue with clouds sparsely scattered amidst the peaks around Mount Tantiss. A solitary chrome yacht, cut through the white fluff and cruised toward the mountains. The starship gracefully touched down on a dilapidated landing pad, its shiny body looking decidedly out of place as nature steadily reclaimed the cracked duracrete.
The ramp descended with a hydraulic hiss as birds chirped and winds rustled the surrounding forest. From out of the yacht three drunken Sith stumbled, wearing various forms of darkly colored armor and holding bottles of liquor while the taller two tunelessly sang some obscure space shanty about drinking and attractive women. The third was not at all inclined to partake in the inebriated song that he didn’t know the lyrics to anyway. The trio was shortly followed by the one sober member of the group, an Evereni mercenary wearing a battle-worn patchwork of armor, sharply contrasting with his companions.
“Would you two shut up?!” shouted Siorc over the awful vocalists.
Furios Morega and Astralis Violentus halted for a mere half-second before bursting into laughter and redirecting their singing to the Hunter. The shanty eventually ended, though the laughter took a few moments to follow.
“What are we doin’ here anyway?” Vincent Brujah slurred.
“Looking for Palpatine’s cortosis underwear!” the Epicanthix shouted, eliciting fresh laughter from the pair of drunk Plagueians.
Siorc frowned at the joke answer. “What we’re looking for is anything here that could be valuable to the Brotherhood.”
“I’m sure someone on the Dark Council needs cortosis underwear,” Astralis commented smirking.
The four looked toward the mountain, though only Siorc could really focus, surveying the abandoned site at the imposing landmark’s feet. Trees lined the area while grass continually encroached upon the landing pad’s edges. The main hangar doors were overgrown with vines, but still quite visible underneath.
Vincent, eyelids heavy, belched in response to the cortosis underwear discussion. There were opportunities to drink while on Furios’ yacht, but it may not have been prudent to try and keep up with the two huge Sith standing next to him. While they were certainly feeling it, Vincent was worse off.
“Those hangar doors don’t look to be operational any longer. Good entry point?” Siorc was still a bit annoyed at the inebriated state of the three Brotherhood members with him.
“Not sure we can get to them…and not sure any underwear would be there” Furios glanced at Astralis and Vincent as he replied. He noted the sour look on Vincent’s face and took a step away from him. Just in time, a moment later Vincent leaned forward and emptied the contents of his stomach.
“Oh, that was glorious. I feel better!” Vincent straightened and wiped the back of his left hand across his mouth.
“Glad to hear it” the disappointment was still evident in Siorc’s voice. “Ready to get to work?”
In answer, Astralis just strode into the tree-line towards the dilapidated hangar doors. Furios shrugged and followed the tall human in black. As he walked, Astralis put his helmet on. The rest of the group followed, content to let Astralis take point. As soon as he reached the trees and had fully secured his helmet, Astralis breathed deeply and reached for the force to reduce the effects of the alcohol on his body. He was steadier and more clear-headed in a few seconds but certainly still a touch drunk.
The vegetation was dense, as if this place hadn’t been touched by the living in years and years. Vincent watched as Astralis led the way into the treeline followed by the giant Epicanthix, Furios. Vincent looked back at Siorc to see if he would follow behind the two, but he seemed content to bring up the rear and keep them all safe from anything that might be following.
Though his stomach did feel much better after he had emptied the contents of it onto the ground, the world was still a blurry mess to Brujah. Usually he held his drink quite well, but at this point, he couldn’t help but think that trying to go drink for drink with the two larger men was a mistake. Even his connection to the Force couldn’t seem to save him from the waves of nausea and the spinning sensation that overwhelmed him. Still, he had a job to do, and he intended to do it.
He stepped forward and into the treeline, following behind Furios. Most times, he would put his helmet on, both for protection and for the data that the heads up display would provide him. Tonight, though, he didn’t want to risk filling the insides of his armor with anything that might be left in his digestive tract, so he kept the helmet clipped to his belt and wiped the sweat from his forehead with his right arm.
It was dark, and though it was mostly quiet, an occasional rustling within the leaves momentarily caught the attention of the group. Nothing ever came from the noise, but it was clear that the group was not alone in the trees. Vincent reached out with his senses, but could only feel the presence of small woodland animals. Still, he wanted to be ready. He had heard the tales of the Zillo Beasts once held captive on Wayland, and he didn’t want to take any chances.
As Furios continued moving forward, following behind Astralis with Vincent and Siroc behind him, a large, thick tree branch got stuck on a sharp piece of his Dark Armor. To a smaller man, this might be a hindrance, but Furios didn’t even seem to notice and kept walking, the branch bending and crackling with every step. Suddenly, the branch slipped free of the armor and sprung backwards violently.
Vincent, who had been doing his best to just keep up with the two larger men, looked up just in time to see the branch coming at him, but there was nothing to be done. The thick piece of wood cracked the Warlord in the head almost directly between the eyes. Without a sound other than the jarringly loud crack of the branch smacking Brujah’s skull, the Sith fell to the ground, completely motionless.
“How could this possibly get any worse?” Siorc thought to himself as he brought up the rear of the team. They hadn’t even made it off the ship before they were drunk, and now he had one of them puking his guts out. He swiveled around to check their flank as he heard more rustling in the leaves, but before he could turn around, he heard the crash of a tree limb hitting something hard. Instinctively, he brought his Blaster rifle to his shoulder, scanning down the sights for the enemy. Instead, he saw the Sith who was in front of him lying motionless on the ground, his other two teammates laughing hysterically at him.
“What happened here?” Siorc asked as he made his way up to the unconscious Vincent Brujah.
“The mighty Sith got taken out by a tree branch,” Furious replied before the pair started laughing again.
I am not getting paid enough for this, Siorc thought to himself as he assessed the man on the ground. He wasn’t much of a medic, but he could at least tell the man was alive and breathing. He would wake up eventually and have a nasty headache, but with as much as the three of them had drunk, that was likely going to be the case anyway.
“This isn’t a joke,” the Bounty Hunter said stoically.
“This isn’t a joke,” they both replied, mocking him. The taller of the two added, “You were paid to fly us to Wayland and escort us to the base, Hunter. Nothing more.”
“You are right, NOTHING more,” Siorc stated with emphasis on the word nothing. With that, he stood up and began walking back down the path. He didn’t bother to look back. 30 minutes later, his D5-Mantis could be seen taking off from the landing zone and heading to the upper atmosphere.
The pair of Plagueians stood over the unconscious Vincent, arms crossed while their inebriated minds tried to piece together a plan now that one of the remaining group was decidedly unable to walk. It really didn’t help that the sober one had given up and left. The sounds of the forest were all that could be heard for several moments.
“I’m not carrying him into the base,” Furios stated, looking toward Astralis.
“Well neither am I,” Astralis responded, looking toward Furios.
They looked back at Vincent.
“Let’s just leave him here and check out the base,” the Epicanthix suggested. “He’ll be fine here… probably.”
“Good idea,” the Human agreed. “We’ll grab him on the way out.”
The two continued through the brush approaching the main hangar of Tantiss Base, starting a new space shanty. They rather quickly forgot about the group’s passed out member in their drunken state. After several minutes, the pair were standing in front of the large, durasteel doors that led into the mountain, surveying the entrance with slightly better focus now that they were closer. The di Plagia paced the length of the doors, unable to see an obvious way through. He was oblivious to the control panel hidden by the leaves and vines that had built up. Returning to the door’s midpoint, he raised a fist and knocked three times. There was no answer.
“Whelp, we tried,” the Elder stated with a shrug. “There’s still booze on the ship.”
“Yeah, let’s go back,” the Equite replied. “Maybe the Dark Council shouldn’t send us after mythical underwear while we’re hammered.”
A little while later, in the comfort of the yacht’s cockpit and with fresh bottles of liquor, Furios and Astralis were drunkenly attempting to fly the vessel back to the Geirskogul while butchering another space shanty. Suddenly, the di Plagia stopped singing and looked over to his fellow Plagueian and singing partner.
“What?” Violentus asked.
“I feel like we’ve forgotten something…”
“Must not have been that important.”
EPIOGUE
Several hours later, Vincent Brujah awoke with what he could only describe as one of the top ten worst headaches of his life. He groaned, only sure that he’d been walking somewhere and doing something when he’d suddenly been knocked out by some amazingly stealthy enemy or other. He wiped his eyes and some of the drool that had seeped from his mouth before sitting up. The only light to be had was from Wayland’s solitary moon. As he looked around at the low illumination amongst the trees, he realized what had happened after his attack.
“Those nerf-herders left me!?”