Revan Part II- Cont., the storm on Nirm has.... Options

[Lord Revan]

The Archives have been updated, just some info on psychic focus and magnitude (explaination of psychic powers).
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He stopped to evaluate the progress of his craftsmanship. Revan had completed his helmet, the cuirass, pauldrons, and gauntlets of his new armor in this short time.

The helmet remained largely unchanged, its visor covered slightly less area though, but Revan was confident he could fight just as well with narrowed vision.
His cuirass was thicker all around than his former one. The parts of his torso that needed to move without restraint were protected by overlapping segments of a refined sapphire-like substance. A chunk of cobalt focusing crystal lay above where the wearer’s sternum would be.

The pauldrons resembled those of Dunmer chitin. Two small crystal fragments were embedded in identical slots that Revan had carved into them.
Another pass-over from his old armor was the gauntlet design, with a few exceptions. Like the pauldrons, both gauntlets had common focusing crystals integrated. Revan had lost his energy blades in the explosion; he hoped learn from that lesson and utilize the High Naryyn technique. I am half High Naryyn after all… He thought dryly.

The completed pieces lay neatly arranged on the floor beside him. Now that he’d stopped, Revan realized that he had not eaten in..... quite awhile.
“So, this is where you’ve been.” Rhys said as she sat down next to him.

Revan set down the yet-to-be-finished greaves. “I apologize for leaving you in bed, but I needed to do something constructive and you needed the rest.”

She glared at him theatrically, “And you don’t?” Striking him playfully in the chest, Rhys teased. “Who’s braver? The people in fancy armor or those that fight without it?”

“Don’t tempt me to prove you wrong, Rhys.” Revan replied with a smile on his face. “Or you might just run out of luck.”

Her own face adorned by the same expression. “You couldn’t touch me, let alone beat me in a fight.”
“Is that a challenge?” He asked as he stood up. “Because, I’ll take you up on that..... after I get something to eat.”

Rhys got up as well, “I won’t go easy on you just because you happen to be my friend, Ahtre’Mehrah.”

Rhys....

The Hvy. Destroyer Emphatic Judgment sat just outside the borders of Sadrith Mora. The capital-class ship dwarfed the Telvaani town beside it.

Rhys’ eyes wandered a bit, having only been to House Telvaani’s domain briefly before now, their distinct traits were still new to her.
Revan paid more attention to the sky and its occupants. Several frigates, destroyers and High Naryyn missile frigates patrolled the nearby airspace.

A small squad of interceptors was visible, swooping low over the sea in close formation. “Since you seem to know this place better, perhaps you should lead."
"Fair enough, though I believe non-Telvaani still require Hospitality Papers..."

"We're just two exceptions, that along with a couple dozen more won't drive some Telvaani lord nuts." She joked lightly.
"Believe me, some Telvaani are nuts to begin with. But that doesn't make them less interesting." Revan said in a tone that told he knew all too well.

The two noticed a gathering of Virtarak around a certain localation: the Sadrith Mora Slave Market. While being some distance from the gathering, Rhys could feel the mood. She promptly closed herself from the powerful emotions.

Revan extended his mental probe, taking in every element of the scene. "This isn't good." He muttured, before marching toward the spectacle.
Rhys followed, knowing what her companion meant. The Virtarak crowd was not armed, which was good, but they were displaying their views on the trade of "inferior races." The mob would advance, leap back in unison, and then advance further, all the while hissing threatening at the Telvaani guards.

As Revan approached the flock from behind, several broke off rapidly to scoop up their discarded weapons. Seeing this, he lashed out, causing said weapons to launch into the air. The Virtarak skidded to a halt, mid-sprint, making ready to leap after the flying rifles.

Rhys didn't want this to become violent anymore than Revan did. She projected her thoughts to the avian aliens. "Fighting isn't going to do any good; it will only give us more enemies when we need only one!"

The mob came to an abrupt halt in their cycle, their heads scanned the area for the speaker. When they noticed the two of them, one thought became very apparent. "This can not continue, but for now we shall stand down in our defense, Naryyn."

All Virtarak cleared out, leaving the only occupants as the Telvaani guards and the two Naryyn. The former appeared to be confused as to the sudden withdrawl. As Rhys and Revan walked past them to Wolverine Hall, Revan said to one of the guards. "A word of warning: don't be around here for the next few weeks; if you want not to be the target of the Virtaraks' fury."

The guards said nothing, so both moved on. "Do you think the Virtarak really will resort to violence?"
"Anything is possible," he replied. "We can only read the scroll, not rewrite it."

Both were silent until, Rhys muttured. "Some scuttle and saltrice would be really good right now."
Revan nodded, "Same here. Hopefully, there will be a buffet and no pay required..... otherwise we could just make some food go missing."

[Lord Revan]

Well, here's what started 7:00 yesterday
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Her head throbbed painfully as she slowly came to. There was something.... grating against her mind, slithering through her thoughts.

Kartah groaned, blinking in an attempt to clear the haze over her vision. The throbbing lessened as the presence withdrew. She could hardly make out through anything with her eyes which felt as dry as sand.

A scaly hand caressed her face, lifting her head so its owner could evaluate her. Whatever was with her was too blurry to make out, Kartah weakly resisted vomiting at the sudden ill-health of her body.

A long, snake-like head drew close and stopped mere inches from hers. She could hardly make out much even at this close proximity, but she watched as the creature cocked its head and let out a steady, rumbling growl.

“Kartah.....” She shuddered as the thought rang through her head. As she did so, Kartah realized she was bound to some form of chair.

Her vision refocused and she could recognize the alien before her. The green-clad reptilian thing that had murdered her squad returned her gaze, its eyes blinking independently.
“Any discomfort should pass with a few hours....” Kartah tried to speak, scream, anything, but her throat burned and all that came from her mouth was a strangled cough.
As if understanding her predicament, the murderer reached for a bowl lying on the ground and filled it with water from dripping crack in the ceiling.

While it collected the water, Kartah tried her best to study her immediate surroundings. The room was dark, save for the dirty beams of light from above that shone through the ceiling.
The architecture of the place was not like anything Kartah had seen before. Everything was made from a white marble, but the majesty of the ruins was defiled by the bones lying here and there on the floor and the abundant dust.

The alien returned, and even though the water was the dirtiest thing she’d ever consumed it did wonder for her throat. As Kartah worked on clearing her esophagus, the creature lowered itself to eye level with her again.

It ran its huge finger over her brow, “I had taken longer than the others...” Kartah managed to cough out. “What others? Why didn’t you kill me with the rest of my troops?”

A minute passed before the alien deigned to answer. “What you would call ‘psionists,’ Sergeant. Psychic powers are not natural among our kind like they are for yours.”
Now things were making some measure of sense to Kartah. The alien couldn’t speak Naryyn, so it did the same that any Naryyn would, communicate telepathically.

“But my-” The scaly finger muffled her words. “Your implants will no longer trouble you, as they would hinder my efforts.”

Kartah could hardly believe what she was hearing, implants weren’t simple contraptions to deactivate, but now she remembered that clicking noise in her head as the pain died away.

So I don’t have anything stopping me from using my latent powers…. Kartah didn’t know what to think of that. “So what do you want with me, why didn’t you kill me?”

The psionist’s mouth opened, revealing a row of sharp fangs. “I do as I am directed. As psionists are not natural, we must learn to use them as you would.”

This time she focused on projecting her thoughts as opposed to speak. “But I don’t know how to use my powers.”

The other replied, “That is exactly why we are to target neurally-implanted marines, so that we may learn as they do. And I have chosen you, Kartah”

“So I’m just a tool?” She asked moving back to verbal speech. “Exactly” It replied, its maw opening wide in what Kartah could only guess was an expression of menacing satisfaction.

“You are my prisoner and mine alone, none of my comrades may look upon you unless I deem it appropriate. But I may do whatever I please with you, Kartah.” Her captor licked her cheek with his long reptilian tongue. “We are both but younglings in the world of psionists, as you develop, so too shall I. In this way we are tied to one another, our fates linked..... Until I have learned all I need from you.”

Adm. Satith....

The admiral sat in his command chair, staring out the Armet’s view port at the clouds floating serenely past them. Serene was as far from the Admiral’s current mood as the center of the universe was from this planet.

Only minutes ago he’d received the report of the warhead’s launch and detonation. The report implicated one of the five supervisors of the construction yard in orbit, but Satith held more than that officer responsible for constructing that missile and firing it without even informing anyone- let alone himself.

That woman’s going to be six feet under by the time this war is over. It wasn’t so much that the strike had yielded good results, that was a good point, but the idea that anyone would think of doing all this without reporting it was absolutely absurd.

Satith stopped himself suddenly; pulling something like that off required someone who wasn’t only skilled enough, but stupidly regardless of any repercussions.
The OCY supervisor would have to be nuts to try something like this, not to mention idiotic enough to try it during her own shift. The Admiral stood, all the crew turned, but went back to their stations when they say he wasn’t ordering anything.

So if that woman wasn’t crazy enough, or skilled enough, then someone else had to have done it and placed the blame on a scapegoat..... Satith mused different people who might try that, one being commander Ankrus, but he dismissed the commander immediately, the kid was sane enough to fear the consequences.

Sighing, Satith came up short; he didn’t know anyone who’d even bother with a stunt like this. “Since it’s unlikely that the supervisor had anything to do with the incident other than overlooking it, I’ll settle for a demotion to field duty, we need as many troops fighting as possible.” He said to himself as he gave the necessary orders on his hand-held computer.

The Admiral sat again, this time studying the images of the aftermath of the warhead’s detonation and the new fleet.

Ankrus....

The shots kept looping over, the wrecked hulks of the Rogue warships and the newcomers above. The commander was torn between laughing ruefully and breaking into tears.

“So you managed to pull of this off and miss the detail about a reserve force?” He asked the construct beside him.

Mute Testimony’s orb was bone-white. “My strike caused the enemy to play its hand; it is still a success.”
Ankrus just shook his head, the room was now empty, save for the AI and himself. “Some people won’t want to see it that way.”

The AI shifted to a light wine red. “What people want to do and need to do rarely coincide, Commander.”
Its light shrank away, “I must depart for now; the admiral is getting suspicious.”

Ankrus left the room, debating whether to tell Satith about Mute Testimony or to simply keep his mouth shut and maintain “plausible deniability.”

Marthyn

The shockwave had been less than he’d expected, torn a tree out of the ground here and there, but it hadn’t harmed them or the nearby city to horribly....

Until a ship like nothing Marthyn had ever seen before came over the city and started blasting it to bits with some kind of weird energy weapon.
This just gets more and more insane as we go along. He thought to himself. The seer was more silent than usual, and that was starting to wear on his nerves.

The cold winds had subsided temporarily in the face of the huge explosion, and Marthyn wanted to make as much progress as possible toward the enemy.

“Seer,” He finally said just before reaching the top of the large embankment. “What’s going on over this ridge?”

The woman stared upward at the sky for a moment, turning slightly away from him. “The culmination of their vengeance, that’s what’s being built there.”

Marthyn topped the ridge and his assault rifle fell to his side. Gravely, the Seer continued, not having moved from her spot. “Yes, it is an unholy thing to behold, the hatred of an entire race against another, personified....”

She turned and stopped beside him. “An equally disturbing concept is the fact that this is nothing new....”