//------------------------------// // Negotiations // Story: Star Wars: The Old Republic- Conflicting Elements // by Barrobroadcaster //------------------------------// Voss surface Virko and his family had been placed in the Republic embassay after the event with the portal. He fiddled with his stun cuffs. They would've been placed under house arrest if their home hadn't been destroyed. He couldn't believe what he had heard. His parents willingly put his life in danger because he could control the portal. Virko had just watched an Imperial fleet come out of nowhere and attack the shield the peaceful creatures had put over the portal and Imperial shocktroops march in. Finally, he picked the lock on his stun cuffs. Carefully, he snuck out of the embassay. He had to get to the portal, do something or else the Sith would make the world he saw in his dreams a living nightmare. Voss high orbit The Republic fleet didn't waste time trying to hail the Imperial ships, instead choosing to hail them with cannon fire. The huge vessels engaged each other over the capital city. Groups of star fighters chased each other throughout the clouds as smoke from the ground rose into the skies. Dropships carrying Republic troopers to the ground descended to engage Imperial ground forces. It was unlikely any prisoners would be taken this day. Three of the Republic dropships broke off from the group and veered straight for the portal. They landed quickly and troopers, including the newly reformed Donair Squadron, filed out to secure a perimeter. The Imps had entrenched themselves around the portal. Sargent Brazon Exter gripped his rifle, took a deep breath and took aim. The Sith had been right about one thing; this new world had changed everything. Peace was real now, at least on one world. It was going to be a tough fight but for once in a long time, something was different. Sargent Brazon Exter had something to fight for. Ponyville "Move! Move now! This way!" Shining Armor shouted at the civilians. Reinforcements had not arrived in time and now the gaurds that hadn't fled were doing their best to evacuate Ponyville. The Imperial shocktroopers were using stun weapons, freazing ponies and then carting them off back to the portal. Exlposions ripped through houses and within the first few moments, half of Ponyville was in flames. He only hoped that his sister and the others were able to assemble the Elements of Harmony, it seemed like once again it was going to take a miracle to save them. The explosions got closer, two of the red-armored bipeds rounded a corner with weapons drawn. Shining gritted his teeth and prepared to use the shield spell again, this time to protect the evacuation. His horn glowed and the Imperial's weapons burned hot. The spell shot into the sky just as the Imps discharged their weapons at him. The spell exploded high above Ponyville but no rainbow erupted from it, no shield, just another cloud of smoke among the others that filled the air. Shining Armor felt his body go completely numb and he collapsed. Ponyville outskirts Master Zequill was in trouble. His species percieved things through the Force but as their was no Force here, he could see nothing. His emotions built up inside of him, fear, guilt, sorrow began to flow through him. He remembered his early Jedi training about centering one's self. He took a deep breath and focused his mind. He repeated the first line of the Jedi Code over in his head. "There is no emotion, there is peace." he said out loud. The air smelled sweet here. The feeling in the pit of his stomach left. He felt at peace. Not be able to see, he decided to use his other senses. He walked in the direction of the smell of smoke. Canterlot Castle Twilight saw the fires in the distance and the spell that had exploded in midair. She knew her brother had failed. Tears formed in her eyes as she watched the town burn. Pinkie Pie put a foreleg around her shoulder and they continued following Princess Celestia to the place where the Elements of Harmony were kept. They hurried past the gaurds stationed through the halls of the castle. "This atrocity must end now. I have not seen such violence, such horror in my life." the Princess said, her voice converying dispair, disdain and disgust simultaneously. "We will use the Elements of Harmony to push them back and then seal the rift." she said. As they rounded a corner, they say several gaurds had been lay motionless on the floor. The group gasped at the scene before them. Celestia walked over to one of her soldiers. Thankfully, they were both mostly unharmed. One of them looked up at her. Celestia leaned in to listen closely as the gaurd weakly whispered the word, "trap", before a flashbang grenade dropped from the ceiling followed by the Imperial Agent. Imperail shocktroops swung in and crashed through the windows, they drew their weapons and fired. Twilight, Applejack, Pinkie Pie, Rarity, Fluttershy, Rainbow Dash, Celestia, Luna and Spike fell to the ground, incapacitated. "Round them up. Get the hovercarts in here quickly. The gaurds identified this one as the leader." Kess said, moving Celestia's head with the butt of her rifle. She walked over to Luna and switched her rifle from non-lethal stun rounds to standard lethal ones. "If trespassing on your soil is considered an active war, what act would you consider this to be?" She pointed her rifle at the helpless Luna and squeezed the trigger. Virko tackled Kess and they both fell to the ground, Kess's rifle discharged into one of the castle's walls. The shocktroopers were startled and fired stun rounds at Virko. One blast hit Virko square in the back but another tagged Kess's shoulder where she was wounded earlier. She cried in pan and her body went limp. Other shocktroops arrived on the scene. They were going to need a few extra hovercarts to get them all back to the portal. The creatures would be placed on Imperial transports and sent to a facility to be studied. If they were useful, they might even be allowed to live though that was doubtful. Voss surface The Sith were heavily entrenched and the Jedi were no where to be found. Brazon popped a fresh pack into his rifle. Commander Carwin had requested reinforcements but no help was coming. The Sith gaurding the portal weren't fairing any better but it seemed that they were moving in and out of it steadily. Brazon couldn't tell what they were moving in and out of the portal but he knew it wasn't supplies of any kind. Some kind of hoversleds were being moved into two transports. The Imps weren't planning on staying long, whatever they were doing. Lord Lahk felt the dark side's presence return to him the moment the hoversled he was strapped to exited the portal. What had happened to him? He wasn't able to control his emotions. He... felt. The Force felt strange to him too but still familiar. The medevac had determined he was suffering from intense physchological stress. As his condition was stable, he had been transported along with the subjects captured from beyond the portal. His sled followed others out of the portal, dozens of the captured four legged creatures. The Empire needed to study them, to find out what kind of power they posessed and either control it or destroy it. He heard the sounds of battle nearby but he was still too weak to do anything about it. The medical technician pushed his sled into the shuttle and soon he was on his way to one of the Imperial ships in orbit. In the quiet of the shuttle's bay, he was alone with his emotions. A small personal shuttle and two transports lifted off from the Imperial's defended position. Slowly, the Imps fell back into their dropships and one by one they took off. Brazon watched them as they flew towards one of the Imperial ships above the battlefield. What were in those sleds? They hadn't bothered defending the position. A raid, it must've been. "Just got word from Command. The Imps are bugging out. Fleet's staying to secure the portal, we're going after them. Whatever it was they took out of that portal, they're not getting away with it." Carwin said, half into his commlink and half to Brazon. "We have an idea what they took out?" "I'm willing to bet it wasn't uj cake." Carwin said. Imperial Dark Destroyer-class vessel Venomous, Voss low orbit Kess rubbed her shoulder but was still satisfied. Despite setbacks, another mission accomplished. She had captured the leaders of the savages and soon they would be brought to her superiors. This would more than make up for her failure to secure the Voss initiate. Another world, another galaxy would soon belong to the Empire. This had been only a raid, when the Empire returned it would crush the Voss and the Republic at the same time. The rest of the fleet continued to engage the Republic but the Venomous broke away from the battle and made for open space. The sacrifice of the remaining ships and crews was well worth the price for this victory. Republic Thranta-class corvette Redemption, Voss low orbit Captain Ressia watched on the bridge as one of the Imperial cruisers broke formation and headed into orbit. They couldn't let them get away with whatever they took from the portal but right now it was more important to secure the space around Voss and then provide aid for those who needed it, both on Voss and beyond that portal. Hopefully the natives of that world had survived. Attacking the innocent... hopefully this proved to the galaxy the attrocities of the Sith. "Sir! Priority communications on encrypted channel!" the comm operator shouted from his terminal. "Somethings wrong. We're recieving it from one of the enemy ships." "Put it through." the captain said. The holoterminal in the center of the bridge lit up with the image of Jedi Master Zequill. His image flittered with static but his voice was clear and calm. "Can you hear me? Any Republic forces respond immediately." "Master Zequill? You mind telling me what you're doing on the enemy's flag ship?" "Captain, the Sith have captured natives from beyond the portal! You must stop this ship before it reaches Imperial space! I've activated my homing beacon." "But that will give away your position!" "It's more important to stop this ship Captain. We cannot let the Sith get away." the captain nodded. "Ensign, lay in a pursuit course. Follow that ship." "Sir, we can't match that ship's firepower. They'll tear us apart." the executive officer said behind the captain. "We don't have to outgun them commander we just have to get close to them. Tell Donair Squadron to sit tight in their shuttles." "Sir." The XO's face went blank. He knew what had to be done. Equestria, Ponyville Derpy Hooves was having quite the strange day. It seemed Ponyville was having a fireworks celebration again, even though they had one last week. Also, the fireworks seemed to be going off in the day time. This seemed quite silly, the gray pegasus thought as she made her way towards Ponyville. Wait, no, these weren't fireworks at all. It seemed the buildings of Ponyville were the fireworks today. That made more sense, the explosions weren't at all colorful. It was strange though, she didn't see anypony else around. Where was everypony? She continued her appointed rounds, delivering mail despite several of the houses were nothing but burning wrecks, piles of ash or smoldering craters. What a strange way to remodel, Derpy thought. And still nopony was around. Still, the mail had to be delivered. Derpy delivered her last letter into a mailbox that had snapped off at the base and lay on the ground. She looked up and finally she saw somepony, well, not a pony but some sort of strange creature on two legs wearing some kind of strange heavy-looking clothes. He seemed to stumble as he walked towards her and was clutching his side. "Hi there mister!" she called to him. "He-... hello..." the blue skinned creature said to Derpy. "I don't think I've ever seen anything like you before mister. What's your name?" "My... my name is Sark'ava'enora. I... people call me Kaven... or Karux." "Haha, that's a lot of names mister. My name's Derpy Hooves. I'm Ponyville's premier mailcarrier." "Ponyville? That's what this place is called?" "Yeah. Are you okay mister?" "I... I don't know... I just..." "Why don't you come with me? I know a nice place you can rest just around the corner. And they have muffins!" "Rest... muffins? I don't-..." "It's this way mister! Come on!" Derpy said, taking the blue man's hand and pulling him in the direction of what remained of Sugar Cube Corner. This man clearly needed some help.