[b][center] Aboard the Dagda - What Ho? Over Yonder a Cry of Distress![/center][/b]

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Azazel clenches her fists, trying to hold her fire close against her hands and keep from rearing up and roaring to greater heights again. Her power was fluctuating again and she was having troubles keeping control. Taking a deep breath, she gestures Janii onwards, frowning as the fire leaps up from her hand and curls in the air. Janii arches a brow and pauses, recalculating her shield before crouching and taking a slow breath.

One thing Azazel would give Janii, she was fast. Faster than herself. The cyborg goes in, nails outstretched and ready to pierce in a deadly precise strike. Azazel tries to hold onto her fire as she moves to duck aside, even as Janii's cyborg eye follows her, tracking her movement. Azazel reaches out to flip her. However, the cyborg changes her course, going to lash out with her human hand.

Azazel swallows and quickly steps back unsteadily. She narrows her eyes before darting in, going to striking Janii's midsection. The cyborg of course deftly moves aside and gets ready to strike down. That was, until Azazel unleashes her fire in a blast directly forward, shielding her face. A surge of power rushes over her and she suddenly notices new force presences near. Her eyes go wide and she stands up, looking around wildly, trying to pinpoint the source.

The first she noticed, was the training facility in flames. Janii was thrown back against the far wall from the blast and was groaning, her shield only enough to have prevented the effects of the fire before shorting out just at the impact. She heaves herself up, only to duck down under a tarp as an alarm goes off and foam begins to spurt out to kill the flames. Azazel blinks, looking at the destruction she had wrought, still trying to find the source of the two force users.

She closes her eyes, reaching out. If it was an approaching vessel, surely Xen would have alerted her. Perhaps a stowaway, a spy of Traiserus'. Or maybe her mind was playing tricks on her since picking up Gra'tua's disciples. What she finds astounds her, though. Her head drops, foam dripping down from her hair as her hands go to her abdomen. Her eyes widen, a soft laugh bubbling from her lips before coming out in elated giggles, “Its them! By the dark-side...” Tears begin to stream down her cheeks as she sinks down to her knees, still laughing and holding her swollen abdomen. Her fears of her children not possessing the gift were now averted.

From not too far away, Janii pipes up from underneath the tarp still. “What was that about?”

Azazel hesitates, her smile dropping. That was a good point. Her eyes widen, looking at the scorched walls and smothering chemicals. She swallows, eyes going down herself once more. “Oh dear...” she mutters, the realization slowly dawning. She must have accidentally tapped into their own powers. She frowns and shakes her head, “That... cannot mean anything good.”

Janii calls back, “Lady Azazel, is it safe for me to come out. I do not wish my cybernetics to malfunction.”

Azazel wipes away the foam off herself as she looks up, “Seems to be. Would you mind contacting a maintenance crew to clear this up... I fear training will be temporarily suspended until it is done with.”

Azazel's commlink begins to go off and she furrows her brow, raising her hand up, “What?” A soft squeak comes from the other side before she hears two individuals bickering in hushed tones. What she could make out of it appeared that they were in a spat over who would tell the Dark Lady. “Well?”

She hears a thud, something fleshy smacking into something metallic before someone groans out in obvious discomfort, “Lady Azazel, the scanning crew has a report. There is something being picked up on their scanners. It isn't background radiation. Something man-made.”

Azazel furrows her brow, “Is that all you had to sincerely tell me? You're paid for more than that. Get a trace on it and determine what it is.”

A woman's voice grumbles over the link, “You don't pay us, actually...”

Azazel pauses, “What was that?”

“Happy to work for your illustrious cause, Dark Lady.”

The ship was brought closer so the signal could be studied more thoroughly and it finally became clear what it was. The two sensor operators first doing a rock, paper, scissors match to determine who would inform their Dark Lady. The one who lost nervously called her on her private comms again. "Lady Azazel, our scans are complete, it appears to be a distress beacon of Republic origin. Military origin as far as we can tell."

Azazel was already on her way to her room to start getting into gear, after sending a brief message to her followers remaining with her to prepare themselves. “We'll check it out. If nothing else, we find salvage to scrap for a few quick creds. At best, we just happen to be lucky and find someone important who owes us a debt.”

Dropping out of hyperspace and setting a course the Dagda made it's way to the origin of distress beacon. As they neared it and they were now closer to get a better sensor reading it became evident it did not concern on ship, there was enough debris present for more than ten ships. But that's what most of them were, debris.

The origin of the distress beacon however was something that vaguely resembled a Venator-class star destroy, or at least the aft part of it with the bridge was still intact, the entire front section seemed to have been obliterated.

Azazel frowns and looks at the destruction. “Try to establish a communication with the vessel.” The communication officer nods and gets to establishing a feed, muttering over the line, 'This is The Dagda, answering a distress signal in this vicinity. Does anyone read me?'

The communications officer tried everal times but in the end gave up, either the ones who set the beacon all died or the beacon was only automated and their communications were destroyed.

Azazel leans forward over the railing deciding what to do next. “Get the boarding ships ready. We'll check for any survivors and anything of use to salvage. Who knows.”

In the end, Azazel arranges two parties to go over to the ships on DALSC boarding ships. The parties would be split into two, with herself leading one and Xen the other. Each party would consist of 5 Mandalorian Commandos and 10 Mandoa Assault troopers. With herself would be Janii and Rei'Ki. Xen would board with Lydavis and Kitt. Those without armour capable of sealing, like herself, would be in space-suits... Xen's operation would include finding any vital data while her goal was to scout the remains of the vessel for any one or anything of use. With their directives clear, they ship off towards the source of the beacon.

The two shuttles burst forth from the Daghda's belly to the remains of the Venator, selecting the two most easily accesable points to enter the innards of the vessel. Azazel's team had no trouble and easily entered a empty corridor.

Xen however had to order his pilot to vaporize some vacuum frozen corpses of crew and clone troopers before he and his team could get aboard. One of the Mandalorians remarking it had to be a weapon of some power to have caused this to the Venator.

Azazel hesitates in the corridor before picking a direction at random, waving her group onwards. They would search out the bridge first. Rei'Ki from the back remarks, “This doesn't chance to become some holo-horror flick. Not at all. Nope. And no droids, either. Yeah, that'd just be too predictable.”

Xen meanwhile frowns and nods, “Let's hope whatever it is does not come back... And if it does, Ilo can well handle it.” He furrows his brow and starts to look for a working terminal. He would look for the system specs if he could and find any points that would still perhaps be functioning. Reports could be useful to find out what happened here. Or perhaps even tell him any parts of the ship that might still be secure and functioning in such catastrophe.

The only obstacle Azazel and her team found, where the floating corpses of some of the crew and a single astromech droid who seemed intent to fix a bulkhead, the sparks flying from the top of its might indicate it was damaged and futily tried to act out its last command.

Xen found himself a terminal that was flashing red wit ha single message in bold letters. "GENERAL EVACUATION. ALL HANDS ABANDON SHIP."

Xen stops and leans back against the wall, “Found a terminal. Sounds like everyone was sent to evacuate. Chances are, not a soul here. All I've found myself are a lot of floating dead guys. We could keep searching, but chances are this is all a bunch of salvage.”

Azazel answers back, “Just check it out, maybe there's something here. It can't hurt to just look, right?” She finds herself intrigued as she taps the foot of a dead soldier and sends them spiraling, “See if you can head down to engineering.”

Tapping into the terminal Xen finds taht most of the data has been corrupted, since either the computers connected to this terminal are either damage or were in apart of the ship that was torned apart, he did manage to get some schematics that allowed him to guide Azazel in the direction of the bridge however.

Following his directions till she reached a closed blastdoor, the console to the side indicating... there was actual life support still working beyond the blastdoor.

Azazel pauses and gestures for her people to ready their guns as she goes to wrap a protective shield about herself. Without further ado, she simple tries to rap as hard as she can, wondering if they could hear her. Her gaze goes to the console before she begins to try and see if she herself could get a message to whoever was on the other side. If not, she would just have to wait for Xen to make his way over.

A screen flickered to life And a face appeared, wearing a republic naval officers cap, staring wide-eyed at Azazel, a message appeared on the screen. "Rescue?" Azazel would notice a small keypad to perhaps type a response back.

Azazel blinks at the screen before nodding her head, though obscured by a helmet it would be. “Yes. What happened?”

The reply that came was the following. "Stand back." Once Azazel did so a blastdoor behind them was shut instantly, she might think it was a trap but then one of the corpses with them suddenly fell to the floor, gravity was restored and with a sudden pop and the sound of gears it also became noticable that life support had been restored to this part of the corridor as well.

The door opened, revealing two clone troopers with raised blaster rifles and the officer, who seemed relieved but then looked more cautiously. "I am sub-lieutenant Karlssen, who do I owe our thanks for the rescue?"

Azazel's eyes flicker back to her Mandalorian soldiers and she salutes with a fist over her chest and a bow of her head. “Alor Dha'dala of Clan Kurkova,” she answers simply, thankful for the mask over her face. Who knew who in the Republic had a picture of her face since the jailbreak on Kessel. “I am the master of the ships The Dagda and The Aberrancy. How long have you all been trapped here?”

"Mandalorians, thank the stars." The officer murmured, the two clone troopers kept their blasters trained on the rescue party however, although one of them gave the mandalorians a respectful nod. The officer gave a rueful smile, "About a month and a half, we were somewhat cut off from our supply lines when we encountered a deep space CIS patrol. I believe we won... otherwise we would be dead, but clearly no ships of ours remained to rescue us. Our supplies were almost completely dry when we suddenly got the alarm of someone trying to tamper with the blastdoor.... I don't suppose you could give us a ride to the nearest republic or neutral aligned planet?"

Azazel crosses her arms and nods, “One of my officers was boundwards to The Wheel soon. If it pleases you, he will offer you food and lodgings on the trip there and see you to a safe location. You may also utilize the ship's hypercomm capacities have you any time-sensitive information to pass along.” As well as have the lines tapped and thoroughly observed for any useful information.

The officer let out a sigh of relief, then frowned. "Ah, I suppose I should clarify... there are about 90 of us that have survived, will that be a problem?"

Azazel straightens her back and shakes her head no. “It should not be. I have ample capacity on board my vessel. I would ask you mind my crew and allow them to go about their duties uninterrupted while you lodge in the barracks.” She pauses and quickly does the figures in her head, “I have some light support vessels to carry you to The Aberrancy, however, it may take a few round trips. If we must rely upon my boarding crafts alone.”

The officer motioned for the clone troopers to lower their blasters and then extended his hand, "On behalf of the Republic and the surviving crew of the Pride of Valorum, thank you."

Azazel meets his hand and shakes it firmly. “A pleasure to be of assistance to fellow verde.”

It took the better part of two hours to ferry all the survivors aboard the Aberrancy but they managed it without a hitch of trouble, Xen managed to obtain some interesting information, the officer send a encrypted message on a republic military channel, which Xen easily broke without a sweat and learned that the republic patrol had placed a stash of supplies and parts on Maridun for later recovery, this info could be used by themselves to see what was stashed here or perhaps sold to the highest bidder and have them deal with it.

And with that done, Xen took his parting from Azazel. The Dagda, with Janii, Rei'Ki, Hakkri, Ilo and Lydavis aboard went towards the Wheel. Meanwhile, Azazel's anticipation merely grew as she approached closer to Korriban. She hesitates for a moment, considering how close she was to Mandalorian space before going to contact Gra'tua. It would do well to see how he was faring.

Gra'tua frowned as he was being prodded, opening his eyes all he saw was a blurry vision untill it formed into the appearance of Magog who gestured to a screen. "Call coming in, it's your riduur." He blinked and weakly gestured for him to patch it through. No holo-projector, Azazel would clearly see Gra'tua, lying in a medical bay bed, recovering from his last surgery. He did smile however and spoke softly when Azazel's face appeared.

"Su cuy'gar, Azazel. I am sorry I cannot address you properly but I am somewhat... recovering from my ordeal. It was a success however." He winced as he felt some pain and let otu a growl before he shook his head, ignoring the pain. "How are you cyare?"

Her brows shoot up as she jostles her facemask in her hands, “Su cuy'gar, Gra'tua... I am well enough, I think. Anxious...” She looks sidelong, “Feeling stretched thin, perhaps. I have my followers divided all over for various tasks and I am... quite honestly terrified of encountering Traiserus again.” She brushes her hair back and looks at the screen with a faint smile, “Whatever did you do to ensure you cannot be on the holo-projector, hmm? Do I need to talk to Lena about returning you in one piece?”

He chuckled and winced, "Had, don't make me laugh it hurts... I had the unfortunate decision to do a honour duel... and ended up with a sword in my gut that almost pierced my heart. If you are interested.... we encountered a exiled Mandalorian clan... exiled almost four thousand years ago... they are Taung, the first, the first true Mandalorians... and now they have joined my clan." He was unable to keep the emotion, the wonder, contained within his voice as he said it out loud.

Azazel's brows shoot up in shock. Mimicking Xen when shocked, her hands move in a gesture, marking her disbelief. “That is...” The only thing she had comparable was if suddenly she stumbled in on a tribe of living, breathing sith purebloods. She laughs and shakes her head, nervously, “I can understand your excitement and any injury you sustained, then. I am proud for you, your Clan only continues to prosper, cyare.” Her gaze begins to falter again as he hand moves down, wringing at her robes. “I have some news of my own...”

Gra'tua frowns and winces as he tries to sit straighter, "What news, a new adversary?"

Azazel snorts and shakes her head, “Still just the one last we spoke, Gra'tua. However, I have recently discovered our ade are blessed with the force.” Her hand goes back, nervously running her hand through her hair. “What's more... I have found myself tapping into their potential by sheer accident... I fear what could happen if I am to use the force... If I accidentally draw too much...” Her eyes go up to Gra'tua, worry straining the composed expression she had tried to hold.

He blinked. "I... ah... wow." He was quiet for a while before he snapped out of it. "Both of them you say... that is... well that will be interesting to say the least." He coughed, "I do recall... Andrea also seemed more powerful... but yes if it might harm the children... perhaps it is best to try and not to draw upon their power." He showed a brief smile. "It is however... wonderful news Azazel."

She gives a nervous smile, “It is... I had worried they would not... but given circumstances...” She furrows her brow before leaning in, “I suppose it ought be time to try another career line.. Fighting up close appears to be a problem. And the force is out...” She shakes her head, “Blast it all, I will find something to do with myself.” She sighs and looks at Gra'tua, “I assume you are headed to Mandalore with your wonderful news. I am not too far myself.” She hesitates for a moment, feeling a touch guilty, “I am on my way to Korriban, given the planned attack, I had hoped a little more firepower might be of well some assistance to Andrea, given I'm to blame for it.” Her cheeks flush, “Perhaps, when you are well, you might join me there? Aside from it being some time since a Sith meeting... Perhaps the three of us ought talk...”

He smiled and leaned back in the pillows of the bed, "When I am able to I will head straight for Korriban... my ship received damage as well but I have other ships under my command....." He tightened his hand into a fist. "I did make an oath I would also help you hunt down the bastard who tried to kill my cyare and our children." He growled.

She smiles and blows a kiss to him, “Good... I can also prepare Andrea for your arrival then... I always get the feeling she wants to wound you when you are about.” She shakes her head, “Which, is among some of the things that I wish discussed.”

He chuckles, "I see... well, that will be a interesting discussion then... be safe cyare."

“You as well, Gra'tua, and may you have a swift recovery... It would be a shame if you were not feeling up to anything active when you arrive.”