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Thread: Things Fall Apart (Closed)

  1. #1
    Urik Panteer
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    Closed Things Fall Apart (Closed)

    New Alderaan


    The sunrise was beautiful that morning, and nowhere was the view better than from the spires of House Panteer. Alderaan was gone, the shock and awe of the Imperial super weapon known as the Death Star had solidified a still precarious Imperial rule, leaving nothing but the Graveyard, the asteroid field composed of the rubble of what once had been a jewel of the Core.

    Urik Panteer, one of the last surviving members of the Panteer nobility and heir-apparent to his father, the recent Duke Gault Panteer, gazed out from the uppermost battlements and surveyed the Panteer settlement that lie nestled in the rural countryside outside New Aldera.

    Rural was one way of putting it. Frontier was perhaps the more appropriate term. Life had been hard on the Alderaanians this past decade, and those not currently aligned with the Alliance or picking up freelance work in the Outer Rim were here, trying to lay the foundations of a new homeland atop the ashes of the world that had composed their very identity for thousands of years.

    There were too few of them left.

    For over three thousand years, many of the noble families had made long standing careers serving the planetary constitutional monarchy. The Organas were perhaps the most famed, but Urik’s father had been a member of the planetary parliament, just as his father had been before him. There had been whispers, before the Fall, that old Gault Panteer was going to give young Princess Organa a run for her credits come the next Senate election.

    The sins of our fathers…

    Urik had grown up on Alderaan, and for a time he had been groomed for a position in government, as was expected of each eldest child within most noble families, particularly now that there was so few of the old nobility left. But that was before the dark times, before the Empire came, and now a fire burned in Urik’s heart that he suspected a parliamentary campaign could never extinguish.

    Tears ran down his cheeks, sending shivering pulses down as face as the cold winds of this new, foreign world raked against his features. Today could be the last time he saw this sunrise, the last time he walked the still partially-reconstructed halls of his ancestors. The last time he saw his own mother and father…

    “Prince Panteer, sir!” the call came from the hatchway that led back into the tower, and despite the overwhelming sorrow of that moment, Urik managed to crack half of a smile, “Operation: Sojourn is a go. A number of the Guard loyal to their Prince are making final preparations for departure as we speak.”

    “Thanks, M-3PO,” Urik said, his vision slightly blurred with tears not entirely because of the radiance of New Alderaan’s rising star, “I will be glad to have you with me, at least.”

    “Permission to speak freely, sir,” the military protocol droid had been assigned to help him with combat training. The life of an Alderaanian Prince required one to be versatile, if nothing else.

    “You know it’s granted, Em Three. You don’t have to keep asking.”

    “Protocol dictates, sir,” the droid responded instinctively, and then took a moment as the cognitive processes worked furiously away inside the unit’s shell, “Prince Panteer, I fail to see the honor Alderaan expects from its nobles in-”

    “In running away?” Urik asked, his tone dripping with bitterness.

    “I was going to saw tactically withdrawing, sir, but yes. My apologies, sir, it was not my place.”

    “No apologies, Em Three. You’re right,” the young Panteer nodded, aware that the harshness in his voice was as much a product of agreeing with his old companion as it was frustration with the droid’s tendency to cut right to the heart of things. “A good Duke knows when to fight his battles, but a great Duke knows when to live and fight another day.”

    “Another of your father’s little sayings, sir?” M-3PO inquired.

    “Perhaps,” Urik nodded, coloring slightly as he realized how much he had just sounded like his own father, “These past few years...the diaspora, New Alderaan...it’s hard to tell where the Duke ends and I begin.”

    The wind still stung and bit at the Prince’s face, but before he turned back toward the hatch and his protocol droid, he rifled through his coat pockets and dug out the crumpled note, as he had done a thousand times each day since it had arrived.

    The scrawl was hardly legible, but Urik knew the handwriting well.

    Panteer scum.
    You are liars. You are hypocrites. You are monsters.
    Force harbourers. Alliance sympathizers. Opportunists.
    If the Empire doesn’t destroy you, I will.


    He crumpled the hand written note back up and, for a moment, entertained the notion of flinging it from the spire, letting it fall and deteriorate wherever it may. But something stopped him, as it always did, and instead he pocketed it, grasping it in his fist so tightly his knuckles turned white.

    Desmond, what have you done? What have you become?

    “Let’s go, Em Three, before my family returns,” Urik said, turning at last back toward the protocol droid and the warmth of House Panteer.

    “The Alliance awaits.”
    Last edited by Urik Panteer; Oct 22nd, 2013 at 03:23:27 PM.

  2. #2
    TheHolo.Net Poster

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    Ben Merasska's Avatar
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    "So is it anything like the old Alderaan, boss?"

    Ben grimaced and cast a quick, unimpressed look at Shuvin, the sixteen year old Togruta mechanic he was starting to see as an annoying little sister more than anything else.

    His name was Ben Merasska, and her name was Shuvin Undhi, and they were the captain and mechanic of Alderaan, a Ghtroc-720 tramp-freighter that was nominally based out of the Carshoulis Cluster. They were sitting outside their landing bay in the Bail Organa Planetary Starport, which shared its namesake with four museums, three parks, and seventeen avenues and lanes. Ben was attempting to hide himself from view as much as possible, while Shuvin was getting many looks from passersby and loving it.

    "No," he finally answered, adjusting the blaster pistol hanging from his belt. It still felt odd to carry one around all the time, but he was getting used to it. "It's like it, but not quite. Now shush and keep your eye out for a rich guy."

    She rolled her eyes.

    "There's rich people everywhere here, boss."

    "...Keep your eyes open for a rich guy who wants to be seen and recognized as much as we do."

    "Ah, that makes more sense. So how's Ned?"

    "You don't stop talking, do you?"

    "No, not really. Why? And don't dodge questions."

    "Because we won't be able to get those capacitors you've been saying we need if we're picked up by those ever so scary authority folks and miss giving this guy a ride."

    "Heh. Miss giving. Misgiving. Did you say that on purpose?"

    Ben's retort was cut short by a small beeping from Shuvin's commlink.

    "Here he is," she said, standing. "Coordinates for his location are logged."

    Ben grinned.

    "Let's hope he doesn't get too bent out of shape by a little change of plans."

    They both stood, and entered the landing bay, where underneath Alderaan was a landspeeder towing a repulsor sled with a large crate on it.

    "Gate's locked?" he asked, strapping in the restraints. Shuvin nodded, knowing how much Ben had invested in the freighter, and what would happen should he lose it. "Okay. Let's get this guy and get out of here. Alliance people are everywhere."




    They reached the Panteer mansion in fifteen minutes, and Ben pushed the comm button outside the gates.

    "Hey, this is Quick's Deliveries. Got a package for ya."

    "I'm sorry, but you must have the wrong residence."

    "Nope. This place is on the invoice."

    The gate swung open a few seconds later, and Ben drove in.

    Phase one of the job, Get to the Client, complete. Now they had to get him and get back to the Alderaan.

  3. #3
    Urik Panteer
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    Though Castle Panteer remained a shadow of the former glory the original seemed to ooze from its very walls, it was still quite impressive to behold. Urik’s father, the duke, had insisted that its creation mimic the Alderaanian castles of old as closely as possible. It was a seemingly odd request, as the Alderaanian nobility had shied away from their role as aristocracy in the past several thousand years.

    Urik understood, however. His father had been raised in that old castle, and Urik had spent much of his formative life wandering those same halls, imagining fierce vibrosword fights with knights of other houses. It had been a much simpler time for the young prince. After the destruction of his homeworld, he had been forced to grow up rather quickly.

    There were turbolifts throughout the castle, but Urik had opted instead to take the stairs. It was a long way down from the top of the spire, and by the time he made it to the ground level, the sun had reached a zenith just over the edge of the horizon. They would have to move fast if they wanted to away before the castle awoke, almost as if it were a living thing itself.

    Urik finally reached the ground level, and as he entered the main foyer he noticed something odd. One of the night staff servants, a more elderly man by the name of Boris, Urik believed, was arguing with someone at the castle threshold. Normally, this would be of no concern to the prince, but it bothered him immensely for two reasons.

    First, Boris should be in the process of a shift change. He had not anticipated having to explain himself to the old man. Second, they were both standing directly in the line of his escape route. Sighing heavily, he realized he would have to improvise, and began to approach the two when suddenly his comm unit buzzed.

    “Em Three?” he queried, scanning the massive foyer for any side of the droid. They were supposed to rendezvous outside, so that in itself was not alarming. The fact that the droid, normally such a stickler for protocol, had broken radio silence was, however.

    “Prince Panteer, I feel it is my duty to inform you that the courier arguing with Mister Boris is currently armed.”

    Urik froze in his tracks, making up for the sudden change in behavior by pretending to admire a nearby tapestry, an original Alderaanian work that had cost his father a small fortune to attain. Urik had never cared for it much, and that served him well, for while his eyes were glued to the piece, his peripheral vision and the rest of his senses were anything but.

    That’s no delivery man.

    He recognized the type. The guards of the house loyal to him had been bringing him similar portfolios for the past several weeks. This man was, if not an outlaw, a fringer. Not exactly out of the ordinary on a frontier world such as New Alderaan, but something about it didn’t add up. It felt wrong.

    “My prince, how shall we proceed?” M-3PO’s already monotone voice crackled through the device, distorted, “This unit currently has the interloper in its sight’s.”

    Killing him was out of the question. The Panteers may have fallen from their lofty position within the socio-political structures of their former homeland, but they had not yet fallen so far as to condone murder in cold blood. Urik hadn’t, at least. Still, the situation needed to be managed, and Em Three was awaiting orders.

    “Belay that, Em Three. Adjust your sight 5 degrees south.”

    “But sir, that would-”

    “Set for stun,” Urik interrupted, ignoring the droid’s concerns. This was the only way, “Fire on my mark. Mark.”

    A stun bolt rang out, from the upper balcony behind Urik’s position, and before either of the two men at the threshold could react, Boris the servant dropped to the ground in a heap. The young Panteer had no time to cherish the look of shock on the “courier’s” face.

    He drew his hip-mounted DL-18, a less powerful cousin to the 44 but with a weight and feel that Urik appreciated, and as the pistol rose to to an aiming position, Urik drew a vibroknife from the bandolier hidden underneath his heavy duster, bringing it up and underneath the right arm in a perpendicular fashion, so that he could rest his blaster arm on his left wrist and remain prepared for close quarters combat.

    “Identify yourself!” he commanded as he slowly moved towards the man in a classic Alderaanian combat pattern.
    Last edited by Urik Panteer; Nov 6th, 2013 at 05:03:15 PM.

  4. #4
    TheHolo.Net Poster

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    Ben Merasska's Avatar
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    "Hey now," Ben yelped, pulling his own blaster pistol out with a graceful speed that left Shuvin wide-eyed. "No need for violence, now."

    The Alderaani smuggler eyeballed his 'opponent'.

    "Oh," Shuvin murmured lowly once she got a good look at him. "He's nice on the eyes."

    Ben grimaced a bit, but kept his focus on the still advancing young man.

    "Now we could get in a fight here," he said after a moment, his own pistol still trained on the rich boy, "or we can settle on down and talk this out. My name's Merasska, and I'm here to get someone offplanet in a hurry and hush hush."

    He really hoped that the guy calmed down; his pistol didn't have a stun setting.

  5. #5
    Urik Panteer
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    Urik had been expecting a lot of possible scenarios when he had detected subterfuge, but it was safe to say that the intruder’s response hadn’t quite made his list. If the stranger was telling the truth, it meant the entire strategy he and M-3PO had planned over the past week had gone entirely out the window.

    Still, he wasn’t yet sure he could take this Merasska at his word.

    “Strange words coming from a...delivery man,” Urik said at last, bemusedly referring to the other man’s crude disguise, “Sure you could be here for that. Or you could be here to put a bolt between my eyes.”

    Yet even as he spoke the words, they rang hollow. Something about this guy put the young prince at ease. Perhaps it was his swagger, or voice, or that name. Merasska, the way it sounded, it was almost as if…

    “You’re Alderaanian,” he realized suddenly, the accent was subtle, but Panteer had grown up around it, heard the dialect every day of his life.

    That sealed the deal. As much as the entire situation seemed sketchy, he could not believe a fellow Alderaanian was capable of the malice necessary to assassinate a noble in his own home. His instincts screaming at him not to give in to his optimism, Urik shook off the self-doubt and lowered his pistol, hoping that Merasska would follow suit. His life was now in the...courier’s hands. He could only hope that the two strangers, noticing the Togruta for the first time after the tension had passed somewhat, were legitimate.

    It was not the first risk he had taken, nor would it be the last.

    “I’m that someone,” he said in response to the courier’s previous statement, “Myself, and one droid, if its presence will not inconvenience you.”

  6. #6
    TheHolo.Net Poster

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    Ben Merasska's Avatar
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    "You're Alderaanian."

    Ben grimaced but nodded.

    "For what it's worth, yeah, I am," he said. At least this guy hadn't remembered he was the one who'd returned with the holo of the history of Alderaan. There'd been more than a few cases where his stupid survivability in near-death situations had been misconstrued for heroism.

    "I'm that someone. Myself and one droid if that will not inconvenience you."

    "I don't remember a droid in the message. It'll cost you a bit extra, but - it's not one of those yappy protocol droids is it?"

    Ben sighed and holstered his own blaster.

    "Half up front, and half when I get you where you're going."

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