Journal Entry #1¶

          STAR WARS: THE COLD WAR
          EPISODE I: THE ARTIFACT

WAR is imminent. Tensions are high between the GALACTIC REPUBLIC and the deadly SITH EMPIRE, as the walls of their peace treaty reveal their fragility.

While the Galaxy lives in fear of another SITH-REPUBLIC conflict, criminals and corporations profit far and wide, and the JEDI ORDER remains wounded.

Bounty hunters,  mercenaries, slicers, and spies work with or without IMPERIAL or REPUBLIC allegiance. One such mercenary, JA-NU SIFR, is ready to abandon contracting on the HUTT controlled moon, NAR SHADDAA, when he meets someone most unexpected...    

Chapter 1 - Subterfuge¶

Ja-Nu "Jon" Sifr's last contract didn't go so well. He joined a group of questionable mercenaries to raid an outpost on a moon nearby to Nar Shaddaa for its high-tech computers, but they came back empty handed. He was let down by his crew.

He returned to the Slippery Slopes Cantina on Nar Shaddaa, ready to wind down. He greeted the familiar Jett Karga, a bouncer, and encouraged him to speak to Lina, the Twi'lek bouncer that he has eyes for. After a drink or two from semi-functional service droid T9-SD, a fussy Imperial Officer type saunters his way from one annoying Trandoshan mercenary to the bar.

"You're the Ja-Nu Sifr? Amazing. Lieutenant Talos Drellik of the Imperial Reclamation Service," he introduces himself.

Drellik explains his goals to steal an artifact from... an Imperial Base, for an artifact in a lockbox. The same Imperial Base he just failed to raid. However, Drellik offers the promise of less security at this base, knowing when the guards' next collective break is due.

After a lot of testing the waters with this oddly friendly Imperial Officer, Jon takes the job, with a guarantee of 2000 credits. He doesn't fully trust him, but he's told this artifact could save the galaxy and change the tide of the cold war. But for whom?

He has a comm-link, coordinates (for somewhere he's already been) to an Imperial Mining Outpost, a ship to go, and a destination.

A shadowy figure in long dark robes appears at the cantina entrance.

"Talos, let's go."

"Oh.. oh, yes, my Lord!" He scampers off hurriedly after leaving the comm-link and coordinates with Jon.

Jon narrowly avoids an Imperial trooper guarding his ship as he arrives, his swagger a fantastic distraction for the entire space as he enters the hangar. He circles the ship opposite the trooper, swings into the cockpit, engages thrusters, and boosts into the open air before the trooper can fire a shot.

Chapter 2 - Departure¶

Jon launches into hyperspace and, after plenty of time getting acquainted with the F-T6 Rycer class strikefighter he's named Kestrel, his journey is interrupted by a blockage in the hyperspace lane he's traveling through. He encounters a half-trashed cargo transport freighter that's being scanned by a lone mercenary starfighter. After some dicey comms, and the mercenary's admission to destroying the bridge of the freighter, Jon agrees to leave peacefully... but instead feigns hyperspace travel, performs elite pilot maneuvers, and nearly destroys this mercenaries ship in seconds with some rather accurate laser cannon fire.

The mercenary is close to firing back until Jon reopens communications and persuades him to leave before he dies incredibly alone in the cold of space. OOF, what a play.

Jon recognises the freighter as a Hutt Cartel transport, transporting hundreds of thousands of credits worth of goods to either Nal Hutta or Nar Shaddaa, so he calls it in to the Cartel officials he's contracted for before and finds himself in even better standing with them. The Hutts send a crew to fetch the transport freighter, and Jon reenters hyperspace towards the undesignated moon.

Chapter 3 - Thievery¶

As the moon instantly expands into view, Kestrel's sensors blink and the mining outpost is a barely-visible speck of dust. A quick flyby to scan for lifeforms returns negative, so Jon lands a mile or two out from the outpost and uses his innate survival skills to traverse the tricky terrain towards the west wall.

He sneaks aptly beside the front wall, just barely avoiding the sensors of one of the defensive auto-turrets emplaced at the entrance. It's unusual that these turrets are functioning again so soon after being destroyed by his previous crew. No engineer could repair them this quickly; did they repair themselves?!

Looking in to the cargo yard, he sees several cargo bays with mindless-looking workers slaving away, organising crates of mining supplies and mined goods. He notices the devices fastened to their heads; slave devices that control the minds of their wearers. Even for the Sith Empire, this is low.

The entrance camera his last crew shot out is thankfully still destroyed. He can walk to the entrance without issue, no guards present. He comlinks Talos about the slavers, and Talos is visibly pale despite the blue scan line hologram. "They've used it already..." Talos has to leave.

Jon tries to slice open the door controls but fails and breaks the panel. Sneaking around the west side of the building, he finds a high vent that he could fit through. He uses his blaster to propel his grappling hook into the grate, and lands a perfect hook, pushing the vent cover inside.

He opens comlink with Talos once more, barely getting enough signal, to learn more about the layout of the building. He sends a data scan to Talos, who sends back a full holo-print of the layout.

Sneaking through and dropping into the nearest room, he realises a guard pilot at their desk has seen him. He sneaks up to the guard, narrowly missing their throat with his sword, but pushes them against the wall, cross-armed blades at their throat. The guard barely manages to reach for his blaster and take a shot at Ja-Nu's side, but his response is swift and he slices the guards through with little effort. A close call, but ultimately it was clear who was in control.

The main corridor is empty. Jon sneaks under the camera at the entrance of the back room and takes a moment before opening the door. Checking his corners carefully, he knows it's clear. He uses the data from Drellik to open a large crate to his left, which contains nothing but a tiny lockbox. The lockbox he needs to bring back.

He returns to the empty corridor and hurriedly makes his way back into the vent as he hears two more guards leaving the eastern room to investigate. He just barely fails to make a jump to the outpost wall, and is left in the cargo grounds with no means to escape but the entrance. He overcharges his switch pistol and sends a blazing bolt of ionised plasma cleanly through an explosive barrel into the stars, using the explosion for cover. The two guards exit the main entrance and try to shoot as he escapes the same way he came, deflecting a shot with using his shielded suitcase, and summoning the Kestrel for a flyby pickup.

With a cauterised graze to his right side, and hit to the leg from his landing into the high-speed cockpit, he makes it back into hyperspace and takes well deserved short rest.

Upon his return to the Slippery Slopes Cantina, he is greeted by both Jett and Lina at the door. Once inside, he sees not Talos Drellik standing at the bar, but instead the dark-robed figure that beckoned Talos to depart.

Chapter 4 - The Offer¶

"Congratulations, you made it back alive," she says.

She introduces herself as the one who ordered Talos to employ a mercenary like Jon to retrieve the artifact lockbox. They take seats at the bar.

"I am Darth Nox. I am a member of the Dark Council, leaders of the Sith Empire."

She explains that Nar Shaddaa isn't usually to her taste, but she needed discretion. There are other members of the Empire trying to retrieve the artifact for reasons she doesn't approve of, though she doesn't make it clear why, and she doesn't clarify what the artifact is. She compliments him on a job well done, and knows that the odds are stacked against him in a place like this, offering him a place aboard her ship: a Fury-class Imperial Interceptor.

The entrance opens suddenly, three heavily armored Imperial troopers at the door. They fire at Ja-Nu, but in a flash Nox's robes are flung to the floor, and she elegantly arcs from her chair, igniting a double-bladed red lightsaber that deflects every shot across the room. Two of the shots are deflected perfectly back to two of the troopers, with one remaining. Ja-Nu takes a shot but narrowly misses, and is hit in the shoulder by returning fire.

Nox is angered by this, and as her hand reaches out, the trooper is lifted from the ground by an unseen force, their armor crushed into their flesh and their bones snapped.

"You're welcome," she says.

"Will I be able to leave?" Ja-Nu wants security in his freedom.

"One month is all I ask," she says calmly. She appears trustworthy to Jon.

As they shake hands, Dylan-you-son-of-a-bitch style, an Imperial Assassin exits stealth behind Nox with a blaster to her head. With a split second to react, Ja-Nu takes his still-smoking switch pistol to the assassin's head and blasts. Nox's eardrum has a hard time, but they have now both saved each other's lives.

"No time to waste," she says. They leave the Slippery Slopes together.

Epilogue¶

Darth Nox led Jon out of the Slippery Slopes cantina. They both checked their corners, and with a mutual nod, began making their way back to Mazenti Spaceport. Nox took Jon to her private, scanner-cloaked speeder for more discreet travel.

"After you, hot shot," she said, gesturing to the pilot seat.

Jon flew them to the spaceport without issue, arching through the Vertical City effortlessly, though they spotted a few Imperial speeders in the distance on their way. When they arrived at the hangar, however, they saw three more Imperial Troopers waiting at the ship's entry ramp. With a brief moment of focus, and an effortlessly soft wave of her hand, Nox caused the troopers to fall to the ground, fast asleep.

"No time to waste, I'm guessin'," remarked Jon, finding the lack of combat convenient. They scuttled sneakily to the Fury-class Interceptor.

After they quietly ascended the boarding ramp, Nox closed the ship and strolled into its lobby. Dark, metallic greys, blues, and blacks surrounded them. It was practical, but surprisingly comfortable-looking for a Imperial ship.

"All Sith Lords get one of these," she said as she approached a technical-looking round table. "I'm not that special," she said as she looked back at Jon with a wink, "but it's good to be back."

Nox slid off her robe, revealing more of the intricate armour bound tightly to her chest and shoulders, and reclined on one of the wide seating arrangements. Once settled, legs crossed pensively, she turned to the Tiss'shar that was stood in the centre of the lobby.

"I have lied to you, Ja-Nu," she admitted. "I am not a member of the Dark Council of the Sith. Yet. However, now that we have the privacy of my ship, I can be a little more open."

Jon's eyes narrowed, warily. He still wasn't sure about risking his life for this intimidating Sith, even though they'd already saved each other's lives once already. But it's not like she gave him much of a choice before.

"I am a Sith Lord, have no doubt, but I am not yet a Darth." Jon didn't know the true difference, but he assumed Darth meant more important, or something like that.

"I am planning my ascension to a throne on the Dark Council, with the aid of my companions, and I need someone with your talents of piloting, slicing, and above all else, discretion, in order to execute this plan soundly." Until then, she had had quite a serious expression, but she began to almost look and sound mournful, as if revisiting a hurtful memory.

"Any Sith would tell you of these same plans. We Sith are all bloodthirsty cutthroats, ready to kill one-another and climb to the top without a moment of hesitation. The truth? I remember where I came from, unlike most of the vermin serving the Empire. I was an orphan on Coruscant, along with many other children of many other species, eventually auctioned into slavery at a young age, and soon after purchased by the Sith Order." She paused, hiding a sigh. "My sensitivity to the Force kept me alive, and some Lords at the time had shown interest in me as a result. After years of toil as a slave, and further years training as a Sith Apprentice, I was transported to Korriban to work for the Sith Empire."

She stirred in her seat. Jon listened intently, trying to understand where this was going. He wasn't there for a life story, though.

"I am certain that this Empire, as it is now, will decimate the galaxy. It certainly won't bring it to peace, by any means. I have met countless Imperial officers whose first word is their astonishment for working with an 'alien'. Sheer surprise that any Sith would train someone like me. They burn helpless villages, towns, even cities without just cause. They enslave billions, and we're not even at war yet."

She clenched a fist and made fierce eye contact with Jon, purple lightning crackling around her hand. "This xenophobic institution cannot be left to burn the galaxy to dust. I must burn them first."

Jon took a moment to process what she'd told him. "Uh, that's a real heartbreaking story, really is," said Jon. "But what's any of this got to do with me?"

"I don't need your pity, Jon," she snapped.

She moved to the large, round holoterminal between them and switched it on. Blueprints, molecular designs, and other advanced technological diagrams appeared above it in three dimensional holographs in the space between the two of them, flickering with a familiar horizontal blue light. They occasionally caught each other's eyes as the entire thing rotated. Its juxtaposition with her vibrant red skin would have appealed to anyone.

"The artifact you acquired was the first successful sample of an ancient technology that the Empire has been trying to recreate for centuries. It is a technology that self-repairs, self-creates... self-replicates. The possibilities, without more research, are assumed to be boundless. In the wrong hands, this could topple not only both sides of the war, but the trillions of beings in the galaxy that may otherwise survive through it. In the right hands, poverty might become a thing of the past."

She walked towards the corridor that led to the cockpit, and Jon followed, perhaps quite unsettled by the fact that he'd just recovered a seemingly all-powerful technology for an especially vengeful Sith.

"I wield great power, I lust for vengeance, and my hatred strengthens me, always." She slunk into the pilot seat of the spacious three-seated cockpit, and stared hopefully towards the stars. "But I will not let this Empire commit war crimes before a war has even begun. They must be stopped. Even if I – if we – have to wield this technology ourselves."

Nox turned to Jon and caught his eyes, almost vulnerable. "Your discretion on the Nal Hutta moon was exemplary, Jon. You're even friendly with the Hutts. There is no way the Empire can tie this to me with any real evidence, and together we could begin to unpick their treachery from the inside. But I don't want you to feel-"

Nox's holocomm blinked, and she answered swiftly. "My Lord!" said an excitable Talos Drellik. "We've acquired all of the supplies and artifacts, and we'll be with you within the hour."

"Excellent, Talos," she said. "Thank you. Don't mind the snoozing bucket-heads on the doorstep as you come in." She brushed her hands as if dusting them off.

"Oh- oh, absolutely my Lord," he stuttered. Ashara and Andronikos are with me, regardless. Khem Val will rendezvous with us momentarily. Until then!" The holocomm blinked off.

She turned to Ja-Nu once more. "You can call me Zyra, by the way. You're on my ship, you get privileges," she smirked. "But now it's your choice, Ja-Nu Sifr. I can take you to a relatively safe world like Coruscant right now, where you will be protected from the Empire. You may even find work for the Republic there, and I wouldn't blame you... too much. Or, you can stay with me for a standard month and help us plant the seeds of a reborn Empire. What will it be?"