The Rebel Faction

Stars glittered in the night sky, at least when viewed from the perspective of people in realspace. From people in hyperspace, it was an entirely different view all together. One of those people with a different view at the moment was a man standing nearly two meters in height, shrouded in a black cloak, that covered his head and most of his body, with dark robes covering whatever the cape didn't. His face was not visible but everytime the man drew breath and exhaled it, a cold mist exited the hood. The figure was standing at the viewport of a ship hurtling through the hyperlanes, full of people under his command. One of those people, a person he had placed more highly above the rest, now approached him to tell him that they were preparing to exit hyperspace.

"Dread lord, reversion in one minute." said the capitan, lackey named Gilbrand.

"Good. Prepare the ship for imminent hyperspace depature. Prepare to raise shields and arm weapons upon depature." said the man in a cold but precise voice.

Less than a minute later, the crimson Victory-class Star Destroyer exited hyperspace within a field of asteriods, commonly called smuggler's run. Coming into the field, the ship immediatly armed it's weapons and powered up it's defense shields. There were other ships within the run, many of them small to medium sized smuggling ships, along with the usual hosts of customs corvettes and legitimate shipping freighters.

"Sir, target Alpha acquired." reported the weapon's master.

"Fire the ion cannons. Disable the target. Dispatch the troop shuttles." ordered Darth Necros.

Ion cannon fire lanced out from the crimson ship, splashing across the hull of the bulk cruiser, disabling it's systems and drive engines, leaving it dead in space, crippled. Four shuttles filled up with stormtroopers left the bay of the destroyer and headed torwards the stricken bulk cruiser.

"Dread Lord, incoming hostile starfighters from target Delta." sang out the sensors officer.

"Launch our starfighter squadrons. Destroy the enemy ships." Necros calmly ordered.

Two squadrons of X-wing starfighters, painted a dull black with bright blood red stripes, dropped from the hangar bay of the destroyer and headed off to engage the incoming enemy starfighters, deployed from a Vinda Corporation customs ship. The enemy starfighters were swiftly and ruthlessley dealt with, as was the customs corvette it's self.

Then Necros felt it, a spike in the force, coming from one of the nearby asteriods. He scouted out the presence, and it came from the asteriod identified as number Two. The presence was female, barely detectable, but there. He applied a gental mind probe, scouting out her thoughts, and what he found was to his liking. This female was strictly peaceful, but that could be changed by his will, for she had talents that would be very useful to him in the apprenticeship role. Necros whirled around to face the capitan.

"Gilbrand, we have a new mission at hand. I am terminating assaults number two through ten. As soon as the current assault is finished, prepare the shock troops and the ship for immediate combat. I have detected a new presence through the force, one that is certain to be of a help to use. We are going to apprehend them." said Necros in a voice bordering on excitement.

"Yes, Dread Lord." responded the captian.

"I am also leaving you in charge of the ship in my absence. I will personally tend to this assault." said Necros, whirling about and leaving the bridge before the capitan could once again confirm his orders.

"I hate you."

Said with real passion, the statement was uttered quietly then followed by a depressed sigh. Chin cupped in one hand, Damalis leaned over the system board of her svelte-class shuttle and pushed a random button, her posture showing she'd been there for some time and was rather bored with her task. "Work." She commanded it dishearteningly, then her finger found another button. "Work."

Nothing happened.

Click. Another button. "Work."

Nothing.

Click. "Work."

Nadda.

With a last vicious stab, Damalis singled out one more switch. It looked very promising and she had plenty of hope for it, since it was nice and big with a red light in the center. It pushed in with a nice snap of a sound, but still nothing happened. "Oh, I give up!" Tossing her hands up, Damalis flopped back into the captain's chair and sent it swinging around with a frustrated sigh escaping her. Around her the cabin of her ship was dark except for some emergency lights along the floor. None of the panels or controls were lit as everything sat dormant, showing the reason for her aggravation. The cabin was dark and depressing in a 'this will cost a lot of money to fix' way.

The only bright spot was Damalis herself as, per usual, her outfit glowed in the dim light. A light peach, her tightly fitting over dress was split up each side with straps holding it tightly in place before flowing to her ankles. This would have been risque if Damalis hadn't gone for a more modest approach and worn it over top of a small white mini dress the covered all the necessary bits. Still, her long legs were left bare and the outfit just emphasized her figure instead of blatantly showing it off. With her long golden hair, expensive outfit, and tanned skin, she looked like the person least able to fix the problem afflicting the ship, which was true.

Pulling up one leg and resting with her foot in the seat of the chair, Damalis contemplated her situation. Really, it was a pretty bad time for her ship to start being a pain. They'd announced through the port that there was some sort of attack happening nearby, and sirens rang with instructions and in her best self preservation mode, Damalis would have preferred to just pick up and leave. This business trip wasn't that essential and could be postponed to some other time. But then her ship had sat silent and unresponsive when she tried to do just that. And now, she had the problem of figuring out why that was and since it was obvious she couldn't do it, where to find someone who did know what to do about it. Unfortunately, Damalis didn't quite grasp the seriousness of the situation or she would have abandoned her ship when it refused to work.

"I hope your happy now." She told the ship, the Golden Mouse, as she twisted around to look at the control panels again. Poking it with one toe, Damalis scowled at the unresponsive equipment. An action which brought her attention to her shoes, a strappy pair of peach high heels, and Damalis twisted nimbly into a cramped position as she brought her other leg up so she could rub a spot off the top of her shoe. Tall and thin, Damalis was very flexible and strong in a healthy way but she was just another girl who was maybe a bit too lean. Other than her beautiful face and figure, she wasn't a person to stand out in a crowd, at least not in most space ports where beauty was easy to find.

Owner of a stylish boutique back on the famed Astral Astoria, Damalis kept to her quiet life with a practiced ease. She ignored politics and paid as little attention as possible to the happens in the galaxy other than what was necessary for her to keep her business up and running. She was wealthy in a small way, owning patents to several synthetic fabrics that would, on their own, keep her comfortable for the rest of her life if she so chose, but Damalis decided to do something with it that kept her busy. After some searching which took her through a very brief apprenticeship to a Jedi and an aborted stint doing absolutely nothing helpful for the Rebellion, Damalis settled on working with clothing and fashion. It might not be earth shattering or help shape the galaxy, but Damalis was one girl happy with it.

Still, the sirens that blared brought her attention back to her ship. With things out of commission she couldn't see outside, so didn't know about the general flux of people following those red arrows. Her brain was focused on the misconception that if she could get her ship to fire up, she could just fly out of there and no one would notice or care. After all, her ship was small and who would care if she left? She was also relying heavily on a the fact that before any time she'd been trouble a sense of danger had told her when she needed to leave. That feeling hadn't cropped up, so she wasn't worried.

Yet.

"Let's see... what else.." With careful consideration, Damalis inspected the bag she was packing before snapping it shut as she finally decided that enough was enough. A change of clothes, a change of shoes, since she couldn't wear heels constantly, a box of wipes to wash off with if needed, and enough energy bars to last a few days with extra left over. It was hard to tell how long she'd have to stay in one of the shelters with the locals and she wanted to be prepared. Hence all the extra snacks. Damalis would be mortified to eat in front of others without sharing.

"Such a bother." She muttered to herself, before grabbing the black bag, which was deceptively small in size, and tramping through her darkened star ship. It had taken Damalis a few minutes of soul searching to decide whether to stay hidden where she was or listen to the evacuation notice still blaring out of the loud speakers. The deciding factor was the dark cold interior of her vessel. Damalis couldn't stand the idea of being stuck there all alone.

So now, instead of hiding away where it was relatively safe, her ship wasn't likely to garner much attention because of it's size, Damalis was venturing forth to find the aforementioned red arrows to follow. She should have been more worried and certainly more cautious, but this was one woman who lived precariously on the edge of practicality and plain old silly. With absolutely no trepidation she climbed a ladder down to a manual escape hatch and began the task of turning the large metal wheel to open said door, not in the least bothered by the large squeaking sound that filled the air as she did.

Pausing for a moment, Damalis frowned and lifted her head, listening. She could have sworn there was something... but no matter, she didn't have time to wonder about it. With a final grunt, she finished opening the hatch and lugged it up with plenty of grunts and groans. She was lucky to get the hatch up at all and in the end had to resort to bracing herself against the wall and pushing with her legs. Slender and tall, six foot in her bare feet, Damalis was not a powerful person. She had stamina, dancing all night built that ability, but as for muscle power she had very little.

Dropping out of the hatch, Damalis let her legs swing about rather inelegantly while she tried to determine where the ground was. Relying on faith, she gave up questing for it and just let herself drop, a startled squeak echoing about her when her feet hit the ground with a jarring thud. She tottered a few seconds, really she needed to change to the flats before she did something stupid on those heels, then righted herself, a bright smile on her face at her accomplishment.

The smile froze in place however when Damalis found herself looking at a semi circle of men in black pointing the business end of their weapons at her, the group briefly stunned to find themselves looking at a golden vision emerging from the underbelly of a ship. It was brief seconds, but while she stared, Damalis had a few moments to register the distant sounds of screams and fighting that hadn't been evident while stuck inside her ship. Too late now, she would have liked such a warning before leaving safety, but the troops had orders. Shoot first, ask questions later.

Which they did in a hail of blaster shots that left the air hung with smoke and drowned out the sound of Damalis' high pitched scream. When the smoke cleared to stunned silence, miraculously Damalis was still standing, her bag clutched to her chest, eyes wide and panting, completely unharmed. One quick thinking trooper actually raised his blaster to make sure he had things set right.

"Are you INSANE?" Damalis squealed, panting as she stared wide eyed at the soldiers. "You almost hit me!"

It should be noted, that while Damalis was a somewhat vain, silly, fluff of a person who, only by the grace of her kind heart, was a loving and enjoyable companion who generally skimmed through life, she was also by far the single most lucky creature in the universe.

Necros looked about as his men opened fire on a target emerging from the docking collar of a ship sitting inside of the dockyard. He took one good look at the target and was awed by the beauty this target possessed. Such a fine and gifted body, from the reaction she displayed to the sudden attack it also appeared that she was a little thick, but by all means that was more than okay. She would make a fine gift to the men and their need to relieve themselves after such an intense raid as this...or perhaps she could be sold off to help raise funds for his army. He was sure that one of the more lonely hutts would pay at least a few million for such a fine specimen such as this, if she could be taught how to dance. However, at this point in time Necros's head caught up to his manhood. If what he was sensing was correct, then his target and the woman were the one and the same. He smiled beneath his mask. This was too perfect, what would turn out to be a easy subversion and a beatiful new assistant would be his.

He strode across the deck torwards her, and signaled his men to stand down. He reached out with the force in his right hand and gently manipulated the power he was feeding off from the fear of the dying innocents in the bay to first toss off the luggage she was carrying in her back, and then gently pressed her against the hull of her own ship, trapping and pinning her in place. He advanced as he did this, and he took note of her bewildered look as to what the heck was going on. He also took a delight as to how her face concorted when she finally saw him as he was. It was then, and only then, that he began to lay out his proposal for her to join him and his army in their endeavours.

"Damalis, I have travelled across great distances to finally meet with you. Allow me to introduce myself. My name is Darth Necros. I am a dark lord of the Sith, and I have come to tell you that destiny has chosen a grand path for you to walk. You are to toss down whatever you are working on now, abandon anyone you know, come and join me, and together," Necros paused to let the words sink in, "We shall build an empire of the likes that has never been seen in the Galaxy." He took note of the effect his cold breath had on her skin. He sensed another presence in the force then, and drove a suggestion into the brain of the nearest trooper. He spoke into his comlink, and the other squads dropped what they were doing and proceeded to head torwards a point where they could intercept this new enemy before he reached Necros. The Sith Knight wanted no one to interfere in his subversion, otherwise there would be hell to pay.

He watched her reaction to his statements and smiled to himself at her reactions. He had terrified her a great deal, as he had intended too. However, inspiring great fear in her alone would be enough, he realised after she tried feebly to convince him that she was not the one that she wanted. He narrowed his eyes at her, thought better of it then, and decided instead to do something that he would not normally do, and remove the mask from his face, exposing his cold brittle skin and dark red but still human eyes to her vision. He eased his force grip on her, ever so slightly, to where she could have some basic movement.

"I have sensed you, your presence, from afar. I know it is you by sight alone, and the fact that the mindlink I discovered in you then is the same that I feel in you now. Damalis, you are the one that I have chosen to join me in my endeavours. However, perhaps you do not fully realize the predicament that you are in at the moment. Allow me to show you." said Necros as he ever so slightly turned his head to the right, indicating for her to do the same. At the same time his left hand dipped into his cloak and tapped a comlink there twice.

Outside of the docking bay, though the magcon field, the Victory class destroyer stationed there opened up with it's starboard turbolaser batteries, annihilating a loaded passenger liner fleeing the assaulting Sith forces. Hundreds of innocents floating out of the wreckage, freezing to death instantly.

Necros took delight in the slaughter, feeding off of the terror and pain caused by his ship, before turning back to Damalis and taking even more delight in her current expression. He took a couple of steps torwards her and stopped.

"That slaughter out there is but a small token of what I can unleash upon this asteriod belt. Those that have died already out there are souls that rest on my shoulders alone. However, continue to resist me, and more people will die, and not only will you be responsible for their deaths, but you will feel them." said Necros, coldly and cruelly, smiling as he finished talking. Let's see how she responds now, he thought.