The Cruelty of The Galaxy

THO YOR ARRIVAL 10,646

Planet Shikaakwa

Village of Rum'Tar

Forty-Eight Hours Earlier

The Beautiful Morning of Shikaakwa Was Destroyed By Screams of Men, Women And Children. As A Group of Pirates Descended Onto The Unsuspecting Village. The village Men And Older Boys Grabbing What They Can Shovels, Pitched Forks And The Occasional Sword And Slug thrower. The Woman Grabbing Their Children And Ran Into The Forrest Or Into Their Homes. Children Crying And Running To There Parents In Fright And Terror. The Laughing And Hollering Pirates Descended Onto The village With No Mercy. The Rawrs And Screams of Man and Boy As They Fought With Vicious Ferocity To Protect Their Families. The clash of Swords And The Thunderous Bangs of Slug Throwers Overcame The Sound of Man. The large Group of Pirates Pillaged And Ravaged The Once Peaceful And Quiet Settlement As The Larger Force Overwhelmed The Smaller Village Defence. Taking No Mercy As They Took Women And Children Uncaring of Their Screams And Pleas. The Bodies of Dead Men And Boy Scattered Around The Village Their Life Blood Now Fertiliser For The Once Green Grass. The Architect of This Atrocity Stood With His Personal Guard On A Hill Overlooking The Village. He Stared Uncaring As He Watched His Men Start To Enslave The Survivors of The Battle. With A Nod He Descended Down To The Now Smoking Village. His Battle Guard Raised His Black Serpent On Green Banner As They Formed A Defensive Stance Around Him.

Fourty-Eght Hours Later

(PoV Reman Cyrondel)

Reman sat in the cockpit of the Peacemaker with his Master. He stared past the infinite darkness of space as his eyes locked firmly on the planet ahead. The planet was mostly grayish-green landmass on the South pole, and a large light blue ocean that encompassed most of the North pole. On the ships scanner it indicated that it had only one moon. His Master piloted the ship through the planet's atmosphere. piercing through clouds as they made there way to their destination. Rum'Tar could be seen from the sky as the decently sized village bellowed gray and black smoke into the beautiful blue sky and pillowy white clouds. His Master guided the ship on to rocky hill that overlooked the village. Reman as they landed on the hill deactivated the ships engines. After giving the Peacemaker a landing check Master and Apprentice steped down the ships ramp door and onto the craggy ground of the hill.

As Reman and his Master carefully made there way down the steep and rocky hill, he gave a lookover at the smoking village in the distance. Through the Force he could feal the anguish, pain, hatred, fear and sickly glee that seemed to poor out of the ravished settlement. Reman felt sick at feeling all the dark emotions that stunk around the area. He locked over to his Master to see his reaction. Master Zurtar was stone faced at seeing and feeling the atrocity that had happend. Reman could feel his Masters determination and righteous anger at what happed to the villagers. He gritted his teeth and His hand on reflex grabbed the hilt of his sword, and gripped it in his own righteous anger and hate at the filth who dared do this.

The hybrid Human and Zuguruk Sith made their way past the ashen burnt fields of crops. As they made there way to the village with cautious movements, scanning the unknown surroundings. Reman looked around the village entrance and found burnt houses and cottages. Corpses of all ages and race scattered around the blood stained ground. The smell of the carnage almost made Reman through up his breakfast. As they continued deeper into the village Reman heard a noise coming from one of the house's. He slowly unseathed his blade as he approached tbe damaged door. With his his left hand he slowly opened the door, The door moved with a scathing creak that echoed around the village center.

Reman looked back at his Master who had unseathed his own golden sword that arched with bolts of pale green. His Master slowly approach behind him and gave him a go ahead which he replied with a nod. With a strong push of his hand the door swang open with a screech and a bang, before Reman knew it he stared down a long barrel of a slug thrower rifle. His eyes widen and by pure instinct he brought up his sword faster then the eye could see, just before he heard a thunderous bang and the high pitched ping of the slug hitting his blade. With nary a thought he charged into the building and with the pommel of his blade he struck down onto the raised rifle. With his Force enhanced strangth the rifle was ripped out of the hands of its owner and smashed into the ground, causing the rifle to crack and bend.

His lilac sword illuminated the dark room giving him the ability to see the fear stricken face of a middle-aged woman with gray eyes and straw blond hair with the roots being grayed by age. His swords glow was joined by his Masters pale green as he entered the door ready to fight the attacker. With the combined glow of their blades, Reman could see that the room was filled with other inhabitants, all looking at him and Master Zurtar in fear. He saw parents try to hide their now crying children from his wandering eyes. Reman felt his Master grab his shoulder, he looked over to his Master and saw him with his sword lowered to his side. Reman copied his Masters actions when he realised that these were the remaining citizens of the settlement. His Master stepped forward and approached the middle-aged woman with a friendly smile on his obsidian face.

"It seems we are in a misunderstanding" Zurtar said softly to the scared villagers as he slowly moved forward. The straw blond woman stared at him with untrusting eyes as she stumbled backwards. Zurtar stopped his approach as he looked around the dark room and back to the woman who stared at the pair in untold fear, Zurtar gave a sad smile as he sheathed his blade onto his belt. As he did this Reman spotting a light switch near the door that was almost off its hinges. With a flick of the switch the lights of the building came on confirming that the building still had power. Reman after turning on the lights, sheathed his sword as he walked to the side of his Master. "My name is Zurtar Jiru and my companion here is my Padawan Reman Cyrondel, we've been sent here on the orders of the Je'daii Order to investigate and exterminate the band of pirates that has been raiding village's such as yours." Zurtar explained the meaning of them being here.

The woman gave Zurtar a sceptical lookover at his appearance. "You look more like one of those wretched Barons from the Nine Houses that live in those fortresses of there's, looking down on us simple folk." The woman replied in a scathing voice of hatred. Zurtar grimaced at the woman's comment of his acquired taste in fashion. "Well if you look at my Padawan here, he does look like a Je'daii doesn't he?." Zurtar said as he gestured for Reman to step forward. The woman turned her gaze onto Reman and gave him a brief lookover. "Aye he does look like what we have on the ancient tapestry." The woman said in a voice of faint hopefulness as she lowered her guard and the room filled with hushed whisperings of the remaining locals. "I'm sorry for attacking you master Je'daii, but as you can see were still wary after the attack." The woman apologised to Reman and his Master. "Do not worry yourself my dear lady, we wouldn't be Je'daii if one slug could kill us." Zurtar said trying to lighten the otherwise dark and dreary mood.

The woman gave a nod at the master's comment "Well if you're here to help, i am Alilara Rasfol the leader of the remains of my people." Alilara told the two Je'daii. Alilara proceeded to tell them about the raid, how the pirates came down from the nearby hills, and how she gathered all she could with her to flee into the forrest. That when done looting they took a large portion of the village in chains, and how she felt that the pirates were one of the Nine Houses indisguise.

The Nine Houses were the ruling families of Shikaakwa given the title Baron when they ascend to leadership of the family. The Nine Houses were the Twe'lek House Ryo that ruled from their large Fortress surrounded by water of the same name and the city of Ryonollo, the Iktotchi House of Garto that ruled from their inbuilt mountain Fortress and ruled the stone city of Garmont, the Devaronian House of Volke that ruled from their island castle and the multi-island city of Blund'Miss, the Human House of Garonnin who ruled from their palaces of red-gold and the cities of Xale and Antata, the Sullustan House Rez of the industrial city of Crulez, the Mirialan House Offee of the city of Silk and Cloth Sreles, the Noghri House Yroln of the Forrest city of Yhoria, The Nomadic Cathar House Nhimat and their ever moving city of tents of Cyr-Ti, and lastly the Zabrak House of Sym who ruled the Gladiator pits of Fleshsa. Which all had entered a somewhat stable peace between eachother, bringing the end to the endless gang wars to conquer eachother and proclaim themselves the title of Kral the Overlord of Shikaakwa.

While Reman and Zurtar knew that this was false, they allowed her to rage on about the injustice of the Nine Houses of how they exploited the common folk talking the boys to join there armies and fight for them, and on rare cases to take beautiful woman as concubines. "My lady if we can get back to the matter at hand please, we would like to ask you if there were any sort of mark of identification that these pirates wore." Zurtar interrupted diplomatically. Alilara gave a moment of thought, before she broke the silence "Aye i believe at the end of the raid from the forrest i could see a black serpent on green banner lead by a smokey grey Zabrak." Alilara told the Je'daii. Reman's interest was peaked, from what they know of Xuprot's apperance, that matched his skin colour as Zabrak's having greyish skin was the rarest skin a Zabrak could have. Leading some scientists to believe it was a recent mutation, causing some whole Zabraki families to be entirely grey only taking on one parents colour instead of the usual mixing of colours that was the norm.

Reman and his Master continued to talk to Alilara as she showed them where the attack came from. And the smokey pyre were she said that the pirates burnt their dead before they left back into the forrest. Reman had never smelt the smell of burnt sentient flesh before and it was something that he would rather not smell ever again. Alilara left them at the forrest as she went off to help her people as they started to collect their own dead . His focus on the smell changed to hearing as he heard in the distance wailing and loud cries as the gathering of the dead started. He sighed in sadness as caught up to his Master as they walked deeper into the forrest of large oaks and the ever tall sentinels. they looked for small indications such as foot prints, small broken branches of bushes and stamped plants. As it was a large group it was rather easy to track their path.

The criminals track lead them to a broad and grassy glade. A path of squashed kneelength tall fescue grass lead to three large holes of mud. Zurtar and Reman looked around for a brief moment before meeting back up at the large indents. From the size Reman could tell that the markings were caused by the slavers ship. "These are the markings of a CRSF 27 space freighter's landing gear." Reman explained to his Master. Zurtar looked at the tracks and nodded "Aye i thought the same. Its seems this won't be as easy as i hoped. We will return back to the village and help them put their dead to rest then will continue our investigation." Zurtar replied to his statement. The two walked their way back to the village through the somber forrest of oaks and sentinels.

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Shikaakwa was the seventh of eleven planets that orbits the star Tythos. It was colonised by the Non-Force sensitive descendants during the Second Great Migration. The planet is ruled by familes of crime Barons that rule sections of the planets surface.

Slugthrowers, also referred to as firearms, were a type of projectile weapon that fired solid projectiles (known as slugs). They came in variety of different modes but the most commen were rifles and single hand held pistols. Being somewhat rare to the commen folk they became priceless family artefacts handed down between father and son.

The CRSF27 Space Freighter was a ship that is produced by Craedos Shipyards on the industrial world of Nox. It came in three models, the smaller 300 meter lightly armed and armored but more faster and manuverable, the large 600 meter heavy armored and highly armed warship variant, and the standard model that was 400 meters that had only medium armor and was lightly armed.

(Word Count:2,280 words)

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