Pzob's Open Terrain

After exiting the Spook, Darth Tyna's life support registered her accelerated heart rate. All she could hear was her own breathing.  The forest world of Pzob filled her view.  From her vantage point she could see the curvature of the planet.  As the seconds ticked by she watched the lush green world increase in size.  When she looked down, she could see Brother Eli in free fall below her. Above her, she could see IG-LOMM and his yellow photo receptors against the deep blue-black background of the sky.  The altimeter counted lower and the flat green mat below turned into the texture of a forest before it gave way to a vast collection of trees that she was able to make out the individual contours. She would soon be able to see the individual branches...

Before she knew it, Brother Eli deployed his deaccelerator and she began to catch up with him. She activated her's too.

"Death. Here. Now."
She heard the premonition as much as she felt it. She was moments away from dying. All her systems were green but nevertheless she knew she had to take action or she would be buried in the crater her body made when it hit the ground. Like adrenaline, she felt the force coursing through her, speeding up her reactions. The Sith apprentice looked beneath her and saw the branches of the forest canopy layer. A moment later, her deaccelerator, which had been slowing her decent, jolted and she felt herself once again in freefall.

"Deaccelerator malfunction detected." Tyna heard Lomm's voice over her Commlink and instantly felt herself accelerating again. Her heart skipped a beat; there was no backup system to deploy when she shot past Eli. There was nothing between her and the ground but air, and trees. Closing her eyes, she felt her perception of time alter.
"Quasar 2...!?" Brother Eli's shout faded into the background like slow motion.

The force augmented her senses and consciousness. Reaching out, she felt the force... saw it--... flowing like glowing threads of light through the trees below her. She reached out and 'grabbed' the glowing threads and suddenly felt a new world open up to her. By tracing the lines of time in the force that flowed through her, she could sense exactly when and where she would hit the ground. She was able to make out a network of possible actions that could alter her future. Of those sets of actions, she intuitively knew a limited set of them offered her a chance of survival. But which ones? Which ones?? There were too many!

She fought the panic as she saw a vision of the inevitable.
She looked up from a hole in the ground as a dark figure stood looking down at her. He was joined by IG-LOMM. 
"Observation: her body exploded on impact." Lomm stated. "But that is what bags of meat do, isn't it?"
She could see her master, Havok, standing over her flattened corpse, trying to stifle a laugh.

The vision set her off. The intense anger at coming to such an unceremonious end was overpowering. It drove out all other emotions. There was no room for panic. The anger warped everything in her consciousness into a single thought.
SURVIVE! 
"No. Not many paths. Only one." She repeated and traced her path through the threads of the force, grabbing them in a fist. "There can be ONLY one."  She 'yanked' on the threads of the force.  The heat of her anger seemed to melt and severe the threads of her fast-approaching destiny. She felt the premonition change, as if she was altering her own future.

"Only one dark seer." The forbidden yearning surfaced in the sea of her anger.  "And that will me ME!" Saying it out loud willed her words into being, empowered by the force she wielded. In her hand the threads of her destiny wove themselves back together into a single path, one dark thread of the force that lead to Havok.  The moment she touched it, she felt her master's eye pierce through the force, following the thread back to her. He was watching the path.
The anger that she wrapped herself in shielded her from his gaze, for the moment.  "One path."  She let go of the dark thread, composed and resolute. She had one chance...

She opened her eyes as the first branch whizzed past her. She twisted her body and using force jump she kicked out and made contact with the tree trunk as if executing a two-legged sidekick. She exploded horizontally pushing off the trunk of the tree. The thick trunk shattered as she transferred much of her vertical motion into lateral motion. Now rocketing sideways through the forest canopy, she channeled the force through her hands and feet to force push against the foliage like bumpers.  She pinwheeled and flipped off branches and trees, bleeding off kinetic energy with each ricochet until she was able to slide to a full stop on the bough of a tree, crouching, still high above the ground.

She stood up panting, her mind barely beginning to process the near death experience she just survived. 

"Inquiry: Quasar 2, Are you dead?" She heard Lomm's voice in her commlink. In a daze, she let go of the tree to pull off her face mask. The dead weight of the worthless deaccelerator on her back threw off her balance and she suddenly wobbled before hugging the tree again in a death-grip.
"No, fuckface." She scowled. Did that asshole assassin droid just try to kill her? He had been scanning their equipment repeatedly on the Spook. She couldn't help but suspect he had something to do with her deaccelerator malfunction. She couldn't give him the satisfaction. She composed herself. "Lomm, I am fine, no thanks to you." In contrast to her even tone on the comlink, her hand shook as she unbuckled the deaccelerator and let it fall from her back.

"Complement: For a meatbag, you are surprisingly resourceful, Quasar 2." There was a disappointment in his voice that confirmed her suspicions. 

"Double fuck off, you backstabbing garbage-dumpster-fucker fuck-face." She thought to herself.

Brother Eli cut in on the comm. "Quasar 2, See? The Emperor protects!" The inquisitor crowed.  "I see your signal, but you ended up a klick down hill from us. If we both head towards the op zone we'll likely meet up there at the same time, if not sooner."
Darth Tyna looked around herself, still high up in the trees. "..." She pulled off her face mask, exasperated by the inquisitor's absolute devotion to a dead emperor. Palpatine didn't save her, she freaking did! "I saved myself, by myself! No one else! No emperor, just me!" She rolled her eyes, though she also felt the stirrings of pride.  She saved herself. "Yeah. Who's the big badass Sith now?  That's right. ME!"  She cracked a half-smile. 
The comlink spoiled her brief fantasy.  "... Do you copy Quasar 2?" Brother Eli couldn't hear Tyna's facial expressions.
"Yeah, I copy that Eli." She said unenthusiastically. She didn't want to continue with the op after her brush with death. She didn't even feel like climbing out of the tree...
"It's Preacher 1..." She heard Brother Eli grunting about her not using his callsign.

Off in the distance, she heard the sounds of someone using an assault cannon. Hmmm. That's where she wanted to go...

The young Gamorrean- perhaps his name was Ian; his real name was too difficult to pronounce.

The young Gamorrean, Ian, grunted as he knelt in the sand on the sandy... shore? Sandbar? He had no idea where he was. The underworld? The other side of the world? It didn't feel like the underworld. It felt more like a cave...
"Grunk-CHOOO!" he sneezed. It was quite cool in the darkness, around 57 degrees. He could already start to feel the shivers setting it.
"Oi hat da wet." He grunted in frustration. Shaking the water off him, he tried to get dry. He sat and wrung out his animal-skin loincloth, before placing it on the sand next to him. He ground his buttocks into the dry sand with a satisfying wiggle. Meanwhile his ears were going crazy... He jammed his pinky finger into his ear up to the knuckle and to clear the water out of it. He couldn't wait to do the other one.

His ears weren't the only thing going crazy... come to think of it, the hairs on the back of his neck were too.

He froze mid-breath, finger in his ear, eyes wide. All of his senses strained to their utmost. He heard drips and drops and echoes. High above him he could hear air currents whistle and whisper, he could feel a gentle breeze through... The underworld sounded alot like a cave to him.

Just when he was about to relax, he could hear the sound of an animal paddling in the water. Could be Twayt monkey. (Those could climb trees and swim.) It must have been in the tree that came down with him. Dinner, he concluded, once it got tired or made it to the shore. No need to work hard, let it come to him. He relaxed and inhaled while he finished clearing his other ear.

Whump.... Whump...

He froze again... and pulled his fingers out of his ears. His ears automatically oriented themselves towards the sounds. From the way the sound carried and resonated in the sinuses of his forehead, it was a very quiet, very large animal. Possibly moving unexpectedly from dry stone to dry sand.

Whump....Krsh! Krsh!

Same animal, two legged, moving from dry sand, to wet sand.

Slusshhhhh........

Slusssshhhh......

Maybe 50-60 meters away? Stepping two legs into the shallows. He felt breathing... well if it had nostrils that faced the same way as its eyes, it might be facing away from him.

He could still hear the Twayt Monkey paddling around, close to the tree.
He slowly reached for his loincloth knowing what was coming.

When the creature attacked the Twayt, Ian the Gamorrean picked a direction and bolted.

Making her way in the direction of the blaster fire, Darth Tyna soon found a distinctive trail through the forest. The teenager continued following the intriguing path, literally, blazed through the wilderness. Trees were slashed and chopped, toppled in a single stroke. Undergrowth withered covered in a neon blue liquid, or was burned using an accelerant. Any growth still intact was covered in splotches of black soot. The air held an unwholesome arid smell.

She stopped to analyze the trail. She examined a mangled tree. There was no sign that a lightsaber was used; large claws perhaps, but not an energy blade. This was beyond the abilities of the native Gamorreans.

"Terentatek?"  Tyna asked herself out loud. Their mission on Pzob was to hunt one. She wasn't sure why one would go yeet some trees. "They eat jedi... and force sensitive..." She looked around, feeling rather small in her five-foot tall frame. "... Meat." She finished the sentence as she spied the lower half of a Gamorrean flattened against a tree trunk. Very obviously blunt force trauma, but nothing looked nibbled from where she stood.

Farther along the trail, she knelt by a puddle of the blue liquid and poked it with a twig. The wood smoked and got warm. Probably caustic. "Maybe an acid?" Did Terentateks secrete neon blue acid? She thought back to the xenofauna expert's briefing. "I think she said something about poison." She really probably should pay more attention in those things. Regardless, she would need to be careful to avoid the stuff.

The Seer's apprentice continued puzzling as she jogged up the trail. Why the soot on everything? It smelled like a walking garbage fire from Raxus Prime had been transplanted here. At the thought she slowed to a walk and waved her hand in front of her nose as if trying to get the smell to clear. "Gamorreans can start fires..." 
Up ahead she saw a section of the trail where the flames had taken root in a deadfall of trees. The flames were spreading rapidly through the dried decaying wood. The wind had already taken the fire and fanned it into an inferno downwind of the path. Along with the white smoke from the green underbrush and damp wood being consumed, there was black smoke...
"Gamorreans can start fires... but they don't use petroleum based accelerants."

Darth Tyna was still wearing her black Imperial Intelligence assault jumpsuit, with her environmental controls and oxygen mask hanging at her shoulder. If she was fast, she could run through the areas of fire ahead of her. People die from smoke inhalation, not from the burns; and the suit would protect her from burns...She put her air mask on again and was greeted by oxygen free of smoke. "Hang on. What about the blasters?" She had been assuming that the blasters were being fired by a non-Gamorrean, non-Terentatek individual. What if Gamorreans got their stupid paws, or hoofs, or whatever, on some blasters? What if they got their hands on alot of blasters and were having some stupid tribal war?
Nah. There had to be someone else out here, or a platoon of someone's. Maybe even big-game hunters. Who knows? There was no way that Gamorreans could have gotten a hold of an NOE weapons cache, or been hording blasters like they were magic legendary weapons, right?

Tyna looked down at her articulated armor chest and abdomen plates. They could probably take one solid hit. She rapped it with her knuckles with the confidence of a teenager that felt immortal. She pulled her sidearm from her hip holster. A small Sith blaster with a name: "Guts." Darth Havok had to make everything long winded; she didn't care that it was ancient. She only cared that 'Guts' was great fun. The adjustable power settings selected between draining a standard 300 shot energy cell in 100 shots, 30 shots or 5 shots; settings she liked to call, "Dead," "Deader," or "Crater."

Using the force to jump across flames and some force speed, she following the flame-ridden/smoldering trail, as the blaster fire continued on up ahead. Though previously sporadic, the blaster fire became more steady as she walked. The forest gradually thinned, and she began to see more Gamorrean corpses and body parts. She proceeded moving from cover to cover, finally stopping at a thick shaggy tree on the edge of a clearing. Blaster in hand (set for 'Deader'), She peaked out to see a collection of wooden shacks as an explosion demolished one of the buildings. 

*Snort Snort.* The sound came from right next to her, from inside the thick tendrils of the tree.
Suddenly a green hand reached out towards her.

"HOLY SHIT!!" Tyna force jumped sideways in a flip, traveling farther than she needed to dodge an attack. She landed in a roll, pointing her blaster at the tree. A moment later, the piggish features of a Gamorrean peeked out of the branches of the tree that had been concealing the native.

BLAT!  Darth Tyna's red blaster-bolt hit the forehead and vaporized the upper half of its head, leaving the lower jaw and tongue visible. The confirmed kill slumped forward, falling out of the concealment. A little bundle containing a miniature Gamorrean rolled out of its arms. "Ah, fuck."
A mother. Tyna couldn't even put her finger on why she felt bad about it. Probably because the mother was just trying to hide herself and her baby from the attack on the village? A cowering mother and child posed no threat. The baby started making "Eep!" noises. Was that crying?

The Sith apprentice quickly made her way to crouch by the green baby Garmorrean. The crying was pathetic and loud enough to attract attention. Tyna immediately knew what she had to do. She picked it up and quickly fastened the baby bundle to her breast plate. "Shhhh, There, there. Everything is... going to be ok." She patted it's head and it quieted down. "Sheesh you stink." They almost smelled as bad as they looked.

Blaster still out, Darth Tyna stepped into the clearing to see a shiny metal humanoid fire a hail of blaster-bolts into a shack.

Darth Tyna watched.The robot was tall and broad. It brought to bear its considerable armaments on the native Gamorrean populace. Cannons, claws, rotating barrels and two smoking stacks belching thick black smog into the sky. The murderdroid seemed to be killing at a frantic pace as if it was haunted and tortured by inner demons, and the constant killing kept the ghosts at bay.
It mechanically screeched in a voice that boomed so loud that it could have shook a Garmorrean shack. Several probably did shake.  Bacca was one of the Lords of the Eye, of that, she was sure. The War one.
The tall thick droid turned to face her. It's head crafted in the shape of a skull, its red eyes gleaming like lightsaber crystals.
Fleshling? Me? He sounded as bad as IG-LOMM. Executioner? Ah shit, it's a death bot. Thank goodness I don't live here-
When his arm lifted she instantly saw the red dot light up on little baby meatshield on her chest. Her mind raced: the baby just wasn't substantial enough to stop both barrels of the Plasma cannon. The first would blow the baby apart and melt a hole in her chest armor, and the second plasma bolt would burn a hole right through her left boob and into the tree behind her.
That did not fill her with any reassurance. Force speed, however, did.
Darth Tyna disappeared miliseconds before the plasma bolts exploded the ground further behind where she had just been standing. A moment later as the smoke cleared one could see the scowling sith apprentice still standing, though meters away from her previous position. The green infant was burbling, still attached to her breastplate.
"I am Darth Tyna, Lord Havok's apprentice." She put Guts in his holster and drew her battered lightsaber hilt, as if to emphasize that she was a Sith. She did not ignite the light saber. "You have exactly one chance to explain why you just fired on a Sith lord's apprentice, Emissary." Was she scared? Yes. She was facing down a freaking autonomous mini-AT-ST! She did her best to hide the fear. She was frustrated that this detour was not as fun as she thought it would be. She was so busy controlling her fear that most of what she said or did came across as frustration: Doesn't anyone ask questions before firing? Darth Tyna unclipped the baby and let it drop. It immediately began wailing when it hit the ground.
"Ugh! I hate this planet." It's not that she wanted to save the ugly baby. She only picked it up to use as a hostage, or meatshield if any of the porkers tried to use their stupid weapons on her. Even a Gamorrean might think twice before swinging at one of their own... It could have been fun.
The mini-Gamorrean continued crying. The teenager cruelly repositioned her boot and the baby was silent, changing color from green to purple.
She was already losing patience, when a Gamorrean made a run at her, possibly trying to save the child. With the clench of her small teenage fist, She crushed his eyeballs with the force, before turning her glaring eyes back to the droid. The eyeless Gamorrean stumbled blindly before tripping in the weeds.

Darth Tyna's heart skipped a beat as the metal demon moved towards her... When it responded to her master's name, stopped, and retracted its claws, she puffed her cheeks in a slow sigh of relief.

She barely ever got to name drop. It felt pretty gratifying to do. Havok usually kept a low profile in his fleet as an intelligence operative, preferring to use Admiral Malice as a proxy. Likewise, Havok had made her an "Imperial Intelligence Agent" and instructed her to salute all officers and keep a low profile. She was not to order people about without good reasons. She felt confident that stopping a seven foot tall sentient armory qualified.

"Pleased to meet you...Commodore!" She saluted just to be safe. Just like she did when she encountered officers in Havok's fleet. 
She could almost hear Havok hissing in her ear. "Do not embarrass me!" He expected her to act in a way that would reflect positively on him and his training. "Because a sith lord cannot be in all places at once, all look to the apprentice as a representative of the lord."  It was hard enough trying to keep up with Havok's lessons on the force and combat training; she hadn't yet committed her lessons on the NOE to memory yet. It didn't seem like a high priority thing, that is until they suddenly returned and she came face to face with a Starkiller unit! And a believer at that!

"Blessings of war be upon Lord Bacca's head!" Seemed like a suitable thing to say in response to the droid's honorifics attributed her master. "You are too modest. May his victory be as swift and as brutal as his servant." Mental note, practice flattery more.
Her thoughts were interrupted when the fanatical droid lurched forward and dispatched the Gamorrean she just wounded.


Darth Tyna glanced down at the motionless bundle under her foot. It looked dead to her. All purple and stuff. She had been standing on the neck to stop the unpleasant noises for what seemed like a while. Well the droid said it wasn't dead.

The murderbot was close enough that she heard the weapon circuits and capacitors spooling up to unleash death. She knew it wasn't personal, it was carrying out its programming after all, but it still made her tense, ready to explode into force-augmented action.

She held her hand out and flicked the switch, lightsaber emitter pointing down. Buszssssh! The red light saber blade activated only for a moment, connecting with the bundle at her feet.
Bzzzzzzwhvvt! The red blade deactivated, disappearing into the hilt in Tyna's hand. "It's dead now."

She finally put her finger on why it bothered her to have killed the mother and child. They were victims. So weak and helpless in the face of violence; just letting things happen. They reminded her of a time when she didn't have the power- She corrected herself: didn't know how to USE the power to save herself. She hated that feeling. She hated being remined that she once was weak. She wasn't weak anymore. She wasn't a victim anymore. She didn't want to save the past. Every time she increased her body count; she was slowly erasing the weakness from her past by embracing her strength: the dark side. Somethings didn't deserve to survive...

She looked around at the pathetic village. Her demeanur changed. She didn't look away from the glowing eyes of the Starkiller unit. She wasn't tense anymore. She wasn't afraid. If she was Havok's representative, she would act like Havok. He would definately aid in genocide.

Darth Tyna spoke into her comlink in her mask. "Spook, Quasar-2 command authorization, Call for fire to follow, warno, fire for effect at grid NB432789 altitude 520, danger close, copy.” The coordinates were for the geographic position of the clearing containing the village.
"Quasar-2, we copy: Fire mission at NB432789, alt 520, danger close, Spook standing by to fire for effect."
The crew on the Gozanti gunship loitering high in the sky loaded the Av-7 anti-vehicle cannon and J-1 proton cannon, before beginning to power up the light artillery turbolaser and the AT-AP mass driver cannon. The ship's targeting computer began illuminating individual targets on the ground for bomb and missile attacks.

"Commadore Starkiller: I think you and I are going to be friends." She said with a devious smile.

Scores of Garmorreans fled through the woods trying to get away from the silver demon that heralded the onslaught of flames and evil lights that beset their dwelling place. Such death and destruction had not been heard of in decades. Thought to be dark stories whispered in the firelight to scare the pups, the ethereal myths became real and immutable before their very eyes. It was too much for most of them to process, even their chief. It was he, who led them through the woods, at speeds that left behind the old, feeble, and young. By his calculation, if they reached the stream, they might be able to use their dugout rafts to escape and perhaps find refuge in another village.

"FOR GROW-NASH, HARKEN YE!"
The fleeing Garmorreans were stopped by a shout, a war-cry, by a thicket near the stream. (Grow-Nash was their war deity.) The primitives stopped and turned to see a small band of roving Garmorreans. The rovers held black metal sticks in their hands, and wore hard plates of white on their arms and legs.

The chief, breathless from running, huffed peevishly. "Who calls upon... (huff!) ... the gods!?"
"We are Ug-Grow-Nash," a female voice called. (translated as servant of Grow-Nash.) The largest rover stepped forward. Then a smaller female, formerly eclipsed by the male rover, stepped into view. "Grow-Nash commands a fight. A fight would be pleasing." She was adorned in the manner of a shaman, her skin wiped in mud and skins. In her hand was a force pike that she held as a staff or scepter.

The chief snorted a derisive laugh, and his followers with him did likewise. "A female? Speaking on behalf of Grow-Nash, the god? You are weak." He observed her stature.
The female's face was expressionless. "You are weak, who flee. Weaker still, them who leads the flight."
The chief retorted, trying to save face from the accusation in front of his people. "The gods abandon us. It is not weakness to accept the fates decreed by the gods."
She pointed a mud-crusted green finger at him. "The gods have not decreed defeat. You abandon the gods in your heart. And cast off your young."
The chief was aware that his followers were nodding and beginning to grumble, suddenly remembering their loved ones they left behind in their hast to escape. He countered. "You speak as if you claim the right to levy the judgment of Grow-Nash, but never has the god of war chosen a female as his champion or his mouthpiece." He felt smug, certain that this would win back the respect of his people.

"You mistranslate my name. It is not 'servant' of Grow-Nash." the female stretched forth her hand- The chief felt an invisible fist close around his throat and lift him into the air. Astonished, he began to struggle and flap like a freshly caught fish on a vine. "Our name is Uhhhg-Grow-Nash," She emphasized the aspirated 'h,' "This one is the vessel of Grow-Nash." She unclenched her hand and the chief fell to his knees coughing. "Our spirit dwells inside me, to the quickening of my flesh."
"A witch?" The chief was startled. It was the only explanation for the unholy power she wielded. "A Witch! Don't listen! She brings death! She brings folly!" The chief of the village desperately tried to win the attention of his followers back. But they seemed to fall under the witch's spell.
She was done talking to him and spoke to his followers, the village people. "We, Grow-Nash, command all within the sound of our voices to fight. A fight shall please us. As a boon, I grant you sacred weapons." The vessel of Grow-Nash motioned to her rover-band and they lifted the black metal sticks they carried. She took one from them. It was an old E-11 blaster. "You will each take one and we will drive back the silver demon."
"RUUUIN!" The Chief wailed, trying to warn his followers. "See how her band adorns itself with the white bark of the evil whitestone warriors!" (storm trooper armor)
"A coward's words." Uhg-Grow-Nash became disgusted by the chief. "You shall be silent!"
BZAP.
Uhg-Grow-Nash pointed the blaster and fired a bolt of light right through the chief's head. The demonstration of the sacred weapon lifted the spirits of the village people, even as it ended the life of their chief.
"Cowards die, but heroes are immortal. You will follow us and we, Grow-Nash, will bestow glorious victory!" She raised the blaster and force pike above her head and the Garmorreans cheered.
The chief's followers became her believers. Within a short time, Uhg-Grow-Nash rallied the fleeing Garmorreans, led them to a weapons cache, and armed them with blasters and fragments of white storm trooper armor that the rovers had scavenged. So armed, the female shaman led them back towards the village.

**************************************************
A Garmorrean armed with a DC15A slowly crept through the forest until he reached a point where he could see the silver demon in the clearing. He settled behind a large clump of underbrush next to a broken rotted-out tree trunk and pointed the proper end of the blaster towards the stationary target.  He looked down the iron sights, careful to calibrate them for distance, just like Uhg-Grow-Nash had showed him. She touched his arm and... He couldn't explain it, but in a flash he had a vision of how to operate the "blaster" in his hands. The word still felt awkward on his tongue. "Blaster." A sacred weapon. And he knew how to use it. The knowledge was undeniable; she truly was the vessel of the war-god!

The primitive rested the barrel on a branch and pressed his face against the cheek-rest. He knew he had to get the breathing right. But it wasn't the right time yet... The Gods would help him know when to pull the trigger...  Other Garmorreans around the clearing also had similar experiences, ready to fire but knowing it was not yet time. (Returning to this particular one:) He watched and waited.

A blow from behind knocked him senseless to the ground. The rotting tree trunk behind him moved, its arms robotically reaching out to him. A series of red lights on the trunk blinked and a knot spun around the trunk as if eyeing him. The young Garmorrean tried to get up but the 'tree' rotated 360 degrees and struck him expertly on the back of the neck... between the 4th and 5th cervical vertebrae (to be precise).The Garmorrean slumped forward paralyzed and more importantly, unable to talk.

IG-LOMM shook his hand servos at the disabled primitive, who's wide eyes followed the movement. LOMM field stripped the blaster and then returned to his prior standing position, imitating a tree and aiming a blaster at Darth Tyna. It was distasteful to have to covered his own matte grey exterior with mud and rotting organic material, but the ruse was effective, as he just demonstrated.

One of the assassin droid's sensors continued watching the primitive expire on the ground.
>>>Internal Note: Garmorrean meat-sack, green, robust skull, broken neck, suffocating, in all respects unremarkable except in possession of a DC15 series blaster.
    >>Relevant fact: Fleshling held his fire for 45 full seconds after aiming at the Starkiller unit.
            >>>>>Conclusion: Foe with self-control and unrushed aim is indicative of a plan. Plans are a result of premeditation and coordination.
    >Question: coordination with who or what?
    >>>>Supposition: Where there is one armed insurgent preparing an ambush, there is a 95% probability of another mirroring the same behavior. That such a plan would materialize in this situation, after a military route, had less than a 1% probability. But the evidence before his ocular sensors was irrefutable.
    >>Further Observation: Meatsack has neither communication device, nor chronometer.
    >Question: besides triggering the ambush with an openly observable signal such as firing a blaster, there is no other means to to effect a coordinated ambush?
           >>>>>>Inconclusive: depends on unknowns such as whether other technology is available to these insurgents.

IG-LOMM's visual sensors continued to scan 360 degrees to illuminate other hidden insurgents.
Other sensors monitored the Starkiller unit. Lomm observed no external battle damage but saw leaking joints.
>>>Diagnostic subroutine initiated: damage analysis
    >>Biased observation: Starkiller unit showed behavioral abnormalities by being uncharacteristically social.
    >Fact: Its rate of fire and fatalities per minute statistics were dropping while Tyna's mouth was moving.
    >>>>>>Provisional conclusion: processor degradation was causing auxiliary pro-social diagnostic routines to compensate.

>>>Second Internal Note: chide Tyna for distracting a warbot, log for Darth Havok, and suggest, at earliest opportunity, that the Starkiller unit run a self-diagnostic test.

Peripheral Sensors triggered: numerous primitives were taking up positions in the woods...

It was rare for the Machine Lord to allow an organic of all things to instruct him on how to prove himself a more valuable servant to the Almighty Eye, rarer still for him to be brought to silence by it, but there it happened. As Darth Tyna admonished him against self-detonation, he stood there rigidly, almost a statue if not for his belching exhaust stacks and coolant bleeding joints. Error message upon error message blinded his visual display until all that remained were his audio receptors, enraptured and awe struck that one so young by fleshling standards could be so wise.

He had been a fool. Never in all his many years had he ever questioned the course of his path, always believing himself to be correct in whatever action he took, no matter how extreme. Occasionally he would be halted in his destructive ways by an order from the living embodiment of the Eye, the Order's Lord of War and his one true object of unremittent affection. In those events he had always assumed the reason for the order was less to do with any miscalculation he had made and more to do with something his master was aware of that he was not. It had never seemed to matter if the end result was his own destruction, even if it happened time and time again. He was a tool best utilized in the extermination of the Order's enemies. In this instance though, with the near complete degradation of his viral programming, self-destruction would be final. His term of service to the Eye would be at an end, by his own choosing.


How could he claim to serve the All-Seeing Eye when he had been so prepared to end that service himself? What was wrong with him? Something did not compute the way it was supposed to. There were flaws upon flaws in his programming, and it...it frightened him, as though such a thing were even possible. He was no organic, despite his origins. He was a machine, as pure and as perfect a vessel for Eye's fury incarnate as could be created upon the physical plane. Fear should not have been possible, and yet, what else could you call the terrifying thought of willingly failing his oath? His body should be broken down into scrap and melted down into slag for such thoughts, his programming erased and discarded. There was no excuse. He Had Failed.

The only thing keeping him from the execute.exe file his twisted coding was circling with desire was the words of Dread Seer's apprentice. It seemed some of the High Lord's omnipotence had rubbed off on the fleshling, granting her some of the Eye's sacred power, a tongue of truth. Time and effort had been spent on transforming what had once been a human Imperial pilot into the instrument of pure unrelenting death that was Commodore Starkiller. How could he ever consider sacrificing even this damaged frame for a handful of savage swine? There weren't enough on the entire planet worthy of his value. There was something else she had said that now he understood better than before.

Mechanical Tone The Eye requires sacrifice...

It still had need of his body, there were heathens to slaughter. But perhaps there was something else he could do.

For a brief moment the exhaust stacks on the back of the mechanical monstrosity's rusted frame stopped belching toxic smoke. His brightly burning photo-receptors dimmed and his weapon systems began to shut down with clicks and fading whines, ceasing their deadly hum until his body failed to be an animate thing and was instead a statue of ozone scarred Imperial steel. Within his metal cranium, the Starkiller Virus did something it had never attempted before. It had been running for decades, splitting and uploading itself time and time again, never once stopping to perform a reboot. There had always been a risk that its knowledge and memories accumulated over the years would be lost, never to be reclaimed again. There were moments in there that it hadn't been willing to give up. Memories of times spent in the presence of the gargantuan abyssin, with the mutant's clawed hands deep in his circuits, piecing him together in the same way the celestials populated the stars. His creator, he had been so afraid to forget him, when what he should have been more focused on was how he could serve him better. Now he knew how.

Reboot!

Electrical current crackled across the damaged Starkiller Unit's metal body, smoking as it boiled off any gamorrean blood and cooked the bits of gore he had been spattered with to blackened morsels of burnt ham. Inside his programming was restarting from scratch, unburdened by all the corruption it had been carrying for so many years. Logic circuits that had been jammed and discarded now flowed with pure data, making connections that hadn't been done in decades. The crackling currents ceased and his photo-receptors beamed so bright they nearly burnt out their bulbs. Static shrieked from his audio output device, but only for a moment. Soon it was replaced by a phrase that had always inspired fear in the enemies of the Order.

Mechanical Tone Commodore Starkiller, Online.

Gears creaked as the Machine Lord's metal head swiveled in place and those beaming red orbs looked on Darth Tyna anew, now gifted with a vision from the Almighty Eye that he had been blinded to before. Instead of seeing High Lord Havok's apprentice or another faithful fleshling, he saw a brilliant being of golden light, swirling with the Eye's glory and wearing a flaming halo of its majestic power. Finally he recognized the silver tongued girl for what she truly was: a saint.

But he was damaged, and almost entirely out of ammo. If he was to embody the Eye's righteous fury, some much needed field-improvements would need to be made.

'Shink', the serrated claws extended again, this time with a more calculated purpose than simply gutting some pig-men. He raised his left arm with a creak and brought the blades to the swiveling mount of his rotary cannon, and slashed it off at the base. The heavy spinning blaster fell to the ground with a loud thud. Then with his other arm, he reached to his left shoulder and gripped the empty missile rack situated there, and pulled. Metal groaned and eventually gave, the rectangular box tearing loose and also crashing to the ground. Commodore Starkiller seemed to stand a little straighter, now unburdened by the extra weight of his spent weaponry. He still had his blades and his arm mounted assault cannon, but he had more than that. He had the Will to bring death and destruction to the enemies of the Eye, and that was all that was ever required. He lowered himself to a knee as the proton bombs and turbolaser blasts flashed overhead, seconds away from meeting the snarling tusked visage of their foe. Starkiller rested both hands on his bent knee, metal cranium bowed towards Darth Tyna.

Mechanical Tone My lady, this unit has been in error, but thanks to the Truth of your words it can now see the light. Blessed Saint of the Eye, this unit is yours to command. By your order, all heretics will die!

Darth Tyna stood in her black Imperial Intelligence assault jumpsuit. Before her, the warbot's glowing red eyes went out and then came online again. Some change had occurred, because the wardroid began shedding his blaster cannon and missile launcher, sheering the metal with his own claws.  This was inexplicable; why give up advantages in fire power? She felt the lightsaber in her hand, ready to react if her rhetoric had failed and the droid's erratic behavior signaled that the droid had classified her as a threat. Then as if in slow motion, the hulk of Commodore Starkiller knelt and bowed before her. It did not seem real. What was happening? "What would Lord Havok Do?" She asked herself.
The wardroid's mechanical voice barely registered in her mind. Her face was upturned, watching the aerial artillery stream from the sky. The light from the munitions trails lit up her face with a divine glow as she collected the power of the force in her hand. She never, in a million years, would have thought of herself as a saint, even though her eyes glowed brilliantly with the power of her force sight.
"Victim. I am not a victim. I am not weak."
"Yes, glass this village..." Through her force sight, she was able to anticipate the detonation and brace herself.
"In a galaxy of ignorance, knowledge is power."
The ordinance that landed in the clearing blasted half the village in nearly an instant.  With the force she had built up ready in her hand, she faced the impact as the ground shook from the explosion. Darth Tyna unleashed a devastating blast of force energy through the air over Starkiller's bowed head. The concentrated jet of force power cut a narrow wedge-shaped channel in the proton bomb's shockwave, deflecting the blast around both her and the Commodore in a shimmer of green light.

BOOOM!
The wind whipped her hair and shook it out of her bun. Her jumpsuit's environmental controls strained to protect her from the radiation and extreme spike in ambient temperature.  And then, in an instant, it had passed leaving her face drenched in sweat, rivulets of hair pasted to her forehead, her exposed skin slightly more tan than it was a moment ago. 
"Knowledge is the hottest explosion, the sharpest blade, the precise strike."
She could almost hear Lord Havok's voice in her head. "The best defense is a calculated and keen offense." Even though it was only her mind, her imagination still managed to capture Havok's occasional smugness. "Using Force Push to avoid a shock wave. Heh. Well done."
"I test my strength and impose my will to find the boundaries of my power."
Tyna looked around to see the entire clearing was smoldering. Bits of debris from the village had spontaneously burst into flames momentarily.  Everything seemed to have a charred coating of ash on it, except for Starkiller, herself, and the narrow strip of land they were standing on.  A shadow stretched over everything. As she looked up, she saw the sun was temporarily shaded by a mushroom shaped cloud.
"By all means, kill the heathens."
"Yes. Kill them."

With a snap-hizz, she activated her lightsaber.  She swung the humming red blade, stopping the tip just short of Starkiller's right shoulder as if knighting him. 
Buzshuuuuuuum! The lightsaber hummed and crackled as particles of ash landed on the blade and were vaporized.
"So be it, until my Master or Lord Bacca commands otherwise." If there was one thing she did know, the high lords were possessive. She would not hinder them. "Rise, friend. Bow for the Lords of the Eye; I am not a High Lord."
"Yet..."
"Yet."  Was her unspoken addendum. She would exceed her own master in time. She was sure of it. Until then, it would be foolish to think about going toe-to-toe with a sith lord in earnest.

. . .vvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvv....
 Her thoughts were immediately interrupted as the ground around them began to shake.  And then it began to give-way. First at one side of the meadow, a small depression appeared before falling out of sight. It was replaced by a hole. This sight repeated around the hole, spreading outwards, and more and more of the clearing sagged and dropped. Once the expanding hole reached the village, the earth tilted and the whole village slid into the giant hole. The shreds for the demolished huts, with their stone and logs and thatch, disappeared into a rising cloud of dust and dirt. The remaining longhouses still standing soon followed, disappearing into the ground. 

While expeditious use of force speed and force jump might allow her to escape alone (by no means certain, based on how quickly the hole was expanding), she did not want to abandon her new friend, Starkiller.  With a look of grim determination, she once again channeled the force into her limbs for the second time today, in order to hopefully survive another long drop. 
. . . The ground stopped vibrating. . . .
She blinked suddenly realizing that the sink hole had fortuitously stopped expanding 2 meters away from StarKiller. Over his shoulder, she could see a wide pit with enough dirt piled on the far side to almost make a steep ramp. She could not see how deep the hole was on the side nearest to them. Nothing about the hole's start or its inexplicable halt seemed stable.

"Uh, Commodore, how much do you weigh?" Her voice had a twinge of concern.