Karina was thrown to the ground by one of the guards. The ground rushed to meet her and her datapad skidded out of her hands.
"Geroff." she choked, the man's weight nearly crushing her. There was the sound of blasters and the steady buzz of several lightsabers. The guard did not hear her or was simply pretending not to hear her. Karina glanced over at the queen, the guards protecting here had their own blastors ready and a glint in their eyes. If she was not mistaken, they were going to try to get the queen to saftey.

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<center>

[font=Times New Roman]
Hello, I'm Amoniel
[/font]</center>

Xeric backed slowly away from teh droids, hoping to get even with the walkway.

Ashay staying a litle infront of him.


"Hurry get the queen out fo here." Xeric told the others. "I can hold them off long enugh to give you a head start."

"I'm staying." Ashay insisted as the force nudged her and in blind submission she swirled her blade to drop another line of energy bolts.

"No! Go with the queen, don't leave her." Xeric ordered.

Ashay did as ordered but not desiering to. The halway's corner gave them a clean escape rout.

_________________




Visit The Varsian Kingdom!

Xanzi cursed silently fo rnot noticing the glint from the blaster muzzle before it fired. He pulled a small hold-out blaster from a holster upo his right arm and handed it to the Queen as the guard that had tackeled her rolled off and helped her behind cover, "I'd advise you stay down, marm."

Xanzi quickly pointed to ten of the guards, "You ten, with me, the rest of you, get these people back to the palace." The guards tried to hustle the members of the delegation towards the palace as another hail of blaster bolts struck several of them, sending them to the ground. Palace security ran out to meet and subsequently help the Queen's Bodyguards get everyone back to the palace.

The soldier noticed that the blasts were coming from several directions, multiple assilaints, "Split into squads, three, three, three, and two. I'll go in the group of two. One group go there"-he pointed to one building where blaster fire was comming from-"another there"-again he pointed, but this time to a different building-"and the other there." He pointed to a third building, "You, with me."

"Yes sir," the guards said as they hurried to their targets. Xanzi and his teammate-was his name Canno or something?-ran from cover to cover in the general direction of the building from whence the first blaster bolts came when he relized that the bolts were closer to the ambassador than the Queen, so either the sniper was a really bad shot, or he had been aiming for the ambasador. The emergency response team arrived at the same time as Xanzi and Canno, and Xanzi took charge of the situation, as it was technically his jurisdiction, "Okay, you two, with us, the rest of you cover the exits and make sure that he doesn't escape."

He turned to his new squad of four, "Go in two by two, cover formation. Do you have an extra blaster rifle, by chance?"

"Yes Captian," one of the helmeted men replied as he tossed Xanzi his blaster and pulled another one from their transport. "Ready when you are, sir."

*****

Karrok's ship, the Virago, entered the atmosphere slightly behind Leren's dropship. He commed in to the landing control, "Requesting docking permsion." The Mandalorian was here on a tip from a reliable source that had provided him with some solid info in the past, for a fee of course.

OOC: Would someone mind playing the landing control for me as well?

_________________
Four Gods wait on the windowsill,
Where once eight Gods did war and will,
And if the Gods themselves may die,
What does that say for you and I?

Now, three Gods wait on the windowsill
Where one God's blood was lately spilled
While black tongues lap at the spreading pool
And build the strength they need to rule.

(lol sure)

"This is landing station B-18 we have you on radar. Were are sending you the cordinates for your landing bay. Plase be prepaired for a ship search upon landing." the com rang back, a few lines of static breaking in between words.

_________________




Visit The Varsian Kingdom!

Karrok smiled, this was too easy. He quickly punched in the coordinates and set the ship on auto-pilot to guide itself down as he stashed his weapons in the hiddne compartments throughout the ship. The compartments were almost invisible, their design intigrated seamlessly with the rest of the ship, curtesy of the previous owner's immense wealth. It didn't really matter if they found the weapons, most of them were legal and registered. Some of them, like the molecular disruptor, however...if they found those, he would be in a world of trouble.

As the Virago settled down on the landing pad and went into passive defensive mode, Karrok went over to the hatch and opened it. There were two men at the bottom and Karrok motioned for them to inspect the ship.

OOC: Mind playing the inspectors too? Or do you wnat me to play them?

_________________
Four Gods wait on the windowsill,
Where once eight Gods did war and will,
And if the Gods themselves may die,
What does that say for you and I?

Now, three Gods wait on the windowsill
Where one God's blood was lately spilled
While black tongues lap at the spreading pool
And build the strength they need to rule.

(I can do that)

The inspectors stepped on board, not sayign a word. They flipped out their datapads and began scanning.

"You wouldn't happen to be carrying any wepaons, or spice woudl you?" the one man asked off hand.

_________________




Visit The Varsian Kingdom!

"Spice, no. Weapons, some, but all are registered to one Karrok Methinas, or me." Karrok's voice can out unemotional, almost bored as if he had done this far too many times, which he had. His helmet scanned the scanners that the inspectors were carring and it told him that they couldn't find the illegal weapon's storage area unless they got really, really lucky.

_________________
Four Gods wait on the windowsill,
Where once eight Gods did war and will,
And if the Gods themselves may die,
What does that say for you and I?

Now, three Gods wait on the windowsill
Where one God's blood was lately spilled
While black tongues lap at the spreading pool
And build the strength they need to rule.

(I have to leave after this so I guess you can play the inspectors now)

"I'm afraid you won't be alowed to take any of your wepons off board sir besides one per person in your crew. We have been having some trouble here lately and we have had to tighten our security." the man informed him as the inspectors continued their inspection.

_________________




Visit The Varsian Kingdom!

(Note for everybody's info: I suppose I didn't make this clear enough in the first post, but this was an assassination attempt on the ambassador, not the queen. The action was taking place in an outdoor plaza between the palace and the main administrative building (think capitol). The Jedi's function is not explicitly to protect the queen, but to make sure that the negotiations go smoothly, and protect all parties involved.)

Justyna wordlessly took the tiny blaster her Captain of the Guard handed her, trying to stay as inconspicuous as possible as the assigned guards hustled her and the rest of the negotiation party up the broad stairs into the main doors of the palace. Not that it was easy to be unnoticeable when she was the only figure attired in black.

As soon as they passed through the ornate doors, ranks of armed security took their places in the entrance, assault rifles at the ready as the decorative panels swung slowly shut. Dusting off her suit, Justyna looked for the ambassador and began to walk toward her, but was intercepted by medics. They didn't release her until they had fully convinced themselves that she was in perfect condition.

The Imadi queen approached the New Republic ambassador, who had also been attended by medics. "Ambassador Natasi, I deeply apologize for this incident. I trust you are unscathed?" As the older woman appeared to be unharmed, she continued, "I am waiting for word from my Guard Captain, but I expect that we shall apprehend the perpetrators of this outrage very shortly. In the meantime, I suggest that we continue with our plans for this evening's meal." They both knew that the High Supper essential amounted to a state dinner; the news would carry very quickly indeed if they abandoned it and the invited nobles and guests. "It is vital that we show that these talks cannot be interrupted by those who may not be in favor of them. Do you agree?"

============

Jasson, focused on the pursuit, followed his prey further into the depths of the city, wishing fervently for his blaster rifle. However, he would have to make do - providing he caught up with the sniper. He caught a glimpse of him once or twice. The man had left his long-range equipment up on the rooftop. So he probably only had a sidearm, which made him even with Jasson. But the streets were narrow, and the buildings became taller and taller, which made room for any kind of shot very small indeed.

The area looked slightly familiar - and then he realized why. The ambassador's retinue had passed through here on their way from the docking station. And here it was, B-18, a large circular area in the middle of the city, broad and clear, and thus extremely dangerous. It would be death to move forward from the cover of the buildings surrounding it, so the pilot focused on the perimeter of the docking station. His sniper had to be somewhere around here.

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<center>Nothing but the Rain</center>

((It never fails; right as an RPG starts, 50 million things come up. So sorry for not jumping in before))

Ambassador Natasi had been calmly stolling alongside the Queen, maintaining a neutral-but-pleasant expression, when all hell broke loose in the large plaza. A member of her own security team pushed her to the ground, narrowly avoiding one of the many blaster bolts streaming through the air. Even as the Jedi sprung into action and the security teams began firing, Rina already found herself swarmed with concerned medics. Stars' end! She hadn't even been injured! Brushing them all off with a dismissive wave of her hand, Rina slowly got to her feet and straightened her robes.

"Supper sounds excellent," she replied, smiling tiredly and brushing a stray piece of hair behind her ear. She'd faced far worse in her lifetime, after all. A failed assassination attempt was nothing to fret over; it merely meant that they would have to be more careful in the future. "Shall we, then?"

Xanzi crouched at point of his team. They were going up stairs. Oh, how he hated stairs, way too many places for people to hide, but safer than turbolifts. He tought that he saw a shimmer off to his right, and panned over in that direction. "Check right," he said, motioning to the area where the shimmer had been.

As soon as they began moving towards there, the air shimmered and a droid materilized on their left. The squad opened fire at the same time, but a little too late. The droid got off some blasts first, and Canno fell to the ground, a smoking hole where his heart would have been. No time to mourn now, Xanzi thought as the group retreated down the stairs. Their blasters slowly wore throught the droid's armor plating and hit its power core, blowing the droid to bits, sending a concussive shockwave along with tons of tiny shards of shrapnel at the squad.

Unfortinuatly, the droid took the landing above them along with it, so they had to navigate thier way across the building to the other staircase, and resumed their treck upwards. As they went, Xanzi spoke to the other squads, "Watch your backs, they have droids with cloaks on them. And watch out for when they die, they explode." They reached the top without further incident and found the first sniper's weapons. Xanzi checked the rifle. "SCRV-98 modle, expensive; X5, X10, and X20 scope; precision calibrated, probably by hand; custom stocks and barrel. Darn, this cost someone a lot of money to just leave lying around," Xanzi packed it up into the carrying case next to the weapon. "And here is how he got past security."

As his team headed down, Xanzi spoke into the comm, "All teams, check in."

"Team two here, we've got one man here, looks to be one of the snipers."

"Team four here, same deal."

Team three didn't check in. "Team three, do you read? Repeat, team three, do you read?" Xanzi swore, slung the rifle case across his back and motioned for the other to follow him as he headed for the building that team three was sent into.

***

Karrok took his E-24 blaster off of the rack beside of him and turned back to the inspectors, "No problem. And I'm the only one on my ship." He motioned them to the door once it was aparent that they were done, "Now, if you don't mind, I have things to do and don't need you in my ship all day, so if you'll excese me..."

The inspector's looked oddly at his choice of weapon, but they didn't specify what type of weapon it could be, so they couldn't argue. "Sorry for taking so much of your time, but we can't let assassins in you know."

Karrok grunted as they left, neither an affirmitave or a negative, but was privatly thinking of them as fools. If it is this easy to get by your security, a ten year old Mando could do it, he thought as he picked up his kit bag. The idiots had forgotten to scan this, which contained basic equiptment nessiary for his trade: food, restraints, weapon cleaning equiptment, thermal detinators, weapons, and other things like that. As he left the ship, he activated the ships automated defense system, another curtosey of Prince Xizor. The defenses bacically tuned the Virago into first a automated self-targeting turret, and then a high-yeild bomb if it took off without a voice overide from Karrok himself.

The Mando secured the straps of his kit bag over his shoulders and took a quick glance at his surroundings. He saw one man with a New Republic insigna on his uniform looking around for something, or someone. As much as he disliked the NR, their credits were still good. He began to make his way over to the man.

_________________
Four Gods wait on the windowsill,
Where once eight Gods did war and will,
And if the Gods themselves may die,
What does that say for you and I?

Now, three Gods wait on the windowsill
Where one God's blood was lately spilled
While black tongues lap at the spreading pool
And build the strength they need to rule.

Karrok flicked his eyes twice in rapid sucession at a T-shaped symbol in the upper-right corner of his HUD at the mention of his name. This icon activated his helmet's 360 degree veiwing mode. He saw who was behind him and assumed that he was the one who spoke his name, "Ah, Leren, still alive I see."

The mercenary turned around, "And you brought some friends along this time, too. How quaint." Karrok held his blaster rifle lightly in both hands, but was ready to bring it up into firing position if needed, and it very well might be. The last time he met Leren, they hadn't parted on good terms. The reason was that they had partnered up to capture a mark. After the mark was captured, Karrok sabatauged Leren's ship by destroying the engines and then took the mark away in the Virago to collect the bounty all by himself.

He looked at a icon representing his ship and blinked rapidly three times, starting a silent power-up sequence, and then murmered something into his comm system, directly to his ship's systems, "Target slave to my view, targeting controls to my HUD." He looked at Dan's weapon, "Nice, but I prefer smaller and more accurate weapons."

***

Xanzi commed the other teams as his squad made their way to the next building, "Drop you prisioners off at the palace and go to the other buildings that the shots came from."

"Understood," both teams replied.

_________________
Four Gods wait on the windowsill,
Where once eight Gods did war and will,
And if the Gods themselves may die,
What does that say for you and I?

Now, three Gods wait on the windowsill
Where one God's blood was lately spilled
While black tongues lap at the spreading pool
And build the strength they need to rule.

Xeric and Ashay had to contact the Jedi councila bout the assasination attempt.

"I'll handle the report, you just stay close to the Ambasador." Xeric told Ashay.

"Gladly." Ashay smiled. He would do pretty mucha nything over giving reports and such.

_________________




Visit The Varsian Kingdom!

(FYI the snipers are all Imadi (probably from the same house) who are opposed to their planet having anything to do with the New Republic, so they believe in absolute Imadi sovereignty.)

"Excellent." Justyna nodded. "I will see you shortly, then." She turned, and accompanied by her aides and a few bodyguards, made her way to her private rooms. Along with all the other dinner attendees, she had to dress for the meal, which would involve very little eating and not much meaningful conversation. It was, indeed, all a show.

Once behind closed doors, she pulled out her comm link, contacting her Guard Captain on a secure channel. "Xanzi, update. Whoever it was, I want them caught and shut down. This is an embarassment to our security, and we're very, very fortunate that it didn't turn out worse. What have you got so far?"

As the queen was talking, she eyed her chambermaid suspiciously. The woman had produced a black dress which looked extremely formal - but which she knew was also extremely uncomfortable. Justyna shook her head and made a face, determined not to wear it. The chambermaid, however, looked equally insistent that she would.

==========

Jasson kept his eyes open, looking for anyone that could be out of place among the ships' crews and maintenence teams. His blaster wasn't drawn yet, but that wasn't a problem. He was fast on the draw and faster on the sight.

A movement off to his far left caught his attention - was that his target? The conjecture was confirmed a second later, when bright red streaks blazed his way, giving him scant time to hit the ground, yelling "Down!" for the benefit of innocent bystanders. Party time.

He scrambled behind a maintenence speeder, his blaster already laying down fire, forcing the sniper under cover. That done, the pilot stopped and waited. Patience ...

His opponent finally peered out from behind the column where he had taken refuge. Wait, wait ... oh, yes. Two quick bursts and the sniper was down, having sustained wounds to the firing shoulder and corresponding knee. Not only could he not shoot, but he was also in great pain and unable to run. Jasson stood and walked cautiously over, keeping his blaster trained on the man.

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<center>Nothing but the Rain</center>

Karina was dressed in an emerald green dress, which was simple enough for an aide. Her hair was braided and wrapped in a bun. Karina leaned against the wall and sighed heavily. The dinner was something she was not looking forward too. She hated making small talk.

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<center>

[font=Times New Roman]
Hello, I'm Amoniel
[/font]</center>

Rydina followed in Xeric's wake as he moved off to contact the Council. Who did he think he was, not even bothering to talk to her? Though she was young, she was not to be walked over. Her walk resembled a stalking cat.

"Excuse me, Master Xeric, but don't you think you ought to wait until some news of the attack is received from the Guard-Captain?" She tried to keep her face smooth and voice calm. After all, the longer it took to let the Council know of the assassination attempt, the less time they would have to meddle, and the more time she would have to plan.

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going on a journey through my old claims