Welcome back, my beautiful freaks, to Sean's Workshop! It's time to continue Mamine at War!
Our story begins in a space battle, where Mamine disables an Imperial transport for questioning. He gets a call from General Daeruun to return
to Carrick Station. Once there, Mamine is told of the war over
Corellia, particularly the Meridian Complex, a state of the art shipyard. If the Imperials are able to destroy the shipyard, Mamine is told, then that would hurt the Republic war effort due to how fast this shipyard can create ships.
And it is here that Gnost-Dural and Daeruun informed Mamine of her
mission; the Republic fleets over Onderon will be needed do defend the
Meridian Complex, but they'll need refueling before they can head to
Corellia. Mamine will need to solve the problem on Onderon before they
can leave the planet.
And it was here that Gnost-Dural introduced Mamine to Tau's new Padawan,
Arn Peralun. A human male, what marked Arn as unusual was his extensive cybernetics. From Mamine's perspective, only Arn's head remained organic, leaving Mamine to wonder just what happened to this young man.
And Arn, without asking, answered; during a battle on Dakot Seven, Arn was badly injured. When Mamine asked why he wasn't healed by kolto or
bacta, Arn revealed that the people of Dakot Seven were biologically incompatible with these healing fluids, so they had none on supply to
heal this young Jedi. They were forced to do what they did with their own people to Arn; extensive cybernetics. It took many years for Arn to get used to his cybernetics, setting him back on his training.
After a brief conversation about Tau, which caused Mamine to talk about her own Padawan, Mamine, along with Suthazi, took Arn to Onderon to meet Arn's new Master, and Arn revealed a bit about Onderon before getting briefed by Lana on the situation. According to Lana, the king wanted to
plunder the planet's resources for credits, but the nobles weren't on board with the idea. This was leading to a civil war, and Tau was here to help shore up the defenses of Iziz.
Mamine took Arn to meet his master Tau, who was as awkward as Mamine expected. As they introduced themselves,Mamine mentioned that things were always awkward when a Master first took on a new Padawan, especially when they a bit older like Suthazi and Arn were. Mamine assured Arn and Tau that they would click in time.
But everyone's thoughts were forced back to the situation at hand by an explosion. Tau immediately sprung into action, returning to the palace while Mamine and Suthazi headed toward the explosion, leading them to a broken set of ground that led into the basement of the palace. Fighting their way through, Mamine and Suthazi were stopped by a set of droids, one of them showing a
human face. This human, introducing herself as Darth Savik, claimed to know Mamine, though Mamine didn't recognize her. She had sabotaged the anti-spacecraft cannons, forcing Mamine and Suthazi to defeat her droids and shut them down to protect the Republic fleet. From there, Mamine and Suthazi returned to
the throne room, ending the battle.
After some discussion, Arn revealed information about Darth Savik's
modus operandi and said they needed to stay and stop her. Mamine agreed,
and headed into the jungles with an old ally; Jakarro and C2D4.
Jakarro and D4 knew the planet well and aided Mamine in their attempt to
gather information and stop Darth Savik. They eventually made their way
the proving grounds, where Darth Savik herself was located. She revealed
that it was Corellia when they last faced each other and that Savik
hadn't engaged in since, making her droids do the job.
However, Mamine defeated Savik once again, though far quicker than before thanks to having a Padawan in tow, causing Savik to doubt
her entire life up to that point, pleading Mamine to tell her why she
was so strong. Mamine began quoting Jedi philosophy; that the Force was
life, not death, and that one gained true power from defending the lie
that generated the Force.
Savik, now exasperated, told Mamine where the Imperial fleet was going
next; Mek-Sha, a neutral space station that the Republic fleet was headed next to refuel. Mamine gave Savik to the Republic, disheartening Savik, who still wished to learn from Mamine.
Upon landing on Mek-Sha, Mamine and Suthazi were met by Vice Admiral Narlock, Jott,
Mek-Sha's chief engineer, Tau and Arn. Suthazi immediately recognized Jott, who also recognized the young Padawan. When pressed, Suthazi explained that Jott helped out the Padawan's collective for a while before they found Brosra; the Collective worked for Jott in exchange for food and fuel, though they were forced off the station after Huttbreaker found out that these Jedi Padawans were making trouble for the Brothers.
The group gave Mamine her mission; get
a majority vote to sell the Republic fuel from the factions that ran
Mek-Sha. Once the briefing was done, Mamine was attacked by a familiar presence in the Force, with a style she was very familiar with. What was
strange was that the presence, even though it was a dark one, had no
killing intent. It was almost as if Scourge was testing her again.
Once this battle was over, Mamine went to the cantina where the factions were meeting. She was met by Hylo and Gault, who told her whom she was dealing with. The first was Huttbreaker herself, a Nikto who made a
grand speech about Mek-Sha's growing power. While meeting her, Mamine was met by the Dark Council Member Darth Shaar, who taunted Mamine and her
allies in the typical Sith fashion.
From there, Mamine went to meet the other factions; Indigo, the leader
of the Dar'Manda, a strangely named gang. Mamine never liked Mandalorians after what they did to Cathar hundreds of years ago, but she knew enough Mando'a to understand that word meant "soulless". In her mind, all Mandalorians were soulless due to their unquenchable lust for battle, though unlike Mamine, they had no desire to better themselves. And Mamine made no effort to illustrate this distaste when she met Indigo.
Her mext meeting was with the leader of the Brothers, slavers and strong allies of the Empire. The leader of this gang instantly recognized Suthazi, telling her that she would pay for their lost profits, so Mamine knew she'd get nothing from them as well, moving on to Veek the Sneak, a smuggler and
leader of a gang of Rodians.
After meeting them all, Mamine knew that Veek was their only option to get what they needed. And all Veek asked for was that Mamine and Suthazi go rescue an ambassador for him. However, this
was a trap, as the ambassador from the Hutt Cartel was working with the
Exchange to kill Veek. Veek thanked Mamine for saving his life and
promised a long working relationship with the Republic.
After finishing with Veek, Mamine got a call from Arn about the
Brothers. Apparently, Arn, who had been ordered to watch them,
started freaking out about the Brothers about to transport slaves.
Mamine immediately called Tau, since Arn was her responsibility, and
headed off to assist the young man.
When they got there, though, Mamine and Suthazi saw that Arn had killed the members of
the Brothers and was choking out one of them as he arrived. Arn was angry, and not just because they were selling slaves. Arn explained that
slavers were the ones responsible for his injuries, so he had a grudge
going. Suthazi told Arn that he'd done the right thing, that the Brothers were scum who deserved to be wiped out, but balked at this idea; Arn had acted out of anger, something that they all needed to beware of. Mamine reminded Arn that the Dark Side was as much a part of them as the Light Side was, and that denying it gave it power, but they still needed to control their emotions if they were going to be a good Jedi, a good person. Mamine reminded Arn that he was a
person as much as he was a Jedi, and he was going to make mistakes and
lose control sometimes, but that losing control didn't have to condemn him as he was thinking it did.
It was that moment that Tau came upon the scene and saw what happened.
She looked at Mamine, and Mamine nodded while Arn explained the situation, with Tau returning Mamine's nod.
Both Masters knew that Tau had to take responsibility for both Arn's training, as she had been doing, and his actions when left alone, something that Mamine had to explain to Suthazi when the exchange was questioned. And to Tau's credit, she did so when Jott told them about Huttbreaker's outrage. And after a short exchange that followed the debrief about just that, Mamine
prepared for dock defense from the Imperials, capturing a Twi'lek named
Major Anri.
With the Republic fleet finally ready for the battle of Corellia, Mamine
returned to Carrick station for the briefing, finally meeting
the new Supreme Chancellor, Gelena Rans. After distributing their
forces, Mamine boarded a shuttle with Lana, Gnost-Dural, Suthazi, Tau and Arn,
and during the journey, Mamine witnessed something interesting; a
conversation between Lana and Ghost-Dural about Lana's version of Sith
philosophy and why she remained loyal to Mamine despite their occasional
differing of opinion.
Upon landing, Mamine, Suthazi, Tau and Arn headed out into the city, battling
their way through Imperial Forces until finally meeting an old friend of
Master Anstrisil, Tharan Cedrax. Tharan was the principal systems engineer
of the facility. Once Tharan explained what he had done, Mamine took Suthazi, Tau and Arn
up to the next level, where they came face to face with Darth Malgus once again. Malgus recognized Mamine as the savage brute that tore apart his armor, saying that kind of savagery would not avail her this time.
The battle didn't go in Malgus' favor, of course, with all the Jedi fighting calmly, each taking turns facing off this powerful Sith Lord. Malgus wasn't going to allow victory that easily, however, and
telekinetically ripped a large object from the ceiling and brought it
crashing down upon them. Mamine and Suthazi managed to get off the platform and got to the control station to activate the anti-spacecraft cannons. From there, Mamine and Suthazi took a shuttle back to Carrick station.
Upon the debrief, Mamine was offered a grand reward; bring the Alliance
into the Republic and become a member of the rebuilt Jedi Council. The
Alliance would get a seat in the Senate for Odessen, and she'd get access
to all Republic resources that she'd need for her operations. Mamine readily accepted, though she was still hesitant about teaching others her lightsaber skills.
After the briefing, Lana wasn't pleased that Mamine brought the Alliance
into the Republic, but as always, she trusted his judgment. Tau and Arn walked over to them shortly after, and revealed how they survived; they
had help. When Mamine asked who, Suthazi shouted "KIRA!" and ran over to the human, diving into her arms. Kira, upon locking eyes with Mamine, told Mamine that she and Scourge had helped the Padawan's collective in their early days before having to move on with their own mission.
And speaking of Scourge, he was clad in the same armor as the mysterious
assailant, allowing Mamine to finally understanding the purpose of the attack on Mek-Sha;
the same as it was when she dueled him years earlier. It was a test to
ensure she was strong enough for the events to come.
Mamine returned to Odessen and met with Scourge and Kira, who explained what they'd been up to for all these years. They explained that, while Mamine was working on destroying Vitiate's soul, they were working on destroying his original body. And through some grand plan of the Force,
they both managed to strike down both of them concurrently. But while Mamine got back up immediately, Kira and Scourge were knocked into a
coma for a year until Master Satele found them. Satele's team, however,
was infected with some kind of Dark Side Plague. Kira and Scourge
managed to get them onto a ship that they set drifting around uninhabited space. They explained that they could call the ship back so
that the three of them, who seemed to be immune to anything Vitiate did,
would deal with them in the future.
From there, Mamine met with Scourge and Kira individually. The
conversation with Scourge was interesting; Scourge somehow lost his
immortality with the destruction of Vitiate's soul, which also restored
his emotions. This made Scourge much like Lana was now; passionate about
serving Mamine with a desire to protect anything she had built.
The private meeting with Kira, however, was not at all like he expected. After some brief small talk, Kira revealed that, after Mamine went missing, Kira realized that she's kind of, sort of, always been in love with Mamine. Mamine just smiled sadly, and said that, if they'd have found each other 2 years ago, they might have been able to pursue something, mentioning that Mamine was with someone now. Kira smiled sadly, having known that thi was a probability, but still felt better than all the cards were on the table. Mamine promised that she's introduce Kira to Arcann sooner rather than later, and Kira said that she'd be alright, that she just needed time.
And that's it for Mamine at War Onslaught Part 1. As you can see, I had to tackle the missed opportunity romance aspect of the reunion, since I set it up in the beginning of Rise of Mamine. And while I would have loved to have given them what both wanted, Mamine loves Arcann too much to break up with him for Kira.
Look forward to more story when Onslaught continues, but for now, stay beautiful freaks!
