T'Aqol | Chapter 7: Loss

Chapter 7: Loss

Weeks had passed, my injury had fully healed and I completed all the physical therapy I needed in order to train again. I meditated everyday in the meantime to maintain my force strength. Once I was back into training it was shocking how difficult retraining my arm seemed to be. I felt like my strength was limited, after regular training and going slow and taking it each day I eventually was able to feel comfortable in combat again. Maybe I was stronger after this experience, I liked to see it that way. I proved to myself I can pick myself up from anything if I push myself.
    We continued traveling deeper into the unknown regions of the Outer Rim, most of the planets we encountered didn't inhabit civilization or any possible allies. We still marked the systems for possible outposts or fueling stations and sent coordinates back to Coruscant. A couple weeks passed, nothing very interesting to report back. We were able to find one planet that had the very beginnings of civilization. After speaking with the main inhabiting race we explained to them the Galactic Republic and offered them protection and trade. They quickly agreed, as they believed it would benefit the growth of their people.
    We were nearing another possible system of planets to explore, as we fell out of hyperspace we saw something quite concerning. It appeared to be an abandoned venator floating through space. Immediately the crew on the bridge began scanning for life. The scans showed a couple scattered lifesigns onboard the venator. Then suddenly they dropped and there only showed two. They continued searching through data, attempting to find any information on what they had been doing out here. Nothing was coming up that singled out this venator.
    As we were on the bridge Guerilla Squad entered,
    "Sirs, will we be escorting you to sweep this ship?"
    We turned and Ryx chuckled,
    "It seems more so we will be escorting you with that kind of entrance Thumper. You and your men must've gotten ready as soon as word hit about the venator."
    Thumper and the rest of Guerilla Squad laughed,
    "We'll be waiting for you in the hangar, meet us there when you're ready to head over."
    They saluted and made their exit. Trex, Master Ryx, Chūsei and I continued briefing on what were possibilities for this ship. If anything had overrun it we were to destroy it. Otherwise if it was simply abandoned and left it could be recovered and repaired to be put back into the navy. Briefing came to an end and the three of us made our way to the hangar bay. Guerilla Squad was waiting at The Gargoyle just as they said, as we neared they saluted and loaded up. Chūsei and I followed, it seemed Master Ryx hesitated at first, but then followed us up the ramp. I could sense a sort of discomfort or unease in him. I tried to speak to him through our minds if something was wrong,
    "Master? Do you sense something?"
    Master Ryx didn't open his mouth, but I heard him speak,
    "My boy, do not worry about me. No matter what happens, trust in the force."
    His words confused me, but I knew to trust Master, he was the wisest person I knew. Eventually we landed in the hangar bay of the abandoned venator. Guerilla Squad quickly exited and secured the area, after a minute they signaled for us three to exit as well. The backup lights were on but flickering in various areas. It was a very ominous and unsettling environment. I wasn't used to this kind of silence, usually there was some sort of electrical or mechanical hum throughout a venator. If there was a hum on this barely running ship it was nothing compared to a normal running one.
    Guerilla Squad began escorting us through the ship, we planned to make our way to the bridge. We moved through slowly to avoid disturbing any possible intruders. Time melted away as we cautiously crept down the empty halls, trying to avoid any unwanted attention. We came to turn down a new hall when we encountered some scattered clone bodies. Guerilla Squad rushed to the bodies to check for injuries or signs of life. Gator spoke,
    "They seem to have been dead for awhile. But no injuries sirs, not on any of them."
    What could've caused the death of these troopers? Their blasters were next to them where they died. None of this seemed to add together. I asked them to look closer, maybe remove some armor to get a better look. Upon closer inspection there seemed to be bruises covering the clones, especially around the neck. I was beginning to wonder if this was Carnage.
As we continued on we proceeded with extra caution. Eventually we found the bridge, we entered and Sweet Tooth began connecting to the terminals to see if he could find any useful information. The rest of Guerilla Squad stood guard, Master Ryx, Chūsei and I searched around the room for anything that may help us understand the death of those clones. Sweet Tooth seemed to be having difficulty connecting to the terminal because there was no power going through. We continued to wait and see if he could get access or not. The lights continued to flicker occasionally, making the ship more unsettling, I couldn't quite place what it was that kept sending chills down my spine.
    Five more minutes passed, Sweet Tooth still had nothing. I noticed Guerilla Squad growing anxious, they still stood guard but they seemed to be searching around the room. Suddenly Crackers looked up, a strong sigh came out of him,
    "We've gotta get out of here now."
    We all looked at him confused, and then looked up to the ceiling. The symbol that Carnage and his Children wore was painted above us. Master Ryx began to escort everyone out,
    "Sweet Tooth, disconnect from that terminal. Our time is done here, head to the hangar bay."
    Everyone quickly formed up and we hustled to the hangar bay. Right as we were about to make our first turn down a hall a group of B1 battle droids appeared. Thumper yelled out,
    "Everyone get to one side or the other! Hug the wall!"
    Guerilla Squad evenly broke off to either side of the hall, Master Ryx, Chūsei and I made our way closer to the droids. We deflected various blaster bolts from the B1s. As we began cutting them down it seemed more and more were coming into the hall. Where could all of these droids have been hiding? Cutting through a few dozen battle droids we finally had the opportunity to move forward. We turned left down the hall and ran. As we ran we could hear more droids coming from the next turn up ahead. Our plan was to avoid them if we could and continue straight down the hall, it would get us to the hangar faster. Coming up on the turn the droids cut us off just barely. Knowing we had to fight our way through, Guerilla Squad split again.
    The amount of droids seemed doubled compared to the last group. It was becoming obvious that this was a trap set up for us and we were falling right into it. As we continued to cut through droids we discovered the B2 super battle droids that had been hidden behind the rest. Heavier and more resistance armor made it harder to take them down. With the help of the blaster fire from the clones the time was cut down drastically. One B2 was left, Master Ryx went in to finish it off and slice it in two. As the droid fell to the ground we started hearing loud footsteps and yelling coming from behind us.
We turned to see two clones running down the hall, suddenly one fell and disappeared into the shadows. All we heard were terrible screams of fear and pain. The final clone fell in front of us as he came to a stop. We tried to ask the clone what was going on, he tried to get words out,
"Th- th- there were these dark robes figures! They sent those SD-K4 assassin droids after us! W- whoever wasn't killed by the droids was hunted by the intruders! We watched them raise the other clones into the air and choked the life out of them with the force! We were the only two left. Now it's just me."
He started to calm down, we tried asking him if he knew if the intruders were still here or if it was the droids. Before he could say anything else we heard something move behind us. The super battle droid raised his arm and fired a rocket. It somehow missed Master Ryx just barely, and spiraled through the hall before impacting the wall a couple yards down. The vacuum seal from space began to pull us down, the blast doors to the hall began to slowly shut. As we tried to grab the clone from being sucked into space we saw one of the assassin droids quickly scuttling towards us. We attempted to pull the clone out of reach of the droid. The vacuum seal was too strong. The droid pierced its razor sharp legs into the clone. A blood curdling scream came out from him. There was no choice but to let him go. We released the clone and he was sucked into outer space along with the droid. We all trudged forward to get to the turn in the hall where the door was closing. Right as the blast doors were shutting I looked back to see Master Ryx and Sweet Tooth behind the doors. Everyone ran to hold the doors open, but even with our combined strength it wasn't enough to make a big enough opening. Everyone let go, barely keeping our fingers.
    Immediately everyone scrambled to radio to the two of them. Before we could say anything Master Ryx spoke over comms,
    "Boys keep heading to the hangar! Sweet Tooth and I are okay, we will meet you there!"
    Thumper replied back,
    "Alright sir, if you get caught up in anything just radio us and we'll be there right away!"
    With that we continued running. We were able to avoid other groups of droids as we continued to the hangar, blasting control panels to activate the blast doors. Finally we reached the hangar, but in front of The Gargoyle was a large group of droids waiting for us. Chūsei and I ignited our sabers and charged forward, half of Guerilla Squad gave supporting fire while the other half guarded the rear incase droids came in behind us. We were able to take care of the droids, but it took longer due to half of Guerilla Squad guarding the rear. Half way through fighting we could hear the other half of Guerilla Squad firing on more droids entering into the hangar bay from behind. As we finished off the droids surrounding our ship we turned to cut through the last couple droids that were behind us.
    As the last droid crumpled to the ground we all fell back to The Gargoyle, we started it up for when Sweet Tooth and Master would board. It was only a few more minutes of waiting before we saw Master and Sweet Tooth running through the doorway. They both stopped, I couldn't hear what they were saying, but it seemed almost as if they were arguing. I could see Sweet Tooth pointing back and forth between Ryx and the ship, he appeared to be holding something as well. It looked like Master Ryx grabbed whatever Sweet Tooth had and handed him his sabers. Sweet Tooth was trying to fight with Ryx to grab whatever he took back. No one knew what to do or what was happening, suddenly we heard Thumper yell out,
    "Sweet Tooth! General! Get on the ship! Now!"
    Sweet Tooth stopped and looked this way, before he could do anything else Master Ryx force pushed him all the way to the ship after saying something to Sweet Tooth. Hurling into the ship he was screaming,
    "NO! NO! DON'T TAKE OFF! IT'S SUPPOSED TO BE ME!"
    As we were picking him up he was throwing us and pushing us off of him. I looked out to Master Ryx and saw the look he gave me when he spoke to me outside my quarters. I knew what was happening. I ran to the pilot's seat and began to close the boarding ramp and raise the ship. Sweet Tooth kept yelling,
    "COMMANDER STOP! PUT US DOWN! LET ME OFF! IT WAS SUPPOSED TO BE ME!"
As I turned around in the seat I saw Master Ryx holding the datapad, and then I heard him speak in my head, the last words I'd hear from him,
"Words cannot explain how proud I am of you, my boy. Stay strong, T'Aqol, I am always with you. May the force be with you."
The last thing I saw as the boarding ramp shut was the fiery explosion engulfing Master Ryx as his eyes closed. I gave the ship everything it had and flew us out before it caught up to us. Speeding off I heard various cries from behind me,
"NO!"
"GENERAL!"
Nothing would've prepared us for this moment. No amount of losses, wins, battles, no lesson would prepare us for the death of our Master and our general. It wasn't long before we were in our own hangar bay. I don't even remember flying us back, I felt so numb. I stood up from the pilot's seat and saw Sweet Tooth with his helmet on the ground. He sat with his head in his hands,
"It was supposed to be me..."
    Chūsei spoke up,
    "Sweet Tooth, what happened while we were separated? What were you two arguing about in the hangar?"
    He took a deep breath before continuing,
    "I- I was able to extract the self destruct sequence from the terminal before we left... When we got separated I told General Ryx about it.. The only way it could be triggered was for me to stay back and launch it myself with the datapad I had on me. When we made it to the hangar he stopped with me, when I asked him what he was doing, he said he'd stay back. I argued with him and told him I had to, his life meant more than mine. He kept telling me to go to the ship, and grabbed the datapad from me. When he did that he handed me his sabers, he just kept repeating himself. I fought with him to get it back... I wasn't going to let him stay behind... When Thumper called out it distracted me, General Ryx said to me, 'you all matter' and before I could say anything flung me onto the ship. There was nothing I could do... I'm sorry..."
    We all just sat there, grieving with Sweet Tooth, trying to process what happened. Not much time passed before Trex and the other officers rushed onto the ship, Trex spoke first,
    "Is everyone okay? What happened on that venator?"
    As we began to explain what we found he soon realized who was missing,
    "Where's General Ryx?"
    Chūsei repeated what Sweet Tooth had just told us before, Trex froze in place. He didn't say anything, but you could tell a million things were racing through his mind. A few minutes went by with silence, Trex spoke finally,
    "Debriefing will be cancelled for this mission, I will send back a transmission in a few days explaining the venator. Chūsei and T'Aqol, I will allow you to report the loss of General Ryx to the Jedi Council. Take some time to yourselves, all of you."
    He slowly walked off The Gargoyle with the other officers. We sat on the ship for what seemed like hours before we realized we had things to tend to. Chūsei and I walked back to our rooms, as we left the hangar I noticed Guerilla Squad exiting as well, it seemed they were basically carrying Sweet Tooth out.
    A few days passed, during that time I sent a transmission back to the council about the loss of Master Ryx, I told them I was unsure what would become of Chūsei and his training. I believed Master Ryx still had much for him to learn. It would probably be a few weeks before I would receive any reply. In the time of grieving the Mandalorians approached Chūsei and I. They wished to hold a Mandalorian Death Ceremony for Master Ryx, called the "kote ky'ram". It was an ancient funeral that was given to mandalorians who died with high honor. They believed Master Ryx's death was brave and honorable, giving his life so that a clone would not have to.
    A ceremony was held a few days after Master's death. We set up an area in the main hangar to hold a ceremonial burning. We didn't have his body so instead we burned a pyre of wood in his place. For a Jedi's death and for the kote ky'ram it was tradition to burn the body. Once the wood had turned to ash and smoldered the mandalorians began shouting war cries. Another tradition to help guide the spirit of their fallen brother to the mandalorian paragons. Once everyone had paid their respects we had a large family style feast in the cafeteria as another way to honor his death. Celebrating him in memories and accomplishments he had in life. It was nice to know how he impacted the life of so many individuals, and that his legacy would be carried on through all of them.
    As the days went on trying to adjust to a new life without my Master it began to set in the thought of who would be the new general? I assumed after we'd hear back from the council about it along with who would become Chūsei's new master. While I slept I tried to escape those thoughts, but I kept having dreams and visions of Master Ryx's quarters on the ship. Something was almost calling to me.