Kamino's Open Ocean

*Phantom needed to be hunched over until he found a spot where he could reach back and remove the massive sabercane along his back. He propped it against the corner and then made do with a tiny chair near the others



Peering out he took in the sights, some creatures he had come accross in studies but never in person and this itself was a new feeling for him. He had come from Nagi, water was not as abundant as it was here let alone being under it for this long or this depth.



It wasn't nervousness, for goodness sake he had been in space when the glass in a command tower had been blown open but this...this was not like space. Out there, there was an out, the openness of it all would seem as crushing as the ocean and yet because he had been in space and done more missions there this was forieign to him.



Listening to his brother he chuckled at the criminals moniker and smirked*



"If this is what would mark us as criminals, then we have been doing everything wrong for decades, I cannot imagine this is the most heinous thing we have done, though I Think that our trespasses in the past cannot be tied to us considering no one lived to report it. A pity that if we are caught, we would not have those on our records"

**Ferinus was monitoring the ocean's depths and frequencies. He chuckled as his brother joked behind him.**

"Well, we're young still....somewhat. We should be able to add more to our record any day no-"

**Then Ty started wigging about and pacing up and down the submarine, spluttering nonsensicals. She was even starting to alert Ferinus. He held up a hand in what he believed was a reassuring gesture toward her.**

"Ty....please, calm yourself. We'll be there soon enough. I assure you, this leg of our journey is merely temporar-"

**Then she jumped in his lap and his world erupted in flashes. Whatever she was doing, she must have been projecting some kind of Force energy. The second she made contact with him, dozens of scenes flashed in Ferinus' mind. He saw her younger, cowering from something or other. He even felt her childhood pain and fear. He growled and shook his head. He knew he needed to get a grip on the situation before he drove them all into a reef.

This time, he grabbed her chin in his hand and held her face steady, looking into his eyes.**

"Ty, think! Concentrate! I don't know where you think you are, but you're not there. You're in a submarine with your brother and myself! We're perfectly fine. There's not a single aspect of your journey currently going wrong. You're fine. You're safe. Now, believe it yourself, please, will you??"

**Ferinus looked pleadingly back at Phantom.**

"A little hand, Phantom? I'm only piloting a hunk of metal serving as the only line of defense between ourselves and a watery grave."

  As Ferinus grabbed her face and forced her to look at him, her eyes widened and her lip quivered, her body tensed up with the expectation of pain, but then relaxed the moment Phantom grabbed her off Ferinus' lap. She was pulled like a ragdoll against the Sith and the moment his cloak was draped over her she began to calm. However Ty was so worked up she couldn't even crack a smile at the fact that her Big Brother had referred to himself as "Phantypants", a nickname she hadn't called him since their last sparing match many years ago. Her lip quivered and her mind flashed back to her childhood, and being locked in a trunk for three days without food or company. When she looked back up at Phantom her eyes were blank of any emotion.

   I want out...

  Her voice was small, but she was looking slightly better, finally managing to curb her hysteria... That is until Phantom injected her with the serum. Ty fell limp against him in a dead faint, her breathing normal, her last conscious thought was how she would be angry at Phantom, later on of course.

"Well I am about as nurturing as a bomb but she and I go a long way back and over time you tend to hold a very select few people in regard. This little one here is in that manner with me but I do suggest we get there quickly because when she does wake up, it will be....interesting"



*He nodded and picked up up taking her to the back bunks and wound her in his overcloak like it was a cocoon. Propping her head on a pillow he felt the words big brother ring in the light fun manner of her voice. He grabbed a bottle of water from a locker and flicked the top off as he headed back to the front thinking to himself about all this and back to attachments. Families seemed a good idea but that's what it should stay as is an idea because it would have weaknesses as it always did. He was known for torturing families to get information or break people and if he had a family of his own he would be the same way. Goodness knows if he had a daughter he would want her to be as ruthless as he and his brother were but it would be safer to avoid children and families altogether considering.



He ducked avoiding the lip of the sub's doorframe as he sat again*



"I cannot wait to see what it is you have built and what we will call home, or whatever you want to call it"

Thirteen armoured drop pods plummeted towards the surface of the planet, trailing long smoking tails of orange flame and toxic fumes, hurtling at terminal velocity towards a Kamino Cloning Facility near the northern pole of the planet. These Sith iron sarcophaguses rattled and shook as the occupants inside attacked the inner lining, desperate to tear themselves free of their falling mechanical tombs. Five hundred meters above the facility, a wireless signal was transmitted from the Terentatek in orbit to the descending pods, activating the hatch release. The super heated exterior shell of each pod detonated in a brilliant display of smoke and fire, ejecting scorched armoured panels towards the cloning installation below like large sheets of improvised shrapnel. The air around the facility shimmered as the flaming panels struck and exploded in a spray twisted metal and fiery debris that slid off into the watery depths below the installation's stilts. In the sky above, leathery membranes of hollow bone unfurled as thirteen Arkanian dragons spread their black scaled wings and took to the air, gliding through storm-clouds as they circled the the structure on high. Their eyes glowed red like smouldering coals set in thick scaled sockets, each exhalation of sulphuric breath was accompanied by licks of flame from nostril slits set along their long toothy snouts. Affixed to the back of each terrifyingly magnificent repto-avian was a leather saddle holding a singular rider.

Vermin Lord Skeer Grimspine glared through the wet deluge of rain soaking his fur, fixing his feral gaze on the facility his squadron of dragon riders currently descended upon. He held the reigns of his monstrous beast in his left paw, while his right held tightly the handle of his serrated edged sword that shone with a sinister sorcerous crimson light from smoking runes etched into its Sith iron surface. From the tip of the blade down to the barbed iron hand guard that protected the ranat Far-Squeaker's clawed fingers, that vile Pzobian black-speech script seemed to distort the air around it, steaming in the rain. Baring gleaming yellow fangs as a pearl of lightning lit the sky in front of them, the large muscular mutant rat-man thrust the curved tip of his dread weapon towards the Cloning Facility secured to the ocean floor by a series of long stilts. Drawing on his anger to summon a measure of arcane might, the unusually large Vermin Lord projected his will into the minds of the twelve other riders accompanying him.


Without so much as hissing a single squeaked syllable, Skeer's thoughts were understood by the shadowy figures mounted on the other flying drakes. Each was wearing a visually obscuring tattered robe of what looked like shadowsilk, concealing most of their sinister features, save perhaps for their wire thin tails that snapped against their mounts scaly backs. From within the darkened recesses of their hoods, two fiery motes of sickly green witch-fire glared out over bony gnarled snouts with fangs that seemed to be formed from shadow. These wraith-rats as they were known amongst the Squeak-Seers of Dragusblight were former Far Squeakers that had become afflicted with the same soul wasting sickness as the Famine Lord they worshipped. Like the Sith assassins of old, overuse of the Force Drain ability had caused each ranat to suffer from an unnatural hunger, one that could only be slaked by feeding off the life essence of living beings. What made it worse was that the more they gave into this new insatiable appetite, the stronger the need became. Their bodies were less than completely corporeal, being somewhere between chaotic spirits and living entities, bound together by sorcery. The darkside permeated their auras so completely their very presence was anathema to all that was good and decent.

Skeer's man-flesh cape tugged on his spiked cortosis shoulder pauldrons, flapping in the wind behind him as he led the force of dragon riders into a hail of blaster bolts as the cloning facility's air-defenses fired up at the approaching squadron. An alchemical balm applied to each altered dragon's scales turned away screaming energy bolts like they were nothing, allowing the beasts to close in on the shield barrier encircling the domed facility. As each rider swooped in, they shrieked a word of power in rat-speech, signalling the feral creature's they rode to action.


Thirteen widening maws, a sacred number among the Order, unleashed expanding projections of flame that swept over the energy shield, wearing it down by collective force. It held for mere moments, but as each mutant Arkanian dragon breathed fire onto the barrier, it finally began to give until it fizzled out in a wilting pop. Gouts of orange flame scorched the white exterior surface of the domed facility, carbon scoring it black and causing metal to super heat until it ran like water. The wraith-rats and their monstrous scaled mounts landed atop the cloning facility, tearing into its sealed surface while also ripping apart the last of the defenses. Laser turrets were crushed and torn from their housings by massive raptor talons.

Landing his great beast on one of the pads, Skeer climbed out of the saddle and slipped over the side, landing on the wet tarmac with two long clawed feet. His feral blade Goredrinker was already in paw, raised diagonally across his bare muscular furred chest as he approached the outer doors leading into the facility. As he closed the distance, those doors slid open to omit several plastoid armoured clone troopers, like men out of time. They opened fire at Lord Grimspine, attempting to overwhelm the unusually large ranat with overlapping blaster shots. The sorcerous blade in his paw swept out, battering bolts back into the chests of the troopers that had fired them, using the flatter face of his metallic saber to return each shot to its sender. A former Far Squeaker, his foresight abilities allowed him to see each attack before it happened, giving him just enough time to react and close the gap. Within seconds he was among the clones, slicing and hacking into their white carapace. The arcane blade parted plastoid like a lightsaber through blue butter, tearing where it didn't cut, shredding and ripping with every brutal slash. A tide of hacked apart human parts scattered across the ground as Skeer forced his way into the facility, now joined by several of the wraith-rats. Like the Vermin Lord who led them, they carried warped blades wrought in the hell-forges of Dragusblight, coated in the most villainously inspired poisonous ichor brewed in the cauldrons of the dark apothecary.

Inch by bloody inch, Lord Grimspine and the wraith-rats fought to the warm bosom of the center most point, leaving crimson trails on the pristine white floors and halls. Removing a kaminoan head in a single satisfying chop, Skeer caught the cloner's overlong neck and used its skull receptacle as a grizzly corpse-flail, smashing a white armoured clone's helm visor to glassy bits. Outside, the altered war dragons the rat host had flown in on were busying themselves devouring anyone foolish enough to try and flee. Needless to say, they fed well that day. An hour after they started, the entire facility belonged to them. What few kaminoans that hadn't been slaughtered were gathered together and incarcerated in a storage area reconfigured as a brig. Word was sent to the Terentatek in orbit to begin transferring down shuttles laden with tinker-rats. No doubt Chief Warlock Enginseer Skaltera Brassclaw of Clan Rustrot would want to place a few of his clan rats at the facility. The kaminoan cloning technology was greatly coveted among the scientifically inclined warrens of Dragusblight.

When they were done, Skeer ordered the arriving slave-rats to construct a throne for him out of all the clone parts he and the wraith-rats had turned into clone-sushi; however, a number of the heads both clone and kaminoan, ended up on the yellowed bone trophy rack attached to the Vermin Lord's scarred muscular back. From accessing the cloning facility's database, he was able to determine the nearby sister satellite city the Terentatek had detected from orbit was actually a large civilian centre that housed the families of the kaminoans that worked at this facility. Without giving it a second thought, Vermin Lord Skeer Grimspine gave the order to the battlecruiser in orbit to fire on the city.

Banks of kaminoan cloning cylinders crackled with electrical discharges as tinker-rats turned cranks and flipped brass switches, scattering forks of blue lightning overhead. The massive lumbering forms of burly chest and obscenely muscular ranat-ogres carried large spools of copper cable and rusting machines as they went about the orders of the monstrous Skeer Grimspine, Vermin Lord of Clan Skrittlespike and Commander of the Tagge Battlecruiser 'Terentatek' in orbit over Kamino, who was currently supervising the work of his flesh sculptors. These verminous alchemical artisans had learned their academic profession at the hands of the Dark Apothecary no less, with each baring similar signs of the Famine Lord's seemingly infectious affliction, their minds devolving into what could only be described as debased and deranged. Serving these mutant manipulators were kaminoan cloners, who the vermintide of the Sith Eternal treated as little more than slave fodder, despite their obvious genius. Several of the slim bodied aliens could be seen working on the endless rows of cylinders that seemed to line the walls. Each of the kaminoans had been fitted with a barbed collar of Sith-iron that bit into the flesh of their slender necks, causing rivulets of blood to ooze down their chest as they worked.

Inside the tanks were the resulting creatures bred from the specimen sample provided by the traitorous Otto Von Bralor. From his rotting throne of severed limbs and sinew, Skeer watched them work, occupying his own gnarled paws by running a scrap of kaminoan skin over the length of his sorcerous blade 'Goredrinker'. The serrated edged swore steamed as the bloody residue of its latest victim evaporated off its surface, smoking acridly where it pooled in the grooves created by rune script etched into its toxic surface. A headless warlock enginseer in a yellow lead lined environmental suit served as his footrest, clearly the rodent that had displeased Skeer enough to soil the pristine surface of his fell-blade. The Vermin Lord shifted on his throne, his long cloak of tanner man-flesh snagging on the broken bones protruding from the seat in places. He scratched at the arm of his cadaverous chair impatiently, occasionally snapping the tip of his long wire thin tail on the ground, causing the slave meat to jump every time they heard it 'crack'. His furry brow narrowed and he focused his black eyes on the tank directly in front of him, examining the nutrient waters bubbling inside as something confined within its cold clinical embrace stirred. The display screen monitoring the occupant of the tanks vital signs began to chime and flash red.

Similar events were occurring on every level of submerged cloning facility as the creatures they were growing had reached their full maturation. Black chitinous shapes smashed jet black armoured shells against the transparasteel surface of several cylinders, forming cracks and spilling streams of viscous fluid onto the floor, already filthy with ranat scat and decaying bio-matter. A warning klaxon sounded throughout the facility as the alarm was given, alerting every rodent in Hydra Station that the awakening had begun. Wisps of scalding steam vented as the pods began to depressurize, releasing a sour stench into the air that sickened the stomach and caused several of the usually composed kaminoans to lose their lunch on the floor. Groans of metal grinding on metal echoed throughout the hollow core of the installation, as the lid on each cloning cylinder flipped up and the contents contained within each spilled onto the floor, revealing large black bodied insectile shelled forms with pincer claw hands and numerous chitinous legs. A chorus of chittering shrieks sounded from their mouth mandibles as they awoke, glaring with red eyes at the flesh sculptors and scientific personnel in their immediate vicinity.


Skeer's snout twisted into a villainous grin as the Vermin Lord took his first look at the new army of Voreclaw created for the Sith Eternal. The mindless insectoids had been altered using vast quantities of the Dark Apothecary's mutagenic elixir, altering their very DNA with a foul collaboration of dark science and arcane sorcery. Approaching the crab like drone nearest to him, the large rodent warrior raised Goredrinker in his paw and swung the blade at the Sithspawn's chitin armoured head. Instead of striking the dense crustaceous head from its crab like body, the saw like edge of the Sith sword clanged metallically as it was caught in one of the creature's incredibly strong pincers, arresting its forwards movement. Snarling, Skeer drew back his blade and prepared to strike again, but hesitated when the voreclaw made no move to retaliate. He lowered the ruinous weapon and took a cautious step forwards, staring into the drone's eyes for signs of intelligence. He might as well have been staring into the photo-receptors of a droid for all the sentience he could detect. It would seem the response was just a self-defense mechanism. He patted the creature on the shoulder and sneered, revealing his glistening yellow fangs.