On with the show as the saying goes!
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He rose from his slumber just before dawn. Slipping into his tunic silently, we shuffled torwards the balcony. Slowly leaning against the window of his apartment high in the skyscrapers of Coruscant - a previously undreamed privilege - until the Yuuzhan Vong that is. He palmed his tunic for his pack of cigars... The man held his hand up, and snapped his fingers. Fire licked up his fingers, neither burning nor scorching his flesh as he lighted his cigar. The flame died, as he breathed smoke through his nose and lowered his hand to rest at his side.
How many years has it been? He briefly remembered the delivery he recieved last night, so old-fashioned, yet secure. A parchment, detailing the proclamation.
What is skin ripped from a sheep, stamped and wrapped in black ribbon, sent to me across the stars? Death... More death. he sighed to himself as he watched the sun rise from its hiding, basking the city with its warm light... waking the city which never went to sleep.
He took a deep breath of smoke, exhaling it slowly. So, the time has finally arrived. The galaxy stained in blood, chaos dividing the Galactic Alliance as they fought like dogs between bits of bone, Corellia on one end, the Alliance on the other... gnawing and tearing, as if they have learned nothing from their mistakes. Heretics. Infidels. Faithless dogs.
Skotos dropped his head in revered acceptance of His divine will. War... War never changes. The sons of the God-Emperor will be marching to war soon enough... Bathing the galaxy in the fires of bloody cleansing.
He lifted his eyes to gaze upon the sun, accepting the heat as it gazed back. How many years has it been, since the Emperor fell into the void and plunged the galaxy into turmoil? How many deaths were suffered, failures and stalled projects, before the objective was complete?
He sighed again, extinguishing his cigar and squaring his shoulders for the task ahead.
- - - - - -
Dawn had come and gone by the time he got up. The entire city, with its magnificent colossal crimson statues of the God-Emperor, was alive with activity. Luca stood on his blacony, gazing at the starfighters which roared between the tall ominous buildings, vigilant on patrol. He didn't need to see much of them to know what they looked like - he piloted them for ten years, fighting for supremacy among the squadrons of the Imperium. His was the finest, the strongest, the most brutal squadron. He allowed a small smile to appear on his face, knowing that it was no idle bragging. Omega was the only squadron to be personally awarded the Seal of the Crusader by his august majesty, the divine God-Emperor, in all of their Imperium's history.
He could see the bulky but deadly craft in his mind's eye - triangular in shape, like the Star Destroyers of old, with two engine turbines tucked in the hollow of its wings. Four of the turbo-lasers converted for starfighters mounted on its hull in self-sealing chambers, powered by a generator that could in normal circumstances power a city block with little fuss. The Battlebirds were fearsome birds of prey, and it never ceased to amuse him how their poverty in the past helped them learn to make-do with that they could.
He clenched his hands in fury which threatened to spill over and flow through him like the lava which flowed in the city cannals. Aye, poverty inflicted by the fall of the Emperor and his Empire. His pet project, fed and pampered, almost extinguished mere months after his fall at Endor. Those dark times were before He came to them. The revered God-Emperor came to them, last but greatest of Palpatine's gifts to them, carrying with him the horrors which sparked the Clone Wars which threatened to engulf the galaxy before Palpatine. The Spaarti Cylinders.
He got dressed quickly. Time was not on his side, it was nearly time to report to Command, and to supervise the first time in nearly fourty years that they would venture beyond the Deep Core in force, rather then in secret. No more false identities, like poor old Skotos and Tyth. Dear gods, the God-Emperor's chosen angels of death posing as wine and dewback peddlers. He shook his head in dismay as he straightened up before the full-lenght ornamented mirror in his chambers.
He felt a bit weak, but the mirror told him a completely different story. Luca Niram stood tall at nearly two meters of height, managing not to look like he was starving to death by the broad shoulders and strong arms which he sported, a token gained during his service in the Legions. Black uniform, with silver linings to mark him as a pilot veteran, with no medals clogging his chest, but only one. The rest, he kept stashed in his chambers in some drawer, he forgot which.
The door slammed shut behind him as he left his chambers.