Before anybody reads this, I'd like everyone to know that I hate my writing style, and that nobody else has beta read/proofread this... at all... I don't even know how it started, or why I continue it. Maybe I'm going insane...
The disclaimer refers only to the synopsis section. To be honest, I don't know if I did that disclaimer bit properly...
Story ideas are welcome. I have absolutely no idea where I'm going with this stupid thing.
Departure...
Preface:
After much consideration, I have decided to allow this story to take place approximately 5,964 B.B.Y. The reason for this is that I am most familiar with this era, and subsequently, also familiar with the common lore, typical weapons, armors, various planets, personalities of aliens and other characters, standard lightsaber combat, the infrastructure of the Jedi Order of the time, and also, most importantly, the canon storyline, allowing me to make certain references to make the story more realistic. That said, I'm not going to allow some things to happen. For example, though a lot of people enjoy seeing new, crazy lightsaber blade colors, (like black...which is impossible, since black is, scientifically, the shade of an object that does not reflect any light.) I'm going to follow the 'rules' on that from this era. In other words, blue, green, yellow, purple, and red are the only colors that I'm going to allow to exist. However, different shades of each color might end up appearing in some places. Viridian instead of green. Cyan instead of blue, etc, etc.Also, so that the reader might gain a better understanding of what's been going on in recent times, I'll give a synopsis of the Mandalorian Wars, which took place ten years earlier and was a landmark event in history.
Disclaimer: I did not come up with the following story. It is canon, and accepted by LucasArts, run by George Lucas himself, creator of the StarWars universe. If that isn't good enough for you, I don't know what is.
In year 3996 B.B.Y., a Mandalorian army began raiding non-Republic worlds on the very edge of the known Galaxy. After approximately 20 years of raiding small worlds, including Cathar, Ryloth, and Althir, (and stocking up on supplies and slaves all the while,) they assaulted the Republic world of Onderon and its nearby moon of Dxun. After creating a base on the jungle moon of Dxun, the Mandalorians began their "crusade" across the Galaxy, sweeping through Republic held worlds with great ease. They first attacked the nine Iridonian worlds, and then split their forces to destroy the famous Stereb cities of the planet Serroco, the three planets of Eres, the cities of Duro, the Correlian worlds, the entire Venjagga system, the enormous city-world of Taris, and Dagary Minor, among a great many others.
The Republic begged the Jedi Order for aid, for they saw that if the Mandalorians continued conquering worlds, they would eventually rule over the entire Galaxy. The Council, believing "the true threat had yet to reveal itself", refused to aid the Republic, and forbade all of its members to go to war. Two young Jedi Knights, known as Revan and Malak, discontent with this decision, called for aid among the ranks of the Jedi who also believed that the Jedi Council was wrong. A sizable portion of the Jedi joined up with the charismatic Revan, including nearly all of the students who had recently joined. The Republic eagerly accepted Revan's aid, and then the "true" war began.
The Jedi who followed Revan to war were all promoted to Generals in the Republic's army, and fought along Republic soldiers against the Mandalorians. Revan was a phenomenal tactician. He was willing to make sacrifices to bring even greater victories, and was nearly always able to outmaneuver the Mandalorians on both the ground and in space. The Republic took incredible casualties; sometimes as many as 10-20 soldiers for every Mandalorian they slaughtered, but with the help and leadership of their Jedi commanders, Revan led them through victory after victory, eventually pushing the Mandalorians back past Yavin, Korriban, and, finally past Dxun, the heart of their operations.
The war ended on a planet called Malachor V. Though very, very little is known about what actually took place, it is known that the Mandalorian leader, who was called Mandalore, fought with Revan in single combat, and was defeated. Revan subsequently then rounded up all the Mandalorians, and forced them to watch as he blew up and destroyed all of their weapons and ships, particularly their infamous Basilisk War Droids. After their defeat, Revan took approximately one third of the Republic Fleet and disappeared from Known Space.
The war left an utterly shattered Republic in its wake, and the Jedi Order had lost nearly all of their younger students who had either fallen to the dark side or been slain by Mandalorian guns. The Republic didn't have nearly enough ships to patrol its territory any longer, and threatened to collapse upon itself, not because of war, or succession, but because it lacked the infrastructure to support itself. However, through some miracle, it managed to survive, and was slowly recovering itself.
And this is where the story begins, with a young Jedi Knight hunting down one of the fallen students who followed Revan to the Mandalorian Wars.
B.B.Y. means Before the Battle of Yavin. This event takes place in Star Wars: A New Hope, and is used as a reference point in time. A.B.Y. is used for time references after the events of A New Hope.
Mandalorians were a clan based warrior culture known for their advanced weaponry, incredible training, and their extreme lust for battle.
Chapter 1: Arrival.
Saria was irritated. She was also extremely bored. She'd been sitting in her tiny starfighter for nearly five hours, flying utterly silently through the void of space with nothing whatsoever to keep her company. If she had been a Consular, maybe she'd have learned how to fall into a meditative coma-like state, and made the trip go by faster (or seem to, anyway.) But, out of the three Jedi classes, Consular, Guardian, and Sentinel, she'd been a Guardian. Excelling at combat, but neglecting her other skills, such as Force abilities. Thus, she was probably going to be conscious for most of her 16 hour flight to the edge of the galaxy. She let out an explosive sigh of frustration and thought vile thoughts about this mission in general and the person who had assigned it to her in particular.
To make her little slice of heaven even more enjoyable, she had hardly any equipment. She had her starfighter to help her reach the moon itself, a supply of ration packs, a puny medicine case that would probably be useless if she suffered any kind of injury, a single change of clothes, and her dual lightsabers. Her mission was to fly to a forest moon on the utter edge of the galaxy and hunt down one of the Jedi's fallen students who had fled there.
While this was all well and good, Saria couldn't see why the Council hadn't sent a full fledged Jedi out to take care of this, much less herself. She wasn't the strongest student in her class, nor the fastest, nor the smartest. Somebody must have her on their black-list. It could be the only reason she'd been stuck with a horrible mission like this...
Saria tried her best to fall asleep, but her mind wouldn't allow her to. She'd always had trouble sleeping, and now it was making her life more miserable than ever. "Somebody kill me now..." she said out loud. Jedi or not, apprentice or not, she swore to herself to give this fallen student one hell of a beating for making her suffer for a combined total of 32 hours to and from the moon, plus however much time it would take to find him.
Saria woke up with a start. Her starfighter was letting out a high pitched buzzing noise that was filling up the entire tiny space she was in. Apparently she'd reached the moon while she slept. "Great... I was hoping I was dead. You mean to tell me that my misery continues?" she asked her ship. When the ship didn't reply, Saria sighed again and began to ready the landing procedure.
She searched for an hour before she finally found a suitable opening in the tree branches, and didn't find out about the second canopy until she was most of the way through it. Branches and twigs clawed at the sides of her ship, and at some point something snagged on her engine and sent her ship spinning. For a few moments, green flooded Saria's vision, then quickly cleared moments before the ship hit the ground and skidded approximately 50 feet, leaving a gigantic gouge in the ground behind it. The force of the impact threw Saria forward, banging her head on the console in front of her. She let out a yell of pain, then, not wanting to do the same thing again, managed to brace herself until the ship came to a final halt.
She sat there in her ship for a few moments, steadying herself. After all, who wouldn't be somewhat shaken after crash landing their ship? And in a forest no less... she was lucky she hadn't hit a tree trunk on the way down. After finally steadying her breathing, Saria started to get out, only to have an utterly enormous, white, puffy bag attack her: The safety feature that was supposedly there to prevent her from injuring herself when crashing.
Thoroughly aggravated now, Saria grabbed the air-bag and ripped it out of the ship. She'd finally landed, and the first thing that had happened was she crashed and banged her head hard enough to give her a splitting headache. After all, was there any other way that this thrice-cursed mission could have begun? No, of course not. It seemed that the galaxy had to make her suffer as much as it could on this damnable mission. The only good news that she could come up with was that she couldn't possibly become any more miserable.
Looking skywards though the hole she'd just made, Saria said quietly to herself, "Why me, dammit?" She let out yet another sigh of utter frustration and set out to begin her search. This moon was growing no smaller while she waited.
Though Saria didn't know it, she was already being watched by somebody. Somebody extremely powerful and dangerous. Somebody who was laughing heartily at the sight they had just witnessed. "Wow... that was one hell of a landing. It sure made more noise than any of the other pathetic fools the council sent after me." The figure continued chuckling. "It looks like the Council's run out of full Jedi. Now they're sending in the children... Oh, well. I guess we'll just wait and see how long this one lasts."
Several hours into her search, Saria was more than irritated. She was flat out pissed. She didn't remember who it was, but whoever had told that there were "only a few hostile creatures" on this accursed planet was an absolute moron. She must have fought off half of the moon by now. If she didn't find that accursed student soon, she'd be too tired out to even fight him. Another of the creatures charged at her emitting an extremely high pitched, bestial battle cry. It was a type of primate, with some kind of sharp, serrated bone growing out from its wrists, though they were covered by hair, like natural hidden swords. She spun around, cutting it in half at the waist, then looked around for its allies. 'Dammit, I hate these things! There's never just one of them! Six more of them sprang out of the trees and lunged for her. Saria jumped away to dodge their main attack, and turned her fall into a shoulder roll, holding her lightsaber away from her to avoid self-injury. She got up, turned around, and stabbed one of the things in the chest, then cut another's head in half diagonally, which ended up spilling fluids everywhere. By now, the remaining four had surrounded her and prepared to charge at her again.
The one on her right lunged at her, screaming shrilly. Saria held up her saber and chopped it in half. It was dead before it hit the ground. The other three now attacked at the same time. Saria held up her blade behind her while simultaneously spinning around to her right, which had killed the one behind her. She brought her weapon down on another one, then charged at her last opponent. The creature, obviously realizing that it had lost, screamed and tried to escape, but before it could jump away into the trees, Saria ended its life.
Before she left, Saria made sure to give the heads of any creature she hadn't already killed a good stab. Some of the creatures around here had proved remarkably hard to kill... Some kind of small, crimson colored rat jumped out from the bushes beside her. Without even looking, she held up her lightsaber and vaporized it with her blade. Even the herbivores were attacking her now... Saria started to wonder her pure self-defense would eventually unbalance the eco-system of this planet. She'd killed a ridiculous amount of creatures since she'd gotten here, and she still couldn't sense even a trace of the energy the student would surely be emanating.
After that, however, there was finally a small reprieve after that. She decided to take a quick rest before continuing her search. She used the Force to jump up approximately thirty meters up into the trees and sat down on a particularly large branch. Saria wondered to herself if she really was safer up here... Come to think of it, most of the creatures that had attacked her had jumped down at her from the trees. She sighed. She'd just keep her weapon close at hand.
She pulled out one of her rations and bit off a piece of it. When she'd still been a child, she had thought that each forest was pretty much like the next. When she started getting her first missions, however, she'd been shown the error of her ways. Each and every single one had its own set of plants, animals, and weather patterns. The thing was, this one was slightly different. Now that she really took a closer look around her, this moon wasn't half bad if it wasn't for all the hostile creatures. Especially the view. Soft green light filled the entire area, all the plants were thriving, and yet the place wasn't overgrown at all. Almost like there was an invisible gardener tending to the entire planet. Now that all the strange creatures were gone, there was a certain... serenity about the planet. The Force was easier to sense here than anywhere else she'd ever been before. Even at the Academy. It was almost unnatural. Saria felt more at peace than ever, despite all the near-constant combat.. This seemed more like a place a Jedi would hide, rather than a Sith.
Ration pack finished, she got up from her branch and got ready to head out again. She turned around and was about to jump off when she noticed a hooded and cloaked figure walking by a few hundred meters away. If she hadn't been sitting so high up, she might have missed him entirely. He wasn't emanating any dark energy... In fact, he wasn't letting off ANY energy at all. How was he hiding it...? It didn't matter. He wouldn't be around long enough for it to help him much.
"Hey!"Saria yelled to catch the figure's attention. The figure slowly turned and noticed her. It crossed its arms and waited for her to reach it. 'Black cloak and robes. It has to be him!' Saria jumped down from the branch she was on and ran over to it. 'Seriously, what is with this lack of energy? Even the animals have a feel to them, but I can't feel him at all!' A chill ran down her spine but she ignored it and continued to run towards the mysterious figure. When she was about 10 feet away from him,she stopped. "You're the fallen student who fled here, right?" Saria asked it conversationally. The figure only raised an eyebrow at her, then said, "And if I was?" Saria grinned menacingly and said, "Then it's my job to either beat you unconscious and bring you back to the Council or kill you."
The figure's eyebrow rose even more. "Do you think you can?" Saria grinned even wider. "Try not to lose too fast. I still need to stretch my muscles from the journey here." She pulled out both of her lightsabers and ignited them. The figure cocked his head at her, then said, "Two lightsabers, huh? They're a bit harder to master than the single-bladed variant, but easier than a double-bladed. The least accurate form. Your stance tells me you're about to use Form II, the lightsaber-to-lightsaber form, though it's a bit rigid, which means it's not your usual style. Judging from how your feet are a bit too wide apart, I'd say your usual style is... Form V. Am I wrong?"
Saria instantly froze. 'Just from my ready stance he'd guessed all of that?!' Apparently her opponent wasn't finished, as he gave a smile that forcibly reminded her of a starved wolf, and said, "Should I keep going?" Saria mentally shook herself and tried to remain calm. Knowing her form wouldn't necessarily save him from it. She tried her hardest to keep her voice calm, and replied, "Surprisingly, yes, you're right. But will that save you from me?" She charged.
Unfortunately, she didn't get very far. Before she could so much as blink, her opponent had closed the distance between them, and grabbed one of her wrists in a grip that could have been made of Permacrete. He pulled her arm so hard she was almost afraid it'd come out of its socket, unbalancing her, and sent his knee into her stomach. It felt as though she'd been struck by a cannon blast. She slammed into a tree and lay there, unmoving.
The figure walked up to her, and crouched at her side. Smiling ever so slightly, he said to her, "You'd better not let that keep you down for too long. I've seen some of the animals around here eat their wounded alive." He got back up, and began to walk away. When he was nearly out of sight, he called back, "Try not to die. It really is boring living on this moon alone."