I don't own Star Wars. No copyright infringement intended. The characters that I invent are mine, the rest belongs to Lucas and whoever writes the books.

Hope you like this story, it'll be developing over the coming weeks.

The Redemption Chronicles

Chapter 1: Order 66

The blue female Twi'lek raced through the Rock Gardens at a blistering pace, channeling the force into her legs as much as she could. She could hear blaster fire behind her somewhere and even a thermal detonator going off, but the gunfight was obviously quite short. C-44553 had warned her of her impending execution and had obviously tried to buy her some time, even if not very successfully.

"I'll mourn him later," she thought to herself, "right now I need to get off this damned planet and fast!"

She rounded one of the huge rocky pillars and came face to face with a squad of clones who immediately took aim when she stopped in her tracks.

"Stop right there, General!" Ordered a clone with orange markings. She stared at him for a brief moment and activated her lightsaber. Her weapon's hum had never felt comforting until now. She was desperate, fear and adrenaline coursing through her body.

"What did I do?" She thought to herself, desperately wondering about any mistakes she may have made. C-44553 hadn't told her, only that she was now labeled as a traitor and would be executed immediately. "All I've been doing is healing clones and civilians! How is this treason?"

"Execute Order 66, men!" Barked the officer. She could tell they were hesitating, she had healed many of them from almost certain death – they knew to appreciate that. "You will fire immediately or be terminated!"

That got them. They all pulled their triggers, but most of the shots flew very wide. The rest of the blaster bolts were easily deflected and Pap ran off in another direction. "They want to give me a chance, might as well use it!"

Any other time, the Floating Rock Gardens of Ryloth were a fantastic place. The winds blowing through, the stones seemingly hovering in mid-air. She'd quite enjoyed experiencing her home planet, and she'd even had the added bonus of helping her species, but this certainly hadn't been part of the plan. "Order 66? What is that?"

As if in answer to her question, a stone mere inches from her head exploded as a sniper missed his target. She span and saw him on top of a rock, expecting the next bolt to hit, but it landed at her feet. "I'm guessing that was my last chance," she murmured, and ran for cover. Finally, she found a small opening she had used before. She knew it lead to a system of caves and tunnels, so she jumped in – hoping no one had spotted her. Using her lightsaber as a torch, she made her way through until she came to a crest. She knew that this was the last step before she could get to her ship; a guide had shown her this shortcut to the hangar. Before the last bend, she switched off her weapon and creped to the edge before peeping over the top.

"Yes! It's still there!" She almost cried with joy. Her Delta-7 was there, albeit guarded by a few clones. Only five, she could easily dispatch them on her way. The huge underground hangar was usually full of activity and ships, but her 'treason' had probably meant everyone was looking for her and left this place unguarded. She jumped down and activated her lightsaber, under no illusions as to these clones' loyalty to the Republic. They instantly opened fire but Pap easily deflected the bolts and even sent some back as she sprinted towards them, killing two this way before reaching them. She easily chopped her way through the rest and carried on running to her ship, hopping inside in one smooth motion and immediately starting to twiddle switches and different buttons to get the engine running. She didn't have her R2 unit but she didn't care. The cockpit closed and the whine of the reactor could be heard over a siren that had obviously been activated. Clones poured into the hangar and fired their rifles at her ship, causing her shields to take minimal damage. She lifted off, but the mass of white in front of her was getting bigger and she had no way out, the bay doors being very shut.

She fired a few big bolts into the clones and then directed her weapons at the closest door. "blind-fire will have to do for this."

The two proton torpedoes raced towards the door and exploded, destroying it in a ball of fire and killing several clones standing nearby. Pap pushed the throttle forward and flew out at full speed, only to find herself inside the Floating Gardens again and desperately avoiding floating rocks. She could feel the last few rifle bolts hitting the back of her ship. Anyone but a Jedi or extremely good pilot would probably have crashed in the first few seconds of the obstacle course. Unfortunately for Pap, rocks weren't her only problem: there were several clones with shoulder-mounted anti-aircraft missile launchers, and they began firing too. Without exception, the rockets all eventually hit rocks that were in the way. She could hear the pieces of rock and stone hitting her ship, the dull thud making her shiver ever time.

"I can't fly out of the rocks, they're my cover. And besides, the clone pilots aren't good enough to fly through the Rock Gardens. Too bad they're over in about five seconds."

Suddenly, she was clear and over the desert. All her warning systems were wailing their disapproval, especially the Missile Early Warning System. She glanced down at her radar and saw the dozen projectiles closing the gap to her rear. She moved all the energy resources to her rear shield. Now she was really scared and could feel tears forming in her eyes. The first missile hit, jerking her ship forward and taking out her shields in one fell swoop. She pushed the eject button.

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Boko Lavak was a human male with blond shaggy hair. He was about 1.70 meters tall and had a fairly average athletic build. He had been cleared for landing at the Floating Rock Gardens of Ryloth by the Republic forces after his credentials checked out. Finally he was getting somewhere with his investigation. It was clear that despite the war and recent battles, slavers were still using Ryloth as their main base, so he was going to chop off the head to let the body die. He was happily idling away when suddenly, he was overcome by a sick feeling, as if something terrible were happening down there. Someone was crying for help, and rather desperately. He could feel it. Boko immediately snapped out of his reverie and stiffened.

"Eltee, open a channel with Approach again will ya? Something's not right."

LT-F4 did as it was told, as always, although it had seen or heard nothing wrong. A few moments later a hologram of a clone trooper's helmet appeared before them.

"This is Ryloth Approach, what seems to be the problem Redemption?"

"Is everything okay down there?" Asked Boko. "Am I still cleared to land?"

"Absolutely. We only have a traitor attempting to escape at the moment. If you see her, be on your guard. She is armed with a lightsaber and very dangerous. Please report any sightings immediately or you may be charged with treason yourself. You're still clear to-"

There was a loud boom and the transmission ended. Boko could sense more fear and desperation, but it was still only from one being. Whoever it was was moving fast, and as if on cue to his thoughts a blip appeared on his radar. "Ah! The traitor Jedi!" He realized. "Hey Eltee! Wanna have a look? I've got the traitor on my sensors! Something still isn't right here."

Eltee made a depressed-sounding whistle. It was all-too familiar with the kind of excitement its master was in. It always spelled trouble.

"Ah, don't be such a grouchy tinhead. Let's go!"

With that, Boko put his ship into a nosedive and charged towards the commotion below. He could see explosions in the Floating Rocks and the skillful flying of the pilot. "Not bad," he murmured, "but you're gonna be outta rocks soon."

He found himself rooting for the Jedi traitor. This was odd, because his kind were not known to like them very much at all. He and his droid were still plummeting downwards at full throttle. Eltee gave a warning beep, knowing its master would ignore it but unwilling to explode without there being evidence on the black box flight recorder it was not its fault.

Suddenly, the Jedi's fighter was hit in the rear engine and it got jolted forwards. A long cloud of black smoke formed. "Come on, eject! Eject!" Said Boko through gritted teeth.

Pap braced herself for the ejection and flew out, spinning wildly before the parachute on her seat automatically opened. The rest of the missiles hit her ship, blowing it to smithereens and sending a piece of shrapnel tearing into her left arm, gouging it open. She yelped in pain, but immediately blocked it out of her mind, using the force instead to stop the bleeding. It helped, but there was only so much she could do under such duress and with so little time. Bacta certainly did have some advantages too.

She landed heavily in the rocky desert and felt something click in her heel as she rolled. It was scorching hot. The LAAT/i heading her way were loud and, worse, she was stuck inside some sort of crater. She couldn't see further than fifty meters at most. "This is hopeless," she thought, "but I'm not going down without a fight!"

She saw a type of spaceship she had never seen before zoom overhead. "Great. Now they have new gear too!"

Pap got up and realized her left arm was still hurt and her heel had gotten sprained during her not-so-elegant landing. This clearly wasn't going to be a very long fight.

To her surprise, only two LAAT/i arrived, but she remembered that most of them were needed elsewhere in the Outer Rim worlds and Ryloth was already under Republic control. Usually two were enough for any situation here these days. None could be spared and wasted here. They landed at the edge of the crater she was in and ten clones jumped out of each, immediately firing at her almost instantly. Her lightsaber-wielding hand was luckily still intact as opposed to the other, but it was hard work deflecting bolts with one hand.

What worried her more were the troop transports. They were about to lift off again. As the clones got shoulder to shoulder on the edge of the crater, she knew she was done for. By now she was in full retreat and doing an old trick Master Norcuna had shown her, spinning her lightsaber at blistering speed using the force to deflect the bolts. Only one went back to a clone trooper, the rest landed harmlessly in the dust. This technique could not last for ever as it was extremely strenuous and wouldn't stand up to a LAAT/i's laser beam.

Her situation was hopeless, this much Boko could see. She was in a crater presumably caused by some asteroid and obviously hurt. "Screw it. I can't just leave her there. She's defenseless. Eltee, bring us down. I'll go see what the troopers do. If they act like I think they will, we might need a quick getaway."

Eltee beeped and whistled in frustration but got ready to take over as pilot. They landed just beyond the crater behind a rather large rocky pillar that had somehow survived the impact of whatever had hit Ryloth. "Impressive," thought Boko, "I wonder what is in these rocks?"

Then he had an idea.

Pap Demeena could see the gunner on the first LAAT/i lining her up. "This is it!" She thought to herself. "This is where I die!"

The clone in question was about to fire when he was rudely interrupted by a two-ton rock smashing into the little ship, crashing through the cockpit and killing the pilots instantly. It began to spin horizontally until it simply crashed belly first into the ground in a cloud of yellow dust and rocks. The other one soon followed.

"What just happened?" Wondered Pat, nearly breaking her concentration on spinning the lightsaber. The loss of the LAAT/i seemed to stun the clone troopers as well, as if they had underestimated the force of their opponent. They renewed their efforts to take her down now, and she could feel herself weakening. Some of the shots were getting very close to getting through, with bolts being deflected over her head and going behind her now. It was a sign that she was slowing down. "Not good."

Boko peaked around the corner and took out his weapon. "She's losing heart. Gotta be fast!"

He threw his discblade at the clones who had conveniently decided to stand side by side for better access at the Jedi. It also meant it was easier for his discblade to sever them all in half as it flew through them. The weapon was extremely sharp and the ridges could cause some nasty wounds if it didn't kill. Of course, this had been an idea situation. Everyone practiced chain attacks in the unlikely event that an enemy would present himself this way. Like it just had.

"That's not going to happen again for a million years," thought Boko. He caught his weapon as it flew back and sprinted to the Jedi Twi'lek, who had collapsed from exhaustion and her injuries.

"Eltee, fly the ship here, I don't feel like carrying her and we've got to be fast." He ordered through his comlink.

He took a second to look at her. There was no doubting she was beautiful, but part of him felt like leaving her there. After all, the others wouldn't approve of this, but he couldn't do it. His parents had raised him to help those in dire need, and she had been. Something was wrong with the republic if it was attacking Jedis, this didn't seem right.

The Redemption arrived. The armed arrowhead-shaped light freighter landed with open cargo-bay doors landed a few meters away and he picked the Twi'lek up, careful not to touch the wound, before walking in.

"Hit the gas Eltee, we need to run. Won't be long before the reinforcements arrive, and we don't want to be there for that!"

The droid did as it was told and flew them out into space at full speed. Meanwhile, Boko strapped the Jedi to the operating table (for safety's sake, she was a Jedi after all) and jogged to the cockpit, where he sat at the controls. What he saw did not fill him with joy.

"Eltee, please tell me this isn't a Republic destroyer," he said meekly.

The droid gave an irritated series of beeps, indicating that it obviously was. A small hologram of a clone appeared in front of him.

"Redemption. Stop your ship and prepare for boarding. Failure to comply will result in your immediate destruction. You have five seconds."

Boko ignored the order, and instead increased the power to his ship's shields and engines.

"Eltee, hold on, this might get a little bumpy," he warned. "Take control of the rear quad laser turret and fire if anyone gets too close to our six! Just use a little juice, enough to scare them off – we need the rest!"

As he said this, the destroyer opened fire. Huge green bolts came zooming towards the Redemption and Boko took the ship into a spin, skillfully avoiding the shots. However, there were a few ARC-170s on their tail and they soon opened fire with their laser canons. Red bolts hit the shields again and again.

"Fire Eltee! What are you waiting for?"

The droid finally let rip, surprising the closest ARC-170 and scoring several hits, depleting its shields. It veered off course, but the others were still following and firing. Furiously yanking the control stick around with one hand and entering Hyperspace coordinates with the other, Boko watched as his shield indicator dropped to zero. Eltee whistled and beeped in encouragement, but the ship took a few more hits.

Sparks flew as circuit boards fried. Finally, Boko could punch the Hyperspace launch button. The stars turned into long white lines and finally into the familiar blue vortex.

"Eltee, fix what you can. I'll go check on our passenger."

With that he stood up and walked towards the surgical room, where he was surprised to see the Jedi awake. More annoyingly, she had escaped her straps.

Please review if you enjoyed! You know it's the fuel that keeps writers going!

Really hope you liked it. Who and what is Boko? Any guesses?