The Dark Times
Chapter 1: Death of Liberty.
The Clone Wars were almost over. The death of both Count Dooku and General Grievous seemed to signal that the end of the war was nearing. The Jedi led clone armies were now winning on all fronts and the droid armies were being decimated. However the fate could sometimes throw some very twisted curveballs. At the very eve of victory the Jedi Order was betrayed by both the Chancellor, aka Darth Sidious, and the Chosen One Anakin Skywalker. The Chancellor issued Order 66, branding every Jedi an enemy of the Republic, while he sent his new apprentice Anakin Skywalker, now known as Darth Vader, to attack a Jedi Temple with his personal Legion, the 501st killing almost every Jedi inside with only a small number of them making it out.
As Anakin continued to kill Jedi he became more and more steeped in the dark side, descending further and further into darkness that he could no longer be considered the good man that was Anakin Skywalker, he was now through and through Darth Vader, corrupted by an evil man and then later with the death of his wife, almost impossible to redeem.
Caught up in the middle of all this was a young Captain called Jack Hawks, the commanding officer of the Venator class Star Destroyer Challenger. He had served in the Corellian Defence Forces and then got transferred to the Republic Navy two months into the war. In his time as a career military officer he had gained a reputation as an excellent ship handler, a skilled tactician and strategist, and also a little bit of a ladies' man, though he had no comment to that remark.
The other thing about him was that he didn't entirely trust clones, he respected their ability as soldiers, but he had prior experience with the template of the clones, the Bounty Hunter Jango Fett. His crew was for the most part made up of non-clones, mostly humans from Corellia with a small mixture of Alderaanian and Chandrilan volunteer officers from their respective defence forces, while the marines and fighter pilots were for the most part clones.
His ship was on its way from an extended patrol of the Inner Rim when it was called to rendezvous at Felucia to help in the planet's liberation. They had just dropped out of Hyperspace and Captain Hawks was looking out the viewports when his executive officer, Commander Mirialia Hess, came up with a data pad for him. She was a fellow Corellian so she shared almost the same coloured hair as he did, while his was dark brown hers was a couple of shades lighter and was tied back into a tight pony tail, while the captain wore his short.
"Priority message from GAR HQ sir," she said as she handed it to him.
Jack read the message then had to read it again to make sure he hadn't misread it.
"Is this confirmed?"
"Yes sir, it came straight from the Chancellor's office on a secure channel, and sir the message used a Separatist encryption sequence."
The Commodore's eyes narrowed in suspicion as he reread the message again.
"Execute Order 66," it said and below it was a description of the order.
Order 66: In the event of Jedi officers acting against the interests of the Republic, and after receiving specific orders verified as coming directly from the Supreme Commander (Chancellor), GAR commanders will remove those officers by lethal force, and command of the GAR will revert to the Supreme Commander (Chancellor) until a new command structure is established.
"Have Commander Max come up here," he ordered.
The xo merely nodded her head then got on the ship's intercom calling Commander Max to the Command Bridge. Minutes later he arrived on the bridge clad in full ARC Trooper armour, he had been preparing his troops to enter combat, and he always wore his full armour while on duty.
"You wanted to see me sir?"
"Yes Commander," replied the Captain lightly. "What is your opinion of Order 66?"
"I believe that all lawful orders should be followed to the letter, sir!"
"Even one that calls for the killing of thousands of innocent people, because that is what this order is, an execution order for every Jedi, branding every one of them a traitor to the Republic, when you know that they have absolutely no interest in controlling the government."
"Unfortunately sir it's not up to me, if I could choose not to kill any Jedi I come across I would, but an order is an order and what kind of soldier would I be if I cannot follow orders."
Things became tense on the bridge as a number of crewmen started loosening their blaster holsters for quick easy draws.
"Very well Commander, return to your men," said Captain Hawks with regret in his voice. Commander Max gave a quick salute and turned sharply around and headed off the bridge towards the main launch bay, with a lot of thinking to do on the way down.
"You think you got through to him, sir?" Commander Hess asked.
"I hope so, otherwise we're all dead," responded Captain Hawks as he returned to looking out at the view of Felucia.
On the planet Jedi Master Aayla Secura was feeling the burns of several blaster inflicted wounds on her back quickly healing as she tapped into the living force that was in abundance on this planet, concentrated on healing her wounds with all her might while feeling the death screams of thousands and thousands of Jedi, including a fellow Jedi Knight whom had just been killed by one of her own AT-TEs on a different battle front on the planet. She came out of her self induced healing trance and slowly woke up, surprised that she was not face down on the ground, but looking up from the flat of her back with her arms crossed and clutching her lightsabre in her hands.
She weakly crawled up on her hands and knees and looked over the former campsite of her troops. She had hoped that the turning of her troops against her was just part of a bad dream, but the burns on her back testified to the fact that she had been shot by her own troopers. She quickly searched through the ruins of the camp and found nothing left but scraps and most surprisingly her Eta 2 Actis Starfighter, still fully fuelled up, though the Astromech that she usually just left in there was gone, so she would have to do all the work. She could hear the thunder of battle not too far away so the struggle for Felucia was still ongoing.
She gingerly got into her fighter and powered up, lifting off on its repulsors then fired the main engines, powering out of the atmosphere and into space. She was immediately buzzed by a small group of four V-wings that were instantly on her tail. A Jedi Starfighter was a very distinctive craft, and Aayla's was very distinctive with its blue and silver custom paint job, and quite easily spotted. She quickly took evasive action, corkscrewing around the V-wings and came up behind them into the perfect position, and cut loose with her laser cannons, letting off short controlled bursts at her targets, blowing them all away in a matter of seconds. Clones may be good pilots, but they lack the skills of a Jedi that only a true ace of aces among those that are not Force sensitive could match, and these clones were far short of that.
She soon spotted the set of Hyperdrive Rings for her fighter and docked with it and inputted the coordinates for a short Hyperspace jump to a nearby system where she knew there were no Separatist or Republic forces, a neutral system, but just before she jumped another quartet of V-wings came in from behind her and opened fire at long range, very few of their shots landed, but two hit the rings as she made the jump into hyperspace and vanished from all sensors.
Aboard the Challenger Jack was going over the various reports on the ground campaign on Felucia, the 327th Sky Corp was really giving the droid armies hell and had managed to capture the planet's water treatment facilities before the droids managed to destroy them. He was looking at a general overview of the disposition of the Republic's forces on the ground in the CIC when Commander Hess brought him another data pad.
"We just received this report from one of our sister ships, the Black Crescent. They say that one of their CAP patrols spotted and intercepted a Jedi Starfighter that had taken off from the planet. The patrol was destroyed sir."
Jack studied the data pad with a critical eye, noticing how short the dogfight really was.
"Walk with me Commander," he said and led her towards the CIC turbolift.
"Do we know who was flying that Starfighter?"
"Yes sir, it's in the report, Master Aayla Secura, or at least someone in her fighter and flew just as well as her."
"Well, that's at least one Jedi survivor the Chancellor would have us hunt down," he said dejectedly, not looking forward to the day he may have to give the order to kill her or any other Jedi.
Jack took another look at the report.
"Were the pilots that went after her rookies or something?" he asked, not really believing that a single fighter could win against four V-wing interceptors piloted by experienced combat veterans.
"No sir, but I did take a look into General Secura's file and she is an excellent pilot, not in Skywalker's league, but certainly better than any Clone pilot, especially if she used the Force to heighten her reflexes."
Jack nodded at that. While Clones were excellent pilots they just weren't in the same league as a Jedi when it came to piloting a fighter in combat.
"The Black Crescent's report also said that another CAP flight, one of ours, managed to intercept her just before she jumped to light speed. They also plotted every possible destination along her last known trajectory, and taking into account of everything in range of that ship of hers, it spat out dozens of possibilities, like trying to find a needle in an astronomically large haystack." She showed him the possible destinations on a data pad.
"That's a lot of space to search," Captain Hawks noted.
"But not impossible sir, but my guess is she would probably head for here," said Commander Hess, pointing to a star system not too far away.
"Why that one Commander?" he asked.
"Because it's a neutral system and has a fully equipped space port more than capable of servicing her fighter's hyperdrive rings, also I took a closer look at our fighters combat records and it seems that one or more of them managed to get in a few lucky shots at long range, impacting one of the motivators and one of the fuel tanks," she said, pointing out the damage on the data pad that now showed a picture of Master Secura's fighter with hyperdrive rings, pointing to a number of red dots that signified a hit.
"She wouldn't be able to get very far in a damaged fighter like that and right now she's trying to avoid both Republic and Separatist forces."
"Please tell me you didn't make a full report to Sector Command?" the Captain asked.
"No sir, I didn't, however I can't prevent anyone else from drawing the same conclusions as I did if they find this info," said apologetically.
"Well let's just hope the Blood Crescent's captain doesn't have people as smart you, and hopefully she'll be able to evade capture."
The Turbolift doors opened on the habitation deck where the crew berthing were located, including Commander Hess's and the Captain's quarters. The Captain followed her to her quarters, since it was on the way to his anyway.
"Thank you for escorting me Captain," she said a little nervously.
"Any time Commander," he said reassuringly, the Commander had been under a lot of stress today and was a little scared of what the future would hold now that the Jedi were gone, he himself felt a little trepidation at the thought of a galaxy without any Jedi. He continued on to his own quarters to collapse into his own rack, today had been a long day and he was more than ready for a little shut eye.
The next day started out as any other day for the Captain. He woke up, got into his refresher unit and washed and dried himself, then got his uniform on, then headed towards the Captain's Mess where only the captain and a small number of officers were allowed and today he was playing host to almost his entire senior staff, most notably his Executive officer Commander Mirialia Hess, Chief Engineer Commander Rikard Ganto, Chief Medical Officer Doctor Victor Magellan and Clone Commander Max.
Things were tense this morning as just about everyone felt a little leery of the Clone that commanded the ship's marine contingent and could probably take the ship with little difficulty if he wanted to. Commander Max took it in stride, knowing that at least from this crew he and his brothers wouldn't be getting a pat on the back for their role in Order 66.
From a side door a young yeoman came in and whispered something in Commander Hess's ear. She nodded and ordered the young man to turn on the main monitor, which normally just showed an artist's impression of the Challenger. It was now depicting a speech that was being made by the Chancellor in the Senate.
"The Jedi, and some within our own Senate, had conspired to create the shadow of separatism using one of their own as the enemy's leader… The Jedi hoped to unleash their destructive power against the Republic by assassinating the head of government and usurping control of the clone army. But the aims of would-be tyrants were valiantly opposed by those without elitist, dangerous powers. Our loyal clone troopers contained the insurrection within the Jedi Temple and quelled uprisings on a thousand worlds… The remaining Jedi will be hunted down and defeated. Any collaborators will suffer the same fate."
A shiver passed down everybody's spine, knowing that the Jedi Order was now considered enemies of the Republic.
"These have been trying times, but we have passed the test. The attempt on my life has left me scarred and deformed, but I assure you my resolve has never been stronger. The war is over. The Separatists have been defeated, and the Jedi rebellion has been foiled. We stand on the threshold of a new beginning."
"Is the crew watching this?" Jack asked Commander Hess.
"Yes sir, the entire galaxy with a connection to the Holonet is watching this," she answered, fear clearly tinged her voice.
"In order to ensure our security and continuing stability, the Republic will be reorganized into the first Galactic Empire, for a safe and secure society, which I assure you will last for ten thousand years, an Empire that will continue to be ruled by this august body and a sovereign ruler chosen for life. An Empire ruled by the majority, ruled by a new constitution."
Jack watched the reactions of all his officers, however he concentrated most of his attention on Commander Max whom commanded the ship's Clone marines and fighter pilots, and could most likely take the ship with very little effort and turn them in as traitors, but Max's face was an unreadable mask, not a single emotion could be read as he listened to the Chancellor's speech.
"By bringing the entire galaxy under one law, one language, and the enlightened guidance of one individual, the corruption that plagued the Republic in its later years will never take root. Regional governors will eliminate the bureaucracy that allowed the Separatist movement to grow unchecked. A strong and growing military will ensure the rule of law… Under the Empire's New Order, our most cherished beliefs will be safeguarded. We will defend our ideals by force of arms. We will give no ground to our enemies and will stand together against attacks from within or without. Let the enemies of the Empire take heed: Those who challenge Imperial resolve will be destroyed."
The Senate went wild, cheering their new Emperor, not knowing that they were signalling the end of democracy.
"Watch Commander, and see the end of liberty," Jack said to his xo in sadness. He ordered the monitor turned off and regarded his senior officers.
"Now you see what has happened, we all see what has been happening in the last day. The clones have turned on the Jedi because of one order, Order 66. An order that could only be issued by the Chancellor himself and that calls for the head of every Jedi in the order, and they followed it without question, without solid proof of their treachery, just on the word of a single man and his cohorts. The Chancellor has now made himself Emperor of the entire galaxy and destroyed the very group that protected it. Max, as the senior clone officer in the room I want to hear your opinion on all of this."
Jack could see the many gears turning in the clone's head, having to really think over his beliefs before he answered.
"Sir, orders are to be obeyed as long as they are legal and right. To question those orders, especially an Executive Order is tantamount to treason," said Max in response.
"Commander, how do you know that Order 66 is still valid now that the Republic is no more?"
"I don't understand."
"Well you were created to protect the Republic from all enemies, both foreign and domestic. Now that the Republic has been reorganized into the Galactic Empire, it is no longer the Republic that you served and protected these last three years, is it?"
Many emotions went through Max's mind as he thought about what he was now faced with. He and his brothers had been used, and now the Republic that he had sworn to protect was no more, a huge waste of life just to see a man that he had respected and admired turn his beloved Republic into an Empire where freedom was suppressed.
"You realise, sir, that if any of my brothers outside of my command heard you say such things you and your officers would have been shot on sight as traitors?" Commander Max humorously asked.
"The thought did cross my mind," Captain Hawks replied smartly.
Captain Hawks saw in Commander Max's eyes that he was no longer loyal to the Chancellor, now Emperor Palpatine.
"I can almost guarantee that every clone onboard will follow your lead, sir," said Max confidently. "However there may be some that will follow Palpatine no matter what, so I have to talk to my brothers, and tell my immediate subordinates to find out if any would betray us to the Empire."
Jack merely nodded, and Max rose up from his chair and saluted, exiting the captain's mess with all eyes upon him as he left. Jack took another look around his assembled superior officers, all having the same question written all over their faces.
"Captain, how did this happen, what did we do wrong?" Commander Hess asked.
"I don't know, Commander, but what I do know is what's going to happen to the Jedi. They'll all be hunted down and killed, and I'm not just talking about the knights and the masters, not even the younglings will be exempt from this order," said the captain as he cast his eyes down onto the table, everyone in the mess couldn't bear to look at each other right then.
"So what do we do now?" Chief Engineer Ganto asked.
"For now we keep a low profile and keep our opinions to ourselves, there'll probably be a lot of people like us that see things the way we do, but there are many more that has bought the party line about the Jedi orchestrating the entire Clone Wars," said Jack in warning.
After the impromptu meeting they went back on duty, quietly talking to the various department heads, getting a feel for the crew's reaction to the shift the galaxy has experienced. Hours later they received new orders, to head for Coruscant where the Captain would be getting a briefing by the new Emperor himself. Jack hadn't met Palpatine before and now this would be his chance to get a measure of the man. The Challenger quickly broke orbit and jumped to light speed. On the way they picked up a beacon from a nearby star system, a Jedi distress beacon.
As they closed in on the signal Captain Hawks appeared on the bridge.
"Are we close?" he asked.
"We're seconds' away sir," reported Commander Hess, and seconds later the Challenger decelerated from hyperspeed and straight into the outer reaches of the system, quickly finding the source of the distress beacon.
"Reading as a Jedi Interceptor, its General Secura's fighter," she said surprised. "There is a lot of carbon scoring in the hull and her hyperdrive rings have been practically destroyed. She has definitely been in a fight."
"Bring it into the main fighter bay and have a medical team standing by," the Captain ordered.
An invisible beam of energy latched onto the small Jedi Interceptor and pulled it into the main fighter bay, opening the smaller door and switching tractor beam emitters for the final stages of landing.
In the Interceptor Jedi Master Aayla Secura had been waiting for death for several hours now. She had managed to get to the neutral star system, but she got jumped by a squadron of ARC 170s that had been waiting for her. She managed to destroy all of them, but her fighter was finished, the last few shots from her laser cannons that destroyed her final attacker had drained the last of her fighter's energy, her hyperdrive rings had been destroyed and she was completely out of fuel.
She put herself into a deep meditative state, knowing that her heart beat would slow to a crawl and stretch out her oxygen supply for as long as possible. She believed that she was going to die, and had accepted that as a fact of life, all living things die; it's just the timing and the circumstances that are unknown. She comforted herself with the thought that she was going to see all those that had died this day, but the Force it seems had a very different destiny for her.
She felt the light tug of the tractor beam locking onto her ship, but her mind was fogged by the lack of oxygen and the loss of blood she had suffered from her recently reopened wounds, rendering her unable to fully comprehend what was happening to her until she saw the gaping maw of a huge Venator class Attack Cruiser's fighter bay. Adrenaline surged through her veins, preparing for a fight, but found that blood loss and oxygen deprivation combined to make her body extremely sluggish.
"They found me, by the Force they found me and now they intend to finish the job," she thought sluggishly to herself as she unclipped her lightsabre from her belt and gripped it tightly in her hands, though she felt that she didn't have the strength to fight off everybody on the ship she did have the strength to give them a good fight.
Her fighter was gently guided in by the ship's tractor beam crews, and then lowered down onto the deck of the hangar bay, where a medical team was standing by. With great haste the ground crew moved in and secured the fighter, checking over all of its vital systems and locking down any fuel or hydraulic leaks, then popped the cockpit hatch open. Suddenly, with a snap hiss, a lightsabre sprang to life under the chin of one of the technicians that had just popped open the hatch of her fighter.
"What ship is this?" she asked, the steel in her voice told the tech that this woman was not to be trifle with.
"You're aboard the Challenger, Master Jedi, we just rescued you..." At those words she raised her lightsabre a little bit higher under his chin, not enough to burn flesh, but enough to start singeing the short growth of beard under his chin.
"The Republic just betrayed me and every Jedi in the Order; I felt the death screams of all of them through the Force, and now silenced." Her strength started to waver. "If you are here to kill me just do it." She then promptly collapsed back into her seat and deactivated her lightsabre, turning it off was the last thing she consciously did before the sweet embrace of unconsciousness claimed her.
The tech took the weapon from her as the medical team got her out of her fighter and took a good long look at it, a simple and beautifully crafted weapon it shone in the light from the overhead lights. As the medics got her on a stretcher he put the weapon on it with her before she was rushed off to the sickbay then he got back to checking out her fighter.
The medical team rushed her through the various hallways and a turbolift to get to sickbay, not slowing down for a second because of the amount of blood that she was bleeding, and if they didn't get her to sickbay soon she would die. She went into cardiac arrest once and they had to do heart compressions while still racing through the hallways just to keep her heart going, just long enough for her to get into sick bay. When she arrived she was near death and Doctor Magellan and his team began stripping her of what was left of her clothes and unceremoniously dumped her into the Bacta tank. Within minutes the Bacta began its work, her lifesigns stabilized and she was out of immediate danger, the clear bluish white fluid improving and quickening the healing process.
Captain Hawks meanwhile had just come down to the main fighter bay, right after Master Secura had been rushed off to sickbay for an appointment with a Bacta tank, he was looking over Master Secura's fighter, he hadn't seen many of the customized Eta-2s that the Jedi used and he was curious. What he saw didn't impress him much; both of the S-foils had been blown off, lots of carbon scoring across the hull and only one intact laser cannon.
He quickly found the deck chief in charge of the fighter, who was shaking his head in resignation at the very sorry state of Secura's fighter.
"So, what's the verdict, Chief?" Captain Hawks asked.
The young deck chief started in surprise at the Captain's question then visibly calmed down.
"Well sir, if it had been a Thranta I'd have put it down," said the Alderaanian chief.
"No way you could salvage it?"
"No sir, she's barely worth being scrap metal."
"Alright, have one of the shuttles tow it outside; we'll use it for target practice."
"Sir?" The chief was bewildered.
"I think our gunners could use the practice of trying to hit a tiny target at extremely long range, don't you think?"
"Aye sir, I'll have it towed outside in a few minutes."
"Very good, I'll be on the bridge."
The Jedi Interceptor was quickly towed out of the hangar bay and into deep space, placing it several thousand kilometres away from the Challenger.
On the bridge Captain Hawks looked over his gunnery officers in the crew pit and gave them a small smile.
"Today I have a little test of your skills for you. A target has been uploaded to your consoles. It is a heavily damaged Jedi Interceptor and the goal of this test is to see how good your targeting skills are at extreme range. You will not be using the targeting computer, you will aim and target manually. The guns you'll be using will be the main guns set to long range precision fire mode. The gunner that hits and destroys the target first gets a week of paid leave."
The gunners all smiled at this and they were all determined to get that leave, it was very rare that they ever got any kind of leave, and paid leave was the best kind.
They quickly went into action, painted the target and aimed the Challenger's main guns, which would normally be considered overkill by most standards, Jack wanted that ship vaporized.
The gunners had aligned their guns towards the target and waited for permission to open fire, constantly making small corrections to keep their guns correctly aligned with their target.
"Fire at will," he said, and the gunners responded with ripple of weapons fire, sending full powered Turbolaser shots downrange. All of the first shots missed as a thruster on the fighter malfunctioned and moved it slightly. Hot on their target's tail they shifted their fire and they finally hit, the first hit was merely a glancing blow, but the second hit dead on, blowing it apart into fragments, and the fragments got vaporized by the rest.
A young gunner whooped in delight as he got the shot that blew it into fragments, the others groaned at only getting a glancing blow and vaporizing a few fragments.
"Who's the winner, Commander Hess?" Jack asked.
"Lieutenant Darren Kyle, sir, a very promising officer and an excellent gunner," she replied.
"Pay him Commander then put us back on course for Coruscant, best speed."
"Aye sir, helm you heard the order, full speed for Coruscant."
The Challenger made a smooth turn in the right direction, accelerated and disappeared into Hyperspace, its future uncertain as it headed towards the city planet of Coruscant.
AN: Please R&R, I need some good critique.
AN2: edited 20.5.2013