"As the Thousandth year draws nigh, the warring heavens shall descend into darkness. A lifeless army and a powerful Knight shall do battle above our land. From within enormous metal dragons shall the two clash, exchanging great bursts of light that shall turn their steel hides to flames. They shall fall from the skies in a bright blaze, to be claimed by the Everfree.
The Knight shall fail, but the army shall be stilled for a time. And lo, when the Sun and Moon have reconciled, and Chaos has been banished a second time, the army shall rise. They shall march forth on Equestria, obliterating nature and pony alike, without mercy. A great Evil commands them; they shall remain within the forest, with the metal dragon from whence they came.
So shall the Elements be called upon to finish the Knight's task; with Evil's defeat shall one among them take up the Force he wielded. What he has left behind shall shape the future of our world and those beyond."
- Excerpt from Predictions and Prophecies: Volume II, composed by Star-Swirl the Bearded in the year 19 B.C.L. (Before Celestia and Luna)
The halls were bathed in crimson as the emergency lights winked on and off. The great ship groaned and shuddered, each impact upon its dense, armored exterior whittling away its superstructure. Klaxons moaned out continuously, the dying battlecruiser's wails ricocheting from the bare metal of the bulkheads. A low, thundering explosion vibrated its way through the hull, rocking the immense craft as a portion of its hull was blasted to its constituent atoms. The diversionary assault on Malastare had failed, and the Lucid Voice had entered its final hour.
Veshk Raath grunted and stumbled as the durasteel beneath his boots shifted, growling and gritting his sharpened fangs as he made his way to the portside hangar. His pace quickening as another shudder rattled the deckplates, his limp facial tendrils quivering. He could feel the vast Providence-class cruiser collapsing around him, each quake forcing him to reconsider just how long the doomed hulk would stay in one piece.
The mechanized crew battled on, vessel, servomotors clicking away and droning, monotone commands buzzing through the air as a squad of battle droids made their way through the ship, their thin, skeletal forms clattering past as they continued their patrols. Each was oblivious to the devastation of the immense vessel and its accompanying force, their simplistic programming unable to comprehend anything besides their immediate task.
He grunted softly as they passed. If they had been live soldiers, he would have considered their dedication admirable. But they were lifeless, brittle constructs, cheaply churned from automated factories, eschewing power and intellect for sheer numbers. Their memory cores were filled with only the most basic of intelligences, and anything more than a basic combat maneuver would overload their feeble processors. Their dedication was not borne of loyalty to their cause or leaders, but of a simple, preprogrammed command, one that could be erased or altered with an access code and the flick of a terminal key. They were nothing like the warriors he had known. This warwas nothing like what he'd known.
It wasn't like he'd had much of a choice, anyways. He'd known the trance would leave him vulnerable to whomever might stumble upon him, and he'd willingly accepted that risk. His kind had failed in their attempted invasion of the rest of the galaxy, and the forces of light had driven them all the way back to his homeworld, bombarding the planet from above as their troops scoured the barren surface. Anything was preferable to becoming the spoils of the Jedi and their Republic minions. They would have sought a way to capture him, to convert him to their gutless ways. And so he'd sealed himself away, languishing in the depths of Korriban as the centuries rolled past, the power of the Force keeping his form clinging to life.
He had expected to remain in that dreamless, empty sleep for years, perhaps a century or two. To awaken five millennia later had been more of a shock than he'd anticipated. The human, a man calling himself Dooku, had only added to the disorientation. He had called himself Sith, a fact that had sickened him to no end. Humans may have led his kind to near-victory over the rest of the galaxy, but their kind had also served the Republic that had ended up defeating them. He'd not dared openly express his displeasure, however; from the moment the shadowy, imposing figure had entered his vision, he could feel the power of the dark side radiating in waves from him. Though his presence within the Force was warped and twisted from the practitioners he had learned from, the man clearly held the superior position.
And thus he had accepted the offer the Sith Lord had presented him with: to join his battle against the Republic. To his credit, Dooku had delivered on what he'd promised. He had led Raath up from those dark, dank chambers, and had almost immediately made him a commander in the Confederacy of Independent Systems, the mostly droid-based military that had been raised to oppose the Republic. He had received instruction on rebuilding his lightsaber, the newer iterations of the powerful weapons no longer requiring the power pack or cord that had been ubiquitous in his day. And of course, he was brought up to date on what had transpired in the galaxy since he had descended into the trance.
He had been prepared for some sort of shock to follow his awakening, but he had failed to anticipate the knowledge that awaited him. Over those five thousand years, there had been dozens of large-scale attempts to overthrow the Republic and their Jedi guardians, and each and every one had managed to be foiled. His species had been beaten to virtual extinction; the Sith were now known as those who merely practiced the teachings and philosophies he had been raised with, and even they were pitifully small in number. Only Dooku and his Master, a shadowy, decrepit figure known as Darth Sidious, were known as Sith Lords, and apart from a few adepts and himself, the knowledge of his people was lost to the galaxy.
When he had first taken command of his own fleet, a sense of hope had permeated his efforts. Though the armies he had once served had long since been obliterated, this new war presented a second chance, one to redeem the failures of his brethren, and to finally achieve the victory the Sith had been denied time and again. He had relished the terror-inducing raids his task force routinely made upon Republic forces.
The Lucid Voice was, after all, a sister vessel to the Invisible Hand, command ship of the feared General Grievous, a monstrosity of metal and flesh the likes of which Raath would have been proud to create. A simple transponder code switch was all it took to convince the cloned soldiers and their Jedi commanders that Grievous himself was assailing them, often sending them into disarray out of fear of the ruthless General. This fear was particularly useful when Grievous himself attacked a separate target on the other side of the galaxy, inciting a sense of turmoil in the enemy forces that had sent shivers of pleasure up Raath's spine. He had torn into them each time with glee, vaporizing their Star Destroyers with impunity, his droid armies obeying his every whim. On the rare occasion he himself entered personal combat with the defenders of the Republic, he had delighted in terrorizing their soldiers with conjured illusions, sending them to the ground as they clutched at their skulls in horror, their frightened screams only egging him on, until that moment when he choose to end their suffering with the crimson blade of his saber.
And yet, those brilliant, carnage-filled assaults had only staved off the inevitable failure. For each Confederacy victory, the Republic seemed to garner two more. The uncountable numbers and varieties of battle droids at their disposal could not match the efforts of the cloned human soldiers of the Republic, and the sheer number of Jedi overwhelmed the few dozen Force-wielded 0adepts within their ranks. Throughout those three years, they had been beaten back time and again, and now the Confederacy of Independent Systems had been all but defeated, their bold strike on Coruscant leaving Dooku dead and the Invisible Hand decimated. If that hadn't been enough of a blow, the recent reports had delivered news that had sealed their failure; Grievous had been slain on Utapau, with the Separatist Ruling Council fleeing to the Mustafar system as their defending armies were crushed by the arrival of superior Republic forces.
In a way, he admired the Republic for their adherence to tradition combat, for fielding trained, albeit cloned, soldiers in the face of the automatons that had been unleashed upon them. They understood that war wasn't merely a contest of mindless destruction, but of endurance. A tempered, controlled survival instinct was an essential component of a warrior's arsenal. A battle droid could march fearlessly into a hail of blasterfire, but that obedience was of little use once it had been blasted to cinders. A live combatant, on the other hand, would use every method and means at their disposal to keep themselves alive and fighting. And a live enemy was far more dangerous than a dead one.
The crimson-skinned, pure-blooded Sith jogged the last dozen meters to the docking bay entrance, charcoal robes flowing around his form, his lightsaber dangling from his belt. If he had been a warrior, a Massassi, then he would have stayed at his station, as the mindless battle droids did, committing his last breath to annihilating every last Republic craft in his sights. But he was born a Kissai, a priest, and honor did not demand that he die in battle.
When the blast door to the hangar hauled themselves open, Raath half expected to be dragged out by escaping atmosphere. The vast, gargantuan hangar deck was filled with dozens of droid starfighters and transport vessels, most of which were damaged to varying degrees, their insectlike hulls charred and warped by the blasterfire they had endured. PK repair units milled between each of them, the short, stocky drones repairing what craft they could. Hangar cranes descended from the ceiling to drag away the salvage. A low thrumming from the magnetic field generators lining the hangar apertures joined the rhythmic, echoing moans of the klaxons.
He set off into a jog again when he had spotted his personal craft, allowing a sensation of relief to flow through his veins. The massive, double-winged lander dominated the hangar, its broad, towering form casting the deck in shadow as it loomed above, its great "foot" planted firmly upon the ground. Nothing obstructed its path from the hangar; the immense carrier vessel had been positioned to face the starboard side of the battlecruiser, providing an escape route that skirted Malastare before giving way to open space.
The Sith glanced to the other side of the hangar, staring out of the transparent magnetic shield at the raging battle outside. Support destroyers were snapped in two under the heavy guns of the Republic's angular Venator-class Star Destroyers, fiery explosions blossoming along their lengths as they succumbed to the assault. Starfighters swarmed between the immense battleships, weakening their shields with quick bursts of laserfire and proton torpedo salvos. And as the surrounding vessels were turned to molten debris, the advancing Republic ships had finally turned their guns upon the Lucid Voice itself. The oblong vessels shields glowed opaque under endless waves of green and blue turbolasers, its own weaponry blasting pitiful crimson volleys in return, each shot splashing harmlessly against the undamaged shields of the Star Destroyers. Another loud shudder coincided with a flicker of those powerful shields, once again reminding Veshk of the dwindling lifespan of the great cruiser.
He had nearly reached the personnel entrance of the immense lander when a nasally voice shouted over the din, seemingly directed at him. He paused, and the voice sounded again, "Commander Raath! Sir!" The tall Sith turned about, his facial tendrils twitching with disgust as he laid eyes upon the source of the call. A dozen Neimoidians shuffled towards him, moving as rapidly as they could beneath their ridiculous, stuffy robes. The grub-based species irritated him on every possible level; their vaguely maggot-like appearance was revolting, and their cowardly, greedy mannerisms only served to increase his intense dislike of them. How the sniveling, worthless little beings had managed to become such an integral part of the Confederacy, he had no idea.
The one who had spoken reached him after another few seconds, gasping for breath as he slowed to a stumbling walk, "S-sir…th-the captain is dead! W-we cannot access his shuttle!" His immense red eyes pulsated, secondary eyelids flickering over the unreadable orbs briefly as he stammered, "W-we must be allowed to board your ship, sir!"
The crimson-skinned Sith felt his lip curl upwards into a sneer; arrogance was yet another entry on the list of Neimoidian flaws. For a moment, he said nothing, allowing the greenish, pale-fleshed creatures to quiver beneath his gaze. Then, he merely raised a hand, his fingers slowly curling into a fist over the course of a second or two.
A sharp, earsplitting squeal emerged from the Neimoidian's throat, causing his comrades to gasp and flinch in terror. The sound was abruptly cut off as the crackling of cartilage filled the air, and suddenly he slumped to the hangar deck, hands clutching at his crumpled windpipe, red eyes staring blankly. Raath turned his gaze briefly to the others, cementing his answer as he gave them one final, parting glare. He turned about, leaving the other Neimoidian crew members to wander away aimlessly as their ship collapsed around them.
A short lift ride up the central foot of the landing craft sent Veshk to its command deck. The lift doors slid open to reveal the lander's control center. The ovoid room stretch forth twenty meters before him, an immense observation window filling the front of the great space. Consoles and computer stations lined the walls, each one crewed by a single battle droid, the yellow paint adorning their skeletal skulls and limbs confirming their status as command units. Every few meters, a pair of maroon-striped security droids stood at the ready, blaster rifles clutched in their mechanical claws. The center of the bridge was mostly empty, save for a single, glossy-black pod, a transparent viewport on its top revealing its absent contents.
Raath strode forth through the control center, milling battle droids stepping aside as he made his way to the fore of the deck. A single command droid rose from its console as he approached, addressing him once he'd entered a preprogrammed range, "Commander, we are ready for departure." Its nasally voice buzzed through the air, the unpleasant monotone another side effect of Neimoidian involvement in the war.
"Launch immediately. Begin protocol Omega-thirteen."
"Yes sir." The droid turned its head towards the rest of the artificial crew, its vocorder raising in volume as it ordered, "Initiate immediate launch. Set for vector two-one-five-mark-zero-zero-two."
A chorus of "Roger roger"s followed in acknowledgement, and Raath grimaced at the idiotic reply. He stood back as the lander's deckplates began to thrum, staring out of the immense observation port as the vessel rose from the hangar deck. Though he could no longer see the Republic fleet laying waste to his vessel, they had clearly begun to break through the shield; the hangar itself had begun to collapse. A ceiling crane hauling a droid starfighter crashed to the deck as the cruiser was rocked by an explosion, landing in a heap as the lander slowly drifted forward on its repulsorlifts. When the smooth-hulled starship had cleared the atmospheric containment field, the glowing ion engines adorning its stern hummed to life, blazes of golden particles providing thrust as the transport hurtled away from its dying mothership.
Raath loosed a rapid, huffing sigh of relief as the view of the hangar gave way to open space. As the double-winged lander veered off on its slow, arcing course away from mottled blue and green sphere that was Malastare, the crimson-skinned Sith could glimpse the remnants of his defeated fleet. His destroyer squadrons had been mostly obliterated, their thin, oblong hulls drifting in fragments, tumbling end over end amidst the chaos Fiery detonations tore through the ring-shaped carriers surrounding the command cruiser, their round cores cracking apart like eggs under barrages of turbolaser fire and proton torpedoes. Though he could not see them, he knew that thousands of droid starfighters were suddenly shutting down mid-flight during the battle, their forms unable to function in the absence of their respective control ships.
And in the midst of that one-sided frenzy, he could see the Lucid Voice, its massive, imposing form taking the full brunt of the Republic assault. Its shields flared brightly as each and every laser bolt seemed to converge upon it, before winking out of existence as their projectors finally overloaded. Starfighters swooped down to make their firing runs upon the doomed vessel, punctuating their attacks with a fatal volley of proton torpedoes, the powerful warheads piercing the bridge the moment the cruiser's shields had failed. Massive explosions blossomed along that massive length, shattering the once-magnificent vessel's superstructure, breaking it into immense chunks of molten debris.
Raath felt a small pang within his chest as the great battleship was torn asunder; though his efforts onboard it had ultimately been futile, he had relished the victories he had earned from its bridge. He had almost begun to call that fearsome dreadnought home, and he found a twinge of regret at its destruction working its way through his body. But it hadn't been his home, not really, anyways. His home had been lost to the universe, all traces of it fading into the haze of time. He had known such an occurrence was inevitable, and had thus planned accordingly.
He turned away from the observation window, stepping back towards the center of the bridge. The Confederacy had been losing the war for the last several months, and when the order had been given for his fleet to stage its diversionary assault, he had made sure to prepare for the worst. Should the Republic again emerge victorious, he knew he would be forced to enter hiding, to evade their dogged pursuit of their enemies until time had wiped their memories of him.
His retreat had been carefully chosen: his ship would set its course for the Tyus Cluster, an infamous array of black holes that had formed a shell around the thousand light-year radius within. The navigational hazard dominated the majority of the sector for which it was named, rendering most of it unreachable by normal hyperspace travel. Over the centuries, many had tried to plot innovative hyperroutes between the gravity wells of the black holes, with usually fatal results, their ships smashed to subatomic particles by the immense mass shadows projected into hyperspace by the singularities. The only known explorer that had survived skirting that barrier had been caught in temporal flux near one of the more massive vortices, emerging fifty years later in the same condition he had entered in. Those navigators, however, had never attempted such an endeavor with the power of the Force at their disposal.
Raath had plotted his course himself, utilizing his own knowledge of hyperspatial physics and the Force itself to navigate the maelstrom of gravitational forces that warped all hyperspace routes into the uncharted territory. Through its all-permeating field, he could feel each and every pull on hyperspace by the surrounding singularities, and would then adjust his course accordingly. Though the techniques he utilized were from his own age, he had learned that the advent of navicomputers had rendered them mostly obsolete. His actions would therefore seem suicidal to anyone who managed to see him attempt his escape, and they would presume he had been obliterated by one of the deadly vortexes.
He placed a hand upon the black, glossy pod, gazing at his shadowy reflection within its surface. The stasis unit would make his sleep more comfortable, at least. He had hoped he would not have to enter the trance again so soon, but he knew it was the only option he had available. The lander would emerge in the center of the maelstrom. From there, it would set down on the first habitable world it could locate, providing his form a suitable defense as he waited. He would enter that empty blackness for a time, and would emerge once again when the galaxy had forgotten him.
His fingertip slid over a single control on the side of the pod. The hiss of compressed air sounded as the airtight seal was broken, the upper half of the stasis unit sliding backwards to allow his entry. The Sith managed to clamber into the puny chamber, his tall form barely managing to squeeze into its length. His hand brushed against an interior control, and the top portion slid back over his body, completely encasing him within the stasis pod.
Veshk exhaled slowly as the temperature within the claustrophobia-inducing pod rapidly dropped, the air chilling as a drowsy sensation slowly worked its way through his limbs. His eyes closed, and as his senses slowly dimmed he concentrated on the Force, clinging to it as the chill of the stasis chamber numbed his form. He stayed within that dark cloud, allowing it to envelop his mind as he drifted from reality. He would stay within it until it lifted from his mind. Then, he would arise, and would attempt to rejoin the galaxy once again.
"I can't shake 'em! Somebody get these guys off my six!"
"Hold your course, Gold Leader! I'm on them!"
Garreth Dorahn hauled back on his controls, sending his starfighter into a hard snap-roll left. Scarlet laser bolts carved through the space it had occupied, forcing its Vulture-droid pursuers to follow his weaving, winding course as he arced back towards the flight of bombers. The space between he and his charges was a maelstrom of laserfire and debris, forcing him to send the cobalt-painted, agile Eta-2 Actis interceptor into a series of rapid jukes and dives to avoid each deadly volley of energy and every hurtling hunk of melted durasteel. Each maneuver sent a jolt of adrenaline through his limbs, his body pressed into his seat as the acceleration compensator struggled in its function. Outside of the cockpit, R2-A7 warbled insistently, the astromech droid's domed head turning to face him as it rode in its socket. "I know, I know!" He replied hastily, growling in slight frustration at the persistence of the droid forces.
As he brought the front of his forked-shaped starfighter into position, the massive, looming shape of the Providence-class Separatist command ship filled his cockpit, its shields alight with the impacts of turbolaser fire from the Republic forces. Amidst the hail of turbolaser fire and the swarms of droid and Republic starfighters, he could spot his charges: a single flight of ARC-170 starfighters. The broad-winged bombers swerved and weaved on their course towards the immense enemy capital ship, their swooping, diving forms pursued by a sextet of Tri-fighters. The compact, nimble vessels spat a hailstorm of laser fire at their targets, the lethal energy darts splashing against their rear shields, the impacts generating bright, brief flashes upon their matrices.
Dorahn approached the chase from below, his straight course marred by a pair of jukes as his pursuers fired in vain, their bolts flying wide to either side of him. His targeting system remained offline as he began to trace the lead Tri-fighter, lining up its form with the crosshairs projected by his Heads-Up Display. As a Jedi pilot, he rarely required such an aid; the Force determined his targets, allowing him to carve through enemy fighter groups, enabling him to guess their next maneuver before it was made. His fingers clenched around the triggers, ready to unleash their deadly barrage. One of the fighters' scarlet energy bolts met its mark, the energized plasma melting through a portion of one of the bombers' wings. A frantic cry issued forth from the comlink a moment later, "I'm hit!"
His finger squeezed the trigger. From the tips of his laser cannons, bright emerald laser bolts lanced up in pairs towards their targets, draining the weapons' capacitors as he shifted his aim down the line of pursuing fighters. Each volley met its target, the energy bolts stabbing into the droid starfighters, their hulls vaporized as the bolts pierced their engines, exploding them in brief balls of flame and debris. The entire trail of fighters fell to the assault, each one turned into chunks of molten durasteel before it had time to calculate a proper evasive course.
A sigh of relief flooded through the comm, "Thank you, General. I thought they had us for a moment."
Dorahn juked as a pair of crimson energy bolts darted past his cockpit, his hand reaching down to the throttle control, yanking it back. As his fighter slowed, a pair of shapes whizzed by, and his R2 unit gave a loud hoot as they emerged in front of him. There was a brief flicker within his mind, and he jabbed the trigger. Another volley of green laserfire caught his pursuers as they overshot him, and a pair of explosions blossomed before his fighter. He sighed softly in relief, smirking as he replied, turning his fighter back towards the ARC-170s, "Anytime, Venn. Now, let's finish what we've started, shall we?"
"With pleasure, General."
His fighter hurtled past the bomber squadron as he joined their attack run, darting and swooping towards the massive, oblong battlecruiser. Their laser cannons blazed as they softened up their target, raking green laserfire up and down the thickly-armored hull, the starfighters evading the massive, slow-tracking returning fire from the starship's turbolaser batteries. As the cruiser's main shields flared under combined assault of the starfighters and their Star Destroyers, his R2 unit warbled another message to him. The Jedi Knight nodded to the droid, relaying the information to the bomber flight, "Hold your course, Gold Group! Ace's reporting those shields are going critical! When they fall, target their bridge and let them have it!"
"We copy, General! Torpedoes are armed and locked on!"
He watched the cruiser's shield glow brightly amidst the hail of enemy fire, the massive barrier holding as their ships hurtled within a few kilometers of their target. The turbolaser fire grew thicker with each meter lost between them, and those massive energy blasts grew closer to swatting the starfighters from the skies. For a moment, the shield flickered, and a single volley carved into the hull, blasting away armor plating by the ton. He stayed at the head of the squadron, his own torpedoes held in reserve as he waited. The turbolaser fire hurtled dangerously close as the fighters closed within a single kilometer of their targets. A moment later, Dorahn shouted over the comlink, "Open fire!"
The broad-winged bombers instantly obliged him, and the space between the starfighters and the Separatist cruiser was suddenly filled with a massive volley of proton torpedoes. Twenty-four of the potent warheads shot ahead of their deliverers, bright blue energy shroud glowing in their wakes as they neared the bridge. In that fraction of a second before their impact, the deflector shields of the massive vessel flickered offline under the continued turbolaser barrage from the Republic fleet, and suddenly, those devastating warheads had plunged forth into the heart of their target, tunneling their way into the hull of the enormous starship before finally releasing their combined destructive energy.
A massive explosion tore its way through the dorsal section of the cruiser, the miniature supernova bursting forth from the ruptured hull in a fiery fury. Whoops of excitement rose over Dorahn's comm link as the bombers dived out of the way of the ensuing explosions, his own fighter soaring away with the squadron as the starship's superstructure was ripped apart by secondary detonations. Ace gave a series of excited whistles as they hurtled away from the destroyed command ship, and he grinned to himself, "We did it, Ace." Though the battle itself brought him no joy, the end of a force that routine ravaged planets and fleets and had caused millions, if not billions of deaths ignited a blaze of pride within the Jedi Knight's chest. The Clone Wars had been a brutal, savage conflict, the likes of which he had never seen, and the knowledge that his actions had brought it that much closer to ending sent a sense of relief coursing through his veins. The fact that the massive battle had been one of the relatively fresh Jedi's few large-scale victories only served to sweeten the moment.
He sighed in relief as he and the ARC-170s brought themselves around to face the flotilla of Republic Star Destroyers, the wrecked hulk of the Separatist command ship filling his cockpit's view, "Excellent work, Gold Squadron. Let's head home, I'm sure-"
He cut himself off abruptly as a massive shape hurtled past, the large vessel rocketing away from the wreckage of the Confederacy fleet. As it passed near his starfighter, the sense of relief retreated instantly from him, replaced with a sense of dread that was all-too familiar. He broke off from his squadron, turning back to face the fleeing ship.
Dorahn turned his head as he maneuvered to face the vessel, flicking on his targeting system as he looked towards its retreating shape. The immense, double-winged transport was instantly identifiable as a Confederacy landing ship, a common sight among their fleets, something that normally thought. Except, of course, for the fact that it was heading away from the planet the Confederate forces had been assaulting.
"General? Do you copy?"
Dorahn shook his head, pushing his throttle forwards as he began to pursue the tan-hulled starship, closing the gap between them as he scanned his targeting display, "I'm fine, Venn. We've got a single landing craft fleeing the battle. I don't think the ship is crewed by the normal droid compliment alone…" He shivered when he reached out with the Force, the icy tendrils of the darkside extending back towards him. "I believe we've finally cornered Veshk Raath, Captain."
"I copy, General. We're right behind you. Torpedoes locked and ready to fire."
Dorahn nodded, his vessel coming within optimum range of the lumbering lander, his targeting reticule hovering steadily over its massive form, "Wait until my order to fire. I want to disable it, if possible…perhaps we can take him alive." Though the tales of the mysterious, Force-wielding warrior had struck fear into the men of his fleet for most of the past three years, the sense of compassion that his position as a Jedi gave him demanded that he at least attempt a nonlethal solution to ensuring the elimination of the Confederacy Commander. The war had already brought about the deaths of billions, and one more would serve no purpose now that it neared its end. His fighter pulled within range; his targeting reticule glowed green as it gained a lock.
And in that fraction of a second, the lander flickered briefly before it vanished from realspace entirely.
"Blast! He's gone to hyperspace!" Venn growled over his comm system a moment later, "Shall we make ready to pursue, sir?"
Dorahn let out a brief sigh as the tension within his chest faded, shaking his head even as he turned the forked end of his fighter around, angling himself on a vector that would return him to his hyperspace ring, "No, I'll handle him myself. My hyperdrive should be fast enough to intercept him before he has time to make a second jump." He glanced out the cockpit at his astromech, "Ace? Have you plotted a course on his last vector?"
The R2 unit whistled in acknowledgement, and his primary display was suddenly filled with a navigational grid. The droid's calculation of the most probable hyperroute seemed fairly straightforward, projecting itself "north" along the galactic plane, twisting and turning occasionally to avoid the occasional navigational hazard. Until the linear path plunged itself directly into the great, sprawling mass of black holes that was the Tyus Cluster.
He frowned, shaking his head in disbelief, "Ace, this can't be right…" The droid gave an indignant-sounding blat, seemingly irate that the Jedi Knight would suggest an error in his calculations. Dorahn paused, his mind struggling to process what might have gone through his enemy's head. Had he plotted the course as some sort of suicide attempt, designed to draw any pursuing Republic forces to their dooms? It seemed likely, though he doubted that Raath had chosen to destroy himself in such a manner; the war had proved he was a survivor, able to appear on the scene months after he was presumed dead. The only logical choice, therefore, was that, despite the astronomical odds against such an occurrence, Veshk Raath had somehow plotted a course into the cluster itself.
Dorahn paused as he neared his hyperdrive unit, a ring-shaped craft that would encircle his fighter once he'd docked with it. The odds of Raath surviving were slim, yes, but the thought of the dark Force-wielder roaming with impunity throughout the galaxy was something he could not ignore. The Confederacy Commander had a history of valuing his own life above most everything else, and he would not have plotted such a course, unless he had intended to emerge from hyperspace intact on the other side. And Garreth Dorahn was not about to let him escape so easily. It would take the deepest concentration to make any sudden changes in his course mid-jump, should the course prove lethal…but he would be able to. The Force would allow such feats to be accomplished, and he trusted that its guidance would be sufficient to ensure his survival.
And if he were to die, then he would accept as much. The will of the Force would come to pass regardless of his efforts.
He exhaled slowly, flicking his communications back over to Gold Squadron as he began the docking sequence with the hyperdrive ring, "Stay with the fleet in case of any late reinforcements. Have our forces clean up on the ground. With luck, this should only take a few hours."
"Yes sir, General…good luck, sir."
Dorahn smiled a bit, "Thanks, Venn. Keep them safe." His fighter shook as the docking ring locked itself into position around his craft. Once a connection between the unit and his starfighter had been established, his R2 unit began the transfer of hyper coordinates, warbling a confirmation once the quick task had been finished. As the immense, cobalt-striped ring oriented itself on the proper vector, he stared off into the faint, starry blackness, shivering ever so slightly as he waited for the jump, watching as the stars were pulled into rays of infinite length before him. His hands slowly fell away from the controls, and his fingers briefly grazed the hilt of his lightsaber.
He knew he should have felt confident; his fleet had decimated the Confederate battle group, and the Clone Wars were nearing their end. And yet the dark cloud of uncertainty and dread had failed to lift itself from his view of the Force. If anything, the haze had grown thicker, obscuring any attempts to discern the nature of anything future or present. Despite the victories of the Jedi, the dark side had failed to retreat from the galaxy, and as he prepared for his journey, he could feel it slowly suffocating him as he stretched out to the Force, the fear it carried with it assailing his soul at a steady pace, as the tide slammed itself against a shoreline. Though he knew not where or how, the dark side of the Force was growing steadily stronger, its forces readying themselves to overwhelm the galaxy.
Then the starlines stretched themselves around his cockpit, and his starfighter flickered out of existence, plunging into the winding rivers of hyperspace.
Celestia stepped out onto her balcony, the cool wind gently blowing through her flowing, multicolored mane. The faint glow of the moon illuminated her spotless white coat, the gentle rays playing over her fur. She let out a soft sigh, closing her eyes as she attempted to clear her mind.
It was another night without sleep; another night spent warding off the thousand clamoring thoughts that sought to overwhelm her. It was indeed fortunate that the alicorn did not require sleep herself, or else she would have been rendered unable to perform her duties long ago. After a minute or so of silence her eyes fluttered open, and her gaze drifted down to the capital city below.
She smiled a bit as she took in the gorgeous view, her wings shifting upon her back for the briefest of moments as she sought to take flight and see her magnificent city from all angles. Canterlot dazzled her as much as it did anypony, even after centuries of residence within the immense castle at its center. The mountainside metropolis was a symbol of everything she'd hoped for her people; that they would not only endure, but would flourish and thrive, enhancing the beauty of the world around them. They had exceeded every expectation she could have set for them, building a civilization free of strife and pain. The Unicorns, Pegasi, and Earth ponies had remained united throughout the centuries, weathering each challenge that had presented itself, each remaining as pure and virtuous as the day Equestria had been founded.
Celestia glanced up towards the starry night sky, her eyes drinking in the glittering, brilliant lights that stretched across her sky. Her people had endured much in their early years, both before their unification and in the millennia afterward. She had struggled to keep them safe in those early years, forced to shield them from those that would abuse the powers they possessed, the powers that were drawn from that same energy that permeated the very universe. The alicorn felt a small twinge of regret as she looked up at those distant points of light, distant memories attempting to push their way to the forefront of her mind.
That regret grew into a deep sorrow as her gaze shifted to the full, bright moon hanging over the land, its gentle light illuminating the shadowed valley below, a constant reminder of what she had been forced to do, all those centuries before. What she had done to Luna, how she had trapped her upon that barren, lifeless moon, the same moon she had once controlled from her rightful place, at her older sister's side. But Luna had lost control in the early years of their rule, wielding her powers against her sister in a fit of pent-up jealousy that had brewed for years, perhaps decades, committing the very acts of violence against their people Celestia had sought to protect them from and plunging their world into darkness.
Celestia sighed once more, her eyes turning back towards the earth, a sense of guilt intermingling with her sadness. Luna had been the one to lash out at their subjects, but she knew that the blame could not be placed entirely upon her younger sister. Their decision on the future of their people had been one of fierce contention between them, and Luna had fought her at every turn, before begrudgingly agreeing to stand with her sister, though Celestia had felt the resentment growing within her at such a decision. That sense of being sidelined, of anger at her older sister's subtle tyranny had only grown as they enacted her plan, swelling as memories were buried and knowledge carefully erased, bolstered by her own recollection of the vast, wondrous world she and her sister had once been a part of. And when she saw that her own people favored her sister and her work over her own, she had finally snapped, undergoing that terrible transformation and spreading the very terror they had sought to banish from their world.
And then they had fought, and Celestia had been forced to utilize the Elements of Harmony against her sister, drawing power from some of the last artifacts from the world they had once traversed together, the artifacts that had become the central pillar of all her people held dear. She had imprisoned her upon the lunar surface, far from her people, forced to wait for centuries until her sentence had finally been completed. That sentence was nearing its end; within twenty years, her sister would be freed. Then, they would both have to face the consequences of their actions.
The white-furred alicorn closed her eyes briefly, the hint of a smile returning to her face. Though the idea of meeting with her sister after all those years should have been worrying to her, she could feel that she and Luna would weather the ordeal together. Somehow, she and her sister would be all right. And when she returned, Celestia would make sure that she was welcomed as her equal.
She moved to turn back from the balcony, when a pair of the shimmering lights in the blackened skies caught her gaze. Pausing, she glanced up at the pair, watching as they grew steadily larger, moving about each other as they descended in the distance. Her eyes widened as she witnessed bright flashes of light erupting from the pair, the bolts of red and green crisscrossing through the atmosphere. Each impact upon their increasingly resolved forms caused a faint shade of blue to obscure them.
As they descended, it was clear that the first was much larger than the second, its pair of broad, metallic double-wings illuminated by the ruby and emerald energy bolts as it dropped at a slower, continuous pace. The puny shape accompanying it was barely visible, the forked, compact body darting and buzzing about its plodding, immense counterpart, assailing it from all sides as it swerved and dived, its form shuddering whenever a crimson blast managed to intercept it.
Celestia moved to the edge of her balcony, her jaw agape as she watched the pair engage in their aerial duel. The sight was one she hadn't witnessed in a thousand years, one she had hoped would never again enter her vision. Memories buried under centuries of her rule burst forth like a flood from a ruptured dam, beings and events lost to history flashing to the forefront of her mind, the emotions they stirred pulling with the strength and ferocity of a hurricane. Wonder, despair, warmth, anger, all were caught in the swirling vortex, amalgamating into a mass of confusion as those years surged forth, nearly threatening to overwhelm her. Above the storm of emotion, however, one sensation rose to the forefront.
A shiver trailed down the alicorn's spine as an overwhelming dread coursed through her, ignoring her attempts to shove aside her distress. The strange craft that hurtled through the sky above her lands were not merely strange interlopers that had brought their battle to her ponydom. There were everything she had hoped to protect her people from, everything that she had sworn to leave behind. Her horn began to glow as her expression turned from shock to a determined stare, a readied spell charging at its tip, the glowing ball beginning to swell as the Princess of the Sun mustered her powers against the two invading craft.
Then, she hesitated, the rapid buildup of power within the regal alicorn halting abruptly as a sudden, vaguely familiar sensation gripped her form. Though she wished to remove the foreign entities from the skies above her people's lands, an almost subconscious warning echoed within her mind, its subtle cue slowly degrading her sense of determination. Somehow, despite her own wishes, she could feel it would be a mistake to interfere with the pair of objects that dueled across the night sky. A moment later, her adherence to the warning would prove itself correct.
A slow, orange pulse burst forth from the plodding, double-winged shape, tracking its way around towards its compact target, its speed and maneuverability increasing with each passing second as it neared its target, finally drawing near the forked shape. A fiery explosion blossomed in the darkened skies above, the brief supernova casting its glow upon the land below. The blast caught the puny craft with its rapid expansion, setting it ablaze as it began hurtling out of control, its course turning into a shallow dive as it struggled to right itself.
As the little thing fell from the skies, a second pulse of light was loosed from its falling form, the smaller, cyan-hued burst smaller and faster than its larger counterpart. The burst slammed into the rear of the immense, metallic invader, the bluish glow failing to rise as the projectile impacted against its target. The resulting detonation tore through the craft's metallic hide, and it too caught flame as its descent became more and more uncontrolled, the double sets of wings wavering and tipping towards one side as it careened downwards on a separate path from its attacker. Celestia stared as the two defeated craft hurtled down towards the horizon, their flaming forms eventually disappearing somewhere beyond the treeline of the distant, darkened forest on the other side of the valley that stretched out beyond Canterlot's boundaries. Any impact went unheard within the vast depths of the immense wood, and the night skies were tranquil once more.
Celestia stared out into that distant point on the edge of the horizon, watching wordlessly as her mind churned. She thought of going to examine the downed objects herself, to try and piece together why they had chosen to annihilate each other in the skies above Equestria. But that same dissuading whisper rose within her mind, the powerful suggestion that she had learned to adhere to throughout her many, many years keeping her from considering that course of action. There was a certain clarity that accompanied the brief invasion of her thoughts, enough to reassure her that the occurrence would be dealt with, though by whom she could not yet be sure of.
The Solar alicorn gave a small shake of her head, shoving aside her doubts as she turned her gaze back towards the distant, shining stars suspended in the blackness above. She would trust the otherworldly guidance as she always had, relying upon it to make sense of the swirling maelstrom of events and emotions. For a moment, she stretched her senses out towards those stars, attempting to discern the state of the world she'd once known.
A gasp escaped her lips as she recoiled almost immediately, her eyes widening with fear at what she had found. The vile, chilling tendrils of darkness she could feel twisting their way through the stars engulfed all within the range of her awareness, the thorny grip of fear curling itself around the galaxy itself. The darkness itself had always existed, occasionally pooling into a twisted mass around a location in turmoil, migrating from place to place as distress shifted from being to being, a necessary, if unfortunate, fact of life. The thought of it taking hold across the thousands of systems spread throughout the stellar void sent a shiver of terror through Celestia, her mind racing as she attempted to comprehend what could have possibly happened in the centuries since she and her sister had left. Had those she had known all those years ago failed in their efforts to defeat the darkness that had plagued their entire civilization? Had the followers of that shadowy evil truly risen up to defeat those who had upheld peace and justice for millennia before Luna or herself had been brought into existence?
The white alicorn shook her head, breaking the train of thought abruptly. It was not her place to worry about what occurred among the stars. She had spent enough time among them already, and she had made the decision to keep her people separate from that realm centuries ago. Perhaps, when her subjects were ready to enter that complex, wondrous world on their own, and when the time was right, she would allow them to venture forth and experience the galaxy for themselves. Until then, she would keep them safe and protected as she always had, allowing them to remain blissfully ignorant of the incredible and terrifying aspects of existence that lay beyond the veil of stars.
Taking one last glance at the moon, Celestia turned back towards her chambers, pushing the stressful worries from her thoughts as she left the balcony. She would leave the future to unfold as it was meant to, and would not allow her fears of the future to interfere with her duties as ruler. The sun would need raising in a few hours, and though the Princess of the Sun did not strictly require it, a small nap sounded wonderful right about then.