NOTES: After over a year of wanting to write a Star Wars fic, I recently
stumbled upon the plot I wanted.
May God have mercy on us all...heheh.
First, I'd like to thank my most-helpful beta readers
I guess this is technically an A/A story, but there's much more-political intrigue, desperate battles, Obi-torture-a little of everything. So I hope if you like some of the latter type scenes, you won't entirely dismiss this as "just another A/A story." It isn't.
And yes, there is an Episode III that follows this.
I included some plot elements from known portions of the AotC storyline. I've also left many other portions out. This is not an AU. I've made considerable efforts to conform to the events expressed in the films/novelizations. At the same time, however, I know Lucas's story will no doubt be much different from mine. Consider it not an alternate universe, but a "parallel" one.
Regarding the EU: I incorporated a few bits here and there from Mr. Zahn, but by and large ignored the rest of it. As I said, my research consisted mainly of the films/novelizations.
DISCLAIMER: I don't own Star Wars or its characters. I just use them to further my own demented visions. I'm not making money off this, because I'm sure there's a much more "productive" way of spending my time than writing fanfic, but this is much more fun.
Comments/speculation/feedback/etc. are ALWAYS welcome. Also, if you find yourself enjoying this fic, don't hesitate to inform your friends. I'm not an egomaniac, but I'd like to think if this is a good story, it won't go unnoticed.
And now, as my favorite Sith once put it, I will "dispense with the pleasantries" and get on with the story.
Star Wars
Episode II: Duel of the Fates
Chapter I: Old Friends, New Enemies
"Sithspawn!" Rai Aks cursed. The familiar sight of hyperspace travel in the small transport's cockpit windows abruptly resolved into starlines, which converged into individual points of light.
"Looks like there's something wrong with the hyperdrive," he said to his copilot, a Lieutenant. "And something tells me we'll catch Kessel for this. I don't think the Senator's in a very patient mood."
The Gran's eyestalks scanned various instruments, coming to rest on the hyperdrive monitor. All of the status readouts were a cheerful green except the hyperspace motivator's indicator light, which was glowing red.
Rai stifled an upcoming curse. "Motivator's out. See what you can find on the nav display."
The Lieutenant brought up the charts for their current position, then muttered something unintelligible under his breath. "Looks like we're in the middle of nowhere, Sir. No inhabited planets in sublight range."
"Wonderful Just wonderful," Rai grumbled. "Looks like we're going to have to do this ourselves. You go back there and tell the Senator that he'd better inform the Budget Committee he's going to be late. Then take the 'droids and see what you can do with the motivator. I'm going to stay here and keep an eye on the sensors."
His copilot rose from his seat, exiting the cockpit and entering the cabin occupied by Senator Aks Moe of Malastare.
"What's going on here?" the Senator fumed. "I felt us drop into realspace, and there's no way I can put my tax reform amendment in Chairman Antilles' bill if I miss this meeting!" He paused momentarily, then resumed his outburst. "When I get back I'm going to have a very long chat with Lieutenant Rees and his maintenance crew…"
To his credit, the Lieutenant stood up to the politician's notorious temper rather well. "I'm sorry, Senator, but our hyperdrive motivator is offline, and there's nowhere close we can pull into for repairs. I'm going to see if I can get the blasted thing fixed. You should probably tell Coruscant we're stuck for the time being."
"Very well," Moe conceded, turning to his aide. "You heard the Lieutenant. Tell Coruscant we're having problems with our ship."
***
Several minutes passed. The hyperdrive motivator had overheated, and the Lieutenant managed to locate a spare core in the ship's limited stash of emergency replacement components.
In the cockpit, Rai noticed a new contact appear on his sensor readout. He tapped his comlink to his copilot. "Contact, Lieutenant, bearing 241, just reverting to realspace. Maybe we can get some help installing that core."
However, when he glanced back to the sensors, he felt his breath stop in his throat.
The identification screen showed the new contact was a warship, about the size of a light cruiser.
But it was unlike any light cruiser Captain Rai Aks had ever seen, in all his years of piloting.
The contact's hull shape was angular, menacing. Sloping nose of interconnecting planar surfaces. Square-shaped midsection, joined to stubby, swept wing like structures. Each "wing" had large turbolaser mounts protruding from the tip. More turbolaser barrels protruded from the underside of the nose. In the rear, five large engine nozzles were visible, arranged in a star pattern. Even more puzzling, the ship showed no military or civilian insignia of any kind.
Unmarked, but for one vaguely disturbing feature-every single square centimeter of the hull was painted a fearsome blood-red.
"Lieutenant," he said into the comlink, his voice shaky, "you'd better get up here. I have a bad feeling about this."
Maybe I am overreacting, he thought. I shouldn't assume his intentions are hostile.
The copilot came rushing through the cockpit entry door and began strapping himself back into his seat. "Captain, there's no way I can get that melted core out of the motivator in anything less than half an hour…" His voice trailed off as his gaze went to the contact display.
"Should we try transmitting?" he offered. "Maybe it's some experimental vessel on a test run." Neither his tone nor his appearance, however, gave any sense of reassurance.
Rai flipped the external com emitter.
"Unknown vessel, this is Republic Senate transport ship 119-0071. Please identify yourself."
No response.
Rai sent the message a second time.
Silence.
"Unknown vessel, under the Galactic Code of Celestial Navigation, you are obligated to identify yourself to a Republic Officer. Do you acknowledge?"
Still no response.
"Sir," the copilot yelled, "enemy vessel is powering up shields and weapons!"
"Sith!" Rai swore again. The Senatorial transport was designed for comfort, respectable speed, and reliability, not combat. The shields were good against occasional asteroid strikes or sudden radiation flares, but little else. The two small turbolasers the ship carried would have no effect on anything larger than a starfighter, he knew.
No one had attacked a Senate vessel in two hundred years, he remembered. Why now?
"We can't fight, we can't go to hyperspace, but maybe we can run. Go to full power on all engines, I'm going to try to send out a distress call."
The ship shuddered with the sudden application of increased power, as Rai once again manned the com unit, this time keying in the emergency transmit channel frequency.
"Emergency, emergency, Senate Vessel 119-0071, am being pursued by hostile unknown vessel, under attack, repeat, under attack…."
The entire ship slammed upwards and sideways simultaneously. Rai was thrown against the overhead instrument panel, temporarily stunned. His hand had slipped off the transmit switch. "Damage report?" he barked.
"Captain, we've just taken hits to the number two engine. Aft shields are down to 5 percent, and that ship's still clos…"
The occupants of the shuttle were dead before they realized what happened. A turbolaser shot from the red warship had penetrated the aft cabin bulkhead, instantly depressurizing the vessel. A fraction of a second later, another turbolaser round reached an exposed fuel cell in the central engine pod. The Transport vanished in a spectacular blast.
Its killer adjusted course slightly, disappearing into hyperspace as mysteriously as it arrived.
**
Val'ri was having a busy day, even for one who monitored communications to and from the Senate building. Today was the day of the monthly meeting of the Senate Budget Committee, and no doubt, planetary and system governments were making urgent requests and demands for information from their Senatorial representatives. Millions of projects, from renovation of the third floor balcony of Alderaan's embassy building, to the small Republic Fleet's upcoming starfighter procurement contracts were at stake, and everyone was naturally demanding a piece of a rather finite pie.
She was snapped from her momentarily straying thoughts when, suddenly, one of the emergency monitoring relay indicators flashed a red and yellow pattern.
Flashing red and yellow was the code reserved only for Republic Senators in distress.
She rapidly switched the com to the proper channel. "This is Comm Central, report."
"Central," came a voice, anything but calm and professional, "incoming transmission from Senate transport 0071, priority 1!"
Priority 1 was only assigned to messages used in time of imminent attack or during wartime.
"Copy, relay station 71, duplicate and then transmit to Fleet Headquarters at once!" Val'ri ordered.
"Emergency frequencies? Priority 1 clearance? What in Kessel is going on?" she asked her display monitors.
"I don't care," Admiral Rik Haas of the Republic Fleet roared at the holovid screen. "Major, it is ridiculous to expect me to effectively defend a third of the outer rim with only a single undersized fleet! My starfighter maintenance crews are reduced to scavenging from salvaged wrecks just to keep their crates out of the hangar long enough to clean out the mynocks in their engine nacelles! Now I don't care what you have to do, but you tell those credit-pinching nerf herders in the Budget committee to pull their…"
Suddenly, a young Lieutenant, a courier, bolted into the room, panting from the exertion of running the five flights of stairs that separated the Admiral's office from the communications room.
Of course, Haas was not surprised that the fleet could scarcely allocate enough credits to pay for repairing the balky turbolifts. Just another item on a long list of grievances against the Senate.
"WHAT?" Haas roared, furious that the young officer would interrupt his tirade. Delivery of a good tongue-lashing was a prerogative of rank that Haas held dearly.
"Admiral, Communications received a relay message from Comm Central in the Senate building. Senator Aks Moe of Malastare sent an emergency transmission that his vessel was being attacked!"
"What?" Haas asked him as he jumped to his feet. He nearly ran for the Operations Room, simultaneously barking orders to be relayed.
"Get me the Supreme Chancellor's office online NOW!! And for Force sake, put all units on alert!"
**
The room, like all those in the lower depths of Coruscant, had not seen light in at least a millennia. The omnipresent vertical migration of the city populace left the lowermost levels in abandoned disrepair. As nature abhors a vacuum, many dark and fearsome inhabitants had reclaimed the abandoned depths of the city. Little else about the shadowy, malevolent invaders was known, and few had any desire to investigate.
No being of good reputation, regardless of species, would venture to such depths, and a brave warrior would not have been thought a coward by his comrades for refusing to do so. To visit the lowermost levels of Coruscant and return intact was the domain of a creature possessing either great malice of his own, or highly formidable powers.
Darth Sidious, however, was precisely that sort of being, and had little to fear in such a region. Places of darkness, mystery, and evil were his preferred environment, and they served as an ideal secret base of operations.
Operations that were once again moving, in the eternal patience of the subtlety of a Sith. He was entirely undaunted by the defeat of the Federation army at Naboo, for the invasion was merely a means to the main objective, which had been accomplished. The loss of Maul, even, proved to be only a minor setback, for it was by indirect means that the next phase of his plan was to proceed. Ever the opportunist, he realized that the outcome of the Battle of Naboo in fact worked to his advantage.
Qui-Gon Jinn, a formidable Jedi and powerful enemy, was dead. Sidious' own identity had not been compromised, and the Trade Federation viceroy, now out of prison and howling for revenge on the Naboo, was providing all the financial support the operation required. But most importantly, Palpatine was now the Supreme Chancellor.
His musing was interrupted by the realization that he had an important transmission to send. He made way to the holoprojector in the center of the room and his pale hand emerged to flip the transmission switch.
The translucent blue form of another robed figure materialized near the holoprojector. The image belonged to Sidious' new apprentice, Darth Raptor.
Raptor was humanoid, of medium height , and the robes concealed a lean but muscular body honed to perfection by untold hours of strenuous practice. His blue skin and glowing red eyes, menacing beneath the shadows of his hood, marked him as a Chiss.
"What is thy bidding, my master?" the hologram spoke from its kneeling posture.
"You are to go to Wayland. There, you will meet with our contact Jango Fett and our friend, the Viceroy."
"Yes, Master." Sidious ended the transmission, and Raptor's form vanished, plunging the room back into darkness.
Sidious returned to his thoughts. The overwhelming sense of his coming destiny proved difficult to contain. After meticulous, impeccably subtle maneuvering, the pieces were now in their assigned places. The sense of dark power and destiny surged through him, like an unrelenting tidal wave swallowing up all in its destructive path towards the entirely unsuspecting shoreline.
May God have mercy on us all...heheh.
First, I'd like to thank my most-helpful beta readers
I guess this is technically an A/A story, but there's much more-political intrigue, desperate battles, Obi-torture-a little of everything. So I hope if you like some of the latter type scenes, you won't entirely dismiss this as "just another A/A story." It isn't.
And yes, there is an Episode III that follows this.
I included some plot elements from known portions of the AotC storyline. I've also left many other portions out. This is not an AU. I've made considerable efforts to conform to the events expressed in the films/novelizations. At the same time, however, I know Lucas's story will no doubt be much different from mine. Consider it not an alternate universe, but a "parallel" one.
Regarding the EU: I incorporated a few bits here and there from Mr. Zahn, but by and large ignored the rest of it. As I said, my research consisted mainly of the films/novelizations.
DISCLAIMER: I don't own Star Wars or its characters. I just use them to further my own demented visions. I'm not making money off this, because I'm sure there's a much more "productive" way of spending my time than writing fanfic, but this is much more fun.
Comments/speculation/feedback/etc. are ALWAYS welcome. Also, if you find yourself enjoying this fic, don't hesitate to inform your friends. I'm not an egomaniac, but I'd like to think if this is a good story, it won't go unnoticed.
And now, as my favorite Sith once put it, I will "dispense with the pleasantries" and get on with the story.
Star Wars
Episode II: Duel of the Fates
Chapter I: Old Friends, New Enemies
"Sithspawn!" Rai Aks cursed. The familiar sight of hyperspace travel in the small transport's cockpit windows abruptly resolved into starlines, which converged into individual points of light.
"Looks like there's something wrong with the hyperdrive," he said to his copilot, a Lieutenant. "And something tells me we'll catch Kessel for this. I don't think the Senator's in a very patient mood."
The Gran's eyestalks scanned various instruments, coming to rest on the hyperdrive monitor. All of the status readouts were a cheerful green except the hyperspace motivator's indicator light, which was glowing red.
Rai stifled an upcoming curse. "Motivator's out. See what you can find on the nav display."
The Lieutenant brought up the charts for their current position, then muttered something unintelligible under his breath. "Looks like we're in the middle of nowhere, Sir. No inhabited planets in sublight range."
"Wonderful Just wonderful," Rai grumbled. "Looks like we're going to have to do this ourselves. You go back there and tell the Senator that he'd better inform the Budget Committee he's going to be late. Then take the 'droids and see what you can do with the motivator. I'm going to stay here and keep an eye on the sensors."
His copilot rose from his seat, exiting the cockpit and entering the cabin occupied by Senator Aks Moe of Malastare.
"What's going on here?" the Senator fumed. "I felt us drop into realspace, and there's no way I can put my tax reform amendment in Chairman Antilles' bill if I miss this meeting!" He paused momentarily, then resumed his outburst. "When I get back I'm going to have a very long chat with Lieutenant Rees and his maintenance crew…"
To his credit, the Lieutenant stood up to the politician's notorious temper rather well. "I'm sorry, Senator, but our hyperdrive motivator is offline, and there's nowhere close we can pull into for repairs. I'm going to see if I can get the blasted thing fixed. You should probably tell Coruscant we're stuck for the time being."
"Very well," Moe conceded, turning to his aide. "You heard the Lieutenant. Tell Coruscant we're having problems with our ship."
***
Several minutes passed. The hyperdrive motivator had overheated, and the Lieutenant managed to locate a spare core in the ship's limited stash of emergency replacement components.
In the cockpit, Rai noticed a new contact appear on his sensor readout. He tapped his comlink to his copilot. "Contact, Lieutenant, bearing 241, just reverting to realspace. Maybe we can get some help installing that core."
However, when he glanced back to the sensors, he felt his breath stop in his throat.
The identification screen showed the new contact was a warship, about the size of a light cruiser.
But it was unlike any light cruiser Captain Rai Aks had ever seen, in all his years of piloting.
The contact's hull shape was angular, menacing. Sloping nose of interconnecting planar surfaces. Square-shaped midsection, joined to stubby, swept wing like structures. Each "wing" had large turbolaser mounts protruding from the tip. More turbolaser barrels protruded from the underside of the nose. In the rear, five large engine nozzles were visible, arranged in a star pattern. Even more puzzling, the ship showed no military or civilian insignia of any kind.
Unmarked, but for one vaguely disturbing feature-every single square centimeter of the hull was painted a fearsome blood-red.
"Lieutenant," he said into the comlink, his voice shaky, "you'd better get up here. I have a bad feeling about this."
Maybe I am overreacting, he thought. I shouldn't assume his intentions are hostile.
The copilot came rushing through the cockpit entry door and began strapping himself back into his seat. "Captain, there's no way I can get that melted core out of the motivator in anything less than half an hour…" His voice trailed off as his gaze went to the contact display.
"Should we try transmitting?" he offered. "Maybe it's some experimental vessel on a test run." Neither his tone nor his appearance, however, gave any sense of reassurance.
Rai flipped the external com emitter.
"Unknown vessel, this is Republic Senate transport ship 119-0071. Please identify yourself."
No response.
Rai sent the message a second time.
Silence.
"Unknown vessel, under the Galactic Code of Celestial Navigation, you are obligated to identify yourself to a Republic Officer. Do you acknowledge?"
Still no response.
"Sir," the copilot yelled, "enemy vessel is powering up shields and weapons!"
"Sith!" Rai swore again. The Senatorial transport was designed for comfort, respectable speed, and reliability, not combat. The shields were good against occasional asteroid strikes or sudden radiation flares, but little else. The two small turbolasers the ship carried would have no effect on anything larger than a starfighter, he knew.
No one had attacked a Senate vessel in two hundred years, he remembered. Why now?
"We can't fight, we can't go to hyperspace, but maybe we can run. Go to full power on all engines, I'm going to try to send out a distress call."
The ship shuddered with the sudden application of increased power, as Rai once again manned the com unit, this time keying in the emergency transmit channel frequency.
"Emergency, emergency, Senate Vessel 119-0071, am being pursued by hostile unknown vessel, under attack, repeat, under attack…."
The entire ship slammed upwards and sideways simultaneously. Rai was thrown against the overhead instrument panel, temporarily stunned. His hand had slipped off the transmit switch. "Damage report?" he barked.
"Captain, we've just taken hits to the number two engine. Aft shields are down to 5 percent, and that ship's still clos…"
The occupants of the shuttle were dead before they realized what happened. A turbolaser shot from the red warship had penetrated the aft cabin bulkhead, instantly depressurizing the vessel. A fraction of a second later, another turbolaser round reached an exposed fuel cell in the central engine pod. The Transport vanished in a spectacular blast.
Its killer adjusted course slightly, disappearing into hyperspace as mysteriously as it arrived.
**
Val'ri was having a busy day, even for one who monitored communications to and from the Senate building. Today was the day of the monthly meeting of the Senate Budget Committee, and no doubt, planetary and system governments were making urgent requests and demands for information from their Senatorial representatives. Millions of projects, from renovation of the third floor balcony of Alderaan's embassy building, to the small Republic Fleet's upcoming starfighter procurement contracts were at stake, and everyone was naturally demanding a piece of a rather finite pie.
She was snapped from her momentarily straying thoughts when, suddenly, one of the emergency monitoring relay indicators flashed a red and yellow pattern.
Flashing red and yellow was the code reserved only for Republic Senators in distress.
She rapidly switched the com to the proper channel. "This is Comm Central, report."
"Central," came a voice, anything but calm and professional, "incoming transmission from Senate transport 0071, priority 1!"
Priority 1 was only assigned to messages used in time of imminent attack or during wartime.
"Copy, relay station 71, duplicate and then transmit to Fleet Headquarters at once!" Val'ri ordered.
"Emergency frequencies? Priority 1 clearance? What in Kessel is going on?" she asked her display monitors.
"I don't care," Admiral Rik Haas of the Republic Fleet roared at the holovid screen. "Major, it is ridiculous to expect me to effectively defend a third of the outer rim with only a single undersized fleet! My starfighter maintenance crews are reduced to scavenging from salvaged wrecks just to keep their crates out of the hangar long enough to clean out the mynocks in their engine nacelles! Now I don't care what you have to do, but you tell those credit-pinching nerf herders in the Budget committee to pull their…"
Suddenly, a young Lieutenant, a courier, bolted into the room, panting from the exertion of running the five flights of stairs that separated the Admiral's office from the communications room.
Of course, Haas was not surprised that the fleet could scarcely allocate enough credits to pay for repairing the balky turbolifts. Just another item on a long list of grievances against the Senate.
"WHAT?" Haas roared, furious that the young officer would interrupt his tirade. Delivery of a good tongue-lashing was a prerogative of rank that Haas held dearly.
"Admiral, Communications received a relay message from Comm Central in the Senate building. Senator Aks Moe of Malastare sent an emergency transmission that his vessel was being attacked!"
"What?" Haas asked him as he jumped to his feet. He nearly ran for the Operations Room, simultaneously barking orders to be relayed.
"Get me the Supreme Chancellor's office online NOW!! And for Force sake, put all units on alert!"
**
The room, like all those in the lower depths of Coruscant, had not seen light in at least a millennia. The omnipresent vertical migration of the city populace left the lowermost levels in abandoned disrepair. As nature abhors a vacuum, many dark and fearsome inhabitants had reclaimed the abandoned depths of the city. Little else about the shadowy, malevolent invaders was known, and few had any desire to investigate.
No being of good reputation, regardless of species, would venture to such depths, and a brave warrior would not have been thought a coward by his comrades for refusing to do so. To visit the lowermost levels of Coruscant and return intact was the domain of a creature possessing either great malice of his own, or highly formidable powers.
Darth Sidious, however, was precisely that sort of being, and had little to fear in such a region. Places of darkness, mystery, and evil were his preferred environment, and they served as an ideal secret base of operations.
Operations that were once again moving, in the eternal patience of the subtlety of a Sith. He was entirely undaunted by the defeat of the Federation army at Naboo, for the invasion was merely a means to the main objective, which had been accomplished. The loss of Maul, even, proved to be only a minor setback, for it was by indirect means that the next phase of his plan was to proceed. Ever the opportunist, he realized that the outcome of the Battle of Naboo in fact worked to his advantage.
Qui-Gon Jinn, a formidable Jedi and powerful enemy, was dead. Sidious' own identity had not been compromised, and the Trade Federation viceroy, now out of prison and howling for revenge on the Naboo, was providing all the financial support the operation required. But most importantly, Palpatine was now the Supreme Chancellor.
His musing was interrupted by the realization that he had an important transmission to send. He made way to the holoprojector in the center of the room and his pale hand emerged to flip the transmission switch.
The translucent blue form of another robed figure materialized near the holoprojector. The image belonged to Sidious' new apprentice, Darth Raptor.
Raptor was humanoid, of medium height , and the robes concealed a lean but muscular body honed to perfection by untold hours of strenuous practice. His blue skin and glowing red eyes, menacing beneath the shadows of his hood, marked him as a Chiss.
"What is thy bidding, my master?" the hologram spoke from its kneeling posture.
"You are to go to Wayland. There, you will meet with our contact Jango Fett and our friend, the Viceroy."
"Yes, Master." Sidious ended the transmission, and Raptor's form vanished, plunging the room back into darkness.
Sidious returned to his thoughts. The overwhelming sense of his coming destiny proved difficult to contain. After meticulous, impeccably subtle maneuvering, the pieces were now in their assigned places. The sense of dark power and destiny surged through him, like an unrelenting tidal wave swallowing up all in its destructive path towards the entirely unsuspecting shoreline.