Force Unleashed II: The Rebellion

Chapter One

He was born for two things: to serve and to suffer. It was his past, present, and future. His earliest memory was fire; a beautiful world was ablaze, the inhabitants howling in pain. He did not remember his father, but he had been there, until he was murdered and left in the rumble.

In his future, he saw death. Worlds would suffer, as he had suffered, and all because his master willed it. His future was twisted metal, burning flesh, searing pain. Beyond that there was nothing. There could be no foresight when the present burned vividly in his mind.

The present was blinding torture and a cloud of fear. He fed off the fear- it rippled off of his victims- and used his pain to fill himself with hate. Darkness filled his mind and soul and leaped from himself to his victims in dazzling forks of lightning. The writhed in agony as he held them in the air, convulsing and thrashing as volts of misery raced through them. He dropped all them to the ground in one instant, allowing himself pleasure in the fleshy crash to the stone floor. The victims were at his mercy, though they would beg to die had they the strength to speak. He had taken that strength from them, though they would regain it. He would need them to.

Starkiller stared through his mask at the five attendants lying on the floor. "Where is she?" he roared in his monstrous, half machine voice. Some had compared him to Vader, though the talk had not lasted. Talk of Vader led to death, and the people feared Starkiller more anyway. Vader had at least seemed like a man. Starkiller was a beast.

"Where is she?" he repeated, lifting one of the poor Alderanians off the ground. His claws dug into the woman's neck.

"I don't know," she cried. "She didn't tell us she was leaving. No one knows where she is. You have to believe me!"

Starkiller took her body in his other hand and tore it free of her neck. He dropped the gory mass to the floor and lifted another attendant by the throat. "Where is the Princess?" he asked again. The man choked on his phloem as he sobbed. Not a word could escape him as he gargled in terror. Starkiller slammed the man's head against the marble wall and dropped the corpse to the floor.

The mob outside the palace was growing. Shouts were clouding the air, and the crowd was edging closer and closer to the quarantine line. The stormtroopers leveled their E-11 blaster rifles on the civilians. The captain issued an order across the plaza on the megaphone.

"All civilians are to stand down immediately. This palace is being secured by order of the Emperor himself. All civilians not returning to their homes will be viewed as criminals and be dealt with accordingly. Return to your homes immediately!"

The mob moved closer. The stormtroopers opened fire.

Starkiller was alone. There had been hundreds in the palace.

The princess truly was missing; he could not sense her anywhere on the grounds. Perhaps the attendants had been truthful when begging for their lives, but it made little difference. They had been associated with a rebel for years and were surely corrupt whether truthful or not. And it was not Starkiller's duty to judge who was innocent and who was guilty. He simply dealt justice.

He surveryed every passage of the palace again. He would tear down every wall if he must, but he would find a clue to the princess's location. He would uproot the entire planet if he had to. That was his job.

The comlink built into his faceplate buzzed. The Emperor had installed it when he had rebuilt Starkiller after the battle on the Death Star so that he could be contacted at all times. The comlink had a long range transmitter, allowing him to be contacted from anywhere in the galaxy- or tracked anywhere in the galaxy.

"Starkiller," he answered. He waited for the captain to report.

"Sir, the mob is storming the palace grounds. We're trying to withhold them, but we can't contain a group this size. They may enter and tamper with the scene."

"Kill them," Starkiller replied.

There was a hesitation. He could feel the captain's cowardice, an inability to do what was necessary. Soldiers like that would not last long in the Imperial Military. "We're trying, sir," he finally replied. "There are too many of them."

"Then don't stop shooting." Starkiller severed the link. He didn't have time for civilians. He needed to discover Princess Leia's destination before she escaped halfway across the galaxy and rallied the alliance that Starkiller himself had promised only months earlier. That was before he learned that the Empire could never fall, however. He had long since accepted that his role was to carry out his missions, not reflect on the moral implications of what he was doing. It was those sort of reflections that had cost him half of his real body. It was that that had caused his pain.

His mask and torso armor were sutured to his flesh and bone, not encasing it. Every minute of every day and night was agony. Starkiller could never sleep- he had attempted it only twice, to find his mind could not escape its torment, and that his body could never accustom itself to his misery. He could only delve deeper into his own pain, and meditate to invite the Dark Side's strength to him. He had learned he did not need sleep when the Force flowed through him so fully.

Starkiller felt anger and resentment working its way up the corridor in front of him. When it rounded the corner, he saw it took the form of a crowd of Alderanians. The stopped silently in front of him. Now they were fear.

The was a spark of courage within one, a small flame among his many fears. He stepped forward and pointed at Starkiller. "The Empire has become an abomination," he said. His voice was echoing weakly off the walls in the total quiet. It lacked the strength he wished it had. "Go back and tell your master that he can't commit crimes against the people forever. He can't just kill everyone in the galaxy and call himself Emperor. He has to see reason!"

Starkiller did not move. He did not speak. He was a statue, a tribute the destruction around him, amid a sea of death. The crowd remained silent, but began moving forward in fearful curiosity. They did not like his silence.

Starkiller wanted them to be afraid. He wanted them to have a thousand miserable thoughts before he tore the life from their bodies. When the spokesman of the crowd was twenty meters away, Starkiller swept in with a flash and drove the claws of his right hand through the man's stomach.

The man groaned in pain. Starkiller pulled his hand up through the man's chest before breaking it out through his ribs. His bloodied body collapsed to the floor. The crowd moved back in horror.

When finally shock left them, the mob was alive with screams of terror and the rumble of every foot racing towards the end of the passage. Starkiller held out his hands and channeled all of his pain into a rain of lighting that jumped through the crowd, engulfing every living thing until a mass of roiling pain came to silent stop when they all had died.