Dedication
In memory of my friend Sam, also known as "Friendly" of the Progenitor server on Star Wars: The Old Republic. I was proud to have known her as someone who never gave up on life. Someone who never stopped living her life. Someone who always saw the best in people even if they couldn't see it in themselves.
"Nearly all people can stand adversity. But if you truly want to test their character, give them power." -Abraham Lincoln
Episode I
The Familiar of Zero
It is a time of heightened tension between the nations of Halkeginia. Civil war has broken out in one of the most powerful nations of Albion. The royal family stands alone, unable to receive aid from their closest ally of Tristain due to their own internal power struggles. Further confounded by growing military tensions as other stronger nations take advantage of the constantly shifting balance of power to conquer old enemies.
Louise Valliere, a second year student at the Tristain Academy of Magic is a black sheep. On verge of being disinherited by her family for her lack of magical power. Sent to the prestigious school to study and train or be cast out. There she consistently strives for excellence only to be met with spectacular failure. The day of the familiar summoning is upon her, and with it, the final chance to prove herself worthy of her heritage.
Meanwhile, a young woman, prepares to launch into her final battle against the Galactic Republic on behalf of the Sith Empire. Even now, she can feel the threads of destiny weaving through the Force, beckoning her onto a new and unfamiliar path where her power in the Dark Side and devotion to the philosophy of the Sith will be put to the ultimate test...
Calista Zarkot considered the standard issue flight suit, which had been placed in her locker by one of her comrades. She knew they were just trying to be protective of her, but it was pointless, and she didn't understand why the others didn't see it her way. Simply put, there were many good reasons why Imperial Fighter pilots had the lowest life expectancy in the entire service. During battles like the one that was fast approaching, more people would die in the first eight seconds of combat than the total population of most minor planets.
Even if a pilot were to survive the destruction of their craft, their odds drop significantly for each second after that. First there was all the debris, all it would take is one screw to pierce and depressurize your suit and it was over. It wouldn't even be an explosive decompression, that would be nearly instant, no, one would have plenty of time to agonize over their impending demise. Unless you manage to bump into a friendly ship, and survive the impact, there was no hope of rescue, finding a single pilot among all the debris that would be left over after combat was a futile effort, one in every hundred thousand was ever rescued after ejecting. And so, Calista didn't bother to wear the suit, a quick death was always preferable to a slow one.
In the pilot's locker room, the ship's squadron were busy preparing themselves for a coming battle, everywhere the pilots were dressing and discussing business or making jokes with one another. The atmosphere was energetic and cheerful, confidence filled the air thicker than the accompanying mixture of body odour and cigarettes.
"So. Denon, I hear it's a lot of fun down there. We should go hit the bars after we conquer this planet, what do you say Cali," asked one of the pilots in the locker room of the Imperial Dreadnought.
"Such things are beneath me. And when did you stop referring to me as 'my Lord'," answered Calista.
The young man smiled at the petite Sith and wrapped an arm around her shoulder, "The first time you ever let me do this…" he said and he leaned in and stole a kiss from her drawing cheers and applause from the other pilots around them.
"My, you're certainly bold, for someone with such an outrageous hair style," she said as she ran a hand through his glimmering golden mane.
"Well 'my Lord' that is why they call me the Barber! One of these days you should let me do something with your stunningly beautiful hair, I could start by making it red, or blue, or give you pink highlights? I do everyone's hair in the squadron you know!"
Calista pushed him off her. "You say my hair is beautiful, and then start suggesting radical changes? Are you really that dense, or are you just a glutton for punishment," she remarked while running a hand through her long snowy white hair. It was long enough to reach down to her middle back and straight.
Barber chuckled "A little splash of color goes a long way towards making things more interesting. Consider the plain Republic fighters. So dull."
Calista narrowed her eyes at the man and shook her head, "You're not making it any better. Besides, you should be more focused on actually scoring some kills instead of making fun of their paint schemes."
Barber scoffed, "It can't be helped, the Republic masses are so devoid of anything resembling class, it is a complete travesty that they haven't submitted to Imperial rule. One day when this is all over, I'm going to be the trendsetter for the galaxy! All the most famous people will come to me to craft their image! It will be glorious," he declared with flamboyance.
One of the other pilots piped up, "Good ol' Barber! Fightin' this war so he can bring class to the classless!"
Barber took a bow to the other pilot. "And what about you Sword? What's your motivation for winning the war?"
Sword as was his callsign gave him a smug smile, "My only motivation is to make my little lucky charm shine," he said as he rushed up behind Calista and picked her up to sit her on his shoulder. The man was easily twice her height and built like a gundark, this action caused the little Sith to roll her eyes and blush slightly.
"Put me down Sword, before I dull your blade," she commanded half heartedly.
"Can't do that mi'lord, I need an extra helping of yer good luck to rub off on me! My partner will be plenty pissed off if I come home in a smelly body bag."
A tall female pilot with long red hair was seated on the bench beside them, the entire left side of her face was made up of grafted skin and she had a cybernetic eye implant. She was holding a lighter in her fingers with the flame ignited and gazed into the fire as if it held the answers to all of life's greatest mysteries and ignored the whole group. Beside her a petite female pilot with dyed blue hair tied up neatly in a bun to fit in her helmet was deeply involved with a book, but looked up from it for a moment to ask around in a deadpan tone, "Must you all be so obnoxious?" after that she went back to her book without any answer.
A young raven haired male pilot sat down between the two girls and put his arm around the one with the book, "Don't mind them Ice. So what're you reading," he asked while looking at her book but didn't get a response.
Suddenly the flaming haired girl closed her lighter and put her arms around the boy's arm and pulled him in close so his arm was set between her generous bosoms. "What about you then darling? Why are you fighting?"
The boy gave her a sly smile, "I'm only here because I got drafted. But being harassed by all you beautiful women is what makes life worth living."
Suddenly a helmet came out of nowhere and slammed into the boy's face, "You dog!"
Another petite female pilot who had long blonde hair with pink streaks dyed into it yelled at the boy who then quickly shoot up and started running around at a frantic pace while she chased after him with murder in her eyes.
"Yup, that's my name! Woof woof," he said while taunting her to keep chasing.
"What about you then Whips? What are you fighting for? Besides indulging your insatiable sadism," asked the buxom red haired pilot.
"That's easy! Someone's gotta make sure this stupid dog behaves himself!"
Calista looked around at all the childish antics going on around her and smiled contentedly. These were the times that made her feel most alive. Her happy moment was then ruined by the emergency klaxons and an announcement.
"General Quarters, General Quarters! Enemy Warships sighted! This is not a drill! All hands to battle stations! All pilots to the flight deck!"
The Commander Air Group slammed her fist into one of the lockers to gather everyone's attention. The Pilots all stood neatly and gave the mighty Sith Lord their undivided attention. She had a powerful presence, a beautiful head of violet hair and the most angry Sith eyes any of them had ever seen. Calista truly revered this woman, they called her 'Tornado' because in battle, she was like a force of nature. "Playtime is over everyone! Tell me who you are?!" she demanded.
"Wings of the Empire! Fly through the Night! Fly high! Fly fast! Fly proud! Nightwing! Hoorah," shouted all the pilots in unison.
The CAG ordered Calista to stand beside her, it was a tradition for the squadron, on the way out to the flight deck, everyone had to touch her head. It began an inside joke that anyone who'd ever touched the adorably petite Sith wouldn't get killed in battle, but no matter how hard Calista tried to refute these claims by telling everyone there was really no such thing as luck, the silly superstition stubbornly persisted. Eventually she gave in and allowed this silly ritual to continue, after all it was just a small morale boost to send everyone into battle in higher spirits. She knew it wasn't done out of disrespect, it wasn't meant to belittle her. Far from it, they did it because they adored and revered her, they did it because she was one of their own. As a half human in the xenophobic Empire, it was something Calista never had anywhere else, acceptance. This was a gesture of acceptance that came to mean the world to her, this was their way of telling her she was part of the family.
To her squadron, she was the Night Flier, the official mascot, and she was proud of it. Fighter combat was the one aspect of her life where she unquestionably ranked among the best of the best, and had the self confidence to believe it. What she enjoyed most was that she wasn't given respect here just because she was Sith, on this ship she had earned her respect, to them, she was their beloved mascot, the symbol of everything they believed in. It felt liberating and empowering for her to think about, fighter piloting was considered a lowly profession in the Imperial Military, only a slight improvement from latrine duty, for the longest time very few Sith would be seen participating in such battles. That was until Darth Marr, a member of the Dark Council jumped into a gunship and joined the fighter pilots in battle, this action inspired many other Sith to follow his example and paved the way for the current generation of the Empire's greatest fighter aces to get into their cockpits and proudly fly with the navy. Of all the Dark Council members, indeed of all Sith, Calista most looked up to Marr, he wasn't a man who would waste words on what he could better accomplish with action. Of all the Sith, his was the example she most tried to emulate. If he saw something wrong in the Empire, he didn't sit around and debate it, he would be the first to stand up and do something about it, and direct action from Darth Marr, always, got the desired results. Woe unto anyone who screwed up enough to attract his notice.
Calista inspected her fighter a speedy and nimble support fighter called the "Bloodmark" with meticulous attention to detail while the deck crew installed her best friend and co-pilot behind her seat and slightly to the left where she could turn and see it, the Imperial Astromech X2-C3. Normally, there were two pilots to each fighter, but Calista and Extwo were an inseparable pair and it wasn't difficult to modify the fighter to accommodate the droid, it was after all a growing trend for pilots to have droid co-pilots, particularly astromechs due to their vastly superior computational and mechanical prowess.
The fighters started to launch one by one until the entire squadron was out. The formation was fairly standard but Nightwing was infamous for the strategic prowess of their bombers, their entire formation was based around utilizing the mighty Legion class bombers to deploy anti-capital ship torpedoes and supplement their air superiority with automated attack drones.
Once the battle was underway a Republic Admiral observed with interest until he slammed his fists down on the map table in fury. "Utter incompetence," he declared. "What are our squadrons doing? Our ships are being left without any air defense whatsoever!"
Over the loudspeaker the Admiral could hear one of his Squadron commanders shouting in a panic, "It's that schutta! We need to get her out of this fight or else we're going to lose! Where are the damn Jedi?"
The Admiral yelled back into his mouthpiece, "The Imps are sending out the Hunters and Razorwing, I need the Jedi to deal with Leong the Sniper and Miriya the Meteor once they come out or we're all stardust! Unless you want that job you'll have to do something about that other one on your own!"
The squadron commander coughed back at the Admiral as if choking on that idea, "Are you insane? That's Calista the Night Flier over there!"
The Admiral slammed his fist into the holo table, "I don't care who she is! Make her dead! Even a Sith can't possibly take your whole squadron on all at once!"
Meanwhile, Calista was coming back around after scoring her latest kill, clearing a path for the Bombers to move against a Republic battleship. Her comm came to life, "Thanks Cali, we got it from here." Calista smiled and nodded towards the bombers as if they could see her when she suddenly remembered something, "Hey, Pyro. You never mentioned what you were fighting for. You asked Doggie, and you heard everyone else, but you never said yours."
The flaming haired pilot answered back from her bomber, "Simple really, I just want to blow things up."
Calista laughed, "Simple enough I guess. Just keep your torpedoes ready, I'll start cleaning the next objective and relay you target data."
She took a deep breath, allowing herself to revel in the thrill of battle, behind her in the cockpit, an Imperial Astromech droid beeped to her, "Calista = Too reckless / / X2 = Recommends regrouping with wingmates."
Calista kept her eyes closed and let her instincts guide her fighter towards her next victim, she squeezed the trigger destroying another Republic fighter.
"You know, that reminds me, where did those guys get to? They were behind us a minute ago."
X2-C3 beeped in response to her, "Calista = Left squadron behind."
Calista raised an eyebrow at that, "Oh? Did I? I guess we're getting carried away." she stated playfully.
X2-C3 suddenly started beeping and whistling frantically "Enemy squadron = closing in / / X2 = Recommends evasive action!"
Calista raised an eyebrow very slightly at this, "A whole squadron? How utterly idiotic. Well X2, if they want to waste resources on us that could be better spent on actual objectives for this battle, who are we to deny them their heroic sacrifice?" She spoke with a disinterested tone, but inwardly, she was thrilled at the prospect.
"X2 ≠ Impressed / / Calista = Should take this seriously + Retreat to flagship for support."
"You need to have a little more faith in me old friend. I'm not an idiot. I've no intention of taking them all on. But. If they're going to over commit their forces to my destruction, then I'm going to keep them busy and away from our bombers. It's simple strategy," she offered.
The Republic squadron commander gritted his teeth as his quarry evaded every single one of his shots. "It's like she can see the future and knows where to be before we fire so that we'll miss."
"That's exactly what she's doing! We need to get smart here. Switch to formation three, get high, get low, and shoot straight, try to hit where you think she's going to be, not where she is. Don't bother with missile locks, her distortion field is making that a complete waste of time and ammunition. We need to give her less room to maneuver."
"Clever." Calista nodded to herself.
The astromech chimed in after her "Republic = Adapting to Calista"
Calista looked over her shoulder at her astromech where she opened her eyes and raised an eyebrow at it. "What? No recommendations?"
If the droid could shrug, she swore it would have just then, "Calista = Disregarding recommendations."
Calista looked forward again. "Just because I don't follow them doesn't mean I disregard them, or that I don't welcome them."
X2 beeped and whistled happily "X2 = Recommend flying close to Republic Valor class / / Anti air = Unable to target at close range + enemy unable to maintain formation."
Calista turned to her trusty Droid once again and smiled genuinely at it. "See now that is a good idea," she said happily and didn't waste any time, hitting her Bloodmark's afterburners and turning towards the Republic battleship closest to her.
The Republic Squadron Commander was stunned speechless for a long moment at her action, "T..t...th.. the audacity," he stuttered as he watched the little Bloodmark ahead of him fly into the tight space between the ship's massive engines and it's primary hull before turning and flying up the long axis of the enormous battleship skimming the surface.
The Commander gripped his throttle tightly and sped off after her, leaving the rest of his squadron in the dust, they broke off and each headed in a different direction trying to predict where they could intercept the enemy ace without having to skim along the nooks and crannies of the ship, a feat of flying far beyond their own skill levels.
The Sith ace lead the enemy commander through every little space the enemy battleship had on it, which only further fueled his intense hatred for her, she knew the design of the ship better than he did, and it showed. To make matters worse, she was firing her weapons indiscriminately into everything she could target in her path, the shields were down on this side of the ship, probably the work of the Imperial bombers which were moving about with impunity thanks to Calista drawing so much attention from the fighters, he could see members of the ship's crew being sucked out into space through the hull breaches.
"I'm going to kill you schutta!" he yelled to himself as he squeezed the trigger on his handle doing his utmost to keep his word. "Damn you! Why won't you just die?"
Calista cringed and clutched at her chest with one hand and gripped her control stick tighter with the other. Her eyes suddenly opened wide, X2 noticed this, looking into her eyes through her reflection in the cockpit glass and chirped in concern for its master "Calista = Unwell?"
"I felt a disturbance in the Force. Like someone out there is in trouble, I felt anger, pain, despair, desperation. Like none I've ever felt before. I can feel it all around and inside of me. Someone needs our help Extwo. I'm going to regroup with the others. Then we'll see what happens and go from there."
Calista pulled up suddenly and broke away from the enemy battleship, following her instincts and letting the Force guide her to where she needed to be. With the flip of a few switches she set her engines to maximum power, engaged her fighter's Tensor Field which more than doubled her speed and hit the afterburners. She pulled away from the enemy ship and her overzealous pursuer at breakneck speed.
The enemy commander blinked at this, but didn't hesitate, he darted after his quarry and fired at it with everything he had, he'd only be able to keep up for a moment before his bulky strike fighter was left in the speedy Bloodmark's ion trail. One lucky blaster bolt emerged from the barrel of his cannon and chased after the Bloodmark with all the Commander's fury behind it and struck true. The first hit he managed to land on the enemy ace.
Though the shields deflected most of the hit, with her power diverted to her engines, enough of the energy managed to bleed through to the hull causing damage to a vital system, the Bloodmark spun out of control.
"Cali?! Cali come in! Break out of there I'll clean off your tail," shouted Barber over the comm as he rushed towards her as fast as his bulky Strike Fighter could travel.
"Barber? I'm trying but my controls are out! Extwo's working on it."
"I got you! Die! Die," yelled the Republic commander as he chased after her trying to close the distance to finish her off.
"Barber. I don't think I'm going to make it this time… I love you," said Calista over the comms while still working on her fighter. She wasn't giving up without a fight.
The Republic Commander glanced down at his power distribution panel and placed his hand on the controls, ready to shift his power to weapons again the instant he was in firing range, but when he looked back up at his target it was gone.
"Cali! Noooo! You'll pay for that! You'll all pay," yelled Barber in agonized fury as he closed in on his target.
The enemy commander was stunned as he started evading his new aggressor. "What?! How?!" he glanced at his targeting computer and saw that his target lock was gone as well, a missile warning blared at him but he was still too furious at Calista to care. "Impossible! Damn it! Damn it! Damn it all! How did she get away?!" he said in anger, then he heard the other Imperial pilot over his comm…
"All that girl ever wanted in her life was acceptance and friendship. All she tried to do here was protect her friends, her family, the only people who ever gave a damn about her, and you killed her! See you in hell," said a tearful Barber through clenched teeth, the Republic Commander launched missile decoys but it was too late for him. His fighter exploded around him.