Disclaimer: I don't own Star Wars. I'll never pretend to own Star Wars. All the concepts and the universe itself was created by George Lucas. The characters were all of my own design ('cept Cade Skywalker, who was created by John Ostrander and Jan Duursema for the Star Wars: Legacy comic book by Dark Horse) and I take credit for the story and the characters, but not the universe. That's Lucas territory...
Prologue:
Control
"Energy. Compressed energy. Compressed energy forced into a single bolt of power, fired forth from a cannon and into the vast emptiness of space, illuminated to an even greater, more brilliant shade of green from the color of the identical bolts soaring through nothingness with it, all of them flying towards the same target. Within a matter of seconds, it violently impacts its target, blowing out pieces of metal and hull into oblivion as the enemy's ship fractures and shatters in another step towards inevitable nothingness. Relentlessly, the green impacts the target until more and more hull breaks apart. Still more energy, still more power flowing into the cannon and then out into space, until with a final salvo of green, the cannon on the other ship explodes into brilliant orange fire, releasing a final, futile tirade of red, which harmlessly deflects off our shields and into the inky blackness of infinity."
Darth Stendalus turned on his heel, smiling. "Think of it, Neutralic! Power. Such power. And it's all at the palm of my hand. In my fingertips." He held out his black gloved right hand and twirled his fingers into a fist one at a time before squeezing them all together, eliciting the sound of leather on leather. He chuckled slightly and untwirled them. "And I have control over that power," He returned to face the battle lighting up the dark blackness of space around his grandiose Star Destroyer, smiling victoriously. "And now, with one fell swoop I can use this power to topple the aging New Republic forever within a matter of days and instill a new Sith order, with power and control over people unlike anything anyone has seen since Emperor Palpatine's legendary reign more than a century and a half ago. So here we stand, on the verge of a new era, one without disorder and bureaucracy and chaotic, unresponsive governments, an era built on power and control, and an era in which we will rule together in power and control. And you, my dearest Neutralic, will be my right hand. The right hand of God, as it were." He turned again to face the rest of the bridge of his Star Destroyer and took a step towards the young girl in a black cloak standing behind him, pulling off the hood of his own black cloak, revealing a perfectly bald head, the hair dead and burned away from his years of training with the Dark Side.
Neutralic nodded her head reverently. "Of course, Master." She smiled weakly, the rest of her face obscured beneath her hood and stepped forward to watch the carnage of the battle playing out beneath her as one of the New Republic Cruisers ripped down the middle, drifting apart as its crew of both men and women spilled into the vacuum of space, like Ruby Bleiles on a slick countertop, flowing in random directions. Still the Super Star Destroyer's turbo lasers fired their green at all ships surrounding them. Some of the New Republic's crew fell into the instant obliteration of the line of fire, but their silent screams fell upon the deaf ears of the New Republic fighters barely staying in the fight, many dropping in rapid succession
"Is it not beautiful, my queen?" Stendalus smiled, clasping his arms behind his back and relishing the loss of life. They stood side by side together for a moment, watching the carnage of the battle, safe on their superior Star Destroyer.
Footsteps echoed across the bridge as Captain Neils Froden's heels clapped along the deck and towards the two Sith Lords. The Captain knelt at his masters' feet, waiting for acknowledgement.
Stendalus turned and looked down appreciatively at the Captain's respect. "Report."
"Everything is proceeding as planned, my Lord. Our three ships landed in proper position, making sure to control the airspace of a different partition of the planet like you planned. The Starslayer reports minor casualties, but our advanced deflector shielding seems to be working well against the Republic's pitiful weapons. The Earthshatterer says that the defenses on the planet's far side are far less than anticipated, but the size of the assembled fleet and those under hurried construction in dry dock did prove that the New Republic did plan to launch an assault from this planet. A few civilians are still on Dantooine's surface, but I told our fleet to focus on those sites less than the military targets. The battle in the sky is far more important than destroying the civilian bases on the planet's surface. They can't go anywhere; after all, we would rip them apart before they could even make it into hyperspace. This battle is all but finished."
"How many civilian ships have the Republic launched thus far?" Stendalus asked.
"As many as they could," Captain Froden smiled maliciously. "They hope to get all of the civilians off the planet surface." He chuckled slightly. "The irony is the ships have nowhere to go. They're filling up ships as fast as they can launch them but they don't stand a chance of making it out of even the upper atmosphere."
Stendalus laughed coldly. "Just as it should be, and with the destruction of the majority of the Republic fleet here on Dantooine, nothing will stand in our way. Dismissed."
Captain Froden saluted Darth Stendalus militarily and walked the length of the bridge, clapping his heels as he had when he had entered.
Darth Neutralic stood in silence next to the Sith Lord, her master, for several seconds before turning to him. "Excuse me, my Lord."
"Of course, my Queen," Darth Stendalus smiled as he nodded her off.
Darth Neutralic hurried down the bridge as quickly and inconspicuously as she could, passing by the Sith knights and padawans all positioned around the bridge stations. She turned left once off the bridge and headed towards the elevators at the end of the hall, towards Captain Froden, who rocked back and forth on his heels, whistling a merry tune.
"Captain Froden," She called out. "A word, if you don't mind."
"Of course, my Lord," Captain Froden turned around and knelt. "How may I be of service?"
"How many civilians were on Dantooine when we landed in the system?" Darth Neutralic asked, the passion rising in her heart.
"Three million, ma'am," Froden nodded. "Compare that to the roughly hundred thousand Republic soldiers in the air right now and that's a crippling blow to the soon-to-be-defenseless Republic, but fear not. This will all be over soon, and you can take your rightful place next to your master's throne."
Darth Neutralic lifted her hands to her face and pulled back her dark hood to her neck and released her blue head tentacles from their oppression, confined under the black cloak. "So you're telling me that of the three point one million people we're murdering right now, that almost all are civilians and innocent bystanders? Is that what you're telling me?"
"Why yes," Captain Forbes nodded, slightly surprised at her reaction to this news. "Is something wrong, ma'am? Last time I checked, Stendalus said he wanted as many civilian casualties as possible, claiming that it would not only demoralize the Republic and let them know that we mean business, but he also wanted to turn this entire system into a graveyard so that no soul would ever come here or try to learn the ways of the Jedi from the temple ruins on the planet's surface."
The blue Twi'lek's eyes burned white hot, the green glistening brighter than normal. She inhaled and exhaled deeply, clenching her teeth and feeling something snap within her.
"Something wrong, my Lord?"
Darth Neutralic whipped out her arm and, hand outstretched, pressed her fingers together, one at a time, willing the Force to enclose around Captain Froden's neck. She lifted him into the air as he choked, kicking madly and clawing his hands across the invisible Force binding his neck and keeping his body suspended in midair. She could feel him and his minimal midi-chlorians fighting the powerful Force in her body, willing her in futility to release his grip. He released a gasp for air, but the second he opened his throat and exhaled; she squeezed harder, crushing his windpipe, squeezing harder and harder until she could no longer watch him suffer. With a quick flick of her wrist and a will of the Force, she snapped his neck and let his suddenly limp body fall to the ground. Rage seethed in her, coursing through her veins, lighting her body on fire again and again. Passion and anger flooded her, invigorating her like nothing before. Stendalus would pay. He would pay for the senseless murder of so many innocent lives with his own.
She held out her right hand lifting Captain Forbes' lifeless body and levitating it in front of her so that his spine curled backwards grotesquely as she walked back onto the bridge, Captain Forbes' corpse still leading her.
Unsurprisingly, Darth Stendalus did not move but instead called to her from across the bridge, not turning from the battle beneath him. "And how did the young, promising Captain Forbes insult you, my love? I can feel your anger bleeding off of you, coming off in beautiful, harmonious waves of rage."
She levitated Forbes' body by the small of his back, watching his spinal cord bend even more unnaturally, hearing the individual vertebrae collapse and crack under the combined weight of the Force and the ships' artificial gravity. With another flick of her wrist, she flung the corpse across the bridge, sliding him to a stop at Stendalus's feet.
Stendalus turned around, staring at her. "What's the matter, my queen?"
"You're murdering three million people to topple a government and take power?" She seethed at him.
"If that's what it takes…" Stendalus's voice trailed off. "The ends will justify the means."
"Three. Million. People. Can you conceive that number?"
"Yes, I can. But can you?" Stendalus looked down at Captain Forbes' limp, lifeless corpse and kicked it, as though Forbes had somehow faked his broken spine and death.
"They are innocent," Neutralic pleaded.
"They are guilty," Stendalus turned to face her, eyes burning. "They serve a government built on lies and misrepresentation, built on chaos and disorder, a government with neither power nor control to effectively govern these people. They need reform."
"But there are people on the surface who don't support the government. One of the failings of democracy lies in the fundamental difference in opinion, support, and participation. What about those people who would support your rule?"
"Don't you mean our rule?"
"Right now? Never. Not in a million years. Not until you atone for this massacre."
Stendalus shook his head. "You just don't understand, do you?"
"I'm afraid I don't," Neutralic confessed. "But I can't let you continue with this."
"So be it." He sighed resolutely and turned to face the battle. "And I was looking forward so much to making you Queen. Kill her."
The Sith knight nearest to Neutralic flipped backwards from his chair and onto the bridge walkway. He pulled out his lightsaber and clicked it on. It hummed as he twirled its red blade around his body several times. He snarled, sneering and leering to force Neutralic into fighting him. With a few grunts and pants, he charged her.
Without so much as a second's hesitation, Neutralic pulled her lightsaber from her belt with The Force and clicked it to life, ducked to the side, and held out her hand as the Sith Knight's downward swing missed entirely, and his head separated his body. His body sank almost instantly, but his head flew until it hit the wall and fell with a sickening smack to the floor.
Neutralic lowered her lightsaber but kept it on. "You'll have to do better than that, my love."
Stendalus sighed but did not face her. "I hoped I would. Very well, if this is how you wish to play it, then this is how we will. Kill her, all of you, now."
Slowly, the thirty other Sith in their swivel chairs on the bridge rose and removed their cloaks, letting them fall lazily to the ground. One by one, they jumped onto the walkway between Stendalus and Neutralic, blocking the path by standing two or three in a line between Neutralic and Stendalus.
Neutralic scowled and approached them slowly. As one, they switched on their lightsabers illuminating the beautiful gray of the walkway with lights of red. With just feet to go, she sprinted in towards them, taking them on five or six at a time, ducking and spinning, slicing and clipping the Sith with her saber, and pushing the interferers out of her way with the Force in her other hand. Slowly but surely, they grew stronger, adapting to her style as her red blade clashed with theirs gracefully. She kicked one Sith into a computer console and elbowed another in the mouth as she locked sabers with a Klatoonian Sith.
"You can't win," Licked the Klatoonian in her face, barely an inch from hers and their entwined sabers.
"My dear child," She laughed maliciously. "You haven't even seen me start."
She pushed him off and her left hand dove into her robes as she began to duel with the last of the Sith in the group with the saber in her right hand. The kicked Sith jumped back into the fray, planning a sneak attack from behind, but Neutralic smiled as she blocked it with the newly placed saber in her left hand, holding off both opponents at once. Both stood amazed as she twirled their sabers out of their hands and gutted them both with her two arms outstretched in opposite directions.
"Next?" She smiled, loving the shocked look on each other Sith's face.
They charged her all at once, forgetting the small group strategy. She took them all on at once, blocking and parrying and slashing, whacking off body parts here and stabbing others through the stomach there. Within minutes, they had all fallen, her graceful, perfect style complimenting the best defense possible with a strong offense.
She turned around to face Stendalus and stood in silence for a moment, dripping in sweat, waiting in vain for him to turn around.
"And what, pray tell, do you plan to do now?" He asked, smirking, not looking away from his perfect battle scene.
"Set right all that I've done wrong in the world, starting by taking you down," She huffed, tired and exhausted from the fight she had just finished.
Stendalus finally turned around to face Neutralic. "My dear, you can never win. Do you not understand that? Even if you do manage to take me down, you can never stop the other two ships, and even if you do manage to do that, you'll never stop the rise of another Sith lord."
"But I will stop you," She panted. "And that's enough for now."
Stendalus shrugged off his cloak and pulled his large dual sided saber staff from his belt and clicked it on, twirling it and stepping backwards into a ready position. "I never thought I would have to fight you."
"And I always hoped I wouldn't have make you," Neutralic swallowed down her breath before resuming her panting.
"But I must defend my soon-to-be Empire, so let's get on with it."
They approached each other, neither one talking, staring down the other, in the futile hope that the other would come to their senses and stand down.
"I'm sorry," She whispered, suddenly filled with guilt and remorse.
"Don't be."
He charged her, demonstrating his fantastic ability with a staff through his well-implemented kicks and spins. She could barely keep up with him, even in her gracefulness. Once or twice she managed to get in a good punch across his face, feeling his jaw crack several times from the force of the blow. They locked sabers several times, and each time he always managed to push her off of him. Still, she persisted, parrying, and doing her best to keep the other side of his blade from catching her off guard. Still, she let the anger and rage of three million innocent lives lost flood her thoughts and feelings. The more she focused on her rage, the more powerful she grew, and the more she felt the Dark Side consume her and eat away at her repentant soul. She added an extra cross-slash in a slight gap in her former lover's defenses and cut his staff in two.
Stendalus stumbled back and looked at it in stunned silence for a second. "It's over," He whispered.
"Not yet," She looked back at him, feeling the tears already creep into her green eyes.
But they both knew what was coming. His staff had always matched him perfectly. Duals were always her specialty, and they had never bothered to teach the other the strengths and weaknesses of their respective styles, always hoping to complement the other in times of trouble.
He charged back into the fray, blocking her strikes, but less effectively, his weakness with two sabers painfully obvious in the absence of his staff. Within a matter of strikes after the division of his power, she sliced off his left hand, the squelching noise of fused skin and bone echoing across the bridge filled with fallen Sith. Stendalus screamed and held his clenched hand over his mutilated wrist, making it look like his saber protruded from his arm. Breathing in and out, he continued fighting her and she felt his power grow with his rage, much like hers, but unlike her, his skills with a single lightsaber could not match her power with doubles. Still she persisted, and within another few strokes, she managed to pull him into a saber lock, crossing her own sabers to block his, eliciting the sound of fizzling and crackling energy around the entire bridge. They held the lock for several seconds and looked into each other's eyes, feeling the pain and remorse of their respective decisions. Without warning she released the saber in her left hand and it flew around his body.
Stendalus broke the lock to defend himself with his remaining half of the saber staff, but Neutralic took advantage of the situation he had played into and cut off his remaining hand. Stendalus screamed again and held his two handless wrists together, collapsing to his knees.
Neutralic called her second saber back to her and hooked it back onto her belt, keeping the other pointed at his face. "Yield," She demanded, tears welling in her eyes as she watched her mutilated beloved look up to her blade from his kneeling position.
"Never," He panted, exhaustion and loss etched on his face. "But only because I am a Sith. Were I any other man I would surrender where I fall. So do it. Let me die with my honor. Murder me. Please, Neutralic. It is the one thing I beg of you."
Neutralic knelt down in front of his body, inhaled a cleansing breath, and conjured lightning in her hand, holding it there, growing it, until it began to singe her palm and fingers from its intensity. She looked into her dear lover's eyes and they spoke to each other with a million words and pictures and reminisces from the year gone by, and with a final thrust of her palm rammed it into Stendalus's solar plexus. Stendalus's eyes flashed blue for a radiant second before they closed, his body folding inward and collapsing in a heap on the floor of the bridge.
Neutralic pulled him into her arms, holding him for several minutes and rubbing his soft, shaven head. Explosions from his continuing battle persisted outside her ship, while she shed silent tears that dripped down the side of her face and onto Stendalus' shaved head. She would stay here, waiting for the New Republic to finish the ship off. She deserved nothing less, and he deserved nothing more than to have her stay here
A voice crept into her head: You aren't at fault here. You have too much to live for to die here. Go, take an escape pod and turn yourself in. They'll probably take you in and train you just like Stendalus did.
She took a breath, weighing the argument. She closed her eyes and meditated for several minutes, the ship rocking beneath her. With another deep breath her eyes re-opened. She couldn't let the other Star Destroyers continue this fight, not after all her hard work. Regardless of Stendalus's life they would not stop the fight. Another person would step forward and take command of the fleet and continue to Coruscant. It would make all of her killing for nothing, and she couldn't let that happen.
With another breath, she stood up and walked towards the navigation station and sat down. She punched up the comm system to The Earthshatterer and The Starslayer. "Stendalus fell in the line of duty and I'm in charge of the fleet. There's been a change of plans," She stated monotonously, holding the tears back for a few seconds. "I want you all to target your firepower on these coordinates," She punched in some coordinates for a Republic military base on the planet's surface. She set a slow speed to the course, as she felt the ship rock slightly from the constant barrage to the ship's shields. She sat and watched as the two massive Star Destroyers maneuvered themselves into position, neither one noticeably damaged from their battle, meaning there was only one way to finish this battle once and for all. She used the ship's incredibly intuitive navigation system to accelerate her Star Destroyer to full speed and simultaneously plotted a course directly through the two sister ship's main power sources. True, she had to sacrifice the last remaining base on the planet's surface for her plan, but she needed to guarantee that the Star Destroyers would be distracted long enough to finish it. She glanced down at the controls. At least the Imperials managed to design their systems into something that anyone could use, be they pilot or no; she rarely trusted her flying skills.
She sprinted out of the bridge and to the group of elevators and pushed the button, opening the doors instantly, which were still waiting for Captain Forbes' never-answered call, and went to the next level down. She needed out. She needed to get off this ship and restart her training anew, without the dark influence of the Force.
Neutralic stepped out on the next floor and headed towards the nearest escape pod, looking out the window as the other two Star Destroyers raced closer and closer towards her own Star Destroyer.
She tore herself away from the window. She would stay on Dantooine for as long as it took. Long enough to regain control of her emotions and stop using the dark side. She would stay there until she had regained control, the control she had just lost when she had murdered a captain, thirty knights and her former master all within a matter of minutes.
A klaxon sounded throughout the ship. "Proximity warning: Please alter course and prepare for impact. Proximity warning: Please alter course and prepare for impact."
She sprinted to the first escape pod and pressed the "release all" button safety feature, which the builders had designed for fast evacuation should an enemy ever attempt to take over the ship, but now it gave her the benefit of no potential pursuers. No one would escape and her faction of the Sith would die on this Star Destroyer.
She dove into the nearest escape pod just as the hatch closed, emitting a slight hiss. For a split second, in which Neutralic thought something had gone wrong, nothing happened. Had she done something wrong? Would she really die on this ship?
She shot off into space and towards the atmosphere of Dantooine, breathing another sigh of relief while the other Star Destroyer's pods followed her path towards the surface. She pulled out the manual controls and did her best to steer herself in such a way that she could make an easy trip down into the unknown, not trusting her poor pilot skills.
She looked back as her Star Destroyer crashed slowly into the other two with a blazing flash of bright light and then disintegrated into floating, orbiting debris, leaving an untold number of souls floating out in the coldness of the space around Dantooine.
A defeated smile crossed her face as she turned back to look towards Dantooine, and guided herself into her self-imposed exile beneath the graveyard of orbiting carnage.
