Chapter 2: Hunting Jedi
"We are pretty sure he's in there, Lord Vader."
The Dark Lord stepped slightly away from the trooper who addressed him, and stared, instead, at the small, leafy structure some thirty meters away. It was one of the larger landmasses on the planet upon which Darth Vader and his 501st Legion found themselves, but it still measured a mere thirty square kilometres around. Syboona was an oceanic planet, so the search for Vader's quarry had been relatively easy once he knew the correct planet. Vader and his troops were well concealed by the damp foliage that surrounded the quiet building, but the Sith suspected that the occupants of the structure already knew that they were there.
"I don't want guesses or hypotheses, commander. I want facts. I want to be sure."
The stormtrooper's impassive armour disguised the look of pure horror on his real face beneath.
"Yes, of course, Lord Vader, of course. I'll send out another scout to –"
"Never mind, commander. I know he's in there. I can feel it." If Vader could sound pleased, he sounded pleased now.
It had taken him some time to track down this particularly careful Jedi. Coleman Kcaj had served on the Jedi Council during the Clone Wars, and had in fact, been in the Jedi Temple when the Purge had begun, but the Ongree had escaped detection. Vader had made short work of most of the Jedi in the temple, but the fact that a few of them had escaped unmolested perturbed the Dark Lord. Coleman Kcaj was one of those Jedi, but his escape would mean little in a few moments. The Great Purge had finally come full circle for the Ongree.
"We know there are nineteen sentient beings in there, but how will we know which one he is?"
"He'll be the one that kills the largest number of you before I can get to him," Vader said without regret. He motioned with his hand at the well-concealed stormtroopers around him and the commander. "If you and you're men do this correctly, the casualties may not be too high."
Again, the commander felt a chill of fear run up his spine, but he nodded curtly to Vader.
"We'll flush them out quickly and efficiently, sir."
"For your own sake, I hope you do." The comment was neither reassuring nor meant to be.
Another nod, and the commander left to order his men to be at the ready.
Vader thought back to the transmission he had received from Imperial Center concerning his former comrade on the Jedi Council, Coleman Kcaj. Vader had been on Toprawa where he had been involved in some tense "negotiations" with the scientists developing the super laser for the Emperor's Death Star project. The scientists insisted that they needed more funds and additional workers to complete the weapon, while it was the Emperor's, and thus Vader's, opinion that the Toprawan workers were thieves who were more content to steal what they could from the Empire rather then profit from her greatness and generosity. Vader had added that it wasn't "more" workers the developers needed, but rather "better" workers. Soon after Vader had made his point, his commanding officer interrupted the meeting with news that the Emperor himself wanted to speak directly to Vader as soon as possible. What the Emperor had really wanted, Vader had sensed, was an immediate audience. Minutes later, in the presence of Palpatine's ghostly holo-image, Vader learned that a Force sensitive being fitting the description of the lost Ongree Jedi Master had been seen on the Outer Rim planet of Syboona. No real surprise given that the Ongree were amphibious, and Syboona was largely an aquatic paradise. Vader cut the scheduled Toprawan business short with the threat of violence to the lead scientist, and left with his troopers for the nearby planet.
"We're all ready, sir."
The commander had come upon Vader silently, but not undetected. Vader droned, "Proceed."
The commanding soldier lifted his arm in to the air, and then let it drop quickly. As he did, troopers from behind and from the sides of the muddy structure fired salvos of rockets into the building's flimsy walls. The mud-reinforced walls somehow withstood the pounding, but the occupants inside rushed out from the darkened opening like a swarm of fire wasps.
These fire wasps, like the real insect, were not altogether unprepared to fight. They came out of the hut bearing arms of their own. Most of the beings gathered were aquatic species: Mon Calamari, Nautolan, an Aqualish, and, of course, an Ongree. All of them carried blasters of various potency, save the Jedi Master who still possessed his blue lightsaber, and most were hitting their targets well. Several of the men standing next to Vader, including the clone commander himself, fell seconds into the skirmish. Vader's troops on the opposite side of the shelter quickly realized that the enemy was making a run for it by charging their forward line, and quickly compensated by sweeping back to their original positions and around the slumping edifice. Vader measured his actions carefully as he stepped to his right to avoid an errant blast from an oncoming Nautolan who reminded him of Kit Fisto. Vader's lightsaber hissed to life, and Fisto's kin was the first of the attacking force's opponents to fall.
Vader then steadily cut a path through the ranks of humanoids remaining. He moved with astonishing speed for such a large man cutting and hacking his way to the one humanoid he had actually come to face: Coleman Kcaj. Master Kcaj was doing a considerable amount of damage to Vader's forces himself. The Ongree had always been a quiet person, but it did not mean he couldn't use a blade. The Jedi Master's flexible eyestalks allowed him to see more angles than humanly possible. Kcaj used his advantage to its fullest extent, cleaving through troopers both in front and behind him. He stopped only when the sea of white armor before him parted, and Vader stepped forward.
"Master Kcaj, your fellow conspirators are my prisoners, and my blade awaits your surrender, willingly or not." Kcaj's eyestalks moved to better see the last of his allies being shuffled into a small, generator-run ray shield. Only a handful was still alive.
The Jedi spoke in broken Basic. "You cannot. I fight to end." Kcaj's voice amused some of the nearby troopers who, guns trained firmly on the alien's chest, had never heard the high-pitched chirps of an Ongree. It was equally strange that the creature's mouth was located above both the eyes and the nostrils of the exotic being.
"Then I shall make yet another Jedi's words come true."
Darth Vader took a carefully planned stance against the Jedi Master before plunging his scarlet blade into his prey's direction. The Ongree expertly blocked it. Vader then faked a thrust to the left, only to then have to block an equally fast slice from Kcaj's lightsaber from the right. Vader resumed his attack with two fast jabs of his own.
"You slow. Not as fearsome as believed," cooed Coleman Kcaj as he danced to his left. He flexed one of his thick three-fingered hands in an almost taunting gesture to the Sith Lord.
"I've killed better Jedi than you."
The list was impressive. Vader had quickly become one of the galaxy's most infamous Jedi hunters ever, and he was determined to add Coleman Kcaj to it. He dug deep into the Force and his mastery of Djem So. Vader preferred limiting his opponent's speed by using the aggressive lightsaber combat style, and often, as he had this time, started his attack by employing the Shien opening stance and luring his enemy into a false sense of security. Vader's next three strikes were as aggressive as they were successful, culminating in the destruction of Coleman Kcaj's lightsaber. The Jedi Master stood helpless in the face of his own death.
"I watched your kinsmen, Pablo-Jill, die in a similar way. There was much fear in his eyes too," the Sith Lord lied. The truth was that Jedi Knight had met his end while fighting general Grievous aboard the Invisible Hand during the Battle of Coruscant. Few truly knew how the great Ongree pilot had met death, but if anyone did, it may very well have been Anakin Skywalker.
Coleman Kcaj pursed his thin lips, an unusual trait in the Ongree species, and charged at the cybernetic nightmare before him knowing full well it was a futile gesture, but knowing also he had few options. Vader's lightsaber hummed once more, and the Jedi Master's head fell at Vader's feet. Coleman Kcaj was dead.
Vader stared down at the headless corpse for a moment and thought back to countless number of lives he had extinguished in similar fashion. Count Dooku. Roan Shryne. Jocasta Nu. Jurokk. Serra Keto. Mace Windu. Windu didn't really fit into the same category as the others as it was not Vader's blade that had sent Windu hurtling through the Coruscanti sky, but rather an instrument that had facilitated his fall. Then of course, there was Obi-Wan Kenobi. He hadn't felt Vader's lightsaber at all. Someday, he felt, it would be Kenobi's body below him, and not Coleman Kcaj's corpse. The Sith Lord turned to face his troops. His voice, fuelled by the hatred welling up in him at the thought of his old master, boomed through the near silent patch of swamp.
"Kill the rest of them. They're all traitors to the Empire."
Amidst a cacophony of blaster fire, Vader felt a tickle of regret at not having been able to claim victory over the great Mace Windu or Obi-Wan Kenobi. Nonetheless, his mission here was complete, and the remaining Jedi, wherever they may be, weren't about to reappear to satisfy Vader's perverse pleasure in watching them die.
