The Beginning to a Terrible End Pt. 4

Deep within the Sith base, approximately two winding halls and three overly-extended rooms down, a party of five companions were all breathing heavily outside of an elevator door. After thoughtfully and thoroughly disposing of all living Sith inside of the base up to this point, everything had gone rather swiftly and smoothly. There was only one battle that had proven to be a mild challenge to them; the one where they had entered into a tiny room horded with Sith patrol, and one Sith in particular had wonderful fun throwing hand grenades in close quarters. But of course, after he had been dealt with, they emerged on the other side of the hallway to the door that they had been endlessly searching.

This door.

After finally regaining her full strength and wits, Mission was lively enough to walk hurriedly over to the huge door and push a few buttons at random. As soon as the door flew opened with a whir, two massively real blaster shots barreled through the door.

The suddenness of it was shocking.

Rolling to the right side of the door, Mission regrouped with Zaalbar and grabbed onto his arm like a startled child clinging to its mother. Across the way, on the opposite side of the opening (hidden from view of whatever lay inside) Carth, Bastila, and True were backed against a wall, trying to comprehend what was making such a ruckus within. After the blasts had subsided for a long moment, True ducked her head into the opening and glanced around.

Inside the door, just a couple feet from where they resided, a huge assault droid was clicking its massive computer-based head up and down, searching for organic life forms to shoot. At the sight of the bounding spy, the droid released a very unpleasant warp of fire from a hidden flame-thrower, and scorched the side of the wall.

"Hey, this is terrific!" True said, pulling herself back behind the wall and accidentally cascading into the chest of Carth's ugly, yellow jacket. The pilot and scoundrel exchanged akward looks of discomfort before True slid carefully off of him to rest against the wall.

Bastila eyed True cautiously with narrowed astonishment. "Terrific," she echoed.

"Well, don't you see what this means?" True asked gently.

"Yes. We're going to die!" Mission shouted from across the hall, pointing the tip of her gun in the direction of the opened door for emphasis.

"Yes, but apart from that." The scoundrel continued on, searching each and every one of their expressions.

"Apart from that?" Carth gulped, twitching his body closer to Bastila's as a jittering blast careened close to the side of his arm.

"It means we must be close to something. Like, oh I dunno, the launch codes..."

Second by second the images of flames and shiny red blasts grew larger.

"As a matter of interest," Bastila finally said, after growing wary of watching the droid shoot continual blanks, "what are we going to do?"

"Just keep cool," said True.

"Is that all?" Shouted Carth.

"No, we're also going to take… er… evasive action!" Said True with a sudden access of panic.

Not really thinking and only reacting, True threw her body off of the wall and turned to face the droid, which seemed to grow extremely excited by her appearance. Shooting blaster shots at her torso, she easily batted them away while slowly ascending closer to the machine. Following suit behind her, the four others hauled out from behind the wall and took to shooting and slicing and jumping over flames until finally, after a slow battle against shields and trickery, a short buzz followed as the droid was forever silenced.

"Well that…" Bastila stammered on, as the second of two turret guns hidden away in the corners fell to her lightsaber, "was surprisingly easier than I had foreseen."

Carth, Bastila, and True volunteered to wander slowly over the blighted room and into the elevator, which was shaded the same dullish gray that everything else was colored in the Sith base. There was really nothing promising or pleasant about it.

As they filed inside, quickly and without words, True gave Mission a lasting wink and smile before the elevator doors flew shut.

The ride upward was extremely fast, which was equally as disturbing as the encounter with the droid. Something dark and evil lurched overhead and there was a thick force-driven something very close by. True wasn't sure how she could sense something force-linked suddenly, nor did she care to know at that particular moment. When the elevator re-opened the trio wandered cautiously down a short hall before coming to an abrupt stop. Within the room stood a black-robed individual who perched himself in the very center of the vast enclosure, looming over a low-beeping computer module.

Well, found ya.

"Who dares to break my meditation? You will pay for interrupting my…" The dark Sith fell silent as he turned around to face them, staring only upon True. The silence was only disturbed by the slight spasms of his throat.

"Well," True started, after being convinced he was not going to continue on, "we are here for the launch codes."

"I sense the Force is strong with you. Very strong." The Sith chuckled, seeming to catch nothing, or at least pay no mind to her words. "Who would have thought that a Force Adept could be found on this insignificant planet? No matter, your talent is no match for a disciple of the dark side!"

And with no further confrontational words, the Sith released a double-bladed red lightsaber from his hip and started up a blue shimmering energy shield. His eyes grew dark and steady with a rather sinister "you want 'em, I got 'em" look fixated upon his toned face.

High in the sky on the bridge of a giant ship, a dark Sith stared out into the infinite reaches of space with mild irritation.

From where he stood, staring through a wide domed window, he could see before and above him the vast panorama of stars through which his vessel was moving. It was the same panorama of stars that had now thinned out exponentially as their voyage neared its planet destination of Taris.

Turning and looking backward through the vast half-mile bulk of his ship, he could see the much denser mass of stars behind him which seemed to form a solid band of light. This was the view through the center of the Sith Lord Malak's ship. He had peered into the bright distance behind him, into the deep span of computer occupied Sith who tapped at beeping computers, and looked for something.

He performed this action every few minutes but never found what he was looking for. He didn't let it worry him though. Sooner or later it would arrive.

A slight cough alerted the tall and dark figure that the ship's officer was standing nearby. When Malak's attention turned full frontal to the small commanding man, he knew he had permission to speak. "You summoned me, lord Malak?"

"The search for Bastila is taking too long. We cannot risk her escaping Taris. Destroy the entire planet." The Dark Lord's voice was a mixture of deep human vocals and robotic chimes, but it dripped with sinister evil.

Taken aback, yet trying his hardest not to show it, the officer cleared his through yet again. "Th-the entire planet, Lord Malak? But… there are billions of people on Taris! We'd be slaughtering countless numbers of innocent people, not to mention our own still down on the surface."

Twisting manically around to face the shorter man, voice still steady and even, the Dark Lord's eyes narrowed noticeably upon the man's face. His silver jaw was motionless, but if it were possible it would likely have been twisting into a sadistic smirk. "Your predecessor once questioned my order, Admiral. Surely you are not so foolish as to make the same mistake?"

"Of…" the admiral backed away slowly, freeing his hands innocently before him, "of course not Lord Malak. I will do as you command. But it will take several hours to position our fleet."

"Then I suggest you begin immediately!" The Dark Lord said vaguely, spinning back around to gaze angrily down upon the lush green surface or Taris. "You are dismissed, Admiral."

"Yes, Lord Malak."

Davik Kang was a man who reeked of superiority and seemed to think he was immortal. At least, he seemed to think he was immortal with Calo Nord at his side- an assumption (which was quickly foiled) that was unfortunately incorrect.

There was a time, during the beginning of their adventurous day, that it had seemed like a good idea for Carth, Mission, Zaalbar, and Bastila to separate off on their own while True and Canderous tried to figure out a way to bypass the Ebon Hawks security system. However, towards the end of the day, long after the security codes had been found, a problem had arisen much higher than they had foreseen.

After discovering a way to shut down the Ebon Hawk's security system (with a little help from the Ebon Hawks former pilot himself), True and Canderous ran to the large ship as quickly as humanly possible. The world of Taris, however, started to whir and shake in an unnerving tempo as if something or someone was shooting at it with millions upon millions of blasters.

Upon merging through the hangar bay doors True caught sight of Calo and Davik who were also running towards the other side of the ship, presumably attempting to take it … and for good reason.

Countless numbers of huge blaster shots began sailing down from an unknown region in the sky, destroying everything that they made contact with.

"Damn those Sith! They're bombing the whole planet! I knew they'd turn on us sooner or…" Davik's voice cut short as he darted to the side of a giant falling red beam and noticed the Mandalorean and True gallivanting towards his ship. "Well, well. Look what we have here. Thieves in the hangar."

Calo was quick on his commander's heels and smiled wickedly upon Canderous. "I'll take care of them, Davik. I've been looking forward to this for a long time…"

True yanked the vibroswords from her belt long before he could finish the sentence and threw them down around Calo's shoulders as he fired blaster shots around her torso – making immense effort to send a shot at Canderous in any chance that he could muster.

With every half-second that passed by another giant blast from the Sith ship overhead would send a quake across the ground, which rattled the bones in all of their knees.

After only viciously fighting for a mere moment or two Davik's demise ended with a single shot from the Sith above. He screamed out in agony and then fell to the floor in a motionless heap.

The three that remained alive stopped their battle and glanced upon the fallen man in turn.

"If I'm going down, I'm taking you two with me!" Calo then screamed out, backing away from them quickly and pulling a thermal detonator from his pocket – making sure to hold it high where they could see.

True's eyes glanced desperately upon Canderous who still held a stone-hard expression but had a mild grasp of fear within his eyes. Just then, as soon as the threat had been made, it vanished as a pile of rubble crashed down around Calo's body, trapping him under its weight. The dust from the rubble spread across the room like fire, engulfing True and Canderous into a thick cloud.

"G-get to the ship so we can get your – uhg – friends and g-get off this planet!" Canderous choked, jarring True by the arm and wrenching her towards the boarding dock of the Ebon Hawk.

As the four remaining companions piled hurriedly onto the ship, Bastila ushered True into the Bridge as Canderous and Carth followed hurriedly after. Mission pledged to stay in the med bay, trying to conceal the horrific site of Taris dispersing into a million pieces around her. Zaalbar loyally remained by her side, staring sadly down upon the Twi'lek's horrified face.

The T-3 unit zipped away into the hidden corner, presumably bunkering itself down for what was inevitably going to be a bumpy take off.

"I've seen these Sith in action before and we need to get off of this planet now – if not sooner!" Bastila strained, staring at the vast span of buttons before them. This ship seemed incredibly complicated to fly.

Canderous hurried over to the computer module that, more or less, controlled the entire vessel as Bastila stared down upon it. "We've got to get manual control of this ship."

"Can you fly her?" Bastila asked pleasantly, staring down her nose at the Mandalorean who looked the last thing from confident.

"No, can you?" Canderous stammered, glancing desperately back at her with a scowl.

"No." She replied flatly. "Carth, can you?"

Carth dropped himself heavily into the captain's chair and ran his hands tenderly across the control modules. "I'd imagine," he answered slowly, "but I'll need help."

"Fine. We'll do it together." Canderous agreed,

"I can't fly it either," said True, who felt it was time she began to assert herself.

The three turned to look at her, wasting precious time just to make sure their obvious point was made.

"Yeah - we'd guessed that." Canderous said stiffly, leaning forward and around Carth to help steer the ship around.

And, as Taris fell in ruins below them, the new crew of the Ebon Hawk lifted into the outer reaches of space, plotting a direct course for the Jedi enclave on Dantooine. Or, as interpreted in True Baill's mind, the beginning to a terrible end.