So, a few days later there was an arrival at Whitesnake's ship. Eerie smoke emitted from the shuttle bay. The shuttle slowly opened and out of it stepped a large, black-robed, black-uniformed figure of a man, breathing deeply and staring at the ship ahead of him. Vader. Or Lord Darth Vader as he was properly known. The strongman in the Galaxy. The Lord of the dread Sith. Posser of incredible powers unattainable to normal man - which did create a little resentment, even on his own side. He was greeted by Whitesnake.
'Ah, my lord, a great pleasure to see you, you are familiar with the situation here?'
Vader waved him away with his large clove and continued walking. 'You may dispense with the pleasantries. I am aware of what is happening here. You have not fulfilled your targets have you? Well, I am here to achieve that. By whatever means I see fit.
He continued walking. Whitesnake felt his skin crawl as he looked into Vader's face. It was like looking into Death's. In many ways he had a lot of sympathy with Tarkin's views that it was best to sort their problems out themselves without resorting to the Sith Lord. It was an admission of the fleet's failure. But he did amuse himself by shoving Baldrick in front of Vader and watching Vader arrogantly march through Baldrick, knocking him over.
Whitesnake and Baldrick had an amusing little interlude earlier on. Baldrick, had, for some unknown reason of his own, interrupted Whitesnake and said, 'Important tasks for today sir,'
'oh, yes, and what would they be then?'
Baldrick looked at his notepad 'Well, sir, there's breakfast, an order of pest-repellents, sending a detachment down to Naboo, interrogating Binks some more, Lunch, staff-meeting, and evening free, yes that just about it.'
Whitesnake just looked at Baldrick. 'Are you sure you have everything?'
'Yes, sir, sure, everything down here.'
'Does the arrival of a certain Dark lord ring any bells with you?'
'Oh, crumbs, yes I forgot,' Baldrick turned the page over, 'Oh, yes, it was on the other side.'
'Baldrick, you are far and away, totally useless. What a good thing I don't have to rely on you for information. You remember to not down an order of pest-repellents, but omit the coming of the most powerful man in the Galaxy after the Empire. The man with unstoppable, force-induced powers. The man who could, at a whim, execute everyone on this ship. And you forgot.' Whitesnake gave Baldrick a slap. A hard slap in fact.
Later on, Vader meet Tarkin. Tarkin was one of the few people in the galaxy unfazed by Vader's getup. Vader said, 'Yes, I think I can see what the problem is here. Jedi trouble. Well I suppose I can't blame you for having problems there. But I will sort it out. Take me down to, Darrowdale, was it? And I will see what I can do. I will require a little assistance, but not much.' And it was agreed.
As they watched Vader travel down to Naboo, Tarkin turned to Whitesnake and sighed. 'I do hate calling on Vader for aid. He's just so…….unpredictable. Yes, I will confess that he posses unnatural strong powers which none can withstand. But that's just the trouble. Their unnatural. Our constant reliant on that Sith will come back to haunt us one day, you can be sure of that.'
Darkness fell on the out walls of Darrowdale. On top of a gun tower a human called Philip was interrupted by a sound behind him. 'Ah, Mugwort, all quiet here.'
'Yes, a bit too quiet. Why have the Imperials appeared to soften their push all of a sudden. I don't like it.
'Don't ask me. I assume their just re-grouping. Besides, they can't break through our magic circle, can they?'
'Don't be so sure. I have had a feeling. A bad feeling. Something is been planned.'
'Look, Mugwort over there, one man is coming towards us. He's well armed, but he's only one. Think I can take him out.'
Philip was talking about Vader. He was in for a surprise. Philip let out a volley of shots at Vader. Vader simply held out his hand and swiped them away. Then Vader lifted up his arms and threw out bolts of lightning at the fort. These exploded causing peril of fire, one landing right by Philip. 'That's Vader. Careful everyone, this could get ugly,' cried Mugwort.
Well, this caused concern but not outright panic yet. A patrol of soldiers moved from the fortress and surrounded Vader. One Lord of the Sith v 20 Naboo soldiers. No contest. Vader seemed simply invulnerable. No blaster shot was able to get near him. He was able to leap 20 feet into the air smash down onto the soldiers, swinging his lightsaber, Vader's main weapon like a fiery sword to cut them to pieces. Vader marched forward, he pointed at the tops of the walls and as if by magic, well dark sorcery anyway, the walls crashed down, Vader doing by himself the job which all the hardware of the Empire's fleet had failed to do. Vader came close to the fort's walls, right up to them and let loose a force-storm.
This basically caused the weather to turn into fiery, stormy chaos, the earth to rock, violent winds to sweep across the landscape and chunks of huge, pure rocks to fly from Vader. It was a Sith technique which Vader had managed to perfect. Mugwort cried, 'Everyone, we have to stop him somehow, I have no faith that a Jedi girdle will hold up against this foe.' But even with scores of his own soldiers available, Mugwort could not stop Vader.
Vader pushed out and the walls collapsed totally in rock and concrete leaving the defenders exposed. Vader was, it was true a little delayed by the light-sided girdle when he came across it. But if anything it just made him angry. He held out his light-sabre and swotted at the invisible line chanting Sith words of power. Then with a snarl pushed through, followed with a cheer by the Imperial forces.
One Naboo, a young man called Edmund was then struck with a bright idea. He jumped up behind Vader, then struck. But not at the Sith Lord at his light-sabre thinking to disarm Vader. Vader did not appreciate this. He turned around, grabbed Edmund by his neck and threw Edmund up in the air, and used the force to tear him apart before Edmund landed, dead. 'Don't try that one on me,' Vader growled, darkly.
Trex was watching this and said to Mugwort, 'Well, at least we've managed to get him angry,'
'That's good is it?'
'Well, I've heard that one of the things to do to a Sith lord is to make them angry, then they don't think,'
'I'm not so sure I like the idea of him been angry myself. But look, we can't stop him in this situation. We have little time, I'm going back to have a word with our leaders to see if there is anything which can be salvaged.
Well, Vader was broadly satisfied with bringing down Darrowdale's Girdle, exposing it. Once he had down that job, he returned to the fleet. 'I think I have done enough, I will leave the rest to you, you should be able to handle it from here,' he said to Tarkin before leaving on his own ship to return to the task which he had been undertaking.
Back down on Darrowdale there was now mass panic. 'How long do you give this fort standing without the Girdle?' Mugwort asked of Trex.
'Well, we can set up a few of our independent shields, but the trouble with them is…..'
'Their outdated, easy to overpower and generally rubbish?' Mugwort interrupted.
'A rather accurate criticism.'
'So what do we do?'
A voice coughed beside the council. 'Well, we could try my idea, which does have the advantage that it won't be expected.' That was Mandy.
'fine, what's your idea?'
'We fly off out of the Planet and through the dust-cloud of the Maw.'
'Oh, right, we travel through a fiery, uncharted, dust-cloud through which no-one has passed through and survived, that certainly would be unexpected,' said Mugwort a trifle ironically.
'You don't understand. We have in fact done a bit of research on it in the last few months. I'm not sure why, but I just had a feeling we might need to travel through it. We think that there is a way through, where we would be hidden from Imperial sensors. The dust-cloud travels way beyond the orbit of the Imperial fleet. We could from there journey to the outer-solar-system away from the Imperial light-speed lockdown and beam into hyperspace and escape.'
'Um, you think,' said Stuxo a little sceptically.
'Well, we pretty much know. It's not quite as bad as everyone thinks. Yes, it will be dangerous. Yes, I doubt if we all, or even most, will survive. But if you would prefer to stay here and argue with the Imperials…….'
Well, there was some discussion, but it was agreed that this was the best plan available. But there was little time. Despite the fact that most of the space-fearing craft the defenders possessed did appear to be in good order, 'I had the feeling that we might be off soon,' explained Mandy. Somehow, however, the Imperial attackers must have gotten wind of their plans because they launched an all-out assault. In desperation as many as possible leaped into the available ships, which did not include everyone as Stormtroopers moved with devastating speed and efficiency, overtaking many of the defenders.
Coincidentally, the Imperials repeated their offer to many of the Naboo humans who could accept it to join them, ditch the principles which any possessed and live. Many accepted this, however reluctantly. The humans, where only, well human after all and did not fancy dying.
But the race to launch the ships was just won by those who had reached them on time. On the time of a very grey morning, they took off and rose into the sky as the Imperial soldiers fired at the underside of the ships.
As he flew up into what counted as Naboo's atmosphere many looked down in horror at what the Empire had down to Naboo. Not much remained of it's pleasant green country for which it had been renowned. In fact it had been one of the cleanest planets in the Galaxy, partly due to the pro-environment policies of the Gungans. But now much of it was desert, or even exploding volcanic larvae. Large black clouds blighted the atmosphere. No sun was able to penetrate the surface of the dead world.
But in a strange way this actually helped those who where trying to flee. The darkness meant that actually it was difficult for any of the Imperials to see the ships as they streaked to the Maw, so many of the bolts which was fired at them missed any targets which the attackers might have had.
So, with considerable trepidation, Mugwort looked up and moved into one of the most dangerous areas of space in the Galaxy. The Maw of Naboo.
