Chapter 10: Escape
I collapsed on the boarding ramp of the Ebon Hawk just as the sun of this planet's light first crested the horizon. I had ran nearly all night. Being that I was in the jungle, not much light got through, and it was still fairly dark. The sun rise here had an odd beauty to it. I was to tired to admire it.
Just as I closed my eyes, T3-M4 began obnoxiously beeping, informing me that HK was in critical condition, and that he was in stasis, and asked if we could leave with Revan soon.
I was a bit annoyed. Sometimes I really regretted not giving that droid regular memory wipes. They developed odd personalities if not, and often times acted like children. But he held far to much precious information that could be lost. I had decided long ago his weird quirks were worth his many skills and his ability to almost think freely.
"No, T3, we have to wait on Lord Scourge to lead me to him. Then we can leave. I promise. Keep the Ebon Hawk running." I said rubbing my forehead, still laying on my back.
He let out a dreary 'droooo' then fell back into the Ebon Hawk.
I shortly there after began to drift off, exhausted before I heard heavy footsteps approaching. I sat up, and clutched my still sore shoulder, anticipating Lord Scourge.
He broke through the treeline into my sight.
"Wake up early or couldn't sleep?" He asked smugly.
"I guess you could say I couldn't sleep." I said while standing up.
"Let's skip the small and get this over with." I said, not in the mood to deal with his usual mindless banter.
"You know Exile, I'm beginning to like you more and more everyday. To the point, get the job done types like you would do me a lot of good." He said turning to lead me a direction to the west side of Kaas City.
My adventures last night had taught me much of the infrastructure of the massive city. Sadly I did not have time to explore the city as much as I would have liked to.
Thankfully, Lord Scourge remained quiet the entire time we walked through the jungle, until we reached a drain pipe that smelled of sewage on the outskirts of the city walls. Sometimes his banter was more annoying then Kriea's. The dialect and unending banter of Sith was to much for me to be able to handle. I could hear and see Kaas City from where we stood.
"This is where you go in." He said, motioning to the drain and disgusting pool at our feet.
"Why here?" I asked plugging my nose with my metal fingers.
"This, luckily enough, is the only entrance into Kaas City the is completely unguarded. You can go straight underneath the Emperors fortress and never see another soul, or any kind of defenses. Just don't mind the smell. Its a straight shot to where Revan is. I'll mark the location on your map on where you can emerge from the pipe, and be directly in Revan's holding room." He said with a smile.
"Why would any entrance into the Emperor's palace be unguarded?" I asked.
"Because no one has ever been dumb enough to climb through a mile of feces just to climb into the most guarded building on the planet, and possibly the galaxy. You are the first and the last." He said while grabbing my data-pad to upload the map marker.
As soon as he did it, I just jumped in, not wanting to postpone the inevitable any longer, and swung open the gate to the sewage drain.
...
I walked for what seemed like an eternity, but knew it was no longer then a mile, as Lord Scourge had said. The air was thick and putrid, it was as if this pipe had never been cleaned before, and just had sewage in it for centuries, rotting and stagnant.
It wasn't long before my data-pad lit up, informing me I was just a few meters away from the map marker Lord Scourge had placed for me.
As he had promised, no defenses were in the sewer, but I had no idea what waited for me above.
I got to my map marker and looked up and saw a small gate, about as broad as my shoulders. I felt a cold draft. It must have been an air vent of some short.
I jumped a few inches off the ground and grabbed the gate. It broke off of its rusted hinges easily and clattered onto the ground.
I jumped back up and grabbed onto the ledge and pulled myself up fairly easily. I had a bit of trouble squeezing into the vent, but after a bit of squirming got my shoulders in and pull my legs through the hole. I was almost positive that it smelt worse in the air vent then it did in the sewer.
I thought the lack of noise was odd. It was supposed to be one of the most guarded buildings on the planet, possibly the galaxy and there was no signs of life anywhere. The odd thing was, that even through the force I could not feel life. I decided to keep my guard up.
I walked a little ways down the hallway, and saw another gate opening into a pitch black room. This gate was kept in much better condition and I doubted I could break it loose with my hands. I tried it anyways, but as I suspected it was of no use.
I put my back to the wall of the vent and kicked the gate as hard as I could with both of my legs. It buckled in the middle and broke loose of one of the screws holding to the wall. I did it once more and completely knocked one side off. I decided to just crawl out like that, bending the gate out of my way, rather then just kick it again and it clatter to the ground and make unnecessary noise.
I stepped into the dark room and my stomach dropped. I was in the exact same room I had been in during my vision. Lo and behold Revan was exactly where I had seen him.
I look back into the room with the large Grand walkway, and saw a large Sith walking towards me, I panicked for just a moment before I realized it was the Scourge of the Emperor.
"Let's hurry along. The guards will be back shortly. I did not give them much to do."
The rest of what followed was a blur, I was force to relive the moments following up to my death, and I felt as if I wasn't even controlling my body, and that fate and destiny was just carrying me through.
I found myself coming out of the trance-like state I was in, with Revan assisting me back to the air vent I had come from. I rummaged in my pocket, clutching the only hope I had of making it out alive. Darth Nyriss' charred body smelled worse in person.
Just as in my vision, I was suddenly overwhelmed with a sickness in my stomach, like I was going to vomit. The Emperor rounded the corner, with his yellow-pale skin and disturbing eyes the only thing visible under his hood.
I kept my hand in my pocket, knowing the timing would have to be perfect and that the Force would have to be with me.
He went through his speech trying to instill fear, but for some odd reason, I was not scared of him this time, he did not intimidate me as he did in my vision. A part of control he was supposed to have over me was gone and I could feel it.
I felt the Force quickening me, and strength returning to my body. A second winds of sorts. But it was not coming from me, but from another, very powerful source. It was strange to feel the power of the Light Side in such a dark and evil place.
As soon as I heard Lord Scourge's lightsaber power up a pressed the button on the Permacrete Detonator I had been holding, which instantly set off a dozen charges I had set in random locations the night before. I had guessed perfectly where The Emperor's Palace was based on how guarded it was the night before when planning my escape out. It was blind luck that one of the charges was directly above where the Emperor stood causing debris to fall on top of him, crushing and killing his guards and blocking the walkway into the hall. I could hear screams coming from all over the building.
I looked behind me, and Lord Scourge lay in a heap behind me, blood trickling from a gash in his head. Some flying debris must have knocked him unconscious.
Revan gave me a firm rap on the back and nod of approval. If only I could have seen his face. We crawled into the air vent, where the rubble closely surrounded it, and left about a yard of crawl space, and jumped down into the sewers, covering the mile long tunnel in less then two minutes, an impossible feet without the Force. We jumped out of the sewage pipe and I merely pointed to the direction of the Ebon Hawk and Revan turned and kept up his sprint towards the ship. I could hear Sith vehicles behind us. Surely they knew where I had been landed for nearly three days by now. I had no idea what awaited us once we got to the landing.
We approached the landing in a few seconds, the Force pushing us to run impossibly fast. There was a squad of six guards in Special Operations jet black armor. Me and Revan cut through them before the last one looked up. As I was going up the boarding ramp I slowed down to a walk. Big mistake.
I heard a Marksman Blaster go off in the far distance, I had barely even heard it. As I turned around, a felt the heat of a laser skim the top of my shoulder. If I had not turned and was standing still and not walking, the shot would have hit me in between the eyes. I saw the glare of a scoop through the trees and in a tower in Kaas city, no less then 3 miles away. An impossible shot. I didn't stay to admire the marksman but turned and shut the ramp just as another squad broke through the trees and began an onslaught of fire.
Revan was already lifting the Ebon Hawk off the ground and yelled for me to man the bottom turret. I ran and jumped in it, and blasted down two Sith that were aiming AA shoulder-mounted launchers at us. I then turned my attention to the now twenty man force that was firing at us and eliminated them.
Just as we were getting to were the scope on the gun could no longer recognize faces, about two-hundred meters off the ground, the Emperor stepped through the treeline and pointed at the ship, and just smiled. Not at the ship, but at me. A sickening sight to say the least. I fired a bolt at him, if nothing else then to release some anger on him, and my heart nearly stopped beating. He never stopped smiling, but the large anti-personnel explosive charge stopped in mid air, about ten feet from him, then started changing direction coming back towards the ship, picking up speed faster and faster.
"Revan! Move!" I screamed from the turret seat, as Revan cut to the left as the charge narrowly missed us.
The Emperor threw his hood over his head, and the remainder of his forces retreated back into the forest with him.
...
I walked into the cockpit as Revan exited the outer atmosphere of the Dark Side planet.
"How the hell have you survived two separate encounters with that man?" I asked, almost jokingly.
"I honestly don't know. Maybe just blind luck, or maybe the Force?" He answered while taking off his mask and sitting it on the dash.
"Yeah, possibly." I replied.
He set quietly for a second, then said flatly. "You were supposed to die. I don't know how, but you changed your fate. I felt it deep down inside me. You were supposed to die."
I processed what he said just for a second, him having confirmed what I had been feeling. "I know. The Force gave me a vision of my death."
"You saw you were going to die?" He asked.
"In great detail. It appeared exactly how it was in the vision until I set off the explosive charges I had set." I answered him.
"I guess the Force showed you were to set them?" Revan asked.
"No that was actually blind luck. I learned how to make my own explosives in the few years we fought in the Mandalorian wars, and honed that skill in my adventures in the last few months. I had a companion of mine teach me how to make permacrete explosives." I told him.
"Ah, a very handy skill."
"I would have to agree, being that it saved both of our lives."
"So now that you are perhaps one of the only people in the universe to have actively changed your destiny, what are you going to do?" He asked me.
"I thought you had a plan?" I questioned him.
"Well I do, but wanted to know your thoughts." He told me.
"First, we need to return to the known galaxy. Dantooine specifically. Many of our companions and closest allies await us there. After that Coruscant. The Republic needs to know what awaits us." I answered.
"Good. I already have Dantooine in the hyper-drive. We will be there in two days."
"Only two days? I thought the nearest entry into known space was seven days." I asked surprised.
"No. The Star Maps revealed to me a much shorter distance to Dromond Kaas. Thankfully the Sith are not aware of that." He answered.
"Do you thank they will pursue us." I asked.
"No the Emperor is much to methodical for that. He will wait for years before coming after the Republic. He will make sure all of his army is fully prepared for a war with the Republic. Thankfully that will give us time to prepare for him as well. It won't help much but we will need every advantage we can get. It will take him years to prepare, his empire isn't as large as the Republic, but it is very close. They are much more organized, and they haven't fought wars in years. Besides a few of his elite forces, they are very green, which will help us. The Republic has many seasoned commanders, and hardened veterans. That will be an advantage. But their army is much more complete. They won't have men to old, or to young, fighting. They will be in much better shape and much more physically capable. We will wim this war fighting smart, not by overpowering them." He explained.
"There will be war?" I asked.
"We will be fighting wars until we are old and grey." He responded.
"Why do you say that?" I asked.
"Because we were born in this time to fight, to wage wars, to defend. Maybe even to conquer. I don't know. We will always have an enemy, even if we aren't sure of how our next enemy, or next great evil that will be. What I am sure of is that we were born men of war, and we will die that way. For now, this enemy is the Sith empire, that has remained hidden and building strength for centuries, under the rule of one single man. He knows the ins, and outs of his empire." He answered.
I knew what he said was true. We were born to fight. It mattered not which side we fought for. We were destined to fight. And at this point in our lives, our enemy was the seemingly unbeatable empire. We did not have an easy task on our hands.
"How long do we have to prepare the Republic for the Sith an The Emperor?" I asked him, already planning on preparing an army.
"Less then ten years. Our first course of action is to gain complete control of the Republics military. We can't prepare them if the Senate and Council won't allow it. Any Jedi on the council that will support us will help. Maybe Master Vrook, or Master Kavar could help us win support."
"Master Vrook, Master Kavar, Master Zez-Kai Ell, and Master Vash are all confirmed dead. I know not of any of the other council members." I told him, sadly.
"I see much has transpired in my absence. I felt great death, but did not know that much had happened." Revan hung his head and rubbed his eyes.
"I know not of any other Masters. We will have to search far and wide to recover any others. Hopefully many will returned once there hear what has happened. And maybe we can find new Force Sensitives to train." I said.
"Yes. We must keep our hopes up. We can take older pupils on Dantooine, and broaden our searches for young Force Sensitives. Maybe grey Jedi like Jolee Bindo can assist, and give advice. We need every bit of help we can get." He replied.
"Jolee Bindo has already offered his help and will be loyal to our cause. We have Mandalorians that have offered to help us under the leadership and a new Mandalore, Canderous Ordo." I said.
"Canderous is alive? That old dog. I figured he would have died in some great battle by now." He said excited. "And he is rebuilding the Mandalorian clans?" He asked a bit worried.
"Yes, but he has pledged allegiance to the Republic. I will take you to meet with him once we gather on Dantooine and Coruscant. He will be excited to talk with you. He always spoke highly of you my friend."
"That is great news. The Sith will not know what to do with Mandalorians plowing through their ranks. They simply aren't prepared for that kind of an elite force. That will help in the war tremendously." He said, his hopes building.
"We will speak more of this on Dantooine, in the presence of our allies. For now, let us rest and let our strength return. We have much travelling and negotiations ahead of us in the coming weeks. Thank you for rescuing me, my old friend." He stated.
"Yes. I sense we will accomplish much."
I went back to where I had once slept, in the crew quarters, and went into the newly built private room, and feel asleep on the bed almost as soon as I laid on the bed. My hopes for the upcoming war looking surprisingly. I knew there was a long and dangerous road ahead, but I knew that with Revan and our long list of allies and companions, that together we could defeat the Emperor and his massive Sith empire.