Note: Well, here we are. Last chapter of the Korban episode. Man. I can't believe how much this thing I didn't even plan has become. Kind of astonishing when I think about it. I'm also amazed I got it done (I had a ton of class work this weekend). Anyway. Prepare yourselves. I do not own Star Wars. Please review, comment, or criticize. And most of all, enjoy.

Star Wars

The Dark Return

Chapter 11

Lon Tannek leaned back into the bench, and sipped his cup of caf. He had maybe half an hour to himself before he needed to head in, and he spent that half hour the way he usually did: watching the city in the middle of Fellowship Plaza, with a cup of caf.

Today, however, something happened that was not at all usual.

A large gray gunship swooped over the plaza and made a beeline for the Jedi Temple. When it neared the Temple, a series of smoke trails shot from it. Lon didn't realize they were missiles until they exploded against the green transparisteel pyramids of the Temple and he felt the very edge of the blastwave. Scurrying from the bench with the quickly forming panicked crowd, he thought he saw someone jump out of the gunship.

"I seem to recall you saying that this was exactly what Korban wouldn't do." Jaina said as she rushed through the shaking hallways of the Temple.

"I have, on occasion, been wrong about some things." Galen said testily. He tapped his helmet. "Lyn? It's me. You've heard the… Yes, that's what I was thinking. Get the Gladius in the air, bring the gunship down. The last thing Korban needs is air support."

"You named your ship 'Gladius?'" Jaina asked slightly disbelieving.

"I didn't pick the name, Solo. My father did."

Korban slammed a Jedi against a wall to his right, and punched as hard as he could. He felt bone and skin give beneath his clenched hand, and pulled it back covered in blood and bits. The Jedi certainly wouldn't be getting up again. Another Jedi tried to come up behind him. A Twi'lek. Female.

He kicked out and sent her crashing to the floor, then drove his sword into her chest. Pulling the blade out, he turned and got back on track. Intelligence had had the maps to this place for a long time. And while he certainly wanted to empty the place of every last holier-than-thou lightsber-strapped hypocrite, he did still have some nagging loose ends pricking at him. And he knew where the Jedi would be keeping them.

Rory swung the gunship around as a salvo of missiles streaked into the Temple hangars. He saw CSF and GAS ships closing in. Flicking a few switches, he reassigned his targets, and let another salvo of missiles loose. Some found their targets and flaming wrecks crashed into the streets and pedways. Some pilots got lucky and dodged the missiles, which careened into buildings or traffic lanes.

Rory didn't particularly care about that. This was all about one thing: making the Jedi pay for what they did to Troan.

Rory opened up on the few remaining ships with the gunship's cannon, then turned the ship back to the Temple, just in time to see an Imperium Saber fly out of one of the burning hangars. It had to be one of the deserters. And only two of the ones who'd survived this long had lightsabers.

Rory diverted extra power to the engines. Whoever was in the that ship, he was going to make sure they died.

Korban dropped a screaming female Chadra-Fan to the floor, next to the Mon Cal Jedi Master. They'd been… easy. Disappointingly easy. That was wrong. This wasn't supposed to be easy. He was supposed to have to work to get what the Jedi and the Alliance owed him, owed Troan. He walked to the elevator doors and jammed a code-breaker into the keypad. After a few minutes, the doors opened, and he entered, preparing to descend and rip the heart out of the Galactic Alliance. Doing the same to the Jedi Order, that would be a bit trickier.

Alarms blared in the cockpit. The ship was missing an engine and slowly spiraling out of control while blaster cannons picked it to pieces.

Rory reflected that this could be going better. He pushed himself back from the controls and ran to the gun rack. Throwing open the door, he grabbed a missile launcher off the rack and waited for the moment the Saber would spin into view.

He saw a blur of grey and pulled the trigger. The backwash nearly sent him tumbling out of the gunship. He ran back to the cockpit to try and get the ship back under some semblance of control. Strapping himself in, his hands flew over the controls, turning the out-of-control spiral into a not-as-out-of-control descent. The gunship crashed heavily against the ground, and Rory felt his face slam against the controls. But he'd landed in one piece. And he was alive.

As he released the straps, he looked out the viewport and saw the Saber diving towards him, the trail of missile exhaust visible behind it. It looked like it was going to crash into him, and at the last second, he realized what the pilot was doing.

"You crafty karking schu-"

Rory was cut short as the missile burst through the cockpit and crushed his chest before it exploded in a gout of flame.

Korban screamed in frustration and punched the transparisteel again.

They'd played him. The Jedi had played him for a fool, and he'd walked right into it. They'd lured him down into the asylum block, the completely empty, utterly worthless asylum block, and shut down access from the surface. As he sat there, fuming, the BioCom went off. He knew what it meant, but he checked the readout anyway. Rory was dead.

Korban slowly walked towards the powered down elevator and forced his sword blade in between the doors. He shifted the blade and forced the doors open. He was about to go into the elevator when a security blast door came down over the elevator doorway and nearly crushed him flat. Dropping to his knees, he caught the edge of the door and held it steady. Tightening his grip, he slowly pushed himself back up to his feet, forcing the security door up with him. He readied himself, then thrust upwards with all his strength and dove into the elevator as the security door slammed back down into place. Korban reached up and tore the exit panel from the elevator's ceiling. He pulled himself out of the car, and looked up. He had a climb ahead of him.

"Now that's just unfair." Jaina said, gazing at security footage of Korban holding a blast door open with his bare hands. "How is this guy such a monster?"

"Cybernetics." Galen said. "Like I said, Intelligence loves their invasive implants."

"So what do we do now? He's not stuck down there, and he's certainly going to be steamed."

"It's fairly simple. We wait for him."

Korban tossed another Jedi against the wall. He'd been making his way to the main entrance, if only to pause a moment and get a plan together. He'd been beset by Jedi the whole time, and he wasn't even there yet. Almost, but not quite. He drove his sword through the Jedi's leg and sent him crashing limply to the ground with a haymaker. Pulling his sword out, Korban regarded the locked door in front of him. He had just the thing to get through it.

The door on one of the mezzanines of the Entrance Hall exploded in a gout of white flame. Korban charged through and leapt down to the main floor, triggering the automated security systems. Several droids emerged from various pillars, but did little to slow Korban down. He simply drew his pistol and blew their processors out of their heads.

Bullets, Jaina reflected. Why would this man be using bullets?

She silently leapt over the rail of the opposite mezzanine and moved into place behind Korban. She waited for a few minutes as he continued to dispatch the security droids. A touch in the Force let her know to move. She ran at his back, lightsaber in her hand, but unlit.

Suddenly Kroban whirled around, leveling the barrel of his pistol on her, and it was all she could do to not get shot in those few precious seconds before she lit her saber.

Then, as she reacted on muscle memory and tried to bat the tiny cones of metal that melted into nothingness on contact back at Korban, barely managing to intercept them all with how fast he could fire the gun, she realized why he was using bullets. He closed the distance, his fire stopping briefly as he dropped the empty magazine out of his pistol. Jaina took that opportunity to dive in between the mass of pillars lining the Hall.

"So that's how you're gonna do it, eh?" Korban roared. "Too scared to face me when my back's not turned?" He probably would have gone on, but Galen interrupted him by nearly slicing him in half. Korban spun away from the saber and swung out with his sword, knocking Galen's arm out of position. Korban ran in, thrusting the point of his blade forward. Galen quickly gestured with his hand and drew on the Force. Korban went sliding into a pillar, smashing against it hard enough to crack the marble. He shifted his sword to his bad arm, taking his gun in his good one, and fired at Galen as he backed away into the pillars. Jaina reached out, trying to feel him in the Force, and realized that she couldn't. Somehow, he had shut himself down within the Force, to detection in at the least. An echoing pop and light grunt of pain did little to help her figure where exactly Korban had gone. She eased out from the pillars to gaze down the hall, Galen doing the same at the other end. Her danger sense prickled and she turned in time to see Korban's furious face before he kicked her in the stomach and sent her flying into the open area of the Hall. She gasped and coughed, drawing lost air into her lungs. Something felt crushed, and something else felt broken. Korban stalked towards her. Galen was running from the back end of the Hall, but he wouldn't make it in time.

Then, there was a screech of blasterfire, and a bright red bolt burned into the left side of Korban's face, driving the man to his knees as he let out a scream of agony. Looking in the direction the shot had came from, Jaina saw Aelyndra, rifle shouldered, firing as she advanced through the main entrance.

Korban, unbelievably, got back to his feet. The left side of his face was lightly charred, and a bit of his scraggily beard looked like it was on fire, but that didn't seem to bother him all that much. He returned fire, forcing Aelyndra to dive behind a pillar. Korban started advancing until Galen came up behind him and burned a long cut down his back. Korban whirled around and fired into Galen's helmet, the bullets bouncing off the metal, but still doing their job of buying the agent some breathing room. He sent Galen flying into the ground with a punch to the chest, then returned his attention to Aelyndra, diving back into the mass of pillars and slowly advancing between them, trading bullets for blaster bolts. Jaina slowly forced herself up off the ground, gritting her teeth as she felt something shift around inside her that was not supposed to. Korban was clearly in close range, as she heard a lightsaber moving and reflecting off whatever the man's sword was made of. A loud snap and cry of pain drew her gaze, and she saw Aelyndra tumbling back out of the pillars, blood seeping from her right shoulder, her left leg flopping limply. She let out a burst of Force Lightning from her one usable hand as Korban approached her. The man took a few steps back and stood there for several seconds as the lightning washed over him. Then, impossibly, he began to move. It was slow going, but he made his way to Aelynrda, and stomped down, crushing her hand beneath his boot. He kneeled down in front of her.

"It was you, wasn't it?' He said softly. "You're the shag that killed my pals."

His face slowly grew into a smile, then shifted back to the expression of cold fury. "Well, we can't just kill you, now can we? You don't get off that easy." He stood up and turned, firing at Jaina as he did so, sending her behind the pillar she'd propped herself against. Korban fired down the hallway, and while the pillars blocked her view, a cry of pain let her know he'd found his target, and the realization of what he planned to do struck her.

He obviously knew who Aelyndra and Galen were. Figured they probably meant something to each other. So he was going to kill Galen in front of her, then finish her off. Jaina moved through the mass of pillars till she was behind Korban. The agent was taking his time, occasionally firing down the hallway and eliciting another yell of pain from Galen, who she still couldn't see. She creeped out back into the Hall proper, and started to move up behind-

Korban spun around and fired two shots at her, blowing her knees out from under her. A small, sadistic smile lit the man's face as he swapped magazines and prepared to turn back to Galen.

That was when the droning of another lightsaber finally became audible, and Korban's expression turned to shock as a glowing blue blade exploded out of his chest. The man dropped to his knees, gasping and coughing up red smoke, then the saber was harshly yanked out, sending him falling to back on the floor and revealing his killer.

Allana.

Korban looked at the little girl, who gazed at him with a contempt and carefully concealed hatred that made him marvel at its potency, and started laughing.

"You start 'em young, don't you?" He weakly called to Solo. "Only way to do it." He spoke from personal experience there. He could hear other Jedi flooding the hall. What had seemed so long a fight hadn't been all that long in reality. He took a rattling, gasping breath, half the air pouring out through the gaping hole in chest, and continued laughing.

"What's so funny?" A voice asked him. He tilted his head to look. One of the Jedi from the Senate Building. Skywalker's kid.

"You are." He said. "All of you." He was interrupted as a hacking cough built up in what was left of his chest, and a bit of vaporized blood steamed past half-burnt lips. He kept laughing. "You really think… you're better… than me." The disgusted look the young man gave made him laugh even harder. "You, me, her," he pointed limply to the girl, who he now realized he recognized. "We're all just killers, end of the day. Frak, this little one here, she killed me over something I don't even know if I did proper." His laughter was interrupted by another cough. "Yeah, you all can really stand on you karking high horse, can't you? Least I don't act like the people I kill weren't worth a thought." His laughter resumed, all the more powerful now that he could see the disconcertion on the Skywalker kid's face.

He looked up at the ceiling, seeing instead the dark clouds of the slums, and wondering if that homeless little kid, fighting for scraps in the alleys and trying to find someone to depend on, could have ever imagined that he'd end his life like this.

Yep. Allana kills Korban. What A Twist!

Also, remember how I said Korban had a bit of Jubal Early in his character? Yeah, that bit finally shows itself in earnest. It's also setting up a bit of the theme here, that probably wasn't obvious at all before.

I'm kind of going to try and challenge typical Star Wars perceptions with this story. I can't imagine it'll be as good as, say, the Republic Commando series of books (every Star Wars fan should read those, by the way) but I'm going to try. And that little speech from Korban marks the real start of that.