Greetings, all of my friends and fellow Star Wars aficionados! How are you doing on the day of January 25, 2018? I'm doing very well, as I had community college today, and did some homework, which frees up the rest of my day for writing, which is a boon, as I LOVE to write. So, when we last left our heroes, they had learned about Ventis's shameful past, and had begun to fly to the Mortis Monastery, and retrieve the Dagger of Mortis, where they would face not one, but two great threats to the Shadow Alliance's plans, and where they would find a dark ally, just like how the Hero of Tython joined forces with the Emperor's Wrath, Scourge, in order to stop Vitiate's plans for ultimate immortality. Man, do I miss the days of the Expanded Universe! Well, on with the story!
Twenty Minutes Later
Outside the Mortis Monastery
As Tau, Ahsoka, Rahm, A'Sharad, Ventis, Nagme, and Butch departed the Second Chance, they came upon a sight that they dreaded, the three speeder bikes that could only belong to the Dark Jedi under Sidious's command, which worried the seven friends, and caused them to bolt up the long series of steps to the center of the monastery, which revealed a sight that no one could have foreseen: the two High Inquisitors, Jerec and Antinnis Tremayne, as well as one of Sidious's personal servants in the Dark Side, the Emperor's Hand known as Arden Lyn, engaged with twenty-two surviving Knights of Olpaka that were defending the area where the Son's slowly decaying corpse, as well as the wardrobe of the Father, who became One with the Force after his martyring to stop his evil son, where the Dagger of Mortis lay.
Tau, holding up his hand in order to stop everyone from mindlessly charging into the battlefield, quickly assessed the situation, and, after seeing the twenty-one Jansar battle suits of the Knights of Olpaka, and the even greater-armed Zellot battle suit that belonged to a high-ranking general of the Knights of Olpaka, who then looked at Tau and his friends, and, through his suit's internal communications equipment, redirected eight of his Knights to attack the Jedi and their allies.
The eight Knights used their thruster packs to avoid the Force attacks of the Dark Jedi, and charge towards the seven Light Siders. Before they reached their targets, Tau shouted, "Do not engage them alone!" He quickly pulled out his comlink, and shouted into it, "Bring in the big guns yesterday!" Once he was done speaking, the Knights reached their position, and the Jedi and their allies fled into three groups, with two groups of three Knights, and one group of two, going after their greatest adversaries.
Tau and Nagme, knowing from past experience how to deal with these Force-hating bigots, shared a look of understanding as they each pulled out ion grenades, and threw them at their three Knights with amplified speed due to Tau's usage of the Force. While one of them managed to avoid the range of the detonation, the other two Knights were caught in the ion pulse, and their suits shut down, the heavy armor pulling the Knights down to the ground. Knowing that they had to act fast in order to keep the remaining Knight from killing one of their friends, Nagme and Tau split up in order to help one of the other teams.
Nagme bolted to pursue the retreating Knight to where he was helping his two brethren in their attempt to kill Ahsoka, Butch, and Ventis, who were barely managing to hold their own against their technologically-superior foes. Between their three Jansar suits' built-in repulsors and grappling hooks, the three friends were forced to be quick on their feet in order to stay alive.
It was then that Nagme revealed one of her hybrid projects that she was working on with her cybernetic comrade and shipmate, Jarael, and pulled out a blaster pistol and aimed at the closest Knight in her line of fire. Once she was sure that she would not hit one of her friends, she pulled the trigger, and a highly corrosive acid was unleashed in a ear-piercing shriek, which made contact with the Knight's head, and quickly ate away at the helmet, along with the woman's face, causing her to let out a bloodcurdling scream of agony before all that remained was a stump where a head used to be, which horrified and enraged the two surviving Knights, who dropped Ventis and Ahsoka from their death grip, and blindly charged at the Yuuzhan Vong Shamed One.
Fortunately for Nagme, who decided to train with Celebion and Tau in the use of self-defense techniques after her liberation from Dol Guldur, used the momentum of one of the stampeding Knights to pull him over her shoulder, and then used her acid spitting blaster on his face, which caused the same reaction on him as on the woman. While she was doing this, Butch used this chance to strike at the monsters who would dare try to kill his master and his friends, and used his brute strength to rip the armor off of the young human, and bit him on his jugular vein, which made him bleed to death in a matter of seconds. The Tuk'ata hound then spat out the blood in his mouth in disgust at tasting such tainted food.
With the second group of Knights neutralized, the five friends then went to see A'Sharad and Tau electrocuting the three remaining Knights with their Light Side application of Force Lightning, which fried the Knights within their armor, and killed them in a matter of seconds.
Rahm, sensing that his friends did not draw on the Dark Side for this little maneuver, and seeing that the rest of their allies made their way to them, said, "We'd better get the dagger and get out of here while we're still an afterthought, because we cannot have those two groups join forces against us, or we're dead meat."
"I wouldn't be so sure about that, General Kota." Said a hateful voice as he stood in his Zellot battle suit, whose helmet was removed to reveal a heavily scarred man that Tau instantly recognized, and returned the glare of disgust that the Knights of Olpaka general returned with equal intensity.
"Vlad Karamazov III." Tau bit out, remembering the vile man from Viridian's debriefing of him, and of the latter's last encounter with him on the Knights' home world of Olpaka, where he accidentally paralyzed his son, causing him to commit to a vendetta of killing everyone and everything that Viridian loved before impaling him as well.
"You know this guy?" Ahsoka said as she prepared to engage this genocidal madman while not knowing the history between the two men who were trading daggers at each other.
"This 'guy', as you so lightly put it, Ahsoka, is one of the leaders of the Knights of Olpaka, who is also a Force-hating lunatic! He set up a forest of dead Force Users on his world in order to celebrate every one of his victims' deaths." Tau repulsively said as he struggled to cap his growing anger at seeing another vile man who took delight in the suffering of innocents for nothing more than the incredible gifts that they were blessed with at birth.
"I prefer to think of each of my experiments as getting one step closer to eradicating Force Sensitivity from all afflicted beings, Jedi Palpatine." Vlad calmly said, which mortified the strike team with how collected and enthusiastic he sounded over his affiliation with such a vile organization, as well as the butchering of countless sentient beings.
"You…you demon! Force Sensitivity is a great gift that is something to nourish and train to better oneself, and for others, not a virus that kills people upon getting into contact with it!" Ahsoka shouted out, her rage now boiling as well now that she knew just how demented this man was.
"Oh, you poor deluded women. Look at what Force Sensitivity has done to the galaxy: Countless wars between various religions who worship it, the suffering of ordinary people for eons, and the creation of people who view themselves as superior to those without their so-called gifts. Don't you see? The galaxy would be better off without Force Sensitivity, and I will do whatever it takes to stop its ruination of the galaxy, just as the Star Cabal tried to do so during the Galactic War between the Jedi and Vitiate's Sith." Vlad said with increasing passion and obvious insanity, which disturbed the Shadow Alliance members even further.
"You mean those money-grubbing hypocritical power-mongers that wanted to have all the glory and power in the name of ordinary people, while the Force Sensitives were treated no better than slaves of serfs? You do realize that they were taken down by a team of Imperial Intelligence agents and SIS agents, right?" Tau said as he referred to ancient history in order to beat Vlad at his game of self-justification for his crimes against Iluvatar himself.
"They didn't go far enough in their war against a war-loving Force, Palpatine. But the Knights of Olpaka will win this war, because we won't hold back at all!" Vlad fanatically shouted as he put his helmet back on, and said, "Now, if you'll excuse me, I have a Dagger to take in order to figure out to destroy it and other Force-strong places and objects."
Somehow, Tau's estimations in Vlad's dance with insanity dropped even further, which he expressed with a shrill voice as he said, "Have you lost your karking mind any more than you already have, Vlad?! That dagger is the only deterrent that we have against a Celestial monster if she ever gets released. You take that away, and we're looking at the end of civilization for good."
"Poor, stupid Jedi. You have no idea of what we're capable of. Now, I believe that I wasted enough time on you. I think that I'll kill the Inquisitors first, get your precious dagger, and then flee to begin my next experiment. Ta-ta, now." Vlad gloatingly said as he activated his Zellot suit's thrusters, and barreled away to ambush the three Dark Jed that, despite being bloodied in several locations, were decimating his six remaining Knights.
He managed to get the drop on Antinnis Tremayne, who was about to finish off one of the downed Knights, and grabbed his head, twisted it to break the neck, and then ripped the head clean off of his body, blood gushing out of both the head and neck in a rapid pace, which immediately killed the first High Inquisitor.
"And, that's another head to add to my forest." Vlad satisfyingly said as he prepared to deal with the remaining two Dark Siders, when he saw his remaining Knights be destroyed by the Jedi's team. Considering his options, as he feared that he could not win against his nine adversaries if they decided to work together, and, knowing that the Jedi, as arrogant as they were, would be a better owner for the Dagger than the Sith, as they would want to just keep it safe as a contingency for Abeloth's possible return. He then used his repulsors to grab the dagger, tossed it to Tau, and said to him in a reluctant tone, "Don't think that this changes anything between us, Tau. You're just the lesser of two evils that I'm going to eventually destroy. Just keep the dagger somewhere safe. Until we meet again, Jedi." He then took his two surviving Knights and executed a tactical withdrawal, fleeing to one of their shuttles that they hid within the monastery, leaving the two Dark Side Adepts and seven Shadow Alliance members alone to deal with each other.
"Tau, sorry for taking so long, the generator was a little sluggish for a couple of minutes. Anyway, the ship's ready to fight, and we've got a shuttle prepping to leave Mortis. Want us to intercept?" Akuu suddenly said in Tau's earpiece.
After a moment of contemplation, he decided to pick the strategic picture over selfish vengeance, no matter how justified it might be, "Negative, Akuu. We might need a quick evac, and we need the ship standing by. Don't pursue." Tau responded as he prepared to engage the two adversaries. He was so focused on the two fallen Jedi, that he did not foresee the betrayal that followed, as Arden used her Juggernaut War Droid prosthetic arm to bash the head of an unsuspecting Jerec, which knocked him out, and stunned the seven friends motionless.
This allowed Arden to grab her former comrade's lightsaber, and disgustingly muttered, "Never thought that I'd have to use one of these." She then swung the lightsaber at the unconscious Miraluka's head, and it flew away from the now-headless corpse. She then looked at the weapon as if it were disease-ridden, and threw it away from her. What she did next shocked everyone even further, as she walked over to Tau and his friends, and kneeled in respect, saying with a degree of humility that she did not know that she still possessed, "I am your servant in the war against your ancestor and his empire, Tau Palpatine."
As the four Jedi and their friends stood in awe of what was happening, Butch walked over to Arden and sympathetically licked her face, which made A'Sharad remember what his father's spirit had told him, and said, "You are the dark ally that my father told us to redeem."
"That would be a safe assumption, Jedi Master A'Sharad Hett. My name is Arden Lyn, one of Darth Sidious's Emperor's Hands, and I am at your command." Arden loyally said as Tau approached her and his loyal hound.
"You were the last leader of the Legions of Lettow, and the lover of the founder of the Legions, the late Dark Jedi Xendor, correct?" Tau said in order to confirm who he was speaking to.
"That is correct, Jedi Palpatine." Arden simply replied as she stood up to see her superior from a better angle.
"How do you know who I am, as I'm willing to bet that my ancestor wasn't able to tell you, or your former associates, of my existence?" Tau said, in reference to Tremayne and Jerec's decapitated bodies. "And, not that I'm complaining or doubting your loyalty, but why are you willing to desert the ruler of the galaxy in order to restore the Jedi Order, who you swore to help bring down when you joined Sidious and his regime?" Tau questioned as the rest of his compatriots looked on with caution, ready to spring into action at a moment's notice if their friend was threatened.
"Because the ghost of my love healed my fractured mind, told me of Sidious's deceptions, and informed me of the threats that you face. He told me that I would find my new purpose in serving your Shadow Alliance, and I intend to honor my love's final wishes." Arden said with pure honesty, which astounded Tau, and raised even further questions in the young Jedi's mind.
However, before he could continue his line of questions, Arden said, "Xendor also told me to tell you that your great-great-grandfather is on his way to the Tython System, so we'd better get out of the system if we hope to take the Dagger of Mortis before the Sith arrive. Oh, and, he wanted me to tell you that the connection between me and Sidious has been destroyed, so that he can't keep track of my movements. Now, I believe that we have an empire to overthrow." She then began to walk towards the Second Chance, with the ship's crew looking at each other for about five seconds before they bolted to their one way off of the artificial planet.
Once the eight passengers entered the ship, Akuu, who was sitting in the ship's cockpit, said into the intercom, "Did you guys get the dagger?"
"Yeah we got the dagger, and a defecting Emperor's Hand in the process. Oh, and we're all fine, so thanks for asking, Akuu." Nagme sarcastically replied to her Anzati friend as she went to go put her experimental blaster away in her acid-proof container.
"Sounds like a story to tell once we've escaped the system." Akuu calmly replied as the ship began to hover over the ground, and blasted into the atmosphere. As the ship headed into the atmosphere, the blinding white light that first brought the Second Chance into the monolith appeared again, transporting them, along with the single shuttle that carried the three surviving Knights of Olpaka, which appeared right behind them at the last second, out of Mortis, and back into the Tython System, where the Imperials awaited them.
Back in the Tython System
Onboard the Inquisitor's Command Bridge
Thirty-Six Hours after departing the Coruscant System
Imperial Security Bureau Colonel Wullf Yularen was on edge, as he had been for the last ten hours since his personal Star Destroyer had arrived in the Tython System, where he was awaiting the rest of the nine Star Destroyers that were on route to support the outclassed Captain Kendal Ozzel in his mission to capture the rogue Jedi under Tau Palpatine's command, including the Devastator, which was now Lord Vader's flagship, and the Obliterator, the Emperor's personal Star Destroyer, which were leading the upcoming blockade of the Tython System, which would commence in approximately thirty minutes, when the Sovereign, the new flagship of Grand Moff Tarkin, arrived in the system.
What no one but Yularen's most trusted advisors knew, however, was the two unauthorized guests that he had on the Inquisitor in order to get a message through to the Jedi's YT-1300 ship, whenever it appeared. He had only wanted Captain Thrawn on this mission, but he reconsidered once he recommended the former Republic Intelligence spymaster, now smuggling and information kingpin, Jori Car'das, on the mission, who knew Imperial transmissions like the back of his hand, could beam a secret transmission to the Second Chance without anyone onboard the Inquisitor knowing, while official communicating with the Jedi and his former comrade, Ahsoka Tano, and giving them a chance to provide him with another side of Emperor Palpatine's palpable, and rather pathetic, attempt at a cover-up.
It was as Wullf was considering what to say to Ahsoka and Tau, when the Jedi would eventually appear, and what he would say when he spoke with them, a bright flash of white light appeared, and his sensors officer was the first to regain his sight, and looked at the sensors monitor. Upon seeing the readouts, he shouted to the ISB colonel, "Sir, we've got a CEC YT-1300 Light Freighter barreling past the Vengeance, and one of the three Theta-class shuttles that first bypassed captain Ozzel's blockade is right behind it!"
Once Yularen regained his sight, he said, "Open a line to the Corellian ship. That's where we'll find the Jedi. Have the Vengeance focus on the Theta shuttle."
As soon as he said those words, the Inquisitor's communications officer raised her hand, and said, "Sir, we're receiving a transmission from the YT-1300 freighter, designated the Second Chance."
Realizing that this would be his chance to beam a transmission to the Rebels, he keyed his datapad in order to inform Thrawn and Car'das to start beaming their transmission, and then said, "Open a line to them." Once the comms officer indicated that he had done so, he spoke with his trademark authoritative voice, "Attention, Second Chance. This is Colonel Wullf Yularen of the Imperial Security Bureau, and you are reported of harboring Jedi fugitives. Stand by for a boarding party."
"Are you aware that you're serving a Sith Lord, Colonel Yularen?" Said a strong male voice that came from the Corellian ship's communicator, which caught the ISB colonel off-guard, as he did not expect such a blatant question.
Realizing that he had to buy more time for his two allies to send a burst transmission to the ship, and to avoid the suspicion of High Inquisitor Halmere, who was stationed on the Vengeance as an observer and Force Advisor, he replied, "Second Chance, I will not repeat myself. Deaccelerate your speed, and prepare for boarding, or we'll be force you to comply."
"Wullf, you need to let us pass. Whatever the Emperor and Vader told you about us is a lie, and we're trying to save the galaxy from his dominion." Said the firm but gentle voice of Ahsoka Tano, which shocked Yularen, as, despite hearing Lord Vader's report, he did not truly expect to see Ahsoka again after she left the Jedi Order when Tarkin led the witch hunt against him.
"Commander Tano. I did not expect you to return to the Jedi after their betrayal of you." Wullf calmly replied as Halmere glared at him for delaying an attack.
"And none of us expected you to serve a dictatorship after your family's long and prestigious history of honor and loyalty to the Republic." The unsympathetic and harsh voice of Rahm Kota came into the intercom, which further stunned Yularen due to the Jedi General's appearance at two unexpected hotspots of dissent.
After Halmere simply sighed in exasperation at the delays, the High Inquisitor began to apply pressure on the colonel's brain, and, getting the message, Yularen painfully said, "My loyalties are not the ones in question. Your time to peacefully surrender is up. Either surrender, or we'll unleash chaos on you."
"No, colonel. You're the ones who are about to have Chaos unleashed on you." A second female voice said into bridge's comms, which stunned one of the first four Inquisitors into a brief silence, as he assumed that the latest of the Emperor's Hands had perished within the Mortis Monolith.
Halmere then growled out, "Lyn, what in the blazes do you think that you're doing with those Jedi?!"
"Doing what I should have done when I first met Sidious. Tell your master that I quit, and have him be prepared to have the full power of the Force unleashed on his precious Empire." Arden scornfully said to her former subordinate.
Looking as if he was about to have an aneurysm, Halmere growled out to the weapons officers onboard the Star Destroyer, "Have all fighters deployed, and prepare to disable the ship. The Emperor will want to deal with these traitors personally, so take care not to destroy their ship, or you'll answer to Lord Vader himself."
Not even waiting to hear the acknowledgement from the gunnery officers, Halmere turned to face Yularen, and said, "I'm going to lead the fighter complements against the Second Chance. You have the helm until I return. Don't mess this up, or the Emperor will kill the both of us."
As the Dark Sider left to prime his altered Jedi Starfighter for flight, Yularen pressed a button on his datapad, which signaled for Thrawn and Car'das to begin their next phase of their clandestine mission, which would give the Second Chance a window of opportunity to escape, and eliminate a vile officer onboard the Inquisitor.
Meanwhile, within Inquisitor's Engine Room
"Well, Captain Thrawn, the transmission is sent. And just in time, too. Yularen's signaling us to begin Phase Two of the mission." Jori Car'das satisfactorily said to his Chiss friend as the message from his former superior came through, which made the young Imperial Captain form a barely noticeable smile on his face as he triggered a countdown for a computer virus that would cause a power surge within the reactor, where the soon-to-be captain Pter Nyklas would take command of his own Star Destroyer, the Flanchard, and handle a small portion of the Wookiee slave trade for the Empire, which immensely disgusted the two comrades.
"Good. It will be interesting to see how these Jedi take this opportunity to handle the low chances of them escaping the system." Thrawn stated in his calm and contemplative tone, all the while preparing the virus that would disable the Inquisitor, and prepare Thrawn for what he hoped to be an insightful meeting with the Jedi about his people's greatest enemies, the Yuuzhan Vong.
And, that's a wrap on the second-to-last chapter of the Mortis arc of my story. Well, what did you think of the decapitations of Jerec and Tremayne, as I got the idea for Tremayne's death at Vlad's hands from how Amazo ripped the head off of General Zod from the Injustice 2 comic book series, as I thought that Tremayne deserved it for his crimes against the free people of the galaxy. Now, as for the defection of Arden Lyn, once the Jedi escape the Tython System, she will tell them the whole story of her defection and repentance through a flashback. And, the Shadow Alliance will then travel to meet with Yularen, Thrawn, Car'das, and Jan Dodonna, in order to try to get him onto their side. Whether they will succeed or not is anyone's guess. Hey, I have to tell you guys that I will not be able to update my story for at least a few days, as I've got homework and my job to worry about for the weekend. I'll write when I can, but it might be a while. Oh, before I forget, we'll be seeing Vlad again. May the Force and Iluvatar be with us on January 26, 2018, and Long Live the Expanded Universe!