Star Wars: The Parody Strikes Back

Part Three

The picture of Emperor Palpatine was staring at him. The eyes stared at him with all the red hot anger and malice of someone who'd been on the toilet for a half-hour. That's his father alright. The miserable person who named him Lerutan. He threw another dart into his picture. Another emperor's eye. His picture had so many darts in it now, that they formed a 3D beard for him. But darts just didn't seem to ease his own anger today. With a pull of The Force all the darts came out of the photo and onto his desk. Then he proceeded to use The Force to pick up the chair and throw it at the picture. The smash, clang, and rattle released some the anger. Another thought and the chair was back in its rightful place. It was Palpatine's fault The Empire was in this position. He was a brilliant planner and statesmen, but his inability to clear up the details was what brought him down. The million clones was not enough for a planet-nation at war, let alone a galactic empire. His decision that only humans could be recruited into the army doomed The Empire from the start. As The Empire's territory expanded, it had fewer soldiers to defend against more enemies over a greater area. It was only a matter of time until something gave. It had, and now he had to prevent a total collapse. It all could have been avoided when he was heir of The Empire. All those improvements he suggested labeled him as insolent; well now it was too late to enlist aliens, they were all hostile. His banishment to the Stormtrooper's ranks has caused great bitterness. Revenge and hatred had led him to The Force.

Time to start another day. Work was murder. He opened his closet and beheld a dozen uniforms, all the same shade of gray. All of the medals, dozens it appeared, were held onto the door by magnets. He would have liked to sit around in his undergarments, sip a Corethian ale, and watch the latest holo-porno. Such was not the life of an admiral though. One of these days, when the Rebellion was crushed, he that's how he would celebrate. He put his back to the closet and a gray uniform flew onto him and buttoned itself. The medals also flew to their proper place. Whoa, thay made the uniform quite heavy, what were these made of, real gold? Maybe they were there to reflect shots.

He heard a buzz on his communicator he had yet to put on. "Commander Domitain to admiral Lerutan. Commander Domitain to admiral Lerutan."

"Admiral Lerutan here. What is it commander?" Most likely the whiner needed to know if he was getting transferred to a safer command post for the upcoming battle. Either that or he'd locked himself in his quarters and forgot his own authorization code.

"Admiral, we have received a transmission from the Ru colony in Taro system. You'd better get down to the Ops room." The commander was getting a bit presumptuous. Maybe a Force beating would set him straight.

A minute later he was fully dressed, with his trusty lightsaber, and heading to the Ops room. The Aetius was quite a large ship. There was an in-ship subway system to send people to the various parts of the ship. The rest of this car was full of Stormtroopers. Ah, yes, the expendables. Well time to listen in on their little world. They wouldn't dare say anything of interest in front of him. Those that did would be thrown through the car for insubordination. That always left a really awkward pause in the conversation. The janitors always had nasty thoughts when he went by, another mess for them to clean up. Well, time to spy on their thoughts.

"All my relatives were on Coruscant, so they won't be able to send me anymore letters. I miss them. Join the army they said. See the galaxy they said. Meet interesting people and kill them. Learn to say 'where are the hookers?' in a dozen different languages."

"Oh god, it's the Admiral. Please don't reprimand me for running away in the last battle. Please don't, please don't. Ah nuts. Please don't let the yellow stain through the armor. Please..."

"Mmm... fried chicken, extra-crispy."

To kill time he took and his lightsaber and twirled it around his finger. After a few seconds he put it back in its place on the belt. Now let's hear the reaction, "I remember seeing Darth Seadist do that once. The lightsaber was on and took off his finger." Clearly they weren't impressed too much, he'd been too showy in the last while.

After a short ride he got off and strolled to the Ops room. Commander Domitain started speaking to him the moment he enter the door, "Sir, we have reports of a rebellion on Ru. All of our bases have been overrun and the rebels now control the planet."

"This will certainly hamper our ability to rearm this ship. The next nearest dock is 5 days away."

"Sir, that's the space-dock is on Meru. The rebellion is on Ru."

He was losing patience with his insolence. "What's the difference?"

"150,000 armed Rhodians, a large orbital dock, and 20 lightyears."

That was it. He used The Force go reach out and grasp Domitain. Not around the neck, someplace far lower. "Well, here are my new orders: We will retake Ru and then proceed to Meru. Any questions?"

"None, crystal clear," Domitain chirped out, his voice growing ever higher.

He released Domitain, no sense killing useful, if insolent, officers. "Retaking Ru will only take a week at most. Send a transmission to the Prometheus and the Talos to join us." It was always good to have scapegoats in case things went wrong. "We will reconvene here in 5 hours to plan the assault." He needed the time to learn about the planet. He didn't even know where the planet was. Well, back to his quarters.

He awoke several hours later without remembering a thing about Ru, and a picture of Talian dancers on his screen. The wiped the drool from his face. It was good to have Jedi powers. He could walk into the Ops room, read all their minds, and know all he wanted to. He looked in mirror. This old, tough face was showing it's age. He was 63 and had a white beard to prove it to himself. His body felt much younger. The Force coursed through his arm, giving him a tingly sensation. Oh wait, that was a spider. Darn pests, you will die! Spiders, Rebels, Jedi will all die! All die! Bwahahaha! Now in the mood to plot the death of millions he strut out of his office. He quickly turned around and went back in, he wasn't wearing any pants.

A few minutes later he was in the Ops room. There was a map of the capital city of Ru on the view screen. Commanders and admirals were moving pieces on the screen like a grand game of chess. "We're planning a two pronged attack on the capital city. The first attack should come from across this river... the Rubicon," one commander said as he walked in. He noticed Darth Geanosclyde was in a corner, observing. Good to see one them bothering to learn the finer points of military operations.

"I see, and the second attack will come from the direction of this grassy knoll." he copied from the mind of another admiral, what a life-saver these powers were.

"Yes, but I doubt this will be enough to capture the capital city, Jer Fa Kera."

"Yes, we need to take out Airbase One. It will provide too much resistance if we don't hit it early."

"Yes and we should have one of the new Imperial Gunboats support the attack of Jer Fa Kera." The Imperial Gunboats was his version of the Millenium Falcon. Same size but a different shape. These wondrous ships were making mincemeat of the Rebel's smaller fighter-craft.

"No, we need two Gunboats to insure Jer Fa Kera will fall."

"Gunboats have yet to hit mass production, we need to conserve them, and they aren't suited to atmospheric combat. One lone gunboat will be used."

"Yes, and the attack should take place at 03:15, under cover of darkness."

"We've tried night operations before, those Stormtroopers stick out like flares."

"We'll have the element of surprise, and the Stormtroopers will be able to see each other. Friendly fire should be low for a night operation."

"Seeing what their aiming at won't prevent Stormtroopers from shooting each other. I saw one of 'em shoot himself in the back."

"Of course we'll precede the attack with a bombardment of Agent Blue," he cut in. Agent Blue was a new biological weapon of his design. It was based on a ancient biological weapon he had found on an old Imperial colony. Those little cylinders of death. Those ingenious little creations, cigarettes. He found a stockpile containing millions of these poison packets, enough to kill off an entire planet, if used properly. It was an insidious weapon. Most likely dropped from aircraft to saturate the target. Then followed by an incineration attack would release of plume of deadly smoke, killing all in its path. Or if left, the poisons would seep into the ground, rendering the planet inhospitable. All he had done was put them into mass production, concentrated the formula, and added a blue coloring to the smoke. One of the simplest and deadliest weapons ever designed. Luckily, the Stormtrooper's helmet filtered out the toxins. "After the attack, the Aetius will bombard with conventional weapons. This should all be over in a week, no more."

After they planned other key first assaults and started into the mop-up planning. It may have been presumptuous, but it needed to be done. The attack will take give him a much needed opportunity to test out many of his new creations, and tactics. This would be the first battle with a unit of Dark Jedi acting as covert operations team and standard fighting units. It will all be a grand testing grounds. He felt giddy, as if he was about to test fly a new fighter-craft.

Two days later, it was the one-year memorial of the battle of Endor, and the death of Darth Vader and Emperor Palpatine. To most it was a day of mourning, to him it was a day of rebirth. The rebirth of The Empire. Free of the fools in command, it could regain its past glory. He just received word from the Head Imperial Engineer, Arist, had informed him that a prototype of a computer interface had been installed in his office. "Computer, display the file on the battle of Endor."

A whiny, high-strung male voice responded, "Do you mind if you wait a minute? That file is being accessed by people all around the system." He half expected a monotonous female voice.

"Your's is not to say request denied. It is to do or fry," Lerutan shot back.

"Don't get all touchy on me, I'm going as fast as I can."

"Hey, I'm the only user on the system, it's a prototype! Display the file!"

"Give me a minute man. Don't get your uniform in twist. When I'm ready I'll display the file."

He sparked a few bolts between his fingers menacingly, "How long will I have to wait?"

"That file is number 1,024,885 of 684,832,753. It should only be a wait of... 5.6 X 10E23 hours." Lerutan placed his hand on the console and shot lightning into the mouthy computer. "Ahh! Ahh! It burns! It burns! My circuits are melting, melting! I have too much RAM to die! Noooooooooo..."

Lerutan then turned on his communicator, "Arist, this is Admiral Lerutan. Please report to airlock #32. I will join you there." The great thing about being an admiral is that nobody could tell when he was joking or being serious.

A few days later, they were in orbit of Ru. It was time once again to control their puny minds of the crew to ensure this was done quickly and efficiently. First as a warm-up, he peered into the minds of those in the ship. He saw a Stormtrooper in his quarters, cleaning his armor with a toothbrush, "Why must these suits stain so easily? It takes so long to clean them."

Then, through the eyes of a janitor listening to music as he swept a lonely hallway, "Play that funky music white boy. Let that funky music rock..."

Then to two Tie pilots walking the hall, "Urah, I'll bet you 20 credits that this won't be a pushover. That we will fighting a combat mission, not a rearm, resupply, and revisiting gambling halls mission."

Now he spread his will out like a great cloud. His will infested the minds of every one on the Aetius like an annoying pop song. Everybody froze, their eyes glazed over, their went bodies rigid. They would obey his every command. "Everybody to combat positions. Communicator crews rely the following message to the Prometheus and Talos, 'Proceed with attack as planned.' Stormtroopers to assault pods. Tie pilots to your craft. Fire the Agent Blue at the designated targets. Open Imperial Gunboat bay doors... launch Imperial Gunboats. Hungry... mmm croissant. Oh yeah, launch fighters in bay 1." He sensed through his thousands of reporting eyes the crushing of Tie Fighters as they slammed against the fighter bay doors, "Ah crud, Open fighter bay doors! Open all doors. Wait, close airlock #32, close... too late. Launch all fighters. Launch pods containing Walkers, At-At's, and At-St's. Helm, take us into medium orbit on an attack run. Bwahahaha, cities will crumble into dust! Planets will fall! Stars will shudder! It all begins today!... not now, ah nuts, nature calls." He released them from his power. He was tired, so very tired. He needed more practice at controlling so many minds at once.

The next day all was going as planned. The bulk of the fighting was over, the Stormtroopers had carried the day. He couldn't remember that happening since, well he just couldn't remember the last time the Stormtroopers had performed on par to the days of old. They only lost 80,000 Stormtroopers to 140,000 Rhodians; the casualty ratio was in his favor. To add to victory, one of the leading Rhodians had been captured and was now being transferred to the Aetius. It had been awhile since he had been afforded the treat of an interrogation. Getting dressed and taking his lightsaber, he went to the detention cells.

He passed a sign reading, "Visitors are asked to please not feed the prisoners."Colonel Zell stood guarding the door, he yielded and let him in. The Rhodian wasn't too badly beaten, the Stormtroopers just weren't good at interrogations. "I've heard that Rhodians have blue blood. The Imperial aristocracy is jealous. Despite their extensive inbreeding programs, they've yet to produce an offspring of truly blue blood. Well I've heard that you ranked fairly high in the rebellion. Care to share your thoughts on where you went wrong?"

"Keyra faz pah!" translated, 'Go blast yourself.'

"Well, we have ways of making you talk. Take for example, the pinching of a nerve." he reached out with The Force and squeezed.

"Faaaaaaaaaaaddddd!"

"Now, what if I twist the nerve as well?"

"Faaaaaaaaaaaaaaggggggrrrrrrraaaaaaa!"

"I can do this all day; but I don't have all day. I'll just rip what I need from your mind." He placed his hand on the Rhodian's head and chanted, "My mind to your mind. My thoughts to your thoughts..."

The Rhodian cut in with a thought of his own, "My disrupter to your chest." Looking through the Rhodian's eyes he saw indeed that there was a disrupter pointed at him. With a motion of the force, the gun was free of the Rhodian's grasp and floating in the air.

The life of the Rhodian flashed before is eyes. My god, it was boring. He almost nodded off as it got to the rebellion. There was images a secondary rebel command post in a cave in the badlands. They hadn't seen it from orbit. Judging from the arrangement of the stones, he say... a Jedi had lived there. Pictures of Imperial POW's flashed into his mind, and then a picture of a bookcase. The he surveyed the books in it: Karma Sutra, War and Pieces; Roughriders v.s. Roughriders; Romeo and Juliet and Richard; Everything I Know I Learned In The Clone Tanks; Everything You Wanted To Know About Wookies, But Were Too Smart To Ask To Their Faces; and... what appeared to be a book in a strange writing. Wait... he recognized the script, it was in Yoda's writing. Most intriguing, he would have to recover the book.

But, there was still a matter at hand. How had the Rhodian gotten a weapon in here? Clearly, Colonel Zell must of let him. Well, he'd give him what he wanted. Using the Force he fired the levitating disrupter into the Rhodian. The shot and the thump it produced would bring the Colonel running to inspect the result and kill the Rhodian before he talked. He heard motion outside, he took out his lightsaber and sliced through the metal wall. The thump outside told him he'd hitting something. Slicing through the door he saw that he had just decapitated a protocol droid. Colonel Zell was running away. A pull with The Force had the Colonel at his feet. A slice removed the colonel from his presence. Another assassination plot foiled. He flipped on his communicator, "This is admiral Lerutan to all full Dark Jedi. Report to Ops in the next 30 minutes. I've learned something that will ensure the prosperity of the Empire. We shall all live long." he then started a new transmission, "This is admiral Lerutan to the cell block janitor. You are needed at cell #3." This is why the janitors didn't like him. He looked in nearby mirror, did his ears seem pointier?

In the Ops room, 6 Dark Jedi were assembled when he arrived: Darth Liche, Darth Seadist, his sister Darth Meadist, Darth Geanosclyde, Darth Claw, and Darth Fred. Darth Liche and Darth Fred were dressed in the hoods of tradional Dark Jedi. Darth Seadist and Darth Meadist were in Officer's armor, without the cape Vader wore. Darth Genosclyde and Darth Claw were in normal officers garb. That's one thing about Dark Jedi he couldn't understand, they resisted all efforts at proper dress. They wore what they wanted to wear. "I've just learned of a secondary rebel outpost on Ru. It contains Imperial POW's and possibly a book written by Yoda. I've assembled you as my escort, as we're going to take the outpost. It'll still have maybe two dozen guards in it. We will have no other support from the fleet. It'll make a perfect training exercise. Any questions?"

Darth Liche spoke up, "(Wheeze) Will there be any (gasp) Jedis for us to hone our skills upon (cough wheeze)?" Unlike Vader, Liche's lung problems were due to smoking. The fool was smoking cigarettes. Cigarettes! The most devastating biological weapon ever designed was being deliberately ingested. And most insidiously of all, he said they were addictive. Why would such an obvious poison need to be addictive?

"I suspect that at least one was there to organize the rebellion. And please Liche, stop smoking, your wasting valuable weapons."

Several hours later the seven of them were in a Chariot speeding through the badlands. Ah, he loved the smell of blasted Rhodians in the morning. A cloud of Agent Blue obstructed the sun, bathing everything in a blue twilight. On the Chariot there was only room for 6 to stand, so he sat on the heads of the other six. A discipline exercise he called it. His black battle armor, complete with red should armor and his red centurion brush on his helmet, were already brown with the blowing dust. Who would have thought the badlands could be so dusty?

The cave loomed among the rock formations, it gaping mouth stood ready to devour all. The erect stone slabs were it teeth. And what would the automated defenses count as, pimples? The seven Dark Jedi flicked on their lightsabers and charged headlong into the cave. The startled guards turned and fled. Those that didn't were skewered. Strange, he didn't feel any Jedi. These guards proved too easy a prey. He was pleased with the Dark Jedi though, very ruthless, very efficient, very sadistic; in his own (sob) image. He felt so proud. They trashed the communication equipment and scanners with such ease and grace.

At last they came to the door to the POW's room. He could hear a female voice inside, "Don't look at me like that Marius. I whomped you once before, and I don't care if we're bound, I'll whomp you again." Barging in, they saw dozens of poorly clad Stormtroopers. Armor taken, they were down to their undergarments. He took a long look at some of the female soldiers.

"Stand up all of you. I have one question: Why aren't you dead? Imperial doctrine states that you are to fight to the death and never surrender."

A discontented Stormtrooper erupted, "I just spent a week prisoner in this miserable place to be chewed out for not throwing away my life? I don't care if you are an admiral! I have an idea of where you should put that lightsaber of yours!"

"Your got guts, more than the rebels that were guarding you, hehe. I'm promoting you to Corporal."

"I'm a Sargent. If I were demoted, then I'd be a Corporal."

Lerutan raised his hand and flame erupted from it and engulfed the Stormtrooper, he fell to the floor a pile of bones. "You're a Corporal, end of argument, I win." He was a self-taught Dark Jedi, so he picked up a few tricks of his own. "Okay Dark Jedi, cut their bonds. Be sure that you don't go too fast and take off a hand..."

"Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!" Too late, some idiot must've strayed a slice.

"I didn't take off his hand, but I don't think Marius here will be able to have kids." Darth Fred, not the brightest Dark Jedi, but he got the job done.

"Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!"

"Would somebody shut him up. Give some painkillers of something." The medic could regenerate the damage, but it sure would be an interesting tale for him to hear.

Back on in the command room, he found the bookcase. Quickly plucking out "Romeo and Juliet and Richard" he leafed through it. Not quite what he'd was hoping for, lacked a little in the action department. He put the book back and took out the Yoda book. Hmm... it was in a language he'd never seen before. "Behind him, he heard the flicking as a lightsaber was turned on. Turning around a Jedi leapt from an unchecked doorway. A rescued Stormtrooper leapt in front of Lerutan, in an effort to use himself as human shield, yelling, "Nooooooo."

Fool! The Stormtrooper was blocking his way! Using The Force to sweep him out of the way, the Stormtrooper let out a surprised, "Whaaaat theee fuuuuudge?" Lerutan raised his lightsaber to parry the Jedi's stroke. With a kick, he slammed the Jedi back into the wall. Using The Force to grasp the Jedi's neck he raised him into the air. He threw his lightsaber through the Jedi. He held out his hand, expecting the lightsaber to return to it. The lightsaber missed and flew into the wall behind him, inches from Darth Fred's head. Strange, he hadn't sensed the Jedi, they must have learned a few new tricks.

Back on the Aetius, he was received with the welcome of a conquering hero. Rows and rows of Stormtroopers sang the Imperial national anthem. Waiting until they finished, he flicked on some music with The Force and took control of a five minds: A Stormtrooper, a janitor, an officer, Darth Fred, and a Tie Pilot. Sending them into the center of the hall they began singing "YMCA." The others didn't all laugh, they could be next. Still, he thought it was funny. When he was finished with them, he went to his quarters.

The computer had finished translating the language. He read the first paragraph, "Curious you are. Impart to you this book shall knowledge. On read enlightened you become will." Confound it, it still made no sense. Codes within codes! He will have only a few days to crack it. They were already at Meru.

Elpollodiablos@hotmail.com