Alert! Long chapter, 2000+ words... Not terribly long, well, longer than the previous ones anyway.

Again, acknowledgements to my sister, AcidicParanoia, and also to Trillian4210 and CO Seth.

Chapter 4: Invasion

The Republic Fleet glided through space, looking for all intents and purposes like a flock of vultures circling their prey. They were orbiting the green sphere that was Tatooine. The planet on which the fugitive, Devien Tavar was hiding. They had traced his hyperspace vector to this far removed part of the galaxy. As he had known they would.

On the surface, scout teams were distributed throughout the possible sites of his hidden base. The Gand Jedi, with their ability to peer into the possible futures, had pinpointed it to within a 500 square kilometre area in the Northern Hemisphere.

Devien Tavar was seated on a comfortable leather armchair sipping a steaming beverage. He had felt them arrive through the Force, and knew there were a lot of people searching for him. I should be flattered, he thought, that they think of me so highly. His had finished his preparations with only hours to spare when the Fleet jumped in. Being in his fighter, he had gotten here much faster while the size of the Fleet made it slow and unwieldy.

One of his last modifications was to insert a crystal of the same type as that which hung around his neck in his lightsaber focusing matrix in place of the usual coloured crystal. He ignited it, instead of the normal hum, it extended with a whisper, that seemed to hint at dark power and resonated with the Dark Side. A fitting weapon, he decided.

He could sense the teams of troopers, with a few Jedi per squad, all of them looking for him; soon, they would all die. For he had more defences than just those of the conventional nature.

Colonel Rax Talara watched her troops moving towards the cleverly disguised base from her command transport. It was totally surrounded and the transports were disgorging more and more soldiers each second. They could not lose. Not this time. Although she had been warned by the Jedi Council that this was no ordinary case, she was confident that her men could take down any renegade, Jedi or not. As they approached the edge of the sinkhole, they fanned out, intending to cover as much of the inside as possible before rappelling down.

Not that that would make a difference. With a slight hiss of hydraulics, twenty beam cannons rose up from hidden positions beneath the ground and started firing. Red beams of energy and death lanced through the air, impaling troopers who fired back in vain, their shots harmlessly absorbed or reflected by the cortosinium coating.

Suddenly he was there among them, lightsaber swinging, he stabbed one soldier through the chest then slashed across to catch another one by the throat. One man got a shot off, only to have it deflected back at him, it burned a hole in his right arm, spinning him around and dropping him into the sinkhole. He landed a kick at one's armoured faceplate, snapping his head back and breaking his neck.

The others in the squad backed off, fearful of his presence, then turned and ran. Devien felt someone taking aim at him, turning off his lightsaber, he unclipped the cover of his right holster. Waiting for the precise moment that the sniper fired, he dodged the bolt and whipped out the pistol, shooting the man clean through the head, from three hundred metres away.

A heavy trooper locked on to him with a portable rocket launcher and fired. The projectile abruptly halted two feet away from him and reversed course. Propelled by the Force and its own propulsion, it catapulted the man back into his squad and detonated. Colonel Rax Talara watched the carnage unfolding before her eyes. All this had taken just under a minute and her troops were still under fire from the beam emplacements, currently her biggest threat.

She assigned three squads of troops to take out the guns by any means possible and the rest to go for a tactical withdrawal and regrouping. In other words, retreat. She heard a muffled gurgle from behind her and turned. The first thing she saw were her command staff slumped over their consoles. The second thing...

He was there. Looking at her. She had seen what he had done to her men and how easily he had done it. He spoke, softly, gently, not like what she expected at all.

"Colonel, we both want to avoid unnecessary death. I am not above killing but I hate waste. And that is what will happen if you do not call your troops off. Now."

'What guarantee do I have that you won't kill them anyway?'

"None at all. You will just have to trust me."

'Hah! You say that word like you know it so well. All you traitors are the same!'

"Do it, Colonel, or I kill you now. Or at the very least make the action involuntary."

'What are you talking about? Me, betray the Republic? Just like you? Not a chance.'

"You force me to do this." He raised one hand, opened it, and closed it, deliberately slowly.

A few moments later, the comm aboard the Republic flagship crackled. 'This is Colonel Talara. I recommend an immediate and total retreat. We cannot win this battle.'

Master Ka'RanTik answered, 'What! No! We have ten thousand troops on the planet and even Devien Tavar will not be able to resist!'

"Master. How nice to talk to you again. Call them off. Or she dies."

'Never!'

"For a Jedi, you make many bad decisions. I'm sorry." There was the sound of a body hitting the floor. The comm went dead

Cera Winn, Jedi Knight was taking point for her squad of troopers and two other Jedi who were also assigned to this squad. She could feel the underlying fear and nervousness that the soldiers felt, they had all heard what he was capable of. She walked on, albeit cautiously, no telling when he might try and get the drop on them.

A military transport temporarily blocked out the twin suns, each one capable of carrying 250 Republic troops. It cast an eerie twilight on the squad, even more so beneath the already dense tree cover. Then it passed; fifty of the transports were on standby to land troops and supplies when and where they needed them, when they had found him. There were many more in reserve aboard the capital ships of the Fleet.

A light breeze whistled through the trees, something that would ordinarily have lifted spirits slightly, however, that day, more than ever, it seemed to have an ominous air.

Suddenly, there was something, a tingling that could be felt through the Force, she turned around to warn her troops, and found no one there. Then she felt something she knew all too well.

It was the sudden discharge of the Force, which only happened when a Jedi died. Then it was abruptly cut off.

She realized she was alone.

Devien Tavar moved swiftly but silently through the forest. Towards where he had posted a squad of T-droids, as he called them. It was where they had first made hard contact.

He had a personal connection to this Jedi. He saw her, trying her comlink, then clipping it to her belt in frustration and igniting her lightsaber. Fully alert, she scanned the greenery for any sign of anything, friend or foe.

He decided to give her a fighting chance and opened the shroud he held around himself to avoid detection by other Force wielders. She instantly turned towards him and brought the lightsaber to a guard position. He stepped lightly into her line of sight, lightsaber held casually in one hand.

"Hello Cera."

'You.'

"It's good to see you here; it proves you care, or should I say cared."

'You killed her you b------!'

"She could not be left alive, she knew too much about me, too much about my intentions, too much..."

'You didn't have to, you could just have gone!'

"Unfortunately, no, she knew about this place and I know she would have told the Council."

'You will pay.'

Cera darts forward and sends a green flash his way. With no apparent effort, a black bar of sheer darkness appears between her lightsaber and him. Pushing her off, he continues:

"No. It is you who shall pay. Pay for your injustices to the universe, to innocents who could have been saved, and the Sith who you all have wronged. Nevertheless, it is good to see you have improved. Perhaps your anger over her death has pushed you over the edge?"

'No, it is you who have become weak, weak from the taint of the Dark Side.'

"Oh really? And what do you think has happened to you? You still do not see, do you? You have some of that in you. You always have. Everyone does, its just what they choose to do with it. The Jedi do not give you that choice. The Sith do. Are you strong enough to break their chains? Will you too give up their misguidance?"

'I will kill you.' She said matter-of-factly.

"You will try." He replied, equally seriously.

(1) Their lightsabers clash once again, harder this time. There is no flash, conversely, the glow of her lightsaber becomes fainter. They both pull back, circling, Cera because she's assessing his weaknesses, Devien because he's playing along, toying with her.

She attacks again, her strikes becoming more and more unpredictable and at the same time getting faster. He, as usual, parries each one effortlessly, in fact, although she is attacking, he is slowly pushing her back.

He goes into attacking mode and lets loose a flurry of strikes that takes all her skill to deflect; he doesn't cease and manages to fling her lightsaber away. Deactivating his own, he calls hers to him. She attempts to snatch it away from him, but to no avail.

"Now do you see the futility of your attack? Do you see my true power? That was but a grain on a beach to what I can muster!"

'No, all I see is a man, one who has fallen so far that he has to convince others of his own power when he himself is insecure of it.'

"Cera, look at me,"

She looks up from where she has been staring at the ground.

"Look and see, and tell me whether I know myself."

She glares at him, but looks into him, using the Force to see what her own eyes cannot.

She inhales sharply and says, 'Yes, yes you do. But you do not know what it means to be you.'

"I've had enough of this!" He raises his hand and flings her into a nearby tree.

'Devien,' she stands once again, shaken but not broken. 'Devien, turn back, I know you loved her, you can still be forgiven.'

"You have no idea, none at all of what I want, what I am,"

'But-'

"No. I'm going to give you a chance to get away from here. It was her time to die. It is not yours."

'Devien, let the Jedi help you, you know we can,'

"You CAN NOT! And even if you could, you would not. Now go, go before I change my mind."

'You owe it to her to try!'

"I owe nothing!" he raises her lightsaber and prepares to cut her in two.

'If you truly are so far gone, then do it, dammit, and let me join my sworn sister!' she looks at him, pleading.

He lowers the lightsaber.

"Cera, why die today when you are still needed for my final plan? I want you to think about what I've said today, I want you to think about everything you've ever thought to be true, everything you ever thought was your own, everything you ever wanted but let go... I want you to go, and live for now... Do not resist me." (2)

He raises a hand and two droids drop from the canopy above. He instructs them to escort her to her ship, to make sure she straps in and lifts off.

Wordlessly, she follows.

After about ten steps, she turns around, and solemnly raises her hand in a gesture of farewell. He does the same, while tapping a remote with his left hand. Within seconds, the whine of repulsorlifts can be heard and a black shape appears, his fighter. With a precisely coordinated leap, he lands in the cockpit and shoots off, done with Tatooine.

(1) I shift into the present tense here because I felt it would bring the reader into the story more fully. Review to tell me whether it worked. If you don't like it, I'll change it to the past tense.

(2) (The entire story) In this story, seeing as it takes place so long ago, I am trying to portray the Jedi as still being more gritty and unrefined, thus we can see some displays of emotion, and all is not as calm as later generations.

Do you still think Devien Tavar is an average Jedi or Sith? Keep reading to find out.

More to follow. Enjoy.

P.S. The following chapter will not contain as much character profile creation and will concentrate on how Tatooine became a desert.

Yours,

Fatemperor

a.k.a. TQKL...