Hey Folks, Grubkiller here.
This is the latest chapter of this story.
Hope that you enjoy.
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Tatooine, on the outskirts of Mos Espa.
Out on the rocky cliffs overlooking Mos Espa, a pair of Jawas were in the middle of an encampment, working on a GONK droid that they bartered for in a nearby trading post. One of the hooded Jawas was inspecting the droid, as it sparked with blue energy. The other Jawa chattered in his native tongue, scolding his companion. They clearly got a raw deal when they traded for this droid.
As one of the Jawas banged on the droid in a frustrated manner, the other one noticed a new figure walking up to them.
He wore a black leather suit and black robes, with some dark metal plates over his chest, shoulders, and collar. But the most menacing part about him was the metal claws on his gauntlets, and the deathless, horrible mask that hid his face.
The mysterious figure then activated a red lightsaber and swung it through the screaming Jawa, the droid, and his friend. They all lay dead and smoking at the figure's feet.
The figure was Darth Starkiller. Leader of the Sith Inquisitors, and a legion of Imperial Shadow Troopers.
Starkiller deactivated his lightsaber and looked around.
He looked around at the landscape with a sense of indifference.
Jawas were of no concern to him. He was brought here for one purpose: to find Jedi
He went on ahead, and headed for the sand-colored structures that were scattered across the desert. The settlement of Mos Espa.
Then his com-link began to beep.
"My lord, this is... Captain Berrus aboard the stealth ship, Carrion Spike," said the voice of a hesitant Imperial officer. "Grand Admiral Thrawn has instructed me to... assist you as needed."
"Very well, Captain..." Starkiller said in a deep robotic voice as he continued to rush across the cliffside. "...proceed."
"Yes, my lord. It appears that you've already discovered an encampment of Jawas. Disgusting creatures," Berrus said, clearly repulsed. "You'll need to clear them out before heading for your destination."
Starkiller rushed through the camp, made of small shacks that were made of scrap metal, and came face to face with a couple dozen Jawas. They knew that he wasn't here for any good. So they decided to try and teach him a lesson for trespassing. They rushed out of their little shacks with blowtorches and homemade hand grenades. Several reprogrammed battle droids activated and marched towards Starkiller. They began to open fire on him.
He ignited his red lightsaber and went to work, deflecting their blast bolts.
Several Jawas fell from their own droid's fire power. Some Jawas tried to toss their homemade detonators. But before they could reach Starkiller and detonate, he made them freeze midair. That's when they flew back and exploded into the battle droids, and their recharging stations. The explosion caused several fuel canisters to be set ablaze, spreading fire across the camp.
One final Jawa tried to swing at Starkiller's legs with his blowtorch. But the Grand Inquisitor merely used the force to lift the little creature's head into his one flesh palm. As it struggled in his hand, Starkiller used force lightning to make energy coarse through his hand and into the Jawa's head. When it stopped kicking and screaming, Starkiller used the force to throw the Jawa over the side of the mountain.
"Excellent work, my lord. Now you must get passed the sandscrawler blocking your path to the facility." Captain Berrus said.
Starkiller walked in front of the ship and used the force to disengage the brakes, which caused the treads to roll forward, and out of the way. It then drove over the side of the cliff and then crashed at the bottom of the mountain, before erupting into a magnificent explosion. The path was now clear for Starkiller to pass.
Moments later, as Starkiller walked closer and closer to the outskirts of the settlement, small laser sights were aimed at him, and the loud cracks of primitive rifles resonated across the mountain range, and metallic slugs began to fly past his face. Realizing that he was in danger, he force dashed to the side just in time to avoid another incoming arrow.
"Lord Starkiller. We're detecting lifeforms nearby. But they seem to be wielding primitive blaster rifles. Tusken Raiders, most likely. They've taken position in the rocky cliffs on either side of the road to the facility." Berrus said.
The Tuskens let out their fierce warlike cries as they prepared to deal with their latest quarry.
Starkiller used the force to blast away several incoming slugs. One was hit in the face by his own round, causing him to fall forward and plunge to the bottom of the canyon below.
"Do not fail to warn me again, Captain." Starkiller threatened.
"Ye-y-yes... my lord," Berrus said.
Starkiller went back to work, dodging and blasting blaster slugs away. One by one, the native Tuskens fell. One more was atop a rocky butte, next to the path to Mos Espa. Starkiller picked up a rock, shocked it with electricity, and threw it at the butte. The top of which exploded in a ball of electricity, vaporizing the last raider.
As he walked past the carnage he had just created, he knelt down and reached out with the force. He could feel one. The Jedi.
He could feel her fear in the force.
Satisfied, he continued along his path, only to hear a loud engine roaring overhead. Without even thinking, he jumped high up into the air and reached out with a clawed hand, grabbing a hold of the Millennium Falcon as it roared overhead. The hot desert air blasted over him as he struggled to get a hold of the landing gear.
As he raised his saber to try and slice his way into the ship, the ship spun around in a vicious cork screw, while heading straight up into orbit, throwing him to and fro like the tail of a fish out of water.
Tried as he willed, he was not about to keep a hold of the ship, and he let go. As he fell to the surface below, X-Wings that escorted the Falcon aand TIE Fighters from the local garrison screeched by.
He used his blade to slash through an X-Wing and force blasted a TIE fighter to pieces, as he fell through the dogfight, and safely to the sand below.
The Falcon had clearly upset someone other than himself.
Millennium Falcon.
The Millennium Falcon twisted hard to starboard as a TIE fighter shot past overhead, lasers blazing away madly as it tried unsuccessfully to track the freighter's maneuver. Clenching her teeth firmly against the movement, Leia Organa Solo watched as one of their escort X-wings blew the Imperial starfighter into a cloud of flaming dust. The sky spun around the Falcon's canopy as the ship rolled back toward its original heading.
"Look out!" Threepio wailed from the seat behind Leia as another TIE fighter roared in toward them from the side. The warning was unnecessary; with deceptive ungainliness the Falcon was already corkscrewing back the other direction to bring its ventral quad laser battery to bear. Faintly audible even through the cockpit door, Leia heard the sound of a Wookiee battle roar, and the TIE fighter went the way of its late partner.
"Good shot, Chewie," Han Solo called into the intercom as he got the Falcon leveled again. "Wedge?"
"Still with you, Falcon," Wedge Antilles' voice came promptly. "We're clear for now, but there's another wave of TIE fighters on the way."
"Yeah." Han glanced at Leia. "It's your call, sweetheart. You still want to try and reach ground again?"
Threepio gave a little electronic gasp. "Surely, Captain Solo, you aren't suggesting—"
"Put a choke valve on it, Goldenrod," Han cut him off. "Leia?"
Leia looked out the cockpit canopy at the Imperial Star Destroyer and eight Dreadnaughts arrayed against the beleaguered planet behind them. Clustering around it like mynocks around an unshielded power generator. It was their latest mission to make a quick trip to Tatooine to win an auction for a very rare Alderaanian painting... with secret Rebel codes inside of it. Specifically, names for all of the Alliance (and now Republic's) Fulcrum agents.
Some mission. They ended up losing the auction anyway, and before Han could try to rip out the codes hidden in the painting, they were discovered, and the Empire was in hot pursuit.
"There's no way we can make it through all that," she told Han reluctantly. "Even if we could, I doubt the moss painting is still where we left it. We'd better make a run for it."
"Sounds good to me," Han grunted. "Wedge? We're pulling out. Stay with us."
"Copy, Falcon," Wedge said. "You'll have to give us a few minutes to calculate the jump back."
"Don't bother," Han said, swiveling around in his seat to key in the nav computer. "We'll feed you the numbers from here."
"Copy. Rogue Squadron: screen formation."
"You know, I'm starting to get tired of this," Han told Leia, swiveling back to face front. "I thought you said your Noghri pals were going to leave you alone."
"This has nothing to do with the Noghri." Leia shook her head, an odd half-felt tension stretching at her forehead. Was it her imagination, or were the Imperial ships surrounding Tatooine starting to break formation? "This is Grand Admiral Thrawn playing with his new Dark Force Dreadnaughts."
"Yeah," Han agreed quietly, and Leia winced at the momentary flash of bitterness in his sense. Despite everyone's best efforts to persuade him otherwise, Han still considered it his own personal fault that Thrawn had gotten to the derelict Katana fleet ships—the so-called Dark Force—ahead of the New Republic. "I wouldn't have thought he could get them reconditioned this fast," Han added as he twisted the Falcon's nose away from Tatooine and back toward deep space.
Leia swallowed. The strange tension was still there, like a distant malevolence pressing against the edges of her mind. "Maybe he has enough cloning cylinders to breed some engineers and techs as well as soldiers."
"That's sure a fun thought," Han said; and through her tension Leia could sense his sudden change in mood as he tapped the comm switch. "Wedge, take a look back at Filve and tell me if I'm seeing things."
Over the comm, Leia could hear Wedge's thoughtful intake of air. "You mean like the whole Imperial force breaking off their attack and coming after us?"
"Yeah. That."
"Looks real enough to me," Wedge said. "Could be a good time to get out of here."
"Yeah," Han said slowly. Reaching over, He gripped the hyperdrive levers and pulled them gently back. Through the cockpit canopy the stars stretched themselves into starlines, and they were safe.
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ISD Chimaera, Ukion system.
"I presume," Thrawn said in that deadly calm voice of his, "that you have some sort of explanation."
Slowly, deliberately, the hologram of Starkiller lifted his head from the command room's double display circle to look at the Grand Admiral, and, with contempt in his masked voice, he looked at the ysalamir on its nutrient frame slung across Thrawn's shoulders. "Do you likewise have an explanation, Grand Admiral Thrawn?" he demanded.
"You broke off the diversionary attack on Filve," Thrawn said, ignoring Starkiller's question. "You then proceeded to gallivant off on a dead-end chase."
"And you, Grand Admiral Thrawn, have failed to bring the Jedi to me or Byss," Starkiller countered. His voice, Pellaeon noticed uneasily, was slowly rising in both pitch and volume. "You, your tame Noghri, your entire Empire—all of you have failed."
Thrawn's glowing red eyes narrowed. "Indeed? And was it also our failure that you were unable to capture Luke Skywalker after we delivered him to your little trap?"
"You did not deliver him to me, Grand Admiral Thrawn," Starkiller insisted. "He was summoned there through the Force—"
"It was Imperial Intelligence who planted the rumor that a Jedi had returned onto the galactic stage," Thrawn cut him off coldly. "It was Imperial Transport who brought you there, Imperial Supply who arranged and provisioned that house for you, and Imperial Engineering who built the camouflaged island landing site for your use. The Empire did its part to get Skywalker into your hands. It was you who failed to keep him there."
"No!" Starkiller snapped. "Skywalker left Jomark because Mara Jade forgot her place, and twisted his mind against me. And she will pay for that. You hear me? She shall pay."
For a long moment Thrawn was silent. "You threw the entire Filve task force against the Millennium Falcon over Tatooine," he said at last, his voice under control again. "Did you succeed in capturing Leia Organa Solo?"
"No," Starkiller growled. He looked back at Thrawn. "We must bring her to Byss, Grand Admiral Thrawn," he said, his manner somewhere halfway between solemn and pleading. "We must free her from her entrapment among those who fear her powers. They'll destroy her if we don't, and our master will be most... displeased"
"Of course we must," Thrawn said soothingly. "But you must leave that task to me. All I need is a little more time."
"Very well, Grand Admiral Thrawn," Starkiller said abruptly. "You may have one final chance. But I warn you: it will be your last. After that, I will take the matter into my own hands." He said, the slit-visor on his helmet flashing red. "And I warn you further: if you cannot accomplish even so small a task, perhaps I will deem you unworthy to lead the military forces of my Empire."
Thrawn's eyes glittered, but he merely inclined his head slightly. "I accept your challenge, Lord Starkiller."
"Good." Deliberately, Starkiller resettled himself into his seat and closed his eyes. "You may leave me now, Grand Admiral Thrawn. I wish to meditate, and to plan for the future of my Jedi."
For a moment Thrawn stood silently, his glowing red eyes gazing unblinkingly at Starkiller. Then he shifted his gaze to Pellaeon. "You'll accompany me to the bridge, Captain," he said. "I want you to oversee the defense arrangements for the Ukio system."
"Yes, sir," Pellaeon said, glad of any excuse to get away from Starkiller.
For a moment he paused, feeling a frown cross his face as he looked down at Starkiller. Had there been something he had wanted to bring to Thrawn's attention? He was almost certain there was. Something having to do with Starkiller, and clones, and the Mount Tantiss project...
But the thought wouldn't come, and with a mental shrug, he pushed the question aside. It would surely come to him in time.
Stepping around the display ring, he followed his commander from the room.
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Well folks, that was part 2.
Hope you enjoyed.
I hope to add the next part very soon. Until next time, this is Grubkiller, over and out.
