EPISODE II
Prologue: Raid
Six months have passed since the Galactic Alliance's victory at the Battle of Krantisi, marking at least one year since their war with the occultist Valkoran Empire started. Zolph Vaelor, a young Jedi Knight who had a hand in the Alliance's victory at Krantisi and foiled at least four attempts to summon the Archfiends – the key generals in the extragalactic group known only as the Forceless Collective – has now earned appropriate recognition from the Alliance as a whole.
In addition to the enigmatic Maesterus, a few more Force users leading the Valkoran have taken prominence in their war to remove the Alliance from power, and have pushed their efforts to summon more of the Archfiends. However, with every Archfiend that was successfully summoned, they were effortlessly slain by Zolph, as none of them have compared to Belluzub at Krantisi.
Meanwhile, on Charros IV – homeworld of the Xi Charrians, and Valkoran protectorate after the technophobic Yuuzhan Vong nearly shut down the Xi Charrian manufacturing industries when they took over the planet in the previous galactic war – Zolph Vaelor has been captured shortly after landing on the planet's surface in an attempt to raid Valkoran Data Archive Obelisk. Sitting in a holding cell near the archive, Zolph plots his escape before continuing his mission…
"My name is Zolph Vaelor, but you can just call me Zolph. My life has been… more than ordinary. I'm a Jedi and so far, I've had to deal with threats most beings in this galaxy would refuse to acknowledge the existence of, like alien invaders with a culture based on masochism and organic technology and currently, some creatures that fall in conflict with the natural order of life and can possess other creatures. Between the creatures' generals and the cult trying to summon them, the Galactic Alliance's war with the cult has surprisingly not been too catastrophic compared to the previous war, but I've lost a few people close to me in the course of this one. After killing a few of the creature's generals, I am now sitting in one of the cult's prisons… and …uh…"
Zolph came to a pause as the Valkoran guard – decorated with a red bird-like symbol in various places on his armor – posted outside his cell questioned him. "Okay, who the hell are you talking too?!"
"Nobody. I'm just narrating how my life has gone so far as if I were writing a journal."
"Well, quit it. It's annoying and your narration sucks."
"Hey, can you blame me? I'm in a prison cell, for kriff's sake! I've gotta keep my sanity in check!"
"Well, you're passing your insanity to me like a virus by doing that! Entertain yourself some other way!"
"Okay, fine! Can I ask you a question?"
"As long as you don't ask me how I keep coming back, because you do remember what happened last time you asked me that, right?"
Zolph remembered what happened last time he asked the trooper – Will Helms, a low-ranking trooper notorious for being repeatedly killed in embarrassing ways and then coming back – during his incarceration. Last time he asked him, a broken power cord randomly fell from a loose ceiling panel and electrocuted him to death before he could answer.
"Don't worry. I've given up on that and just assumed that the Force has a sadistic sense of humor. Is that right?"
Still paranoid, Helms responded, "I'm not answering that."
"Okay. So when was the first time you died?"
"From what my mother told me, I died before I was even born."
Zolph's eyes widened as he was disturbed by the implications given by that statement.
Helms nonhalantly asked him. "Why are you giving me that look? It's not like I had a miserable childhood. Although, some curiosity-induced accidents have worried my parents sick a number of times, like that I climbed into the Nexu pen at the zoo, but that's neither here nor there."
Still, Zolph wondered how he wasn't mentally screwed up. "Okay, I'm bored now." He said.
"Yeah, so am I."
Zolph then waved his hand. "You want to let me out so something exciting will happen."
Helms responded in a bored tone. "I'll let you out." He then deactivated the force field keeping Zolph in.
Zolph walked out of the cell towards Helms and waved his hand again. "You screwed up really badly."
"Yeah, I really screwed up there."
"You want to give me your blaster and security key and take my place in the cell."
Helms handed his rifle and security key over to Zolph and then walked into the cell. Zolph then activated the force field as Helms came to his senses.
"Ngh….What the?! Why did I think that was a good idea?!"
"That's how Jedi mind tricks work. You can feed any ideas into the heads of the weak-minded, regardless of how stupid they would be, like swimming in molten carbonite."
Instead of demanding to be let out – as doing so would be pointless – he simply responded. "Oh yeah, forgot about those. And that sounds like something Masochus would do, and believe me, he has done that to us before."
"I have yet to meet him, and I would not stoop that low. Anyway, I gotta get back to getting that data and my lightsaber back." Zolph then spoke as he headed out of the detention center. "Well, see you later, Private Helms."
"It's Sergeant!" Helms yelled in annoyance.
"Oh yeah, I forgot that you were promoted after surviving Krantisi and aiding in one of our defeats. See you next time you kick the bucket."
After retrieving his equipment minus his lightsaber, Zolph almost stepped out of the detention center when a patrolling Gundark-class walker passed by the entrance. Usually, these things weren't a big problem for him, but right now he was at a major disadvantage, so he let it pass by before stepping out onto Charros's surface.
He noticed a large building not too far away from his location, which he assumed to be the Obelisk Data Archive. He then tried to sneak over to the structure.
However, there were very few places to hide on the grounds of the Valkoran compound on this planet. While the Valkoran troopers would try to gun him down when spotted, the Xi Charrians – a race of scissor-legged quadrupeds with tear-drop shaped heads and red eye slits – paid no heed to Zolph's antics as some of them were just there to help with base maintenance in return for protection from others who would threaten to shut down their cathedral factories permanently.
Zolph eventually reached the archive building after fighting his way past a few Valkoran troopers. He then entered the structure with little trouble.
As Zolph snuck his way up Obelisk, he quickly dispatched each armed Valkoran guard that tried to stop him, whether with headshots from his trusty blaster pistol – which he definitely favored over that rifle he took from Sergeant Helms as a placeholder – or neck snaps from behind. He also had to deal with sentry guns placed by combat engineers throughout the structure because Zolph's raids on these archives had almost become routine for the Valkoran.
Still, Zolph had yet to get his lightsaber back, and he didn't really use his blaster much in combat aside for throwing enemies off guard or initially have his enemies not suspect him of being a Jedi. But thankfully, he still had the Force on his side too.
Eventually, Zolph reached a turbolift that would take him to the section of the archive that contained the data he was looking for, and hopefully, he would get more data than he usually gets from these raids due to the enemy repeatedly interrupting his downloads.
When the turbolift reached Section O - the area made for keeping track of the current Valkoran military operations - Zolph greeted several Valkoran troopers in the section after the doors opened. "Hey, cult troopers. I'm looking for information on those weird monsters you're summoning. Am I in the right section?"
The troopers' typical response was to gun him down, but their shots missed and Zolph just shot each of them down in turn. Zolph sighed. "Can't they just tell me for once instead of trying to kill or cripple me?"
Zolph then quickly skimmed the archive hoping to get enough Archfiends downloaded before he gets forcefully interrupted again. He found it rather quickly.
Within one minute, he had downloaded data on six Archfiend locations to the disk. But before he could get all the planets listed in the archive, Zolph heard another turbolift coming down from a few floors above. Zolph, knowing how this would go, started counting down. "3…2…1…"
When the turbolift reached the floor, the door opened up to reveal a man in black wearing a long leather coat and a mask with red goggles, a rebreather mask and a black cloth hanging down the back of his head from a band and holding out a blaster pistol. He fired at the data terminal a second after the doors had opened and destroyed it. This was the man that had repeatedly interrupted his downloads.
Zolph sighed as he removed the disk with what data he had gotten. "Hello, Arcidus."
Arcidus did not respond back.
"I see you're as quiet as usual, and still the ever loyal Akk Dog of Maesterus."
"The data you just downloaded. Hand it over. Now." the enforcer demanded.
"Oh. Now you say something." Zolph then mockingly asked, "What if I say 'No'?"
Arcidus then fired another blaster bolt at Zolph, but he blocked the shot with his prosthetic arm. Zolph then took a glance at Arcidus's belt and noticed his lightsaber right next to the enforcer's own saber.
Arcidus fired again, causing Zolph to take cover behind one of the data shelves. "I see you've got two lightsabers now. Why don't just use those on me?"
"I would prefer to fight on even terms."
Zolph then leaped out from behind the shelf and fired at Arcidus, prompting him to dodge in turn. He then used the Force to throw a data terminal at the operative.
Arcidus, in turn, used the Force to remove some panels from the ceiling and threw them at Zolph.
Zolph leaped over the panels to avoid getting shredded and landed right behind Arcidus. He then used the Force to pull his lightsaber from Arcidus's belt and ignited it. "You should've used them when you had the chance."
Arcidus then drew out his lightsaber – or more accurately, a stealth lightsaber, or darksaber – which emitted a black laser blade with a dim white radial aura.
"Ah. If it isn't the color physics-defying laser. I've always wanted to study that thing. How does that work?" Zolph asked out of curiosity.
"How does sound travel through space?" Arcidus asked rhetorically.
"Never mind." Zolph then slashed vertically at Arcidus, only for his blow to be blocked.
While their blades locked, Arcidus drew out his blaster again and fired at Zolph to distract him. Naturally, Zolph dodged sideways.
They continued to clash, eventually putting Zolph on the defensive. Arcidus drew out his sniper rifle and fired at him to herd him towards a window a few stories above the planet's surface.
Arcidus approached Zolph with his darksaber activated. He then slashed at Zolph again, slightly singeing through his black coat's right sleeve. Zolph then circled around Arcidus, putting him between Zolph and the window.
"Well, Arcy, it's been fun. But I've got one thing to say."
Arcidus did not respond back.
Zolph then smiled mischievously. "Window." Zolph quickly used the Force to defenestrate Maesterus's enforcer, crashing him through the glass and sending him to what would be his apparent death.
However, Zolph, knowing Arcidus, looked out the window to see if he was dead. He saw what looked like his corpse, but when a curious Xi Charrian touched it, it dissipated into thin air. Arcidus had feigned his own death once again.
Zolph, now having gotten what he came for, jumped out the window, using the Force like any Jedi would to control his falling speed and soften the landing. He startled the same Xi Charrian that was investigating Arcidus's "corpse" in the process, but he quickly apologized.
Soon after, every Valkoran soldier in the compound was alerted to Zolph's escape and robbery, and tried to gun him down.
Zolph dashed for the compound barricade, cutting down any troopers and walkers that got in his way now that he had his preferred weapon. He eventually reached the barricade, and jumped up several platforms before getting over the wall and away from the Valkoran.
Zolph made his way through Charros IV's forests before reaching his personal starfighter – a modified T-65 X-Wing with blue decals, the face of some predator painted on the nose and s-foils that split into six wings, and he had yet to give it a name.
The ship's astromech droid – an R9 unit with a black dome and blue panels – spoke to Zolph in what would be heard as annoyed beeps. "Zolph Vaelor = Late."
"I was captured, okay?! And it's not like I was on a time limit, Seefor."
"Zolph Vaelor = Bad at not being detected by the enemy. / R9-C4 = Could do better."
As Zolph climbed into his fighter, he snarked back at the droid. "Oh sure, pass off as a droid model the Valks don't even use and is always seen with a one-of-a-kind X-Wing. Nothing could go wrong there." He then broke from his snarky tone. "Besides, I still got what I came for."
"R9-C4 = Sees Zolph's point. / Zolph Vaelor = Still pretty reckless."
"And in my defense, we were running short on Valkoran trooper disguises, which usually don't help when there's someone who knows me around, and the suits of armor at the compound weren't even near my size. Now let's just go home and call it a day," he said before noticing that his ship's holocom was beeping. He had received a transmission from Admiral Cephal.
"Hey, Ceph."
"Vaelor! We've been trying to contact you for an hour! And you put your comlink on silent."
"Sorry, I was on a stealth mission."
Seefor chimed in. "Zolph Vaelor + Mission Process = Totally Lacking in Stealth."
"Shut up." Zolph barked to the sassy droid before redirecting his attention back to the Mon Calamari admiral. "So Ceph, what trap did you get into this time?"
"Not so much a trap so much as the Valks giving us trouble over here. Now get your exhaust port over to Taris and help us out!" The holochat had ended.
Zolph sighed and spoke as he exited Charros's atmosphere, "Well, Seefor, looks like they our need our help… again. Set a course for Taris."
Seefor eagerly responded with some bloodlust unusual for an astromech droid. "C4 = Setting course for Taris. / Zolph + C4 = Ready to blow up some Valks."
They then jumped to hyperspace.
