Happy Birthday to me... Happy Birthday to me... here's a chapter for you all, Happy Birthday to me. ~F

Chapter Twenty Two

Misgivings and 'Mercy'

Fae Coven watched the current map of strategic information that the Republic had gathered, which now included a brewing conflict in the northern part of the Galaxy. It seemed that the Sith were intentionally putting as much pressure on the Republic to separate the core from the rim worlds. And the worse aspect was how effective it was becoming. The outer worlds were crying out for protection, but the core was unable, or unwilling at times, to put forth the effort and manpower it would take to rescue them, hiding behind their ships until they had forces to contend with the Sith fairly.

Except, glancing at the rest of the map, Master Coven could see a wide berth around the southern section of the Galaxy, left untouched by the war thus far. Either intuition or the Force warned her that there was the next spark to come, but she couldn't perfectly guess which world would be the beginning of it, but she had an idea for the general target.

One clawed finger traced the Hyperlane named the Corellian Run, which passed through a myriad of Republic controlled worlds, and partitioned a large section of the Galaxy from the areas the Sith had already started attacking.

And yet, there was a savage kind of darkness that was bearing down on that portion of the Galaxy, she could feel it in the ebb and flows of the cosmos. Something large and incredibly strong in the Dark Side was on the move. And she knew from Luna that there was only one being that strong currently. The Sith Emperor himself.

Thinking swiftly, the Grandmaster of the Jedi Order knew what she had to do. A quick sweep of the temple with the Force registered at least three dozen Jedi that she was familiar with, who would gladly go with her into battle. To confront this madman and end his assault of their Galaxy, she would need every blade available to halt his progress, if they could even do that. Scanning the Hyperlane, the Jennet Jedi Master could quickly eliminate the coreward worlds as primary targets, as they lacked anything but populations and farming communities, with minor industry that wouldn't be of overwhelming use to the Sith to remove from the Republic's war machine.

No, the worlds they were reaching for was in the Outer Rim; that was obvious., Rodia, and Ryloth would both be eligible choices, two powerful members of the Republic, with a lot of voting strength, and the clusters of other systems to back them up, and the neutral Christophsis, a strong industry world that leaned toward the Republic even if it wasn't a full member of their body. These three were the likely point of entry that the Emperor would pounce upon to dominate the sector.

One touch of her comlink sent a signal to several nearby Jedi that they were summoned. It was no surprise to Master Coven that Jedi Knight Laudara was the first to arrive. Ever since the precognition that Fae had had to copy and secret away the records of the Archive, the Twi'lek Jedi had maintained a close relationship with the Grandmaster, being the only other one that knew the secret location of the records, and their importance as a backup to save the Jedi Order if the worst was to happen.

"Master, what do you need?" she asked, growing concerned when the tall Twi'lek entered the room and sensed the grim determination around the Grand Master.

"Gather as many Jedi Knights and Masters that you can," Fae said slowly, "It's time to try and strike at the head of this beast."

The small gasp that escaped the hardened Jedi Knight was enough to convince Master Coven of the seeming insanity of her pronouncement. "All will be explained when you have all who will come with us. Now go, hurry. I will be in the room of a thousand fountains."

"Yes, Master." Knight Laudara said, moving swiftly to find the nearest terminal and send out a call to arms.

Nearly an hour later, amid the bubbling fountains and peaceful atmosphere of the near sacred place of the Jedi Temple, Master Coven stood before the near forty Jedi Knights and Masters that had answered the call. Knight Laudara at her side like a silent sentinel, the Jenet Grand Master solidified her resolved. "Knights and Master, thank you for being so faithful and willing to come on such short notice," she began, silencing the smatterings of conversation that had been taking place.

"Right now, on the fringes of the Galaxy, out very society is under attack," she continued, "this we know, but what is more, the Sith Empire is circling around the core to try and box us in on all sides. The Republic is aware of the northern fronts as they are unleashing, but I fear that something greater is about to unleash itself to the south…" pausing, Fae braced herself for the immediate reaction about to happen. "The Sith Emperor himself will lead the attacks in the south, I believe."

The collective spike of unease through the Force was palpable. "What I propose, is that we try to head off his assault of the southern portion of the Outer Rim, and if we can manage it, capture or eliminate the Emperor. Without him, history has shown us that the Empire will be drastically weakened and possible for the Republic to defeat at last."

That pronouncement was possible even more striking than the fact that it was the Emperor at all. "With the Force on our side, we may end this war before it even launches into full scale, I need every volunteer that will be willing to put their life on the line to stop this mass genocide and protect our Galaxy from an evil far worse than any seen in the last century."

If Master Coven had thought that any would back down from this call to battle, she was surprised when every Jedi before her started to talk among themselves, discussing battle tactics and group formations, already organizing themselves into operative units that covered weaknesses of every being there and magnified their strengths.

"Master," said one of the nearest, whom Fae recognized as Obo Fequell, an old friend that was once the battlemaster of the Temple, before the female Besalisk retired from active duty to care for the infants and younglings of the Temple. "I request to return from my retirement for this assignment, to protect you as the head of our Order."

Master Coven turned with a smile for her old friend. The battlemaster would be a most welcome addition to their force. "Of course, dear Master Fequell, you are most welcome to rejoin the armed forces of the Jedi, and help us defeat the Sith. Every blade willing is a blade needed."

The master of all saber forms nodded serenely, before taking up her place opposite Laudara, flanking the Grandmaster and facing the now organized group of Jedi warriors. "We move to defend the systems of Ryloth, Rodia and Christophsis from the wrath of the Sith Emperor, and hopefully intercept his fleet before he leaves too much devastation in his wake. Rendezvous over Rodia within a week's time, and we will move from there as a whole group."

"Yes, Master!" the closest Jedi replied, and the entire company separated, going their different ways to gather anything that would help in this most desperate hour. Master Coven would go out ahead of the others, to prepare the way and gather what information she could regarding the Sith Emperor's arrival.

None of the other Council members were to come with them, as Master Coven wasn't about to risk more of the governing council than she must to defeat the Sith Emperor. The Jedi cruisers would not be missed from the Republic fleet, as they were never part of the active guarding ships anyway, so aside from those of the Jedi Council, no one would even know that so many Jedi were gone. Granted, there were thousands of Jedi, a mere forty or so could easily disappear from active duty for a short time without too much notice.

Still, it was with heavy heart that Fae departed from Cosecant's orbit, destined for what could very well be the last assignment that she attempted to undertake for the good of the Republic, and the safety of the Galaxy.

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Diábolis could sense the great movement in the Galaxy. Staring out across the darkened skies around the new earth Sith academy, the devaronian contemplated the reasons for his remaining on this world. They still had many of their stolen Jedi children locked away in the dungeons, in the midst of their reconditioning processes. At least there was still a good selection of children that had been located on this world for them, courtesy of Lord Anguis' efforts. These had had no knowledge of anything but their boring lives, and were easy to steal away from their families and begin training in the ways of the Dark Side.

Headmaster Dziqis had quite a bit of work, even with the help of his Dark Adept instructors, but still Diábolis had little to keep himself occupied upon this world. It was highly unlikely that he had been simply forgotten by his master, but there was always the lingering doubt that this was some sort of test that Diábolis needed to be working toward finding and solving, to prepare himself to take over as Sith Master when the time came.

"Well, Sith… you seem to be far moodier than usual lately…" said the sickening false voice of the planetary governor, Delores Umbridge.

"No…" Diábolis replied, "Just sensing the movements of our glorious Emperor out in the wide Galaxy."

"Oh, indeed?" the woman said, clearly not believing it, "and what is his majesty up to now, if I may ask?"

"Luring out the Jedi to their deaths, if what I sense is correct." Diábolis said, irritated by the woman's presence and sickeningly false attitude regarding everything that had to do with her Sith Masters. She was being willfully ignorant that she was under anyone else's authority, but Veneficus tolerated her stupidity in exchange for her efficiency in bringing order to this world, and therefore so would Diábolis.

"Oh, well that's all well and good, but we have important concerns here and now that need dealing with…" the woman said, smirking in such a way that her fat face stretched even wider, as though she was going to swallow something very large whole.

"Let me guess," the devaronian Sith Lord said, cutting off the fat woman's tirade, "some upstarts in a distant land that oppose your rule are getting uppity again, and you want them crushed for good? Or perhaps some research plant had plans or magical documents that you want but they refuse to give it to you freely, so you want them made example of. Or just anything about people ignoring your rule, and you want them punished for daring to make you upset…" he said, ticking the options off one at time on his hand.

He could see Umbridge growing steadily purpler with rage as he spoke, knowing that it totally infuriated the woman to have her semblances of authority and power undermined. "I will not be spoken to in such manner!" she said hotly, puffing herself up like the toad she was.

"Take care to remember whom you speak to, witch…" Diábolis said sternly, "I am a Lord of the Sith, not your personal attack dog. I am only at the beck and call of one, and that Master is far from here. I put up with your war mongering, and ineptitude to manage you world because the Emperor does, but not as any favor to you, so use the proper respect and humility when addressing me and my power."

The Dark Side grow as the Sith apprentice delved into his rage at this miserable excuse for a magic user, unable to truly take care of her own problems, who had constantly turned time and again to him specifically to maintain her control.

"However, because this world holds value to my Lord, I will take care of the issue of your resistance fighters, for now. But I do wonder what you will do when I am finally summoned back to my master's side? Will you still be here, I wonder, pining Headmaster Dziqis for every Adept worth their salt to take care of your problems for you?"

The woman huffed, but passed him a datapad silently, before storming away in a tizzy, clearly angered for having her feathers ruffled so brutally, and not a one to care about it otherwise. Only when Umbridge had finally left the castle did Diábolis even bother looking at the contents of the datapad. As he had both expected and flat out called to her face, the big important issue was some rebellious group or another, yet again, that was stirring up trouble for the planetary government run by the Sith behind the scenes.

It certainly wouldn't be a difficult venture to head out and put an end to their meddling. Actually, in reviewing the extent of the damage that these vandals and terrorists had caused to some of the infrastructure in the western continents, it was clear that these people had gotten their hands on some valuable tech that was given them an edge. It may actually happen to be the first genuine problem that required the avocation of a Sith that Umbridge had brought to him. "Perhaps not so bad a diversion after all…" he admitted, tucking the datapad into his belt and turning for the landing pads that had been constructed out on the grounds of the castle.

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Severus was starting to go mad, being locked away on this metal encased prison out in the vacuum of space. Between rounds of brewing, he had taken it upon himself to go into excessive studies of every subject he could get his hands on, which turned out to be quite a fair number of things, from the political makeup of the Galaxy of thousands of worlds, to the makeup and usage of many technological advances that he had never seen on earth before, even in the muggle world.

To admit he was impressed by the sheer amount of knowledge was a humbling experience, but nevertheless, Severus was not prideful enough to think that magic in and of itself held all the answers anymore. If he was to escape this prison and somehow find someone to warn regarding this space station, whatever and wherever it may be, then he needed to hone as many skills as possible to turn toward escaping. Sadly, the one topic he could not find was how to actually pilot a ship himself, which clued him in on just how closely he was being watched, at all times, by these cult-like fanatics called Sith and their soldiers.

Although, there were things he had set in motion, just in case all other avenues failed. Through his mastery of the potioneering arts, Severus had access to knowledge that he was certain that none other on earth, Potter included, had even dreamed about. There were literally brews to control mind and thought, more powerful than the Imperious curse, and far harder to detect. The only problem would be getting it onto or inside the targets he needed to facilitate his escape at last.

His current guards were far too rigid and aware for him to trick them as easily as the last. Severus had overheard them being warned that any failure meant death at the hands of their Sith masters. So he couldn't wait forever for the guards to get complacent, he had to act to make a situation occur where he could take advantage of their weaknesses.

At least, for that, he did still have his wand. The one folly of the Centaur that was in charge of this place was that he had no mind about what caused wizards to have their power, or perhaps he simply didn't care, thinking his Force was stronger than Severus' magic.

In either case, it was an oversight that Severus planned to take advantage of. Crouching beside a cauldron, as though checking on the status of the magical flames set underneath it, he silently turned his wand at the guard of his chamber. This one would be of no use to him, he had to find someone weaker willed to control and use to escape. He personally had never wanted to turn back to using the Dark Arts since the fall of the Dark Lord, but something about this place made it seem so easy to fall back into old Death Eater habits.

"Avada Kedavera…" he whispered, watching the green flash as the guard crumpled, dead.

Hurriedly, Severus summoned the body further into the room, securing it inside the storage locker that held his ingredients and other supplies, and left the corpse there only after he relieved it of its weapons and security access cards, which would prove most useful in getting back to the hangar once again.

Knowing now that there were recording devises out in the corridors to watch his every move, Severus took careful amounts of time to dodge through their line of sight, improvising a disillusionment charm while he activated the lift that would take him off the prisoner level to the hangar. More guards were moving about this section, but they were not tipped off that Severus had escaped as of yet, therefore it was almost child's play to navigate around them, occasionally casting a charm here and there to befuddle them and divert attention away from Severus as he maneuvered through the larger corridor toward the bay doors for the main hangar.

Rather than try to steal a shuttle or hijack a guard like he tried previously, Severus spent several minutes watching the activity of the room first, safety hidden between a large stack of parasteel crates and other cargo that would mask him from sight in addition to his disillusionment. It seemed that the worker droids and soldiers were working to load up a freighter with armor, weapons and what looked like combat droids to be delivered to some unknown place.

If Severus could smuggle himself aboard, he would be out of this cage in no time, and none would be any the wiser, so long as he remained undetected. Nodding to himself at the choice of plan, he began to move, sliding away from his hiding place and approaching the ship in question. Timing himself just right, he sprinted to the ramp while the droids and soldiers' backs were turned, and leapt up into the spacious cargo hold, carefully wending his way through the neatly stacked boxes and barrels until he found a secluded nook to press into and wait. Hopefully the ship would be filled and sent off before his absence was discovered.

Every moment he waited was agony, as he couldn't be sure when the next shift would arrive to relieve the now dead guard, but soon enough the loading ramp to the ship was raised, and Severus could hear the chatter of the pilots and the station operator as they prepared to lift off and depart for some world held by the Empire. it didn't matter to Severus where they went, it was a fair shot of him getting away when no one knew that he was a prisoner of the Empire, so as long as he kept his head down and refrained from magic that would single himself out, he could just slip away from world to world until he discovered where he ought to go.

That was of course; presuming that the world he was already heading to wasn't one of the powerful stronghold worlds of the Empire, like Dromund Kaas or the like. He had grown quite fond of the galactic atlases that he had had access to, and their ever updating format that allowed him to watch the expansion of the Sith's territory around the Galaxy.

Refreshing the disillusionment, Severus decided that it would be best to confirm just where they were heading, just in case he had to take control and alter course away from some world that he would have difficulty getting safe passage off to a Republic planet. The ship was little more than a glorified cargo bay, and it took quite a bit of time for the Potions Master to slip through the large collection of supplies and other items, many looking as though they were arms for war, and reach the small cockpit at the very front of the ship.

What he found was rather disappointing. Flying the ship was not a human pilot as he had expected, but rather a metallic droid. Naturally he could simply destroy it and take control, but then he'd be dead in space, and eventually the Sith would find him regardless. And worse still, if he tipped off the droid of his presence, he wouldn't be fast enough to stop it from sending out a distress beacon, guaranteeing that he would be caught again.

So, Severus did the only thing that made any sense, he returned to the cargo bay area of the ship, and looked around cautiously, searching for some sort of escape pod or other removable ship that he could commandeer or at the least hide himself in for the duration of the trip.

Thankfully, this freighter had housed living occupants at one time, hence the atmosphere inside the ship, and had a pair of extremely worn looking escape pods. Slipping into one of the pods was simple enough, as well as sealing the hatch from the rest of the ship. Unfortunately, as with all other flight mechanisms, Severus had no clue how to pilot this as well as anything else.

Not that he had much chance of escape while they were in Hyperspace anyway, he would have to wait until the ship exited to recalculate their course around some obstacle or another, and hope that a civilized world or ship was near enough to pick him up from orbit.

Losing track of time while he waited in the cold air of the pod was inevitable, and soon enough Severus even drifted off to sleep. He only reawakened when there was a great shudder that ran through the entire ship under him, jolting him from rest to alert in moments. Outside the viewport of the pod, the starlines were slowing for a bit, and a large, dusty looking planet was slowly coming into view.

Knowing that he had limited time to figure out how to eject the pod, Severus started pushing any button that seemed somewhat important on the pod's small console. After the fifth try, he heard the airlock seal on the pod, before it was forcefully jettisoned from the ship. And not a moment too soon, as the freighter sped off again into Hyperspace not long after Severus cleared the shadow under it.

But of course there was another problem. The pod had very limited flight controls, and Severus had no idea how they worked. In addition, there was a pair of sizeable black holes in the area, mercifully neither close enough to start dragging the pod into it, but large enough to be seen and something to clearly worry about.

The control station also had several other systems, while unfamiliar to Severus, he at least could guess at a few, including a display of information regarding the nearby planet. Apparently he escaped near the planet Dorin, which was rich in methane and other gasses that would eventually kill him in breathed for more than a few minutes.

Looking around quickly, Severus found several panels that, once removed, revealed the emergency supplies for the pod, which included breath masks that would filter the harmful gasses out and give him plenty of breathable oxygen.

The other, extremely vital system he recognized was the communication receiver, which he hoped would soon be pinging nearby ships through the homing beacon so that he could be rescued. If he recalled correctly, Dorin was a system loyal to the Republic, which was perfect for Severus to go disappear into. At least it was far better than remaining anywhere near the Empire.

He was about to resign himself to another long wait when the crackle of static exploded from the communication receiver, soon replaced by a voice speaking some undecipherable language after another. The being on the other end must have been cycling some common tongues as they approached, however, as they came to basic soon enough. "Sit tight distress pod, the Dorin Protection fleet is on their way to pick you up."

And for the first time in quite a while, Severus could relax and wait for something good to finally happen in the midst of the nightmare that had become his life since leaving Hogwarts as a student so many years ago.

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Fury wished that every battle was as blood filled and glorious as the one held on Elom. As the barrage from the tanks shook the icy ground beneath them, Fury had returned to the surface to lead the second wave of troops into the massive cave network, the natural defense work proving to be as nothing compared to the power granted to Lord Fury by the Dark Side.

He was able to easily lead his platoons forward through the winding tunnels, smashing through the hastily throw up defense works from the first assault, and penetrate into the underground city properly. Once inside, there was no stopping the work of death once Fury unleashed himself to the primal rage of the Force. Only after carefully setting his men to maintain a constant supply line to the surface, and begin guiding more of their army down to occupy the city, Fury went on a rampage, seeking out and eliminating every patch of resistance fighters that he found.

The streets soon ran red as the body count start to escalate, and even the most determined of resisters started to flee before the onslaught of the Dark Adept in his full battle rage. Still, hunting and slaying the weak minded prey turned out to be mildly interesting, especially with all the winding and honeycomb caverns allowing for ambushes and counter ambushes to take place, but Fury kept himself single-minded in his goal of finding and defeating the leaders of the city, and eliminating them.

Granted, there were several instances where large champions of their race stood against him, and the fight had been fierce, even for non-Force wielding peoples with weapons that barely could deflect his lightsabers. It was a glorious battle over all. Unfortunately, in the end, there were no true challenges, which made Fury's blood yearn for more Jedi to fight. Therefore, standing outside the resistance's main command, Fury was rather tempered, having run the gauntlet of blood lust all the way to nearly bored had drained any excitement for the rest of this fight from him, which was why he finally consented to call in his soldiers to lay siege to the headquarters of the Elomin people.

"My Lord," one of the trooper called, just after taking a scanner reading of the area around the structure, "I'm read many hundreds of life forms in the building, it seems that this is where the Elomin have hidden their females and offspring… How shall we proceed?"

Fury smirked after a moment of consideration, "Perhaps this is the nudge that these people need to actually try and fight us… if it can even be called that at this point…" he added shrugging to himself, "level the structure, kill any that attempt to flee. You men," he said, indicating the reserve quads of soldiers and snipers, "take up guard positions, and kill those who attempt to stop us; I want them to watch as we crush their hope. Only then will they realize that this world is now property of the Neo-Sith Empire."

"As you command, my Lord," the troopers replied in unison, taking up their defensive positions while the many heavy weapon and explosive experts started to bring out missile launchers and high powered charges to plant around the building's base.

Fury watched with a satisfied grin as many within realized their plight, their fear mounting in the Force as some tried to escape the building from the front entrance, right into the waiting sights of his troopers. These were cut down without mercy, men, women and children alike.

A savage howl radiated from behind them, and Fury turned to watch as many of their warriors, who had been too fearful to challenge them up to this point, rushed across the streets and out of twisting holes to try and stop them from harming their families, only to be cut down by heavy repeater cannons that the Sith Troopers had set up in advance for just this action.

Fury was almost bored with the predictability of the actions and reactions, until from the building emerged a hulking shape. "You!" it roared at Fury, pointing a massive war pike at the Dark Adept, "I challenge you, dark warrior, for the fate of my people!"

'Well, that was unexpected,' Fury thought with a grin, before holding out a hand to prevent his troopers from just mowing down the champion. "I accept your challenge, one warrior to another."

Sauntering forward, Fury removed with his weapons, and ignited the crimson blades with a flourish. The strange, almost Zabrak like Elom warrior merely bellowed a war cry in response, spinning his pike once and charging like a brute. Fury smirked as he simple dodge the initial attack, but widened his eyes, impressed when the massive being swung around, bringing his pike in a full arc to connect heavily with his saber's.

The brute was strong, as well as intelligent it seemed, with a weapon that resisted the blades of the Jedi and Sith, Fury summarized, vowing to not underestimate this one again. Throwing the attacking weapon away with a grunt, Fury jumped back, and began circling his opponent, sizing up the being for any weaknesses. He knew that the Elomin was doing the same, but Fury was confident that there were not any weaknesses that he hadn't already compensated for in his fighting caliber.

Charging the Elomin champion, Fury swung high, before ducking at the last moment to stab at the being's midsection, but the large creature seemed to have speed as well, and was able to leap out of the way of the stab, spinning the pike around at try and cleave Fury in two.

Rolling, the Dark Adept responded with a savage uppercut followed by a flurry of blows raining from above. This was the fight he was looking for; a real challenge. The brute took the hits, blocking and deflecting each one he could with his pike, and shouldering the rest with his armor, which while not as strong as his weapon, absorbed the lightened blows that he deflected well enough.

With a roar of rage and pain however, the brute responded in kind, neither becoming a rampaging beast nor cowering in fear, but surgically jabbing and slashing with his weapon, herding the Dark warrior back so that he had space to actually swing his large weapon. As he blocked a lightning fast swipe with his mechanical arm, Fury smiled widely. Bloodlust surging back into his body, empowered by the might of the Dark Side, he pushed himself faster and faster, becoming a living tornado of motion.

The champion of the Elomin wasn't far behind, and Fury had to give the being the respect it deserved for keeping pace with a Force wielder in the height of a battle rage, but in the end, it came down to a battle of attrition over their energy reserves, and in the end, the Force was abundantly more unlimited than a single being.

The champion staggered from a critical blow from Fury's mechanical arm to his abdomen, and that weakened his grasp on the pike, allowing his next swing to sever one of his hands and knock the overlarge weapon flying.

The champion fell to his knees, as Fury lowered his blades to flank his neck. "Be it known that the champion of the Edomin fell in glorious battle, with the respect of the Sith Empire." Fury said solemnly. "If your people surrender now, we will spare them, and bring them into the control of the Empire, to prosper with us instead of being enslaved." He called out to all those listening.

There was no immediate reaction from either the warriors out of the main building or those within, but Fury could see faces peering from behind windows and around corners. They had all watched as he, a Dark Side Adept, defeated their champion in single combat, fairly. There was honor in the Dark Side after all, when it benefitted the user.

"With this death, and your agreement to our terms, I will end the bloodshed on your planet, and we will begin incorporating you, and your resources into out mighty Empire." he called out, before turning his full attention to the warrior in front of him, "You fought well, especially for one not gifted with the Force. Know this: that your death has saved the lives of your people, and your honor will live on with them."

"As long as they live, then it will be a good death." the Champion said, accepting his fate as Fury removed the honorable being's head from his shoulders.

"It is over! Surrender and we will spare every life here!" Fury called out, signaling for his own troops to stand down, although retaining a grip on his lightsabers, just in case.

But it seemed that prudence for their own survival, and the extreme desire for order that the race had won out in the end, as the rest of the survivors started to emerge in ones and twos, weapons lowered and a few even carrying the universal white flag of surrender.

Fury was pleased with this outcome, as it seemed he lost only a small fraction of his soldiers, which for his track record was a massive improvement, not that it really mattered to him how many of his warriors perished on the battlefield, so long as victory was achieved. Still, he didn't need to butcher every planet he attacked; there was wisdom in allowing the illusion of mercy to shine out once in a while, just to allow a useful planet with its own set of slaves to become part of the Empire. Less work for the Empires' citizens if they could just take control of an existing populace rather than colonize a shattered world.

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Gor-lak led the way through the corridors of the tenth floor of his flagship, The Dread Seeker, his intent bent upon locating and eliminating those who dared to oppose him and the Sith Lord he now served. It was a strange sensation, to have gone from a leader and oppressor of millions eons ago to a servant of one who was striving to become greater than he had ever done in life, but at the same time, the orken spirit found it rather intriguing. It was as though he could stand off to the side and watch as another did what he had always dreamed of, and he could see the differences in their approaches, and compare their successes and failures to see who was better at what situation.

Clearly, from the quality of the soldiers under his command, the point of loyal and intelligent followers went to Veneficus, as Gor-lak had been betrayed toward the end, which had allowed the Je'daii to penetrate his citadel and slay him, but that was neither here nor there.

Rounding the last corner to the corridor outside the officer's quarters, Gor-lak spotted the armored shapes that were clearly the republic animals that dared to enter his vessel. A hissed spell, and green bolts of lightning flew from his outstretched hand, carving a path through the metal flooring toward the soldiers, who all dove out of the way to avoid it. But the lord of cruelty was only getting started. With a flash of green flames, he leapt through the air at them, his sword of magic whirling in his hands, catching their colored blaster shots and throwing the projectiles away much like the Je'daii weapons that the spell imitated.

The ork had always been fascinated by his ability to conjure the raw magic forces of both life and death, and its application had proved invaluable to maintaining his rule while it had lasted, such as now, while he viciously cut through a commando's armor like it wasn't there, before kicking the bisected human away.

Multicolored jets of light flew from his own warriors at The Republic's supposed finest, forcing the cowards to take cover from the barrage, and exposing them to Gor-lak's blade. Soon the corridor was littered with charred and dismembered bodies, and the Sith troopers were already following their commander back to the lift to make their way down to the next set of boarders, but Gor-lak was already allowing himself to drift to other thoughts, his possessed body mechanically moving toward the next goal.

It was all well and good, he mused, that they were spending time to prevent their own ships from being sabotaged and taken over, but they needed to continue attacking if they were to win, or at least force these warriors to retreat. It was clear, because they had actually managed to launch successful attack measures against the Neo-Sith Empires ships, that they were far above the average Republic soldier's experience grade, and that made these warrior dangerous above all else that they had encountered.

Gor-lak was sure that if they eliminated these as quickly as they could, they would face much less opposition in the future of this war. Floors Nine and Seven were cleared just as efficiently and quickly as floor Ten had been, but when they arrived at the final site of boarding, on the Fourth floor, they found that the republic soldiers had already managed to entrench themselves in several of the rooms, even managing to get auto turrets and a few battle droids into place to help them buy time.

The first of the Sith troopers to enter were violently thrown back as a volley of full auto blaster bolts caught them, and Gor'lak knew his weapon would serve no one at this point. Instead, he conjured a shimmering green sphere around himself, strong enough to withstand lightning bolts back on his home planet, and charged the front lines, allowing his warriors to crowd behind his defense work. The shield held against the barrage, allow his soldiers to get behind cover inside the room and begin returning fire, while Gor-lak resumed his lightning attacks, focusing on a single droid or turret at a time to make sure that they were removed from this equation permanently.

Once the third automaton went down the Republic soldiers faltered, moving to regroup and retreat, but Gor'lak smirked when he turned his magic upon the door to their escape further into the ship, welding it shut with the force of his attacks. They would be trapped here, and shortly their doom was decided.

With the last republic mongrel dead aboard the Dread Seeker, Gor'lak turned to his loyal followers. "We must press on to rescue the Firebird, which has been boarded as well. Let's move!"

It was rather surprising for the once intimidating and powerfully built ork for the human soldiers to cheer around him and move with a new vigor of inspiration from victory. He was far more used to them cowering in fear and therefore obeying, so having them actually feel a measure of true loyalty to him was a vastly different experience. If anything, he had to thank the Sith for granting him this renewal of life and experience of this new perspective on how one could live.

Perhaps this human's form wasn't such a bad vessel to house him after all. Momentarily, as they waiting in the lift that would take them back to the level of the main hangars, where the assault shuttles were being prepped for their arrival, Gor-lak looked at the face he now wore in the partially reflective metal of the ship. He knew that to humans, this was somewhat of a charismatic, if not attractive, set of features, but as a different species he had never come across the idea that such things could be used to manipulate and help control his followers in a more… positive... method than fear or intimidation.

This was the only reason that he paused and summoned his troopers when they arrived at the hangar, prior to entering their shuttles. "I do not know much about the Republic," he admitted, gauging their reactions, "and from what we've concluded, this is the infamous Havoc Squad, the most elite of all the warriors that the Republic has to offer, or at least those who have stolen their banner and symbol, however." He paused, seeing some strained looks on those officers that had their faces uncovered, but the blank helmets of the troopers betrayed nothing of their emotions.

"However, regardless of who they are, we are the warriors of the Neo-Sith Empire, our technology and weapons are more advanced than anything that they could imagine, and our glorious Emperor has foreseen the future to victory over the Republic, so we cannot lose this fight. We will take back the Firebird, and drive these dogs back to their beloved Coruscant with their tails between their legs!"

That got the reaction that he was searching for, as the warriors cheered, far more intensely than before. "Get to your ships!" he commanded, and the humans practically leapt at the opportunity. They all piled into a trio of powerfully armored shuttles, and launched out into the open space around the flagship. A handful of fighters broke off the ensuing dogfight to escort them to the Firebird, and it was without terrible incident that they managed to make it the short gaunt over to the other capital ship. As they arrived and were pulling into the hangar however, the ship immediately started firing upon its fellows, and Gor-lak knew the horrid truth. The Republic had seized control of the Firebird.

He would rather lose the ship entirely rather than face the wrath of the Emperor if his technology fell into the hands of the Republic. "Admiral," he said into his communicator, "the Phoenix has been overrun and taken over, give us time to try and retake her. If the ship attempts to flee, or if it starts to damage the rest of the fleet, do not pause to destroy it, even if we are still upon it. The plans of Lord Veneficus must be protected at all cost."

The troopers around him grew grave as the admiral responded, "As you command, my Lord."