Two TIE Interceptors screamed past the viewport of Emperor Palpatine's private Lambda-class shuttle, the normally bluish-gray hulls painted a scarlet that designated them as "property" of the Emperor's Royal Guard. Palpatine looked beyond the viewport from the passenger seat in the shuttle, his sickening yellow eyes studied the deceptive blue-green glow of his secret throne world.
A large shipyard orbited the planet, a half-completed monstrosity of a Star Destroyer sat in dry dock, a weapon that would be devastating against the Rebellion when it would be completed—an event that would unfortunately take several more years of construction.
"We're near the atmosphere, Your Majesty," the pilot informed him.
"Very good, pilot," Palpatine spoke, his mind still on the recent revelations. So, Lord Vader has a son, he thought as he secured himself into his crash restraints. Though the information had come to him a few days previously he still hadn't come up with a concrete plan. His initial reaction would be the total extermination of the Skywalker line, starting with Vader and ending with the unnamed child. He then saw the wisdom in keeping them alive, for the time being. The offspring of Anakin Skywalker would be immensely powerful ally, and one of the most powerful Sith in modern history—save for himself. Possibly of all time. He allowed a smile to break free and form on his face as his shuttle broke through the atmosphere.
It was about an hour later before Palpatine could return to his thoughts and plans on the situation. Landing on the Dark Side-infested world of Byss had led to many "pleasantries" that had to be attended to: the shipbuilders gave him a complete report on construction of both Eclipses that were being developed, Lord Cronal reported on his most recent experiments in the art of alchemy, another scientist gave a report on the status of the clones that would allow Palpatine to completely cheat death—if the process of transferring his spirit into the bodies worked, that is. Now he walked through a landscape that only a Dark Lord could find comforting; the walls around him covered in Sith artifacts and artwork. A mural depicting a battle from the Great Hyperspace War sat next to an audio recording of the "Rim to Rim" show that had speculated about the rumored Sith Lord in the Galactic Senate.
He paused before a HoloNet News broadcast of his Declaration of the New Order, playing constantly on mute. He smiled as he remembered that day. It was then that the Sith had finally won. Their victory, however, would be all for naught if Skywalker's child was allowed to complete his or her training under Kenobi.
"My lord," the voice of an intruding Royal Guardsman—Jax if he remembered correctly—interrupted him. "The communications center has received a message from a 'Grand Admiral' Thrawn. He requests an immediate audience with you."
Kyle Katarn ducked behind whatever piece of cover he could find as enemy blaster fire poured into the hallway. A few meters behind him, Jan Ors was doing her best to take down as many as the enemy as she could from her cover as well. The enemies were a mixture of races—almost all of them on a race that stereotypically produced scoundrels. A Weequay ducked behind a wall as a Rodian unloaded E-11 blaster fire upon their mutual enemies. A Trandoshan snarled a curse in the lizardfolk's native tongue before letting loose on an Imperial-made T-21 light repeater. A Gamorrean guard charged down the hallway, unknowingly providing cover for his allies as the porcine being quickly became the targets of the two Rebel agents.
"I'm almost empty," Jan informed him as she checked the readout on her blaster. "How close are we to our weapons?" In the past few minutes, Kyle had guessed the location of their weapons after seeing a small schematic on their way through the space yacht.
"Close," Kyle muttered as he recognized one of the blaster pistols that was being wielded against them as being his own. "Very close." He fired towards the group, taking out the Trandoshan with a shot to the head.
"They're thinning out," Jan said as she brought down with a Rodian with a well-placed shot. "The rest must be at the Crow."
"At least there'll be less of them," Kyle replied as the last thug fell to the floor.
He walked towards the room where he believed their weapons to be, blaster pistol moving among the enemy corpses, making sure that they were really dead. He paused before the body of a Weequay before kneeling down and retrieving the blaster pistol that had been confiscated upon his capture. "I believe this is mine."
On some Mid Rim planet, shoppers went about their business unaware of what was about to happen to them. A middle-aged woman was in the process of collecting her change from an outdoor merchant when something hit the heavy burlap overhang above her and the vendor. The human sized indention in the fabric released some curses in an unknown alien language before somehow beginning to roll off.
Off of the overhang rolled a very tired looking Korto Vos. He wore one of the black infiltration suits that the Alliance had recently made, minus the almost Stormtrooper-like helmet that was required on ship-to-ship boardings. "I'd run if I were you," the half-Kiffar remarked as he picked up a second wind and began racing down the street.
"What was that about?" the shopper said as the strange man vanished from her sight, not really expecting a practical answer.
"I have no…" the shopkeeper's reply was drowned out as a giant machine hit the pavement a little over a meter from his shop. Smoke flew from the rapidly cooling jetpack on the droid's back as it seemingly regained its senses from the long fall. It was about the size of an ordinary human, possibly a little larger, and was shaped relatively close to the shape of a Stormtrooper's armor. Very few non-Imperials that had seen one of its kind had lived to tell the tale. It was a member of the second phase of the Dark Trooper Project.
The body armor covering the battle droid was far from factory pristine, however. Long scorch marks caused by Korto's lightsaber marred several parts of the body, and carbon scoring from deflected blaster fire "decorated" it. The battle droid aimed its blaster cannon in the direction of the fleeing Jedi Knight and then pulled the trigger, unleashing a massive blast of energy.
Korto couldn't help but wince as the shot hit three meters behind him; shards of brick flying in every direction as a portion of a building exploded. The mission that he had been originally assigned to—stealthily enter an Imperial office building and retrieve info that would come in extremely handy in planning ambushes against Imperial shipping convoys—had quickly turned sour once he had ran into the buildings new security droid. If he hadn't been running/fighting for his life, he probably would have considered the whole deal a setup by Imperial Intelligence. They were getting especially bold these days. Now, however, his only concern was leaving this planet alive.
A few jetpack-assisted jumps from the Dark Trooper caused the mechanical soldier to quickly catch up with the young Jedi despite the Force-enhanced running that Korto was doing. He rolled to the right as the Dark Trooper landed in front of him, dodging the fire from the new weapon that the battle droid had upholstered. The repeating blaster pistol chattered as it fired, the blaster bolts harmlessly impacting on the ground as their target quickly moved out of the way. The snap-hiss of Korto's lightsaber igniting was almost drowned out by the blaster fire, but the orange light emanating from the blade let both combatants know that the fight was going to last far longer than the Dark Troopers computer "brain" wanted it to.
An agile leap above the droid's arm as it swing toward Korto landed the Jedi behind his nemesis. The lightsaber slashed along the back of the Trooper, the phrik alloy preventing the lightsaber from cutting deeply into the armor. A giant sized arm proved harder to dodge, however, and Korto was sent flying. The Jedi landed in a crouch, quickly raising his lightsaber to fend off the rapidly fired blasterfire. The redirected shots hit the battle droid in various places, yet the tough armor absorbed every one of them.
"How was one of you beaten before?" Korto asked aloud as the Dark Trooper continued to advance.
"Did you disable the tractor beams?" Jan Ors asked as Kyle entered the ship. "And what took so long?"
"Not yet," he answered as he took his seat.
She looked at him in surprise. After a major fight to get to the Moldy Crow, Kyle had been forced to find the control for the tractor beams that had initially captured them in the first place. "Not yet?!"
"Take off first," he said as he strapped himself into the crash webbing. "Trust me." For emphasis he held out a small detonator.
"I knew you were eyeing those explosives…" Jan remarked as she pulled her goggles over her eyes. "How bad is it going to be?"
"The ship is still going to be here, but I doubt that they'll be following us."
With a shudder, the Moldy Crow lifted off of the secondary hangar and soared into space, a few guards that had chased Kyle from his location firing at the ship in a futile attempt to stop the two rebels from escaping. Once the heavily modified HWK-290 left the hangar, the defensive guns opened fire on the craft; fortunately hitting only the shields. Kyle's thumb hovered over the detonator, waiting for the exact moment to strike. Then it hit.
Explosives planted inside of several main compartments of the luxury yacht blew nearly simultaneously. The engines, the power reserve for the tractor beams, several ships in the hangars; all of them taken out by the explosion. After that, the escape was easy, leaving one angry Hutt seething as he watched his credits disappear into space. He had to tell General Mohc about this, and he knew exactly who to refer to him…