The author of this fic hopes that the small twist the in this chapter will go over well, meaning I hope this twist works because I've not seen it done before the way I am going to do it, I guess the character who is a traitor will be a little OOC just so you know, but I'm not sure anyone really likes him anyway, enough rambling, I will just let you read. Sorry for a bit of a delay in updating.

Chapter 5: Traitor

A long procession of officer's commanders, and high ranking storm troopers stood at attention and in formation in the small hanger bag a Lambda class shuttle was docking in, Grand Moff Tarkin himself stood right in front of where the ramp would lower. He was a bit confused as to why the Emperor would want to come to see the progress of the Death Star, and he was slightly nervous because the construction was indeed falling behind, but surely the Emperor would not waste his time with something like that, he might mention it but why he was here was indisputably of the strictest importance.

He watched as a cloaked figure treaded the ramp silently, flanked by two guards in red robes. Tarkin, and the small group of generals and admirals behind him kneeled in respect.

"Rise," the Emperor rasped.

Tarkin and the others did so, and the moment he was at his full height Tarkin felt a crushing force with long talons grasp his neck. Using one hand the Emperor strangled Tarkin. Everyone looked in astonishment, storm troopers fiddled with their blaster rifles, Tarkin was their commanding officer but the man killing him was the Emperor….

"Why are you behind schedule Tarkin?!" The Emperor hissed. "I put you in charge of this operation because I trusted you would get it done quickly! Apparently not!"

Sidious released his grip and Tarkin fell to the floor, gulping in air. Quickly he stood up, trying to regain composure in front of his men.

"It is not my fault!" Tarkin finally blurted out between huge gulps of air. He sounded like a child, making excuses, afraid of the punishment that surely awaited him.

"Everything is your fault!" Sidious snapped. "You are the highest ranking official here, you command everything, if a riot breaks out, if something goes amiss, if troops become less cooperative and lose morale all of it is entirely your fault!"

"I need more men!" Tarkin choked out.

"No you don't! The men you have rival that of a construction army capable of building a quarter of the old senate district up from scratch in less than six months. I estimated the Death star would be completed, or further along in the process than this a month ago! The other shell is not even fully plated, there is a completed section of this station exposed to sabotage!"

"I'm sorry my emperor!" Tarkin cried. "There are not enough men here to build."

"Perhaps they are just not properly motivated…" The Emperor trailed off. "You!"

The Emperor pointed to a nervous looking general.

"Escort me to my throne room. I trust that is completed."

Tarkin's breaths became less frequent and more shallow not. He turned to admiral Motti as the Emperor exited the landing bay and the troops and other generals began to follow.

"He has presented us with a perfect opportunity."

"Yes sir," Motti replied. "But how are we going to kill him? He is very powerful."

"Even those who are seemingly invincible are prone to one thing admiral, surprise attack. Soon the Empire will be mine and you will be rewarded as promised."

XxX

Trez opened his eyes and came back into the world with a horrendous pounding in his head and the cold nipping at his exposed, bare skin. The cage door squeaked open and Mara pulled him out. He fell onto the floor and looked up at her.

"We're orbiting over Myrkr. I need your help."

"I am freezing!" Trez snapped.

Mara took him by his long brown hair and pulled him out of the small prison room and into her cockpit where it was considerably warmer; she sat him roughly down on one of the chairs and tossed a sheet on him. He looked out the view port to see the planet Myrkr beneath them, he was going to be dead when Karrde found out about this.

"Where are the coordinates to the base?" Mara asked sharply. "And if you lie I'll just throw you back in that little, cold room soaking wet again."

Trez decided he'd rather not go into that freezing little room again. He relayed the coordinates to Mara who brought the ship down into the atmosphere of the planet. She stayed at a very high altitude, so as to stay away from any radar that might detect her from certain cities. She landed just a few miles away from where the coordinates pointed, making sure to switch a cloaking device on so any radar coverage would not detect her.

Her small ship was surrounded by somewhat of a dense forest, she had landed in a small clearing atop of beautiful green hill. She stood up and turned to Trez.

"Is there anything I should know about?" Mara said. "Any surprises I might come across?"

"No," Trez replied simply. "Of course this…"

"What the hell?!" Mara cut him off. She felt as though she had been sapped of all of her senses, as though she had gone blind and deaf at the same time. The world seemed dim to her now, it took her a moment to realize she could no longer sense anything… she had lost her connection to the force! She turned to Trez.

"What the hell is this?! What happened to me?!" She cried, wrapping her hands around his throat. "You tell me what's wrong with this place now!"

"Ysalamiri!" Trez choked out.

"What?"

"Ysalamiri! It's the ysalamiri!"

Mara let his neck go and he immediately took in as much air as possible.

"What are the ysalamiri?" Mara asked.

"Bugs," Trez rasped. "They're like caterpillars, that's what the look like except bigger and gray… they create this bubble around themselves which the Force cant be used in… you can use the Force right? Well that's what happened, Myrkr is home to millions of ysalamiri."

Mara thought for a moment. She was on a planet which she had never been to before, going after a woman her master asked her to and she was about to sneak into a potentially hostile smuggler camp. Without the Force she had to merely rely on her espionage training, she couldn't help but feel this was a bad idea… still she had been in worse situations. Her mind was made up, she looked back at her prisoner.

"Any other surprises?"

"No." Trez lied, there were others indeed, but she could no longer sense his deceit….

"Good," Mara replied, then without the slightest bit of warning Mara pulled out her blaster pistol. The last thing Trez heard before his life ended was the bang of a shot being fired off. Mara watched as his limp body fell to the floor, a smoking, charred hole in his head. His eye's stared blankly into nothingness, for a fraction of a second Mara stared into them. She then snapped her blaster back into its holster and slung Trez over her shoulder; she carried him out of the ship and tossed him into some bushes. Brushing her hands together, as though she had just let go of something filthy she turned and treaded back up the ramp of her ship to change into some more suitable clothing.

She exited the ship again clad in a camouflage suit, armed to the teeth. She strode into the woods, being careful to stay low and alert, not stepping on any twigs. The place was quite thick with underbrush, prickly green plants littered the forest floor, tall trees blocked daylight from shining upon her.

Using a compass she headed northeast, to the smuggler base and to Raz Vena. She noticed that the further she made her way into the forest, the less dense it became, soon she found herself in large area with nothing but the trunks of trees, very little underbrush. She continued walking and found that she was only a quarter mile away from the camp. She stopped and inserted the compass in a pouch on her belt, before she could take another step she heard a twig snap. Suddenly everything looked like a possible hiding place for an enemy, she drew her blaster and whirled around in time to see a dog like animal with a sharp tail charging at her, it had a vicious snarl on its face, revealing sharp white teeth.

She squeezed one shot off that dug itself into the forest floor; she dodged to the left as the creature lunged for her, it managed to scratch her on the arm, though it did not dig in to far. Mara turned as it hit the ground and drew her lightsaber. It came at her again, she sidestepped and neatly cut its head off. She watched as it's body fell to one side limply, and its head with open, blank eyes fell next to hit. She breathed a sigh of relief and then deactivated her saber, she clipped it to her belt and bent down to examine the creature. She had no idea what it was, it reminded her somewhat of a kath hound from Dantooine, but this thing was much more aggressive and muscular, plus it was a lot stealthier, she deduced that it only broke that twig by accident.

She looked at the three bloody scratch marks on her arm and scowled, that thing should never have been able to lay a paw on her. She turned and continued on, keeping more on the alert. After a bit of walking she found herself in dense brush once more, at the edge of a camp in the middle of a small clearing. The place looked like a permanent settlement, buildings dotted the clearing and she noticed several ships further back in a wooded area, cleared of underbrush on the other side of the camp. Men in hodge-podge armor walked around the grounds, carrying varying types of blaster with them. Mara fell silently to the ground and made her way to the edge of the brush, she froze in place as her elbow came down and snapped a twig, much like that animal had.

She remained frozen with anticipation for a moment, not daring to move, finally when she was satisfied she started to move forward.

"Stop there trespasser!" a gruff voice commanded. She looked up to see five blasters aimed at her, five men held them, looking over the bush she was behind.

"Stand up." The same man ordered. "No sudden movements!"

Mara complied. raising herself up off the ground slowly, leaves and dirt fell off the front side of her camouflage suit. Finally she raised herself to her full height and slowly raised her hands into the air.

"Don't move." The same smuggler commanded as his comrades grasped her by the arms and pulled her out of the forest, quickly they disarmed her of all weapons, including her lightsaber and the vibro knife sheathed to her ankle, under her boots. The made sure to thoroughly check every inch of her body for any sort of weaponry, once satisfied they bound her hands behind her back and began leading her into the camp.

They took her quite roughly to the biggest building in the clearing which looked like a makeshift dorm facility. She watched as doors pulled back, the lead into a lobby which had a tree growing inside of it, up through the roof. Several insects slowly crawled around it, they looked exactly how the late Trez had described them, Mara assumed they were ysalamiri but her eyes quickly went from the beings on the tree, to the beings sitting in front of it. The man she took to be Talon Karrde, and the woman sitting next to him she was sure was Raz Vena.

She looked the same as the holovid Mara had seen of her. She had long, flowing brunette hair, dark brown eyes and she was draped in tattered black and red robes which hung over a black jumpsuit. On her boots vibro sais were sheathed, she carried a single lightsaber on her belt as well as her seven chakras. She looked up with interest as Mara entered.

"I see we have a guest," Talon Karrde remarked.

"We found her trying to sneak into our camp sir." The gruff sounding smuggler reported.

"I see," Talon said to himself. "Tell me your name and who you work for."

Mara remained silent.

"Perhaps I should introduce myself first. My name is Talon Karrde, I run the smuggling operations around here, this is Raz Vena, she's been working with me for a while."

Mara shot a glance at Raz, and then locked eyes with Karrde, her gaze as good as told him he was losing this game.

"I'll deal with you later." Karrde stated. "Make sure she's thoroughly searched and then toss her in an equipment shed, but check all the crates, I don't want her using anything to escape."

"Very well boss." The smuggler said, and together the band of the five led her out of the dorm building and to a small metal shed.

XxX

"I hope you have good news Tarkin." Sidious said, he sensed the Grand Moff approach his throne from behind, he sat gazing into space.

"Oh yes emperor," Tarkin said as Sidious turned to face him. "Very good news."

"I take it then that your men are stepping it up and finishing the project."

"Not quite, I meant good news for me." Tarkin said. He suddenly pulled a blaster and squeezed off two shots, flying right at the Emperor's chest. Sidious raised one clawed hand and blocked the bolt's path, one hit, and then the other, both bounced back at Tarkin, flying past him and smashing into the wall.

The Emperor drew himself to his full height and sent a small dose of blue white lightning at Tarkin's hand. The moff dropped the blaster and clasped his hand, he cried out in pain and fell to his knees as two of Sidious's guards jabbed their force pikes into Tarkin's back, sending electricity surging throughout his body.

"Enough!" Sidious snapped. The guards immediately pulled away. Tarkin's gaze rose to meet the Sith Lord's sickeningly yellow, red brimmed eyes. The Emperor extended his hands. Tarkin winced even before the white hot lightning hit him. He convulsed in agony as it finally impacted and did not stop.

"Traitor," Sidious stated quietly. He gritted his teeth. "I sensed your intentions when I arrived. For all your subtleties you have not wisdom or intelligence! The Empire is mine; it will never be taken from me, especially by a pathetic little man like you! Now Grand Moff Tarkin, you will pay the ultimate price!"

To Tarkin's surprise the lightning ceased to exist. He winced as he looked up at the Emperor in confusion. For one moment their eye's locked, but then Sidious's gaze flicked up to his guards.

"Take him away."

The Emperor watched as his guard led Tarkin away to a high security cell. He would put the entire block on lockdown, he didn't know who was loyal to Tarkin over him. He would soon flush them out, quickly he pulled out his comm and keyed in a frequency.

Hope you liked the chapter.