BIRTH OF A DARK HERO

-exiled into darkness …

A week later a distress signal was intercepted by the vengeance task force, it came from Talarus; rebels had taken a base on the planet and had amassed an army. The task force set its course immediately for the planet. When they arrived they found an isolated place where they set up for a ground assault. They learned that the rebel base was in a gorge about 100 clicks to where hey had established their base, Azazel though it would be easy but he took special precautions. He chose to go with 3 armored divisions, and a group of imperial commandos. The armored division would advance into the gorge, and surround the base since it was blocked by mountains one three sides. The armored divisions would cut any escape route and the commands entered from above and take out the rebels from inside the base. 3 hours later when all preparations where made the attack was executed. Azazel expected a short and easy campaign.

The 3 divisions made their was up the gorge and as soon as they were 500 meters from the base the commando team infiltrated the base. Suddenly a comm, came thru the commandos leader voice blaring out. She said the base was empty, there was nothing in it. Then suddenly there was a flash, and the base blew up in a cloud of black smoke. It was a trap. Azazel quickly ordered all the vehicles to turn around and get out of the gorge, but it was too late. The rebels had trapped them. They would have to fight their way out. 5 rebel armored divisions met his 3 divisions. Azazel tried to radio for reinforcement and retrieval but the rebels had jammed communication. Up in space a fleet of 20 rebel ships exited hyper space and surrounded the vengeance task force. A fierce battle started on the ground and on land.

On the ground Azazel's armored divisions started to fire on the rebel ones. Soon most vehicles on both sides were destroyed and a huge ground battle started. Azazel at-at was hit by an anti Amour missile and tipped over. He managed to escaped with just a few scratches though, and joined the ground battle. Rebel troops fought bravely against the storm troopers, but the rebels were quickly pushed back. Suddenly 5 ground transports come thru the gorge, 5 more rebel trooper regiments had come to reinforce the rebels and with this the tides turned on Azazel's stormtroopers. They began falling,

Azazel blaster soon became useless in such close combat range and he dropped it for his lightsaber. It had been a long time since he had used but he quickly started cutting down rebel troopers. He met up with his colonel, a women about 25, she was new and was scared, although a highly trained soldier, she had never really been in combat. At least never in combat like this. He stayed by her fighting off rebels, then in one sudden move he pushed her out of the way and a vibro spike went into his leg. If he had not moved her , the spike would have gone thru her chest. When she realized this, she collapsed and started to cry. Azazel grabbed the spike and pulled it out of his leg, then cut the arm off the rebel who had thrown in with his light saber. Then he picked her up and took her to a close transport. Cordell had seen how the battle in space was going and figured that it was not fairing well for his friend on the ground either. He had issued a retreat and had sent recovery shuttles. Quickly Azazel got the colonel into the shuttle and then headed back, he didn't care about his injury, all he knew was that he had to push the rebels back, failure was not acceptable.

Hours passed and the battle continued, he managed to regroup several squadrons and push back the rebels and force them to retreat. As he did this Cordell successfully manipulated his fleet and drove the rebels away. The last rebels on the ground were leaving on a shuttle and were holding their ground, trying to escape with as many troops as possible to fight another day. Azazel had decided to deny them this escape and lead a squad towards them, he wouldn't let them escape. They ambushed this makeshift evac site and a fire fight erupted, most of the rebels were picked off easily but some resisted the Stormtroopers decided to end this firefight quickly and charged the rebels along with Azazel. They had almost decimated all the rebels, when Azazel felt a stream of pain hit him in his shoulder, then his side, and then his other side. A burning feeling over took him and he fell to the ground, and blacked out.

He awoke a day later in a pile of bodies, some dead some alive, he was still in the damn gorge, surrounded by bodies. Suddenly he heard someone coming; it was a search party that was looking for him. He opened his eyes and saw someone came over; he blinked his eyes and soon made out a colonel. It was the one he had saved, she had spotted him and was coming towards him but suddenly at the corner of his eyes he saw a half wounded rebel pick up his laser, he tried to move, tell her to stop, but he couldn't, a blaster shot was heard, and the colonel fell to the ground, storm troopers quickly ran up to where the colonel was and shot the rebel several times, making sure he was dead. They picked the colonel and then the general and took them to a field hospital.

It was filled with wounded troopers. They were put next to each other, the medics had decided that the colonel would not make it back alive, and as for the general, they had to get him out of there as soon as possible, or else he would face the same fate. But he refused to leave the colonel. Across the cots he talked to her, comforting her, while he himself was bleeding. He told her that he would save her life again, he promised. The colonel gave a little laugh, she told him that he had saved her life once, and that she couldn't defy death another time. She started to say something else, but stopped mid sentence. She died out in the field hospital. The general was then taken away to a shuttle, and then to the sick bay on the vengeance. The empire had lost 40000 storm troopers, 3 armored divisions and 6 fleet ships. But it had driven the rebels out, even if it had been costly.

2 weeks later the general had recovered from his wounds. He had been hit in the shoulder by a blaster bolt, a second one had grazed his side, and a third had gone thru his chest collapsing his lung, he was lucky to be alive. But in the near future that could change very quickly. In the eyes of the emperor he had failed, he had lost too many men. He was removed form the vengeance task force, but he was given a fleet and an army of his own. But his punishment was much worse then this, even though he had one of the biggest task forces in the navy, he was ordered to the outer rim region where the known galaxy met the unknown regions. All there was there was there were dead planets and under developed planets. This was his punishment, his thirst for vengeance and crushing the rebellion was denied. He would patrol these regions until he retired. But even though it angered Azazel, he realized that it wasn't that bad, the last battle had made him realize something, that the rebels and his own troops were people too. Not everything had to be avenged with death. The dark side of the force had subsided for some time in his body, it was becoming balanced.

He started his new command with a positive attitude, he had now more time to meditate on his powers. Soon 3 years pasted and still the rebellion was at large, while he patrolled the outer rim, avoiding the great battles that ensued in the core system. Then one day a urgent message come. The message read: emperor dead, imperial fleet destroyed, the rebels have taken over. They couldn't believe what they were seeing, their beloved empire had fallen. It was unbearable news. Azazel immediately called to the officer on deck, to head to Corsin, he knew the remaining fleets would amass there, and from there he would see what they would do. 2 days later his fleet arrived at Corsin, the site was sad, only 38 ships had made it to Corsin, some had major damaged, they had had to fight their way thru rebel blockades. Azazel soon learned that the rebels had taken out most of the command ships and for now a commander was leading them. As soon as he arrived the commander handed the command to Azazel, who combined all the ships, making a very formidable fleet, and headed to Dantooine where they would repair the ships and also try to revive the empire. Now more then ever the force was unbalanced in Azazel, his meditation and training had given him control of his powers, but the dark side flowed through Azazel's veins now. His was eager to get back at the rebels …