Author's note
Hey all, I'm finally back with part two. Sorry it took so long. One of my friends got me to sign up for nanowrimo, a writing challenge, where you try to write a 50,000 word novel from scratch in just the month of November. So that's why I haven't been back to write this story as I had originally planned, but I'm back now.
I want to extend a huge thank you to my followers. CmJerichoRKO (love the screen name btw, I used to be a huge WWE fan), and Grz, I want to thank you both from the bottom of my heart. You are AWESOME!... Without further delay, here is part two.
Picking up about an hour after part one left off.
Starkiller sits on his bed in his shiny cell, while a pretty, green Twi'lek nurse bandages his ribs.
"You were very lucky," she says.
"Well, it sure felt lucky," Starkiller says with a groan.
"A blow like could have killed you- would have killed anyone else."
She finishes with his ribs, and turns to place the roll of bandages onto a hovering cart behind her. She grabs a scanning device, then moves it over his ribs.
"Amazing, your ribs are already beginning to heal."
He shrugs. I guess being trained by a ruthless psychopath your whole life has its advantages.
The doors whoosh open, and a human man wearing shining bronze colored armor walks in.
"The celebration has already started. The boss wants to show you off to his friends. Are you finished yet?"
After every contest in the arena, Interimo holds lavish parties for the favorable citizens of his empire. The favorable being the wealthy, and the wealthy, being the high ups of his organization.
"We're just finishing up now," the nurse says, then motions to Starkiller's shirt. "You can get dressed now."
She piles her items onto the cart, and begins pushing it towards the door.
"Stay off your feet as much as possible. You might heal fast, but you're still only human," she calls out behind her.
"Hurry it up," the guard barks, not taking his eyes of off the pretty nurse as she walks down the hallway.
"Sure, could you help me?" Starkiller motions towards a high shelf on the wall, wincing in pain. "My nicest shirt's up there. Not sure I can reach it."
He grabs at his ribs to sell it.
"If it'll speed things up," the guard says, stepping into the room, towards the shelf on the far wall.
The doors whoosh closed, leaving Starkiller alone with the guard. What an idiot.
He grins, and clenches his hands into fists. This is it.
Months of plotting has led him to this. Getting out is easy. He's too powerful now- they can't stop him. His problem is the device in his body. Every problem has a solution, and Starkiller thinks he's found his. He's betting his life on it. Not that life as a gladiator is all that great.
His plan is pretty simple.
With all the servants working the party, and the guards keeping an eye on the guests there, the rest of palace will be pretty deserted. He needs to find the security office, get into the computers, deactivate the device in his body, and he has to do all those things without being detected. If he can do that, then all he has to do is find a way out.
Or make one.
The guard steps past him towards the shelf, then hesitates. Too late.
"Hey, can't you jus-"
He flies against the wall, blasted by a ball of energy from Starkiller. He holds the guard against the wall with his mind, just a few feet off the ground.
"If you scream, I will snap your neck," he says darkly.
He holds out a hand, then begins to close into a loose fist, lightly choking the guard with his mind.
"Got it?"
He releases his fist, and the guard gasps for air.
"Got it?" he repeats.
"Yes!" the guard croaks. "I won't scream... Just don't kill me."
"You're going to open the door, and then you will take me to the security office."
"I can't do that. He'll ki-"
Starkiller cuts him off with a closed fist. He watches the guard struggle for breath, then releases him.
"You will help me," he says, "Or I will kill you right now."
The guard whimpers, and nods.
"Good."
He releases him, and the guard smashes into the ground. The guard makes his way to his feet, and to the door.
"And remember," Starkiller says, holding out his fist. "I won't hesitate to snap your neck like a twig."
Starkiller grabs a black shirt, and puts it on, then puts his duster on. He summons a bag with his mind, then squeezes the guard just a little bit for emphasis, then motions for the door. The guard says the password, then the door whooshes open, and the two men walk out.
As expected, the halls of the palace are deserted. When Interimo built the palace, he built it as a replica of the Theed palace on the planet Naboo. No one can say exactly why- no one except Interimo, that is, but... You get the idea.
The guard leads Starkiller down the earth tone hallways, passing very few servants, who are all too busy doing their duties to notice the gladiator, and his hostage. Starkiller keeps his eyes on his hostage, while keeping all his senses tuned to his surroundings, watching out for any sign of trouble.
They pass a few corridors, and finally the guard stops in front of a door.
"We're here," he whispers.
"Open the door," Starkiller growls.
The guard gives him one last pleading look, then dials on a hidden keypad. The door splits in the middle, and slides open. Starkiller immediately takes in the control room with all his senses. He motions the guard inside, then follows him in. Two guards sit at a long control station, bored out of their minds, their eyes not leaving their monitors.
The doors close behind Starkiller. One flick of his wrist sends all the guards, and most the furniture in the room flying into the air at once. The guards slam into the wall with great force, knocking them out. Starkiller moves to the bank of controls, and monitors. Where is it?
He begins frantically searching through the systems, eyes quickly roving across lines of text displayed on the monitor. He navigates the complicated system quickly. There!
He opens the directory, and double checks through it. He selects the function that he hopes will shut down his device. An image of Starkiller's skeletal appears on the screen with a red dot at the base of his neck. He touches the dot, and the screen zooms in close, and a box of text appears in the upper right corner of the screen. Two icons appear under the text, one on the right, and one on the left.
He doesn't recognize the language of the text, but gets its meaning. He selects the icon on the right, and the red dot turns green. It's off.
An idea occurs to him, and he scans back through the directory. He smirks to himself as he turns off the devices in all of Interimo's slaves. This should be good.
He scans again, and deactivates all the holding cell locks. He finds the PA, and hits it.
"Now hear this," he says. "all of the cell doors are now unlocked, and the devices in your body are hereby deactivated. Have a nice day."
He shocks lightning into the bank of controls, rendering the system useless. Sparks fly out of the monitors, then everything in the control room goes black. He blasts the door open with a tremendous blast of energy, and sprints into the hallway, heading straight for the armory. He reaches the armory without incident, and blasts the doors open.
He ducks inside, and finds the locker with his things in it. He rips the locker door off its hinges with the force, takes his duster off, then puts his gray armor on. He wraps his belt around his waist, and straps it tight, then grabs his lightsabers, and places them each in a holster. He puts his long coat back on, then rushes out of the armory, running as fast as he can without using the force to accelerate past his body's normal limits.
He reaches out with his mind, trying to get a good fix on where the nearby guards are. He isn't sure where he's running, but his feelings tell him that he's heading in the right direction. A few guards come around a corner in front of him. He reaches a hand forward, grabbing each one of them with his mind, then rips his hand back.
The men fly towards him, then pass by him screaming. He rounds the corner, and senses a great number of guards heading his way. He sees a door to his left, and ducks inside. The room appears empty, but he feels faint signs of life. Is someone hiding? Are they trying to mask their presence from him? He senses no threat in the dark room. He finds the light controls, and turns them on. The vast room is filled with trinkets, gadgets, weapons, and things that he wouldn't know how to even describe. It's the trophy room.
All around the room, things are on display. It's very similar to the trophy room that he saw on Kashyyyk. He makes his way towards the far wall, where he feels the faint echo of life. Nothing. No one there.
Then he sees it. Two people hanging on the wall. An older human male, and a teenage Togruta female, both frozen in carbonite. He thought they were paintings or sculptures. He hadn't realized until he got up close.
He turns to leave, then senses movement outside. The door opens, and guards rush inside.
"Freeze!" one of them shouts.
Starkiller raises his hands in the air, watching the guards move slowly towards him. He let's lightning free from his hands, encompassing the guards. They cry out, and drop to the floor. More guards rush in, blasters blazing.
Starkiller rolls, and draws his lightsabers, igniting them, and deflecting blaster bolts with smooth, graceful movements. The bolts fly back at the gunmen, hitting some, and sending the others scrambling for cover.
He grips one guard, and sends him flying into another with a swift sweep of his arm. A guard pops his head up from behind a display to fire. Starkiller tags him in the face with a ball of energy from his palm. The guard flies back into the wall behind, then crumples onto the floor.
The last guard runs for the door to find help. Starkiller rips him into the air by his ankle, then flings him into the wall on his left. The room goes silent, except a strange kind of whirring noise coming from behind Starkiller.
He turns around, and notices the sparks flying from some kind of control console, then notices the carbonite starting to melt. He shrugs. Not my problem.
He turns to leave, but something stops him. He knows that he should just go. They will drastically slow him down, and his escape relies on speed. Nonetheless, he cannot make himself leave the room, and them behind. A few seconds is all it takes for the carbonite to melt, releasing its captives. They both fall to the floor in a daze.
"Can you walk?" Starkiller half snaps.
The orange Togrura girl doesn't appear to even register his question, but the olive skinned man with bleached hair, cut very short speaks up with no small measure of difficulty.
"Who are you? Where am I?" he asks with a slight accent.
"Long story. If you want to get out of here, then we have to move fast. Can you walk?"
The guy looks like he might wretch, but the girl looks worse off than him, if that's even possible.
"I think so," the man says. "But I can't see."
"Rex?" the girl asks in a daze, apparently starting to gain her bearings.
"Commander," he says.
"Captain, where are we?"
"We don't have time for this," Starkiller snaps.
"Right," the girl says.
She tries to stand, then her knees buckle, and she goes back down, breathing deep, trying not to wretch. Starkiller probes her with the force, trying to determine her physical condition, then he feels it. His eyes go wide for a second. She's force sensitive.
He shakes his head, and looks around the trophy room. Come on, there must be one around here somewhere... There!
He grabs a hovering cart that Interimo's people use to move the heavier things in the trophy room. He activates it, and it starts humming as it hovers four feet off the ground. He gently grasps the girl's wrist. She tenses at the contact.
"It's alright. I'm not going to hurt you," he tries his hand at a soothing tone.
She relaxes a bit, and he easily lifts her off the ground, and lays her on the cart. He turns to see the man already making his way to his feet. He helps him the rest the way up, then guides him to the cart, and helps him into a sitting position, the man's legs dangling off the side.
"Hold on," Starkiller says.
He takes off at a full on sprint, pulling the cart behind him with the force.
"I don't think we've met before. Are you a Jedi?" the girl asks.
"No time," Starkiller answers, and continues sprinting.
He follows his feelings guidance down the halls. Turning when he feels like he should. The guards should be coming out from everywhere, but they aren't. The other prisoners must be causing quite the ruckus.
He reaches a wide hallway with giant blast doors at the end, and he stops in front of them. He can sense a few people inside. He searches the wall, and finds a panel. A few seconds, and he's bypassed the lock. The doors slide open, and Starkiller grabs the cart with his left hand, and pulls them inside. He looks around, and sees that he's in a hangar with many starships of varying sizes, and from different eras, some of them very old, but all of them in pristine condition.
Any one would do, but that doesn't stop Starkiller from taking his time to look around. What the?
He can hardly believe his eyes as he stares at a ship, none other than The Rogue Shadow. Somehow they got their hands on his ship. So that's how he got his hands on my robe.
He smirks, and starts crossing the vast hanger, pulling the cart behind him. People tend to the ships, but Starkiller doesn't see any guards in the hanger. He passes a Nabooan Fighter, and then a CIS Strike Bomber.
A few mechanics give them a strange look. Starkiller just nods, and keeps on. He reaches the ship, and finds the hatch controls. A ramp extends from the hatch of the ship, and the hatch opens. He grabs a hold of the cart just as a group of guards come into the hanger. They see him, and bolt towards them, calling for backup.
Starkiller sprints up the ramp, closing the hatch behind them. He runs to the cockpit, and sits in the pilot's chair. He sees the hanger doors in front them start closing.
"Lets hope she still works," he says, pressing different buttons on the control panel.
The engine fires to life, and the ship starts hovering. The hanger doors in front of them shut tight. The man gets to his feet, and feels his way to a chair, then helps the girl into it, and feels his way into another chair.
"No," Starkiller says grimly.
"What is it?" the girl asks.
"The hanger doors have closed," he says. "Guess we'll find out if the weapons still work."
He presses a few more buttons, and his instruments beep, and hum. He fires the laser cannons, then squints. Since when does she have Proton Launchers installed?
He thanks his good luck, and fires the torpedoes. The hanger doors explode, hailing fire, and debris all over the hanger. Pale moonlight shines into the hanger. Starkiller punches the throttle, and guides the ship through a gaping hole in the hanger door. Alerts start ringing from all over.
"Oh, great."
"What now?" the girl the says.
"Anti-air turrets. Hang on!"
He banks left, towards the firing turrets, then dives, spins, and climbs again, gracefully avoiding all the laser fire. He flies right over a turret, and hammers the afterburners, splitting the clouds. More alerts start ringing out.
"Missiles," the man says, behind Starkiller.
Apparently he's starting to recover. Starkiller fires chaff to take care of the first wave of missiles.
"Can you spool up the FTL?" he says.
"Think so," the man says after a time.
They break the atmosphere, and start drifting through space. Even more alerts start chiming.
"Incoming bogeys," Starkiller says. "Coming in fast. Is the hyperdrive ready yet?"
The man gives Starkiller a shrug.
"Your guess is as good as mine."
"Jumping into hyperspace," Starkiller says.
The stars stretch, then everything turns white. They feel a jolt, and they know the ship has reached hyperspace. They all breathe a collective sigh of relief. Safe for now.
Author's note.
Well that's part two. Thanks a bunch for reading, and I hope you all enjoyed it... Sorry again for the long wait. I have already started part three, so hopefully I'll have it up in a few days...
Leave me a review, and let me know what you thought. If you have any suggestions, let me know. Thanks again.