Chapter 8- Taloraan

"Jaq?"

Just ignore him and he'll go away.

"Jaq? Come in, Jaq. Are you there? Jaq?"

Damn. How long does it take for holocrons to give up when no one replies.

"Jaq! Pick up! I know you're there! I can sense you."

Busted. I touched lightly upon the blinking red light on the console by the door of the Sleheyron's Bishop's meditation chamber. The machine whirred and the image of my old friend Drayven Khar appeared in the centre of the circular room.

"Jaq. Why have you been ignoring me?"

"Ignoring you? I wasn't."

I was. After my last mission on Felucia Khar was becoming increasingly concerned for my mental health. I was getting more aggressive, he had said. So I said "Good. Aggression is power." That was three and a half weeks ago. I hadn't spoken to him once since.

"You were ignoring me, Jaq, and you know it." He said, as if telling off a child. "Don't use that tone with me. You are not my master. Lord Revan isn't concerned as far as I'm aware so neither should you." That'd show him.

"That's what I'm trying to contact you about." Said the image of Khar, it began looking at it's feet. He was sad. Why?

"I'm fine Khar!" I yelled. He stumbled back before rebutting "No you're not! You aren't the friend I trained beside! You were arrogant, naïve and fun. You wouldn't let a bully push you around, you'd just sock 'em in the jaw and be on with it! Now you'd choke him until his eyes pop out!"

"I'm fine Khar!"

"You're not and you know it!" I knew no such thing. And I wasn't even in denial. I was powerful, if anything, this Jedi annihilation business was healthy. "You haven't been the same since you left Felucia!"

"Felucia was a successful mission! I killed my target!"

"The mission was a success…" he paused. He took a deep breath before continuing. "…but you weren't the one to kill him. I saw the reports. You killed that young Jedi's family in front of him and let him in a state of depression pour Rancor Juice on himself, and allow him to set himself alight before jumping into that Sarlaac Pit. I read the report. You, old friend, are not fine."

"I'm leaving, Khar."

"Where to?"

"I'm going on my mission. Lord Revan wants me to put a Republic Jedi General to death."

Drayven stopped. He was stunned.

"Don't bother-"

"I will! I don't need you telling me what to do! Leave me be! I need to be calm!"

"No wait!"

I used the Force to deactivate the comms. His image flickered off and I lost sight of me. He was always looking out for me, trying to keep me safe. The Nerf-herder was only holding me back.

This, however, was target number 44. I had flown to the sky planet of Taloraan. I had been told many a times that Taloraan was Bespin, though incorporated the extra thug cities Cato Nemoidia held. I approached the Bishop's cockpit and sat myself in my comfy chair. I touched some buttons and did my duty in order to land. This was the city the Jedi General Sloruxnas was on. I could feel it in the Force, however, it was also quite odd that I received no comms from Traffic Control.

As I touched for a landing I noticed through the light coloured smog that this haven was much like that of a Coruscanti cantina. There were slums, backstreets, beggars, cantinas, military docks and Republic patrols. From the docking port one had to cross a large bridge to the public residential module, this was where I would find Sloruxnas.

Intel was scarce with the target. My droid, X8-10, a warbot, had scouted the planet of Nal Hutta in order to gather some intel. I'd had the battle droid for just under a year or something. He was a faithful companion. X8 was the reason I put so much faith in droids. If Khar failed a mission an the result was his death, he would now be expendable and my droid would become a suitable replacement as a… friend.

The landing ramp lowered.

I made my way onto the docking circle. I'd landed the ship right beside a Republic Starfighter. My guess was that there was no more room in the Military Docks – which meant more enemies. On my belt hung my blue lightsaber, occasionally with a nervous fidget I would unclip it, spin it five revolutions in my palm and click it back on. A used to do a similar thing with my blasters, but I was a Dark Assassin now. I was clean of such outdated armaments.

My boots clanged against the hard steal of the manufactured ground. The city floated in the sky, yet still it was easy to breathe. Obviously there were some risks, as Bith could only be found in the Cantina where the air was pressurized. Even still, the only Bith one could find were those playing gigs on stage. And don't even get me started on the Gands. The Gands were despicable little pests. There needed to be some form of hunt to get the small parasites extinct. A bloody massacre, yes that would do the trick, yes indeed.

A Republic Warship ascended from underneath the city. It was massive, curious I had not spotted it in my descent. The beast of a spaceship was ear piercingly loud. It must have been refueling at some station in the underside of this… uh, glorious city. The thrusters roared to life and the squeal of the ship was replaced with a booming guttural roar as the ship, now above me, began to move off in a forward-diagonally upwards motion into the sky. The city shook as the ship disappeared from sight. After that awe full display, I was ready for the mission.

Awe full? Full of awe? Wouldn't that be awful? But awful isn't full of awe, awful is without awe. How weird.

What was that? It was a little voice in the back of my skull, it began screaming like a banshee. Humor, humor? I never joked, my conscience was trying to change me. And I mustn't let that happen. Not now, not ever.

Approaching the bridge I noticed only one civilian apart from the twenty soldiers currently occupying the walkway. It was highly likely that the civilians of this city caught taxi from other cities, that the Republic were using this city as a military hold-up. The bridge was easily wide enough to host tanks and other heavy artillery. It seemed only logical.

Passing the Republic onlookers I stepped into the massive cantina that took up most of the complex. As the door opened I was greeted, not by music, but by a small room about two meters in length and six in width. As I stepped in the reinforced steel door behind me closed and a clear white gas filled the chamber.

It's a trap!

No, Jaq you idiot. It's not a trap. Let's not get too ahead of ourselves. That would be best, no? The room was only an air lock.

Soon the door in the front of the chamber opened to reveal a massive four level cantina that stretched back further than I could see. There was loud beating music and a large darkness constantly being interrupted by washes of violent, pink and green and strobes of blue, yellow and red. There were no Biths as there was no band. This was all console manufactured music, designed by skilled tech-masters.

The bar seemed to stretch for about eighty meters in length, though the fumes in the pressure compartment may have distorted my sight just a tad. There were thousands within the cantina. My best bet for finding this, Sloruxnas, would be to mingle with the guests. But mingling wasn't my strong point so I decided to converse with a bartender. The first bartender I spoke to was a man with a smushed and smooshy face. An alien crossbreed no doubt, only, this breeding had gone horribly wrong. It looked as though the man had shoved his face into a cruiser's thrusters. And he was big, looks like after permanently scarring his face he decided to swallow a thermal detonator to end the pain – only that failed too and now he was just really ugly.

"Hey, you!" I called to him. But he didn't answer. So I did it twice more. "You. You! Yeah you! Come here!"

Eventually he turned and, cleaning a glass with a black and oily rag returned with…

"How can I help you sir?"

"I'd like some information." I said.

"Oh yeah?" "Yes. I was wondering if you knew of a Republic General who occasionally drinks here?"

X9-10's intel informed me that he would be most likely hidden within the cantina. I thought it an easy location to search, until I discovered the size.

"No. Now order or Feirfek off, you hear?" he shouted angrily.

Alright, now I was mad.

I unsheathed my lightsaber and used the Force to sense out the closest hostile. A Republic Soldier passed with a tray of drinks he was, I assume, going to give to his friends. Friends are weaknesses. I taught him the lesson well as I activated the lightsaber and allowed the concentrating man to walk right through the light. He dropped the tray, the glasses shattered, and his legs imploded and acted as a cushion for his torso which fell straight after. As the boy fell I pulled out his blaster.

Heavy, a DC-9er, un-silenced.

I raised the weapon in the air and pulled on the trigger. The gun jerked back and the recoil nearly forced the pistol down upon my skull. I was stronger and recoil became minimal once I was prepared. I pulled on the trigger five more times. Six shots total into the roof. They were loud. The people stopped. The music stopped. Everything died. And they were all looking for me. The only person to move away would be the now suspecting General Sloruxnas.

Within the crowds all were watching. While my eyes searched forwards the Force watched behind me. In the crowds not too far in front I noticed three civilians knocked ever so slightly. Sloruxnas. I raised the soldier's blaster to that area and fired thrice more. One shot hit a civilian in the chest, another in the head. They collapsed and the General was seen. He was a Kel Dor. The insignificant was hooded, probably in an attempt to hide his breathing mask. He turned to see me as I saw him.

We stopped.

We used a Force Repulse and knocked all the civilians within the four meter radius on the floor of the bar. They were all knocked out, and unlikely to wake up for the next few days – this Jedi was strong. He ran. I followed. He knocked over any civilian in his way, bowling them over with his elbows. I only needed to follow in his tracks. I was tempted to turn on my weapon and slice the next fifty people in half, that ran the risk of slowing me down.

There were two Gamorrean nightclub bouncers guarding the exit. They allowed Sloruxnas to pass but stood in front of the door when I approached. The door shut behind the General and he was gone. But I raised both hands and slid the two to the sides on either sides of the doors. Stunned and confused they stopped and allowed me passage. But the door was still closed.

I stopped.

I pulled my hands back and built up all the Force I could gather. Releasing it I threw all I could at the exit doors. And the Force, my weapon, exploded from my palms and blew open both the closest door and the outer door. The General flew off carried by the attack I had given. He collapsed alongside all the other soldiers around him. But he recovered quick. The General continued and ran for his life. He had a headstart, but I was quicker – still I doubted I could catch him in time.

The Bantha just kept running. Behind me I could hear the clattering footsteps of gathering Republic soldiers. In front of me, in front of the Kel Doran General troopers lined up on the docking pads and entered their starfighters. They would gun me down given the chance. Luckily I had other Republic soldiers around me, so they wouldn't really be firing upon me any time soon.

The General crossed the bridge and took a right, presumably to his fighter. Straight ahead was mine. I may just be able to catch him in time. A figure emerged from my docking pad. It was humanoid and equipped with a heavy ion cannon. It can punch some real damage. Also luckily, I discovered it was X8-10. And today would be the day I no longer trusted droids. As the Sloruxnas passed him I hadn't noticed him raise his hand at my droid, so instead of attacking the target my droid engaged me.

He fired two heavy slugs at me, the slugs of such a size would be impossible to deflect. My lightsaber (which I hadn't realised I'd activated) allowed me to move all the more flexibly. Sure it was heavier, but a weapon of such precision gave me the ability to leap greater distances and become one with my blade.

I was unstoppable.

My traitorous little droid didn't stand a chance. My mech was reckless, with each attack another four soldiers behind me perished under the plasma that I had modded the cannon with.

I jumped on him, X8 had fallen to the ground under the force of my leap. The impact shattered his cerebral interaction node. The droid was virtually paralyzed. Though he could not fire the back stabbing son of a Bith deserved everything that would come to him. Droids felt no pain, but they were programmed to react as if they did. It was true one would never really know what a droid could feel but I gutted the machine regardless. A cable was cut loose and an oily grey-back sludge spurted out from the flailing tube. His right eye blinked once brightly and the motion was followed by both pooping violently as a spark punctured the lens, breaking the Sylirian Glass.

I had wasted enough time and the Jedi General Soruxnas was gone. I sensed him, he hadn't escaped yet. It truth, he was moving fast, away then closer. He must have piloted a starfighter. Still I remembered he couldn't engage as soldiers…were…around… no, wait. I was mistaken. As I looked around the soldiers had retreated to the far side of the bridge, the cantina civil side, the loser side. I, on the cool side of the bridge proceeded to sprint for the Sleheyron's Bishop. Around me roughly six fighters swooped. The General was the first to engage in a strafing run.

I dive rolled up over the ledge and onto the landing pad. I slid under the Republic Fighter already stationed. Fighters were fast but weak, I was a man of brute and bulk. Standing I continued to run and used the Force to lower the landing ramp again. Running up I quickly banked through the hallways and took quick cut corners. Soon I was in the cockpit once more. The Bishop required little warm-up time. The shields were buffed up to 800 percent in comparison to the interceptor that Sloruxnas was in.

The Bishop ascended and I activated the upper and lower ion turrets. I loved ion. Ion was so much more deadly that frag or plasma attacks. Ion tore right through the hulls of ships as long as the shield was taken down. Usually I would have X8-10 on one of the turrets and I on the other. I would set my ship to auto-pilot. The auto-gunning sequence was slow and inaccurate. Though now that the traitorous utility droid of a co-pilot was down, I had no choice.

As soon as I reached primary ascension height a fighter brushed past the ship's Bridge screens. The radar noted eleven fighters in the sky. …now ten, the turret was extremely accurate to close range ships. Knowing how much power was in the shields I could risk flying into enemy crafts. Their shields was disrupt and their hulls would crack open. Those I missed would be shot down by the turrets. My shields would undoubtedly hold against a warship. And yes, I know that for sure. Last week I played chicken with a Mandalorian warship on the outer rim.

The auto-offensive gun turrets were not programmed to fire upon non-enemy types. I wanted that bridge gone, that would surely irritate the light sided lesser attempting to approach their ships across the bridge. Previously I had loaded all the ship's explosives into the cargo hold. For faster flying I had uninstalled all remnants of heavy missile cannons located at the front of the ship below the cockpit.

The light on the Bridge console blinked fast. Incoming message.

"Not now, Khar!"

I flew in an upwards fashion and ducked into a dive bombing formation towards the Bridge. Below I noticed the soldiers depart, they scampered off in all directions assuming their death was near. Many gave up and jumped off the bridge and I found it quite humorous that they would be falling (possibly for hours before their bodies went in to shock from the oxygen-less fall). Truth be told, there would be oxy- no, stop. Off topic. So I dive bombed. At the last second I pulled up and raised the Sleheyron's Bishop so that it missed the bridge by about four meters. Quickly I pulled down a lever on the console. I light blinked above the windscreen. A message on the light read 'Cargo Jettisoned'. Soon the ship sped up as all the uneccesary resources, droid parts, disassembled cannons, thermal explosives and Hex missiles fell from the underside of the craft and below.

After the ship picked up speed suddenly it was thrown forward. There was a strong blast from the explosion. When the ship recovered its normal speed I pulled an Immelman and returned my gaze upon the bridge. There before my eyes was a massive gap splitting the two sections of the city up. No soldiers that were on the bridge or had crossed to the landing bay had survived. Now it was time for the target.

We engaged in a dogfight. As I swooped the General my turrets had trouble targeting the interceptor. Soon enough it was just me, and Sloruxnas. He came at me from head on. A game of chicken. But I felt it in the Force, he knew I wouldn't back down. There was no competition. At the last moment he banked to the upper-right from my view. There he pulled some Republic flight maneuver and came at me from the side. It was clear he intended to brush against the back of the ship. He'd peered into my mind ever so subtly and discovered the turrets' targeting arrays were located at the back of the ship. Brushing up against them could damage the turrets inert. The target would live.

I slowed. Sloruxnas came at me so fast he had no time to stop. He hit me from the right of the ship. On impact the Republic Interceptor exploded into oblivion and with it my ship's shields were completely wasted. There was little chance he survived, there was no ship left.

I was mad.

No.

I was really mad.

I banked my ship right and cut the engines. As I fell facing the floating city I passed the civil sector and targeted two small fighters, each one refueling at the refueling stations below each city district. Beside the fuel depots were the grav wells keeping the city afloat. As I fell the turrets switched ammunition to projectile crystals, 'thins' we called them. At a rapid fire pace the crystals shredded the fighters. They exploded and the fuel depots caught fire. With the depots going aflame they exploded. The lower halves of the city were consumed, engulfed in flames. The city fell. Just under a million citizens sentenced to death.

I realised I was wrong about what I had said all those months ago. I did love blood. And when this city hit Taloraan's floor – no survivors…

I pulled the throttle and the thrusters kicked in. Instantly I pulled into full speed and blasted off into space. Success.

"You didn't need to do that, Jaq." Khar had said once I had kicked the ship into hyperspace and activated the holocomms.

"I did. I am an assassin, and I was given a target."

"No, you don't understand."

"I understand perfectly." I did… didn't I?

"No… please, you don't. Do you remember our oaths. We serve Lord Revan until the end of his reign. Well, his reign has ended."

What? How? This was impossible. The Dark Lord of the Sith was to be crowned the emperor of the New Sith Empire.

"What happened, Drayven? Is our master okay?"

"No. His mission was a drastic failure."

"How? What happened? Tell me!"

"He and Darth Malak exited hyperspace to the damaged Republic warship. When the small fleet stopped to examine the vessel it activated its engines and blasted off. Then the Republic invasion armada arrived. They invaded Revan's ship but Revan nearly killed all the attackers. But Malak's flagship the-"

"-the Leviathan."

"Yes, the Leviathan. Malak betrayed Darth Revan. He fired upon the Bridge and Revan died. He's gone."

My whole world unraveled around me. Revan's world had ended. And so had mine. What was this? What had happened? Where had it all gone wrong? Who do I serve?

"No! Drayven Khar, who do we serve?"

"I… Jaq…"

"Who do we serve, Khar? Who is our master?"

The hologram disappeared. For a second I was lost, confused. Another hologram flickered in Khar's place. A man stood, he was in uniform. A large series of medals striped across the breast of his jacket. I recognized the man instantly. It was Sith hero, Admiral Saul Karath. The next two words I heard still haunt me to this very day.

"I am."