CHAPTER 3: RISE OF MARICUS

Saris

The Mandalore System

One moment I was meditating as my shuttle cruised through hyperspace, and the next I was nearly thrown across the room as I was abruptly stopped. In my window was a Republic cruiser with some unsightly bulges- gravity wells? A message came through.

"Unidentified vessel, this is the Republic Cruiser Reverence. prepare for tractor beam lock. Failure to comply will result in your termination."

Blast.

Ganner

As we followed Saris through hyperspace, I acquainted myself with the crew. I also learned that each member of the squad was actually a criminal of some sort that the Republic had captured and decided to use for their own purposes.

Hans Novastar, the man who had helped me rescue the rest, was the closest thing the team had to a "leader" aside from their overseer, some Admiral. Hans was a commando of sorts and was arrested launching a successful attack on the fortress of a Hutt the Republic had secretly been negotiating with.

Next was Ranulph Darkhitch, a tan young man with blonde hair and a goatee to match. Ranulph was the techie of the group, arrested for hacking into Coruscant's military databases and uncovering secret plans for superweapons. He was also the youngest, at only 18, though he looked much older.

Siri Tokolighter was the blonde girl from before. She was also somewhat young, being 21. Siri was the crackshot of the group and was arrested for attempting to assassinate some big-shot known as Xalandra Nova. In fact, the shot was dead on, but a Jedi Master known as Kahar Zamet deflected it just in time.

Fourth in line was Blaze Terrant. He was stocky with auburn hair, and was arrested for going into casinos claiming to be the fastest shot in the galaxy and shooting down anyone who dared to challenge him. Needless to say, he was quite the gunslinger.

Last but not least was Arron Radion. Hans told me that he was a big-time bounty hunter who had worked for the Hutt he killed, and was sort of the jack of all trades of the group. The torture he endured while captured must have been too much, however, because he was very reclusive and never spoke.

The team had been sent to Felucia to kill the general of the base and destroy as much as they could. Saris, in what I gathered was an attempt to hide from me, infiltrated the base, disposed of and replaced the general by reprogramming all the droids to see him as the general's replacement. Now, since Saris technically was the general of the base, they could get away with going with me to take him down. And so, the six of us sat on the ship as we were violently thrown out of hyperspace.
"Unidentified vessel, this is the Republic Cruiser Reverence. prepare for tractor beam lock. Failure to comply will result in your termination."

"Impossible..." Ranulph muttered.

The ship began to slowly pull us in.

Saris

I walked out of my shuttle, with a small patrol of clone troopers staring blankly at me, guns raised. In the middle stood a captain, with a cyan shoulder pad and a kama. "Mind giving us a name?"

It was time. In my mind, I knew the name at once. It was new, and yet, it had always been mine. I could sense their fingers tightening on their triggers as I took my time. Despite myself, a small sneer was beginning to form.

"Lock him-"

"Darth."

They froze at the word. In their single second of hesitation, my lightsaber flew to my hand.

"Darth Maricus."

With my blade as red as the blood I was about to spill, I attacked.

Ganner

I felt a large ripple in the Force. Saris was here, and had revealed himself, presumably to the clones. Right on cue, over the intercom, I heard screaming and gunshots. Little by little, voice by voice, the screams quieted, until finally either Saris or a single clone had lived.

I didn't have much faith in the clone.

"Why, that's you, Ganner, isn't it? Incredible."

"Surrender, Saris. You've got no backup and no way out."

"Arek Saris is dead. I just killed him."

Static.

"How awfully nice of that Saris-sounding scum to take care of him for us," Ranulph sarcastically remarked. The rest of us sat momentarily in silence as the tractor beam pulled us in closer and closer. Finally, Ranulph was the one who broke it.

"So what exactly is the plan, anyway?"

Hans began thinking.

"Ranulph, you need to get to the bridge. Get help, find something to stop Saris.

Blaze, you and Arron need to lock down the hangars. Saris isn't getting off this ship.

Siri and I will, uh, patrol the ship. Ganner, you can sense Saris, so you'll be the most essential component of the plan. I think this goes without saying, but you'll need to track him and coordinate with Ranulph and the rest of us to keep him in while you two do whatever you do." He handed us all holocoms.

The ship began to pull into the hangar, and through our hull, the carnage was remarkable. Squads of clones laid in pieces across the room. The ship landed. Saris' voice rang out over the ship's intercom.

"Now boarding six walking corpses."

"I know the layout of Republic cruisers well enough to know that came from the bridge," Ranulph says.

"I'll come with you," I reply.

"All right, everyone split up!" Hans says.

"Oh, yay, ship duty. Such fun." Blaze mutters as we all go our separate ways.

Darth Maricus (AKA Saris)

Using the ship's cameras, I scanned around looking for any stragglers besides Ganner. All across the Reverence were my little pieces of art. I flicked through the ship, but no one was left. It was time to call Varad and make my escape.

Ranulph Darkhitch

"He's splitting off," Ganner said. "I'll go after him. You get to the bridge." With that, he quickly took a left down another blank corridor and quickly vanished. When I approached the bridge, there was no door to open, and I could see the carnage from across the hallway. There was not a single clone in sight, and the walls of the bridge looked like someone had made modern art with only gray and black. By some miracle, the computers were barely scratched. However, just as I began to examine them, I heard a sneeze. Quickly and silently I spun and drew my pistol, but no one was there. Just as I was about to dismiss it as nothing, a section of the ceiling opened up, and a man dressed in colorful robes fell past, screaming.

"Hans, Siri, someone, get up here. There's a freaking stowaway."

As he stood up and brushed off his dusty, fancy clothes I got a closer glance at him. He was tan, with golden eyes and black hair. He had about the same physique as me, tall and slightly skinny. He was also, somehow, wielding a sniper rifle.

"Hello there," he said. "I'm Dylan and I'm sure we can talk things out."

Blaze Terrant

Truth be told, ship duty was pretty dang boring.

"You know, we could make this more interesting. Play a game of pazaak or something." Arron was still mute, staring out the window. A long silence ensued.

"Fine, have it your way."

Another long silence. Maybe I could annoy him into talking.

"You know, that Siri is quite the looker. And did you see the way she was glancing at Hans during our briefing? I'm telling you, man-" The airlock opened.

"Man?"

He had left the ship. I quickly followed. He was running towards Saris' ship. "Arron!" I yelled.

He stopped and turned slowly.

"I hate to do this," he said.

Before I had time to react, he drew his pistol and shot me. The last thing I saw was a blue flash - he had stunned me.

Darth Maricus

As I ran through the halls, a door opened in front of me that Ganner promptly jumped through. Yet again, we watched each other, preparing to strike.

"Saris."

"That's Maricus to you, Slarwalker."

"Right then. Shall we?"

He activated his sabers. I did the same. I knew I couldn't take him in a fight, but I quickly found a solution to that as a blonde man and woman walked behind me.

Ranulph

"Okay, okay, let me explain. So I'm sitting here in this ceiling nibbling this rifle because I'm really hungry, right? (I'm still really hungry.) Then I hear a lot of people screaming and stuff, right? Then it gets reeeeal quiet, and there's some other voice who doesn't sound like everyone else saying some random stuff I can't understand. Then I guess he walks closer to me, 'cuz I hear him talking about finding his 'secondary objective' on Man-dollar or something. Then he got real quiet and I figured I was alone so I started thinking about my friend named Price, he's pretty cool, you should meet him. Then you showed up. Also I bit a little bit off the scope."

"...What."

"So I'm sitting here in this ceiling nibbling this rifle because I'm really hungry, right? (I'm still really hungry.) Then I hear a lot of people screaming and stuff, right? Then it gets reeeeal quiet, and there's some other voice who doesn't sound like everyone else saying some random stuff I can't understand. Then I guess he walks closer to me, 'cuz I hear him talking about finding his 'secondary objective' on Man-dollar or something. Then he got real quiet and I figured I was alone so I started thinking about my friend named Price, he's pretty cool, you should meet him. Then you showed up. Also I bit a little bit off the scope."

"What."

"Nope, you're out of chances."

I activated my comlink. "Guys, Saris has some sort of ulterior objective on Mandalore."

Silence. What were they doing? I moved to the cameras to find out. There was Saris, apparently holding Siri hostage, with Ganner and Hans on either side. Just great.

Ganner

"You, behind me, don't even think of pulling anything." Saris slowly backed away from me. Hans kept his gun trained on Saris' head. As soon as he was next to Hans, Saris quickly threw him with the Force against the wall. He threw Siri at me, whom I jumped over, and started to run. As he ran down the halls he sliced a vent open, causing a gust of gas to blow me off my feet across the room, leaving the 3 of us left behind in a heap. Over the comlink, Ranulph began to panic. "Guys, Saris is headed for the hangars, Arron is gone, and Blaze is unconscious. He's gonna escape!" I slowly got to my feet and parted the gas so that I could run after him but I knew he was already too far gone. I got into the hangar in time to see him leave with our shuttle.

"Blast it all."

Minutes later, we all assembled at the bridge. As I entered I immediately took notice of the stowaway, who I could since was... off, in some way. "Price! You made it to the part where I come in again! And you're still not banned!" He said.

"What?"

"Stop with the nonsense," Ranulph said. "What is Maricus- apparently what Saris calls himself now- planning?"

"I don't know, all I caught was something about Mandalore and a second objective and Vizla."

We all looked at each other in confusion and surprise.

"Vizla?" Hans asked, hesitantly.

"Yeah, why?"

"Vizla works for the Death Watch."

We all took a collective moment to realize the trouble we were about to get into, which was ruined when Dylan burped quite loudly and then said "Gesundheit."

"May I do the honors?" Ranulph inquired.

"Be my guest."

With a nice whap on the head from Ranulph's pistol, Dylan was down for the count. From there we returned to our shuttle. "I have a plan," Hans announced as we all sat down. "And I don't think you're gonna particularly like it."