Maya-202

Episode I

Chapter V

Sorrowful Night

Around 4 minutes ago, Prince Thomanius had received confirmation from Scald that his brother's dreamtroopers were headed right into his trap. An evil grin crossed his face when he heard this information. He didn't have any personal grudge against these troopers, but eliminating them would show his brother he really meant business. From what Thomanius had seen at the Battle of Iryx, the pair appeared to be rather close to his brother – they were clearly discussing battle strategies together when his brother had left his slumber and came out of the castle. Thomanius sneered to himself, secretly jealous of his sibling for having people so friendly with him. ''He really keeps an entire army, basically an army of slaves, outside his doors just to protect himself? What a coward," Thomanius said to himself in infuriation, although he reminded himself he had a droid army. He had a habit of talking to himself sometimes when he was angry, particularly when he thought about his brother and all the things he got when the family 'split'. Whilst both brothers were given half of their father's money, Onasius kept the mansion, alongside practically every other family item they had. But more than that, he even still talked with their mother – they had a relationship. Thomanius hadn't seen, let alone spoken to their mother Elia for 13 years now. Elia had given up queendom after the death of Erasmus, and she had moved to a planet light years away from Iryx, changed her identity, her look, everything. She just couldn't take being a queen anymore after the tragedy, the whole event brought her too much sadness to stay within her old life. She spoke with Onasius though. Thomanius had spies all over the place, and whilst they had never found out where Elia was, they had seen her speaking with Onasius over a Comlink not too long ago. Thomanius remembered his rage upon hearing this, but most of all his unhappiness at it. As embarrassed as he was to admit it, he had cried himself to sleep that sorrowful night.

He went to Gaterall, the ice beach planet where he had a base set up. Nightmare troopers paraded outside, blasters in hand. They saluted their Prince upon seeing him. He strode proudly into the base, and eventually to the courtyard outside where the AT-QL was being worked on. Bearing many similarities to, and having inspiration taken from, AT-STs used by the Galactic Empire, the AT-QL had a big head where the driver sat and could view their targets from, with two windows acting as the 'eyes' for the vehicle. It was equipped with four blaster QF cannons on the front, which all fired together at once, and it stood on four long, stretched out legs, making it all the more intimidating. The very last leg was getting attached this instant, and Admiral GLOOM was climbing the ladder into the opening at the top of the machine's head. The trooper moved the cannons and the head piece around using the control console inside, as a test run before the dreamtroopers arrived and it would have to be used. It appeared to be highly functional, and after the final leg's attachment, it had a shooting practice, where bright red targets hung up in the snow, and it was able to hit every single one of them. There was no chance of these troopers getting away easily. That was if they even got past the defenses that were already waiting for them back in the base's corridors. At that moment, Lieutenant Fearful approached his Prince. "My lord, I have some news for you. I have received contact from Moff Gorma telling me that one of those troopers is very powerful and has, as she put it, 'Crazy fast reflexes'. I am not sure what this means, but she asked me to tell you that she definitely didn't disobey your orders again by engaging or trying to fight and stop them first, and they are coming here right now," the droid reported. Moff Gorma, along with her friend, Moff Pickalindo, were two of the only human members of the Nightmare Allegiance Army that had been given the rank of Moff. Thomanius still couldn't really remember how they got their positions, as they were two of the most untrustworthy members of the army. They constantly went against his battle strategies on purpose, as they presumably thought their techniques were 'better' than Thomanius' more complicated but effective methods. Still, the Prince didn't have an antagonistic relationship with them, and so he happily kept them in his army, as he would take all the help he could get to vanquish his true enemy, Onasius. "Well. We have nothing to worry about, because we have this," Thomanius pointed at the newly-built AT-QL, "and there is no way they are getting past this without a fight; the chances of anyone winning against it are minimal, no matter how fast their reflexes are." He heard a little tune – it was his DCS, and it was Scald calling. Thomanius clicked answer, and was greeted with Scald saying that "Project: Revival is complete. We are waiting in your lab at Kamino." A coughing sound could also be made out in the background, and then their voice said "Hello there, Prince Thomanius, my friend." He welcomed the voice back into the world with a "Hello to you too, my friend" back, and smiled mischievously again to himself, as everything seemed to be going to plan at this moment, and soon, the Prince's other little Jedi problem would be no more, thanks to the return of the famous Jedi Hunter, General Grievous, whose hatred for the Jedi had only grown stronger since the day Obi-Wan Kenobi took him down. Thomanius couldn't kill Aren himself, there was too much connection and emotion there. But General Grievous was certainly the right man, or cyborg, for the job. "I'm heading out to the lab on Kamino. Tell me when you've dealt with the Dreamtrooper scum," Thomanius commanded to Sergent ANGER, the Nightmare Trooper who was going to be operating the AT-QL – the Prince had chosen him for the job because he knew he was a skilled pilot from observing him in various vehicle training scenarios. Prince Thomanius turned back to Scald, and said "This is great, well done. Have the Kaminoans made any progress with building the bomb yet?"

"They have almost finished deciphering the plans now, my Lord. They have one more line of chemical equations to translate," Scald responded. The plans had been written in Onacaruzu, a language his father had picked up when visiting the near-ghost planet of Onacaruz. The mountainous planet had such a small population of only the native tribes that inhabited it, that the language was very minimally spoken, hence the plans were written using it so that not many people would be able to understand them if they got into the wrong hands. Luckily for Prince Thomanius, the Kaminoans working in his lab had developed technology that was able to translate many languages, even those that were mostly unheard of. "Excellent. I'll be there soon," Thomanius noted.

Gaterall Space

Maya and Leo had been flying through space in silence for a little while now. Both of them were extremely confused, and excited by what had just happened back on Fortralin. Leo broke the silence by saying "What was that? I don't mean that in an interrogative way, I'm genuinely mesmerised."

Maya thought for a second before she answered him, trying to conjure up the best explanation she could for the mysterious experience. "I know you were just asking, don't worry – it… it was…. I don't know… it was like a burst of energy… like a mystical prescence that I had felt before truly kicked into me, and made me perform actions that I never even had a clue were possible from me…" Maya pondered within her statement. Leo stared out into space.

"Wow… you know what reminds me of?" he asked, whilst removing his helmet to reveal a sly grin underneath. Maya was still puzzled, so she shrugged her shoulders. "The way you moved – was very similar to the Prince," Leo answered himself. It took Maya a moment, but then she realised what he was talking about. She was overcome with exhilaration, mixed with anxiety and bewilderment when she figured out what he meant. "You mean… you think I'm force sensitive? But… how?! I mean I'd very excited if it were true, but how?! Dreamtroopers were genetically created, and I'm pretty sure none of us were given the gene for Midichlorians to show up in our blood, so how can it be possible? Also don't I need training to be able to do all that weird stuff that I did back there? And.." Maya continued on with her questions, when Leo had an interesting thought. "Hold on, hold on!" he stopped Maya mid-question. "We were genetically engineered to need little to no training! That might be why you could do all that stuff!" Maya's jaw dropped. She wanted to believe all this was true, but she tried not to, as it all just felt… impossible. "That would be cool, but… I think I'll just ask Prince Onasius when we get back.". And with that sentence, she brushed any hope away of being one with the force, and possibly a Jedi. "Anyway, we've got a task to focus on now. And look, there's Gaterall!" she changed the subject, whilst their ship approached the planet of white beaches and freezing blue oceans. It was pretty beautiful Maya felt, but this was not the time for sightseeing.

As soon as they entered Gaterall's atmosphere they could feel it. The temperature drop was a tremendous sudden shock to the body, turning their bones almost numb. In all fairness, the planet wasn't the coldest one around, and nowhere near as freezing as Hoth, but it certainly wasn't the warmest either. The troopers hovered in their fighter, scouring the beaches for any sign of the Nightmare Order. Eventually, they stumbled upon what appeared to be a Nightmare Allegiance base that had been set up here on Gaterall, and rather recently too, as there was not as much snow on its roof compared to the older buildings in the area. They decided to land nearby, but not right next to the base, as that might have drawn attention to themselves far too early. They creeped secretively along the coast, the bottom halves of their uniforms getting quilted in snow, until they arrived at the door to the Nightmare Allegiance HQ. The troopers put their backs against the walls of the doorway, and Maya peered around the corner. The doors were wide open, and there wasn't a single soul in the entrance. Maya whispered to inform Leo about this strange situation, and they both had an uneasy feeling about the whole thing. "Is it just me, or is this 100% a trap?" Leo said jokingly, all the while being completely serious. After a quick discussion about what to do next, they decided that they would hopefully be able to fight their way out of the glaringly obvious trap based on the day's earlier events.

The duo walked into the base – at least it was a lot warmer in here, Maya thought. It was quite small, consisting of a single room that was dark grey and blue, with a round hologram display in the centre. Maya wondered if some of the décor and furniture in the room had been taken from old Imperial bases, since it reminded her of images she'd seen on documentaries about the Galactic Civil War. She enjoyed watching, reading and learning about past wars in the galaxy, although she had always wondered whether she and her friends may one day become a part of the war history.

They searched around, but they couldn't find anything inside. They investigated every inch of the room, every locker, every file drawer there, but they could not find anything at all – the whole place was empty. However, they suddenly heard a crashing noise outside. The pair looked at one another with suspicion, and then they slowly shuffled towards a door opposite the entrance, the only part they hadn't explored yet, where they presumed the banging noise came from. They had no idea what to expect. Maybe a hundred Nightmare Troopers were positioned behind it, waiting to take fire. Taking caution was imperative.

When the doors automatically opened, the dreamtroopers were led into a courtyard with attractive flowers that were glossed with snowflakes. But, the more prominent feature was the terrifying machine with four legs that had its blaster cannons pointing directly at them! "Uh-oh…." Leo sighed nervously.