1

Maya-202

Episode I

The Two-Prince War

Chapter VII

Return Of The Jedi Hunter

Kamino, Irenca City

The storms on Kamino were, as usual for this year, never-ending. Prince Thomanius didn't mind the constant rain, he simply put on his hooded robes to save himself from the atrocious weather from battering him. Luckily, this was the last year in the cycle that the storms were predicted for, or so the Kaminoans had told him. You got around 2-3 years of hammering rain, and then 2-3 years of a dry spell. It was estimated that there was one month to go before the rain would, hopefully, stop, or so Korrina Foto, his most trusted of the Kaminoan scientists he employed, told him. He had purchased the Kaminoan lab, which used to be used as a cloning facility separate from Tipoca City's one during the Clone Wars. However, after the Empire had phased out its Clone troopers and replaced them with conscripted Stormtroopers, it had remained abandoned, inhabited only by a few Kaminoans that had managed to escape the Empire's grip. Many generations of Kaminoans had lived there, and after Thomanius' purchase of the lab using his father's money he had inherited, he had offered them money for the use of their scientific knowledge. They were even the ones responsible for helping build his droid army.

He strolled along the soaking pathway briskly, accompanied by Lieutenant Fearful, and they eventually reached the doors which automatically opened, leading them into the lab with bright white walls. Ironically, this lab was like a clone of the one in Tipoca City. It mirrored a very similar layout, alongside almost-identical interior designs. Korrina Foto met the Dark Prince at the entrance and welcomed him back. "Master Scald and General Grievous are waiting for you in lab room XRI1," she notified him. "Thank you," he said sullenly. The Prince and his droid followed the scientist along to the room she had mentioned, and when they arrived, Darth Scald, the Sith Warlock, was sat next to the newly-revived General Grievous. The Warlock appeared to be fixing up one of the General's arms, which seemed to have come off and needed re-attaching. It might have taken a while for the General to get used to his cybernetic body again. Upon Thomanius' entrance, the General coughed. Whilst his new body featured only droid parts which pretty much resembled his old look, he had, rather strangely, retained his cough even without his original organs. Maybe it had become so frequent in the Clone Wars it was now a habit he had picked up. "Ah! Prince Thomanius, my friend. It feels… good to be back in my old-new body," Grievous spluttered gratefully. The Sith Warlock Scald had managed to retrieve the General's old cybernetic head from the time he was known as 'NK Neocrosis'. The head had been preserved in a special formula liquid developed by the Kaminoan scientists at the lab, and Scald had managed to retrieve the General's memories and, in a way, give them back to him. He had been transformed from his once-broken droid parts back into the legendary Jedi Hunter, whose name spread terror throughout the galaxy. "Welcome back into the world, General Grievous," Thomanius welcomed.

"Thank you. I cannot wait to start hunting Jedi again!" Grievous laughed, before letting out another cough. "Lucky for you that I know exactly where your first target is now, then. I just had a droideka attack him in Coruscant – Captain IX-R1, leader of the Droideka sub-battalion of the Nightmare Order Army, tells me that he defeated the test droideka with not too much difficulty. But he needed help from an accomplice. Still, that's different from when it is just him against a million droidekas and now you, the legendary Jedi Hunter. Speaking of, your newly-inherited army of Droidekas is waiting for you on the dreadnought outside, on landing bay J. Are you sure you don't want payment for this, General?" Thomanius explained. Grievous shook his head.

"Taking this treacherous filthy Jedi's lightsaber is payment enough for me!" General Grievous scoffed. "You chose the right cyborg for the job, Master Thomanius," Grievous said, and got up out of his chair. He picked up a blaster pistol, and slotted it into his recently-attached holster. "Before you set off on your mission, General, I have a… gift for you," Thomanius grinned mischeviously, before he pulled out a cloth wrapped around several objects. Grievous would have smiled if it wasn't for his faceplate appearing expressionless, as he could immediately make out the four shapes underneath the cloth. The Prince unravelled the fabric to reveal four lightsabers. "Call it a 'Welcome Back' present to restart your collection," the Dark Prince said. Grievous picked up the lightsabers, one in each of his four arms, and activated all of them, lighting the room up with four purple blades. "Purple – the colour of the Nightmare Allegiance," Thomanius informed him. Grievous cackled, ecstatic that he now had lightsabers and a start at rebuilding his collection. "Thank you, my Lord. Now, it is time for me to execute this Jedi. He is on Coruscant, you say?" Grievous asked. Thomanius nodded. "Yes – but he might move around. Master Scald here can keep track of him using his Locator incantations. He will comm you if he travels somewhere else. Good luck, General. May the Force be with you." Thomanius and Grievous bowed to one another, and then Grievous stomped off excitedly into the rain, where a giant Nightmare Order carrier, specifically allocated for the Droideka Platoon, was waiting for their new General. Scald approached Thomanius. "I think this is the right way, if you didn't want to kill Aren yourself. Grievous sure seems happy about it. You just better hope that the Council don't get wind of the fact that you lied to them about doing it weeks ago," Scald whispered. "And the Council not knowing is the way it will stay, until the deed is done. You, my army, the Kaminoans and General Grievous are the only ones in the Order who know. The only one I can see likely to leak that information is you, Master Scald. But if you do that, you know what happens, don't you?" Thomanius threatened, putting his hand at Scald's throat, making a choking gesture. "Oh, and if you tell the Council, I'll just tell the galaxy your little 'secret', I know how much you'd like that," the Prince added as a warning.

Gatterall, Nightmare Order Base, The Frozen Courtyard

The huge AT-QL glared down at the two Dreamtroopers, its blaster cannons pointing straight at them. The machine started firing at them, but before any bolts could hit and seriously injure them, Maya speedily grabbed Leo's arm and yanked him out of the way. The pair collapsed onto the freezing snow floor, but quickly got back up. They made a dash to the door that lead back inside, but it appeared to have been locked. "Fantastic…" Leo said sarcastically. The problem was, the weapons the troopers had were unlikely to even make a dent in the AT-QL – Maya's gun was only for short-range, whereas Leo had the opposite, a long range sniper. However, Maya had an idea. The AT-QL used a head similar to Imperial AT-STs, where the 'eyes' were windows, and the pilots must have been sat in the head, as there was no other possible place they could be controlling it from. Unless it was remotely operated, but Maya's plan relied on that not being the case. She knew Leo was a great sniper, hence his reason for being selected to be one of Prince Onasius' Royal Guard Troopers. Leo still appeared to be banging on the doors, seeing if they would open. The AT-QL was striding towards the pair at the door now. "Leo, I have a plan. We can take this thing down!" Maya called to him energetically. "Maya, I trust you, but you must know that we're never gonna be able to get that thing! We're tiny compared to it!" he panicked.

"Don't focus on its size. Look at the eyes, I think I can see someone inside driving it, but I'm not sure… If you can possibly snipe them it might stop them from operating it anyway!" Maya told him. Leo thought for about a millisecond, as that was as much time as they were able to think for at this stage, unless they wanted to blasted by this enormous machine. He decided it was worth a shot, and he pulled his sniper DLT-19x out of his back holster. He would have to get this right pretty much first time, or they were toast. Maya removed her weapon too, just in case she could do any extra damage to the AT-QL. Leo tried to focus in the window with his lasersight, but it kept moving as it was walking over – it was extremely close to them now, making his unease all the more present. His hands started to shake a little. It was now or never. He could see through the window what looked like the driver's shoulder. He narrowed in on it, took the shot, and closed his eyes. At this moment, he would either open them to see a stationary AT-QL and be alive, or never open them again.

"Argh!" the driver cried. It sounded like a droid, which Maya suspected anyway. Leo peeped from behind his sniper, relieved that he had made the shot. But… Maya wasn't next to him anymore. He looked to his other side, and she wasn't there either. It was then he saw her climbing on one of the AT-QL's legs, which suddenly started moving again. Unfortunately, it seemed the snipe had only partially damaged the pilot, rather than completely deactivating them. However, he was now distracted by Maya climbing onto the AT-QL now instead of Leo. He was very worried for her now. What was she doing? This was insane! The AT-QL started almost spinning, trying to shake her off, but its movements were not rapid enough to do so. She eventually, after combatting its attempts to throw her off, leapt onto the head, and tried opening the hatch. The droid pilot must have been holding it shut though, as the AT-QL randomly stopped moving and Maya appeared unable to open the hatch. Leo knew he could help again. He searched through his sniper once more, and saw the driver droid's hands forcefully pulling the shutting handle on the opening hatch, to stop Maya getting in. Leo zoomed on the droid's hands, and fired. Maya opened the hatch and hopped inside. A few seconds later, the sound of a close-up blaster fire could be heard.

"You're crazy," Leo remarked, as Maya clambered out of the motionless AT-QL.

"Blame those Monaran droids that made me. They're the one who put my genes together and made me like this," Maya joked. Leo tipped his head. "Thanks for your help. Sorry for misleading you, but if I told you that the first shot might not have deactivated the droid pilot you might have panicked and begun banging on the doors again. I wouldn't have been able to distract you or the AT-QL long enough climb on top of it and get in there," Maya apologised. Leo forgave her, as he knew she was probably right, and that he would have freaked out and would have started screaming about what in Coruscant she was doing the instant she started trying to climb the thing. "So, what do you think we should do now?" Leo asked. Maya 1 said "We should look around. It doesn't seem as if Thomanius is here, unless he sees dealing with dreamtroopers as beneath him and decided to make someone else here take care of us. There might be a clue as to where he really is." Leo nodded, and brushed some of the snow off of his helmet, formerly belonging to a Phase II Clone Trooper. "Good idea. I will comm the Prince and see if he is available yet," Leo agreed. Whilst he did just that, Maya attempted to open the doors. Even after defeating the AT-QL, they weren't unlocked. There seemed to be a scanner of sorts beside them. She climbed back into the AT-QL's cockpit, and searched the driver for some type of identification. Eventually she found a chip with a holograph of the pilot and his name written on it. Maybe this would work and let them in. She could hear talking outside, so presumably Leo had gotten through this time. "Yes your Highness. Thank you," were the last words she heard Leo exchange when Maya hopped down from the vehicle. Onasius said something that she couldn't make out, and the call ended. Maya asked what the Prince had said. "He was very apologetic and sorry for sending us here. I told him it was alright, though, and that is was our job. Anyway, he's explained what is going on to all the other troopers now, the reaction was mixed – some were accepting, some were just relieved to finally know what they were doing, what they were created for, some seem angry but he knew that was going to be the way. I think they'll get over it at some point, it will just take a bit of time. He thinks we should take a look around and see if we can find any clues that point us to where Thomanius and the plans really are. If we can't find anything he told us to come back to Iryx and we'll take it from there," Leo reported. That sounded like a good plan to Maya, and what she would have suggested anyway. She scanned the chip she had found and, as if by magic, the doors opened.

Back in the base they searched through every draw locker, and computer system they could find, but it was no use. Nothing gave anything away. But all of a sudden, a faint buzzing sound could be heard – the two stared around to see where it was coming from, and eventually Leo worked it out retrieved the ringing DCS from in between two ammunition boxes where it must have been accidently dropped. "One new message – from 'Lord Thomanius' !" Leo read excitedly. He clicked the 'see message' button on the device. "All it says is 'We are making good progress at Kamino. Translation is almost complete. All troops should return immediately for further instructions.' It's been sent not just to this DCS, but presumably ones worn by all commanders in the Nightmare Army." Maya took her helmet off to reveal her long crimson hair and brushed the sweat off of her forehead. It was funny because even though Gatterall was an ice-cold planet, she was as warm as a blazing fire due to the pair's earlier fight. "Kamino, then. Interesting… didn't that used to be the planet where they produced clone troopers for the old GAR?" Maya asked.

"Think so," Leo replied, casting his mind back to history programs he had caught a glimpse of while resting up in Prince Onasius' mansion a few months ago. He then recalled how quickly the days used to go back when they were simply on guard, and since no invasion had ever occurred until only one day ago, they mostly had just talked and relaxed, whilst making sure no intruders were causing trouble or anything. But this one day since the Battle at Iryx had happened felt like it had been a full year instead, so much had happened to them. They'd seen more planets in the past 24 hours than they had in the past 2 years. "I wonder if he using the old facilities as some sort of lab or droid factory or something? I don't remember hearing of anything else other than the cloning facilities being on that planet in fact," Maya interrupted his chain of thought.

"Well – there's only one way to find out," Leo took his helmet off to reveal a mischievous smirk, and smoothed down his short brown hair which had gotten messy underneath his bucket.