Have no fear, Grubkiller is here.
Hey guys and gals, here's the latest part of this story.
I'm terribly sorry that it's been so long since my last update. But between the progress being erased by my stupid computer, and work and school, getting this chapter up was frustrating to say the least.
Anyway, please enjoy this latest chapter.
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Raxus System.
The junkyard world of Raxus Prime was in the Tion Hegemony on the Outer Rim, so there was time during the journey from Mustafar for Starkiller and his compatriots to refresh and research their objectives. Much to Juno's relief, the apprentice was as distracted as she felt. He kept asking PROXY to repeat details he had missed while deep in though. Eventually he excused himself to enter the ship's small meditation chamber and gather his energies.
She did the same, in her own way, by reclining her seat and putting her feet up on the instrument panel. There was time at last for that short nap she had promised herself.
But everything she had learned in the previous few hours kept circling through her mind, making it hard for her to relax. For the hundredth time, she reminded herself to forget Vader and the Emperor and concentrate on the mission at hand. If she was going to have insomnia, she might as well think about something useful.
Their target, Kazden Paratus was an odd beast by anyone's definition. PROXY was unable to reproduce his form because all physical details of this particular Jedi had been erased from the records - perhaps by the paranoid old Master himself. Patchy Jedi files accredited him with considerable skill at droid making, responsible for numerous one-of-a-kind machines possessing abilities far beyond those of ordinary droids. In recognition for his talents, the Jedi Council had made him the Temple's official engineer and allow him a dedicated workshop on Coruscant.
The Clone Wars had lured him out of seclusion to study the CIS's droid armies. Life on the front line had afforded him numerous opportunities to examine the droid scraps, while at the same time building medical droids, power droids, and other units designed to support the Clone Army.
Once, in a disastrous campaign that saw most of his men get killed, he cobbled together a makeshift contingent of combat droids that helped him and his depleted battalion drive back a droid attack.
But when Order 66 was issued, he just disappeared, never to be seen again.
Until now.
Now he had turned up on Raxus Prime, a planet that served as a dumping ground for garbage, derelict ships, and industrial wastes, likely because he preferred the company of machines.
What threat could a droid-maker possibly pose to Starkiller, who made short work of General Kota, after all.
Her thoughts drifted. She entered a dream-like state midway between waking and sleep. The slightest flicker on the control board and she'd be alert, but otherwise she was at rest. If not entirely at peace . . .
"They have no defenses," she informed Lord Vader over her TIE bomber's comms. "The battle is over."
"It is far from over, Captain Eclipse. Continue your assault."
Teeth grinding, she clenched her flight stick woth both hans and considered her alternatives. She would never disobey a direct order, but the consequences . . .
"I sense your disapproval, Captain. Speak your mind if you must."
Wasn't he reading it already? She shuddered at the thought. "With respect, sir, it would be genocide to maintain the bombardment - a completely unnecessary waste of life. They are already beaten."
"Since you feel so strongly on this matter, Captain, I will give you an alternative course of action. Strike the planetary reactor at the following coordinates, and strike it hard. Once that is out of action, I will consider this mission complete."
The coordinates came, and she breathed an inaudible sigh of relief. One precision strike was infinitely preferable to blanket bombing. "Thank you, Lord Vader."
"Your gratitude is wasted on me. Give me success, Captain. That is all."
The channel closed, and she relayed the orders to the rest of the Black Eight squadron. One small victory in a much larger battle: she couldn't afford to dwell on it. Readying her payload, she plotted a course down through the atmosphere of Callos, glad that she would add only a little more damage to all that the little green world had already suffered . . .
Juno woke from the dream with a start.
Lights ere winking on the Rogue Shadow's console. "Tell your master we are coming out of the jump soon," she said to the droid. "If this is a trap like Nar Shaddaa, he will want to be ready."
"I will inform him," PROXY told her as she finetuned the ship's drives in readiness for their arrival.
When Starkiller entered the cockpit behind her, wearing a makeshift hazardous environment suit, with thick, heavy-duty fabrics to protect against the caustic environment of the planet, a large wrap-around cape to protect his neck and the lower half of his face, and heavy metal gauntlets to protect his hands from the jagged metal edges in the Raxus wastes.
The streaked starscape of hyperspace snapped back to normality. The world's gravity gripped them. Sublight engines brought the Rogue Shadow around so they were oriented correctly and heading into the desired orbit, the planet welcoming them in all its decrepit glory.
It had just as much metal on its surface as Nar Shaddaa, but the similarities ended their. One was alive with light and commerce, and the other was a steaming dump inhabited by scavengers and scum.
It stood in stark contrast to neighboring Raxus Secundas, which served as the CIS capital in the Clone Wars, with its rocky mountains, ongoing green fields, its sparkling lakes and oceans, and the gleaming skyscrapers of Raxulon.
Even the planet's orbital lanes were filled with junk, crawling with tiny vessels and medium freighters that were combing the junk for anything of value.
As Juno gently navigated through the mess, PROXY manned the co-pilot's seat. Starkiller, when he came, stood behind them both, assessing the scene through the cockpit viewport.
"PROXY," he asked, " are you picking up any communications yet?"
The droid put a metal hand to his forehead and made a strange noise.
"Too many to decipher." His photoreceptors flickered unexpectedly; he tilted forward, as if in pain. "I can hear thousands calling out to one another." He looked up at his master, who studied him with a frown. "This is where droids go to die."
"What about the target?" Starkiller asked.
"I can't hear any clues that would lead us to him."
Juno's eyes widened. Her right index finger came up to draw her companions' attention back to the view. "What about starting over there?"
So saying, she banked the ship to starboard, the better to reveal the structure she had just discovered.
Five slender towers rose up out of the junk piles like a surreal tribute to the past. The Central tower was the tallest of the five, with a boxy structure near its tip that always made her think of old-fashioned torpedo fins. The other four were simpler, less ornate. Although undoubtedly made of junk itself, their unique lines could not be mistaken for those of any monument in the galaxy.
"Amazing. It looks exactly like the Imperial Palace on Coruscant," she said, referring to the structure that had once bene the Jedi Temple.
Starkiller nodded as he pulled a scarf from his cape over his mouth. "Set us down as close as you can."
She searched the surrounding area through a thick drizzle of oily rain. "I'll do my best. There are few clearings. You'll need to approach it on foot."
The Rogue Shadow banked gently from side to side as it traversed the garbage-laden magnetic lanes and cleared two large mountains of debris. The deeper she took the ship into the atmosphere, the dimmer the sun became, and the greener its light seemed.
"There," she said, finally finding a space large enough for the Rogue Shadow to settle ... over a large pong of corrosive acid with large metal beams and shards jutting out of it. "With a lake view and everything . . ."
"Circle past the Temple and wait for my signal," he commed in a businesslike tone.
"Be careful," she sent a reply. "The sludge out there looks corrosive." She waited until the black and tan-clad figure had progressed in inhumanly long leaps from the metal ruin to metal ruin and finally disappeared from sight before pushing the repulsors to maximum and angling the ship up into the sky. She was glad to be doing so. In just the few seconds the hatch had been open, a foul stench had filled the ship from nose to tail.
"Juno out."
Near the Junk Temple, Raxus Prime.
Starkiller barely heard his pilot sign off as he hurried through the toxic wasteland that was the surface of Raxus Prime. His concentration was intense, fending off distractions from every side: the stench rising from the lake; the sharp and treacherous terrain; the sound of wind whistling through the twisted spires and snapped support barriers of the foul forest he found himself in. He kept his mind focused on his prey: the mad droid maker, Kazdan Paratus.
And he certainly was mad considering the place he chose to hide.
The spires of the mock Jedi Temple were invisible behind the mountains of wreckage.
The apprentice chose not to dwell too much on the disgusting image of Raxus Prime. He had one job to do, to the very best of his abilities. He had no intention of doing otherwise. Rahm Kota may have tested him, but he had emerged superior in the end. There was nothing that this insane little toy-tinker could through at him that he wasn't prepared for. He was sure of it.
Raised under the careful eye of his dark Master, his skills had been honed to the point that not even Jedi could stand against him. Soon, very soon, he would stand at Darth Vader's side and take the ultimate challenge of all: the Emperor.
Juno's voice came from the com-link. "There is some sort of activity near a downed corvette north of your position."
"What kind of activity?"
"I'm not certain. We are in the upper atmosphere now, and there is a lot of interference. Proxy is picking up panicked transmissions, and what might be droid signatures heading in that direction."
"You think it could be a welcoming committee?"
"Maybe, I - whoa!" A blast of static was followed by a relieved gasp from Juno.
"What's wrong?" he said into the comlink.
"Nothing now. I just got too close to one of those magnetic lanes, and an unstable derelict exploded. Everything's under control. You just worry about keeping your boots clean."
Starkiller half smiled and kept moving through the teetering piles of garbage along a stretch that resembled a canyon with sheer walls and squelching floor. Only then, after Juno's brief communication, did he notice an odd thing.
He had yet to see a single droid.
If this was where droids came to die, as PROXY put it, then where were their bodies?
He sensed movement ahead and slowed his pace to an ordinary walk, then a more stealthy creep as voices became audible, too. Not human voices: but a mixture of electronic babble and high-pitched, Rodese.
Droids and Rodians.
As far as he knew, his orders remained the same: Leave no witnesses.
With a flourish, he activated his lightsaber and kept it at the ready.
The first set of droids that he encountered were nothing but jumbled messes of metal and wiring, which were held together by very little. They had strange limbs made up of the haphazard junk around them, from metal pipes to vibro-blades. They appeared out of the junk cliffs, causing small avalanches as they emerged from their slumber.
The lumbering monstrosities marched forward as one. But the apprentice would not be intimidated. The first droid was met with a blast of lightning, before it exploded into a shower of metal fragments, which peppered his already scarred and dirty face. The others tried to swing at him with their arsenal of melee weapons. Starkiller used his lightsaber to expertly parry their blows and slash their weapons to pieces on contact.
Disarmed, the droids continued to march forward. Starkiller blasted them with several successive force pushes, which only seemed to make them stumble over, or lumber at a slower rate. Not wanting to have to spend hours on end fighting them, Starkiller used the force to make the canyon of junk and metal around them collapse on either side, causing a massive avalanche, which buried all of the droids under a thick layer of trash.
It may not have killed them, but it surely slowed them down.
Continuing on the path, the apprentice eventually found the corvette that Juno was talking about. Using electro-binoculars and standing on a teetering hill of junk, the apprentice could see the site surrounded by heavily armed green-skinned Rodian scavengers, which surrounded the crash site while the little brown-robed Jawas, who were either coerced into service or bribed, used their blowtorches to cut the ship apart and strip it down for parts. Tracked vehicles and hover skiffs were parked nearby, ready to transport their booty away.
But the strange part was that these scavengers were being attacked by the very bizarre amalgamations of rusted scrap he had ever seen.
The droids that were supposedly junked years ago were cobbled together with spare parts, missing limbs and photo-receptors, using blunt instruments and unstable blasters as replacement limbs.
The lumbering abominations marched towards the scavengers, who panicked and opened fire with everything they had. Many of the droids were shot to pieces, but they didn't go down. Every time they fell apart from repeating blaster fire, they were immediately reformed by an invisible energy.
"Juno, I'm not sure what I'm looking at here," he said into his comlink.
"I'm just picking up some panicked transmissions. It looks like a scavenger group has run into droid resistance." She said.
"Do Imperial records have any reports of Rodian scavengers on Raxus Prime?" He asked.
"Accessing data bank now."
While she searched, he continued to watch the scavengers and droids duke it out. The massive droids took a serious beating, and were able to kill several of the Rodians, and a couple Jawas.
A few droids even made their way into the ship, trying to take it over and overrun the crash. But the Rodians weren't having it, and used heavy weapons and explosives to drive off the droids.
It seemed as though the droids were metallic zombies, but with no power source. As if they were being powered by ... the Force.
Of course. The mad Jedi was using his robotic and force skills to create an army to protect the Mock Temple.
"Looks like you stumbled across Drexl Roosh and his clan. He's wanted for thirty-eight counts of fraud, selling faulty material, and illegal slave trading."
A slow smile crept across his face. "I think we've discovered where he's getting all of his goods."
When the last of the droids were put down, one of the Rodians, a purple one with a jet-pack and heavy armor, began yelling at the others in Basic, adding insults to the Jawas for good measure.
"Move faster, you scum! Those droids keep disrupting our operation." He waved a large blade with imperious disdain, not caring whom it struck. He began strutting back and forthself-importantly. "If you bottom feeders don't get these Jawas moving, I'm going to add another ten thousands credits to each of your heads! Do you hear me?"
That's when another skirmish broke out as more of these 'droids' seemed to come back from the dead, and killed some of the Rodians that were watching over the Jawas, and started breaking into the ship again. The Jawas responded by running for cover, while the other Rodians tried to fight off the droids. The apprentice watched with amusement as the pointless skirmish unfolded, ending with three showers of droid fragments and another bad smell added to the air.
"Blast it!" Drexl cursed. "You idiots, clean up this mess and come back to camp with something we can sell, or don't come back at all!"
His jetpack ignited and the purple Rodian lifted off from the waste-strewn surface. With a roaring noise, he sped into a tunnel leading deeper into Maxus Prime's trash infrastructure, leaving small fires in his superheated wake.
Suddenly, several droids appeared right next to him, bursting out of the junk piles around him one rusting limb at a time. As he used his lightsaber and force abilities to slice and blast them to pieces, a transmission came from his com-link.
"How strange," PROXY said, "The scanners aren't picking up any power signatures from those droids... It's as if they are being powered by ..."
"The Force..." the apprentice finished as he used the force to crush another droid, blast it with force lightning, and then crash it into another droid, making them both explode.
The apprentice, believing that it was time to get on with his mission, began to climb down through the litter of foothills.
A Rodian sentry, still jittery from the skirmish with the droids, barely had time to squawk in his alien tongue before the apprentice silenced him forever with a quick sweep of his red blade.
He hurried by, into the bowels of the corvette. A ramp had been added to aid the Jawas in their exploration and evisceration of the ship. It led up to a shallow angle into a stack of collapsed levels that had once been the crew midsection. He ran lightly along it, making no sound at all.
Barely had he entered than an alarm went up - triggered not by him, but in response to a new influx of the mysterious zombie droids. The effect was the same. Every Rodian scavenger was on alert. His job instantly became that much more complicated.
A herd of Jawas ran by, squeaking, their glowing yellow eyes flashing on and off. He let them go, not having a second to spare, and followed the most likely route to the hyperdrive. When a pair of Rodians stepped out of a hole in the wall ahead of him, he didn't give them a chance to raise their blasters. He sliced one in two while the other fell back clutching his throat.
"Are you having fun down there?" came Juno's voice over the com.
"I'm making progress," he said as his objective came into sight. The turbines of the massive hyperdrive lay dead ahead, their shielding removed in preparation for extraction elsewhere. Naked conduits and cable bundles snaked into the walls or hung limp, severed, on the floor.
"Progress at what?" she asked him. "Making things complicated?"
He didn't respond. Her tone was boderline insolent, but she did have a point. Time was passing. The last thing he wanted was to get caught up in a despite between Drexl's band and Kazdan Paratus' army of zombie-droid abominations. The sooner he was moving toward his objective, the better.
Another Rodian came running up the corridor behind him, firing at his back. He deflected the shots with his lightsaber and brought the ceiling down on the raider, effectively sealing himself into the hyperdrive access room.
No matter.
The walls were weak with metal fatigue. He could punch out in an instant when he was finished.
Kneeling in front of the turbines, he took a handful of cables in both hands and called on the Force. Energy surged through him, making him stiffen. Sith lightning sparked from his skin and snaked through the ragged metal walls, floor, and ceiling. Distantly he heard screams as the many beings inside the wrecked corvette suffered from the aftereffects. He ignored them, along with the smell of smoke rising from his own tattered uniform.
Focus, he told himself. Undirected power was power wasted. Gritting his teeth, he gathered the energy and directed it down his arms, into his hands. Blue light strobed across across his vision as the lightning flowed into the wires and from there into the hyperdrive turbines. Groaning, then shrieking, the massive engine came alive. Damaged, completely out of alignment, and barely controllable, the turbine shook with propulsive power, then strained against the braces still holding it to the corvette's warped chassis.
The deck kicked underneath the apprentice. He swayed as the entire corvette shifted. With a terrible sound, it began to move, plowing a brutal furrow through the surrounding rubbish. He could picture it clearly in his imagination and through the vibrant flow of the Force. As the lightning poured through him and into the engine, it pushed the stricken corvette physically out of his path. The way to the Temple was now clear.
When he sensed that it had gone far enough, he relaxed his concentration. Smaller discharges of energy skittered across his skin. Somewhat shakily, he stood, then almost toppled over as the engine continued to fire, sending the corvette onward, out of his control.
He hadn't expected that. There was enough residual potential in the turbine to keep it running for dozens of seconds. He had to get out of the corvette before it dragged him any farther from his goal.
Straining, he blew a hole in the side of the downed ship wide enough for a TIE fighter to pass through. The wall of a junk canyon was gliding by, raining rubbish. With one smooth leap, he caught hold of dangling cable and swung free of the wreck. It roared on, dragging itself through the dregs of the galaxy on its disintegrating belly, sending waves of disturbed filth radiating outward from its path.
"Are you creating a distraction, Starkiller," squawked Juno from the comm, "Or trying to draw attention to yourself?"
"Choose the answer you prefer," he said as he swung from cable to cable back the way the corvette had come. Scattered Jawas in singed robes were clambering into their transports to give chase to the corvette. He ignored them, used Sith lightning to blast a dozen of Kazdan Paratus' mechanical abominations that rushed him with their electric claws and raised, then turned left where the corvette had formerly rested to resume his approach to the strange parody of the Jedi Temple.
The structure's base was either buried under or part of the endless dump that was Raxus Prime surface. Starkiller ascended cautiously to the foyer, where buckled armor plates had been hammered as close to flat as was possible and welded into approximately level floors. Abandoned thrust tubes stood in for marble columns. Sensor arrays made reasonable facsimiles of window frames, and curving tank walls created the illusion of arched ceilings high above.
But beneath all of the 'beauty', the stench of decay remained, and with every step he took, the floor shifted and creaked. Wires and decaying insulation protruded from the seams. In every corner lurked piles of rubbish that have been festering since long before even the Republic's founding.
As the apprentice walked cautiously forward, feeling the nearness of Kazdan Paratus but uncertain of his exact location.
Suddenly, one of the trash piles stirred. From it stepped a humanoid machine made from the junked droid parts he had expected to find on his journey.
The braincase of an FX-8 med droid was bolted onto a body cobbled together from several types of outdated protocol droid models. its limbs appeared to come from a mixture of EV and B1 battle droids, tipped with instruments and tools that wouldn't have looked out of place in a workshop, but were now being used as weapons. It's sole functioning photoreceptor glared a bright, furious yellow. Its lurching gait achieved an appreciable speed before Starkiller sliced its head off in one fluid motion of red light.
A second patchwork droid emerged from a different rubbish pile, followed by a third. The sound of more droid golems stirring came from elsewhere in the Temple. Starkiller fought them off with practiced ease, moving around like a red blur of light. He had been dueling PROXY all his life; he knew the weaknesses and strengths of droids, even one capable of imitating a Jedi. Ones such as these, with mismatched parts and held together by spit and prayers, were child's play.
Soon the foyer was full of twitching, smoking and sparking bodies of the 'Temple's' helpless guardians. He began to tire, not from exertion but from the tedium of knocking down droid after droid, to no apparent end. There might be hundreds of them.
Deactivating his lightsaber, he took a deep breath. With one mighty exhalation of power, he blasted all of them out of the foyer he blasted the junk piles after them. He kept pushing until an artificial hurricane of droid parts soared out over Raxus Prime's hideous landscape.
When the foyer was clear, Starkiller straightened and ran toward the elevator door at the end of the foyer. He was no longer pushing with the Force, but the floor beneath him shook nonetheless. A heavy booming sound came from deeper in the Temple, and was getting Louder. He had certainly attracted someone's attention now.
A huge junk titan smashed through through the door that he wanted to use, servomotors growling, brandishing two of the biggest vibro-axes he had ever seen, one in each hand. It took two steps toward him and angled its Vulture droid head at him in barely restrained hostility.
It then swung its massive weapons at him.
The apprentice dodged away and temporarily lost his footing as the floor buckled underneath the thing's weight. Re-igniting his lightsaber, he slashed one of the reaching axe appendages clean off. He then shocked the fallen blade and used the force to sending the sparking projectile through the massive droid like a spear. Impaled, the angry droid began to stumble, while trying to bring his reaming axe-arm to bare. But Starkiller got under his defense, and slashed at the trunk-like metal legs, causing the droid to stumble back and fall.
With the droid off its massive feet, Starkiller jumped onto its chest and began slashing away at anything that looked important or weak. He then charged lighting into his hands, causing lightning to permeate his blade, which he then plunged into the titan's Vulture droid head.
The droid began to whine until its photoreceptors went dark.
The apprentice allowed himself a smile of satisfaction, before he stepped through the hole in the elevator door that the titan created earlier. He followed it, and engaged the elevator, which was a platform that had seen better days. When it arrived at the top, he stepped through the door and found himself in a place he had never dreamed of entering, even a bizarre recreation of it.
At the very top of the junk Temple's middle tower was a junk High Council Chamber, complete with mannequins of long-gone Jedi Masters. Starkiller knew all their names; they were burned into his brain, those enemies of the Emperor that the Clone Army, and soon his Master, had defeated in the final days of the Clone Wars. They sat on thrones or ordinary chairs, their dead eyes staring at him as he stalked into the room.
"You dare enter the Jedi Temple. You have made your last mistake, Sith!" A raspy voice echoed through the chamber.
But before Starkiller could point out how ridiculous that first statement was, a short gray figure with a long-skull shot out of nowhere, plunging his blade into the floor, and emitted a force blast that sent Starkiller flying into the door he just exited. He then straightened back up to see what he was up against.
"Kazdan Paratus," said Starkiller. "At last."
The minuscule being looked at him with darting, paranoid eyes. A member of the Aleena species, Paratus was short, and had a large skull, with bright eyes and long agile fingers. He was held up by four spider-like robot legs that were connected to a harness around his torso. He was armed with a blue lightsaber pike. He raised it as the limbs raised him to human height.
"Don't worry, Masters," he hissed in a voice that was raspy, and high-pitched, but full of contempt. "I'll defend you from this Sith Trash!"
The apprentice didn't know who he was talking to until a clamor rose from the seated mannequins and, as one, the junk Jedi Council woke.
Paratus lunged lunged while the apprentice was momentarily distracted. The pike left a shallow cut down his left forearm before he could repulse the strange creature's attack. Part flesh and part machine, the renegade Jedi Master was proficient with the Force, and quick with it as well. Every blow the apprentice tried to make was instantly blocked by either end of the whirling pike. As fast as he lunged or retreated, the mechanical legs outpaced him. Paratus hopped around the run-down chamber like a deranged spider.
So the apprentice decided that it was time for the Jedi to hold still. He sent Sith lightning hurtling toward the little Jedi, who screamed and withered in pain, before he fell off of the wall he had been clambering to. He hit the ground like a rock, and before he could get back up, Starkiller used the Force to levitate the small, and deranged, Jedi before smashing him into the chamber walls.
He then smashed him into the ground. He then walked over to the twitching Jedi, smiling. 'This fight was going to be over before it started,' Starkiller thought before he raised his blade over his head, ready to end the Jedi's miserable existence.
But then something struck him from behind, breaking his concentration and knocking his lightsaber from his hand. He turned, ducking robotic limbs and a sudden swipe from the light-pike of a rejuvenated Paratus. The robotic mannequin of Plo Koon had risen from its chair and attacked him, holding a long vibro-blade in a crude approximation of the long-dead Jedi Master's renowned lightsaber style. The Way of the Krayt Dragon, it had once been called. It looked ridiculous in the hands of a patchwork droid.
Still, it had taken him by surprise. Starkiller acknowledged the gambit before blowing the droid to pieces and reaching for his fallen lightsaber. The hilt arrived in his hand just in time to deflect another blow from Paratus, fully recovered from his brief time as Starkiller's lightning covered rag doll.
This time the apprentice was ready for the attacks from behind. One at a, or occasionally in pairs, the mannequins moved in to distract him.
Mace Windu and Coleman Kcaij he dismembered.
Kit Fisto he melted.
Anakin Skywalker and Obi-Wan Kenobi he smashed together and hurled out the window.
Ki-Adi-Mundi he blasted with lightning before doing the same to Saesee Tiin, Agen Kolar, and Shaak Ti. Stass Allie he beheaded with a single stroke of his lightsaber.
Kazdan Paratus moaned as each junk Master fell, mourning them as though they were actually alive. When the last one went down, he was actually weeping.
And finally, junk Yoda he picked up with the Force, shocked it with lightning, and used as a sort of Sith energy grenade to strike Paratus through his flailing artificial limbs, which caused him to fall off of the ceiling he had been clambering to to launch debris from.
Starkiller reached out and caught the falling Aleena Jedi in a tight Force grip. He crushed the robot limb harness, before lifting the diminutive alien into the air and smashing him into the window frames and roof until rubble rained down on them both. Soon the aging Jedi was too weak to fight, but still the apprentice continued battering him.
Finally, the Jedi Master's strength was spent. The apprentice let him drop to the ground, where he was pinned by an avalanche of junk falling through the ceiling. Clearly dying, he lay faceup and closed his eyes.
"I'm sorry, Masters," he lamented. "I've ... failed you . . . again."
With those words, he expired.
For a moment the apprentice felt pity. But he quickly swallowed it down. Undoubtedly mad, Paratus was still a Jedi. His freedom had come to an end, along with his life.
He used the force to summon Paratus' broken light-pike to him, before he raised his comlink. "Juno, I'm done here."
"I have a lock on your location, Starkiller. On my way."
The whining of the starship's engines was loud by the time he retraced his steps through the foyer and out onto the surface of the junk world. The Rogue Shadow swooped smoothy out of the sky. Catching the ramp sure-footedly, he retreated gratefully inside.
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Phoenix Home, Rebel Flagship.
Ahsoka jumped into the cockpit of the Ghost's shuttle, the Phantom, which was the part of the ship an Imperial tracker had been attached to.
The communicator on the control console began to chirp. She answered it, and a foot-tall image of Hera Syndulla, and another one of Commander Sato, appeared before her.
"Commander, I'm ready for take off to the Felucia system as we planned." Ahsoka said.
"Ahsoka, please reconsider." Hera pleaded. "We can just destroy the tracker and be done with it."
"I agree with Captain Syndulla." Sato said. "I believe you are putting your life in danger needlessly. The Empire will hunt you down."
"I appreciate the concern, but this is bigger than anyone of us." Ahsoka reasoned as she primed the ship for take-off. "I'm going to lead the Empire right to me. With any luck, I'll draw the Sith out of hiding, and I'll find out what they're planning, even if I have to coerce them."
"Very well. We're still against this plan, but you will do what you must." Sato said.
"Good hunting. And may the Force be with you." Hera said, bowing her head gently, along with Sato.
Ahsoka nodded, and turned off the comm. She then gently slid the Phantom out of its hold, and flew out the hanger bay. She punched in the co-ordinates to the Felucia system and engaged the hyperdrive. The stars elongated, and she was shot off into Hyperspace.
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Rogue Shadow, Raxus Orbit.
As they reached for orbit, Starkiller watched the Temple retreat behind him until the outline of its ludicrous grandeur was barely discernible among the surrounding junk hills. He could have knocked the ridiculous toy castle down around Kazdan's ears with one Force push. If only it had been so easy for his Master to erase the Jedi from the galaxy. Years after the Purge, here he was continuing that great work. Perhaps it would be finished in his lifetime. Perhaps he had already killed the last of the remaining Jedi. Perhaps now his Master would regard him as truly worthy.
He retured to his shadowy meditation chamber to tend to his wounds and restore his strength. Instead of meditating, however, he devoted an hour to repairing Kazdan Paratus's light-pike, snapped in two when he had clutched the tiny Jedi Master so hard. Trying to repair it, at least. No matter how painstakingly he worked, he couldn't realign the focusing crystals with the lens assembly. Nor could he make the emitter matrix connect to the power conduit. Like everything on Raxus Prime, the pike had become worthless junk.
Or, he told himself, there was something getting in the way of his concentration.
'Is it my new pilot?' he wondered. She was quick and efficient, as she should be, but she also made an effort to come across as lighthearted, and that was having an effect on him he hadn't foreseen. He had praised her good work after Nar Shaddaa and had felt glad to be aboard after finishing off Kazdan Paratus. Praise and gladness were not encouraged by followers of the dark side. The Emperor help him if they were developing a rapport.
He would deal with his new emotions as he had dealt with other challenges he had faced. At the same time, he would watch her closely. Rapports weren't one-sided things. If her feelings of bonhomie became stronger and she couldn't keep her sociability under control, he would have to take action.
As he pondered what form that action might take, the sound of heavy breathing rose up behind him. The pieces of the light-pike fell apart and scattered across the floor. The apprentice sensed rather than saw a darker shadow enter the chamber. He looked up expectantly.
There was no face visible in the silhouette of the Dark Lord, but that had never made a difference.
"Kazdan Paratus is dead, Master."
The domed head, blacker than night, nodded. "Then there is but one more test before you can fulfill your destiny."
One More. Would there always be one more?
"Master, I am ready now."
"No. You have defeated an old man and an outcast." Anger cracked like a whip in Darth Vader's vocoderized voice. "You will not be ready to face the Emperor until you have faced a true test."
The apprentice squared his jaw, thinking of the pathetic imitations he had faced in the Junk Temple. "Who?"
"Ahsoka Tano... the apprentice of Anakin Skywalker." There was a pause, and a grudging respect in his Master's voice, mixed with unmasked contempt. "She is providing intelligence to the rebel cells, searching for renegade Jedi to recruit, and is now training an army on Felucia. You will need the full power of the dark side to defeat her. Do not disappoint me."
"No, Lord Vader. I will not."
The robed shadow dissolved into static. The hologram fell away, revealing PROXY's skinny frame beneath. The droid shuddered, and the apprentice was instantly at his side to steady him.
Together the two of them left the meditation chamber to give Juno the news of their third and most deadly mission.
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Well folks, that was part 4 of this story.
Hope you enjoyed.
I'll have part 5 out as soon as possible.
Until next time, Grubkiller out.