Hey folks, Grubkiller here.
Sorry it's been a while. School and work.
Finally found some time to sit down and write. Please Enjoy.
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As a teenager Juno had imagined her future life as a pilot, cruising the heavy traffic of Coruscant's skylanes, ferrying important dignitaries to and from meetings, blowing insurgents from the sky with single, well-aimed pulses from her laser cannon.
Trawling around the Outer Rim with Darth Vader's surly emissary and his dysfunctional droid hadn't been high on her wish list. Neither had been bombing defenseless planets or being spurned by her father …
Funny how life turned out.
The blue-green world of Felucia hung against a vast and empty backdrop as they emerged from hyperspace. It filled the forward view as she activated the sublight drive and trimmed their approach vector. When everything was in order, she killed the engines and let the ship coast silently through the planet's steep gravity well. This wasn't the commswamped environment of Raxus Prime and Nar Shaddaa. If they came in too hot, they would shine like a comet to anyone looking.
"Felucia in range," she announced. PROXY occupied the copilot's chair, monitoring life support and comms. Starkiller stood behind them with arms crossed over his chest and face shrouded beneath a hood he had put on after leaving Raxus Prime. He had barely said a word through the long trip, speaking only to give orders and avoiding all her attempts to provoke conversation. She felt slightly stung by this—she had thought she was breaking through his strong-but-silent image and getting a glimpse of the man beneath—but she maintained a professional demeanor. That was all her job demanded.
"Readings?" he asked.
"No major settlements," she said, glancing at PROXY's board, "but life signs are overwhelming the scanners. The planet is completely overgrown. I have no idea where we should set down."
"I'll tell you."
The small hairs on the back of her neck stood up. She craned her neck to watch what he was doing and saw only that he had closed his eyes. But something was definitely happening. The air seemed to thicken around him, as though a whirlpool were gathering. The hollows in his cheeks grew deeper, emphasizing his lashes and the sensuality of his mouth. Her heart rate quickened slightly.
She took a deep breath and turned back to her controls. This was none of her business. Ships and machines were her province, not the strange skills of Darth Vader and his ilk. For all her innate curiosity, it was dangerous to know too much sometimes. She had to remain detached and disinterested.
Just do your job, Juno Eclipse.
Starkiller stirred and leaned forward to point at a map display on the console near her.
"There, on the equator."
"What is there, exactly?"
He exhaled. She felt the warmth of his breath on her cheek. "Leave that to me. Engage the cloak and take us down."
She nodded, hoping he wouldn't notice the slow flush spreading up her neck, and eased forward on the throttle.
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Ahsoka Tano, having left her fighter far behind, walked through the fungal forests of Felucia. A dark presence was near, and it stalked her through the forests. She ignored it for now, humoring the young dark-sider that followed her.
She then stepped over to a ridge-line, overlooking a major battle sight from the Clone Wars.
Then she looked closer and saw a ship belonging to Crimson Dawn, an underworld alliance between different criminal organizations, landing in the middle of the valley. The thugs disembarked and started scavenging for supplies, like the old refinery that the Separatists had used in the past.
It was hard enough to start a rebellion when they needed the same resources that everyone else wanted to pillage.
Of course, that was what she trained the Felucians for. She and her masters had done it before to drive off pirates. And she did it again.
A Felucian shaman with red battle paint appeared out of no-where, and spoke to her in throaty growling sounds.
"Are your forces in position?"
He replied with more sounds.
"Just like we practiced."
The shaman took out a horn and blew on it, causing a sound that shook the trees and got the attention of the scavengers. Moments later, all around them, Felucians warriors wearing rags and covered in blue war paint de-cloaked and left the tree cover, chanting a massive war cry. The thugs fired on the ridgeline, and the Felucians fired back with their force energy burst, which they channeled through their bone swords, firing on the thugs.
The firefight was just a distraction, as more warriors appeared behind the thugs.
They never stood a chance.
They were soon overwhelmed and it was all over in ten minutes.
Ahsoka used the force to jump down, and the warriors all parted for her. As far as they were concerned, she was one of them. As her warriors carried away the thugs and burned the ship, Ahsoka walked up to a pile of Clone trooper remains that still littered the ground.
She knelt down and placed her hand on the helmet of a fallen trooper. She had no way of knowing whether he was killed before or after Order 66, but that didn't matter to her.
A twitch in her lekku caused her to spin around and ignite her white lightsabers just in time to block a pair of red lightsabers.
The Felucians weren't the only thing on this planet that had learned to cloak themselves.
A gray-skinned zabrak woman wearing tight pants and a strip of cloth around her chest growled as she tried to deliver a flurry of quick saber strikes, which Ahsoka blocked with ease. She then used the force to push Maris Brood back.
She slid across the muddy surface.
The felucians advanced on her, but Ahsoka raised a saber hand and silently told them to stay their hand.
"Stay away from me." Maris spat.
"Maris, I'm only here to help you." Ahsoka said.
"I don't need you, Jedi filth." Maris said. "My master abandoned me here. But I now see that I have a purpose. This planet will bend to my will," she said, gesturing to the felucians around her, "and soon, I'll be at my new Master's side."
Ahsoka looked at the ship the thug's flew in on and looked at the Crimson Dawn emblem.
"He can't be trusted. Believe me," Ahsoka said.
Maris activated her sabers and Ahsoka prepared to defend herself.
That's when they heard the sound of an engine. They looked up to see a black ship fly overhead and disappear overhead, causing the felucians to be put on edge.
Maris' murderous pose turned to youthful terror in a heartbeat. "Vader has found us."
"Perhaps," Ahsoka said as she continued to watch the spot overhead the new enemy ship disappeared over. She then turned to Maris. "Maris, you must come with me, together, with the Felucians, we can defeat him."
"I'll never work with you. The Jedi Order's decadence has fallen. I will never fight for it again. And Vader..." Ahsoka noticed Maris tense up even further, as if terrified to say the very name. She then just ran off into the foggy jungle, leaving Ahsoka with her warriors.
The red-painted shaman leaned into her and spoke in a series of growls and grunts.
"No, she hasn't been corrupted yet. She's just afraid." Ahsoka said as she continued to look at where she disappeared. "May the Force be with you, Maris Brood."
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The Rogue Shadow rocketed into the planet's upper atmosphere, fighting turbulence caused by surges of thick, humid air. Coruscant it might not have been, but Juno began to feel a twinge of curiosity. Before her mother's death, Juno had been interested in xenobiology—something frowned upon by her father, but which she had found endlessly fascinating. There was so much life in the galaxy, assuming so many different forms. She could have spent a thousand lifetimes trying to catalog it all, only to find that it had evolved into countless new forms during the process, forcing her to start all over again.
The thought hadn't appalled her. If anything it had filled her with wonder—the same sense of wonder she now felt stirring at the sight of Felucia's vast fungal forests and verdant lakes. Again she was struck by the contrasts among Nar Shaddaa, Raxus Prime, and this world. Felucia was brimming over with life in all forms, from the tiniest grass blade to the most massive fungi she had ever seen, with roots snaking over the ground, vines and mildew curling up swaying trunks, and insects everywhere. The air in the upper atmosphere exhibited pollen and spore counts that were off the scale. Her eyes felt assaulted by color everywhere she looked.
Magnificent, she wanted to say, but she kept the observation to herself.
Giant fungus stalks tossed violently in the starship's wake as the Rogue Shadow wove between them. She avoided using her thrusters as much as possible, wanting to minimize damage to the equatorial forest. But where was she to land? The ground was invisible beneath them. She could sense Starkiller's impatience as she searched for a suitable space. The only flat surfaces she could see belonged to the tops of enormous mushrooms, dozens of meters across. They looked as sturdy as rock.
Why not? she asked herself, swinging the Rogue Shadow sharply about and descending toward the nearest mushroom cap.
Gingerly, using every ounce of her skill, she eased the starship down. The ship settled, then shuddered as the giant fungus gave without warning. The starship slid and skewed wildly to one side. Stalks and fronds swayed as though in a storm. She raised the power to the thrusters, and moved to a different position.
This time the mushroom held. The starship's landing legs extended and tightly gripped the spongy surface where it teetered precariously on the edge of the enormous cap. She throttled back, waited a full five seconds for any more surprises, and then killed the sublight drive. She sagged back into the seat, drenched in sweat.
"Whew," she breathed. "They don't teach you that in the Academy."
"Lower the ramp," Starkiller said shortly. "Wait for me here."
"There's not much for us to do—"
"Just wait."
"I—"
He was already gone. She looked for him on the scopes and glimpsed him jumping off the edge of the mushroom and running into the forest, red lightsaber lit and ready.
She sighed and wiped her hands on her uniform pants. "Well, PROXY, it's just you and me again."
"Yes, Captain Eclipse." The droid rarely seemed flapped by his master's behavior. "I'll begin a check of all systems, if you so wish."
"That would be fine." She stayed in her chair, still rubbing her palms against her legs. "Is he always like this, PROXY?"
"Like what, Captain Eclipse?"
"Moody and withdrawn. I almost caught him smiling a couple of times on Raxus Prime. Now, nothing. What's going on inside his head?"
"I cannot speak with any confidence regarding his programming, Captain Eclipse," said the droid with a puzzled blink. "Perhaps Lord Vader could explain, since he was the author of both our systems."
That was an odd phrase. "What do you mean? Vader programmed Starkiller?"
"My master has been in Lord Vader's care since he was a young child."
"Like a father." She frowned.
"My master refers to Lord Vader only as Master or Teacher," the droid corrected her. "Never Father."
That reassured her, oddly. The thought of Vader nurturing a toddler was too strange to be true. "Well, what happened to his real parents? Where did he come from?"
"I do not know, Captain Eclipse."
"Does he never talk about them?"
"They have been expunged from his primary memory, I believe."
"What about friends?" She hesitated slightly, then asked, "Girlfriends?"
"My master leads a solitary life," the droid told her. "Lord Vader insists that it is essential to his development."
"Development into what, exactly?" she asked, thinking Jedi killer, deranged mystic, murderer. The way he had casually abandoned the falling TIE fighter facility over Nar Shaddaa bothered her sometimes.
"We are all servants of my master's Master," the droid said, pointedly reminding her, perhaps, of her primary duty, too.
"Your programming is absolutely spot-on there, PROXY." She levered her resistant body out of the pilot's chair and straightened her uniform. "You continue with the systems check from in here. I will perform a quick visual inspection of the hull."
"I advise caution," PROXY warned her. "Many of the life-forms on Felucia are hostile to humans."
"Have no concern on that score." She opened a hatch and removed her BlasTech pistol, which she holstered around her waist with a well-practiced movement. "I can look after myself."
"One of your predecessors used exactly those words before he was shot in the back by a Corellian gunrunner."
She stopped on the verge of leaving the cockpit, unsure if PROXY was goading her, joking, or offering an innocent observation. Part of her wanted to know all about her seven predecessors, but a greater part wanted PROXY never to talk of them again.
"Just you watch your own back, PROXY," she told him. "Your master's Master has a Master, too, you know."
"Yes, Captain Eclipse."
She left the ship, face burning for the second time in a matter of minutes. What was wrong with her? The slightest hint that she had overheard the conversation between Starkiller and Lord Vader regarding the Emperor and she'd be dead for sure. If Vader's agent didn't do it, the droid would. He was an expert hand with a lightsaber, after all.
Maybe that was what had happened to the other pilots …
She stepped off the ramp and stamped about on the surface of the giant mushroom, testing its spongy surface. Her anger at herself rose with every second. Of course she had wanted to reestablish control over the situation, but dropping dire hints wasn't the way to do it, even if the droid had started it. She could only be competent and professional, and she'd had plenty of practice doing that in the past. Now was absolutely the wrong time to break the habit of a lifetime.
Eventually she calmed down and went about the duty she had set for herself: examining the outer hull for any damage resulting from their rough descent. It seemed unblemished, apart from a few new stains added by plants they had passed, firing sticky bullets of sap designed to bring down flying insects. That observation helped revive some of the excitement she had felt on the descent.
Life in abundance, she reminded herself. Think of that for a change.
And she did manage it, marveling at the huge diversity of plants, fungi, insects, and animals in the jungle surrounding her. Many were rubbery and translucent. Liquid oozed from gaping pores and vents. The most corpulent of the life-forms looked as though they would burst if she so much as touched a finger to them. But all had teeth or spines and other means of self-defense. Many were vigorous hunters or parasites. She could hear the roaring of mighty predators and the crashing of large bodies through the undergrowth, distantly and sometimes directly beneath her strange, precarious landing site.
The more she observed, the more she thought of Callos. She had never set foot on that world, but from orbit it had had the same verdant sheen as Felucia. Could it have possessed forests as vibrant as these, as rich and splendid with life in all its forms? As she patrolled the lip of the giant mushroom pad, she wondered how many species had never been cataloged here, and now never would be on Callos. A familiar guilt rose up in her like sickness, making her want to throw up, and she had to turn back to the ship.
Since you feel so strongly on this matter, Vader had told her, I will give you an alternative course of action.
The images of the planetary reactor blowing up were burned into her mind. The Black Eight had pursued the mission objective with their usual surgical precision, coming low over the horizon and launching their pay-loads well before the reactor's defenses could even come online. Each strike had been on target, sending up billowing clouds of burning gases. If war could be called beautiful, then that had been a beautiful moment indeed.
Your gratitude is wasted on me.
That was perfectly clear to her now.
But it didn't change a thing.
"The checklist is complete, Captain Eclipse," PROXY informed her via comlink from the cockpit. "I have detected a slight misalignment of the aft deflector shields."
She grunted confirmation. The damage had almost certainly been sustained in the magnetic lanes of Raxus Prime, while dodging airborne lumps of explosive debris. "I will be right in, PROXY. Break out the tool kit. We're going to have that repaired before Starkiller returns."
"Yes, Captain."
Juno took one last look around her, savoring the chance even though it brought back unpleasant associations. The forest was in fact fragile, despite its vibrant lethality. It might look as though it could endure a thousand years, outlasting even the Emperor himself, but a single nudge in the wrong direction could bring it all tumbling down, clotting and rotting until nothing was left but a deep organic sludge, fit only for refining into oil or protein cakes. In the wrong hands, Felucia could be the vegetable equivalent of Raxus Prime in a year.
Better to focus, then, on that which couldn't be killed: on ships like the Rogue Shadow and their systems. The manifold problems of life and death couldn't be fixed with a spanner, and it was well beyond her purview to try.
The Apprentice ducked under another bolt of Force energy hurled by the Felucian warrior to his right and sent a jagged line of Sith lightning crackling across the distance between them. The warrior dropped dead to the ground but two more leapt out of the bushes behind him, waving their bone swords and howling in their strange, guttural language. He recognized the largest as one he had injured previously, but he moved now with perfect grace and aggression; the shaman he had spared several minutes earlier must have doubled back and healed the warrior's injuries. He vowed not to make the same mistake again.
The bone swords were resistant to his lightsaber, but his skill with the Force far exceeded theirs. Dodging their clumsy telekinesis and unwieldy blows, he dispatched them calmly and without fuss, saving his energy for the real enemy waiting for him.
Ahsoka Tano: A Togruta, and a former Jedi apprentice to Anakin Skywalker (The so-called Chosen One). Her tenacity allowed her to survive dozens of battles and even duels with Asajj Ventress, the Durge, and General Grievous. It was even rumored that she encountered the Emperor on one occasion.
Imperial records indicate that she was last seen in the Coruscant underworld trodding upon a sacred Sith Shrine, before being killed by Clone forces from the 501st Legion during Order 66. Clearly the records were falsely written by some renegade Clone Captain, because their were sightings of her during the Uprising on Raada, Gentis' military coup on Coruscant (which caused a minor civil war and nearly killed the Emperor), the Siege of Mandalore, and the renegade Clone attack on the planet Nur, headquarters of the Sith Inquisitors. Wherever there was a crisis that threatened the Empire, she was at the center of it, like the growing rebellion in the Outer Rim, and now training an army of Felucians.
She was too dangerous to be kept alive.
A practitioner of both the Shien and Jar'kai lightsaber techniques. She was young and strong, and must have been wily indeed to have survived so long. Order 66 may have been issued many years ago, but it was still firmly in place all across the Empire. The apprentice swore to bring that fact home to her just as soon as he could.
Getting to her, however, was proving to be something of a problem. Although he had sensed her clearly from orbit as a deformation in the Force, much like a body of mass deformed the fabric of space–time, he hadn't anticipated the dense flows he would encounter on the surface. The entire jungle was alive with the Force, from the tiniest spore to the mightiest rancor, and the Felucians themselves were alive with it, too—so alive, in fact, that they tapped into the Force as naturally as humans breathed an oxygen-rich atmosphere. That made them dangerous to him, the Sith apprentice who had come to crush the regime Ahsoka Tano had nurtured on Felucia.
She had taken a world enjoying the normal flows between the light and the dark sides of the Force and twisted it out of balance. There was still darkness on Felucia, but it was stifled, frustrated, weakened. He strained to awaken it, to remind it of its proper place in the universe. The light side had held sway for far too long. It was time to redress the issue. Killing Ahsoka Tano would do that quite nicely.
His com-link buzzed. "Master, scanners show that you are approaching the sight of a major conflict during the Clone Wars." Proxy said.
He was right.
Starkiller came up on a large valley, which was covered in debris from the last war. The jungle floor was littered with droid tanks and clone walkers that were now rusted to hell and covered in fungus. Clone armor that was empty after years of decomposition and battle droid pieces littered the ground, and a massive Separatist core ship that had crashed onto the surface and was busted open on impact, stood tall over it all. A monument to the past.
His comm-link buzzed again. "Master, scanners are showing creatures - very large creatures - near your position."
Starkiller cracked a smile. "Yeah I noticed."
A rancor bearing a Felucian rider thundered through the forest, crushing delicate life-forms beneath its clawed feet and sniffing for his scent. The apprentice jumped from mushroom cap to mushroom cap until he was in a position above the rider's head, then he leapt down with lightsaber swinging. The rider's organic headdress covered everything from the neck up, as with all the warriors. He had some Force resistance, but he couldn't withstand Darth Vader's apprentice for long. Once the rider was dispatched, he brought down the rancor with a stream of Sith lightning that made its eyes shine like the headlights of a city speeder. It died with a roar that echoed through the jungle.
He hopped off its back as it dropped to the forest floor, having seen a landmark in the direction he was heading. Straddling a narrow, weed-choked river was a series of bulbous structures that looked remarkably like buildings, albeit buildings hollowed from the boles of giant fungi. Felucians ran through these narrow streets preparing defenses and mustering their rancor mounts. If they were getting ready for a fight, he wouldn't disappoint them.
The river wound through the forest to his right. He circled the rancor corpse to find it. Along the way he sidestepped another of the pungent acid pools he had noted already. They puzzled him, obscurely, since they didn't seem to be caused by pollution, as were their counterparts on Raxus Prime. He had learned to steer well clear of the occasional bubbles that surfaced through them, popping with an unhealthy splat and releasing an odor he hoped to forget very soon.
At the river's edge he used the Force to attract one of the many flat-backed river beasts he had seen the Felucians ride. Its mind was semisentient at best, but its mighty flukes could manage a fair turn of speed. Gripping its carapace with one hand, he rode its undulating body toward the town, occasionally pausing to fling lightning at Felucian guards who bothered him.
"That'll do," he told his half-submerged steed as they approached the town's borders. The beast nuzzled into the bank and he leapt aground near a massive, conical standing stone that loomed half a head taller than him among the gelatinous trees. He put a hand against it for balance and was surprised by two things: that it was warm and that it wasn't made of stone at all.
Puzzled, he swung his lightsaber in a sweeping arc, cutting the odd monument in two. The top fell away with a crash, revealing an interior made of fibers and organic material. Bone, he thought. A tooth.
The ground beneath him shook, and he braced himself against the monument. From the town he heard the sound of Felucians crying out in alarm.
A curious thought began to take shape in his mind.
Ignoring it for the moment, he advanced on the town with lightsaber swinging. He hacked through the jungle, felling every plant within his range. Felucians tried to stop him, but he hurled giant trunks at them, driving them back. See what I can do, he tried to demonstrate. I'll do it to your homes if you don't leave me alone.
The message sank in. There was no reception waiting for him as he neared the town's borders, which consisted of an irregular oval a kilometer or two across, surmounted by several of the strange giant teeth. A moat of acid and dead vegetation wound through the crowding mushroom trunks, obviously a defensive barrier more against pests than against serious invaders such as the apprentice. He hopped over the acid and slashed at another tooth as he landed.
Again the ground shook. A visible wave rippled along the village's border, as though something was moving under the soil. Several long, snaking tubes that he had assumed were roots shifted restlessly back and forth.
The few Felucians visible on the streets fled into the jungle.
"Did you tell them to leave, Lady Tano?" he called. He could sense the Former Jedi nearby, burning brightly in the Force but hidden like a lantern behind a shutter.
His voice echoed down the empty street, unanswered except by the braying of a domesticated beast, tied by rope to the base of a slender, towering fungus. The apprentice hopped off the border wall and walked into town, keeping his lightsaber carefully at the ready. Circular doors and windows hung open, inviting him inside. Bioluminescent growths cast a pale blue glow over the interior of the buildings, but he wasn't tempted to investigate further. There could have been mountains of credits or exotic spices in there, but he hadn't come for anything like that.
"Tano!" he called, turning his head to look from side to side. He passed more of the giant teeth as he approached the center of the town. They were smaller and cleaner than the previous ones, less infested with mildew and mushrooms, and functioned as fences defining gardens or lanes. It struck him, though, that the houses had been built to accommodate the fences, rather than the other way around—which would make sense if the teeth belonged to some vast and sprawling creature that lay directly underfoot. Why else would so many of the teeth be pointing inward, leaning almost horizontally in a way that would trip or even injure an unwary passerby?
The confirmation of that guess came when he turned the last corner and found himself facing the center of the town.
There, perched on the concentric gums of a vast sarlacc pit, touched by neither the massive feeding tentacles nor the flexing of the slender teeth, sat Shaak Ti. Her legs were crossed and her eyes closed. Deep in meditation, she didn't look up as he approached, and seemed not to be aware of him at all.
He didn't believe that for a second. With a flick of one wrist, he ripped a mushroom out of the sarlacc's skin and threw it at her head.
She flicked it away with the Force, barely moving an eyebrow.
"You reek of that coward Vader," she said, unfurling her legs and standing in one smooth movement. Her horn-like montrals framed her orange-skinned face like an elaborate headdress. The white markings on her cheeks and around her eyes gave her a warrior's look.
She was dressed in the fashion meant to stave off Felucia's heat... or distract her opponents. She wore silver combat boots with red markings, but no leggings. She had a skirt that covered her luxurious rump and her upper thighs, and her belt had tan-colored oval-shaped armor plats hanging from her waist. She wore a gray sleeveless wetsuit that covered her torso, except for that it was fully unzipped in the front, showing off her cleavage and her navel. Her forearms and hands were covered by fingerless gauntlets colored silver with red markings. Her striped lekku hung down her back or over either side of her breasts, adorned by ribbons and decorative tassels by the felucians. Her neck was adorned with a silver choker.
He raised the tip of his lightsaber in challenge, but still she didn't reach for hers.
"My Master is not a coward," he said.
"Then why are you here in his place?" she asked with a knowing smile. "Welcome to the Ancient Abyss, a place of sacrifice since time immemorial."
He smiled, letting anger fuel his hatred for her and for all that the Jedi represented. With the dark side behind him, he reached out for the mind of the sarlacc and goaded it to lash out at her.
All the creature did was roar. It resisted him, he realized, with her help.
She smiled in mockery. "Are you prepared to meet your fate?"
Then her lightsabers were lit and she was spinning through the air toward him, striking downward as she fell.
The apprentice simultaneously backflipped and blocked her opening blow. The force of it surprised him, and the recoil threw him backward. His hood caught on one of the sarlacc's teeth, and he tore it impatiently away before the snag could interfere with his defense. Tano's lightsabers were a jagged silver blur between them. He blocked her as best he could until he had his balance again.
Then he jumped. Over her he spun and fell down two layers of teeth toward the mouth of the sarlacc. From there he jumped up again, angling away from her to avoid giving the Jedi the advantage of height, but she was there ahead of him, driving him back down with a series of blows so rapid he barely caught them all.
In desperation, he summoned a bolt of Sith lightning and sent it down, into the flesh of the sarlacc. The beast roared and shook, giving him the opening he needed. Shaak Ti's right foot slipped, forcing her to flip elegantly out of reach of his blade. He leapt after her, swinging as he came.
The fight progressed around the sarlacc's center rings, blow and counterblow accompanied by the roaring of the beast. The apprentice cut off teeth and threw the fragments at his adversary's head. In return she took tighter control of the beast's distributed intelligence and sent its food-seeking tentacles flailing for him. He repulsed them and fought on.
Down they drove each other, closer and closer to the very lip of the creature's enormous mouth. The air was foul down there, heavy with digestive by-products and the stink of rotting meat. Ghastly exhalations rolled over them as the sarlacc roared on. The apprentice was running out of teeth to sever, so he resorted more and more frequently to Sith lightning and random slashes of his lightsaber to keep it twitching underfoot. Thick ichor leaking out of the wounds made the footing even more treacherous.
"You can't keep this up forever," he taunted Ahsoka Tano as they dueled.
"Neither can you," she said. "You are wasting your strength too quickly."
"The dark side is inexhaustible."
"Your strength is prodigious," she admitted, "but that is your doing. Light, dark—" She paused to aim a blow at his head that he barely deflected. "They are just directions. Don't be fooled into thinking that you can stand on anything other than your own two feet."
He slashed at her own feet as they spun by overhead and sent one of her ribbons twirling down into the sarlacc's gaping mouth. "Spare me the philosophy lesson, Jedi," he snarled. "I'm only here for your blood."
"And you may yet have it, or I yours."
On her last three words, she struck three blows that each partially found their mark. The first burned a sizzling line down the apprentice's left shoulder. The second scored diagonally across his chest. The third would have skewered his right eye had he not held her back at the last minute with a desperate telekinetic block that stopped her lightsaber barely a millimeter from his skin. He could feel his eyelashes and eyebrows burning. The right side of his sight was entirely white.
She gasped and staggered backward. A sliver of red blade had slashed at her leg. This opening gave Starkiller a chance to unleash a volley of lightning at her, which she barely caught with the power of the force. He then charged at her ready to strike at her with his lightsaber, while she was still trying to contain his lightning. But instead, she merely caught his hilt with her hands, which were lightning charged. She looked into his eyes and stared into them with a warrior's determination, and then she forced him to plunge the blade into the ground, causing the lightning to shoot into the ground, causing an explosion that threw them in two directions.
Ahsoka hit one of the Sarlacc's tentacles and landed on the ground just on the edge of its lip, while Starkiller was launched back to the edge of the lip where the final stage of this fight had begun.
Both warriors got back up. Ahsoka only staggered slightly. She grabbed her lightsabers, but she didn't activate them. She just looked at him with a smile.
He backed away, shocked by how close he had come to death and how lucky he had been to even scratch her. He had raised his lightsaber by reflex.
She deactivated her lightsabers and placed them on her belt. At the exact same time, a green and white convor owl that had been observing the battle flew out of nowhere and into the sarlacc's gaping maw.
Ahsoka walked began to walk to the side, Starkiller began to do the same in the opposite direction, and they circled.
She didn't look angry. She didn't even raise her sabers, as her hands were still clasped behind her back.
He feinted an attack toward her, but she didn't react in any way, except to look at him.
"You are Vader's slave," she said, "but your power is wasted with him. You could be so much more."
"You'll never convince me to betray my Master." He was shocked that she would try such a weak gambit again. Were these the depths to which the Jedi had sunk?
"Poor boy." She winced, her leg still hurting from the scratch he gave her. "The Sith always betray one another. But I'm sure you'll learn that soon enough."
There was pity in her eyes for a second, before being replaced by fire. She charged forward at him, lightsaber ignited. The apprentice took a fighting stance and prepared to defend himself, only to be left surprised as Ahsoka Tano jumped over him, catching a little wink from her, which angered him, and she dove into the mouth of the sarlacc, sabers first. The apprentice reached out half heartedly to catch her body, but was too slow. A second later, he wished that he had tried harder, before he stood over the ledge and unleashed a powerful arc of Sith lightning into the maw of the creature that his target had disappeared into.
A huge explosion of Force energy threw him bodily off his feet. The sarlacc went berserk. Its tentacles lashed out at him and its surface quaked violently, trying to toss him into its waiting maw. He dodged the tentacles' frenzied lunges as best he could and dived for safety onto the town street.
Out of the sarlacc's reach, he lay facedown for a moment on the heaving ground. He was dusty, bleeding, and sore all over, but he was alive. Slowly, gingerly, testing every limb for grazes and cuts that might become infected in Felucia's febrile air, he rolled over onto his back.
And found himself in the center of a ring of Felucians. There must have been fifty of them—warriors, shamans, and rancor riders standing alongside parents, children, and mushroom farmers. Their faces were hidden by their headdresses; he couldn't read their intent. But the Force swirled around them in thick, turbulent currents. Ahsoka Tano's... 'disappearance'... affected them deeply, so profoundly entangled had she become in the energy flows of the world.
'Well, good,' he thought. She was responsible for the planet's imbalance. With her gone, maybe the dark side could reassert itself and the natural rhythms of life resume.
One of the shamans grunted something in the Felucians' guttural tongue, and the rest answered. The apprentice had no idea what they were saying. Were they threatening him or thanking him? He kept his thumb poised on the activation stud of his lightsaber, just in case.
Then, as one, they turned and walked away. Some went back into the jungle. Others went home. Within seconds, the street was as empty as it had been before, and he was alone.
Standing, he loped down the street, favoring his right leg only slightly. It didn't matter what the Felucians thought. His mission was complete. It was time to go home.
Rogue Shadow.
Starkiller seemed cautiously ecstatic on his return to the Rogue Shadow, even though he looked as though he had been mauled by a rancor. His combat uniform was rent in a dozen new places, and blood leaked from as many small wounds. But his eyes were alive with a light she had never seen before. After Rahm Kota, he had been introspective and closed. Kazdan Paratus had left him moody. Now, he was … not exactly triumphant, but on the brink of triumph. He was about to do something important—and she could guess what it was.
While he had been gone and PROXY had been outside on the pretext of checking her work on the faulty shield, she had found a way to slice into the ship's small meditation chamber. When they were safely under way and he retreated there with his droid, she put her comm headset over her ears and carefully spied on him.
Starkiller knelt on the floor with his head bowed and his hands folded in front of him. PROXY stood over him, his holographic generators flickering in the gloom. They flared to life as a HoloNet transmission reached the ship. Eerily, the droid grew taller and more substantial until he had assumed the caped form of Darth Vader.
"Report," came the hollow tones of the Emperor's most trusted servant.
"My mission is complete, Master."
The domed head nodded once. "Then the light cast by Skywalker is forever snuffed out. You are ready to stand with me against the Emperor. Return to the Mustafar at once. We will at last control the galaxy."
"Yes, my Master."
Vader's ominous form flickered and shrank, becoming PROXY once more. The droid seemed uneasy and out of sorts again, but at the same time jerky with pride.
"Congratulations, master. It seems that you are about to achieve your primary programming."
"Yes." Starkiller rose and put a hand on each of his droid's shoulders, steadying him. "Finally."
PROXY's photoreceptors glowed. "Well, don't worry, master. I'll still keep trying to kill you."
Starkiller smiled fondly. "I know, PROXY. I know."
The two of them turned to come back to the cockpit, and Juno hastily killed the bug. By the time they were standing behind her, she was leaning over the controls, feigning an adjustment to the hyperdrive.
"Everything okay?" Starkiller asked her.
She felt his gaze boring into her from where he stood right behind her. Could he tell what she was up to just by looking at her? Could he read her mind like a book?
"I'm just wondering," she said, "where we go from here. Tano... was unique. Your job might seem routine from here on out."
"Killing Jedi is never routine," he said. "But I doubt I'll be doing this kind of thing much longer."
She could hear the smile in his voice. "And what about me? Will I return to standard bombing runs when you're finished with me?"
"Don't worry. I'll be sure to give you the highest possible recommendation."
Well, thanks, she thought. "We form a strong team. It's unfortunate we can't keep on as we are." The worry in her voice was real. It's a shame you're planning to defy the Emperor—forcing me to decide where my loyalties lie.
He put a hand on her shoulder. She couldn't tell if he meant to reassure her or simply silence her.
The latter she could manage easily enough, although her jaw ached from keeping her concerns to herself.
When he returned to the meditation suite to clean himself up, leaving PROXY to help her with the ship, it wasn't relief she felt, but emptiness.
Mustafar system.
That feeling remained when the Rogue Shadow emerged from hyperspace in Mustafar system, where Vader's fortress towered over a devastated landscape, covered in the signs of battle, in its state of partial de-construction.
Juno had decided nothing during the long journey. Should she remain loyal to her immediate superiors or try to warn the Emperor of their treachery? The question made her guts roil, but the answer eluded her. She needed more information, either way.
Starkiller and his droid disembarked, obviously heading to debrief their Dark Lord. Juno's anxiety levels rose as soon as he was out of her sight. When he was with her, at least she could keep an eye on him. Who knew what could go down while he was gone—perhaps dragging her down with him?
Remembering the strange feed she had managed to slice into while looking for her psychological profile, she shut the ship's external hatches and feigned a hull integrity check. Patching the ship's systems into the hangar's gave her access to everything in the Fortress' data banks. Immediately she began searching.
It wasn't easy. There was no use trying to follow the same route she had used the other night, since that appeared to have naturally cauterized itself. There had to be numerous ways into Vader's secret chamber; the trick lay in finding one that was open at the moment, a signal she could piggyback on as far as the security feed. And then, hopefully, she would be able to hear more of the pair's plans.
She found the route via telemetry. Vader appeared to be closely monitoring the area around the fat red sun, although for a moment she couldn't tell why.
Then a series of hyperspace signatures rippled through the atmosphere, and she began to understand. Three Star Destroyers and a dozen smaller vessels were arriving from elsewhere, flashing into realspace with disconcerting swiftness.
A cold feeling spread across her chest, enveloping her heart.
With shaking fingers, she canceled the view and sliced as fast as she could into the security system.
The apprentice stood in front of the massive bulkhead leading to his Master's chamber for a long moment, gathering his self-control and centering himself within the Force. Ambition stirred in him: he pictured himself at his Master's side, the two of them striking the Emperor down together, as he had imagined many times down the years. He saw himself in regal attire as Lord Vader became Emperor Vader and assumed the mantle of Coruscant and all the other jewel-like worlds in the galactic crown. What sights awaited them in the Imperial court! What new challenges and aspirations!
But his training demanded a careful balance between the lust for power and self-denial. Control was paramount, as in all things. He wanted to present the best face possible to his Dark Lord, lest once again the attainment of his dreams be denied.
"Is anything the matter, master?" asked PROXY from the droid's familiar position at his shoulder.
"Nothing at all," he said.
Straightening his shoulders, he waved a hand. The massive door slid open. Suppressing a smile, the apprentice strode confidently into Darth Vader's inner sanctum.
His boots rang out on the metal floor, echoing through the familiar chamber. The red fiery landscape illuminated the large chamber, but there was something new in that vista: a fleet of Star Destroyers and support ships clustering around his Master's Fortress like carrion.
Darth Vader didn't turn. "The Emperor's fleet has arrived," was all he said.
The apprentice felt a quickening in his throat. Moving in front of his Master to get a look out the viewport, he pressed his palm against the thick transparisteel and smiled.
Destiny.
"You lured him here." He could hear the excitement in his voice. "When do we strike?"
"I did not summon him." There was no warning in his Master's deep voice, no hint at all of what was to come. With an unexpected snap-hiss, Darth Vader's lightsaber was active, reflecting in the viewport beside the baleful lava outside. "His spies followed you here."
The apprentice opened his mouth to protest, but had barely begun to turn when his Master's potent blade stabbed through his back. His eyes widened in shock at the sight of the lightsaber protruding from his stomach. The pain was unbearable, much worse than he had ever imagined it would be.
The lightsaber's fiery blade disappeared as Darth Vader deactivated the weapon.
With a choked scream, the apprentice fell to his knees. Darkness threatened to spread across his vision, but he resisted it with all his strength. Despair likewise. This had to be a terrible mistake. It couldn't be happening.
His Master loomed over him, studying him impassively from behind his black mask. Without turning, he gestured at PROXY.
"Begin the transmission."
"Yes, Lord Vader."
PROXY, standing slightly behind their dark Master, transformed by sinister stages into the Emperor, hooded and enshrouded in shadow. The two Sith Lords looked down at the apprentice, who gasped helplessly at their feet.
"What is thy bidding, my Master?" Darth Vader asked.
"You have forgotten your place, Lord Vader. By taking this boy as your apprentice, you have betrayed me." The Emperor's tone was at the same time harsh and hypnotic. One claw-like hand reached out from the sleeve of his voluminous cloak. "Now you will kill him, or I will destroy you both."
The apprentice watched his Master, pain twisting his features into a rictus. There was nothing he could do to stop this terrible reversal. He could not lift a hand against his Master, who had raised him and taught him all his life. But he would not die silent.
"Don't, Master!" he gasped, struggling to stand but failing. The darkness encroached further. "Together we can defeat him!"
"Do it now, Lord Vader!" insisted the Emperor. "Strike him down and prove your loyalty to me!"
Darth Vader looked from the Emperor to the apprentice as though weighing up two very heavy alternatives. Then he lashed out with the Force, unleashing a mighty telekinetic surge that sent the apprentice crashing into one of the transparisteel viewports behind him. With a piercing sound, it cracked.
"Yes, Vader!" the Emperor crowed. "Kill him! Kill him!"
The apprentice was gripped tightly in his Master's will and pulled away from the viewport. For a faint instant, he thought his Master had changed his mind and decided to defy the Emperor after all. But then he was hurled back at the transparisteel with all the force of a small meteor. The viewport shattered outward and he was tossed across the molten landscape outside.
His final cry was heard, but ignored by the Imperial troops that were storming the Fortress.
As he lay on the burning ash ground, darkness and despair closed in again, and he no longer tried to fight them. There was no point. It was over.
Juno watched in horror from the cockpit of the Rogue Shadow, her mouth hanging open and her fingers limp on the controls of the ship. Perhaps she should have been readying the ship for flight, or at least cutting the signal of her illicit data feed. Later she would wish she had, but at that moment all she could do was stare.
With one black-gloved hand at his throat, he turned back to the Emperor's hologram and straightened to his full height.
"It is done," he said in a cold, leaden tone.
"You are the apprentice, Lord Vader," the Emperor snarled. "You are my servant, my enforcer. Never forget your place again."
Vader's domed head bowed. "Yes, my Master."
The Emperor's hologram flickered and dissolved. PROXY returned to normal, looking stunned and shaken. Vader ignored the droid and walked to one of the intact viewports. He stood looking out across Mustafar's surface, where the apprentice's limp body tumbled lifelessly across the ash, surrounded by clouds of poison gas and burning cinders.
Juno's hand had risen to her mouth without her knowing it. Starkiller had done nothing but obey orders, just as she had on Callos. He had been betrayed, literally stabbed in the back by the one he had trusted most.
It wasn't fair.
The sound of a door clanging open in the hangar was followed by the sound of booted feet running toward the ship. Too late she closed the feed and focused on her own problems. A squad of troopers from the Emperor's ships had broken the seal on the Rogue Shadow's secret nest. They could only be coming for her.
Her heart hammered in her chest. Standing, she smoothed down her black uniform and made sure her cap was straight. When she was sure her pistol was well out of reach, she opened the ramp. Taking a deep, calming breath, she went out to meet her fate.
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Well folks, that was the latest chapter.
Hope you enjoyed.
Hopefully the next chapter won't take as long to release.
Until next time, this is Grubkiller, over and out.