-Sadie-

Darin is a lunatic. Our strategy for getting on Noreno? We're being shot out of our ship from space. From SPACE. He's officially lost his mind. As have I though, because even after he told me, I still wanted to go.

I sat on a rusty metal box in the dirty hold of the ship. It was an old ship, but had some 'modifications', as Darin put it. Apparently he got bored at some point and decided to try his hand at creating a new troop deployment system. As anybody does when they're bored.

I heard the door open and turned to see Darin walk in and sit next to me.

"You still sure about this?"

I hesitated slightly, but nodded. I felt unsure, just as I did before the Gauntlet so long ago. Back then, I was nervous about if Darin could pull his own weight. This time, it was different. I wasn't nervous about Darin's ability. He's more than capable. I was scared of what I would see down there. I've seen plenty of death, but the arena was different. The arena was more controlled, but here Darin would not be able to protect everybody. I would have to hold my own weight. I realized that I was afraid of disappointing him. At first I thought his selfless actions were because he was either desperate for friends or manipulating me. But as I grew to know him, I realized that it wasn't either of those things. Instead, it seemed more like he was driven by some sort of creed, similar to how Mandalorians have a code of honor that they live by. I was afraid that if I broke his code, he would treat me the way Mandalorians would. Shunning me and damning my existence.

"Do you know anything about what we're going up against?" he asked, startling me from my musings.

I shook my head no, and he pulled out a holocron with a picture of one of those stocky aliens that were on the ship where I rescued Darin.

"This is a Burhaj. They're about one and two thirds meters tall on average, so they're shorter than you. They have rough, thick skin that provides a natural armor. They have large muscular forearms and can move on all fours, but stand on their hind legs when running and in combat. They breathe sulfur gas, so they have to have a tank of breathable air. Senses are average. They're the bulk of the military. The SA uses them as bantha fodder because they reproduce like nothing else. Not too dangerous on their own, but they can easily swarm you. Try to avoid hand-to-hand combat." The picture changed and a large bipedal creature appeared. It's legs had two knees, one normal and one backwards, making them look broken. "This is a Seyley. Try not to mess with it. It's about two and a quarter meters tall. I'm a bit shorter than two meters so it towers above me. They're incredibly strong and agile. They are their equivalent to the Jedi. Killed quite a few Jedi so far. Some of them use some variant of a lightsaber. They do use shielding tech on their armor to make them even more resilient."

"How do you beat them?" I asked. They seemed pretty powerful to me.

"Honestly, I'm not sure. For some reason, these are the only two species I could find records on, and that's when I broke in and used the stuff they taught the cadets. This is quite literally all the info we have."

"Are these the only species?"

"I don't think so. I've seen some classified tapes of battles while a Scholar and it looked like there were more, but the quality was really bad."

"That's ridiculous."

"I know." His commlink beeped and he quickly glanced at it. "It's time. Get in a pod."

-0000-

The blockade of Noreno was going wonderfully for the SA. The Jedi couldn't push through, leaving a stalemate. Eventually, the Jedi would give in and Noreno would be theirs.

The Seyley Admiral watched in rapture as the wave of attackers got weaker and weaker. He was able to defend every other wave that the Order sent. This will be no different. Surely, after this he will be promoted to Grand Admiral.

One of his Lieutenants spoke, bringing the Admirals' attention back to the battle.

"Sir, there's a ship coming out of hyperspace."

The Admiral walked to the back of the bridge and checked the Lieutenants monitor. Sure enough, a ship was arriving.

The Order sent reinforcements at relatively equal intervals. This ship didn't line up with the schedule and was coming from a different direction entirely. Odd, he thought before disregarding it and watching the battle before him. Probably a smuggler. Nothing to worry about.

He noticed that a ship emerged from hyperspace rather close to them. What a junker, he thought. It was one of those really old orbital bomber models that he thought were all gone. It's massive body was covered in rust, and it had virtually no weapons other than the missiles on its underside. He tried to remember what type it was, but the name failed him. They were deemed useless and scrapped long ago.

"Call it, tell it to turn back," he said calmly to one of the Lieutenants.

"It's not responding sir."

He watched the trajectory of the ship. It seemed to be going directly at the Gemini, a Disruptor model Dreadnought which was one of the keys to his blockade's success.

When it came a little close for his liking, he ordered a warning shot, which did nothing to deter the old piece of junk. If anything, it started moving even faster towards the dreadnought. Having seen enough, the Admiral ordered the snub fighters to attack it. He was forced to use the fighters because the ship was coming from the Dreadnoughts blindspot, and if it turned then the Order could advance. Firing on it with the turbolasers would be dangerous. He didn't want to hit the Gemini.

"The shields are too strong sir! We're barely making a dent!"

The color started to drain out of his face, paling his usually dark grey skin, as he watched the ship come closer and closer to the stern of the dreadnought. The fighter pilots were forced to turn back and come in from a new angle, else they would ram into the ship. As they were flying away, he watched as the rustbucket unloaded all of its missiles at once into the planet below before ramming into the dreadnought, causing an explosion far larger than should have normally been possible. He watched with a mix of horror and fascination as the fires from the explosion caused a chain reaction throughout the dreadnought, before it hit a central fuel supply and the whole ship went up in flames.