-0000-

"General! General! Come quick! You need to see this!"

A trooper ran inside of a small shelter that they had made from rubble they'd found and that was used as their little base of operations. A little less than a kilometer away from the base, the trenches of the rocky ground were being used as a defensive front. On the other side, there was a large stretch of land where nobody dared to go. The SA had turrets and their own trenches that were being used to lay siege to the crashed party. The rocky ground they were standing on was actually the bottom of a large stretch of mountains which created an imposing wall to their right. On the left was a vast sea of sand that stretched farther than the eye could see. The trenches that they were using were the remnants of a previous mining operation.

Fral ran outside after the soldier and looked in the sky to where he was pointing. Instead of seeing the large dreadnought that had been visible since they crashed, there was a massive ball of fire. A wave of hope flowed through him. The blockade was broken! He rushed to the holotable and called the Fleet Commander to make sure that they knew where his men were at for pickup.

"General, we didn't cause that explosion."

The response confused him. "What do you mean? What else could have caused it?"

"An ancient model of an orbital bomber came out of hyperspace and destroyed the dreadnought."

"So you mean it wasn't the Order?"

"Nope. We had no idea it was coming. But with the dreadnought out of the way, we'll be able to break their blockade."

The Fleet Commander cut the call and left Fral standing and searching for answers. Nothing made sense.

"General! We have incoming!"

Fral ran out again and stared at the sky. Sure enough, a cloud of missiles were streaking through the sky towards their general location. He had no idea how many there were, but it was certainly enough to level their location. They had no way to shoot them down. There was no chance of escape. The missiles were already too close. Fral stood firm, accepting that he would die here. He watched the missiles come closer and, to his surprise, he noticed that thrusters that were previously unseen on the bottom activated, slowing them until the first softly landed on the rocks behind them. Then another. And another.

"Approach with caution," he ordered. Slowly, his men crept towards the first metal husk with Fral following slightly behind. All had their weapons drawn. They formed a loose semicircle around the first missile, which landed substantially closer to their camp than the others did. They tensed as the side facing them began moving, revealing a door. The door opened, and out stumbled a single fully armored trooper.

"Freeze!"

The lone man stopped walking and put his hands up.

"Take your helmet off!"

Slowly, he pulled off the helmet, revealing a bald dark-skinned man with a neatly trimmed goatee. "603rd to the rescue, sir."

Fral walked towards him.

"Who are you?"

"Names Toby" he replied calmly as he turned to the pod and pulled out a blaster rifle and a scattershot.

"What's your number?"

This caused the man to tense slightly, then say "I don't go by that anymore."

Fral had no idea how to feel about that. The number was always what they went by. It was the system. Personally, he found it inefficient and inconvenient, but he never did anything about it. What could he do?

"Ok. Toby. 603rd. Rescue. Who runs the 603rd?"

Toby smiled and said "You'll see."

He noticed that while talking to Toby, the other capsules had opened and the guys were reacting in various ways to the ride. Most stumbled and fell, a few seemed exhilarated, and a couple of them threw up. He left the few who made the semicircle around Toby at the camp to answer any calls from either the trenches or the Fleet and walked around. There were easily at least a hundred of these things. Something in the far back caught his eye, and he walked towards it.

"... you're insane! We could have died!" a female voice yelled.

"That was amazing!" cried a familiar male voice.

There was a small pause, then she said "Yea. That was pretty great."

As Fral walked closer, he made eye contact with the bearded human male. He had a goofy smile and was on an obvious adrenaline rush. Fral stared at the young man, then started laughing.

"You finally got a beard!"

Darin laughed and said "Yea. Thought I could make it look better than you."

Fral stroked his and said "Impossible."

Darin glanced at Frals beard. It was usually a mess, but being stuck on the planet allowed it to get even wilder.

"I don't know. You look a bit like an unwashed homeless man."

Fral grunted. "You try being stuck on a planet without mirrors."

"You never use a mirror," he said with a grin

"Fair point. I wasn't told you were coming."

He shrugged. "They didn't know."

Fral lazily kicked at one of the pods and asked "So what's this? Never seen anything like it before."

"It's a repurposed missile. I had the idea a while ago. Had someone remove the warhead, change the wiring so the-"

Fral waved his hand. "Mech nonsense. So how'd you get here?"

"This style of missile fits a really old orbital bomber ship." He watched as Fral put the pieces together.

"YOU destroyed the dreadnought?!"

Darin smiled mischievously. "Took an alternate hyperspace route, filled ship with explosives, shot us out before it crashed into the ship."

Fral shook his head in wonder. "How do you come up with these things?"

"It's a gift."

The female Darin was talking to walked up to them. Fral recognized the armor and palmed his saber, but a sphere of energy surrounded his hands and forced them to stay on the handle without igniting it.

"Darin…" growled Fral.

"She's friendly. Put the saber away." The energy field disappeared and Fral put it away, although not without hesitation. Sadie took off her helmet. Fral realized that she was younger than Darin, though not by much.

"Good. Sadie, this is General Fral Joren, my former Master. Fral, this is Sadie Wren, my padawan."

"Your PADAWAN!?" He stared in shock at Darin. "You made her your PADAWAN?"

"It's a very long and complicated story."

"That doesn't matter. She's not a Jedi. She wasn't raised in the Temple."

"Neither was I. And technically the paperwork says that she is."

"And nobody cross-referenced anything?"

"I may or may not have become allies with Grand Masters Flick, Tun, and Margos."

"How exactly did you do that?"

"Uhmm… I took an extra platoon of troopers labeled as defective and I joined the SIA."

"I asked them to make you a General, and then you'd have the option of joining the Galactic Army like you always wanted. Just a simple request. And they did. Then you took extra troopers, got an illegal padawan, and joined the military branch that Sorsee likes the least. What were you thinking, joining them?"

"They kinda recruited me after I destroyed a large portion of the Coruscant drug trade."

"Not even gonna ask about that. Why do you even have troopers then?"

"They allowed me to keep them. They're Special Forces."

He turned to Sadie. "Are you sane?"

"I like to think so."

"Good. I want you to knock some sense into this child," he said, motioning at Darin.

She nodded and smiled. "Will do General."

"How much has he taught you?"

"Sensing the Force and mental defense."

"Seriously?"

"To be fair, we started very recently," Darin interjected.

"You need to teach her to defend herself. Or use the Force offensively."

"You should test her mental defenses."

He rolled his eyes and sent a powerful barrage in an effort to destroy her mental shield quickly. It was his preferred tactic, and one that's worked well against many other Jedi. To his surprise, her barrier batted away his attack with no problem at all. He tried again and again, with the same thing happening each time. Finally, he gave up.

"I think she's quite capable of defending herself, don't you Fral?" Darin asked with a victorious smirk.

"Oh yea. Because the Burhaj are known for mind tricks," Fral said sarcastically. "So what's your plan now to get us off this planet?"

"With the dreadnought destroyed, maybe some ships will come to get us."

"MAYBE?!" Sadie exclaimed. "Your big rescue depends on a MAYBE?!"

"I'm coming up with another plan."

Fral said "You might want to hurry up. We're sitting ducks here, and the SA is getting restless."

-Sadie-

I was counting rations when I heard Darin's voice in my head.

Sadie.

I sighed. This whole telepathic thing he did was annoying. When I was in school, I had a classmate who would take medicine because she would hear voices in her head all the time. Every time he did that, I think of her.

Sadie.

I imagined writing 'out of my kriffing head' on a piece of paper and crumpling it up. I then imagined throwing it as hard as possible at Darin's face.

I heard that. Nice work.

Wait, that worked?

I tried it again, but this time with 'what do you want'.

Come here. I'm where the missiles landed.

Excited, I got up and sprinted to him.

"Did you hear me? Did I do it?"

He smiled and nodded. "You figured it out on your own. Impressive."

I looked around. "So why am I here?"

"Do you sense anything?"

I focused, and the world grayed around me. I realized that it was much easier to do now. I tried to sense the Force around me. To my right, I felt a massive absence. I don't know what the range of my senses is, but I felt almost nothing, which was expected because it's a desert. In front of me was Darin. I sensed many troopers far behind us, and even farther I sensed some strange beings that I've never sensed before. Probably those new species. But to my left, where the mountains were, I sensed life. A lot of it.

"The mountains. Something lives in them?"

"Close. Something lives behind them."

I stared at the impenetrable wall of rock. Its enormous height made me feel like an insignificant bug. The peaks seemed to stretch into the infinite horizon. Clearly, nature was doing everything to keep us from the other side.

"Whatever you're thinking, I'm on board."

He looked at her curiously. "You sure?"

"No. But your dumb ideas are our best chance of survival."

"Thanks. I guess."

-Darin-

I quietly slipped out of the camp. I had a plan, I just hated it.

Night had fallen, and the temperature fell with it. Blitz and Hal were on guard, but didn't do anything to stop me. As I walked, the sound of blaster fire grew louder and louder and I could see flashes of light. I was approaching the trenches.

I called the troopers on the trenches and told them that when they saw me on the battlefield, they need to retreat and get everybody awake and ready for evac.

If Sadie knew what I was going to do, she'd probably call me an idiot. She seemed to insult me every chance she got.

In one fluid motion, I jumped, using the Force to give me bonus height. The Force already augmented my physical prowess, so I was able to get some serious air.

I loved this feeling. As I reached the peak of my jump, I used the Force to push me forwards. My cloak billowed behind me as I basically flew through the air.

When I judged that I was at the right distance, I stopped propelling myself forwards and allowed myself to freefall to the ground. Before landing, I used the Force to slow my descent so I would land unharmed. Upon landing, the troopers stopped shooting and retreated. I was in the middle of no-man's land. The shooting had stopped from the side of the SA when they noticed me land in the middle. I could sense their curiosity. I stood up and started slowly walking towards the SA.

I heard the squeaky voice of a Burhaj yell "Stop!", but I kept walking. I could sense some confusion from them, then sensed a much more domineering presence appear. I heard the gruff voice of a Seyley tell me to stop, and when I didn't he gave the order to fire.

I was already poised to attack, so when I sensed in the Force that they were about to fire, I already had my sabers in hand.

As the Burhaj fired short, fat, green plasma bolts at me, the blue blade in my right hand came to life and swatted them away with ease while I ignited the darksaber in my left hand and threw it, decapitating four Burhaj before it returned to my hand and I sprinted at them, the two sabers in a spinning dance of light as they batted away the shots. I covered the distance to their defensive line in no time and sliced through a turret before it could begin firing. I used the Force and threw the severed gun at another turret, knocking the gunner out of it before he could begin firing at me. The Burhaj began running from me and screaming in terror. Good. A few brave souls stood back and fired at me. I used the Force and threw them back into the rock wall of the mountain. I looked around and found their drop ship. I was about to sheath my sabers and run to it when all the Burhaj who ran from me returned, this time with four massive Seyley towering over them. They were a whole head taller than I was. Three of them wore blue armor, but one of them was wearing armor that was blood red.

He gruffly yelled "Sreav in Wort!"

I didn't understand its meaning, but the blue Seyley pulled out their rifles and began firing at me, the red pulled out two, each of the Burhaj began firing, and I was forced to defend. He must be the leader. I crouched behind a metal container that contained supplies and grabbed a Burhaj pistol, hoping to fire back at them. As soon as I grabbed it, I realized that I had no clue how it worked. The technology was something I had never seen before. As I fumbled around and tried to find the trigger, a bright yellow orb landed next to me. I tried to quickly use the Force to fling it back, thinking it was a grenade, but it wouldn't budge. It was like it was stuck to the floor. I threw myself as far away from it as possible and threw up a Force shield to protect myself from any debris. I landed in a small depression in the ground right as it exploded in a flash of yellow. I could feel the force from the blast, but there was very minimal debris. I really didn't even need the Force shield to protect myself. The barrage of plasma was all around me. I sensed another yellow orb coming my way and intercepted its flight with the Burhaj pistol I had managed to hold onto. The orb stuck to the pistol, and I tossed the gun with the nade attached in the middle of the pack of attackers. When I heard the explosion I darted out of the depression and at the attackers. A few Burhaj were down but most survived, although not without various levels of injuries. Most of the Seyley were unscathed, though one had dark blue blood seeping out of a large wound in his chest. Man these grenades have bad AOE. The red Seyley noticed me running at them and started shooting his dual blasters at me. They each fired much faster than the ones the troopers used. His two alone felt like having to swat away the bolts of a repeating blaster, except from different angles. The other Seyley quickly recovered from the blast and began firing. I ignited the darksaber and used both blades to bat away the shots, controlling the angle so that they come back at the Seyley. The one who was already bleeding wasn't able to dodge the bolts and quickly met his demise. I started aiming the shots at the other blue Seyley, quickly depleting their shields and taking one of them out before he could get to safety. With the blues hiding until their shields returned, I turned the attention to the red. I Force pushed him backwards into some large metal crates. Without a moment to lose, I sprinted to the drop ship and jumped in. After quickly finding the cockpit, I pushed some buttons until I felt the ship's engines turn on, then grabbed the wheel and flew the dropship out of the wrecked base.

-Tag-

As per the General's orders, I made sure that all the men were prepared and ready for evac and that all the supplies were rounded up. Under normal conditions, if two squads of troopers run back from the front lines, wake us all up, and tell us that the General ordered them to retreat and get everyone prepared instead of fighting, they would probably be shot for conspiracy and attempted sabotage. The Order drew a very hard line about things like that.

But this was General Kravhenn we were talking about. When I showed him the announcement from Grand Master Sorsee stating that nobody goes to Noreno unless specifically deployed there by him, he looked at it for a few seconds before throwing it in the trash can next to him. He clearly didn't have much respect for the Order or its methods.

I heard Sadie yawn, which made me yawn too. I didn't even realize that she was standing next to me. We'd let her sleep in a bit, and I guess as we got ready we woke her up.

"Morning Commander." In the Order, the padawan was always the Commander.

She yawned again before grumpily saying "It's not even morning."

"You have any idea what the General has planned?"

"No idea. I don't think I want to know." I felt the same way.

"Bet you five credits that he comes back with an enemy ship."

She grinned. "You're on."

We waited in silence. Light murmurs could be heard from the guys, but it was clear that everyone was too tired to really do much.

I noticed a dark shadow in the sky that was coming towards us. I recognized the shape of the craft to be an Alliance dropship. As it got closer, I was able to make out the turrets on the bottom, the elegant curvature of the hull, and the dark purple of the armor plating. "Can you sense who's inside?" I asked Sadie, sure of the identity of the pilot. I watched her focus, then pull out a scrap of paper and quickly scribble 'IOU 5 CREDITS' in big black letters followed by her signature before handing it to me. I took it and stuffed it into a pocket under my armor, grinning victoriously.

-0000-

The Seyley admiral gulped nervously before accepting the call. A Zeltron male with blue hair appeared.

"Greetings Admiral."

"L-L-Lord Terrias. The destruction of the dreadnought-"

"Was catastrophic and could very well have cost us control of Noreno."

The Admiral hung his head. Darth Terrias was known to be unpredictable and prone to outbursts of destructive violence.

"I was going to behead you and mount your head on my wall, but Lysis reviewed your report and managed to change my mind."

Lysis was the Zabrak who acted as Terrias' right hand. His genius was unmatched in the Alliance.

The Admiral bowed and said "Thank you, my Lord."

"That isn't all. I have heard news from the Lieutenant leading the siege on the survivors of the crashed ship. There was an attack on their base that destroyed a garrison. His report tells of a single attacker who managed to wreak some very impressive havoc."

"Impossible. Who could do such a thing?"

"His report claims that he used the weapons of a Jedi, but fought like a..." his eyebrows knitted together as he tried to remember the word. "A Wort! Yes, he called it a Wort."

This sent a cold chill down his spine. "The demon?"

"That's what he said. I've spoken to Than Valum about hunting down this 'Wort' demon."

The Admirals' eyes widened. "The Vindicator?"

"Indeed."

The Zeltron disappeared. The Admiral placed his hand on his chest, each of his four long fingers pressed down firmly, then pulled his hand away and balled it into a fist, as if pulling something out of him. Then, he raised his hand to about where his mouth was and opened it, as if releasing the contents into the air.

The end was approaching.