I don't own Star Wars or its characters, but Nadia Aomori and my OCs I own only.
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Fire of the Rebellion
Chapter 40: Hunting in Felucia
On Felucia, Shaak Ti and her apprentice, Maris Brood, watched as the Rogue Shadow flew by to land somewhere in the planet.
The Torguta Jedi Master didn't need to think twice upon realising who had come to Felucia.
Though she had a feeling it wasn't Darth Sidious or Darth Vader.
It was Vader's secret assassin.
"Assassins."Shaak Ti whispered.
Maris smiled smugly while Master Ti walked a few steps away from her while wearing a grim look on her face.
"Darth Vader has found us?"Maris assumed.
"Perhaps. Maris, gather your belongings and go into hiding, just as we've practiced."Shaak Ti instructed."Do not return until I summon you."
This caused Maris to become furious.
All the years of training that Master Ti taught her upon growing in the forests of Felucia together and the last member of the Jedi Council wanted her to hide from the enemy?
"But master, this is what I've been waiting for!"Maris argued with a hint of anger."Let me fight!"
Shaak Ti turned to glare at Maris.
"No. I will lead this assassin to the Ancient Abyss alone."Shaak Ti informed in a stern look."You are not ready to face a Sith. You would surely be killed."
Shaak Ti's face expression softened as she looked at her apprentice
"Maris, we are among the last of the Jedi. While we live, the Order survives. I cannot allow you to be captured or killed by the Empire. Now please, go to the graveyard and wait for my summons.
Maris frowned and started walking away to head to the hiding place where Master Ti told her to go before running off in frustration.
She was found as an infant by the Jedi Order and taken into training due to her connection with the Force.
Trained by her Master on the starship known as Gray Pilgrim, Maris was distanced from the rest of the Jedi Order during the Clone Wars.
Due to their isolation, Maris and her Master didn't fall victim to the execution of Order 66.
Still, the effects of the killings were felt even in seclusion.
Sensing the near-simultaneous deaths of so many Jedi, Maris's Master set out to recover evidence of their fate.
But then her Master disappeared, never to be seen again.
Though not before he was able to warn Maris of the destruction of the Jedi and Darth Vader's role in the Great Jedi Purge.
Maris wanted to fight Vader and kill him for what he had done to the Jedi Order.
Despite being trained by Master Ti, she continued to harbour much anger and resentment over the persecution of the Jedi, a trait which her master tried and failed to eliminate.
When the female Zabrak Jedi Padawan was out of sight, one of the Felucians turned around and made an incoherent communication to Shaak Ti.
"No. She hasn't been corrupted. Not yet."Shaak Ti declared softly."She's just afraid."
The Torguta Jedi Master watched silently to where her apprentice ran off to.
"May the Force be with you, Maris Brood."Shaak Ti murmured.
From his castle in Coruscant, Darth Vader couldn't help but be silently pleased at the latest news he got.
So far his secret apprentice, Starkiller had killed two Jedi.
Master Rahm Kota, a Jedi General who served in the Clone Wars as well as a survivor of Order 66.
Kazdan Paratus, a Jedi outcast who lived in self-exile on Raxus Prime.
Now the Dark Lord had sent his apprentice to kill Jedi Master Shaak Ti, one of the last members of the Jedi High Council whom Vader discovered to be hiding on Felucia.
If Starkiller succeeded in his mission, they would finally kill Emperor Palpatine and rule the galaxy together as Master and Apprentice.
Though Vader was beginning to wonder if he should've sent his apprentice to kill Ferus and Nadia.
However, he then decided not to.
His former friends were his to get rid of alone.
But the thought of his secret apprentice being stronger than him actually made him feel troublesome.
He devoted years to personally molding Starkiller into a highly trained Sith assassin with an array of Force powers including Force lightning while the Dark Lord himself was unable to harness due to his mostly machine condition that made the young apprentice a formidable opponent and Sith in all but name.
And yet, he hadn't forgotten that Starkiller was Kento Marek's son.
Marek's combat repertoire contained only rudimentary knowledge of Makashi.
As such, Vader quickly overcame him using his refined form of Djem So.
Even though he hadn't told his secret apprentice anything about his past, there could be a possible chance that he would turn against him one day.
If so, he would sure to get rid of him.
In his mind, Darth Vader scoffed.
No matter what, the Sith always betrayed one another.
That's how it was and that's how it will always will be.
In Felucia, Galen wielded his blood red lightsaber as he slashed down the Felucians that attempted to prevent him from finding his target.
Shaak Ti.
A Togruta Jedi Master and practitioner of both Makashi and Ataru lightsaber techniques.
She was old and strong, but must have been wily indeed to have survived so long.
Order 66 may have been issued many years ago.
Thoughit was still firmly in place all across the Empire.
Galen swore to bring that fact home to her just as soon as he 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, 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.
They were so alive 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 Shaak Ti had nurtured on 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.
A rancor bearing a Felucian rider thundered through the forest, crushing delicate life-forms beneath its clawed feet and sniffing for his scent.
Galen 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.
Galen 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 semi sentient at best, but its mighty flukes could manage a fair turn of speed.
Gripping its carapace with one hand, Galen rode its undulating body toward the town, occasionally pausing to fling lightning at Felucian guards who bothered him.
"That'll do."Galen informed.
The 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.
Galen then continued hacking through the jungle, felling every plant within his range.
Felucians tried to stop him, but he hurled giant trunks at them, driving them back.
The confirmation of that guess came when he turned the last corner and found himself facing the center of the town.
While the Felucians fled from him, Galen made his way towards the village center, finding it to be the maw of a Sarlacc.
The entire town was built around a mega-Sarlacc dubbed the 'Ancient Abyss' by the Felucians.
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, the Torguta Jedi Master didn't look up as he approached and seemed not to be aware of him at all.
Shaak Ti then unfurled her legs to stand in one smooth movement.
"Vader's assassin."Shaak Ti spoke up."Welcome to the Ancient Abyss, a place of sacrifice since time immemorial."
Her horn-like montrals framed her red-skinned face like an elaborate headdress.
The white oval patches around her eyes gave her a slightly startled look, but the apprentice was under no illusion that he had surprised her.
She was dressed in the fashion of the Felucians, in a garment made of vegetable material and bone.
Her striped lekku hung well out of the way down her back, adorned by ribbons and decorative tassels.
Shaak then took out her lightsaber, activating it's light blue blade.
"Are you prepared to meet your fate?"Shaak Ti questioned.
When her lightsaber was lit, Shaak Ti was spinning through the air toward Halen, striking downward as she simultaneously backflipped and blocked her opening blow.
The force of it surprised Galen 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.
Shaak Ti's lightsaber was a jagged blue blur between them.
He blocked her as best he could until he had his balance again.
Then he jumped.
Over his target, the Sith apprentice 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 Master the advantage of height.
But Shaak Ti was there ahead of Galen, driving him back down with a series of blows so rapid he barely caught them all.
In desperation, Galen 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.
Galen cut off teeth and threw the fragments at his adversary's head.
In return, Shaak Ti took tighter control of the beast's distributed intelligence and sent its food-seeking tentacles flailing for him.
He repulsed them and fought 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.
Shaak Ti 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."Galen taunted.
"Neither can you."Shaak Ti replied."You are wasting your strength too quickly."
Galen scoffed. "The Dark Side is inexhaustible."
"Your strength is prodigious."Shaak Ti admitted."But that is your doing. Light, dark-"
The Torguta Jedi Master paused to aim a blow at Galen's head that he barely deflected.
"They are just directions."Shaak Ti informed firmly."Do not be fooled that you stand on anything other than your own two feet."
Galen slashed at Shaak Ti's 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."Galen snarled."I'm only here for your blood."
"And you may yet have it or I yours."Shaak Ti replied.
On her last three words, Shaak Ti 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 blue.
Shaak Ti gasped and staggered backward.
Her lightsaber and her gaze dropped.
A full half meter of red blade emerged from her stomach, then the rest came free with a backed away, shocked by how close he had come to death and how lucky he had been to defeat her.
He had raised his lightsaber by reflex.
Shaak Ti had, in the desperation of her final assault, practically thrown herself on the blade.
Perhaps she had meant for the two of them to defeat each other at the same time.
Her weakening fingers let go of her lightsaber which deactivated with a click as it spun away into the sarlacc's mouth.
She didn't look angry, just weary and in pain.
Her red skin was suddenly very feinted toward her, but she didn't react in any way, except to look at him.
"You are Vader's slave, but your power is wasted with him."Shaak Ti declared as she held her wounded side."You could be so much more."
Galen became shocked that she would try such a weak gambit again.
Were these the depths to which the Jedi had sunk?
"You'll never convince me to betray my master."Galen retorted in an angry tone.
Shaak Ti gave Galen a sad expression.
"Poor boy."Shaak Ti sighed."The Sith always betray one another, but I'm sure you'll learn that soon enough."
There was pity in the Torguta Jedi Master's eyes as they rolled up into her head.
She went limp and fell back into the mouth of the sarlacc, exploding in a massive flash of Force energy.
Galen reached out halfheartedly to catch her body, but was too slow.
A second later, he wished that he had tried harder.
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.
Despite sensing the fear of the Felucians, Galen quietly left upon being satisfied that the removal of Shaak Ti's influence would allow the dark side to again take hold on Felucia and return life to its normal rhythms.
Now all he had to do was report his mission's success to Darth Vader, who would conclude that the time was right for both of them to overthrow the Emperor in a combined effort together.
And so it seemed.
See you all in the next chapter and have a wonderful day!