Star Wars: The Starkiller II

The Starkiller - Three months prior to The Starkiller II, spans over a period of five years, from the end of Galder's studying under a Dark Jedi to his fleeing from Zeiton...

-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-

Chronicled here are
the continued adventures of
Galder Rexus Starkiller,
by now a
cold and heartless individual
who faced defeat and disgrace in the
Battle of Zeiton,
but nonetheless continues
to use his skill with the Dark Side
as an unfair advantage over
the weak-minded and slow-witted.

-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-

= Chapter 1 =

Another blizzard had set in at night, roaring across the tundra and ice-clad mountains of Hoth. Nothing but snow lice could survive in the drastic frigid temperatures. Tauntauns, the native furry lizards that made good mounts, always froze to death before morning came. But no one would know, seeing as they would be buried with feet and yards of ice and hail.

Amongst the thick of the hailing snow was a small hut, constructed of metal. Inside it was relatively warm, but that was compared to the weather outdoors. It was still not very high above zero degrees, but it satisfied the occupants of the hut.

Sitting on their respective beds in each corner of the hut, three beings sat, miserable and wet. There were about a gazillion places they would rather be right now, but currently being in any of them was a bad idea. They were wanted men in all of Republic space, and even outside of it. Instead of fulfilling whatever ideas they were forming, they sat and stared at each other, still miserable and still wet.

Galder Starkiller was one of these men. For now, he was their ringleader, though it meant nothing since they had been sitting in these spots for nearly four months, other than the few times they were skating on the flash-frozen ice at the bottom of meteor craters or collecting food. He was dressed entirely in black, the clothing padded with gray, tangled wampa fur. His jacket was tightened about him, underneath a trench coat; underneath was a poncho made of cheap tauntaun leather. His mechanical hand clutched at the poncho and pulled it tighter.

What am I doing here... he pondered. I could be out...being a...being me! Not hiding in this frozen hole...

Toolok Rah and Takuan Soho were the other two men who had joined him in this hideout of misery and woe. Rah was furred with blue-striped green fuzz, but wore just as much warm clothing as Galder. His purple eyes were narrowed at Galder, his handlebar mustache and odd snout hidden by the puffy brown jacket. Poor Takuan was wrapped in tattered blankets, trapped in a meditative trance that he had been subject to for months.

“Galder...” Rah muttered, slightly muffled by the jacket. “I need to get out of here.”

“We can’t go anywhere,” Galder replied, staring straight ahead at a patch of ice that had formed near his bed on the wall. “Not until the storm is over.”

“You’ve said that before, but we won’t leave after it’s over, either.” The being that was Rah slowly being crushed. Takuan had rather forcefully disallowed him to sing with his unique vocal chords, for his most recent tunes from his home world had been those of melancholy and depression. Underneath his thin fur lay sinewy muscles, portraying his athletic build perfectly. But the last time he had actually been active was too long, according to him.

“We will leave.” Galder lay down on his bed, curled up for warmth.

“No, you won’t allow us,” Rah argued without any emotion in his voice, though Galder could sense his anger. “Just like last time.”

“It’s...it’s storm season...”

“It is always storm season on Hoth, if you haven’t noticed!” Rah finally managed to get his cold vocal chords to allow emotion. “Cold and dead, with lots of wind!”

Galder stopped and thought for awhile. “You’re right.”

Rah was taken aback. “I am?”

“I...” Galder turned over on his bed to face Rah. “I’m afraid of what might happen if we leave Hoth. We have no plans for our future. We relied on Kuy...” Galder stopped and rolled back over.

Rah lay against the wall. “Kuylen.” Galder cringed at the name.

“Do not speak of him...” Galder hissed. “He was wrong and dashed our dreams...”

“It is possible his own dreams were dashed as well, Galder...”

“I don’t care. I only care about my dreams...”

Rah stopped again, joining his friend in thought. Takuan continued to meditate, eyes flicking about under his closed lids.

“Surely you have some idea of something you want to do, if we ever get off of Hoth...”

“We’re still wanted men; there is nothing we can achieve...”

“You’re wrong, Galder. We are three highly dangerous individuals who can influence people in ways that no other can.”

But Galder finished the conversation forcefully. “You forget, Rah, that we still have not found the Conquering Paladin of Hoth, and without my ship, we cannot leave...”

“We should repair that Zeitonian craft we stole then...”

“No use, the technology is unknown to us and it is wrecked beyond repair...”

“But...”

“Nothing you can say will sway me!” Galder rolled over, covering himself entirely with the thick blankets.

= Chapter 2 =

A tauntaun bound over the icy ground easily, the fur-clad lizard-like figure putting one clawed foot down and then the other. Its warmth breath shot out of its flaring nostrils in clouds as it made contact with the frigid air. It made a combination between a growl and a squeal as it came to a halt atop a snowdrift, much to the annoyance of the man on its back.

“Go on, you stupid creature,” Galder growled through a thick scarf. “Move!”

The tauntaun seemed to growl-squeal back at him angrily, and remained stationary.

“Ah, Sith spit...” Galder scanned the landscape with his eyes, taking in the beautiful view. It was a crisp morning, nearly noon, and a light wind tugged at Galder’s clothes, biting at his uncovered ears and neck. The sky was a vibrant blue, stretching like a dome over the snow-covered plains of Hoth. The storm had blown over, as it always did, and a fresh coat of powder snow had blanketed this frozen world, bringing with it a calm quiet that Galder had a strong distaste for. Few dark rocks jutted from the ice, rich in minerals that were completely useless to Galder.

Rocks and snow were not the focus of his trek. Otherwise, he would have stayed wrapped in his blankets and cloaks. No, he was searching for his starship that he had sent away from Dordellus those few months ago. The Conquering Paladin of Hoth was not responding to his ship caller, so Galder assumed that it was trapped under ice.

For Galder, Hoth was home. It was the first world he had ever seen even though he was not born on it. He was reminded of this as the tauntaun began moving again, bounding past the corroded wreckage of a small freighter. Seeing the wreckage of brought painful memories to him, memories of his suffering in the freezing cold as an infant. On one remaining wall of the shattered craft the name of the ship was printed in bold black lettering, with a large black-feathered wing beneath it. The Black Wing of Death. How Galder hated it.

Not too far away from that wreck was the heavily damaged Zeitonian vessel they had commandeered when escaping from Zeiton to avoid a lynching. The sleek ship had received several heavy shots from kinetic cannons before it had left the accursed world. In the eyes of Galder, it was beyond repair.

He looked up to the crisp blue again, but this time the unmarred sapphire of the sky was broken by something small and bright. It shot down through the atmosphere and came to a sudden halt as it punched in the ground only a few feet away from Galder. He was thrown from the tauntaun’s back with the snow and mud that was kicked up by the impact and rolled to a halt some ways down the hill. By instinct, he rose to his feet with lightsaber ignited, blocking the first shot that came his way. The shot had been fired through the snow, so Galder had not yet seen his attacker, though he predicted what it was.

He made his way up the hill with all due speed to the impact crater. Rising up from the smoking pit was a round metal object that made several beeping and whirring noises as its “head” pivoted around. Without a second thought, Galder leaped down upon it, driving the blade through the hull of the droid, which began scratching at him with sharp claws and swiveling its gun about in vain. This lasted all of half a minute, from the moment the white-camouflaged droid hit the ground to the moment it shut off, too heavily damaged by the burning blade. It fell to the bottom of the pit, taking Galder with it as it clanged loudly against a rock, sending sparks shooting from panels, scopes, and photoreceptors.

Galder put away his lightsaber and took his comlink from his belt. “Rah, Takuan, a probe droid landed in sector five.” He had not broken a sweat or increased the pace of his heart within the short battle, yet his instincts were going mad. The droid was dead, but why was he so worried still?

“A probe droid?” Rah’s voice crackled with surprise. “When?”

“A minute ago. I think it was looking for us.”

“Get out...”

“I’m serious, Rah. We are wanted men after all.”

“Then you know we can’t stay here.”

Galder waited a moment, accepting his defeat on the matter. “I know.”

Takuan joined the conversation. “Galder, I’ve found the Paladin. Near the entrance of an ice cave. Did I ever tell you that I do not prefer snow monsters attacking me when I am lifting a ship from underneath snow and ice?”

“Good.” Galder took a second to think of what to do next. “Gather our supplies, we’re heading out.”

“Where to?”

“I have an idea...”

= Chapter 3 =

Galder’s mechanical hand rapped against a plasteel door. He waited a few seconds before knocking again, and finally a man opened the slot on the door.

“Aliha sel valle volgoth?” he asked. Galder could sense great distrust and a pistol in the man’s hands on the other side of the door.

“We are here to see the Great Exulted One himself...” Galder muttered, almost in disbelief that the words had passed from his lips.

“Who?”

Galder shook his head. “I’m not saying that again. Takuan, deal with him...”

Takuan nodded and stepped forwards. He looked tired, but he usually did. “You will let us inside...”

“No, I won’t!” the man argued. “Do you think you are some kind of Jedi?”

“No,” Galder hissed. “Dark Jedi.”

Takuan and Rah stepped away from the door as Galder drew a weird weapon that was hooked up to a small tank and casually took aim. Upon pulling the trigger, a jet of flaming liquid shot forth. The door melted into a slop of burning goo.

The man raised his blaster, but Takuan extended a hand and the gun was torn from his grip. The pistol went hurtling past and clattered along the ground and into the mud. Takuan then turned the Force upon the man, forcing him to his knees. His knees burned severely in the molten metal in the doorway, and he screamed loudly. Two men came to assist him, pistols raised, but their pistols soon joined the first man’s.

“We are here to see Quam Ak-toh, and you will let us in!” Galder rasped, aiming for the men with the plasmathrower. “Or you’ll be joining this man...” Squeezing the trigger, Galder let a burst of the flames land on the man, who was then thrown into the mud across the way by Takuan. A pillar of steam rose from the mud as the man’s gargling screams bubbled from the mud. Takuan’s hand was still extended, and the mud churned and buried the man.

“W-welcome to Sahsahlah,” one of the men quickly stuttered, his complexion becoming pasty white. “This way to Master Quam’s office...”

“Pfft, Master Quam my ass,” Galder hissed, slinging the plasmathrower over his back. “You call him Quam or I kill you...” He marched inside the elaborate Corellian palace with Rah and Takuan flanking him. Tapestries of violet and gold hung everywhere, much to Galder’s annoyance, and guests to the grand ball being held walked about in their finest wear. Seeing as this was Corellia, this consisted of pants, a white shirt, and a rugged vest. Also, seeing as he was wearing Corellian bloodstripes pants but not from Corellia, and he was laden with a deadly arsenal of plasmathrowers and explosive blasters, he received many a queer look as he stomped past with Rah and Takuan in tow.

After going up a grand staircase, which looked disturbingly familiar to Galder though he had never been to Corellia, the men lead them to a large, gold-inlaid door.

“Here is Mast...erm...Quam’s office,” the man spoke steadily. “Enter at your own risk...”

“Whatever...” Galder shoved the man aside violently and opened the door.

The office within very much matched the rest of the small palace, with lots of golden things and velvet tapestries. Comfy furniture crowded the place, and there were blank stone tablets on plinths scattered about the room. The main office area was raised up and they stepped up the few steps to approach the main desk.

“These tablets look familiar,” Takuan commented, pulling one to him with the Force. Galder snatched it from the air and pressed a hand to the back. His hand became warm and a green light shown dully to illuminate the Sith writings.

“That git kept some of the tablets, I see...” Galder realized, putting the one he held back. He approached the desk. “Oh Quam! Where are you Quamy?”

The massive high-backed chair behind the desk swiveled around.

“Well well, if it isn’t my favorite cold-hearted, cold-blooded murderer!” greeted the man in the chair. He wore the neat black robes of a noblemen, a sharp contrast from the cheerful colors of the room, and much less tattered than the original robes that Galder remembered him in. His gray-skinned face gave a twisted smile, his purple eyes holding a terrible gaze of spite. There was not a hint of surprise.

“Predict our coming, I see?” Galder jested, reaching out with his mechanical arm to greet this man.

“Greetings, Mr. Starkiller,” Quam said, taking the cybernetic hand with a black glove. “I see you lost again.”

“And you ditched us on Malastare...” Galder hissed. “We could have used your help.”

Quam put his feet up on the desk and took a sip from his mug. “Aanor ishiia zals. Do you know what that means?”

“Old Corellian,” Galder said. “’Love conquers all.’”

“Correct.” Quam took another sip. “My love of life conquered my lust for power in a crazy dream that Kuylen had. Apparently my senses served me well. There was no Mausoleum, or you wouldn’t be standing before me in rags...”

“There was indeed a Mausoleum,” Galder retorted.

“Oh? Doesn’t explain the rags, or why the Republic is still in the hands of a senseless buffoon like Palpatine...”

“I...” Galder stopped and simply grimaced.

“My point proved.” Quam stood, setting the mug down with a thump and staring at Galder. “Nothing there is far worse than no Mausoleum. You fought to the Mausoleum, and were so sure you had found your power...” he whispered as he edged closer. “...but it turns out all your hard work was for naught.”

Galder just gritted his teeth until Quam backed off.

“Nonetheless, it seems I did not need Kuylen’s fraud myths and counterfeit legends to gain a seat of power, hmm?” Quam gestured to the fine things about him. “Most of this is pure gold, Galder! Kuylen ever give you that?” No reply. “I got friendly with one of the more feminine smuggling ringleaders on Corellia.” He gave a nastier smile. “She got killed by the Hutts, so I took over after...let us say...’gaining the trust‘ of her men. I’m too feared to be displaced, so I shall rule, as a smuggling ringleader, until it does not suit me.

“Min min volgoth noh petchuk, Galder, though it seems it will be so...”

“Means he doesn’t want us to be whoopin’ his ass,” Galder translated for the others, the cue for snickering that did not happen. His cohorts were too tired and solemn to add any comments.

Quam narrowed his eyes, but continued. “It seems as if you have no place to go, chumani. But I can provide accommodations if you decide to do a task for me...with me...”

“Like what, Quam?”

“Well...fetch me my slippers...” Takuan closed his eyes and threw them across the room without moving a muscle, slapping them against Quam’s shoulder. Amused, he slipped them on, then leaned over the desk. “It seems that one of my...’employees,’ shall we call him...is stealing our shipments and taking them to his own smuggling monopoly.”

“And you want us to help you kill him...”

“Precisely. Do that and you can live like kings here in Sahsahlah...”

“...which is modeled after the Archive,” Galder interjected. “The space behind you very much reminds me of the Archives themselves, except that those are knick-knacks and not Sith knowledge...”

“Quiet you ungrateful whelp!” Quam seethed. “I’m trying to offer you a life! You never had one with Kuylen...”

Galder gritted his teeth once more and turned to leave, but Takuan steadied him with a firm hand.

“Galder...” he whispered. “I propose that we stay and work for Quam. It would be most profitable, considering our current condition. You may have had past disagreements with him, but I for one would prefer this palace to Hoth.”

Galder contemplated this for not very long, turning back to Quam. “Fine, we’ll kill this bastard. Who is he?”

“He is known as Tarkin Val’Tala, some Besilisk git. He is based primarily on Nar Shaddaa...”

= Chapter 4 =

The night was bustling with activity. Cantinas were crowded, the airspeeder lanes full of zooming ships, and lights were bright. Aliens and humans alike were shuffling from shop to shop apartment to apartment, looking to participate in the nightlife of Nar Shaddaa. Whether they were partying in clubs or wandering aimlessly, they were on an exciting and dangerous planet nonetheless.

“I hate Nar Shaddaa,” Galder said as they approached a grandly lit, towering skyscraper.

“You hate a lot of things,” Quam reminded. “Just don’t do anything drastically violent until we move to kill Val’Tala...” Slowly, as they entered the spinning glass doors, Quam slipped a familiar gun from his robes. The repeating Tommy blaster was loaded with an extended, gas-filled box cartridge and Quam slipped his finger onto the trigger. Galder nodded in approval, popping out his wrist blaster with a sudden click.

Quam and Galder advanced on the bar when the former opened fire at it. An arc of blue streaks burned into the wooden bar, then smashed across the Rodian bartender’s chest, then into the alcoholic beverages behind him, which lit. Immediately, an alarm rang out, buzzing over the noise of the blaster fire. Quam continued to hold down the trigger, splintering the rest of the wooden bar within seconds.

Every thug in the immediate area began to reach for their guns as Quam blazed away and Galder popped off random shots at their opponents, when suddenly a striped figure leaped through the windows firing a heavy blaster pistol. As the three blasted some down, others were flung through other windows or brutally disarmed by the Force being manipulated by Takuan, who marched through the door with his green lightsaber igniting.

Mooks with heavier weapons began moving in. Shouting from a stairwell, a Talz with dirty fur and a silly army cap with a feather poked through it brought a gargantuan blaster cannon to bear with Quam. The chain-fed individual gas cartridges launched violent red blaster bolts nearly as large as a starship cannon’s, and the spent containers shot out and pattered constantly upon the ground. A Nikto with an odd blaster pistol and a large crooked hunting knife launched himself upon Takuan, knocking his lightsaber out of his hand with a powerful twist. An Amanin headhunter and a Clawdite took aim on Rah with snipers and accurately blew chunks out of the floor very near to his feet.

Galder watched his companions struggle to hold off the skilled individual thugs as well as generic goons and decided that Quam was in the most danger. The blaster bolts exploded, splintering the bar and the floor more so than Quam’s Tommy and placing large holes in the tables. Quam let his Tommy blaster swing loose at his side on a leather strap as a cylinder flew to his hand, the purple blade jumping out readily and batting away the orange bolts. This proved to be effective as lightsabers always did, but still Quam decided to bring out his second lightsaber to aid him. Receiving considerably attention than the others, Galder found a moment to take aim on the Talz with the wrist blaster and pumped two shots.

Vwum! Clack-clack! The shots ricocheted off a flash of yellow, but the yellow was gone and replaced with two pistols in the hands of a bounty hunter. The hunter was clad in blood red armor, his features concealed by a helmet and visor with metal spikes, and squeezed off many shots as he strafed. Galder quick-drew his lightsaber, launching the his red-bladed weapon from his synthetic arm’s compartment and deflecting the shots away. He advanced on the foolish man and whum-whum! divided the blaster pistols in two. He raised his blade to cut down the bounty hunter, but his blade met another.

Turns out this guy can use a lightsaber, eh? Galder thought, amazed at the speed with which he had drawn the thing. Clack-clack! Clack! Sssssshhhh... The red crackled on the yellow for a moment before both combatants spun and reflected shots, from Rah and thugs. They faced off again, blades meeting in a rapid succession of blows before Galder managed to skim the armored hunter’s side, red sparks shooting off the armor. Galder attempted to drive his lightsaber home, but the hunter parried.

“You’re good for a bounty hunter...”

“I make sure I am better than people like you,” he rasped, suddenly slicing across Galder’s forearm. The Dark-Sider recoiled and swung low to block another attack, succeeding in pushing his attacker back.

Rah was having an easy going with the snipers, snapping the shots back. The first ones he thought would strike home instead reflected off of a laser wall that activated a mere second before the bolts would have sizzled into flesh. The barrels of the guns poked out of slots and the barrage continued. They began to strike closer and closer, and finally Rah kicked over a rectangular table and took cover behind it. With a burst of strength, he pushed himself backward with his back to the table, taking it with him as a large cover. He sailed forwards and repeated this action several times until he had reached the wall below the snipers. Satisfied that the barrels could not aim at him, he leaped up. His blade flashed twice, severing the muzzles of the blasters and sealing off the barrels. He landed on the stairway leading up to the sniper’s balcony, and he ran in quickly with another two flashes. The snipers fell vivisected.

The Nikto charged Takuan down after disarming him, thrusting his knife forwards. Takuan moved with great agility and the attack went wide. Takuan reached out with the Force and firmly grabbed the Nikto’s arm, pulling him forwards. He fell flat on his face, his knife taken from him with a snap of Takuan’s fingers. He rose and fired a shot, but Takuan had gotten his lightsaber again, and the shots were reflected into the Nikto’s forehead. Using great instinct, Takuan suddenly flung a table across a line of fire directed towards him, the heavy repeater bolts scorching the wooden tabletop but doing nothing more. The large round table then tackled the repeater’s firer and smashed him against a wall. Another table rolled by Takuan and he ran behind it as two more repeaters opened up on him. This table also was flung forth and bashed the gunners senseless.

Clack-clack! Clack! Clack! CLACK! Galder swung faster and harder, his anger increasing as the bounty hunter feigned jabs and slashed across his arm again. The tips of their blades collided and both lost balance as they slid across each other, tripping one another and each falling into a table or chair. A repeater fired in their quadrant, but Galder rose, enraged, and knocked the shots away. The bounty hunter rose with equal speed but less rage, and moved to attack. Not expecting a riposte, the bounty hunter swung. Galder leaned back, the yellow saber arcing over him. His red blade connected with the yellow again as soon as he regained balance, and held it firmly. Snap-hiss! A deceitful attack of bringing out his blue lightsaber followed, activating it through the bounty hunter’s chest.

Kicking the bounty hunter off his blade, Galder tossed one blade into the air and whipped a Micro UZI from a holster at his belt. He squeezed the trigger and bastic warheads zipped into the stairway that the Talz was standing on. Loud bangs temporarily deafened all, obliterating the Talz in a fiery and painful blast. The heavy cannon dropped to the ground, silenced.

“Well, that went well,” Takuan commented, deactivating his lightsaber and placing it at his belt in one smooth motion. The thugs that remained scampered up the stairs past the scorched corpse of the Talz, meeting similar fates as Galder held down the trigger. The explosive bullets punched in and through them, blowing up inside or throwing them backwards as it exploded in front of them. The UZI clicked as the magazine was spent, so Galder clicked a button on the weapon. The box clip clattered on the ground next to the brass casings.

“Indeed,” Galder agreed, moving forwards to the stairs in a grim march. Nudging aside fallen opponents, he reached down and pulled the cannon and ammunition pack from the dead Talz, putting it on himself. “Are we going to kill Tarkin or not?”

POM-POM-POM! The door that sealed the way onwards was blasted inwards with just three shots, and Galder stepped through the hole and started firing again. Thugs fell screaming as they were stung with the large bolts of energy, plaster walls powdering around them and flesh burning in the barrage. With a cold and heartless expression, Galder marched onwards, completely ignoring all shots coming towards them. None hit. All of his, however, killed upon contact. Soon the room was clear, his companions stepping in behind him.

“Someone is a little angry, hmm?” Rah laughed, stepping in with a pistol drawn. He fired a single shot to ensure that a man on the ground would stop reaching for his blaster.

“Just a tad,” Quam agreed, Tommy blaster poised to fire. “Carnage has always been his specialty.”

POM-POM-POM! Galder shattered another door and stepped through into a small office. It appeared empty to the human eye, but Galder sensed life. He also sensed a trip bomb in the doorway that he had activated, and threw himself backwards as it went off. Unlike previous trip bombs, he had successfully avoided harm.

“Takuan, clear it out,” Galder hissed, getting to his feet again, the cuffs of his pants smoking lightly.

“Yes, Master...” Takuan hissed sarcastically. He was not one to take orders.

Nodding and removing a small metal ball from his belt, Takuan stepped to the door. “You have until the count of three to step out of this office, before I activate this thermal detonator and close the door...” There was a click as Takuan uncovered the detonator pin. “One...two...” There was no response. “Two-and-a-quarter...two-and-a-half...two-and-three-quarters...”

A large figure emerged from the office, waving a pistol in the air. Takuan tossed the dormant grenade to Galder before pulling the weapon from the greasy, over-weight Besilisk. Quam put the muzzle of his blaster to his head with a twisted grin.

“On your knees, Tarkin, you filthy bastard,” Quam ordered, kicking out the back of his legs with a fell stroke. Tarkin said nothing, obviously scared. Quam had the gun to his head, but still did not fire.

“What are you waiting for, Quam?” Galder asked. At the moment, he was furious and in a state of mind that was definitely not healthy for a normal person. “Kill him so I can go sleep in a warm bed...”

“I have a better idea,” Quam hissed, grinning maliciously.

= Chapter 5 =

Another party was being held in Sahsahlah, and this time it was crowd. Many of the houseguests were marveling over the illusions that Master Quam had built into his palace. There was an invisible stairwell spanning over what appeared to be a massive pit and tablets that grew warm and lit up with green writing.

Quam sat at the head of his banquet table, seated at which were mostly men he had done business with and his smugglers. Galder, Rah, and Takuan sat on his sides. Rura Ta had turned up for the party, and seated himself on Galder’s right.

“Ladies and gentlemen!” Quam called out, silencing the dining hall. “I am proud to announce that we have new additions to our businesses that have proven themselves. Remember that Mr. Val’Tala was discovered to be stealing our shipments?” He clapped twice and the unhappy Besilisk emerged from a door, an odd silvery collar around his neck.

“What?” he asked. Quam waggled his finger in disapproval, then tapped a button his gauntlet. Tarkin Val’Tala began to gag as an electric shock jumped from the collar to his throat.

“Yes...Master...Quam?” he steadily voiced in a hoarse tone.

“Get me some salt for my food...” Val’Tala began to drag his feet as he moved away, when another jolt made him march with pride from the room. Not that he had any choice. “Thata boy...” The table of Quam’s employees roared with approving laughter.

“Our new members are Galder Starkiller, our killing-addict...” The room fell silent at the mention of his name.

I like that... Galder thought as Quam continued with the introductions and their sarcastic side comments. I like being feared.

-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-

Nights on Corellia were warm, which Galder greatly appreciated. It was raining now, but it was still considerably warmer than it would have been on Hoth. He embraced the balmy sheets of rain with a sense of peace, stretched out upon a waterproof cot. It had been a month since the Val'Tala job and Quam had advised that the others regain their health and fitness before starting out again into their lives in the Outer Rim. They only left Sahsahlah at night for fear of being spotted by unsavory folk, but Galder never left at all.

“Enjoying the sunshine?” Quam asked, coming out upon the balcony, shrouded by a black cloak that kept the rain off.

“As much as I can,” Galder replied, not opening his eyes.

“Good, because you cannot stay here any longer.”

Galder jolted up from his cot. “What?”

“Rah was recognized by an officer of CorSec.”

“Who? I’ll kill him and be done with it...”

“...if you want CorSec after you before tomorrow comes.” Quam sat down in a chair opposite of Galder, his face masked by the darkness of his hood. “Officer Gabe Trilanger was the man who spotted Rah.”

“Trilanger?”

“The name familiar? His son is a Jedi...”

“Roan Trilanger! Bah! I should have killed that wretch when I had the chance. I fought him on Zeiton.”

“Well, that makes the case all the more dangerous for me. You must leave before Trilanger files an investigation. If you are long gone by the time they do anything about the sighting of a striped furry man who is known for mass murder, you can come back when it blows over.”

Galder just stared out across the balcony to the oceans of Corellia. “This is not how things used to be.”

“That’s not my problem,” Quam hissed, then went back inside. “I want you and the others out by morning. If you are not, I will turn you over to CorSec myself.”

“You wouldn’t...”

“I can and I will if you are still here.” Quam waited a moment, fixing Galder with a glare. “Well? What are you waiting for?” Galder now took notice of the barrel of a gun bulging underneath the cloak. “Get going.”

Not wanting to put one of his only safe-havens at risk, Galder rose without a word and went inside, Quam at his back.

= Chapter 6 =

Odd customs and ancient ruins from a bizarre religion were abound in the marshy regions of Alouloth. There were no modern civilizations to speak of, and the ancient peoples known as the Alouans had been wiped out by a plague borne by water, designed by Sith alchemists. Massive trees towered above the soggy, disgusting mud that blanketed Alouloth. In the deeper forests, far away from the twinkling green seas that contained ancient secrets stored in the dilapidated wrecks of Sith starfighters, the ground was hardened by the trees sucking every liquid from the rich muddy soil, leaving nothing but unfertile dirt. This in turn had killed the trees centuries ago, a process aided by the Sith. In every aspect, Alouloth was either disturbingly mysterious or horridly gross.

A small freighter had set down in a small clearing of sickly green muck. A trail of footprints pressed up the knees into the mud led away from the ship towards the dead forests. They went on for about a mile before they passed the rotting corpse of a man that had been hewn in half.

“Tell me the story again of how your friend ended up there...”

“It was horrible,” reminisced a rusty old space pilot, stroking his stubble out of nervous habit. He lacked many teeth, and his S’s made whistling noises when he spoke them. “My cohort said that he saw something out in the woods...”

“What kind of something?” Galder asked, a blaster pistol pressed against the old man’s back.

“I’m not sure! It was robed...yes, that’s it, brown robes! Very tattered and grimy...but that’s all I saw of the thing!”

“What happened then?”

“Well, we went on for a bit...when he said he saw it again...then he shouted a cry of alarm. All I saw was a blue flash and he fell in two.”

“Dreadful...now, where did you say these ruins were that you saw it for yourself?”

“I swear it was a house, youngin’! Not those damned ruins, but a real house!”

“Fine, it was a house,” Galder hissed, moving the barrel of the gun to the back of the elderly pilot‘s head. “Where was it, old-timer?”

“The clearing up there, I swear it!”

“You have served your purpose then...” A shot rang out in the dead silence of this world, and the old man fell into the muck with a sickening gurgle as his last breath bubbled up from the mud.

Galder put the pistol away and followed the trail of markings on trees that the old man had left there on his last journey. The old pilot had been drinking heavily in a bar, and his drunken ranting was of particular interest to Galder. His last journey had been one of horror and terror, according the old pilot. At the time, Galder was willing to follow any random lead to achieve his hopeless goal.

He stepped into the clearing, pistol still held in the aiming position, one eye glaring down the sight. Swiveling his aim about, he made sure the area was secure. He could sense something was queer about the clearing, but he dropped his aim nonetheless. He raised it again as he approached a small, rickety house that sat on the edge of the clearing.

“Hello?” he called out. No reply.

The house was poorly constructed. A wall had caved in on the two-room dwelling, perhaps due to rotting wood. It had a single wooden door, splintered and burnt, but no windows. Galder had briefly sensed someone or something within the house, but it was brief enough for him to be unsure whether it was sentient or not.

“Hello?” he tried again. Still no response.

The door crumbled easily when he kicked it in. It had not been locked, or even closed, but Galder somehow felt he needed to be aggressive. But, before the splintered shards of door hit the floor, they were suddenly whipped up and scratched against Galder by an unseen hand.

The Force is at work here... Galder noted, firing a warning shot into the air. But soon the gun was gone, torn violently from his grip and buried in the muck.

“I am still armed,” Galder warned. In a flash, he had drawn his red lightsaber as the shaft of another lightsaber smashed against his.

“I know,” replied the wielder, a female in tattered brown robes. “You are always armed, Galder.”

“Of course,” Galder laughed, forcing away the girl’s blade. “Edna.”

Indeed, it was Edna. Galder was thrown backwards by a powerful push from her powers. He slid across the mud on his back, sinking in as he went. He pushed his way out of the muck, spitting mud from his mouth.

“Hello to you too!” Galder spat, wiping mud from his clothes and hair.

“There is nothing here for you, Galder,” Edna told him, dropping her guard. “And I do not intend to leave Alouloth until it is time.”

“Time for what?”

“I do not know. The Force will tell me when and what whenever it needs to.”

Galder walked towards her, but she extended a hand and the mud began to consume his legs. “No! Edna, stop this!”

She stopped, waving the mud away with a flick of her wrist. “I cannot help you, whatever it is you want.”

“I am searching for veterans of Kuylen’s service...”

“I know.”

“Then come with me! What good are your powers if you cannot use them?”

She remained silent, but she pulled back her hood. She was no longer the image of a beautiful youth. Her face and hair were caked with mud. Her eyes were red and glassy, and probably very itchy. Her blonde curls were no longer blonde or curly, but tangled gray. Her skin was pale and stretched, and in some places it had been discolored to sickly green or yellow.

“The Dark Side consumed me, Galder.”

He shook his head in disbelief. “No...”

“I cannot help you because I cannot help myself...”

“No! The Dark Side brings strength!”

“No, Galder, it doesn’t...” She advanced on him, glaring at him without blinking as she sloshed through the mud.

“You‘re!” Galder cried, igniting his lightsaber again. “You’re crazy!”

“No, Galder...” She raised a hand, and the mud began to rise onto him again. It crept up his legs, up to his waist; waves of mud slamming against his body without mercy. The mud dried and fizzled against his lightsaber blade. The wind had grown loud in his ears, hardening the mud as it crawled on him. “I am dead.”

Just before Galder sunk into the muck over his head, she disappeared. The mud stopped burying him and the wind stopped tearing at his face. He remained still for a long time, unsure if it was safe for him to move. He now sensed that someone was inside and was intent on talking to her. He pulled himself up from the mud, wiping at the mud absent-mindedly as he reached out with the Force to find his lightsaber. It was buried in the mud were it had been pulled out of his hand, but he could not tug it up. He stood there, hand clenched and face screwed up as he tried to focus his frustration into power. But it was too much for his powers. He was not powerful enough to pry his blade from deep in the mud.

Suddenly, the mud pealed back and his blade easily returned to his hand. Someone put a hand on his shoulder, and he spun, nearly lopping the arm off if it were not for her quick reflexes.

“You have not left yet?” asked Edna. Her robes were indeed tattered and muddy, but her face had returned to its youthful beauty, her hair somewhat matted with mud, but still blonde and curly. Her eyes were no longer red and glassy, but blue and clear.

“*****, what did you do?” Galder inquired, still frustrated and scared.

“It was all an illusion, Galder,” Edna explained. “My illusions can fool all but the most powerful of Jedi.”

Galder reached out to slap her, but his hand was restricted.

“Tsk-tsk, Galder, I see you still have not managed to keep your temper down.”

“I dwell off of my anger...” he smirked.

Edna simply shook her head. “I still cannot help you.”

“Why?”

“I do not intend to leave. The Force tells me that now is not the time for me to go back into the Galaxy. You are without Kuylen, as am I.”

“How do you know I am?”

“Would you have time to search for me if you were still under his leadership?”

Galder looked about, somewhat crestfallen at being so predictable. She placed her hand on his shoulder again.

“You have your own path, Galder Starkiller,” she said, confidently. She released her Force grip on his arm and pushed him away from her, heading back to her house. “Go find it.”

Galder stared after her until she disappeared into the shadow of her slumping house. Night was falling on lightless Alouloth, so Galder took his leave, quickly making his way back to the dead pilot’s freighter and powering it up. One last pass over Edna’s clearing told him that she had made a bonfire. She sat by it, the flames licking at her but bending away at the last second as she performed some ritual.

“Suit yourself, Edna...” he hissed, before leaving Alouloth for what he told himself would be the last time.

= Chapter 7 =

The freighter set down quietly, shrouded by the desert storm just outside of Bestine, near the abandoned Gresham home. Sitting outside the domed entrance was the sandblasted Conquering Paladin of Hoth and another freighter. A body lay strewn in the sands, shot multiple times in the chest, dried and shriveled by the intense heat of the binary suns.

Galder strutted through the sandstorm and ducked into the entrance dome, pulling off his protective goggles and tossing them aside. He rushed down the stairs into the power generator room, which smelled of grease and machinery. Sitting at a battered table upon stools were Rah and Takuan, taking turns drinking from a liquor bottle.

“I take it you did not find Wraith or Kaliero?” Galder asked.

“No success whatsoever!” Rah replied. “They were on Nar Shaddaa for sure, we found Kaliero’s ship...”

“The Black Dawn?” Galder remembered the ship only vaguely, but he remembered it was a sleek and graceful starfighter of Arnian design, an icy silver with black highlights, Black Dawn painted in Arnian characters on the fuselage. Kaliero had sent the starfighter to Arnia before they had set out for Zeiton.

“Yeah, was that one...”

“And?”

“The fled Nar Shaddaa before we could talk to them in person. Wraith left me a message...”

“Well, let me see it!”

Rah set the small holoprojector on the table and activated it. With a buzz and a flicker, Wraith stood as a miniature upon their table, arms folded. Wraith had discarded his heavy blast armor at the time of recording.

“Greetings,” Wraith spoke, somewhat distorted by the bad quality of the recording. “I took note of Takuan and Rah following us, and I am assuming that Galder is behind them somewhere.” He twiddled his finger in a sort of taunt, flashing a wide grin. It quickly faded to a nasty sneer. “Galder, listen to me, and listen carefully...if you try to find me, the three of us will kill you...”

Three? Galder pondered.

“Kaliero and I are training our apprentice, Ker’Raos...”

“Ker’Raos?” Rah said, letting the name roll off his tongue. “Wasn’t he Kaliero’s Lieutenant on Zeiton?”

Before he had finished his sentence, Kaliero and Ker’Raos stepped into the view of the recording, though considerably distorted and faded compared to Wraith. Galder could make out several black tattoos etched into the Zeitonian’s moist skin. He looked considerably healthier than the Zeitonians that they had met on Zeiton.

“Ker’Raos is thriving well in the Galaxy away from Zeiton, and has become a considerably dangerous swordsman...” Wraith announced, as if claiming some sort of victory. “’Past the radiation belt...’” The three of them in the hologram chuckled at the joke.

“Bastard...” Galder seethed.

“So you see, you will not be allowed to pursue us. In fact, you cannot pursue us! Arnia here we come!” There was a final laugh, and the hologram shut off.

“Well, to Arnia!” Rah declared, getting up from the table. But Galder stayed him.

“No, we cannot follow them...” Galder sighed.

“Why not? We’re more dangerous than they are...”

“It’s where they are going that we cannot follow them. Arnia is very tight on expelling outsiders...” Galder looked up to Rah. “...or executing them. No one I know- or knew- has gotten past their security systems...”

“So...whom does that leave to us?”

“Jolanta, but I don’t even want to try finding her...”

“How did it go with Edna?”

“It was...um...disturbing...at best...” Galder tried to explain, but Rah just rolled his eyes.

“She is powerful,” Takuan commented from the table, staring blankly at the holoprojector and biting at his thumb.

“Damn straight she is, Takuan,” Galder agreed. “It’s a shame she wouldn’t leave Alouloth...”

There was silence for a long time. Galder left the power generator room and wandered over to the rest of the vacant dwelling. The Greshams were buried in what had once been the planter, which had been green and lively with desert shrubbery. A single stone marked their graves, chiseled from their dinner table by Galder’s lightsaber.

“Damned Sand People...” Galder hissed under his breath. Looking up, he took notice that the spears he had put up around the walls of the central area. Skewered on each spear were several skulls, taken from the shoulders of the Tusken Raiders that had killed the Greshams. Ragged bandages and damaged protective masks hung limply from the skulls, blown about by the sands of the storm above him. Clouds of sand passed overhead, and viciously took one or two of the spears.

“I hope the ships will survive this,” Takuan said, coming up behind Galder.

“No worries,” Galder calmed. “There have been worse storms on Tatooine. Besides, the only ship that matters is mine.”

“Right.” Takuan looked up that the Sand People skulls. “Nice decorations.”

“I quite agree!” Galder exclaimed, as one of the heads fell near him and smashed against the floor. “I went on a killing spree after they slaughtered the Greshams...”

Crack! A bullet struck the ground an inch from Galder’s foot. Crack! Another shattered a skull and nearly struck Takuan.

“Sand People!” Galder shouted, igniting his red lightsaber. “Get inside!”

They threw themselves prone as more shots hit a little too close and then combat-crawled into the kitchen. Something exploded on the surface above them, tossing burning hunks of metal into the central area.

“My ship!” Galder cried in a panic, hopping to his feet and rushing out again, grabbing a protective mask on the way. Pulling it on, he held his lightsaber out in front of him. Just as several sniper shots came his way, he leaped up to the second level of the central area, slipping silently into a storage room that connected with the power generator.

Within the power generator, Rah had drawn his pistol and was shooting at the entrance. From Galder’s viewpoint, Sand People were attempting to push their way in. As Rah ducked for cover behind a machine, Galder crept his way up the side of the room. The Tuskens began to enter, seeing that Rah had retreated, when Galder performed a hack-slash draw, slicing through an attacker with ease. A cry went up among the remaining three, who were cut down swiftly.

“Galder, they’ve got me pinned!” Takuan intoned on the comlink. “Snipers up top!”

Galder picked up a rifle from one of the dead Sand People and slowly left the power generator. The sandstorm was dying down, but was still intense enough to throw off his shots by the speed of the wind and the sand obscuring his view. However, Galder showed great skill with the ranged slugthrower, aiming with guidance from the Force rather than with the simplistic scope and putting a precise shot into the side of one opponent sniper on the edge of the central area pit. He rolled over and fell upon one of the spears.

“Ha!” Galder laughed victoriously. The bullet had arched dramatically, but he had still hit his target.

“Urrorur!” roared one of the snipers, who got to his feet as Galder put another shot into the forehead of his comrade. He charged Galder down with a gaffi stick, holding the hooked club end high above his head, gripping the rusty metal shaft tightly. He slammed the clubbed end down, Galder rolling aside so that the club hit the sand rather than his head. The Sand Person swung again, this time with the bladed end, cutting across Galder’s shoulder.

Snap-hiss! The red blade sparkled as sand melted against it, and it arced upwards to cut the gaderffii in two. But this Tusken Raider was obviously of some skill, for he now wielded these two halves efficiently. He swung with the bladed end, which clanged against Galder’s cybernetic arm harmlessly. Galder took this opportunity to seize the Tusken’s arm and flipped him down into the sand, pulling the blade away from him. The clubbed side, however, hit his shin in retaliation, only to be flung away by Galder’s use of the Force.

As Galder raised his lightsaber to finish the Sand Person, he suddenly produced a hand-held slugthrower and fired point-blank into Galder’s upper arm. Two shots punched through with a puff of blood, forcing Galder back. Another four shots missed, but two more hit him in the left thigh. He fell backwards with a cry of pain, dropping his lightsaber with the Tusken Raider towering over him.

“Urrorurrorur!” the monster hollered at him, thrusting the pistol into the air jubilantly. He reached down for the gaffi stick of a fallen comrade, then lifted it high above his head. He gave another cry before letting the clubbing end fall...

Vwum! His hands were severed by an attack from behind. Howling in pain, the Tusken Raider turned to see his attacker, who swiftly beheaded him. The body fell away, revealing Takuan, putting away his weapon.

“Are there any more?” Takuan asked, looking around as the sandstorm began to subside.

“No...” Galder cringed as he tried to get up. “I got them.”

“Good.” Takuan helped Galder up and they stumbled over to the Paladin. Takuan had been hit the lower leg.

“They’re accurate,” Galder said. “Sand People are practiced snipers.”

“They also blew up one of the freighters and disabled the other...” Takuan noticed, gesturing to the burning scrap.

“But they didn’t touch my ship!” Galder chuckled, patting the hull of the Paladin.

A rifle shot from a great distance ricocheted off the armor plating next to Galder’s hand.

“Alright, let’s go!” Rah urged, jumping up from the central area then onto the ship. “I don’t like being shot!”

More Sand People rushed on the scene as the Paladin rose steadily into the air. Rah fired a few pistol shots down into the nomadic warriors before ducking inside the craft, which left the atmosphere and Tatooine once more.

= Chapter 8 =

A group of Northern Naadal elite commandos moved swiftly and silently through the night, guns held at the ready. Their light blaster rifles were their weapons of choice, and could be charged to fire intense flurries of lasers, though it would overheat the battery or empty it. One man in the group was registered as a heavy gunner, which in Northern terms meant he was equipped with a light repeater and wearing light blast armor.

Weaklings... Galder thought. They need a stronger military.

As the commanding officer of the group passed his hiding spot, Galder lunged from his hiding spot in the shadows of the ruins. Snap-hiss! The officer gave a cry as the lightsaber was driven through his gut. The dozen soldiers behind him staggered back in surprise as the new threat turned his gaze on them with a malicious grin.

“Hello!” Galder greeted, kicking the officer’s dead body aside. “Where do you think you’re going?” He had discarded his threadbare black clothes for the black-and-gray uniform of a Southern Naadal soldier, and his infamous heavy assault rifle was slung over his back. He held the glowing red blade in one hand, angled towards the soldiers.

“We are on a mission to destroy the power generators of the Southern Naadal encampment up ahead,” replied one of the soldiers, who must have been second in command. “Stand aside, or we shall be forced to destroy you.”

Galder simply laughed and kicked the dead officer further out of the way, and slid the blaster compartment out of his false arm.

“You have until the count of...agh!” One shot fizzled into the dead center of the man’s forehead.

“Aim!“ yelled another soldier. The remaining troops raised their weapons.

“You’re joking me...” Galder chuckled again, disarming the wrist blaster.

“Fire!” Blaster bolts whizzed his way, but he slipped to the side, behind the ruins again. The heavy gunner let loose a sporadic burst of fire, the bolts randomly hitting a wall opposite of Galder’s hiding spot.

As the troops advanced, Galder slipped off to the side, where Takuan was hiding in the grass. He made a hand motion, signaling for Takuan to do his part. Takuan made another hand motion, this time, and one of the soldiers suddenly flicked his head about at the noise of what he thought might have been cracking twigs under a heavy boot.

“Over here!” he declared, raising his gun in the general direction of the sound. He heard it again, and again, and slowly but surely he had assembled the remaining troops. Takuan had lured them all successfully.

“I swear I heard it over...” Snap. “There it is again!”

“You’re hearing things, Veron...”

But soon they were all hearing it, and to them it seemed as if they were being surrounded.

In the cover of darkness and foliage, Galder produced a large cylinder from a satchel Takuan had brought with him. He pushed a button on the chassis and quickly scrambled out to set it in front of Takuan, who rose and retreated into the bushes with him. The soldiers fired a few shots at seeing them, but screamed in terror as the anti-personnel auto-turret Galder had activated armed its heavy gun. In a burst of light and fire, the auto-turret obliterated the soldiers...except for the heavy gunner, who had been saved by a fellow soldier. However, the auto-turret produced a thick wall of black smog, effectively covering the Dark Jedi’s escape.

The heavy gunner wandered aimlessly through the smokescreen, coughing and choking on the gas, randomly firing his repeater into the trees on the edge of the ruins.

“Come on you bloody bastards!” he sobbed. “You took my friends, so I’ll take...agh!”

The heavy gunner fell forwards, sliding off of Galder’s lightsaber. Takuan approached his companion and used the Force to fling a sizeable amount of earth over the gunner.

“Where did you learn to strategize like that, Takuan?” Galder asked. “Very much unlike you to understand combat...”

Takuan had a slight glint in his eye. “You didn’t grow up on M02513.”

M for mining, Galder noted. Must be a mining colony.

Galder and Takuan rushed to the rendezvous point, where Rah was waiting in their escape vehicle, a landspeeder with a heavy gun emplacement at the rear. Rah rode shotgun, but moved back to the heavy gun as Galder hopped in, cocking his assault rifle and laying it on the dash. In the driver’s seat was Galder’s old friend, the lanky and slightly disturbed Kaminoan known as Rura Ta.

“Well done,” Rah congratulated. “More money in our wallets.”

“A hundred credits for each trooper eliminated...” Galder chuckled as the landspeeder took off.

“...spread out between the four of us,” Rura reminded. “That’s three hundred credits for each of us, twelve hundred total.”

“A guy could have a pretty good weekend on Nar Shaddaa with some of that money,” Galder stated. “Now hush! We don’t want to get caught by more of those elites. Element of surprise, all the way.”

The black landspeeder took off into the night, disappearing from the scene behind an dilapidated Southern warehouse.

-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-

The concentration of fire upon his friends was heavy. Their black, armored speeder had lost an engine due to a stray shot from a immobile blaster cannon and crashed into the ruins of a mostly destroyed warehouse. Galder had slipped away from the wreckage unseen, but his trio of friends were now pinned. A larger troop transport had been following them, but had been hit with several anti-armor weapons. It had crashed on top of the black speeder, mashing it beyond recognition.

It is fortunate that the North doesn’t trust their troops with thermal detonators... Galder thought as he hid amongst a pile of crates that had spilled from the warehouse during previous skirmishes in the area.

Crouching behind the crates, Galder made his way around the freshly burning warehouse, assault rifle handy. At that exact moment, an enemy soldier crept around a corner in front of him, armed with a silence pistol. Without a second thought, Galder rushed forwards and broke his ribs with a powerful punch from his mechanical arm then smashed him upside the head with the butt of his rifle. Resuming his crouched position, he grabbed the silenced pistol and hid the assault rifle under some crates. A mortar went off nearby, so he took the opportunity of the loud blast to rush up to the other side of the building.

Ksst! The silenced pistol let loose a shot into the back of a heavy gunner’s head. Galder hid himself behind the bulky man and fell with him, the massive body falling atop him. A friend of the now dead man rushed over to see if he could help, but Galder put multiple shots into the legs of the man. He stumbled and fell headlong into a crate, which splintered under his weight. Galder combat-crawled away from the anguished man, towards the repeater, which the heavy gunner had dropped.

Rising to full height over the fence, Galder surveyed the situation and took note of two soldiers that were particularly aggravating to his companions. One of them put in a shot that singed Rah’s fur on his upper arm. Lifting the repeater up, Galder squeezed and held down the trigger, emptying the gas cartridge. The shots ripped through the two men, who flopped over a low wall.

He had been spotted by now, and several shots came his way. The stationary cannon that had been set up blew a chunk out of the metal fence, warping it severely and tossing a clump of hot earth over Galder. He lay flat, as if he had been killed, until the attention was off of him. Then he crawled away again.

He made his way back to where he had killed the pistol-armed man and past it to another low wall in an alleyway. A gargantuan, inert missile launcher that had been use to blow the troop transport open sat waiting for an operator in front of him, so Galder quickly left cover to arm it. It was loaded with a single shell, but a sniper bullet caught him in the side. Galder jerked sideways to avoid another shot, which burned into the power pack operating the missile launcher, shutting it down with a small flash.

“Damn it!” Galder cursed, applying pressure to the half-cauterized wound.

His previous cover revealed from his foolish charge to the launcher, he sprinted across the battle-torn street with aid from the Force, speeding his motions greatly. Shots whizzed past his head, but he was too fast a target for the Northern troops.

“Ambush him!” a cry went up. Three elite commandoes leapt from a second story window, landing on their feet with repeaters at the ready. Galder fell back, crossing the street again as the guns roared to life, a shot skimming his shoulder. He strafed as he moved backwards, but soon was relieved of his worries as Rah had salvaged the gun emplacement from their speeder and propped it up on a crate. The three commandoes were hit several times and thrown backward into walls, one of them tumbling down a set of stairs.

A volley of grenades began to explode around Galder, so he retreated back, once more, to where he killed the first man. A few of the grenade bursts showered him with dust. He holstered the pistol and hid among the crates again, grabbing the assault rifle from its hiding place.

Now what? Galder asked himself, putting pressure on his injury. There are too many...

Suddenly, the comlink crackled. He waited for artillery bursts to hit before he checked it, covering his voice with the explosion.

“Specialist Starkiller here.”

“Starkiller...” It was the command headquarters. “Takuan...message...requesting...”

“You’re breaking up, Captain...”

“Air...we’re...way...bombers...”

The connection broke, but Galder had sussed what he was saying.

Using to Force to guide him to a weakened section of wall, or shatterpoint as the Jedi called. He fired a barrage of lasers to weaken it further, then threw himself against the wall. It crumbled and he went straight into the side of the smoking black speeder.

“Galder!” Takuan hollered at him from inside. “Did the Captain contact you?”

“Yes! You called an air strike?” Galder tumbled over the hood of the speeder and joined Takuan inside, just as a volley of bolts struck where he had been only a second before.

“We need one. My senses tell me that we’re surrounded. We’re done for if they don’t make it in time.”

Galder shook his head. “We don’t need air support! If they could just send a few soldiers...”

“It’s on a much larger scale, Galder. A few soldiers would do nothing.”

With a growl, Galder left the speeder and headed to what was left of the upper level via leap. From the viewpoint he had, he could see several soldiers moving in. Scouring the streets with his eyes, he narrowed his eyes into a stony glare when he realized that two armored vehicles were on their way. Northerners emerged from houses or took up sniper positions.

A few remained on the ground, laying flat with their bodies stretched out. They had large guns set up in front of them.

“PRC!” Galder shouted down to the others. A PRC was a portable repeating cannon, which was what the those large guns were. They were not especially accurate, but their rate of fire was astounding.

Br-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-rr-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-rip! One of the PRC’s let loose, a cloud of laser bolts pummeling at Rah’s cover behind a wall. Another volley bit through the armored hull of the speeder.

One shot from Galder’s assault rifle hit the massive energy tank plugged into the PRC that had targeted the speeder. A bright flash and a cloud of smoke left the PRC useless and its operator dazed. Aiming to finish him off, Galder fired again, but his shot missed just narrowly as the gunner rolled to the side and drew his pistol.

One of the armored vehicles that Galder had spotted, a halftrack, barreled through the ruins of a building. It contained about a dozen men, all of them sporting the green uniforms of commandos.

Poomf! Galder fired a missile from the second barrel. He had intended to hit the driver’s cab, but instead struck the commandos. The halftrack kept going, despite the fact it was now filled with wounded men. The gunner in back still fired a light repeater that was built into a small turret. It continued its suicide run until it smashed into the back of the black speeder, crunching it through the wall.

Suddenly, Galder’s senses flared. Danger!

With a daring leap, Galder fell from the building as it began to collapse. As it imploded, falling debris and dust and explosions consumed Galder. As he fell, he twisted back to look up, taking notice of the bomber craft now floating overhead. Bombs raced past him, and he fell into their fire. Then hit the black speeder’s roof. He was knocked unconscious, something he was quite used to by now.

-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-

He came to his senses when someone splashed cold water on his face. Everything was a blur, and his right arm hurt terribly.

“Here we are again, Galder!” a furry striped thing said to him. “On the ground after getting hit with bombs!” It was Rah, crouch next to a tall gaunt man in a black uniform.

“Good work, Specialist Starkiller,” said the man , towering over him and the medic attending him. The medic was Takuan. “You landed yourself smack-dab in the center of the North’s route to the next battle.”

“Did I now?” Galder asked from the ground, still groggy. “How long have I been out?”

“Three hours.”

Galder pushed himself up and looked around. He was sitting in a pile of rubble, which was still smoldering. All other buildings around them were demolished, all devoted to burning to nothing. A Southern bomber, in all its scratched and bulky glory, with a trio of wings and massive engines, had landed next to where Galder sat.

“How’d the air strike go?”

“Destroyed everything. The city of Dere Palasi dem Gärtän is gone.”

Galder rubbed his jaw. It hurt too. “Well, that was abrupt.”

“When the war is over it with be rebuilt...”

“Right...” Galder got to his feet and headed into the bomber, the Captain and Takuan following him. “Right...”

= Chapter 9 =

The Second Battle of Pycin Chi could be described in three sentences.

Two factions.

Two islands.

One bridge.

Pycin Chi was actually the universal name for two islands out in the largest sea on Naadal, which translated to Basic, was the Sea of Great Fury. The two islands, Pycin Kurz being the smaller and Pycin Gross the large, had been Southern Naadal military bases. In the First Battle of Pycin Chi, a Northern Naadal battle cruiser had floated silently over the water and landed a force of several hundred elite troops, effectively forcing all the Southerners from Pycin Gross to Pycin Kurz.

Now they were making an attack to finish off the Southerners who had survived the First Battle. The battle cruiser had been severely damaged by torpedoes from patrol boats and sent back to the North. However, another large craft had arrived, carrying supplies and soldiers from Old Ross to the South.

The North had deployed their entire force upon the bridge, and the treaded wheels of their armored vehicles slowly lurched forwards. The foremost ones had a phalanx of soldiers ahead of them, armed with light blaster rifles and electropoles. Halfway across the bridge, they were met with another force. There were war cries as the first shots were fired.

The battle had begun.

The South soldiers were all armed with the heavy assault rifles and pistols that they had been using for years. Galder Starkiller had favored this rifle during his adventures with Kuylen, but his had been cleaved in two.

The Southern troops, despite their heavy rifles, fell back at the rapid stream of bolts. Some were skewered upon the electropoles as the North advanced, pinning them to the wooden flooring of the bridge.

“Open fire!” ordered a commander from the top of the head vehicle. The Northern soldiers stopped their advanced and froze in fear as they looked upon the head vehicle and the two flanking it.

“AATs, front and center!” a shout went up among the ranks. Before they could react, the lower anti-personnel guns roared to life on all three heavy tanks. The bolts zipped across the bridge, splintering wood, then meeting flesh and riddling the soldiers with lasers. The upper, heavier cannons began to concentrate their blaster fire on the foremost vehicles, battering their strong frontal plating. Then, the powerful main cannon on each tank fired once. The three armored vehicles at the head of the three columns exploded upon being hit, one of them merely being caught in the blast and knocked onto its side. The medium cannons focused on the underside of the immobile vehicle until they struck the gas tank.

The gas tank burst, thrusting the halftrack-like vehicle over the edge of the bridge. It hit the water with an enormous splash. Slowly, it sunk beneath the salty blue water, putting off steam as the heated metal cooled.

Pressed up against a support pillar underneath the bridge, Galder and Rah both let out sighs of relief.

“Well, that was close,” Rah commented. “We were almost crushed...again...”

Galder quieted him by rapping him over the head with a finger. “Quiet!”

Headed by Rah and Galder, a group of Southern soldiers made their way across a sandbank then waded through shallow water. On the other side of the bridge, Takuan led another squad. Their objective was to flank those on the bridge, then begin the counter-attack.

Several times they were almost spotted, but most of the soldiers who espied them in the waters never got a second glance. The three AATs were effectively smashing aside anything that attempted to fight back. Anyone who stopped to look down at the squads making their way over sandbanks and between support pillars would get blown away.

Rah started to whistle a tune to get himself started...

“No!” Galder urged. “No whistling!”

“Ah, Galder!” Rah groaned. “I can’t get into the feel of battle if I’m not singing...”

“You know how I feel about...” A flurry from the light rifles above them fizzled into the water around Galder and Rah, whom both dove beneath an oncoming wave put forth by another fallen vehicle.

Underneath the water, Galder could see the light from the bolts as they fizzled into the top of the water they stopped. More astounding, though, was the amount of wreckage beneath the water. The water of Naadal was surprisingly clear, and he could see quite a ways down. Sunken ships, vehicles similar to the armored craft the North used, modern and older, and several other things, all punctured by blasts and rusted with time.

Galder came up for air. One of his twenty men had been blasted down near him.

“We lost Private Wilhelm sir...gah!” The soldier who had alerted him of the loss was cut off as a blaster bolt hit him in the neck. He fell on the sandbank and writhed in pain, then rolling into the water to die.

“Return fire!” Galder ordered. They were nearing the Gross side of the bridge. It was a sheer rock wall, rather than the soft sands of Kurz. “Climb the bridge!”

The men gave war cries and leapt towards the support pillars. They unhooked ascension guns from their packs and fired upwards. Galder did likewise to keep from drawing attention to his powers. He had enough attention being at the head of the group.

The ascension guns were a piece of work. The Southern government had based them off of the Nubian S-5 blaster pistol, the standard sidearm of the Naboo forces. However, the South liked everything larger. The SN-10 repeating pistol had a enormous battery pack and an enlarge cable reservoir, allowing the ascension attachment to develop up to thirty meters of syntherope. It also had three scopes strapped to it that could be switched by flicking them about with the thumb. One was a standard scope and the second one was a rangefinder. The third scope was an addition from the South that employed an infrared vision from the Techno Union. The whole thing was bulky, but it was very handy.

Galder brought it out and took aim. He flicked the safety off and set the ammunition for the ascension gun. He did this all in one motion, while his men were cumbersome with the weapons. He and Rah were already winching themselves up by the time they had even fired the magnetic harpoon into the bridge.

Rah started singing again just as they reached the top, but this time Galder did not silence him. Despite the headache it caused, it scared their opponents shitless. They were caught off guard as the Dark-Siders leapt up, wielding the SN-10 pistols.

“Go!” Galder shouted, his men following up after him. He began rapidly shooting right away. His red bolts streaked through the air and caught a few soldiers in the chest. After the first few seconds of his firing, he fell into a roll and took cover behind one of the armored vehicles that was steadily rolling towards the battle. The gunner atop the block-shaped craft began to raise the alarm, but Galder jumped on top of him, driving his head to the metal surface.

Rah holstered his blaster pistol and moved unarmed for the nearest soldiers. He dodged the bolts with great athletic ease, serving this way and that. All the while, his mouth was agape, belting out the harsh tones of a battle song as he smashed his way into a soldier.

He came in with a right hook, sending the soldier sideways, then kept him flying away with a Force push. He spun with kicks from his bare feet and planted them in the chests of two men. A man charged him down to bash him with his rifle, but Rah disarmed him and smashed him with the butt of the rifle, then shot him while he was down. As the crossfire heated up about him, he resorted to his kinetic rifle, which he stilled possessed. He cracked the butt of the gun into a man’s chest plate, which cracked. A shot from the rifle flung the guy off the edge of the bridge.

Show off! Galder thought. Almost said it before he was forced to concentrated on the firefight. A grenade soared through the air towards him, but he extended his good hand to knock it away with a nudge from the Force. Then another explosion struck his position. A gunner from another vehicle had brought his cannon to bear on Galder. He threw himself prone over the side of the vehicle as a burst struck. Landing in a roll, Galder rose again and fired his pistol into three soldiers before he was forced to strafe again.

Too...many... It registered with Galder that fighting his way out with a pistol would not be a bright idea. He holstered it and rolled right as the cannon attempted to pick him off, scorching the bridge with massive bolts.

“Where is my concussion rifle?” Galder shouted to his men. Another one of them had been blasted down.

“Right here, sir!” hollered a soldier, who sprinted across the metal walkway at the edge of the bridge as blaster fire melted the mesh it was made of. Held in both hands as though it weighed a ton was a massive dark gray rifle with an energy pack larger in circumference than his arm.

“I want shots placed into every last one of these vehicles, before we head onwards!”

“Yessir!” The soldier threw himself prone as a bolt nearly mangled his arm. He lay still...then began to combat-crawl towards his target. Pulling himself up into a crouch, he took aim...

Boom! A single blue mass of energy hit the vehicle that had been firing at Galder. The armor plating was shredded mercilessly with a shower of blue sparks and smoke and went on through. An azure fireball erupted from the craft as it died. The gunner from the top of the vehicle was thrown off, then shot by a soldier.

“Keep it up!” Galder encouraged.

This process was repeated several times until countless pillars of sapphire smoke were boiling from the innards of scrapped war machines. Takuan’s forces had joined theirs at the end of the bridge, having cleaned up a skirmish with precise blows.

With the bridge cleared, the Southern forces flooded onto the beaches of Pycin Gross. They quickly engaged what Northern forces remained outside of the large town-like encampment and took no prisoners.

“Take control of the coastal batteries!” Galder shouted at soldiers as they charged by. “Fire them up at the peak!” The peak of Pycin Gross was an extinct volcano and gave the command center a stupendous view of the battle. Firing all the coastal guns, anti-aircraft and anti-watercraft alike, up to the peak would force them to either focus on their own defenses or to evacuate.

“The North is in retreat,” the Captain alerted them all via comlink. “Mass the forces and replenish your ammunition for the next attack. Keep the coastal guns ready.”

= Chapter 10 =

Much to Galder’s chagrin and annoyance, the follow up strike did not happen for another week. This gave the North time for fortify the town on Pycin Gross with reinforced walls and multiple gun emplacements. Snipers had picked off Southern men patrolling about the beaches or repairing the coastal guns. They had waited too long.

But, when the strike came, the South hit hard despite the fact that the North was ready for them. With the three AATs still intact, everyone followed behind them to the main entrance of the city. They smashed down the heavily reinforced gate with numerous barrages from their missile tubes and main cannons.

Galder had been given the privilege of ordering the charge alongside his fellow Dark-Siders. He ignited his red lightsaber and twirled it a few times, many of the troops awed by the weapon itself, much less its wielder.

With a shout of “Charge!” the troops sped forwards, Galder having thrust his lightsaber straight out into the air. Men swarmed past him, giving war cries of their own and firing their blasters into the air.

Galder joined into the massive retaking of Pycin Gross, trying to mainly stick to using his assault rifle and pistol over his skills with the blade. Once again, he did not want more attention gathered to himself than was needed in a large-scale battle such as this one.

As the South swarmed in, the North ambushed, as was customary of such battles to go in the history of Naadal. Gun emplacements hummed to life as the infantry dashed out to greet their enemy or waited for them to charge by so that they could shoot them in the back. Unrelenting in their charge, the South fell pray to these tactics quite easily, and only turned to avenge their friends with violent cannonades from their own rifles.

In the skies above them, endless waves of bolts put forth from the coastal guns flickered and died as they smashed against the large energy shields defending the command post. Explosive projectiles were launched from special cannons brought over from Pycin Kurz, but turrets at the post detonated the missiles before they struck home.

Suddenly, starships took to the skies. Cutting through the atmosphere, the sharp and sleek Northern ships dove down upon the encampment, striking at targets in the path of the charge in attempts to slow them down. Flying past the battle, they delivered light payloads on the positions of coastal guns. Anti-aircraft turrets were turned skywards, away from the command post’s shield. The sky was filled with smoke from flak guns and starships being vaporized.

From Pycin Kurz, the South sent their own starships. The majority were the battered and bulky bombers that were always in use throughout the Southern Naadal Air Force, armed with heavy yet slow-firing cannons and multiple bomb payloads. Amongst them were smaller but equally ugly starships that were too sluggish to do much good against the Northern fighters.

And then it started to rain. It came down in heavy sheets, lightning crackling across the skies and the seas turning to gray and white as waves crashed against the shores.

As the island turned to smoke, fire, and mud, the Third Battle of Pycin Chi raged on.

-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-

An armored vehicle of the Southern side rolled its way past a row of light repeaters that had been set up to repel personnel. Bolts bounced away harmlessly off the reflective shielding, some breaking past to create small scorches on the surface of the craft. But it did nothing to it. Light repeaters were useless against such a machine.

The armored vehicle floated over the mud and past the line of guns. A group of men charged away from the thing as a bomber destroyed it with one or two proton bombs, which created a blast large enough to throw the men clear with its concussion. Of that group, only one man rolled to his feet, still entirely conscience and angry.

Galder glared angrily up at the bomber, then ran to help his friend Rura to his feet.

“Get up,” he ordered, pulling the lanky Kaminoan up. “Or I’ll leave you to die.”

Rura got up very quickly, grabbing his sleek rifle from the mud. The mud slid off, as did the falling rain, leaving the rifle just as sleek as before. It had not one dent or scratch or stain on its smooth white surface.

They ran into a side alley as another set of bombers flew overhead, engulfing the places they had just been in blue-white flames. Another bomber from the opposing side bombed one of the fighters as it soared by, shattering into a million molten pieces. The fireball scorched the hulls of its wingmen, who peeled away as a barrage of blaster fire nicked them.

“Where are we headed, Galder?”

“No where in particular.” Looking up, Galder took note that the buildings around them provided some cover on their roofs with fortifications of plasteel bolted to their sides and stretching up some distance. “Follow me.”

Galder took a few running steps through the mud and ran up the side of one dwelling, flipping backwards and arcing himself over the top of one of the barricades. Three of the enemy sat encamped there, two with snipers and one with a repeater. As they turned their guns on him, he leaped up again. Their bolts pattered against one wall, while he landed nimbly on the top of it. He dropped a grenade over the wall of a fortification behind him, then dropped down with his red lightsaber flashing out to kill the repeater man. The two snipers fell back in fear, but it was no use.

Rura climbed the steps leading up to Galder’s position as a proton torpedo streaked over head. “Downstairs was occupied,” he explained as Galder took note of a blaster mark on his white armor.

Another torpedo streaked by and Galder’s senses alerted him to incoming danger. He sprinted down the stairs, Rura on his tail, as a torpedo smashed into the roof of the building, flames licking at their heels as he tumbled from out the door.

They raced up the street as a volley of purple bolts exploded about them, streaking past them to burst in the mud or against walls. The ship that pursued them sped up and got ahead of them. It was a Geonosian starfighter, in all its mottled brown glory, but heavily modified beyond its original form...

“I know that ship!” Galder declared with an angry scowl. “The Nexu’s Grin!”

The starfighter made another pass after vaporizing two Southern craft. However, it did not open fire. Instead, it slowed down just enough for a single robed figure to jump out. The Jedi landed on the rooftops, an orange lightsaber snapping to attention in his grip. His hair was in dreadlocks, thick and brown, and his black face was stern and scarred. Swathed about his body was a set of elegantly dark Jedi robes, in shades of creamy browns and powdery grays.

“Starkiller!” he shouted to Galder. “Your murderous path of treachery ends here, on Pycin Chi!”

“I beg to differ!” Galder retorted, as Rura buggered off with rifle in hand. “Master Himmel! You are the one who shall end.”

Master Himmel had harassed Galder once before during his adventures on Naadal. As a renegade Jedi Master, Azrake Himmel dealt justice as he saw fit, and had nearly killed the Dark Jedi the last time they met in Old Ross, nearly two years ago. Then, the Jedi Master had still been with the Order strongly and, wielding an emerald blade, he trained a Padawan. Galder had slaughtered the Padawan after fleeing from the three Jedi.

A great many Jedi, as Galder had been told, were very sure that Himmel was on the brink of descending into the shadows of the Dark Side. He was a violent and strong-bodied man of great power and skill. The now somewhat malicious Master wielded his Padawan’s lightsaber, as a reminder of whom he lost to a being of great evil.

Without another taunt or smart-ass remark, Master Himmel leaped down. As Galder ignited his lightsabers, he instantly brought them both up over his head to block the Jedi Master’s descending blow. As Himmel hit the ground and bent into a crouch with his back to Galder, he held his blade horizontally above him with perfect timing to counter Galder’s rapid slashes for the skull. As one blade hit, he shifted the angle of the blade to throw off Galder’s own timing as his lightsaber rebounded at an odd angle out of the flash. Himmel spun his blade clockwise and nearly cut Galder wide open.

But Galder would always have the advantage of being faster and younger than the aging Master. He pulled back momentarily to keep himself from being gutted, but instantly put on the pressure again. Himmel rose with his blade horizontal in front of his face, then pushed the hilt to the right without shifting his grip or changing the angle of the blade. It met a rapid thrust from Galder’s red lightsaber. He swung down in an arc to smash down Galder’s cut towards the left leg with the blue lightsaber. This was repeated a few times as Galder continued to attack in the same pattern for a few seconds, before he was forced off with a stronger blow.

“You’re powerful, old man, but no match for my skill,” Galder taunted. “No match for the Dark Side...”

“The Dark Side is my enemy, I shall destroy it,” Himmel growled. With a few lightning-quick slashes, he nearly hacked into Galder’s ribcage and spinal chord. Instead, as Galder dodged and blocked, he only managed to splinter the Southern Naadal assault rifle on Galder’s back.

Himmel grabbed his hilt firmly and stabbed downwards at a murderous speed, intending to skewer Galder’s foot. However, Galder was ready for it. He moved his foot with great agility and spun his own hilts about in his hand, swinging them towards Master Himmel’s wrists and arms. Himmel was also ready. He released his hold on his weapon entirely, letting it stand erect with its blade buried into the mud as Galder’s attacks whisked around the hilt. Galder would have destroyed the lightsaber, if he had been expecting such a maneuver.

Suddenly, Himmel attacked, still unarmed. With a powerful grip on Galder’s right forearm, he yanked Galder to the left and squeezed. Having Galder focus on getting his right arm released was exactly his intent. As Galder struggled against his hold, he kicked the red lightsaber free from Galder’s grip, badly smashing his fingers. He then threw Galder away from him in disgust, pulling his own sword from the ground.

“Pathetic fool, insane heretic,” Himmel snarled at Galder. “You were crazy to have chosen the Dark Path...”

“You’re crazy enough to join me,” Galder hissed back, with a bit of scorn in his voice. “I can sense your hatred, your anger...”

“You know nothing of my emotions!” Himmel roared, swinging in with renewed strength. Their lightsabers spun about at great speed, building momentum until they finally smashed against each other in one final clash. The two saber-wielders held one another’s gaze and locked the two lightsabers together...

Vwum! Himmel viciously forced aside Galder’s guard and lacerated the thigh muscles of Galder’s right leg. Galder fell into the mud with a cry of pain, rather than the surprising numbness that he had felt when Master Marcus had severed his arm. He had felt the muscles snap as the orange lasersword separated them, and intense pain filled his leg.

“Now you shall pay for your crimes!” Himmel howled, still vicious despite his victory over the Dark Jedi. However, as he lifted his lightsaber to make the killing blow, he snapped his blade around to deflect a series of blue blaster bolts that streaked towards him.

The source of the blaster bolts was a man in tattered, mud-stained outfit composed of black cloth and tough, worn-in leather. His brown hair was bedraggled because of the heavy rain, and five o’clock shadow stood out on his pale face. At either hip was a holster to hold a large pistol, but both were empty. The guns were in his hand, aimed for the Jedi Master.

“You are insane to challenge me!” Himmel shouted to what seemed to be an average ground troop. “I can see your mind, Dark One!”

Dark One? Galder reached out with his senses to probe the gunslinger’s mind. It was angry and violent, similar to Galder’s, yet more controlled. Now that Galder had scanned his emotions, he knew what this man must be.

The gunslinger began to step forwards, guns trained on Himmel. Snarling, Himmel lifted his blade into a defensive position as lasers streaked towards him. Nearly all shots rebounded off of the orange lightsaber. Galder realized that this gunman would never hit his target unless he was given a split second to do so.

Vwum! Without a second thought, Galder attacked from the ground. There was a familiar crackle as the blades met and steamed in the rain in a short lock...

Kak-kak! Kak-kak! Four bolts struck Himmel at the right shoulder and collarbone, scorching away the flesh in a flash of light. The Jedi Master gave ground as he gave a cry of anguish, his face screwed up in agony.

The gunslinger edged closer and closer and closer, still squeezing the triggers with deadly precision. Another bolt surprised Himmel as the gunner suddenly aimed for his legs with one gun and kept the other firing in the same area of the chest. It caught Himmel in the thigh.

The moribund Master struggled to retreat from the gunslinger. Without looking down, the gunner placed one of the pistols back in its sheath and reached for a small cylinder at his belt. Unrelenting in taking shots with the remaining pistol, the Dark Jedi ignited his elegant weapon, the purple glow reflecting on his face.

“I am Tanic Starguard, slayer of the Puppet Master.” The Dark Jedi spoke in a dark tone as he holstered the remaining firearm. “My mentor orders your death...”

Tanic raced into action with an agility that surprised both the Jedi Master and Galder. Himmel strained to match the blows evenly, but with his wounded thigh and fleshless shoulder hampering him severely, he was cast down. In the final succession of blows, even after a display of brilliant swordplay on Master Himmel's part, Tanic ducked underneath a weak strike and cut through Himmel's hand, right down the center between his middle and ring fingers. The lightsaber hilt was severed in two, and the hand maimed. With a face that could have been set in stone, Tanic drove his blade through the Master’s heart up to the emitter.

“My old Padawan...” Himmel sputtered, before falling into the mud. He was dead.

“That settles that,” Tanic muttered, rolling the dead body over with his foot. “Goodbye, Master Azrake Himmel...you insane bastard...” Deactivating his lightsaber and hooking it to his belt again, he extended a hand to Galder. Seizing it firmly, Galder pulled himself to his feet.

“Are you Galder Starkiller?” Tanic asked, his eyes flitting with curiosity, taking in Galder’s scruffy profile.

“That I am,” Galder replied, wincing at the pain in his leg. “Why did you help me?”

Tanic did not answer him, but instead lifted a hand to his mouth and tapped a button his wrist.

“Master Rand, guess who I found? Yes, that’s right. Any luck searching for the others? Hmm...yes, Rand...yeah...I’ll have him relay the message. Pick us up.” Click. “My mentor is very eager to meet you...

“But first, contact Rah and Takuan. Order them to pull out, leave the mooks to do all the fighting.”

Galder just stared at Tanic like he was insane. “Who the hell are you?”

“Tanic Starguard,” he replied, extending a hand cautiously. “Ex-Jedi extraordinaire.”

Galder shook the hand, equally as cautious. “I still don’t understand...”

“You don’t need to, just follow me,” Tanic told him, bringing out the pistols again and motioning for Galder to follow. Limping from the pain, Galder decided that he had no better plans for surviving the battle and followed after this mysteriously helpful Dark Jedi.

As he limped, he pulled out his comlink. “Rah, can you read me?”

“Loud and clear, Galder,” Rah responded instantly.

“Listen, I’ve met someone...” Galder started. “Just get back to the ship, we’ll rendezvous...?” Galder looked up to Tanic, who nodded that yes, they would.

“Okay...right...” Rah replied, somewhat uneasy. “Did you get radiation poisoning again?”

“No, Rah, now get to the ship!”

“Yes, sir!” Rah responded in a silly tone, then cut the connection.

Suddenly, it occurred to Galder that he had nearly left his second lightsaber behind. He went back momentarily, scrounging through the mud. He thrust his hands into the mud where he had last seen the beloved ancient Sith blade.

“Looking for this?” Tanic asked, holding out a hand and pulling it to him from the mud a few feet away from where Galder was.

"Hand it over..."

“Nice craftsmanship,” Tanic said, examining it. “Looks quite old...”

“Hand it over!”

“Then follow this time!” Tanic handed him the Sith blade and took off again, Galder on his tail.

= Chapter 11 =

Trying to keep up with Tanic was no easy task. The young man was a fast little bugger, or so it seemed since Galder was limping horribly. Every now and then he would slow to take some accurate shots with his pistols, picking off some soldiers that sought to delay their sojourning.

“Where are we headed, exactly?” Galder asked, letting loose a shot from his wrist gun.

“That temple,” Tanic replied, gesturing with his pistol. “The speeder will be there. My mentor and his colleagues will be in it.”

They raced through the streets, defending themselves from Northern troops and avoiding bomb strikes. The Nexu’s Grin zipped by once or twice, but was too preoccupied by Southern starfighters swarming it to apprehend Galder.

Soon, without dying or blowing up or getting shot, they reached the temple. Had it not been bombarded and burned so many times, the Temple to the Creator would have been a grand building. But the golden trinkets and priceless gems had been ransacked long ago, and it was merely a scorched, hollow shell.

Sitting at the foot of the large steps leading up to the temple’s entrance was a large speeder. The craft was open-roofed, and Galder could easily see the occupants.

“Where is Rianna?” Tanic asked the two beings waiting for them inside.

“She will be here shortly, Tanic,” spoke one of the men, from the darkness of his hood. Drenched black robes disguised his every feature, and Galder could sense that he had a powerful mind. In one black-gloved hand he clutched a lightsaber, of similar design to Tanic’s. “You must have patience...”

“Patience is for the Jedi,” Galder interjected.

“Then you will find that we are all somewhat patient,” said the other being.

This other being was surely a sight to behold. His skin was bleached a pale and eerie white, his black eyes piercing and disturbing. He had numerous head tentacles, which were tied back by two black bands. He wore a tattered, bloodstained, and blackened Jedi tunic under a heavy, dark blue cloak. In his hands was a single red lightsaber, which had a hooked, poisonous barb attached to the pommel. He stood upon the hood of the speeder, deflecting away shots from rifles and pistols with little effort. His mind was of iron, though not to match Kuylen, and very dark and sinister.

“You must be ‘the mentor,’” Galder commented.

“Yes, I must be that,” replied the being. “I am Master Nume Rand. You are to come with me or I can guarantee that you shall not live through this battle...”

“Bit old to be making threats there...”

“A bit wounded for you to be retorting,” Rand hissed. “Now get on the gun. Gallador will hook it up...”

Sure enough, there was a large gun emplacement on the back of the landspeeder, where the topside engine should have been. It was plugged into a large tank of tibanna gas placed in the back seat with the black-robed elfin man. This man was Gallador, and he fiddled with the tank until the gun hummed to life.

“We were trying to save the battery,” Gallador explained, ducking under Rand’s lightsaber as their leader swung about to deflect a shot that could have killed his pupil. “We landed a few hours ago, searching for you and the others...”

Galder paid him no attention but examined the gun. The barrel had many vents for cooling the thing. It ended with a large, flaring muzzle that looked like the end of a brass horn. Extending from the center was an antenna-like instrument.

“Odd-looking gun,” Galder said.

“Odd is right,” Gallador replied. “It’s meant to take down everything from personnel to armored tanks...”

Almost as if on cue, an armored Northern vehicle wheeled around the corner of the Temple of the Creator. The anti-personnel gunner atop the thing was blazing away at the South’s infantry with a steady rate of fire.

Without being instructed on how to operate the thing, Galder grabbed the trigger and unleashed a volley. Lasers jolted from the tip of the antenna-like part with a great flash and hit the gunner dead on. Galder held down the second trigger to charge the shot, then let it loose. The larger bolt collided with the side of the vehicle, vaporizing the entire thing in a fiery blast.

“I like this thing...”

“There’s Rianna, Master!” Gallador cried out. “Coming in on a speeder bike!”

Sure enough, a speeder bike ripped by them, leaving a cloud of smoke behind. On the speeder bike was a young woman with a blood red cloak whisking about behind her in the wind, her pale face narrowed with concentration as she fled from two other troops on bikes. They fired upon her, one of them striking the flank of her vehicle. The engines cut out, and Rianna flung herself clear.

But she was not down. While her speeder bike became an inferno against a wall, she rose with two lightsabers, orange and purple, and hurled them towards the two troops that had shot down her bike. The orange lightsaber cut through the guiding fins on the front tip of one bike, which caused it to spin out of control. The rider was bucked off the wildly flailing speeder and splintered his spine against the corner of a building. The purple lightsaber slice through the other rider’s midsection, dividing him evenly across the middle. With its rider dead, the speeder bike decelerated and clipped the muddy ground, flipping over and exploding.

Rianna dashed for the speeder as a volley of blaster bolts came her way. She rolled and ducked and dodged, using the Force to recall her weapons. They returned to her hands with ease, and she cut down a Northern soldier that stood in her way, vivisecting him. Then, with one tremendous leap, she landed on the hood of the speeder alongside Rand.

“That was easy,” Rianna said, wiping some mud from her black outfit underneath the blood red cloak. “I didn’t find any of them, Rand...”

“Tanic found one,” Rand told her, gesturing to Galder. She looked to him, curiosity passing over her emotionless face for a moment, before it was replaced with a blank stare.

“Hello,” Galder said, feeling somewhat awkward. “And you are?”

“Rianna Xi,” she said, though she said nothing more to him. She turned back to Rand. “Let’s get out of here.”

“My thoughts precisely,” Rand replied. “Tanic, you’re driving...”

-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-

“Drive faster, Tanic!” Rand ordered, trying to keep the volume of his voice above the din of gunfire and explosions around them.

“If I go any faster the engines will overheat!” Tanic shouted back, his face screwed up with frustration. He nearly collided with the corner of a building, the right-side engine scraping against it. “Don’t distract the driver!”

Tanic’s route to his ship was bristling with enemy troops. Everywhere Galder swiveled the gun, there was a man in range. No matter how many times he pulled the trigger, there were always more to replace the men he killed.

Suddenly, massive green lasers burst near them, coming from above. Galder swiveled the gun again to take down the starfighter that was undoubtedly on their tail, as two had already tried. He took aim, but decided that he would agree with Rand that Tanic should drive faster.

“We’ve got a gunship on our six!” Galder called out, charging a shot.

Everyone turned and looked, with the exception of Tanic, who kept up his insane speed. The gunship was of the Rothana Engineering design, a donation to the Northern Naadal from the Republic. It was armed with twin turbolasers and a four-barreled missile launcher on the chin of the craft. Maintenance crews had installed two heavy repeaters in the bay doors, which were spraying thousands of rounds down upon the island. The turbolasers were targeting the speeder.

“Turn here!” Rand ordered from the passenger’s seat. Tanic swerved the speeder to the right just as another cannonade came from the gunship, large bursts happening where the speeder had been only a second before.

“If you want to drive, Rand, that’s fine with me...” Tanic yelled back at his mentor, swerving the vehicle about so that Galder’s charged shot went wide.

“No, I think you can stay where you are,” Rand replied, igniting his lightsaber to deflect a bolt away from himself.

This lot bickers too much... Galder noted, charging up another heavy shot. This time his shot was dead on, but exploded harmlessly against the hull just under the first cockpit. The gunship returned fire. The force of the blasts hurled mud and dirt from the ground and buildings over them. A missile was launched and whistled through the air to explode inside a building on their left, scorching the speeder and throwing debris into the vehicle. Galder almost flew off, but gripped the gun’s trigger tightly, spraying a wall with bolts to shower them with more dust.

“Nice work, genius,” Rianna muttered to Galder, lashing out at a blaster bolt that nearly struck him in the leg.

“Thanks,” Galder muttered back, charging another shot.

This time his shot was more successful. He struck one of the turbolasers, which burst into flame. Smoke billowed out from the now gaping hole in the side of gunship.

“Was that better, miss?” Galder said to Rianna in a sarcastic tone.

“It might have been...” Everyone was jolted sideways, Galder nearly falling again, as Tanic nicked another wall, sparks showering over Galder. He ignored the slight burning sensations and got the gun back up, firing a burst at the second cockpit of the gunship. The plexiglass shattered, but the gunner was still alive, for the remaining turbolaser roared to life again. This time the shots damaged one of the massive, rectangular engines.

“What happened back there, it’s hard to steer!” Tanic called back.

“You’ve been hit, Tanic,” Rianna reported. “Right engine is burning.”

“Put it out!”

But before anyone could move to put out the flames, Galder and the gunship made deadly exchange of gunfire. Galder charged a shot and aimed for a wing while the gunship readied a volley of rockets. Both fired at the same time. Galder’s bolt struck home, obliterating his target and sending the gunship flailing sideways, plates of armor flying off in an intense fireball.

The rockets, however, struck the smoldering engine with full force. The concussion threw Galder off the vehicle with the gun. He lost consciousness as he smashed through a wall, intense pain shooting through his body.

-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-

“Galder, wake up!” It was Rand, shaking him gently with a free hand, his lightsaber skewered through the stomach of a Northern trooper. He pulled it out and cut through a muscle in the man’s leg, causing him to collapse to the ground.

Galder pulled himself up. He was sitting inside a house, having been thrown in through a gaping hole in the wall that was curiously shaped like his body.

“Galder, we need to get into Tanic’s craft, you understand?” Rand said to him, helping him up. “Then we can get out of here and find you some medical attention...”

Galder just nodded, somewhat delirious. They walked out of the crumbling house together.

Waiting outside was a starfighter, cannons blazing as a column of Northern soldiers made their way for the ship. It was a very strangely shaped; it consisted of two pods, one for passengers and one for cargo. The passenger pod was larger, and the cockpit bubble was on top. Tanic inside of it, squeezing the triggers to fire the long-barreled cannons that extended from the front of the cargo pod. Three fins extended from the bottom of the thing, one from both pods and one in the center.

“What an ugly starship...” Galder commented as Rand pushed him through the door, into the ship. “My ship is a lot better...”

“Rest, Galder,” Rand said, pushing him towards a bench inside the dull gray interior. Half-conscious, Galder could make out nothing of the interior other than the color, but thought he saw Rianna and Gallador operating turrets in the area where the cargo and passenger pod connected. As the ship began to rise, Rianna and Gallador came out, shutting a blast door closed behind them to seal it off.

Galder slipped in unconsciousness once more, subdued by the intense pains he was suffering from.

= Chapter 12 =

Tundbooaan, one of the most inhospitable places in the universe, unless you had the right connections or strong guts. In this case, it was a matter of knowing what was there and then taking it. The mountain-speckled desert planet was very remote, out past even Tatooine. Several hidden smuggler locales where hidden up on the peaks or within the networks of caves underneath the mountains.

This planet had been the decided rendezvous point for the Conquering Paladin of Hoth and the Shadow Blade to meet. The two ships had made a pit stop on Entipin III in order to transfer Galder to his own starfighter. It was a well-planned transfer, too. The Shadow Blade landed, dropped Galder off, then left. The Paladin landed within ten minutes, and Galder took the helm.

Once they had arrived at Tundbooaan, Tanic directed them to a certain cave in which a smuggling group was encamped. Galder had thought that somehow Rand and his crew had become a part of this organization, and followed their lead.

But he had changed his mind after Rand had killed the last smuggler in there. They were actually just seeking accommodations.

“This should do quite nicely,” Rand commented, putting away his lightsaber. He wandered to the back end of the cave, where a plethora of supplies was stashed. Millions of credits, a surplus of food, and usable technology. More importantly, there were also numerous guns. “Welcome to headquarters!”

“Gee, thanks Rand,” Galder commented as Rianna, Tanic, and Gallador pushed past him to take up posts.

The cave was mostly just a load of technology infused with rock walls and sand. A room branched off into an adjoining cave, which was mostly carved by the smugglers. It was a lounge and medical bay put into one room. The Dark Jedi met there.

“Tell me of yourself, Rand,” Galder said, making himself comfortable on a ragged sofa, Takuan and Rah on his sides. “I want to know exactly why you were looking for us...”

Rand settled himself in a large high-backed chair opposite, folding his hands in his lap. Tanic stood immediately behind him, with Gallador and Rianna on his sides.

“I believe, about a year ago, you were under the service of Larios Kuylen, yes?” he asked, pouring himself a glass of a rich wine found in the stash. “You’re exploits were very entertaining to me...too bad it did not end well for you...”

“We learned much in our time with Kuylen, nonetheless,” Takuan said.

“But you have not learned everything,” Rand reminded. “While Kuylen was an excellent swordsman and had a great control of the Force, he was not a Jedi Master at the time of his falling...”

Galder raised an eyebrow. “A Jedi Master falling to the Dark Side? That is not a common thing...”

“I dare say that it is not,” Rand replied. He reached into his robe and produced a small triangular structure that seemed as if it was an amethyst. “But some things are just more appealing than...police work...” Rand rubbed a white finger down the side of the thing. Galder somehow had a desire to touch it himself, though he was not sure why.

“What is that?” he asked, shifting in his seat.

Rand looked up from the pyramidal object with an insidious grin. “This, my friend, is a Sith Holocron. I spent many hours learning from the lore of the ancient Sith, knowledge that was passed on for generations by the evil spirits of Lords long dead...

“But Holocrons in the Temple were not very functional, and I only learned enough to know that the Jedi way was worthless. The Dark Side is more beneficial.”

“What does that have to do with us?” Galder asked, rubbing his chin.

“I worked with Kuylen in the Archives, but he made more plans than I before his fall,” Rand said. “Perhaps his influence of planning has rubbed off on you? Hmm?”

“I see...you just want ideas from us,” Galder realized. “Well, I can tell you now that in the past year we have gotten nowhere. We have not heard from Kuylen, and he ruined our lives anyhow...”

Rand’s face became less sinister and more grim. “Have not heard from him? Where has he been?”

“We don’t know, or we’d be hanging with him,” Rah said. “We’ve been on our own after hiding out on...”

Galder cut him off, not wanting Rand to know of their hideout unless they got to know one another better. “We can’t help you pave your future, Rand. We have nothing.”

Rand laid back against the high back of the chair, pressing his fingertips together after setting the Holocron down. “That is indeed unfortunate...”

“I’m sorry for the inconvenience...?” Galder said, somewhat a question. Why should I be sorry? I’m sure that my life has been more difficult than his...

“That is indeed an inconvenience.” Rand pressed his thumbs against his chin, sinking into a state of deep thought. His pupils about him seemed somewhat distraught that whatever plan their leader had had would not proceed because Galder was not in contact with Kuylen.

“However...” Rand started. “Us finding you was of no coincidence, hmm? The Force told me that we would come into contact with you. Perhaps we could form an alliance, or travel together. Strength in numbers, of course...”

Galder contemplated this, resting his chin on his hands.

Takuan leaned over to whisper in his ear. “Yes.”

Rah looked to his comrades warily. “What are we whispering about?”

Galder leaned over to Rah. “What do you think?” he asked. “Seriously.”

Rah stroked his mustache. “Hmm...yeah, we should...”

Galder sat back up, ready to give the verdict. Rand also sat up, having been whispering to his students. They rose to their feet and, cautiously and warily, shook one another’s hand.

“Welcome to my world, Starkiller,” Rand greeted, grinning an awful grin that consisted of several dozen razor-sharp teeth.

= Chapter 13 =

Over the next week or so, everyone spent time healing from injuries gained from the conflict on Naadal. The lightsaber wound to Galder’s thigh healed nicely, the muscle reforming with the help of bacta containers. It was the most serious of his injuries, which consisted of massive bruises and slight burns.

Everyone else was, for the most part, untouched. Rah and Takuan had no injuries, nor did Rand. Rianna had a blaster wound on her hip, but it fizzled away to nothing with the healing powers of bacta. Gallador was burned by the explosion of the speeder’s engine once it was struck with missiles. The skin was a tad darker than the rest of his skin after the bacta was applied. Tanic had been thrown out of the vehicle after it went out of control. Bad bruising was all he had.

“Normal beings would have died, after being scorched by missiles or thrown through walls,” Rand commented. “But we are the lucky few with advantageous abnormalities...”

Within the first week, Tanic had made contact with a friend of his. Rien "Slate" Orsyn, bounty hunter extraordinaire, arrived on Tundbooaan the day after. He was a scruffy young man, probably about Galder’s age, unshaven and fair-haired, sporting light blast armor. On his back were two guns; one was a sawed-off blaster rifle, and the other a rifle that launched a stun net to take prey alive.

“We can trust him, there are no worries,” Tanic told Galder when he asked what the hell a bounty hunter was doing among them. “If he tries to take any of us in, I know every place he hides and everyone he knows. He could not escape...”

“And if he killed you?”

“He won’t. He owes me his life.”

Two days after Slate’s arrival, he was sent off planet. He was to return to Tundbooaan with Rura Ta.

“We will need all the help we can get if we are to get ourselves into place that will be able to reckon with the Republic,” Rand explained to Galder.

“A bounty hunter and a soldier will be of no use to us, Rand,” Galder told him. “If anything, they’ll hinder us...”

“Not so, my friend.” Rand seated himself again in the high-backed chair. “Slate and Rura Ta are just two of our resources, though they are physically helpful.”

“Who else is there?”

Rand grinned his evil grin. “I was trained by the Mecrossa Order, an order of highly-dangerous assassins, after I left the Jedi.”

“The Mecrossa Order? They were backed by the Sith! I thought their ways were long dead...”

“Once again, not so,” Rand intoned. “The Mecrossans have been in hiding for the past millennia's, biding their time until the Sith return.

“Also, Tanic has his connections with Lord Geful, the leader of the Empire of Pity. Interesting organization, they are into intelligence and assassinations.

“It is through our connections and allies that we shall gain power, Galder, not through the finding of Sith artifacts. That task is too large for us. Without Kuylen, at any rate.”

-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-

While the others were greeting Slate and Rura as they arrived, Galder wandered back inside the cave. The dim lighting the lounge had been switched off.

Galder stepped in quietly, but no sooner had he entered that he dodged an incoming boot. It thudded against the wall and dropped.

“Thanks for the boot,” Galder said, picking it up, only to be struck in the back with a second boot. “Ow!”

“What do you want?” Rianna asked, throwing the switch with her powers to activate the lights.

Galder shrugged and picked up the other boot with a Force pull. “Dunno, just wanted to see what you were doing. I don’t know you or the other newbies that well...”

Rianna cocked her head to one side, still sitting on the couch. “Newbies?”

“Yeah, you and Rand and company are new to our group...”

Rianna laughed a bit. “You are mistaken, Galder. You are newbies to our group.”

Galder glared. “I’m not ever going to think of it that way, unless you fellas prove to me that you can do some heavy fighting!”

“So what was Naadal?”

“A battle that is only a tenth of anything I’ve ever done.”

“And what have you done exactly?”

“Plunder the tombs of ancient Sith, escaped from a battle droid army several thousands strong, fought and defeated Jedi...”

“...and never killed them, at least not while you were with Kuylen. That must have displeased him.”

Galder’s glare lightened. “You already know what there is to tell of me, don’t you?”

“I’ve done some...investigating, on my part. I at least know what your activities were from Avalar to your disappearance at Zeiton...”

Galder pondered this for a bit. He had been in the news stories that made the front pages whenever he appeared, especially with that massive slaughter on Malastare. “Well, I guess I need to fill you in on what you don’t know.” He leaned towards her. “When was the first time you fought a Jedi?”

“Training in the Temple...why?”

“I fought my first Jedi when I was fifteen! I killed a Jedi Master!”

“You’re shitting me!”

“Quite serious.”

“Well, not a very good way to start yourself out into the larger galaxy...”

“Not really, I agree. The guy’s Padawan injured me badly, though...”

“Hah! I knew it! You got your ass kicked!”

Galder laughed somewhat. Oi...not really good representation of myself...

“Where were you when this happened? Why were you fighting Jedi anyway?”

“I was on Hoth...they were looking for my father...”

“Who was your father?”

Galder closed down a bit, not wanting to reveal too much of his history. “A wayward Knight...”

Rianna crossed her legs. “Fine, if you don’t want to tell me more about you, then you won’t find out much about me! Get out before I hit you with another boot...”

Making sure he still had the boots with him, Galder began to walk out of the lounge.

“You know, Galder, this room is also a medical bay. You could stay in here if you don’t give me those boots...”

-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-

By the end of the two weeks, the Dark Jedi were just about getting comfortable with their stay. But Rand decided that the place needed to be destroyed, in order to hide the fact that they had been there.

Paranoid chap, Rand is, Galder thought. Those ex-Jedi all are...

Galder considered it very odd that all of Rand’s group were former Jedi Knights. They all had their own stories of starting training at an early age, with no memory of their families or a depression caused by losing family. The only one that Galder was unsure of was Gallador Enkidu, who preferred to be called Melkor if he could. He was strange one, but he certainly had been a Jedi. He was too concentrated not to have been.

Rianna had chosen the Dark Side over the Jedi ways because of the fact that her attitude disallowed her to keep her mind peaceful. She held grudges, quick to anger, stubborn to a fault, and her actions very blunt, though not as severely obvious as Galder. The completion of her training was only to spite those who thought she would fail and fall. It was obvious that her mentor, the Knight Myraline Kiros, had failed to teach her the Jedi Code. Kiros and her Padawan after Rianna were killed by the slipping Knight on Bespin, bringing Kiros’ failure full circle.

Tanic suffered emotionally all the way up to the end of his training, due to the loss of his mother, who had had a strong family tie with. To make himself feel more loved by his friends, he used the Force as a tool of trickery and amusement for other students at the Temple. His mentor, Master Kay Crystal, was very similar to him, and he looked to her as a parental figure. This attachment led to his downfall. During a mission in which they pursued the freakish mind-controlling Puppet Master, his mentor was nearly killed. In an emotional rage, Tanic eliminated her attackers and chased the Puppet Master to one of the infamous gas storage tanks of the planet Garel. A blast incinerated both, and both were presumed dead...but Tanic emerged alive. In vengeance of a master he thought dead, Tanic began a crusade. Clothed in Coruscant’s white robes of justice, he mercilessly slaughtered those who had provided aid to the Puppet Master. Any peaceful and Jedi-like sentiments in him were gone.

Rand himself had a story to tell, of his fascination with the Sith and the Dark Side. Born on Glee Anslem, Nume Rand showed great control of the Force even at an early age. Trained a renowned Jedi Master in countless forms of combat and negotiation, Nume was highly regarded by the Council, and had potential to be on the Council himself if he kept at it. Awarded the title of Jedi Master after numerous years of duty, such as bringing a peace between the Mon Calamari and Quarren on Mon Calamari and bringing an end to a group of murderous Dark Jedi assassins, there was not one Jedi who did not know his name. But he had a fascination for history. Often did he read tomb upon tomb of the history of the Sith and the ways of the Dark Side. Behind the Council’s back he viewed Sith Holocrons. When apprehending villains, he became more violently, making the deaths of them seem like accidents. Finally, the lure of the Dark Side became overwhelming. On a mission in the Outer Rim, to the gladiatorial world of Rattatak, he not only beheaded the target that was to be brought in alive, but tore his own apprentice limb from limb for refusing to join him on the path down the Dark Side. Then he killed every last warrior in the gladiator’s arena, making his fall complete and reveling in the havoc around him. Afterwards, he joined the Mecrossa Order, a group of expert assassins and poison-makers, said to have been backed by the Sith a millennia ago.

“I consider myself fortunate to have discovered your continued existence,” Rand had told Galder. “In the past year, I’ve lost service from at least four darklings. I was forced to kill one of them, the insolent Arneth Vorun...but three of them inspired my search for you...”

“Who?” Galder asked, keenly interested.

“A trio of bounty hunters...the rich boy, the lizard, and the frog...”

“Wraith, Dak, and Ker’Raos?”

“Ah, you do know them...”

“Wraith and Dak were on Zeiton with me, and Ker’Raos was serving under ‘Captain’ Kaliero during the Zeitonian Conflict.”

“Yes, so they told me."

“What made them leave?”

“They wished to pursue their own interests. Wraith had a thing for Rianna, and needless to say, it did not end well. Now he’s blind in one eye...”

Galder laughed heartily. “Well, I’ll be sure not to fraternize with my companions then, hmm?”

Rand laughed as well, then continued on. “Yes...those three were marvelous...” Rand looked out into the sunset of the dying sun of Tundbooaan. “I just hope you three can be just as or more marvelous.”

“Believe me, we are. Those three are hiding on Arnia. They will achieve nothing as great as we will...”

“You talk as if you already owned a star system.”

“Well, doesn’t seem as impossible as it did a year ago...”

The two Dark-Siders gazed across the horizon as the twin moons of Tundboo I and Tundboo II rose, giving the desert an eerie glow.

New beginnings, Galder thought happily as he rested one last time before they set out for greatness. At last I shall find away to become infamous and powerful again!

= Chapter 14 =

With a final blow, the enemy was cut down and lay dead on the floor, his plans of betrayal finished forever. His assailant laughed above him.

“Great," said Takuan. "You killed him. Fantastic. Just marvelous."

"Is that sarcasm?" asked Galder, turning his sabers off.

"I see your instincts are developing well..."

"Shut it! I was just meant to let him shoot you, is that it?"

"Bwah!" said Takuan, lazily flinging a hand out to one side, making the dead man's gun fly across the room. "I was in control of the situation!"

"Oh yeah. Where is it the others are right now? 'Pacifying' the lower levels, was it?"

"Well, you didn't have to make it worse by killing the chief! Now we have nothing. Again!"

Rah clambered in through the window. Takuan and Galder turned to look at him.

"Scaled the outside," he said, with his somewhat comical entrance. "We kinda blew the lifts out down there. Situation is under control though."

"Any survivors?" asked Takuan.

"Err, a few," said Rah. "But it looks like some reinforcements are coming. Or maybe an evacuation team. Time you gave us the 'vibe' again Takuan- anything left here worth us fighting for?"

Takuan already knew the answer. The Force had made it very plain, as Galder could tell from his expression. He sighed.

"No," he said. "We're all done here. Get the others and we'll get out of here."

"Who put you in charge?" asked Galder.

"Look, you asked, you get. You can agree with me now, or later when you see what I have already seen, which is that we can wipe out this clan, or we can leave now, but no matter what we're not going to command it."

"Sounds familiar," said Rah. "How many times do we have to try this before we get it right?"

"We won't get it right," said Takuan. "I know it now. This will never work. The galaxy sees us as Kuylen's failed friends. They even see the others as that now, and they weren't even with him! We're carrying on a legacy we were trying to forget about and we don't have anything to offer anyone!" Takuan scratched his head. There was some sort of high-pitched noise in the background that he could not identify. It seemed to annoy Takuan greatly.

"No-one will work with us. Not until he have something to offer ourselves!"

“How do we get anything to offer if we can't work with anyone?" asked Galder.

"Well, if you stopped killing everyone perhaps we would have someone to work with!"

"Well excuse me," said Galder, "but if you were half the genius you take yourself to be I wouldn't have to keep killing people who are trying to kill you!"

Everyone was silent. They had has this argument too much before. It would only get them into a larger fight, and currently they did not have the time for it.

"Kuylen had his gold. And he knew how the Republic worked. We don't!" said Takuan.

“Well, the new guys..." said Galder.

"...came to us on the idea that we would have some ideas for them..."

"It's getting hard to work in the Republic," said Rah. "I went to the fence I used to lift my nicked gear up to- someone had only killed him!"

"Disgruntled client?" asked Takuan.

"Worse. Someone looking for me. Occupational hazard, I guess; I've stolen from a lot of people over time. But I am used to that kind of thing in Hutt space and the Outer Rim, not in the Republic. It's a scandal..."

"We need to find the right people to speak to," said Takuan.

"Well, you're the one who keeps saying the Force will show you where to go!" said Rah.

"It's...not easy!"

"Seems to tell you when things have cocked up soon enough," said Galder.

"That's much easier. But this destiny thing is...awkward. It is a thousand things at once! And none of them seem to be...anything like this."

"We don't even have anywhere to stay," said Rah. "I was living better before I stated all this. It's pointless. I'm sorry...but there is nothing here for me, or any of us. There's nothing at all."

"I just need to...will someone shut off that damn noise!" shouted Takuan.

“Yeah, I thought I could hear something..." said Galder.

Takuan stamped off to the next room, where it was vaguely coming from. His belongings were in here. A high-pitched beeping seemed to be coming from his traveling bag...

Takuan almost instinctively threw himself to one side to avoid the bomb, Galder could see that. He was twitching in that way. But...no bomb. No fiery explosion. No sense of personal danger to any of them.

What the hell is it? Galder wondered, edging towards the door.

Takuan emptied his bag, the detritus of years of traveling spilling all over the floor. There, at the very bottom, dusty, slightly cracked, and long forgotten, he had found what he was looking for. Galder and Rah were standing at the doorway as Takuan carefully picked it up from the floor. It was beeping, constantly, clearly, and flashing, with a clear signal.

Kuylen's homing device.