Nar Shaddaa

[Delta73]

Delta made his way from the the Dreadfully Unpleasant and Very Unholy Chariot of Unwarranted Suffering at Quietus's orders. It went against his very nature to avoid the fighting in this way, but then...what were the commando units made for? He kept silent as he ducked into the dark shadows of Nar Shadda. He followed the overhead powerlines via their power signature and radioactive glow through his HUD. They had to have a source. He checked his weapons as he stepped over sleeping hobos nearly stepping on a house made of fibre boards, which nearly collapsed when he put his hand out to steady himself. He shook his head, and crouched into a look out spot, there it was. A lone Power Substation. PS-DX-6012. In all its glory powering this little subsection of the disgusting city, only surrounded by a chain link fence and no visible guards. He slowly walked to the chain link and looked around He activated his comm to the others.

 

"Recon Commando Delta Seventy Three in position, sitting hot. I await further instruction. I am within a quick run to sniper coverage."

 

So he waited, with his armoury in his gloved hands, ready to use. His armour repaired and cleaned since his last fight on the now destroyed Bespin. Such a shame really, someone had to put a ton of work into this stuff. And in a short week, it could all be undone. A pity.

[Delta73]

With the signal, in tandem with the others, Delta released the catch from the thermal detonator within his palm, backed up a step, and tossed it into the power substation. A split second later, a massive explosion shook the local area, as the power transformers, and generators were destroyed in the heat of chaos. Shadows reigned yet again, as the surrounding area fell into a deep labyrinth of darkness. Within the cantina, and several blocks around, the lights cut instantaneously off. Children screamed as the light was snatched from their eyes and the monsters of their dreams appeared, lurching from the closets and from under beds, where light had for so long kept them at bay. The children do the only thing they can, they raise the shields of the bed covers and cover their eyes. Nothing, can get them now. Those in the cantina are not so fortunate.

 

With a quick heel turn, Delta takes off running towards the darkened cantina, able to see with his HUD. Something most jedi did not have. Somewhere in the growing darkness a lone cry was heard. A young man, working on a long paper due the next morning, computer lost power, and all the hours of work were lost. How deliciously evil!

[Delta73]

A deep coded message arrives for Emerald from a Black Sun Vigo, thrusting into her comm with all the force of the Galactic Alliance Holonet Beacon floating between Nal Hutta and it's moon could muster.

 

 

WOULD YOU BE INTERESTED IN BUYING PREMIUM BULK JAWA VIAGRA FOR CHEEP CHEEP CHEEP? IF YES PLEASE SUBSCRIPTION TO THIS WEBZONE

 

Below the opening scroll of the offensive message was a website when clicked on was filled with Death star conspiracy theories. The message continued.

 

ALSO CARRY MANY TYPES OF KYBER CRYSTALS OR EVEN CERTIFICATE PRESENTED BLASTERS AND DISRUPTORS.

 

BUY BUY BUY

 

WE ARE INTERESTED IN BUYING YOUR HAPAN MINES

 

PLZ SELL THX

 

[Delta73]

If the Sith fleet had relied on tactics and precision before, the Sith High Command no longer desired to play by those rules. The glove had been dropped, the Alliance Fleet committed, and now it was the turn of the Sith Lords of Onderon. 

 

Like a bayonet thrusting into the heart of the Alliance, the Black Scarab and the rest of the Sith home fleet dropped into the gap formed in the minefield surrounding the small moon of Nar Shaddaa. The Sith Star Dreadnought had lain dormant during the last few years of war, having done little in action since the scourging of the Rebel Alliance at Dark Sun Station. Being relegated to the home fleet defending the Onderon axis in the Core Worlds and endless training and live fire exercises. But she would be silent no longer. 

 

The Scarabaeus Class Super Star Destroyers three hundred thousand crew lept into action, the two thousand heavy turbolaser batteries, additional two thousand turbolaser batteries, five hundred ion cannons, and some several hundred missile tubes sprang to life. Spitting something like five hundred tonnes of spin-sealed tibanna gas and two years of baradium mining in the inner rim into the Rebel fleet with every broadside. 

 

The six Victory-II class star destroyers and the Mon Calamari cruiser Saint Cathryne were there as well as they had been at Dark Sun, still bedecked in the red and gold of the Black Sun Grand Admiralty. 

 

One last time they would enter the fray together with the Sith Lords they had helped bring to power. And their combined hundreds of siege torpedo tubes began to launch their Nuclear tipped warheads. Not towards the Rebel Fleet, but towards the planet itself. 

 

Because their commander knew, sitting in the red cloak of command, that even if they won the fleet battle here, the rebellion would live on in the hearts of its citizens. 

 

Prefabricated refugee housings and skyscrapers were not much defense against a million megatons of thermonuclear destruction per salvo. Even those that survived the opening hours of the barrage would be reduced to ash from the falling remains of the rebel fleet. Their orders were clear. 

 

Nar Shaddaa was Base Delta Zero and the Sith Commander would live up to his name: 

 

The Blood Prince

[Delta73]

So the Rebel Alliance was now bringing their entirety to bear. As the holo display continued to grow with the inbound rebel ships Delta narrowed his eyes. If they had this many ships, and by the look of some of the derelicts, why had they not brought them earlier? Why had they not thrown this fleet at the Sith on Onderon, or Coruscant, or Kuat, or even bleeding Corellia? Why had they wasted so many damn lives on defeats when these fleets were just sitting around doing nothing? It was shocking that the Rebels thought so little of their men and women that they had kept these fleets in reserve for so long. 

 

It was like the end of a bad holofilm where the protagonists were saved by a thousand allied starships appearing out of nowhere and crescendoing in a cavalry charge on top of a star destroyer. But at least in this engagement the Sith fleet could actually fly up. So they would probably win. 

 

There was a victory of sorts to be found here. They still had the element of surprise and tactical superiority. Plus. The Sith did not intend to win here. They intended to exact from the Rebel Alliance the highest toll imaginable. They would bleed them of their best, cutting down every strong man and every moff, killing the best of the Alliance. To leave the rebuilding in the weakest hands. 

 

But it was time to act. And a single code word echoed through the comms of all channels. 

 

Gravemind

 

The Force moved heavily through the battlefield as the crews of the Sith ships surrendered to the gravemind. Bowing their wills to the Mad Hutt’s. Voluntarily giving their autonomy to write an epitaph on the headstone of the Rebel Alliance. 

 

THE GRAVEMIND

 

For dearest Draygo. Likely the best Jedi Grandmaster the Sith have faced. 

 

For her the Gravemind wrought a foul and bitter harvest. As the Sith and Black Sun missile ships continued their destructive bombardment of the surface. A swarm of autonomous drones were released from the docking bays of the Victory class star destroyers. Nothing more than a preprogrammed directional stabilizer and rocket engine strapped to a forty by three foot spike of solid tungsten. This was the second strike of the Delta Zero command. A kinetic bombardment of thousands of tonnes of tungsten, slamming into the densely packed city scape of the Smuggler's Moon. Not to mention the additional nuclear warheads streaming towards the planet’s surface. 

 

Because sometimes. No matter what the Jedi did. Innocents died for no reason. 

 

It was kinda like Coruscant 2.0. But without the celestials showing up for some weird reason. Or maybe it was like Kuat or Kamino, where the Jedi themselves killed trillions. But that narrative was played out. It was boring. It was over. It was time to move on. It was time to move past all the defeats and victories, the highs and lows, the little things, like the totally preventable death of a famous husband after a colossal defeat at Onderon. 

 

For Slaughter. That Great and Steadfast Admiral. 

 

For him the Sith had prepared a special surprise. This was not the first time the Rebel Alliance had reverted to fireships in their efforts to defeat the Scarab. This current battle reflected that old encounter almost ship for ship. And the surprise was the same as it had been at Onderon. 

 

Tucked behind the Super Star Destroyer a blinding white flash exploded forth towards the cluster of new Rebel arrivals on their inbound trajectory. The Sith had played their sabaac hand straight. Relying on doctrine and trusted tradition to deal with an enemy that had never really learned their lessons. For this was the same wave of white hot ion that had trapped the Galactic Alliance Cruisers Starlisk and Wrendui in the Battle of Onderon. That self same doom that had befallen the peaceful Jedi cruisers Sar's Silver and the Patogga and left their crews to be slaughtered. The Ilk of Ion, that great sith Destroyer, had made itself known once again. 

 

Perhaps one day the Sith would make a fateful error. But it was not this day. They had come here with only one objective. To destroy the Rebel alliance as a fighting entity for the next generation and beyond. And if Slaughter survived to see the next grand Sith crusade, perhaps he would see the cross the T. But for now there was much bitter fighting to be done. And it was up to the heavy turbolasers of the Sith to do their business. Picking off the junk and fireships with the ease of a casual day of target practice. While the rest of the thousands of gunners calmly and methodically engaged their targets. 

 

Slaughter and his little suicide mission would be dealt with in a similar fashion. Turbolaser batteries and ion cannons, laser cannons, and missile projectors raining hell onto the small and now virtually unescorted taskforce. 

 

Sith starfighters moved in great waves and screens between the lines of firing ships. Trading evenly with their rebel counterparts. Aces were made, defended, and died. While bombers dipped and made their runs on the Fidelity and its escorts. 

 

Smaller cruisers, frigates, and corvettes engaged each other in stark and bitter battles that by themselves could have filled the strategy books for a generation of cadets at the Imperial Academy at Carida. But were totally unnoticed and unseen except by their own crews and opponents as they ruthlessly fought and died. A web of gravemind spreading out, feasting on the death, the anger, and the despair of everyone it touched. 

 

For Kolchak. The Moff. 

 

Lord Mavenger, Lord Akheron, and the Mad Hutts forces themselves pushed deeper into the Rebel lines. Taking heavy losses, but being replenished by the sudden arrival of the last of Lord Mavenger’s forces. Two looming Lucrehulk-class battleships that emerged from hyperspace from their basing yard at Geonosis, their presence adding to the timeless feeling of the great battle. 

 

Only time would tell if the Moff could hold his command with confidence. The rebels, no matter how many new forces they pulled out of hyperspace, were going to take a decimation that would make Alderaan and Caamas look pathetic. 

[Delta73]

“Hyperdrive disabled by the ramming action of the Rebel fleet under us sir.”

 

To say that the war effort was going well for the Sith Side would be to tell a lie, and to say it was going well for the Rebel Alliance would be a bigger lie. But then again, what were holofilms and holonews reporters to do if they could not spin a delicious lie into History? The history was already written. The Sith Lords would loose here, they would be destroyed in a stunning upset fleet victory, and the best of the Alliance would be swept off the board. Paving the way for the next war, a war that Delta himself knew he would never see. 

 

Even as every victory that had cost him his very soul was being thrown away, he could feel the close press of fate against his skin. Every ship, every soldier, everything he cared for. Reduced to ashes. Thrown away so that the galaxy could deal from a fresh pack of cards. Was it worth it to close so thoroughly the gates of history? To lock them fast against friends and lovers alike? 

 

For he could feel them. Those giants of the past. The vain heroes and devils who cried out against the wheels of time to preserve their legacy. But who would remember them after the last burning husk fell to ground? Who now remembered Ar-Pharazon the Golden or Lord Achzet? No one. For time had moved on. And it was time for the last relics of ages long gone to join the ranks of ghosts. 

 

A hundred judgemental eyes that stared at him unblinking from the corners of his vision. All he needed to do was look to the side and they would flicker away, only to return the moment his direct vision left them. So hge simply stared at the large holographic display that showed the battle churning between the Rebel Alliance and his own Sith Order. Perhaps many of those ghosts would have been proud to have seen how far he had come, but he would not look at them. He would not look to see potential disappointment. But he knew it was there. It pounded down on his skull like a proverbial hammer. He knew those ghostly eyes carried a judgment he could not bear. 

 

All around him they flickered, some in suits of old white plastoid armour, now eroded and charred with carbon scoring. Others in robes of gray and tan whose sightless eyes had long burned out. Some of the figures familiar from the early days of Exodus’s war, Xai-Lin Ardel, in her gunmetal grey tunic, Starlisk, bearing a look of scorn that had been etched onto his face like durasteel. The White Wolf himself, and beside him standing the diminutive form of Tirzah Jade-Colos. How many others were there? How many others stood in the shadows laughing that he had sacrificed every bit of himself, every relationship and love, for an empire that was choosing to fall on its own sword? 

 

The demons delight in destroying those that have sworn to their service

 

The voice cut through both reverie and holographic display like a vibroknife through a duros’s torso. 

 

I used to know you so well Ca’Aran. How did you get here?

 

His eyes looked up to where Sigrid Hensi, his bright eyed and blonde haired second lieutenant should have been. But no, it was not the young woman that had accompanied him since he had left the Black Sun. Instead it was another ghost. That self same ghost that had haunted him every step since the end of the clone wars. She looked up at him and spoke again, her voice trembling at the edge of tears. 

 

You used to be good

 

What a damned nuisance. He stared back at the face that did not flit away like all the others. He did not answer, even as she spoke again. 

 

Did I make you like this?

 

He stared at her incredulously. His first instinct was to deny her involvement, to preserve her love for him, but he forced that down. For what love could exist to one that was long dead and in the ground these hundred years? Only brutal honesty would answer. Even as the deck shifted under his feet from another impact. None of that mattered. Only this. 

 

“I was designed as a damned weapon. I was designed for this, for the slaughter, for the welter of gore at my feet. I used to be good? No. I used to serve good. That is it.”

 

He pointed a gloved finger at her slight form. 

 

“You used me just the same as Ar-Pharazon did, as Faust did, as kriffing Exodus did. As Ailbasí does. You aren’t free from blame.” 

 

She was crying now, tears dripping down her dirty cheeks. Stained with the blue gray soil of Christophsis. Which was now turning more black with the added tears painting over freckled cheeks like makeup. The lines reflecting the glowing orange from the planet below them. 

 

I don’t want you to do this. Stop please! 

 

Her voice was trembling now, her own emotion stretching to meet his. 

 

“What you fucked me once and now you think you own me? That you can demand I cease the function I was designed for?  You made your bed on Christophisis.”

 

He was angry and his voice was hoarse with the emotion that was now boiling inside him. His voice rising to a scream of anger. 

 

“Your republic loaded a kriffing disruptor rifle and pointed it at the galaxy. Now you cry in remorse that it went off? You saw us suffer, you saw my friends and squadmates die by the truckload, and for what reason? Some systems didn’t want to pay their taxes? I lost my entire life, my childhood, my everything for that damned war.” 

 

His hand pointed to the now thoroughly burning planet, where billions of innocent lives were being erased from history. Many would not ever be remembered. Just like those he had loved a hundred years before. Just like those commandos and troopers who fell in the trenches by the thousand to just capture a kilometer of useless land. Goaded on by Jedi generals who wasted life with a wave of the hand. 

 

“You did this to me.”

 

He bounded forward, his crimson cloak billowing behind him like a trail of blood. He snatched at the ghost and his strong hand squeezed around her neck. His fingers finding their purchase as his grip tightened. His large form towering over the woman he had gunned down all those years ago in a lonely command tent. He had loved her once.

 

“Why didn’t you run away with me? Why did you choose duty?”

 

He was screaming again, his eyes starting to water. She was struggling to speak, her perfect blue eyes widened in horrible fright as his powerful hands ground against her larynx. He would not let her speak. He would not let her say a word. For this had already been long decided and he knew the answer to the questions he was screaming into her dying face. 

 

He was damned and he always had been. 

 

The beating of her hands on his face slowed just like the pulse under his fingers. Petering off until she was empty weight in his hands. He let the lovely corpse fall away to the decking and looked back up to the holographic display. And instead of seeing ghosts, all he saw were the staring eyes of frightened deck crew. 

[Delta73]

Despite whatever schizophrenic episode their captain may have been experiencing, the crew and officers of the Black Scarab kept in fighting shape. Not to mention the thousands of battle hardened fighter pilots who had finished off the remains of the Jedi fighter wings that had thrown away their lives in a useless attempt to protect the now thoroughly burning Ecumenopolis. The pilots of the starfighters and bombers dove into the undefended tugs, civilian vessels, and military transports which were heading towards the Scarab. Being virtually undefended, the vessel’s lifespans would be measured in seconds and would likely be cut out of high orbit as if with a scythe. It would be easy pickings, even if there was little honour in the act, and it would save the Super Star Destroyer from any additional threats that might venture forth from the Spaceworks. 

 

As for the Scarab itself, it had not been badly crippled by the Misericordia and Constantine, and though it was normally perfectly capable of withstanding the missile fire of the two venerable victory star destroyers. The majority of the point defense operators at the rear of the Super Star Destroyer split their time between picking off civilian vessels, escape pods, and the much more dangerous missiles. Much to the captain’s chagrin, three of the heavy torpedoes broke through the shield array and splashed into the convex starboard engine. Detonating in a rippling explosion that cut all lateral thrust from the starboard side as fire crews worked to douse the blaze. As the shields were restored surrounding the engines by the generator crews.

 

The surrounding six Victory Star Destroyers of the Black Sun division, having expended their thermonuclear armament on the planet below, reversed their thrusters and began to add their turbolasers and Ion cannons to the fray. Targeting the smaller vessels of the haggard Alliance fleet, while the thousands of turbolasers of the Super Star Destroyers turned their fury on the Gerrera, L’ouverture, Breachmaker, and Vigilant. Intending to make quick work of the significantly smaller and less shielded vessels. They would be easy kills. Much like the old Galactic Alliance they had hailed from had been. Their crews reduced to flaming masses of burning debris. 

 

But this would be the last mission for the Scarab. And its captain had a plan for its demise. 

[Delta73]

Oh but now the demons were so close. He was on the precipice, and his vision swam with forms both light and dark. Ghosts now pressing close enough that he could feel their breath on the back of his neck and their smell intoxicating. How he longed to step across the threshold, past the body at his feet, past the staring bridge crew, past the viewports and into the fire of the planet below. To embrace the destiny the cloners had set him on so many decades ago. To be bathed in fire and glory. That was what he was designed for right? And who was he to spit in the eye of his creators? 

 

Somewhere in the back of his head he knew he still had the choice to step away. To order his ship to stand down, order an honourable surrender, and spend his life in peace. That would be the right decision, it could not make up for the trillions of lives he had helped snuff out in the Sith’s mad dash for power, but it would set him on the right path. He let the idea float in his head for a moment, letting the possibilities of redemption tempt him. 

 

But it was not too tempting. It was the hard choice, and he had already come so far to turn back now. What good was it to start a fire mission only to turn around when it came to the firefight? The decision would come knocking on his door and he would open the gates. Afterall, he would just slip back into this again if he made the hard choice. He was just delaying the inevitable, and he deserved this one choice. He would walk the easy road. The road to glory and damnation, and how his heart rejoiced in the choice of it. 

 

As officers screamed about some corvette crashing into a hanger, his bloodsoaked hand dropped to his belt and slid the DC-15 blaster pistol from its leather holster. How had it gotten bloodsoaked? He did not remember, but something about the warm stickiness of arterial blood on his hands brought a lifetime of memories streaming through his head. The familiar and well worn grip of the DC-15s pistol felt as much a part of him as his own arms. 

 

“It’s hard the first time lad. You pull and pull, your arm shaking as you look into their eyes, you almost pray that the blaster doesn’t actually fire. But it does. It does, and then you feel the rush of it. You feel the line between human and immortal god fall away. You get to do something only the gods can do.” Delta could feel those steadying hands holding his wrist, straightening them on the blaster pistol. The voice was that of his Cuy'val Dar instructor, one of the many ghosts that skittered in the back of his mind, but now clear and distinct. Back then he had been looking into the eyes of one of the imported manual laborers that had been recruited to Kamino. The fear in those eyes had delighted him. “You get to sever the soul from its body.” 

 

The blaster pistol went off in his hand, its pure blue energy bolt lancing into the back of the flight control officer’s head. Pitching the man headfirst off his pedestal and into the pit that surrounded the command deck. A slight shift of aim and another blast of energy snatched the life out of the captain in charge of the bridge, another slight shift of aim and the TAC officer screamed for the last time in his life. Three more shots, and three more promising lives were snuffed out. 

 

It was a delicious carnage, and the bridge crew were completely defenseless. It was like shooting nerfs in their cages. One of his officers managed to fire off a return shot that struck him in the side and did all kinds of damage to his internal organs. But he was still standing. And the officer died from a quick snapshot to the face. 

 

It was easy to herd the cadets and unarmed crew into their pits, and as he fired into their defenseless positions, he felt nothing at all except the dull ache of his side. It didn’t take a minute to finish the slaughter, and he did not hear their screaming or their begging, or the shouting and hammering on the other side of the secured bulkhead doors. Or the dull thumping of rebel turbolasers hammering against the shields. 

 

He walked the few steps to the captain’s seat and sat down, ignoring the trickle of brown burned blood that blotched his crimson uniform. Instead he pulled up the holographic console and typed a long series of commands. Highest level passwords, and administrative keys, and he secured the bridge and control of the ship completely. He pushed the engines to their maximum thrust and set the trim into place at a sharp downwards angle. Waiting until the globe of the burning planet was filling the forward viewscreen completely, then evened out the engine thrust to account for the damaged engine. It would not take long at all for the final part of the plan to come to its fruition. 

 

Down and down came the Black Scarab, accelerating with both the might of gravity and the full thrust of its remaining banks of engines. The last scrap of Empire, the last vestige of the Sith Armada that had terrorized the galaxy for the last half a decade now hurtled towards the burning Ecumenopolis. Eating up the kilometers of distance to the surface in seconds. And leaving the mostly destroyed rebel fleet behind. The vessel would serve as both grave and pyre to the old Vigo of the Black Sun. 

 

There was no retreat for the most faithful of the Sith’s servants. 

 

And when the Scarab struck Nar Shaddaa it entered into the cityscape like a knife, cutting downwards into the meat of the planet. The shields finally failing in a flash of energy as they leveled thousands of city blocks. Only then did the Super Star Destroyer detonate. Taking all hands, and all pursuing rebel vessels with it. Sealing the tomb of the last Sith Empire in senseless death and fire.  

 

But the clone commando had found his damnation at last.