The Dominus Nihil Project; with holographs!

[Olicc]

The story of Olicc Rayzurr
The Dominus Nihil Project


*Shortly after the events of Baton Station*

* * *

Master Dossand:

By now you have certainly heard about the confrontation between Rebel and Imperial forces at Baton Station. You may also know, or at least suspect, my involvement in the conflict. I can confirm that I was part of the Rebel force that infiltrated the base and rescued two Rebel POWs. Eirie has allowed me to say also that her guild of warriors, what she calls the ‘Teras Kasi Order <TKO>’, also played a role in the operation. I can say no more about <TKO> accept that I have seen Romour and she is doing well; she sends her warmest regards to you and her grandfather.

I know that my actions are not supported by the council but I believe that it is time for me to play a more active role in galactic events. For this reason, I have decided to leave the temple. I can’t tell you enough how grateful I am to you for everything you have done for me. It pains me greatly to think that I am letting you down by these words. You are the father that I never had and the thought of never seeing you again is nearly unbearable. I hope that you will see that I am doing what must be done.

You once told me that you believed that I had a destiny; that I would play a crucial role in galactic events. We all have destinies Master, for better or for worse; whether mine will be more significant than most I do not know. But I will not stray from the path. I will not slack in my training. I will not forget what I have learned; or you.

Come what may…

Olicc Rayzurr

* * *

Olicc lifted the hood of his jacket over his head as he left the parking structure to walk over the bridge leading to his apartment complex. You would think that who ever designed the parking structure - that served as parking for three different apartment complexes surrounding it - would have accounted for the amount of rain Coronet received and would have constructed some sort of awning to protect the tenets from the rain while walking from the structure to their apartments. But they hadn’t. It wasn’t particularly cold outside but it was raining hard enough to dampen his pants and muddy his boots and Olicc wanted to avoid tracking mud onto his new carpet. He wasn’t planning on staying in the apartment long - just until he received word from Eirie that he had been accepted into the guild, TKO - but he knew the management company would try to nickel and dime him for his security deposit.

Living alone in a one bedroom apartment in downtown Coronet brought back many memories. Olicc’s new apartment wasn’t far from the one he had been leasing before he moved into the Teras Kasi temple to begin his training. He almost felt like he was a teen again; on his own for the first time. The location wasn’t the only reminder of those days, either; behind his excitement loomed a sense of loss and loneliness, as well. The first time, he had been upset over the death of his mother. This time, he was leaving behind the order he had dedicated himself too for over a half decade which included Dossand who had become a father figure to him. Olicc had never met his father but he imagined that the love he felt for Dossand was no different than that of most fathers and sons.

Olicc walked into his apartment left his boots by the front door. He switched on the holovid – a news program – on his way to the counter where he threw his keys and wallet before heading to the bathroom to shower and change. For the last two weeks since he participated in the rescue mission at Baton Station Olicc had been working for a Trandossian named Bir Lun. Bir was a friend of Vauhn’s and often did business with Moonshyne Industries; Dominus Nihil had been kind enough to make the job arrangements for him. Aji had felt partially responsible that Olicc’s participation in the operation had forced him to leave the temple and felt that setting him up with a job was the least he could do. Despite Bir’s questionable business ventures, he had provided Olicc with a legitimist job doing security work. The job was pretty boring - mostly walking through warehouses and sitting behind desks watching monitors – but they paid him enough to make ends meet for the time being.

With his left hand he pulled off the metal cap from the beer bottle and jokingly thought to himself that training in Teras Kasi had all been worth it for the mere fact that he would never need to search for a bottle opener again. Olicc made a mental note to buy more beer to more fully take advantage of this benefit. Olicc used the couch that had come with the furnished apartment as a back rest but sat on the floor, his legs stretched out towards the images from the holovid. Olicc took a long drink from his beer; drinking alcohol had been the first indulgences he had picked back up since leaving the order. He had never been much of a drinker, especially using Corellian standards, but there was something to be said for the cliché of drinking an ice cold beer to wind down after a day at work. Now that he had the ability to use his meditative skills to neutralize the toxins before they did any permanent harm to his liver, brain cells and other bodily functions he had little reason not too. In fact, if not for the fact that it would lead to dehydration and an abundance of calories, he would drink beer all day long. Since it did, he would switch back to mineral and vitamin enhanced drinking water – essential to maximize the effectiveness of his meditative skills – once he finished his beer and then give up the habit completely once he joined TKO.

Olicc didn’t really know what to do with himself. Had he been in the temple he would have been training, or at the very least, teaching a class. Sitting on the floor and watching the Holovid was making Olicc feel guilty despite the fact that he was constantly telling himself that he deserved a quick vacation away from Teras Kasi life.

Olicc lifted his hand out towards the holovid with his palm open, facing the player. An optical scanner on the player briefly recorded the action and its limited artificial intelligence recognized the action and responded by sending a series of low powered lasers to the location of his hand and a holo image that acted as a virtual remote control. Olicc moved his finger into the holographic image’s positive symbol and the holovid began scanning through various channels. The vast majority of holovids on civilized worlds were hooked up to the holonet, and huge network of data spanning across most of the known galaxy used by computers, holovids, and communications equipment – military, commercial, and private – to easily store and transfer information across the Empire. The network was so large that it provided Olicc with over three million channels to choose from, and he only had a basic package; still, even with all those available channels, Olicc couldn’t find anything interesting to watch.

Olicc stopped on a game show program, not because he was interested in the contest, but because the female Zabrak contestant was attractive. He looked at her with mild interest until he caught the red dot rapidly moving across the carpeted floor towards him. Olicc reacted instantly, rolling to his left and away from the window. An extremely bright and thin laser shot through the window, melting a neat and perfectly symmetrical hole, and continued through the spot Olicc has just been sitting and then continued through the couch and through the flooring and a wall from the apartment below and it’s floor, and continued as such until the intense laser finally dissipated when it reached the dense soil of Corellia five stories below Olicc’s apartment. With a push off the floor and a kick with his legs, Olicc’s body flew and twisted in the air and ended with Olicc on his feet running for the bedroom. Behind him, a small rocket, far less graceful but no less lethal, came crashing through the same window, shattering the glass, and continued onward until it reached the kitchen wall and exploded. Olicc heard the loud explosion from behind him and dove for cover as green bolts of energy came through his bedroom window, trying to mow him down by volume where accuracy had failed.

Olicc rolled into a crouch behind the protection of the heavy Kashyyyk-greenwood bed that had come with his apartment. Olicc didn’t want to get pinned down behind the bed but he didn’t have too many options available to him. His apartment was small with only one bedroom, a living room, a kitchen, and a bathroom connected to both the kitchen and bedroom. Olicc would need to get outside but the attacker, or attackers, seemed to have both the bedroom and living room windows covered and would have the front door, located roughly half way between the two windows, also, and since there was no cover within a reasonable distance from any of those exits, he would have to wait for a better opportunity to make a break for it. Instead, he bolted out from the bed and through the bathroom door and then left through the other bathroom door into the small hallway that lead to the kitchen. This provided him with the option of continuing on counterclockwise into the kitchen and back to the living room, or going back the way he came into the bathroom and back into the bedroom depending on the attacker’s next move.

The was a blast at the front door and in walked in a being dressed in katarn armor similar to that used by Stormtroopers, or the Mandelorians before them, but in a design Olicc hasn’t seen before; probably a custom job, Olicc thought. The being was holding what looked like a highly modified E11 Carbine. Olicc ducked back around the hallway and made as if to run back through the bathroom but stopped short and listened for the heavy footfalls of the large armed man. The attacker choose to chase after him clockwise, going from the living room to the kitchen and turning into the hallway with his carbine held high and ready to fire. Unfortunately for him, he was far to slow for Olicc. Using the sound of the attacker’s footsteps as a guide, Olicc launch himself towards the armored assassin before he had even turned the corner. Olicc blocked the path of the carbine swinging towards him with his right arm and gripped the back of the blaster just above the attacker’s hands while simultaneously hitting the man with a hard, open hand blow to side of his chest plate. The resilient katarn armor protected the man from the blow but its force still shoved him backwards, sprawling to the kitchen floor, now covered in wreckage from the rocket, without the blaster Olicc had pried from his hands.

Olicc executed a quick back-handspring to propel him once again behind the relative safety of the hallway, and in doing so, managed to narrowly avoid another shot from the sniper outside. This confirmed at least two attackers. Olicc brought the carbine up to fire as he completed the back-handspring but recognized that the fallen man was preparing to fire again from his back. Olicc executed a side dive roll across the bathroom and a series of darts penetrated the bathroom wall, above the refresher. Olicc continued on into the bedroom and took cover once again behind his bid, this time firing the carbine out his bedroom window towards the general direction of the sniper. Olicc quickly abandoned the effort when he realized that there was a much greater chance that a stray shot would hit an innocent bystander than the sniper.

The katarn armored man came through the bedroom doorway from the living room. Olicc unleashed three shots into his chest plate and although at least two of them penetrated the heavy armor, the man continued forward holding a mean looking vibroblade in his right hand. Once again, the large man was too slow. Olicc blocked the knife lunge from the inside of his attack with the butt of the carbine and then slid the stock up his armored right arm and stuck the man in the neck. Olicc then dropped the carbine and grabbed the knife arm in a fierce wrist lock; bones snapped and the knife dropped. Olicc repositioned the lock into a throw and the two quickly danced past the window. The sniper gambled hitting his partner and lost, the thin light easily penetrating both sides of the katarn armor and then continuing still through the back wall into the neighboring apartment. When the armored man bounced off the wall he came to rest on the floor beside Olicc’s bed in a very awkward position and no longer moving.

Olicc picked up both the vibroblade and the carbine and returned to the hallway. Olicc considered his options. The sniper had the obvious advantage; if Olicc tried to leave though any of the front exits, the sniper would easily pick him off. Anything solid enough to shield him from the sniper rifle would be too heavy for him to carry as a shield. If Olicc tried to stay where he was the sniper could force him to reconsider by, say, lighting the apartment on fire, throwing any number of gasses grenades into the apartment or even throwing in a thermal detonator. Just then, Olicc realized that if the assassins had used a thermal detonator in the first place, or at any point thus far, he would be dead now. Either the attackers didn’t have one – possible, but hard to believe that someone in katarn armor didn’t have access to one – or they had some reason why they didn’t want to use it.

Olicc decided that his only chance was to make a new exit. So much for my security deposit, Olicc thought as he punched through the wall leading into the apartment behind him and began ripping away at the plywood. A minute later and the hole was large enough for Olicc to fit through. Olicc squeezed through the opening and emerged in his neighbor’s hallway. The apartment seemed to be a mirror image of his own; bathroom to bathroom, kitchen to kitchen.

Olicc ran through the kitchen and headed for the front door which opened before he reached it. In the door walked another figure, this one wearing black Echani Battle Armor and holding a lightsaber.

* * *

Olicc’s first thought was, Oh, so this is how I’m going to die. Then his training took over and he launched himself into a series of acrobatic maneuvers that avoided each lightsaber strike and moved him across the room and through the bedroom door. Olicc still held the carbine but he didn’t dare use it against the Jedi knowing that the bolts would be deflected right back at him. He also held the vibroblade but it was no match for the lightsaber; still, it could be useful for penetrating the Jedi’s armor.

Olicc tried to get the Jedi to follow him into the bedroom and counterclockwise through the apartment so he could then beat him out the door and escape but the Jedi simply used his lightsaber to slice through the wall to cut Olicc off. Olicc retreated back through the bedroom and the Jedi went back through the hole in the wall he crated and was there to block his path once again. Olicc picked up a small wooden desk chair as he ran passed it and threw it at the Jedi as a distraction. One of the chair’s legs hit the doorway as it passed and it spun wildly toward the Jedi, who, to Olicc’s amazement, actually caught the chair with his free left had and set it down casually onto the floor. He was showing off.

“Oh yeah? Let’s see how tough you are without that light saber.” Olicc goaded.

The Jedi seemed to consider the challenge for a brief moment and then distinguished the blade and clipped the saber onto his belt. He waved Olicc forward. Olicc charged forward, picking up a picture frame from the desk as he ran. Olicc threw the picture frame at the Jedi’s head to raise his guard and then initiated a highly difficult and acrobatic diving, spinning low kick for the Jedi’s legs, hoping to sweep his opponent off his feet. The Jedi avoided the picture frame - rather than blocking it - and countered Olicc’s leg sweep by shifting his weight and repositioning the leg Olicc was attacking. After the block, Olicc’s forward momentum dissipated and he had to use his hands to push off the ground to keep himself from crashing to the ground. Utilizing his incredible dexterity and arm strength, Olicc spun his legs back around the other way to attack the other leg while the Jedi was favoring his lead leg. Once again, the Jedi shifted his weight on time and blocked the maneuver. Olicc executed another acrobatic maneuver resembling a diagonal handstand that sent him flying back away from the Jedi.

This time the Jedi attacked, closing the distance quickly as Olicc landed on his feet. The Jedi executed a jumping, spinning roundhouse – with perfect precision – to Olicc left shoulder. Olicc blocked the kick with his left forearm and struck at the Jedi’s neck – which was a likely vulnerability in the armor – with his right. Still in the air and gliding towards Olicc, the Jedi blocked Olicc’s strike with a small circular motion of his left forearm. The Jedi’s kick, block combination effectively tied up both of Olicc’s arms in committed actions which provided the opening to land a crisp right cross to Olicc’s face. Olicc took the blow well but it was only the first of many continuous exchanges that favored the Jedi.

Olicc did everything he could to protect himself but the Jedi was faster and stronger and seemed to have a counter for everything Olicc tried. The Jedi trapped Olicc’s right arm during an attempted punch combination and executed a body throw which sent Olicc into the bedroom wall and causing the first layer of plywood to break in. Olicc managed to land on his feet after bouncing off the wall only to be hit with a jumping, spinning back kick on the chest which sent him completely through the wall and into the living room once again.

Olicc performed a back-roll which concluded in a solid defensive stance. The Jedi ran through the hole in the wall which Olicc’s body had just created and then attempted the same acrobatic diving, low, spin kick Olicc had tried earlier. Olicc managed the first block in the same fashion that the Jedi had countered his. The Jedi then used his arms and spun in the reverse direction – as Olicc had done – in a faint to Olicc back leg but then sprung up into a handstand and connected with Olicc’s chin with his right heal. Olicc was once again caught off guard and the Jedi continued the combination with a leg sweep that sent Olicc crashing down.

Olicc was in pain. He was pretty sure he had some serious internal bleeding that he would have to get a handle on or he would die. Many of his joints were also injured from various joint manipulations that the Jedi was able to pull off. The Jedi’s unarmed skills were incredible, far better than anything he had ever faced. As Olicc continued to fight for his life he was reminded of the time Dossand had arranged for him to fight Romour when he was first accepted into the temple. Despite Olicc’s considerable skill at the time, he had been primarily self trained and proved to be no match for the younger female who had grown up studying at the temple. Now, he was proving to be no match for the Jedi who wasn’t even using his lightsaber; his unarmed style was different enough from Olicc’s to be considered another discipline but defiantly had routes in Teras Kasi which matched what Olicc had been taught regarding the Jedi at the Temple. While Olicc was becoming increasingly injured he had not managed a single clean blow against the Jedi.

Another exchange sent Olicc crashing against the back wall near the kitchen, not far from the hole he had created to enter the apartment from his own. Olicc attempted to get up, prepared to fight to his death when he heard the snap-hiss of the Jedi’s lightsaber; the blade of which was extended towards Olicc’s neck.

“You have been beaten,” the Jedi declared, speaking to Olicc for the first time; his armored helmet muddying his voice; “at your own game, no less. You have no means of escape; it is only my generosity that allows you to live. Move an inch and you will find that my generosity is fairly limited.”

Olicc didn’t know what to do. He had no chance at this point to get up, while highly injured, avoid the lightsaber and execute any attack that had any hope of success. Instead, Olicc slipped into a meditative trance and attempted to repair his internal bleeding. The Jedi instantly noticed Olicc’s like of attention and kicked him in the head to get it back. Olicc gave the Jedi the attention he demanded but still devoted as much concentration as he was allowed to heal. Olicc was prepared to fight to the death, which would undoubtedly be his, if necessary, but the Jedi was allowing him a much needed break from the action and Olicc was content with taking advantage of it. Hopefully, an option would present itself.

“You are Olicc Rayzurr. I know this and all about your Teras Kasi Order. I must say that I’m not impressed. I was lead to believe that you were a man with some considerable talent. I hope your monk friends are fairing better than you did with me. Right now, as we speak, my forces are destroying your insignificant temple.”

“I will tell you nothing,” Olicc stated.

The Jedi laughed, “Have I even asked you anything? Fool, you know nothing that I don’t already know.”

“You’re lying. If you had an army at your disposal, you wouldn’t have needed to hire those two mercenaries to lure me into this room. You don’t know anything and you are trying to get me to slip, it won’t work, and I will say nothing else.”

“Is that so, foolish one?” The Jedi laughed again, “I’m afraid that I do know the exact coordinates of the temple and a great deal about the monks and warriors that live there. You’re mentor Dossand, for example. I also know about Romour and Eirie and her new Guild, the Teras Kasi Order.”

The Jedi paused, waiting for Olicc to respond – which he didn’t.

The Jedi continued, “Tell me the location of the Teras Kasi Order and I will call off the attack on your temple.”

Olicc ignored the request and continued to repair his injures as quickly as he could. In the best of circumstances Olicc would have been able to shore up the bleeding in a few minutes and repair the bulk of the damage over a half hour or so, but Olicc wasn’t fully in a meditative trance which was making the repairs very difficult.

“Your teachers and friends die needlessly! Your weak order is of no concern of mine. You talk of resistance but do nothing. It is this new guild that bothers me, should I allow them to grow they could become a significant threat. I can’t allow that to happen. I will find them and I will kill them; with or without your help. You can’t stop that, but you can save your precious temple. Tell me the location of the Teras Kasi Order!”

Olicc remained quiet and the Jedi kicked him in the head again. The Jedi gave Olicc a few more minutes to answer, and when he did not, the Jedi shut of his lightsaber and proceeded to repeatedly punch Olicc in the face until he momentarily lost consciousness. Once Olicc regained enough alertness to notice, the Jedi resumed the interrogation. Olicc refused to speak and so the Jedi continued to torture him for another fifteen minutes before he decided to slightly change his tactics.

“Perhaps I have misjudged your loyalties,” the Jedi suggested. “I thought your loyalties were with the temple yet you sacrifice them only to provide the New Teras Kasi Order a few extra days to live. Clearly you care more for this new order than the one that trained you. This is unexpected but admirable. I, too, grew to surpass my master and I also had to sacrifice her to prevent her attempts to stunt my progression. I’ll make you another deal: tell me the names of all the council members in the temple so that I can be sure that they are all dead and I will be generous to your new friends. I naturally can’t allow them to continue to appose me but, if you wish, I can give them a quick death, or even let them live as a cripple if you prefer. I’ll allow you the same option though I know a warrior like yourself would rather die than be crippled.”

Olicc remained silent.

“Is my offer not a generous one?” The Jedi leaned in close to Olicc in an almost friendly way. Olicc was too engaged in healing himself to capitalize on the possible opening - which was just, as well, since the man was only testing Olicc’s response and was fully prepared to counter anything Olicc could try. “Olicc, you have fought bravely. From one warrior to another, I respect the fight in you; but you must be realistic about your options as this point. What good are you doing by staying quiet? Chances are that they are all going to die anyway, assuming that they aren’t dead already. You might as well take advantage of my offer. There is no need for you to suffer like this. Live to fight another day!”

The Jedi picked up a fruit that had fallen onto the floor during the fight, stood back up, and began pacing in front of Olicc while eating it. When the Jedi finished the fruit he regarded it for a second, threw it back onto the floor and resumed kicking Olicc in the head until he lost consciousness again, and then a few more times just to make sure.

* * *

The Jedi continued his interrogation as soon as Olicc regained consciousness. Olicc remained silent after each question and so received a beating after each one. Each time the Jedi found Olicc’s attention wander he would give an especially forceful beating. Despite the continued abuse, Olicc was actually improving health wise. Olicc was repairing his internal bleeding in exchange for relatively superficial wounds. Olicc’s face was now a bloody mess, and he looked horrible, but the damage to his liver, kidneys and intestines were mostly repaired and the various veins that had been empting his blood inside his body had been repaired, or at least sealed off. Olicc mostly left the wounds to his head alone since he wanted to continue to appear injured and helpless. Maybe he could lure the Jedi into a false sense of security and overtake him with surprise. It was unlikely, but it was all he had.

Olicc’s lack of attention earned him another beating but it didn’t really bother Olicc since he had used meditative techniques to dull most of his pain receptors. Olicc’s eyes had become swollen shut from the abuse; content that his internal injuries were repaired well enough, for now, Olicc put some attention to his eyes and nose. He didn’t want to repair any of the cosmetic mess but he did want to be able to see and breathe when fighting resumed which was inevitable. Through the ringing in his ears it was getting hard to listen to the Jedi speak but it didn’t really matter, he knew what the Jedi wanted him to do and Olicc wasn’t going to give in. Olicc would wait for an opening, take his best shot and probably die in the process. It was better than betraying his friends and at least the torment would be over.

The interrogation had lasted over an hour of constant beatings. A couple of the more extensive attacks would re-damage his internal injuries and Olicc would have to patch them up again the best he could. Olicc spent much of the last half hour blind, as well, but he was now able to open his eyes enough to see blurry images. That would have to be enough. Part of the Teras Kasi training included fighting without the benefit of various combinations of senses. Even blind and deaf, a Teras Kasi Warrior was a very dangerous killing machine. Olicc just needed an opening, so he waited… until suddenly he knew. He knew that he would attack the Jedi and win. He knew when he was going to attack and he knew exactly which attacks he would do. And best of all, he knew that it was going to work. He saw it all clearly in his head. Not sight really, more like a feeling along with imagery from his imagination. A soundless voice from inside him and yet, strangest off all, is that Olicc was aware that this ‘voice’ was not originating from him. Olicc had never experienced anything even remotely like this before and it had not lasted long. As the excitement of hope increased the guiding feeling faltered and abandoned him. It didn’t matter, Olicc had seen enough and he knew what he needed to do and when.

Olicc waited for the Jedi to ignite his lightsaber and a moment later he heard the snap-hiss. Olicc listened towards the back wall, waiting for the sniper. A few minutes later and the sniper that had grown impatient guarding the entrance of Olicc’s apartment over the last hour climbed through the portal connecting the two apartments with his rifle up and ready to fire. The Jedi raised his lightsaber, ever so slightly, and turned his attention to the intruding mercenary in response.

“I told you to stay…”

Olicc launched into an attack, not quiet as fast as he had hoped, but fast enough that he was on his feet before the Jedi noticed Olicc was once again a threat. Olicc grab the Jedi’s right wrist to immobilize the lightsaber and in a fluid motion struck the Jedi’s throat below the armor line with his right hand and immediately after, lodged his right forearm into the crook of the Jedi’s elbow. By applying leverage and a slight twist, Olicc propelled the Jedi first towards the ground but then yanked him back up and spun him around so that the Jedi was facing the mercenary with Olicc behind him. The Jedi’s right arm was twisted over his right shoulder. Olicc cranked the joint lock and dislocated the Jedi’s shoulder and elbow joints. While holding the lock with his left hand, Olicc removed the lightsaber with his right and threw the melee weapon at the sniper who was still standing just outside of the portal trying to line up a shot on Olicc without hitting and killing his employer. The sniper attempted to block the approaching saber with his left arm but the blade easily cut through the composite armor and continued to slice the man in half from above the left shoulder and out his right side.

The Jedi sacrificed his right arm and spun out of the joint lock. Olicc heard popping sounds from the Jedi’s elbow as he spun away. The Jedi’s arm hung oddly at his side - dislocated at both the shoulder and elbow – and provided both a defensive and offensive weakness. As the Jedi took a step back in the best defensive stance he could manage, Olicc took a step in for a hard right cross. Like all Teras Kasi warriors, Olicc’s body was ripped with lean, fast-twitch muscles. But it wasn’t Olicc’s physical strength that made his punches so damaging, it was his flawless technique; the fluid transfer of mass combined with the speed of his movements landing exactly on target. There were many at the temple that were physically stronger than Olicc - most of which were species that were simply genetically stronger than Zabraks – but only a few of the temple’s best Masters could beat his devastating ‘punching power’. As he came in, Olicc used his left hand to tie up and move the Jedi’s left arm out of its defensive position and connected the right cross cleanly on his jaw. The Jedi’s Echani helmet did little to prevent his head from twisting harshly away from the blow. His knees failed him and he fell over backwards.

Olicc was about to follow up with another attack to press his advantage and insure victory when the Jedi put his good arm forward and requested for Olicc to stop. Had the voice not differed from the taunting tone it carried earlier, Olicc might not have recognized it and very well might have killed him. Instead, he tore off the man’s helmet and confirmed the Jedi’s identity. The human was dazed from the blow but it was clearly Rune Loy. In fact, Rune was no Jedi at all, but rather a highly respected Teras Kasi Master and one of the more prominent members of the Traditionalist’s Council.

Olicc felt betrayed, and very, very angry. He could deal with Jedi trying to kill him because they were his enemy; but an assassination plot by his own masters!

“Why is the Council trying to kill me?” Olicc demanded!

“We are not.” Rune explained, “We needed to be sure that you were ready to be out on your own. If you had cracked under torture I would have been forced to bring you back to the temple or kill you if you refused. The Council was confident that you would pass this trial; it never occurred to us that you would actually defeat me.”

Rune chuckled slightly in respectful amazement after the last comment; the pain in his right arm already dissipating as he released endorphins and temporarily disabled nerves through meditation.

“A rather harsh test, don’t you think?”

“Perhaps, but it was the only way we could be sure. We do not wish you any harm but we have the safety of the others to consider.”

“We? I find it hard to believe that Master Dossand agreed to this.”

“Actually, it was Dossand that came up with the idea. He would have carried out the trail personally but wisely suggested that I carry out the test to quell the possibility of any suggestions that it was carried out subjectively.”

“Impossible, you’re lying!”

“He knew even more so than I that you would not betray the Order. Even Master Mjiad expressed his faith in you.”

“Please… Master Mjiad has had it in for me since day one. He has made it clear that he believes that I’m going to be the destruction of the Order.”

“Master Mjiad respects you and your gift immensely. It’s probably difficult to see it from your prospective but Master Mjiad is not your enemy.”

“After today, all of you are my enemy!”

“That’s not true and you know it. You are upset and understandably so; but you have always been a practical thinker and you will come to realize that this test was a necessity.”

“Don’t hold your breath.”

“Regardless, you have passed the trial and are free to proceed with your plans,” Rune said. “And what is to become of the great[?I] Olicc Rayzurr?”

The statement was delivered with a slight sarcastic edge, though no disrespect was intended by it. Never the less, Olicc became defensive.

“I never claimed greatness; that was a label unfairly placed upon me”

“Unfair? What is unfair is that I have dedicated my entire life to the Teras Kasi arts and find myself defeated by a young prodigy that is ungrateful for his talents. Just recently promoted to warrior and already defeating Masters.”

Rune’s respect and admiration of him was genuine and he knew it. Olicc wasn’t convinced that the ‘test’ had been necessary - ‘more to satisfy the conservative elements on the council than anything else,’ Olicc though – but Rune believed it had been necessary and had played the role reluctantly. It was difficult to stay mad at someone who had good intentions. Although Olicc’s wounds were serious enough to be fatal to an ordinary Zabrak, they weren’t so serious that a few days meditating in a bacta tank couldn’t fix. In the end, he would be as good as new, no long term damage done. It occurred to Olicc that Rune had probably chosen his blows strategically to achieve that outcome, a testament to his extraordinary abilities - a true Master.

As Olicc’s anger faded, the effects of his lingering injuries became more apparent. In contrast, Rune had recovered fully from Olicc’s bow and looked ready for a few more rounds despite his disfigured arm. If Rune wanted to kill Olicc, it was doubtful that Olicc would be able to stop him again in his current condition.

Olicc knelt in a meditative position on the floor and resumed the healing of his injuries. A moment later, he opened his eyes again – diverting only part of his attention from the import task of quelling his internal bleeding – and regarded Rune.

“I got lucky,” Olicc admitted.

“Luck? What most people call luck is merely gambling against the odds and coming out on top. A 5% chance comes to be 1 out of every 20 tries. Perhaps I am still the stronger warrior, perhaps nine times out of ten or even ninety nine times out of a hundred I would have come out on top; but not today. This time you came out on top and it had nothing to do with luck. I thought you were defeated and your attack caught me completely by surprise. It was brilliantly and perfectly executed, both in timing and precision. It was a thing of beauty that I had to admire even while in the mist of feeling its wrath”

Olicc considered telling Rune about his ‘vision’ that had prompted the attack, [I]perhaps he could make sense of it, but decided against it; the vision resembled the Jedi’s gift of foresight a little to closely to share with a Teras Kasi without thinking it through. Olicc’s midichlorian count had been tested several times in his life and each time his levels showed as normal – which is to say: not Force sensitive. Still, the order had enough problems trusting Olicc without adding to their concerns.

It was Rune who eventually broke the silence, “The fact that you are capable of defeating a Teras Kasi Master at such a young age is most impressive. Then consider the fact that you have had less than six standard years of formal training. It’s inconceivable, and yet, here you are.”

“The Teras Kasi understand that anything can happen in a fight. Lucky punches, distractions, freak occurrences ,” Olicc put extra stress on the last example, “can effect the outcome of a fight and allow the weaker, less skilled man to be the victor.”

“Yes, I was distracted. My distraction was evidence of my imperfection. I also underestimated you. You capitalized on my weaknesses and defeated me. You earned your victory.” Rune looked at Olicc with stern seriousness, “In all honesty, there aren’t many warriors that could have pulled that off, luck or otherwise. If you continue to progress at this pace it won’t be long before you surpass everyone at the temple.”

“Where are the police?” Olicc asked, a bit off subject.

“I set up a signal jamer. We activated it just after the first shots were fired. I’m surprised you didn’t notice the loss of holo-reception while you were battling the mercs. You were always one of our more observant students.”

Olicc chided himself for not noticing the detail.

“Still, we need to get out of here. I’ve arranged for a clean up crew to dispose of those two, “Rune indicated the dead merc lying on the floor beside them in two pieces and his counterpart who’s body was still in Olicc’s apartment. “We’ve already disposed of all the records that indicated that you had lived here. By the time CorSec gets here, there won’t be any evidence that links the disturbance to you or the Teras Kasi.”

Olicc walked with Rune to a four door speeder parked just beyond the apartment’s parking structure without assistance. Olicc slipped into a full meditative trance once he entered the transport. Rune commed the clean up crew and gave them some quick instructions. He then did his best to reset his dislocated shoulder and elbow before he set off for the trip back to the temple. Olicc had really done a number on his arm but he had received worse injuries in battle. A few days in a bacta tank and a few more in heavy meditation and the two of them would be as good as new. Hopefully…

* * *

Spending three days in a bacta tank was no fun. While most people would be rendered unconscious for the duration of time within the tank, Olicc had chosen to remain awake so that he could speed up the recovery through meditation. This allowed him to get out of the tank five days earlier than he would have otherwise. Rune had been in the tank next to him and also chose to remain conscious. Both Rune and Olicc were expected to recover fully though Olicc was still pretty sore and Rune would have his arm in a sling for a few days to avoid reinjuring it.

When Olicc had come out of the tank, he was told by Rune that he would be allowed to stay at the temple while he was waiting to be contacted by Eirie or another member of her TKO. They promised to allow him to leave whenever he wished and that he would be considered an honored guest while in the temple. For the short time he stayed at the temple, Olicc didn’t feel like an honored guest. Though everyone was nice, or at least, indifferent on the surface; many were struggling to keep their feelings regarding Olicc leaving the temple from showing in little ways that were easy enough to pick up on. Olicc didn’t blame them for being upset with him. Olicc’s reputation had been built up by the council for quiet some time and people came to expect certain things from him. Now they felt like Olicc wasn’t delivering what they were promised.

A few others seemed to actually be glad that he left and were only upset that he was back as a guest. Most of these types were young warriors that had been promoted a year or two before Olicc and had probably been dreading the inevitable day that Olicc would surpass them. Olicc leaving the order had spared them that hit to their ego. Many of the youngest students were just glad to have the cats back to play with. Olicc was glad to have the Wrix back with him, too; he didn’t like having them locked up in the warehouse but he had little choice while at the apartment – they didn’t allow ‘huge, dangerous, wild animals’ in the apartments.

Olicc spent most of his time at the temple training to disarm opponents using lightsabers - or other swords – with some of the older warriors. The older warriors were considerably better than Olicc but he didn’t mind. He just concentrated on learning as much as he could from them while he still could. Running into what he thought was a Dark Jedi Knight had been a bit of a wake up call. Olicc would do his best to insure he would be more prepared to fight an armed Jedi next time around. If that required Olicc to take hit after hit from a powered down training saber – a blow from which is no joke, by the way – then so be it.

After combat training, Olicc spent many hours in meditation. Partly trying to finish the healing process, but mainly trying to reconnect with that inner voice he had discovered during his fight with Rune. He tried everything. He tried repeating what he was doing when it happened. He tried replaying the events in his mind. He tried calling to it. He even tried opening himself up to the force which he had absolutely no concept on how to do since he was blind to it. Nothing worked. The voice had gone silent, retreated back to where ever it came from.

Eventually, word from Eirie had reached Olicc and it was time for him to leave the temple. TKO was taking him on a hunting trip to a planet named Dathomire. Olicc had never heard of the planet which was described only as dangerous and mostly uninhabited. The message didn’t tell him much about what was in store for him, only that they were going to hunt Rancors; presumably without weapons since it was a Teras Kasi guild, after all. Olicc had never heard of a Rancor and he wondered if they would be fast and hard to catch.

* * *

The planet Yavin was a gaseous giant which seemed to bubble with orange and reds. Even from the surface of its farthest habitual moon it dominated the sky. On approach to the fourth moon it was bright enough to dim the forward viewport of the cargo freighter.

The ship’s comm crackled to life, “Transport 57-KX-332, state your name, destination, objective and cargo.”

The pilot answered, “Control, this is Captain Jance Bourne heading to Science Outpost 14 for supply delivery. Our manifest is available for download; don’t expect me to read it to you cuz I can’t pronounce any of it. Mostly chemicals and such, I imagine.”

There comm remained quite for a few moments while the traffic officer looked over the manifest. He would do no more than a quick skim of the various items since the ship was on the day’s schedule and deliveries of this type were common.

“Transport 58-KX-332, you are clear to land at Science Outpost 14 pad ‘Delta’. Do not deviate from the flight path I’ve uploaded to you.”

The pilot followed the flight plan and sat the freighter down gently onto landing pad ‘D’.

Both of the men were highly trained for undercover work but the pilot couldn’t resist providing his companion with a few last minute instructions.

“Remember, they have no reason to suspect that we are any other than delivery men. We open the cargo doors, let the droids unload the cargo and casually walk right our of the compound.”

“Yes, Aji, I haven’t forgotten the plan since the last time you explained it to me.”

“That’s Jance from here on out and I’m just making sure. One mess up and we will both spend the rest of our lives in a cell. You proved yourself to be an extraordinary solider at Baton but infiltration is a whole new different set of skills.”

“Yes Captain.”

Aji regarded Olicc for a moment. The young man wasn’t exactly undisciplined but he did seem to be rather pretentious. Aji was well aware that Olicc was far beyond the skills of a bar room brawler but he was still only one man. It would take the skills and courage of many men to overthrow the Empire.

“Ok then, lower the ramp and let’s get out of here.”

* * *

The rough terrain was not a problem for the speeder they had checked out from the outpost which hovered several feet off the ground but the density of trees made their travels slow going. This jungle was as thick with trees as either Aji or Olicc had ever seen.

“Kind of reminds me of Dathomire,” Olicc announced, breaking the silence.

“Dathomire? Never heard of it.”

“I hadn’t either until recently. Thx took a bunch of recruits up there a few weeks back. We trampled through jungles like this on foot for a few hours; more mountainous than this place and dark as hell. At times we couldn’t see the hands in front of your faces.”

“That’s pretty dark,” Aji agreed, “What where you doing there?”

“Testing, basically. First we assaulted a Rancor cave then we attacked a camp of force witches.”

“Rancors and force witches?”

“Rancors are these huge carnivorous beasts native of Dathomire. We were only given vibroblades as weapons going in but we were able to use anything we came across, as well. Plus, Thx brought some trained bio engineered spider along for additional support. We took the first one down largely by hand with assistance from the spider’s neurotoxin outside the cave. Once we got inside the cave, weapons weren’t hard to find; apparently, we weren’t the first group to attempt to take down the cave. With what was literally a full arsenal at our disposal, we took down the other three rancors rather easily.”

“The witches didn’t go as smoothly. We started into the camp with a plan and took down two of the sentries rather easily and a few of us got over confident.”

“Witches?” Aji asked.

“Yeah, force witches.” Olicc clarified, “I’m not sure how they got their but the lot of them are force sensitive.”

“Jedi witches?”

“No, not Jedi or Sith either, at least not in the way you are thinking. Although, I suppose they have the aptitude for it. From what I was told of their history they predate the fall of the Jedi. A few of them used swords but most of them were using telekinesis attacks and shooting lightning from their hands. Anyway, after surprising the first two, our group got disorganized and people started going off on their own. The sentries must have been young and untrained because the others were far more powerful. I think the sentries must have somehow warned the others through the force, as well, because they mounted a counterattack rather quickly. We had superior numbers but most of us had never fought anything like these witches before.”

“The guys that got separated found themselves outnumbered and were slain before the rest of us could assist them. The rest of us were in a bit of shock at first..”

“I can imagine,” Aji interjected.

“...but we recovered quickly enough. As surprised as we were to the skills of the witches, I think they were even more surprised with us. We used our mobility to avoid the brunt of their force attacks and they tired quickly. We lost two more men but we managed to capture one and killed the rest.”

“You took one prisoner?”

‘Well, we captured her and intended to use her for interrogation training, but she ended up killing herself on the way back to the ship.”

It was clear by the look on Aji’s face that he didn’t really approve. It had begun with the slaughter of the rancors which Aji was willing to overlook since he got the impression that they weren’t highly sentient. But the Witches were different.”

The guilt crept up on Olicc, once again. He didn’t approve of what he was lead to do, either; but had been willing to do whatever it took to be a part of the future of Teras Kasi. He had spent much of the week since contemplating whether the ends truly justified the means, in this case. There was a point to the attacks; it wasn’t just random killing. The rancor cave was a test of resourcefulness; of using the environment to your advantage. It also provided experience overcoming stronger opponents; once you have taken down a rancor by hand, that barbell isn’t quiet as intimidating, anymore. The force witches were even more important. The Teras Kasi’s enemy was the dark jedi and they needed experience dealing with force powers. The witches provided that experience and the Teras Kasi Order is stronger for it.

It made sense from a logical standpoint but it didn’t sit well through a moral one. Even considering the fact that the witches had taken slaves from the other native populations and that those slaves were now free didn’t relieve Olicc’s guilt; primarily because he knew in his heart that their attack had nothing to do with them.

Olicc’s mind once again attempted to wrap around the possibilities of what else Erire had in store for her recruits.

Aji broke the uncomfortable silence, “We’ve been scouting sites for the new installation.”

Olicc turned his head to listen, glad for the distraction from his thoughts.

Aji took a second to gauge how much he could trust the Zabrak. Although Aji knew a great deal about Olicc’s background from K’warr, he didn’t know him on a personal level and Aji was responsible for the safety of all this reports. Aji decided that it was unlikely that Olicc would do anything to put K’warr in danger and decided to be liberal with the information.

“We found three sites that could work but I’m learning towards two of them. One is a large valley surrounded on all sides by steep mountains. We could build the majority of the installation underground and built the city above it. The mountains act like natural castle walls that should keep out most unwanted visitors and are far too steep for imperial walkers. I was thinking we could create and disguise defense platforms on the mountains, as well. That would give us a high ground defense from a ground assault. Create flak cannons to protect against paratroopers trying to get into the city vertically. Assuming the ground is cooperative we should be able to create the installation far enough under the surface to protect us against planetary bombardment. Plus the crater like appearance of the whole valley is pretty impressive and appeals to the kid in me”

“Building the base underground sounds expensive.” Olicc commented.

“Yeah, that’s the main downside, Aji agreed. The other issue is space. While the valley is quiet large, it is a finite space and our growth estimations suggest it could get a little tight in the valley itself, although we could build into the mountains to a degree.”

“The other location is the opposite. It’s a huge flat space far to the west of Bestine. It’s easily large enough to build the city and installation above ground and pretty much anything else we could ever want to build. It’s just flat rock as far as the eye can see. This site would defiantly be cheaper. On the down side, it’s not as easily defensible and its right out in the open where anyone with decent sensor equipment could observe the city from space. We could get creative though, I’m sure. Our main problem with both sites is explaining the rapid population increase. Tatooine isn’t known for being a retirement spot. There are only a few cities on the entire planet and all of them have modest populations at best. Most people live in remote, private dwellings outside the cities. I think people are going to notice if a new metropolises springs up almost over night.”

“True,” Olicc agreed, “How are you going to explain that?”

“Not sure, to tell you the truth. One idea is to milk up Moonshyne Industries as a promising up and start reminiscent of the beginning of Czerka Corp or Baktoid Industries. Some of the people we have on board are pretty talented and we could sell our products to alliance supporters; giving them stuff they really do need while at the same time financing the alliance and our installation. A formal audit of our activities would reveal nothing because everything would be legit. Hell, we could possibly even win imperial contacts and find some way to sabotage or spy on them through our products.”

Olicc considered the plan and it was quiet beautiful how everything fit together. It wouldn’t be easy but if they could get sympathetic planets to commit to large enough orders, it just might work.

[Olicc]

Aji parked the speeder near the cliffs edge, overlooking a foggy landscape of dense jungle.

Aji pointed off to the north, “You see that structure off in the distance”

Olicc strained to see past the fog but there was defiantly something there, off in the distance.

“That beige thing? What is it?”

“See for yourself,” Aji suggested, handing him a pair of electrobinoculars.

Olicc looked at the structure through the binoculars and added a vapor filter to increase his visibility through the fog.

“A temple?” Olicc asked.

“The temple,” Aji clarified. “That’s the temple that the Alliance used as a base up to the Battle for Yavin.”

“Wow,” Olicc smiled, “that’s pretty, ahh, wow.”

Aji returned his smile, “I know what you mean. It’s pretty powerful to see where it all happened. This whole planet gives me that feeling and it’s only the more powerful overlooking the temple.”

“You’ve seen it before?”

“Once, about a month back. My unit was assigned to monitor Imperial activity at the template. We had expected the imperials to investigate the base but they never left. We wanted to see what was keeping them here.”

“And what did you find out?” Olicc asked.

Aji gave him a grin, “Classified, unless you want to join the team.”

Olicc laughed, “It’s gunna take more than that.”

“Yeah? What’s it going to take then?”

“I was wondering when you were going to start your pitch.”

“Yet you agreed to come here which tells me you’re interested.”

“To tell you the truth, I would love too. But my place is with the Teras Kasi. I’ve got responsibilities to the order.”

“Hey, I understand responsibilities, but couldn’t you serve them from the Alliance? I can’t believe that Eirie has the resources at her disposal that we do.”

“You would be surprised.”

“Probably not,” Aji countered, “I saw you guys in action at Baton Station. I’m sure your resources are impressive. Spies infiltrated into various organizations including the Empire. The latest toys.” Aji paused, “The Alliance has an exclusive deal with Incom who provides us with prototype fighters originally intended for the Empire. Ships only we have.”

“The T-65 X-Wing; the ship the Empire didn’t want.”

“The T-65 is superior to Siener’s TIE fighter in both firepower and defense. The Empire rejected the plans only because of the expense. Quantity of quality. They think of their fighter pilots as disposable and shields just aren’t cost effective.”

“I find it hard to believe that it’s cheaper to replace a ship and train a new pilot than it would be to shield their ships.”

“Well, shields take a lot of power away from the main reactor. The Empire prefers to use that power towards the engines so TIEs are faster and more mobile.”

Aji caught Olicc’s raised eyebrows and added, ‘I’ve flown both ships into combat, trust me. The extra mobility is nice but it doesn’t make up for that vulnerable feeling and TIES wouldn’t have had a prayer in taking down the Death Star.”

“You mean you couldn’t just add a proton torpedo launcher and a shield generator onto a TIE fighter?”

“Heh, maybe you could, but I guarantee it wouldn’t handle like an X-wing after you do. But that’s beside the point, what ships to TKO have?”

“Heh, to be honest, public transportation mostly. A few have their own light freighters, a couple of Headhunters and equivalents.”

“Exactly, and ships are just the beginning. We are developing our own weapons and other technology as well as collaborating with others who are working with us exclusively. I’ve seen what you can do and you have skills - that’s why I want you on my team - but if anyone is going to take down the Empire it’s the Rebellion, not a small band of super warriors.”

“The Rebellion might be the Empire’s most significant enemy but you’re chances in taking down the Empire aren’t much better than ours. If the Empire falls, it’s going to be a collaborative effort of all the Empire’s enemies. Perhaps I can be a liaison between TKM and the Rebellion? I think together we can be greater than the sum of our parts.”

“Well, that’s fine. Whether you join TKO or the Rebellion I plan to establish communications with TKO as well as many other groups that might be willing to assist. But I still think you would be happier with us in the long term.”

Olicc wanted to argue the point but he truly couldn’t think of a reason why he would be happier with TKO than the Rebel Alliance.


* * *

It was an unusually hot and humid day at the Teras Kasi temple for this time of year. A tropical storm crossing a neighboring region was altering the weather patterns of the area. Thick clouds blocked the sun giving the day a dark, twilight appearance and kept the warm air front trapped on the planet surface. Dossand studied the furious motions as Olicc and Rune collided; this particular exchange ending after an awkward twist of runes wrists resulted in an unpowerful slash that, never the less, would have severed Olicc’s right arm from his body if it had not been the blade of a training saber that struck him. Both combatants acknowledge the blow, took a few steps backwards, and collided again.

The two had been at it all afternoon. Save for a few trips off planet at Eirie’s whim, Olicc had done little else for the last month with one master or another. Olicc’s progress had always been extremely rapid, but his development since he returned to the temple had increased to an even more unbelievable pace. His endurance was so extreme that a few of the masters had begun to avoid him. Others, like Rune, were encouraging him to continue.

Rune was one of the few masters that Olicc still had trouble reading. While most Teras Kasi masters prided themselves in their ability to avoid telegraphing their movements, Olicc was becoming increasing successful in predicting their attacks by subtle clues. However, predicting them and countering them was two different things. Olicc was still losing far more exchanges than he won regardless of which master he persuaded to practice with him, but it was apparent that the masters were now putting forth far more effort to achieve their victories than they had to do a month earlier.

It was very unusual for a Teras Kasi Warrior to receive so much attention of the Master Class, especially one that was a Student Adept mere months earlier. But Olicc wasn’t the usual student. For one, Olicc never cared much for the unspoken rules of the temple and tended to ignore them. While most Warriors would be content with a few extra minutes after a class to clarify or help with a specific technique, Olicc didn’t seem to have any problems with monopolizing a Master’s time as his personal training partner for hours at a time. For another, many of the Masters felt a necessity to influence Olicc during his last remaining days at the temple.

Dossand had sparred with Olicc himself for several hours the day before last. Though respected more for his wisdom than fighting abilities, Dossand was a formidable combatant in his own right. Still, he was among the many Masters that Olicc was able to learn to read after the first hour or so. In Dossand’s defense, he had never received training or done any extensive practice wielding a light saber; still, Teras Kasi learned to think of weapons as extensions of their bodies, and in this way, learned to utilize virtually any object as a weapon by applying and modifying the basic unarmed concepts that have become hardwired into their psyche.

Olicc and Rune clashed again, this time ending in one of Olicc’s rare victories as he managed to counter Rune’s attack, disarm him with a wrist lock, leg sweep combo and then followed through with an arm lock, forcing Rune to submit.

The two were both on their feet and ready to class again when they were interrupted by a young student calling respectfully for Olicc.

“Olicc, you have a holotransmition from a Master Valin.”

“Thank you, I’ll be right there” Olicc replied, then turned to Rune. “Looks like you’re saved by the bell old man, I was just starting to get you tired.”

Dossand knew Olicc well enough to know that his taunt was completely sarcastic; but he also knew Rune well enough to interpret his warm smile as a silent admission that Olicc was more accurate than he realized.

* * *

The temple had little in the way of modern comforts so the air within was just as hot and humid as it was outside but with an additional stale quality. Olicc knelt on the stone floor of his room and all discomfort and distractions faded away. Each of his senses shut down, one by one, until only his conscious and subconscious thoughts remained. When he felt that he had achieved a deep sense of calm, he pondered his recent conversation with Valin over the holonet.

Valin was the closest thing Olicc had to a friend among the other recruits. He was also the first and only recruit to be accepted into the new order, thus far. In fact, Olicc had attended his initiation ceremony, which had been surprisingly formal, only a week earlier. But Valin had just informed him that he was already leaving the order to join the Rebel Alliance. This surprising confession had Olicc once again questioning his decision to follow Romour to the New Teras Kasi Order over his friend K’warr to the Rebel Alliance.

Olicc remained deep in meditation for several hours. He weighed the obvious pros and cons as well as the best, worst and most likely case scenarios of each decision. He envisioned fierce battles along side hundreds of Teras Kasi Warriors and an epic war along side millions of Alliance soldiers. He thought about where his Teras Kasi Skills would be best utilized and where his skills would best progress. He thought about how much fun it would be to learn how to fly a starship. He thought about his odds of survival. He thought about making new friends and watching them die. He thought about love and family. He weighed the past performance, success and failures, of the Teras Kasi and Rebel Alliance. He thought about the Empire, the Emperor, the Sith and Dark Jedi, and who he would want at his side as he fought them.

In the end he found that the decision that would make him happiest was also the decision that had the greatest potential to make a difference and was also the decision that he had wanted to make all along.

Confident in his decision, Olicc’s senses returned quickly and he stood too walked down to the communications room.


* * *

In some ways, Naboo was largely the same as it was decades earlier before the Clone Wars and rise of the Empire. Theed was still the planetary capitol and the Royal Palace was still the home of an elected Queen and her court. The society of the Naboo were still art and culture focused and the Gunguns still lived in great underwater cities as well as a few modest, more primitive cities on the surface. The planet still displayed the beautiful waterfront vistas and luscious forests it had always been known for.

Though the war had remained gentle on its architecture and countryside, not even Naboo had been able to escape unscarred. The Monarchy no longer had any real power; it had been reduced to a puppet government meant to give the illusion of retained culture and autonomy. But the Naboo were not fools. The streets of Theed were policed not by the Royal Security Force, but by armored imperial soldiers. It was the local Moff that controlled the legislature and had the ability to enforce his will with Imperial might. The poets spoke not of love and beauty, but of oppression and perseverance. And not far from the Amidala Family Lakeside Summer Retreat, was a secret Imperial experimental weapons facility that went by the utilitarian name WRD-Naboo-00023.

WRD-Naboo-00023 made one thing: Dark Trooper, Type Two combat armor.

Zanibar followed the tour leading him along the assembly plant as Lt. Colonel Gure Sivens spoke of production capabilities, product effectiveness, defect rates, specialized process and other equally uninteresting manufacturing concepts. He did his best to pay attention to the details of the facility but was anxious to get to work. A gifted biochemist specializing in biochemical warfare, Zanibar and his recently assembled spec-op team had been assigned to assist with the security of the facility so that he could provide his expertise to the development of an improved reparatory system for the armor.

Like most full body armor, the Dark Trooper armor primarily utilized airscrubers in the helmet that were able to filter out most air born contaminants. The armor also had a back up system that allowed the user to seal out outside air and breathe via a small air tank located inside the main body piece for approximately 15 min, give or take depending on breath rate. The system had proven successful in other imperial armor types but there were dangerous biochemical agents developed by the Rebel Alliance that was able to pass the filtration system undetected and poison the trooper. It was expected that Zanibar’s familiarity with these agents – several of which were designed by him – would be instrumental in upgrading the respiratory system to block them.

Also following the tour was Zanibar’s three Lieutenants, Zoran, Zorana, and Serenius. Zoran and Zorana were twin humans, born on Iridonia of all places, but well traveled across the galaxy. Zoran was a small arms expert with considerable combat experience and was in charge of group two. Zorana was a female version or Zoran and was in charge of group four; not quiet as proficient in combat but just as witty and perhaps a little more level headed. Serenius was also human but was born and raised on Rori. As group three leader, he was also in command of Zorana and group four. Serenius specialized in recognizance but was also a gifted field commander and was certified in most ranged weaponry. The other eight members of Zanibar’s team were standard issue clone soldiers which made Zanibar the only non human in the squad.

Sivens lead the group to a small testing station that had obviously been recently constructed for the group’s benefit. On the table before them was an array of weapons ranging from simple kinetic pistols to traditional imperial assault rifles.

“The armor is made from a unique composite plasteel material similar to the standard Katarn class designs but with an increased quality of materials. Although far more expensive to produce than standard trooper armor, this boosts protection against most damage types by 30 to 40 percent which is 5 to 10 percent more effective than the old clone armor of the clone wars.”

Sivens picked up an energy carbine from the table and unleashed a wave of rapid fire blasts into the armor which deflected or absorbed into the armor with minimal damage.

”Its protection against kinetic weapons is even more impressive.” Sivens picked up a kinetic carbine and released a wave of metal slugs propelled by explosive powder. Each of the rounds ricocheted harmlessly off the armor.

“It’s not going to stop an E-web or plasma rifle, of course, but as far as personal armor goes, this is the best in the galaxy.”

“The armor is also highly customizable. Standard design includes the stealth commando sensor package, jet pack, personal shield generator, arm mounted plasma rifle with proton grenade launcher and the latest standard technology. However, the jet pack can be removed and replaced with sixteen other useful devises ranging from communications equipment to a flame thrower to a power generator for nearly unlimited and continuous plasma fire or the power generator can be rerouted to the PSG for vastly increased protection against energy attacks.”

“While it would be wasteful to provide this technology to the standard trooper, the armor is worth every extra penny and more for special operations which must not fail.”

The armor was designed to both overwhelm and intimidate; with its mat black finish and angular helmet, the suit seemed to borrow as much in style from Darth Vader’s armor as it did from any of the more traditional suits.

Of Zanibar’s team, Serenius seemed most impressed and was the first to ask a question, “You mentioned the Stealth Commando package, do you envision this as a practical suit for recon and infiltrations?”

Sivens gave Serenius a warm, acknowledging smile, “As a recon specialist yourself, I’m sure you are familiar with the Stealth Commando Armor suit. Of the two, I have to admit the additional mobility allowed by the SCA suit makes it the better choice when detection is a larger concern than protection. However, our Dark Trooper armor does share the same package including the sound dampener, environmental sensory suite, tracking disruptor and all the other toys. While Dark Trooper armor is not intended for reconnaissance, the ability to take your enemy by surprise is always advisable”

“What about sonic and electronic damage types,” asked Zoran, “both weakness of any imperial armor I have ever seen.”

“Dark trooper armor does provide more protection than standard armor, but it remains a significant threat. The sound dampeners, if activated, provides an additional layer of protection against concentrated sonic waves but a direct hit from a Genosian disrupter rifle would still be likely fatal. Similarly, a direct hit with an ion weapon has a good chance of shutting down the entire electrical system. You would still have the protection of the armor, of course, but if the CPU shuts down it renders everything from the plasma rifle to the HUD display inoperable. If the technology were available, we would have thrown it in, but we’re not Genosians and you would need a hoversleed to carry our smallest ion shield generator.”

“What about blast damage?” Zorana asked.

“I’m glad you asked because we have made significant improvements in heat protection. The combination of extremely effective heat resistant materials, both within the armor plates and the insulations suit, and the suits kinetic protection makes it very well suited to protect against explosion devices. I wouldn’t recommend catching thermal detonators but you would have an excellent chance of surviving your basic land mine or fragmentation grenade.”

Sivens motioned the four soldiers to the table, “Please have some fun”

Zoran looked up at Zanibar to make sure it was appropriate and when Zanibar shrugged acceptance he picked up two small acid round pistols. Zorana followed and picked up the two highest powered pistols. Sernious picked up the highest powered rifle on the table while Zanibar picked up the flanchette launcher, mostly because he had never fired one and wanted to see what it was like. They all took careful aim and on Zanibar’s command, a deafening volume of firepower showered into the armor. After ten seconds of constant fire, Zanibar gave the order to hold their fire.

Sivens hit a few buttons on a computer terminal within the wall and various data displayed on the monitor.

“These lines here indicate the amount of force impacting against the various pieces of armor while this solid line, well above the others, represents potentially dangerous force. This number here represents the internal temperature of the suit which remained unchanged. This diagram would show any breaches in the armor except there are none. This one shows the status of the CPU which is fully functioning.”

Sivens hit another button and the armor incased sensor dummy glided over towards the demonstration table. The five Imperials studied the armor which showed some carbine scaring and the contents of Zoran’s acid rounds slowly and inefficiently trying to eat through the armor, but it was apparent that the damage was minimal.

“I challenge anyone across the galaxy to show me a pair of armor capable of passing that demonstration.” Sivens declaired.

“What are the chances of me getting a set of one of these?” Zoran asked.


* * *

Few things on Tatooine could be classified as beautiful but the huge crater Aji had chosen for the Mos Nihil site was one of them. Located deep within a vast mountain range to all sides, the valley was extremely well hidden. Then, after miles and miles of seemingly endless mountains, the desert mountains suddenly dropped sharply into the valley. The suddenness of the drop combined with the shear size of the valley was a very impressive experience.

Judging by erosion patterns on the rock the crater had once been a lake at some point in Tatooine’s distant past and was presumably created by a large meteor, Olicc wondered if it was a similar asteroid that triggered the climatic changes and scarcity of water on Tatooine.

Aji piloted the small transport craft expertly down the sharp cliff and set the ship down gently towards the center of the valley. As Olicc exited the atmospheric speeder he took in a quick 360 degree view of the crater from the bottom, gently curving walls of rock to all sides stretching far up into the sky. The scene was no less impressive from the bottom as from the sky.

Vaugh began to explain the city setup to Olicc, “We are going to put what we call government center in the middle of the crater which will essentially be the center of the city. In typical Tatooine fashion, it will be a modest district of only a few buildings including city hall, militia station, and a small court house. All three buildings have been cleared through the local government and are for all intense and purposes, legitimate government offices, however, through various bribes of lower level planetary officials, we managed to get this achieved far below the levels that would peek the interest of the local Moff. We also managed to get several of our staff employed by the local government and assigned to our own offices to avoid any unwanted presences in the city. In this way, our city will pass any of the trivial audits while retaining our complete sovereignty.”

Directly in front of city hall - to the west here - will be Main Street which will include your house and dojo and then my own residence down the left side and then K’warr’s residence, across the street from yours, and then Zazo’s down the right side. All four houses will be the largest of the three different styles of homes we will be building. Continuing down the street will be a mix of the medium and small style homes for other Military personnel. The street will end at the canyon wall and the homes will continue to the east and west.”

“To the west of government center will be the commercial district which will begin with our local cantina and several small shops that will supply the residents of the basic necessities. Continuing west and behind the entertainment district is the industrial district where Moonsyne Industeries and several other manufacturers will make various items ranging from furniture to weapons, both for residents and as exports to provide the income to keep the city and base running.”

Directly south of Government Center will be a small private space port were residents lucky enough to have their own star ships but not lucky enough to be assigned to the larger of the housing styles which will includes a small landing pad on the roof, can store their ship. Military ships will be stored inside the Dominis Nihil instillation, of course, to avoid detection and more easily access and maintain them from the military facility. South of the star port will be more homes for various employees not directly part of the military operation. The west side of the valley will be developed last and will house those that we recruit into the project at some later point.”

“Where will the entrance into the underground complex be?” Olicc Asked.

“There will be a few different entrances into the main facility. Each of our homes and several others will have secret entrances and there is another secret entrance in the city hall and cantina, as well. There are two main personnel entrances, one to the north and the other to the west. There is also two larger vehicle entrances/exits to the north and west, as well. Lastly, there are a few hanger exits for our starships and other support craft outside the valley.”

“I know this place looks completely barren, but would you believe that the facility under us is actually sixty five percent completed! Ninety percent of the facility structure has been completed and eighty percent has power, gas, and recyclable water.”

“Where does the water come from?” Olicc asked.

“We will need to import some water off planet but it will be partially collected by use of vaporizers which is the normal system on planet. We will conserve water as much as possible and recycle as much as we can; using a purification plant located in the underground instillation. You will find that the water isn’t as pure as you are probably used to, but you’ll get used to it after awhile.”

Aji put his hand on Olicc’s shoulder, “Come on, let’s check out my baby”, and led the small group to the north entrance into the underground facility.

* * *

Having spent much of the previous day touring the Dominus Nihil instillation, the last thing Olicc wanted was another tour, but Aji had insisted on showing him around the currently active rebel facility located outside of Bestine. While this facility was closing and most of its personnel were being relocated to a newer and more practical facility in another near by outer rim system, a few of the officers and soldiers had volunteered and been excepted to be reassigned to Aji’s Dominus Nihil project. This day’s objective was to meet as many of them as possible.

Olicc was introduced to face after face and wouldn’t possibly be able to remember them all. Among the most memorable were Gram, Tiaco, and Ryoji.

Gram had entered the Imperial Academy as soon as he became of age and severed as a shock trooper – more commonly referred to as Stormtroopers. Gram was promoted to Squad Leader within his first year and led his platoon in a several successful military actions. With plans of becoming career military, Gram was accepted and reassigned as an instructor at Carida Imperial Academy. Gram had turned a blind eye towards the Empires overly aggressive and largely fear based control tactics and even convinced himself that such things were necessary to prevent anarchy. However, after learning of the destruction on Alderann, Gram was discussed and soon after defected to the Rebel Alliance where he was stationed on Tatooine as a combat and tactics instructor.

Tiaco was a Bothan and was small in stature, even for his species. Unlike most Bothan’s, Tiaco had no interest in either politics or the military. A prankster by nature, his primary job function seemed to be entertaining the other personnel. All inquires as to the true nature of his job resulted in a long, elaborate story that eventually traveled into the bizarre and inevitably proved to be entirely fictional. Perhaps the greatest mystery was how this Bothan had managed to become close friends with Olicc’s own friend, K’warr. In fact, K’warr had volunteered to share his large house with Tiaco in Mos Nihil.

Ryoji was a Special Forces soldier who specialized in the rare art of melee combat. He had studied several Ubese systems as well as the Enchanti arts. Both societies had been prominent during the middle centuries of the Old Republic but had gradually become all but extinct through generations of warfare. Their fighting systems, however, still live on and are taught, usually in a simplified form, across the galaxy. Olicc looked forward to the opportunity to test Ryoji’s skills against his own.

* * *

Holograph taken of several counsel members taken durring the early days of DN. In the photo from left to right: Frat, Ryoji, Vaugh, K'warr, Olicc, Uni, Aji, Rathnack

Olicc walked into the small conference room and greeted those who were already present. About half the officer’s counsel was already there and the rest of the members would be arriving shortly. Aji was sitting at the head of the table speaking softly with Zazo to his right. Olicc took an empty seat next to Rathnak who was conversing with Dali and Ryoji about a genetics experiment he was working on. Rath, as his friends called him, was a geneticist who specialized in bioengineering and was the newest member of the Dominus Nihil project and the officer’s council. Dali had served with Aji and Zazo since they were stationed on Talus before relocated to Tatooine. Dali was an imposing Zabrak with dark skin and sharp anti-imperial views. Although cleanly groomed and dressed in the same uniform as everyone else, Dali’s low slung custom holster holding identical blaster pistols made him look more like a smuggler or pirate than an officer.

The three Wookiee’s, K’warr, Uni, and Caqoshor came in next and took the undersized seats next to Olicc and were soon followed by Vauhn, Skiluap and Fratilatil.

After a few minutes of socializing, Aji called the meeting to order. An R4 unit recorded the meeting minutes.

“First I want to welcome our newest counsel members. I know all of you have met previously so introductions are not necessary. We know how a (#) man counsel made up of individuals of a large variety of backgrounds, each of which his proven to be a leader in his own way, but each also, uniting together, to serve a greater purpose. Together, we are greater than the sum of our parts. I believe that together, we can make a difference in this galaxy, an impact the scope of which is rarely achieved. We live under the rule of an oppressive empire. By working independently from the main body of the Rebel Alliance, we have freed ourselves of many of its restrictions. Make no mistake; we are still a part of the Rebel Alliance. I still report to General (Name from baton station) and there will undoubtedly be a time when they will call on us to assist them or order us to stand down from our plans, but I have been assured a level of autonomy that has thus far never been provided.”

“With no help from the general Alliance funds, we have built a city, a military instillation, and a sizable military force that has been growing daily. Let me tell you all, the General has been very impressed with our progress. To celebrate these accomplishments, I have decided to throw a celebration, in Mos Nihil, to mark the grand opening of our new home.”

Skiluap raised his hand to speak, “Will there be beer at this party?”

“Yes, there will be a variety of alcoholic beverages at the party”, Aji returned kindly.

“Will there be Jawa beer at this party?”

“Well, as the logistics’ officer, securing the alcohol will be your responsibility, so I guess that’s up to you”

“Wait a second,” Skiluap clarified, “You are telling me I can buy whatever I want for this party?”

“We’re not that stupid,” Zazo cut in, “everything you order is subject to my approval. No hookers!”

“Hookers!? You’re my own brother, what kind of scum back do you think I am. I’m talking quality Twi’lek escorts here.”

“No hookers,” Zazo repeated.

“Bah, easy for you to say! You and Aji are already married so you are going to score regardless. What about the rest of us? There are hardly any females on this base.”

“With men like you here, can you blame them?” Zazo countered.

“Hey, that’s a low blow. All I’m saying is the party would be more fun with some single ladies around.”

“I second that boss.” Rathnak contributed.

Ryoji and Dali gave their support, as well.

“Guys,” Aji cut back in, “this is still a secret instillation; we need to be careful of who we bring around here.”

Vauhn pressed on, “But that’s what Mos Nihil is for. The city hides the instillation and the party supports our cover story. If we were a large corporation moving in, wouldn’t we invite the usual local authorities to the welcoming party to grease the wheels? Consider it a test of our design and security.”

“Government officials,” Skiluap exclaimed wildly, “I’m talking women here, not politicians. Have you all gone mad? Are you trying to make this the dullest party of all time? I’m mean; it’s already on Tatooine, how bad do you want to make it?”

“Ok, ok, ok,” Aji gave in, “You are both right.”

“ We will invite some government officials,” Aji continued and pointed a figure at Vauhn, “but I want your assurances before hand that all entrances to the main facility are fully concealed.”

“And you,” Aji pointed to Skiluap, “can let it slip to a modest amount of young ladies that there will be a party with available men in Mos Nihil.”

“Oh man,” Zazo told Aji, “You have no idea what you just agreed to.”

* * *

Zanibar was up late working in the libratory for the fifteenth day in a row, not because of aggressive deadlines but because he truly loved his work. While he preferred to create new biochemicals, he was enjoying the change of pace in defending against the more advanced known biochemical weapons and thus defeating the biochemists that created them. For Zanibar, it was all about the win; being the best biochemist the galaxy has ever known. It was the same mentality of the elite hackers and slicers across the galaxy, to be the most talented in a field that was notorious for its complexities. While largely thought of as talented introverts, even geeks, those at the top of the game were considered gods by those who struggled to follow in their wake of progress.

Hand written notes where translated into three dimensional computer models and programmed into the repertory software that would later be installed into the Dark Trooper armor’s central processing unit. The respirator would then scan the air passing through its filters, cross-reference any unusual agents with the software and block anything harmful. Tests so far showed the suit was recognizing and blocking agents within an average of three hundredths of a second after exposure. They would need to speed up the process to an estimated two thousandths of a second or better to be effective against the higher end agents that are effective and sometimes even fatal at extremely small volumes.


* * *

Operation ‘Dantooine Safari’ was turning out to be a very large success. The four squads of Dominus Nihil traveled to the primitive planet of Dantooine where they slit up by squad and attempted to track or otherwise locate a herd of Bols. Bols were large herbivores native to the planet and their skins, tusks, and bones could be sold for high profits if you found the right buyer. The idea was to hunt the Bols and sell off their remains as a means of acquiring funds for the Dominus Nihil project. More importantly, the exercise was meant to be a bonding experience for the squad members to get to know each other better and learn to work together. If the other three squads were having the same experience as Olicc’s, then the mission would prove to be very successful, indeed.

Olicc had been assigned as the leader of the first and primary squad which he had promptly named Dominus Squadron. His squadron included many of those that had fought along side him during the battle for Baton Station including K’warr, Caqoshor, and Oskrossk. Dominus Squadron was intended to be a multipurpose special forces squadron made up of soldiers with various specialized Skil’s meant to compliment each other and accommodate any type of problems the team might have to solve on a mission. Though made up primarily of ground soldiers, it was hoped that Colonel Fokke and Commander Flyrider would be able to make capable pilots out of them, as well, so that, at the very least, they would be able to insert and extract themselves if necessary. As it stood, only Caqoshor had any spacecraft experience from his previous life as a smuggler.

Joining Dominus Squadron on their hunt was Commander Zazo Flyrider who had also fought alongside Olicc at Baton station. Zazo was second in command under Aji and served as his right hand man. An imperial ace gone rebel defector, Zazo was a talented pilot and a respected officer with a knack for planning. Talented, but short of legendary, in the simulator runs, Zazo always seemed to perform best when it really mattered and was best know for having survived several gruesome real life scenarios while flying for both the Empire, and more recently, the Rebellion. True to his word, Zazo allowed Olicc to lead his squadron despite his superior rank and seemed content to follow his orders.

At the end of the day, Dominus Squadron managed to recover twenty one Bols which fell short of Viper Squadron’s twenty three Bols, resulting in a few hours of abuse from VentuViper. With Olicc and K’warr’s skills in stripping a carcass – separating the skins, meat, and bones – and Zazo and Caqoshor’s negotiation skills, Dominus Squadron managed to get the last laugh by selling their bounty for three thousand credits more.

Dominus Squadron had their fist story. In a few years, it might grow to a warm story about the good old days, when Dominus Nihil was just beginning.

* * *

Mos Nihil City shortly before the the city's unvailing celebration.


Among Skiluap’s list of considerable talents, planning parties had to be right up there with drinking large quantities of alcohol while showing only moderate signs of intoxication. The party had been underway since the mid morning and was now heading into several hours after final dusk. Main Street was illuminated by a long series of fire waving torches that added a primal feel to the festivities that the normal street lamps, turned off for the party, couldn’t duplicate. Tatooine was rather short on musical talent suitable for the party so Skil had opted to go with a Core Top Ten Thousand Automated Music Jockey that blasted the Core’s most popular hits at up to two thousand watts. Main Street was full of happy, dancing partygoers, most of which showed no signs of tiring any time soon.

Olicc was standing in front of his house - which was where most of the party goes not currently dancing were congregating -, conversing with most of Dominus Squadron and fellow counsel members Aji, Zazo, Skiluap, and Dali. The mood was light and each of them took turns telling a humorous story or joke of some sort. Aji and Zazo were discussing the shortcomings of an imperial pilot they had both known long before either had defected to the rebel alliance - and even before they had known each other - when a small transport flew overhead and landed in the newly constructed starport. While most guests had arrived via shuttle and early in the day, there were enough late arrivals and people who arrived in their personal transports that it didn’t warrant more than a cursory glance.

The conversation had moved on to Skil telling a story about a girl he once knew when the four men who had just arrived in the transport walked into the bright lights of Main Street. While Olicc didn’t recognize the three humans he instantly recognized the Zabrak walking in front.

Dali reached for his pistols would normally be and came up empty. Skil took two steps forward muttering obscenities before Zazo put a friendly, but restraining hand on his shoulders. Olicc observed the smiles on Aji and Zazo’s faces and recognized that they were in no danger but was confused as to why, since, as far as he knew, the Zabrak was a traitor and an enemy.

“You have some nerve showing your ugly face around here,” Skiluap spat out to
Zanibar.

“I missed all of your too.” Zanibar announced.

“You’re no friend of ours,” Dali announced, speaking for the group.

“On the contrary,” Aji correct, “Lets find a quiet place were we can all talk.”

* * *

“A spy!” Skiluap shouted, clearly as upset over being lied to as he was about the thought of his friend’s betrayal. “But he nearly killed Olicc as he escaped!”

“Not really,” Olicc confessed. “Aji had told me that would happen beforehand and I had assured him that I would be able to handle the effects of the poison. Now I understand how Aji knew Zanibar would defect with Glencora and why we let him go. I feel so stupid; I should have been able to figure this out.”

K’warr shot Olicc a look showing his anger that he had not shared this information with him.

“Hey, I’m sorry.” Olicc said, “Aji made me promise not to tell anyone, even you.”

“This information was entirely 'need to know',” Zazo explained, “The more people that know about the operation, the more dangerous the assignment becomes for Zanibar.”

“Well, who are these three?” Dali asked.

Zanibar introduced his companions, “Sirenious is my second in command and specializes in reconnaissance. Zoran and Zorana are small arms experts and are my other two leaders.”

“You brought Imperials with you?” Skill asked.

“Each of them was hand picked and screened by me, a condition of me agreeing to assist them on the Dark Trooper project. All of them are sympathetic and ultimately loyal to the Rebel Alliance.”

“Dark Trooper project?” Olicc asked.

“Yeah,” Skiluap continued,” I thought Kyle Katarn took care of that problem already.”

“Kyle destroyed the original production facility and the phase III prototype but the plans for the Phase II armor was well documented and readily available in the Imperial Archives. There is a secret weapons facility on Naboo that I have been assigned to that is redeveloping the armor with specific improvements. I’ve personally assisted in upgrading the biochem defense systems.”

“Why would you do a dumb thing like that?” Dali asked.

“Two reasons,” Zani explained, “One, it helped convince Glencora and the other Imperials that I was on their side.”

“And two?” Dali asked.

“Because we are going to go in there and steal them.” Aji said.

* * *

As the clone soldiers crossed the intersecting hallways across from Zanibar, it occurred to him that he was starting to get used to imperial life. Still, and despite the fact that he was wearing the armor himself, it was very odd to think of himself as a Stormtrooper. He was never able to shake the feeling that he was an imposter in the armor and this wasn’t just because he was a spy, it was also because he always thought of Stormtroopers as less than men, not inferior, but otherwise subhuman. It was easy to think of them as something resembling droids when you couldn’t see the faces behind the armor. It seemed unfathomable that each suit of armor had a living, breathing, thinking, feeling being inside it.

It was also strange to be surrounded by so many humans. The Rebel Alliance, like the galaxy, was a mixed lot of many different humanoids and a few sentient non humanoids, as well. But Zanibar was the only nonhuman on the base and the only nonhuman imperial that he knew of, for that matter. The only reason they had accepted him was because Glencora had convinced her superiors of the worth of his unique skills. He imagined that the best he could ever hope for would be more remote and secluded assignments such as this one were he could create weapons or defenses behind closed doors for other humans to take the credit. The imperial’s prejudice of nonhumans alone was enough to assure his loyalty to the Rebel Alliance; the oppressive nature and policies of the Empire secured it in permacrete.

Zanibar check his watch and found that it was almost time to start and his heart began to race with prebattle jitters, as it always did. He took out a small device and pondered it from his open hand. It was a small, simple device but one that held the lives of others in its small circuits.

Zanibar activated his private comm which he shared with his squad leaders with his free hand and activated it. “Everyone ready?”

Zanibar heard three distinctive clicks, each indicating an affirmative. He eyed his chrono and watched as time slipped away. Had he the power to freeze time he would have used it, if only to delay the inevitable. But it was too late to for second thoughts now, the plan was already in motion; all he could do was succeed or fail. And ultimately he wanted the plan to succeed; it was just that his conscious had a tendency to be unfair with him from time to time.

When his chrono chimed softly, Zanibar pressed a small button on the device in his right hand. This sent out a radio pulse that triggered another devise located in the armor of his clone squad mates. This in turn activated the back up oxygen supply tanks in their armor which was intended to keep them alive in situations where the outside air was contaminated beyond what their mask filters could handle. In this case, however, the oxygen was mixed with a bio-agent of Zanibar’s design that would render the troopers unconscious before they could figure out why their emergency systems had simultaneously kicked on for no apparent reason. It was a small consolation to Zanibar that they would never know that it was he who had betrayed them.

With a sigh, Zanibar entered the control station and activated a switched which opened the main doors to the base. One of the holo images immediately came to life as two squadrons of Rebel soldiers charged inside with their assault carbines up and ready fire. Zanibar watched the soldiers on the holocam as they decended down the turbolift and then saw the live versions cross the security station to the second turbo lift which they took to the bottom floor. A moment later and two flashes blared down the hallway where the soldier’s barracks were. A few seconds after the grenade blasts, Zoran and Zoran entered the two separate bunkers and made certain all the clones had died within them were dead.

Zanibar then watched the rebels, who Zanibar knew would be Dominus and Wild Squadrons, finish their decent to the storage and manufacturing facility. Zanibar opened the large hanger style doors that lead from the bottom floor out the side of the mountain to a loading area. On the flat landing area was a rebel ship and another rebel squad waiting for them as well as the scattered dead bodies of a few more Imperial Soldiers.

The squads were hurrying to load the crates of armor when Zanibar noticed Serenius walking quickly from the officer’s quarters to the security station. Serenius was to have disposed of Gencora and the other officers but Zanibar had seen nothing on the holos. Zanibar was wondering if he had missed the attack in the commotion or if there had been some sort of problem when Serenius walked through the open doorway and shot him with stun blast to the chest.

* * *

Olicc was walking out of the ship’s cargo area when the hanger doors to the base started to close. Instinctively, Olicc charge of the closing door and dove inside before it could fully shut. He quickly took out his comm and signaled for Zanibar. There was no answer.

What the hell was going on?

Moments later Olicc chime chirped from the main frequency. Olicc pressed the toggle switch, “Dominus Leader, go ahread.”

“We got ships coming into the atmosphere! Two Tartan Patrol Crusers and an Imperial Lander!”

“Copy that, can you outrun them,” Olicc asked?

“Not a chance, Sir,” the pilot admitted fearfully.

Olicc took a quick look around and found the hanger door activation controls. He pressed the activator switch and nothing happened. He activated his comm again, “I can’t get the doors open. We’re cut off. Abandon ship and flee by any means necessary.”

“Flee where,” the pilot asked, “we’re on the side of a mountain.”

“We’ll, I recommend you and who ever else is still outside start climbing down the mountains. You don’t have much time before that lander releases its troopers and you need to be out of their rifle range when they do. It’s unlikely they will try to climb down after you in their armor. If we make it out of this alive, we will come pick you up.”

“Yes Sir.”

Olicc switched his comm to a fourth channel and hailed Lt. Eric “VentuViper” Pierson for backup. “Viper Leader, can you take these Patrol Cruisers?”

“I’m afraid not, those ships are designed to take out star fighters. We would need a full flight for each ship or something with more defense than an X-Wing to take them out.”

“Well, can you do a hit and run on the transport?”

“Negative, the Patrol Cruisers will be in escort formation. We would need to get past the them before we could hit the transport, otherwise, the Cruisers would just shoot our missiles down.”

“Copy that, “Olicc said irritatedly, and switched back over the Zanibar’s channel. “Zanibar, what the hell is going on up there?”

Again, there was no answer.

Olicc took a quick look around to see how was still with him: All of Dominus Squad, all but one of Wild Squad and two from Zeppa Squad. The rest were trapped outside, presumably trying to make their way down the mountain by now.

Olicc turned and quickly studied on the crates nearest him. There was a small codepad on the lid. He ignored the keypad and pressed the activation button. A “Wrong Sequence” error blinked on the small display screen.

“Can anyone open this damn thing,” Olicc asked?

“Allow me, Sir,” Gram offered, and took the butt of his carbine and smashed the codepad lose from the lid. He then rearranged the wires beneath to a configuration that Olicc couldn’t see. The lid beeped once and Gram threw the lid onto the floor. “Standard Imperial issue,” he explained.

Impressed, Olicc ordered him to open the next crate over, as well, and started to pass the armor out to the other soldiers. “This stuff will give you a lot more protection than the stuff you are wearing. Put it on, you’re going to need it.”

“What’s the plan,” Dali asked, as Wild Leader?

“We’re going to find out what happened to Zanibar.”

“OK, then what?”

“I’ll let you know when I figure that out.”

* * *


“Allow me, Sir,” Gram said as he jammed the butt of his Coynite SFOR Republic Carbine against the crate’s control power before anyone could protest. Only one strike was necessary to loosen the panel enough for Gram to slide the panel aside to expose the wires beneath.

One thing that could be said about the Empire was that they were very organized in everything they did. Everything had rules and procedures and inside of the military, these were almost always followed. For example, Imperial Electrical Engineering followed a complicated yet fixed wire color and stripe system that was universal to anything created with in intent to sell within the Empire; this made it easier for one engineer to understand the work of another which made things like repair work less complicated. In this case, it made it easy for Gram to locate the necessary wires he would need to reconfigure to send the unlock single to the crate’s locking mechanism without having to enter the correct code. It took him only a few seconds of cutting and twisting before he was rewarded by a soft chime and the distinct clicking sound of the ‘unlock’. With a quick lift and shove, the large metal lid crashed loudly to the floor revealing its store of Dark Trooper Armor.

Gram gave Olicc a smug smile, “Standard Imperial Issue.”

“Good work, Fortin.” Olicc praised,

“Go ahead and open up that other one there.” Olicc said, pointing to the next crate over. Olicc started passing out armor components to the nearest soldiers. “This stuff will give you a lot more protection than the stuff you are wearing. Put it on, you’re going to need it.”

Dali walked up to the crate and lifted up one of the helmets and gave it a quick look over before turning to Olicc, “What’s the plan?”

“We’re going to find out what happened to Zanibar,” Olicc announced, with a strained yet resolute tone.

“OK, then what?” Dali asked.

“I’ll let you know when I figure that out.”

Gram couldn’t help but wince as Olicc said this. As an Ex Imperial Instructor, it had been ingrained in him that it was one of leadership’s most important responsibilities to give the illusion of being in complete control and having all the answers at all times, regardless of how untrue that was. It’s a necessary act which results in lower stress levels and higher performance from their subordinates. Clearly, each of the Dominus Nihil teams had a lot to work on; assuming they were somehow able to make it off Naboo alive. Gram made a mental note to bring up the issue during the debriefing.

After opening the second crate, Gram reached in and took out a set of armor for himself and put it on a quickly as he could. He put on everything but the gloves and helmet and began to assist the other soldiers who were not as familiar with Imperial Armor. He was so focused on the task of getting everyone suited up that he didn’t notice when the emergency turbolift access hatch opened far above their heads.

“Take cover,” someone yelled; their voice unrecognizable through their helmet’s speaker system.

Without spending any time to identify the incoming danger, Gram dove behind one of the opened large creates and did his best to shield his unarmed head with his armored forearms. He waited in that fetal like position for a few moments, waiting for whatever was going to happen, to happen. The wait, although only a few seconds, was long enough that Gram started to question if the warning was a false alarm. But as soon as the thought crossed his mind he heard a clattering of metal on metal followed by a chain of three low toned and very loud explosions. With his eyes closed, Gram couldn’t see the explosive plasma wave shoot passed him, but he could certainly feel the heat against his exposed skin.

When the explosion seemed to have passed him by, Gram put on his gloves as quickly as he could and heard the clinking of a few more grenades as he put his helmet on and dove for cover once more. This time the attacker used Cryban grenades. The explosions were sharper than the last but dimmed significantly through his helmet. At the same time the air became dense and the water in the air instantly froze. Shards of ice flew in all directions, several of which struck Gram and harmlessly shattered against the armor.

Gram stood up and was about to grab his carbine when he saw the arm mounted missle launcer and grabed that instead. The launcer easily locked onto his armor and his visor HUD display immedilatly signled him that it was ready to be used. Gram aimed his arm at the access hatch and fired. Not being used to the weapon his first shot was a bit off and exploded against the wall below and to the left of the hatch. He made a quick adjustment with his arm and shot a second and third missile. Both of these missed as well but were close enough to send the flame ball through the access hatch.

Gram took a quick look around the room and saw that a few of his fellow soldiers that were standing closest to the explosions and hadn’t had time to finish putting on their armor did not survive the attack. Overall, they had been lucky. If the attacker had used a more powerful weapon like a thermal detonator, all of them would likely have been killed. They must be trying to avoid too much damage to the facility, equipment, and perhaps the armor, itself.

Gram kept his arm pointed towards the access hatch, waiting to see any sign of the attacker reappearing. The other soldiers clamored to their feet, many of which grabbed weapon attachments similar to Gram’s. K’warr and Uni who were too large to wear Dark Trooper armor had stayed in their custom made armor, which unfortunately didn’t fully cover their bodies; both of them had patches of singed hair and K’warr’s leg was bleeding rather heavily.

K’warr did his best to stop his own bleeding as Olicc helped Uni examine a trio of fallen soldiers who had been severely injured in the blasts.

* * *
Olicc put on his helmet experimentally and thought to himself how much he despised wearing armor of any sort due to its cumbersomeness. He had to remind himself that his loss in agility would be more than offset by the protection the suit would offer him. As if on queue, he heard someone yell to take cover and Olicc dove for the protection of the nearest crate instantly. There was a series of explosions and Olicc’s HUD displayed blinked a warning message that the external temperature has spiked dramatically. From inside the suit, Olicc felt nothing.

Olicc stood up and looked around the room, trying to think furiously of a way to counterattack. He saw no weapons in his immediate area and the ladder leading up to the hatchway, which Olicc had deduced as the location of the attacker, was both a long way away and a long climb up. Before any solution presented itself, thee more grenades shot forward from the open hatch and Olicc once again retreated behind the crate for cover.

There was another explosion but this time his helmet informed him that the external temperatures had fallen to dangerously low. The water in the air around him flash-froze and the drastic decrease in air temperatures sent small chunks and spikes of frozen water hurling towards the ground and anything in its way. Having come through both attacks with no damage, Olicc decided it was reasonably safe to make a run for the nearest weapon. Olicc rose to a crouch and, while looking up at the access hatch for signs of danger, began to cross step towards his carbine.

When he reached the weapon he raised it into firing position but their attacker could not be seen through the opening. Off to Olicc’s right was a thump hiss as a series of missiles shot past, sending an explosive fireball through the hatchway. Dali made a run for the turbolift and unbuckled his utility belt as he reached it. He trigged one of the grenades and sent the turbolift up to the middle floor which it did very quickly. The ceiling opened as the turbolift shot through, replacing the ceiling with its floor. The explosion was muffled by the thick ceiling but it sounded like the grenade had set off at least a few of the other grenades in the pack. The turbolift hatchway and the emergency hatchway shared the same hallway, so it was entirely possible that the explosions could have injured or killed their attacker.

Olicc took a look around the storage room and saw that they had a few casualties and a few more injuries. K’warr was among the injured but his injuries seemed relatively minor. “Uni, stay here with the wounded and do what you can, Geja and Jeco, come with me to the emergency ladder and cover me. I’m going to climb up and see what’s up there. Jeston, when I say so, call the turbolift back down and then everyone get on it. On my Alpha, take the turbolift to the second floor. Mainstien, guard the turbolift and make sure no one else comes down. I want the rest of Dominus Squadron to assault and secure the conference rooms and offices to the north. Dali, take your squad and secure the offices to the south side.

“Roger that,” Dali said.

Olicc looked around and everyone seemed to understand.

“Ok, lets go,” he said.

Olicc climbed the ladder as quietly as possible while in full heavy armor, which was not nearly quiet enough for his tastes. Still, he ascended without incident and once near the top, he pulled out a small, spherical seeker droid from the largest pouch on his utility belt. He listened a moment for any hint of what might be on the floor above him. Hearing nothing, he tossed the droid through the hatchway and was a little surprised when it didn’t instantly explode. Instead, it hovered a moment in mid air as its tiny repulser kicked in. Olicc took out a small holoprojector from the next pouch over and turned it on. The holo displayed an image of the second floor showing everything in a direct line of sight from the droid’s 365 degree radius. With a click of his teeth, Olicc shut off his external communication speaker and activated the comm channel he shared with the rest of the assault force; silently thanking the Imperials for once again keeping to Imperial standards of consistency between their gear.

Olicc gave a small wave to Jeston who then called the turbolift back down to the bottom floor. Olicc watched the holoimage for any signs of movement and saw none.

The seeker droid continued to float swiftly around the hallways above which intersected in the middle like a large plus sign, updating the holo image as it did so. The hallways appeared to be empty but only what was in the droids current 360 degree line of site was in real time, the rest was a still image from that space as the droid had last seen it. That meant that it was feasibly possible that their attacker could be waiting for them somewhere in the east-west hallway. Olicc threw a flashbang in that direction and, as quickly as he could, climbed the rest of the way up the ladder.

“Alpha.”

The flashbang exploded with a relatively harmless bright flash and loud bang meant to briefly stun the enemy as Olicc reached the access way and stuck his head through. He was a bit surprised to see that there were already Rebels setting up a defensive position, covering each hallway. The turbolift had moved much faster than he had.

Olicc climbed the rest of the way onto the middle floor and helped Geja and Jeco do the same.

The squads wasted no time in continuing with Olicc’s orders. Finding the hallways empty, they split up into two main groups and began searching the rooms on the floor to find and neutralize any hostels. Olicc heard a few more flashbangs as the rebels charged through entryways, ready for a confrontation. Then for a moment all Olicc could hear was the rustle of Olicc, Geja and Jeco’s armor as they searched a small boardroom north off the east hallway. Then there was another explosion, this one much larger than the flashbangs, followed up yelling over the comm.

The holounit connected to the seeker droid, now back in Olicc’s pouch, began to vibrate; a warning of danger. The droid’s a genious, Olicc thought with irritation.

“Wild Eight & Nine are down!” They had drilled enough using their code names for Olicc to immediately recognize the fallen as Kevyn and Joav.

“No, I think I’m OK.” Joav said. “All limbs accounted for. These suits are something else.”

“How about Eight, Nine?” Olicc asked.

Joav’s reply was far more sullen than a moment ago, “I don’t think he made it, Lead. The room was rigged: proximity mine hidden by the door trigger.

Olicc stopped walking instantly and noticed that Geja and Jeco had, too. If his room was similarly rigged, his next step could be explosive. “Hold” Olicc ordered, just incase any of the others hadn’t already. Part of the Dark Trooper Armor’s gear was an electronics finder. When activated it located any nearby electronic devises, but with the exception of Gram, no one in his group had much experience with them. By putting the proximity mine near an expected electrical source, the trio must not have recognized it as a separate signal. Olicc double checked the signals within his own room to make sure he hadn’t made a similar mistake as he ordered the others to do the same before progressing further. Confident that his room was clear, Olicc pulled out the seeker holo to find that the droid was now in the room where the explosion occurred. The room itself was a shambles including Kevyn’s body which Olicc realized had been torn into three large pieces. Joav was now walking with a bad limp and Olicc hoped that he hadn’t made light the extent of his injuries. Corjick, the third man in the room, appeared to be fine.

“Wild Four, check him out and make sure he’s OK” Wild Four’s name was Jim, but he was more often referred to as Slim or even SlimJim, a nickname his tall lean frame earned him. Slim was among the newest additions to Dominus Nihil and was regarded as their best field medic. With Uni still treating the injured soldiers one floor down, he was also the only available medic.

A moment later the teams started announcing that their rooms were all clear and they moved onto those that still remained. Those, too, proved to be clear. Their attacker must have moved on to the next floor. Olicc looked up and saw another ladder leading up to a closed access catch that Olicc knew lead to the hallway in the officers quarters.

“We’re going one more up, same plan. Dominus, once the security station is secure, take the officer’s quarters. Wild, secure the barracks!

Olicc ordered the seeker droid to follow him and began his climb up the ladder.

[Olicc]

Gram was standing on the turbolift floor waiting for the action to begin. Olicc gave the signal and Jeston hit the switch, sending them towards the ceiling, which conveniently moved out of the way before the turbolift could crush them all. There was another small explosion, the last of Olicc’s flashbangs. Gram moved instantly, SFOR Carbine up in firing position and sweeping from side to side as he walked in a crouch looking for enemies. Gram was the first one into the security room where he found Zanibar sprawled cross the floor.

“Contact Zani, out cold.” Gram announced.

“Status?” Olicc asked him.

Gram did a quick search of the rest of the control room before checking Zanibar’s condition.

“Alive.” Gram recognized the distinctive burn patterns made by a DC series PEP laser attachment. “Looks like he was taken out by a Stun blast from a Deece.”

“Hallways and Security Station Clear.” Dali announced, “Move on to secure the rest of the floor.”

Dali gave Gram a hard pat on his shoulder armor and signaled him to follow. Dali was right, there was nothing Gram could do for Zanibar at the moment and the security station was as safe a location as anywhere else in the facility.

The hallways on this floor were different than the ones below. The majority of the floor was the security station and the empty space around it. Off to the south were the barracks. The barracks hallway was like a short and wide ‘T’ with five rooms along the southern most wall and then four other rooms along the opposite side. A squad of Imperial troopers where still sprawled out along the floor where they had died from Zanibar’s poison.

Gram and Dali took up opposite positions beside a sealed doorway in the barrack’s doorway. Gram took out his last flashbang and primed it.

“Remember to keep an eye out for traps this time.” Olicc warned from the north side of the facility where his squad would be searching the three large officer’s quarters.

A split second after Dali triggered the door release; Gram threw the grenade inside and quickly looked for any devises around the door trigger as he retreated back around the door frame to wait for the explosion. There was a series of loud bangs as his and others went off. Dali charged into the room and Gram followed him in.

Inside, civilian workers were screaming in horror as Dali and Gram held them at blasterpoint. They were already harmlessly bound together and to the back wall as they were supposed to have been, but the way things had been going, Gram was surprised to see them that way. He hadn’t had a lot of time to think about it, but Gram figured that either they had walked into a trap, Zoran and Zorana failed to neutralize all of the security forces, Serenius had failed to neutralize all the officers or some combination of those options.

“Clear, workers bound.” Gram announced and retreated out of the room, leaving the civilian hostages behind.

“Clear, full squad neutralized Imperials accounted for” Dradex announced.

“Clear, nine Imperial bloodstains” Roji announced.

“Clear, empty” Olicc announced from one of the officer’s quarters.

“Clear, empty” Xzaver echoed from the far officer’s quarters.

“Contact, Zoran and Zorana, alive but stunned,” Dradex announced.

“Clear, workers bound” Gram announced after he and Dali secured the next room over.

Gram moved onto the next room.

“Lead, Wild Four, Nine is good to go, permission to reform with my squad, sir.”

There was a brief pause, “Clear, empty,” Olicc announced, “No officer’s accounted for, be on the lookout. Nine, permission granted.”

“Clear, workers bound” Gram announced. No officer’s found, could it have been the officer’s that had ambushed them at the warehouse level and set the trap in the conference room? Or had they somehow been warned of the attack, planned the ambush and somehow escaped to safety prior to the assault? “Anyone seen Serenius?”

There was no immediate answer, “Clear, empty,” Dradex announced, “and no, I haven’t seen him and I recommend if he’s conscious, we consider him hostile.”

“Approach with extreme caution,” Olicc allowed, “unless he’s pointed a weapon at you” Olicc revised.

There was a sound of a muffled explosion and then Uni’s voice over the comm., “I think our transport shuttle just blew up.”

That would mean that the Imperial Lander had arrived.

“Hurry up and clear the rest of the barracks then get to the security station and dig in. Where about to have company.”

* * *


Glencora listened to the progressing ambush from the safety of the small Imperial Space Station far above the experimental weapons facility.

“…but we have managed to push them down to the second sublevel. Eventually they will run out of room to retreat and we will have them.”

Glencora initially requested to capture as many of the Rebels alive as possible, not for any concern over the lives of the men she had once fought beside, but because she hoped her interrogators would be able to extract an update on the Dominus Nihil Project’s progress. However, she had not predicted that the Rebels would have been able to think quickly and clearly enough to put the Dark Trooper armor on. The PEP lasers had proven completely ineffective against them and she had revised her orders to shoot to kill.

Glencora had been a spy within the Rebel instillation at Bestine under Aji’s command and had been reporting the progress of his little pet project to her superiors. The idea was a cleaver one and she had feared that it might actually work and pose a threat. She had attempted to eliminate the threat by setting up an ambush at Baton Station on Corellia, but most of her former allies had managed to escape and in the middle of the action it had become apparent that her cover had been blown. She managed to escape her brief captivity by the rebels but she had never managed to learn the potential location for Aji’s new base. She had thought the mission was a complete failure when another possibility presented itself. Zanibar had apparently chosen that moment to defect to the Empire, presumably due to his fondness of her.

It wouldn’t have been the first time a young soldier fell for a rare female soldier, but Glencora was skeptical from the start. She was a professional spy, and if there was one thing she knew how to do really well, it was identifying another spy. And Zanibar, though an extremely gifted chemist, was not nearly as talented in the skills required to fool her.

So, she set up another trap in which to cripple Aji’s operation. The weapons facility and even the armor production was real, it had to be to ensure Aji’s attention. She only had to hire someone to keep an eye on Zanibar.

She had learned of Serenius from an old Imperial ally of hers who had used the man himself a few times in the past. Serenius was an extremely talented Special Forces Commando Captain who was responsible for pulling off several highly classified and impossibly difficult operations to which he got no official credit or recognition for. It had been as easy as giving Serenius as false identity of modest skill and a few subtle clues of Rebel sympathies and then allowing Zanibar to choose 3 members of his team, to get her spy in place.

Now, Serenius was leading the ground assault backed by fifty four soldiers. Dark Trooper armor or not, the remaining dozen or so Rebels couldn’t possibly hold them back much longer. Remembering her last failure, she decided that overkill might be under rated.

“Well done, Captain. But I’m sending down some reinforcements just in case. These Rebels have proven to be slippery in the past.”

“Very well,” Serenius saluted and the holoimage went out.

“Call back the two cruisers and have them escort another lander to the surface.”

“How many soldiers, Ma’am?”

“Fill it up with another six squads.”


* * *

Olicc slapped in a fresh powerpack, gave a quick nod and cautiously peeked his head out from the heavy, overturned desk that was shielding him from the attackers shooting from the turbolift portal to the floor above them. He was awarded with a near miss from a blaster rifle and many more shots sizzling into the barrier. countered by sticking slightly out from behind his own barrier in firing rapid fire bolts towards their attackers. As soon as Olicc was sure they had stopped shooting at him, Olicc snuck another quick look out from his barrier, this time with his carbine in firing position. The Storm Troopers had retreated slightly to avoid ’s fire, using the floor beneath them as their own barrier. Olicc and waiting patiently, blasters still drawn, for one of the enemy to show themselves.

Behind them, Dali and a few others were setting up their retreat to the factory level where they would be forced to take a final stand. Clark and Mainstien were trapped in the south hallway. When the Imperials had arrived, Olicc had ordered everyone down to the middle floor and disabled the turbo lift. This prevented the imperials from simply riding the turbolift down to them and wiping them out. With the turbolift disabled, the portal between the two floors was also stuck sealed. This gave the rebels some time to prepare themselves and make defensive positions from various heavy materials taken from the various rooms on the floor while the Imperials struggled to open the turbolift portal. Unfortunately, Mainstien and Clark had been in a room off in the southern hallway when the Imperials managed to open the turbolift crossway, cutting them off from the rest of the squads. They were currently behind quickly constructed shelters of their own, helping Olicc, Jev, Geja and Jeco hold the turbolift portal.

Jeston, Corjick, Ryoji, Dradex were covering the emergency hatchway which they had been unable to find a way to seal. Dali, Gram, Xzaver, and Zoran were finishing up the last of the perpetrations needed before they could retreat. The others were already on the factory level doing what they could to set up defensive positions there to use after the Imperials took over the second sublevel.

Despite Olicc giving K’warr and Uni a direct order to stay of his injured legs – which K’warr retorted with what Olicc roughly translated to mean ‘kiss my hair, Wookiee, ass’- the pair were providing most of the muscle for the ‘furniture rearrangement’. Uni had done what he could for K’warr’s injuries but Olicc knew that the pain must be agonizing even for his oversized best friend. Slim had replaced Uni as chief caretaker of the injured after he had revived Zoran, Zanibar, and Zorana with revpacks – the military slang term for a medical stimulant created for the specific purpose of helping victims of PEP lasers recover consciousness.

Olicc retreated behind his shelter after getting hit in the head from several laser blasts. The Dark Trooper arm took the damage without any apparent damage but Olicc was reluctant to test the limits of the armor despite Zoran insisting they could withstand significant sustained fire. As Olicc waited out the barrage of incoming fire, he considered the option of Mainstien and Clark making a run for the west hallway. The armor seemed tough enough to take the few seconds of fire Mainstien and Clark would need to endure to switch hallways. As Olicc considered this he heard Geja shouted out a warring of incoming danger over their team’s shared comm. Olicc instinctively dropped tighter to the floor but the explosion that erupted a moment later occurred in the south hall.

“Stang! I love this armor,” Mainstien declared.

“Yeah, we’re OK,” Clark agreed. “The blast destroyed the table and threw us across the hallway, but we’re really no worse for wear and tear.”

“What was that?” Olicc asked.

“Rocket Launcher,” Geja clarified.

It was the first use of heavy weapons in the skirmish. Until now, the Imperial’s seemed to be hoping to take the Rebels out with minimal damage to the facility. Apparently, they had decided to abandon their caution and accept an increased allowance for collateral damage.

Gram but into the conversation, “Lead, we need to retreat now. If that blast had…”

“Roger that, Wild Three, that’s fully understood. You two think you can make a run for it?”

“In these suits, I wouldn’t doubt it.” Jeston replied.

“Sure beats getting left behind,” Mainstien added.

Olicc wished he hadn’t decided against wearing the cumbersome arm mounted missile launcher that Gram had attached to his armor. The thought had occurred to him early in the firefight as the most effective way to kill the imperials above him, but he soon realized that the Imperials were attempting to avoid damaging the facility. With the exception of the one proximity mine that detonated in a relatively empty board room, the Imperials had restricted themselves to blasters and small grade grenades. Olicc had feared that using heavy weapons would provoke the Imperials to counter with the same which could easily ruin then plan they were setting in motion and kill everyone still on the second sublevel in the process. Plus, the Imperial’s standard armor was proving fare less resilient to blaster fire which was giving the Rebels a distinct advantage despite the Imperials having the high ground. But now that the Imperials had escalated their tactics, the missiles would have been very useful to hold back the Imperials while Mainstien and Clark mad a run for the west hallway and might have taken out a dozen or so more troopers in the process. That’s hind sight, for you. Olicc checked his powerpack; it had enough juice for at least a few dozen more shots but he swapped it out for a fresh one anyway.

“OK, we’ll cover you as best we can while you make a run for it. Make it quick!” Olicc
demanded.

Olicc peered out from his cover and drew a wave of fire as Geja, Jeco and Jev leaned out and returned fire. The Imperials had wised up to this tactic and managed to hit Jeco with several clean shots as he exposed himself. The blasts were clean enough to knock him backwards where he took twice as many hits before scrambling to cover. Jeco announced that his armor had held as Olicc, Jev, and Geja continued to send as many blaster bolts through the portal as their carbines could manage.

“Go, go, go!” Olicc ordered.

A trooper appeared over the edge of the ceiling with a rocket launcher in hand. He wasn’t able to point it even in their general direction before being cut down, but three more troopers where there to take his place. Two troopers acted as living shields for the third who picked up the rocket launcher and aimed it at Olicc’s overturned desk. Olicc took two hits from the troopers rifles before they were both killed by Rebel fire; however, even in their death, they were proving effective shielding for the third trooper.

“Olicc, get down!” Jev yelled, but the trooper with the rocket launcher noticed Mainstien and Clark running down the south hall and adjusted his aim.

“No!” Olicc yelled, and stepped out completely from his shelter to get a new angle of the Imperial. From the new angle, Olicc managed to burn two shots through the Imperial’s armor; but not before the missile was fired.

The missile hit the wall right beside Clark and sent both men flying back into the hallway. Olicc had a quick image of Clark’s body twisting gruesomely from the blast before he, himself, was thrown off his feet.

“That’s it” Dali decided, “We’re leaving now! Commence retreat! Gram, hit the switch!”

Someone grabbed Olicc from behind as he attempted to stand up and pulled him farther into the hallway towards the emergency hatchway leading to the ladder down to the lowest sublevel. Olicc broke free and saw that it had been Zoran.

“We have to go now!” he explained as several Imperial issue rapid fire assault rifles opened up in unison. At first Olicc had mistaken the sound for incoming fire, but quickly realized it was the rifles they had set up to cover their retreat.

“Rifles activated,” Gram confirmed.

Olicc fought the urge to see if Mainstien had managed to survive the blast. He hadn’t been far from Clark when the explosion had gone off, and Clark was undoubtedly killed in the blast.

Zoran read his thoughts, “Lead, they’re both dead and it’s only by luck or the Force that we haven’t been killed in a chain reaction yet.”

Olicc realized Zoran was right and allowed himself to be shoved towards the emergency hatch.

* * *

Serenius had long since run out of patience but knew that the end was now near. It had taken a few seconds but his troopers had realized the ruse with the propped up rifles and managed to use their own fire to disable them long before they ran out of power. The troopers nearest him were repelling down from the turbolift portal while more troopers down the west hallway were waiting their turn to climb down the emergency ladder.

Of the fifty four soldier at his command, nine had been killed thus far. He still had plenty more, the Rebels now had no were else to run to and another fifty four soldiers were on the way to the landing pad outside from the factory. From there they would cut their way through the hanger doors and the Rebels would be force into defending from a two pronged assault. In the end, not even that damn armor will save them.

“Get that last turbolift portal open. Someone on the west side, tell me what they are doing down there.”

“Sir, they are dug in behind large factory crates, probably armor possibly ordinance.”

Serenius actually laughed at that, it would be rather humorous if the Rebels accidentally hid behind a crate full of ordinance mistaking it for one of the crates of armor. Highly unlikely, these Rebels weren’t the most experienced soldier but they weren’t stupid, either; plus Zanibar and the traitors were familiar enough with the facility to catch a mistake like that.

“Hold your fire until we get the portal open, there’s no sense wasting your powerpacks with harassment fire if they are already dug in.”

As if on queue, several soldier on the floor beneath them opened fire.

“Fierfek! I said hold your fire!”

“Two men down, Sir!” One of the soldiers explained with a hint of irritation in his voice. “One of the Rebels is still down here!” The trooper relayed the view from his helmet to Serenius’ so that he would be able to see what was going on without putting himself in danger.

Serenius, who had put on his ARC armor during the initial firefight, adjusted the size and location of the visual feed with a click of his back teeth and slow shift of his eyes to the side. The Rebel seemed to be one of the ones caught by the last rocket. By the way he was lying awkwardly on the floor, Sernious could tell the man was already serious injured; but even as the Imperials hit him blast after blast, he kept firing at them. The Imperials had fanned out into the north – south hallways and were taking shots at the Rebel around the corners of the wall. It took about two dozen direct hits to the man’s helmet, but he eventually stopped firing.

Two of the Imperials approached the Rebel cautiously as the others continued to cover from the relative safety of the crossing hallway. The Imperial kicked the man’s helmet and it clattered down across the floor loudly. The man was probably dead but the trooper shot him again, point blank, to the back of the unarmed head to make sure. The result wasn’t pretty, but that was war for you.

“Get back to the portal. I want it open in 5 minutes.”

Serenius switched to his channel with the space station, “What the status on my reinforcements? We have them pinned in the factory and will be in position within ten minutes.”

The control took a few seconds to answer, “The shuttle has launched. ETA, fifteen minutes until groundside, Sir.”

“Roger that, Control.” Serenius changed back to his squad frequency. “Get into positions and prepare to assault on my command.”

A huge fireball shot up through the portal between Serenius and his troops, picking him clean off his feet and slamming hard to his back. He hadn’t heard the explosion until he was in mid air. It was big, and the video feed he had been receiving from one of his troopers was now a solid black rectangle with the word ‘disconnected’ blinking within with white letters.

* * *

Olicc was heartbroken when he started receiving video feed. The image was shaky and there was no audio but the feed identified itself from originating from Mainstien who had left behind to die. Mainstien seemed to be pulling his body across the floor towards another body, Clark he realized. Mainstien took off his helemet for a moment and the image from the feed became unrecognizable. Olicc wondered what he was doing until he started getting a second feed, this one identifying that it was coming from Clark’s helmet. Olicc rearranged the video feeds so that he could see both of them with a minimal amount of reduction to his own visibility. The image from Mainstien’s helmet shifted again as he propped it up to capture a clear image of the crossing hallways. The Imperials were firing down at the rifles they had propped up early and disabling them. Mainstien went eerily still. Olicc hoped that he had passed out, at least that way he would feel the death that would shortly come to him.

“Poor son of a bitch” Geja commented. Apparently, Mainstien had patched the feeds through to everyone.

“That’s a good man” Olicc commented. “We should have thought to have left a helmet up there so we could monitor their movements. We will be able to time this much better now.”

Olicc’s commlink buzzed from a within his utility belt. The commlinks and Dark Trooper helmets were incompatible for frequencies due to encryption. It was probably Eric trying to get a status update. Olicc switched his comm to the transmitting frequency.

“Dominus Lead, go ahead.”

“Those two Tarton gunboats that went back up to space after the shuttle landed seem to be coming back down again. I think you’re going to have more company soon.”

The signal was coming from the pilot of the shuttle he was supposed to leave on.

“Roger that, how much time do we have?”

“They aren’t in visual yet. I’m picking them up on a portable sensor I managed to grab on my way out of the ship. Giving their current decent, I would say ten to fifteen minutes.”

“Roger that, what’s your status?”

“Were about three kilometers from the base and halfway down the mountain. Much of the mountain is too steep for us to descend so its pretty slow going trying to find a path we can manage. But the first wav of imperials ignored us completely. I think we can make it down into the forest below and hide out for extraction.”

“Roger that, good luck and thanks for the warning.”

“Good luck to you as well.”

During the conversation, Olicc had been watching the last of the Imperials repel down the portal. Several of them were working on opening the portal that led down to the factory level where Olicc and the rest of his men were still hiding. Suddenly, there was movement from the Clark feed and Mainsteen began firing into the crowd of Imperials. At least two of them fell from the assault and the others scrambled out of site. Olicc considered setting off the charges now, but he hadn’t seen Serenius decent yet and was hoping to take him out in the blast, as well.

The Imperials were returning fire now, and with Mainstien sprawled out, without cover, in the middle of the hallway, it was proving easy for them to find their mark.

Olicc’s comm went off again, but this time he ignored it for now. After what seemed like countless direct hits to the helmet, he lost the Clark feed. Through the Mainstien feed he saw a few more shots fly towards the Imperials before it was once again still in the hallways.

Two troopers were cautiously moving down the hallway and passed the view from Mainstien’s helmet. They were gone for a few seconds and then returned into view walking normally, and without concern. Mainstien was dead.

Olicc opened his comm to his squad, “Blow it”

“For Mainstien,” someone said just before the explosion shook the entire facility.


* * *

The feed from Mainstien’s helmet cut out immediately with the explosion, but he didn’t need it to know that everyone on that floor was now dead. Gram, Zoran, Zorana, and Xzaver had created the impromptu remote detonation explosives out of the missiles and mini-proton rounds from the Dark Trooper Launcer ordinance creates. They had been Xzaver’s design, who had the most experience creating untraditional explosives. Gram, Zoran, and Zorana, whom all had traditional explosives training, assisted with the reproduction of the devises by following Xzavers design and quick instruction. Against his better judgment, but over ruled, Slim assisted with the planting with the help of Adeseth and Dali.

Xzaver wasn’t exactly sure how big the combined explosion would be, but they had all agreed to error on the side of aggression rather than caution since a failure to take out the majority of the raiding force in the blast would result in their certain death anyway. Trigged by Xzaver’s commlink with a method Olicc couldn’t fathom, the resulting explosions satisfying yet utterly terrifying. The building had shook so violently that he had been sure the ceiling above them was going to collapse and crush them. Or perhaps Olicc was confusing his own shaking for that of the buildings since even the turbolift crossway door had held.

Olicc reactivated his seeker droid and send it on a course through the facility up to the front entryway hoping to locate Serenius.

“That bastard is mine!” Zoran declared.

“With the turbolift disabled, the only way up is the emergency ladder. We need to make sure Serenius isn’t pointing a rifle at the exit first, and then he’s all yours.”

“Fine, but I’m going to start making my way up the ladder. I need to kill his ass before the reinforcements get here.”

The commlink in Olicc’s utility belt went off again; he had forgotten that it had gone off just before the explosion. It was Eric.

“Dominus Lead, go ahead”.

“Dominus Lead, this is Viper Lead. We are on route to your location now.”

“Negative, Viper. We received word that the Tartons are still in the area.”

“Yes, we realize that” The irritation in Eric’s voice was plainly obvious. “We are about to engage and destroy.”

“I thought you said you didn’t stand a chance against Tartons?” Olicc asked, almost accusingly.

“Fierfek! What? You think I’ve been sitting on my ass for the last thirty minutes?” Confined to the small cockpit of his X-Wing, Olicc knew that he had, in fact, been sitting on his ass the whole time. But he knew what he meant and decided to hold back a witty retort.

“Understood, Viper Lead. Please fill me.”

“While you’ve been playing soldier and getting yourselves deeper into trouble, I updated Commander Flyrider of our escalating situation and he got on the comm with your friends from TKO. They called in a favor to some rouge RSF pilots and next thing I know I’m leading two broadside missile cruisers and a flight of N-1 Starfighters into battle.

“The BMCs can fire a full payload of missiles well out of range of the Tarton’s laser capabilities. The rest of us will mop up what’s left and fly cover for you.”

“Ahh…. the Imperial’s blew up our transport.”

“OK, do I have to solve everything for you? I’m picking up a troop carrier right outside the base. I’ll divert two of the RSF pilots to persuade him to keep grounded. You think you can manage convincing him to surrender his ship to you, or do you need me to land and do that for you, too?”

The seeker droid was sweeping the second sublevel and Olicc didn’t see Serenius anywhere. He gave Zoran a quick nod and he shot the rest of the way up the ladder and out of site. The remaining members of Wild squadron followed him, probably by Dali’s orders.

“OK, that’s a good plan,” Olicc admitted. “Assuming you take out the other ships and there are no other surprises, we will be in the air in ten minutes.”

“We’ll take them out, don’t worry.”

“And VentuViper?”

“Yeah?”

“Thanks.” Olicc shut off his comm and switched his squad frequency back on. “Gentleman, I’m happy to announce that we are saved. I want these hanger doors open ASAP. We leave as soon as our ride gets here, but were take’n a few of these crates with us.”

“Yeah, this armor almost makes it worth it,” Geja commented sarcastically.

Logio, who had been injured in the initial grenade attacks and spent the remainder of the mission getting treatment in the factory, looked at his wounds and sighed.

Olicc remembered the loss of Mainstien and Clark from his own unit as well as those from the other units that had died today. “Yeah, almost…”

Tactically… Logically…. Numerically… he new that it had been worth it. He understood that the armor would be used in future missions and that it would likely make the difference, saving the lives of the soldiers and possibly millions of other lives as a result. Or, at least he hoped so. But today sure didn’t feel like a victory.

“Tell you what, you can bitch all you want after we make it out alive. Right now, I want those damn doors open.”

* * *

Zoran ran out the front entrance to the facility with carbine drawn and Zorana covering his back, and caught sight of Serenius as he turned the corner out the main gate and ran for the safety of the Imperial shuttle. A quick mental calculation told him that Serenius was going to make it into the shuttle before Zoran could get around the gate and line up a shot. He had to try anyway.

“He’s out here” Zoran said over the comm and took off at a sprint. When he turned the corner, Serenius was no where in site and the boarding ramp to the shuttle was closing. Zoran fired a series of shots at the ramp to no effect beyond minor carbine scarring. He switched his aim to the pilot but those shots dissipated in much the same way against the transparsteel. As expected, his carbine didn’t have nearly enough power to damage the military grade starship.

That was it; Serenius was going to get away.

Zorana punched her brother on the shoulder and pointed to the sky, “Look!”

Zoran saw at least two dozen thin smoke trails. He followed them on their path until they began erupting in small balls of light, one after another; and then Zoran thought he spotted a larger secondary explosion. And then another, this time he was sure if it.

“Was that the enemy reinforcements?” Zoran asked his sister.

“What else could it be?” she answered.

The shuttle repulsers kicked in and the lander started to lift off the ground.

“There still getting away.”

The members of Wild Squadron were now exiting the facility and joining Zoran and Zorana at the gate.

Dali raised his carbine and put several shots into the ships hull.

“That’s not going to work.” Gram predicted.

“Yeah, I already tried that.” Zoran added.

Dali shrugged his shoulder casually, “it was worth a shot”

The shuttle was now rising quickly and spinning clockwise as it rose. The Rebels were transfixed on the rear drives which were growing brighter as the large ship started to accelerate; but before it could get too far, a flurry of lasers, much more powerful that those from the carbines, pounded against the upper left of the ship. There were blue flashes as the shields absorbed them but the shipped rocked to the side from the force. The pilot quickly regained control of the ship as two yellow painted N1 Naboo Starfighters screamed overhead, made a loop and went in for another pass.

Another series of hits and this time two of the shots made it through the shields, sending up a shower of sparks from the hull. The Starfighters began circling the ship which was now hovering still not far from the complex. Zoran was expecting Serenius to make a run for it, but to his surprise, the shuttle hovered back towards the facility and began descending.

“I don’t believe it.” Zorana said.

“Yeah, well, I really don’t believe it. Stay on guard.”

The thick hum of the large repulsors grew louder as the craft slowed its near vertical decent and landed softly in the same potion it was in before it had taken off. The Rebels raised their carbines with anticipation. The drives dimmed and then went out all together as the pilot initiated the engine power down sequence. Zoran signaled the others to fan out and follow him closer to the shuttle. A few minutes later and the large entry ramp descended.

With their carbines still in firing position and their fingers on the triggers, the squad moved up the boarding ramp looking to take Serenius and the pilot into custody. Zoran was sure this wouldn’t be an easy arrest. He had known Serenius as a military scout, soldiers known more for stealth and reconnaissance than combat, and this had always made Zoran feel uneasy around him. While he had played his part flawlessly, speaking within the mentality of an average scout at all times, there had been a hardness in his eyes that spoke of considerable action and violence. He had dismissed it earlier as paranoia, but now his insight had been vindicated. The quick glimpse of his armor as Serenius fled had identified him as an Advanced Recon Commando, the most highly trained ground soldiers in the military.

The Rebels ascended the ramp with two rows of four, Dali, Gram, Zoran and Zorana leading the way and two rebels hanging back for support. There was some comfort in the fact that they had the numerical advantage with ten Rebels versus two Imperials, but not much; an single ARC was quiet capable of taking a few enemy down with him.

As Zoran entered the rear of the craft his HUD immediately adjusted to the lower lighting but there was no comfort in what he saw. Serenius was sitting on one of four speederbikes with a riot shield mounted on his left arm and held in front of him. The speeder started with a gentle hum and shot forward with a whine. The craft accelerated so quickly that only Dali had reflexes fast enough to get a short off before he was past the Rebel line; the shot absorbed easily by the heavy riot shield. Serenius moved the shield to rest against his back as he flew off into the distance.

Zoran and Zorana didn’t wait for orders; they took two of the remaining speederbikes and went after him.

Dali ordered Joav to take the last speeder and follow them as he took the others into the cabin to capture the pilot.

* * *

With trees already flying past him on both sides at incredible speeds, Zoran put a little more speed into his bike by pressing down on to acceleration peddle with his right foot. Zorana, just behind and to the right, kept pace with her twin brother but was finding it increasingly difficult to do so as the chase went on. Serenius was still visible up ahead, not breaking away but appearing to weave through the trees as if he was used to this sort of thing. A fourth speeder was behind them but still out of site.

The deeper within the forest they flew the more dense the trees became but Zoran refused to slow down. Carefully shifting his weight back and forth, Zoran slalomed four trees that were staggered just off center file and noticed the distinct odor of pine as he shifted his weight forward and accelerated through a slightly less dense area. Serenius was giving up no ground; an increase in power to his repulsors sent him over a fallen tree and a wide, slow turn sent him through an unobstructed path that allowed him to utilize his near 500 kph top speed. Zoran and Zorana copied the maneuver but by the time they got to the clearing Serenius had progressed into a more dense area. Zoran triggered his front mounted blaster cannon but the lasers were blocked by trees long before they reached their target.

Zoran continued on to the more dense section and was forced to slow a bit to avoid slamming into a tree. A twist of his wrist activated the rear flaps which sent the nose of his bike up a bit to avoid slamming the forward control veins into a small hill on the forest floor; this maneuver launched his craft several extra six meters off the ground and crashing through a series of soft lower tree braches. As Zorana approached the hill she also tilted her hose up but quickly brought her nose back down lowered the power on her repulsors as she reached the crest of the small hill which prevented her from gaining unwanted altitude. When Zoran settled back down to optimal altitude he found himself tailing his sister.

The pair continued to race forward in pursuit. The strain of focusing on trees as they approached had made the task very difficult. Zoran found that it was easier to not really look at the trees themselves but to look beyond the trees where the ground didn’t seem to be approaching quiet as quickly and then relying on peripheral vision to avoid obstacles. He tried to focus on catching Serenius rather than the danger but his fear and better judgment was preventing his rage and competitiveness from pushing down the accelerator any further.

The chase continued through the trees for several minutes and broke into another small clearing, over a small creek, and back into the woods. Zorana dodge to the right of the base and roots of another fallen tree and launched over a steep but short drop of the forest floor and noticed the bolder blocking her path a hair too late. She avoided a head on collision with the rock with a heavy lean to the right but still clipped the back section of the bike on the huge rock causing the bike to ricochet hard into a tailspin. Zorana attempted to correct her flight path as her speeder bike drifted sideways from the forward momentum but her forward thrust pushed her too far to the left of her intended path and into she clipped another tree; this time jamming her leg painfully in-between the tree and the bike. She depressed the brake control as the bike went over another bump and brought her off balance. With her body weight propelled first upward from the bump and then her craft quickly decelerating below her from the brake, she was forced over her handlebars - flying forward off her bike and then tumbling uncontrollably over the ground until she slammed violently against a tree.

Zoran had lost sight of his sister as she was propelled forward off her speeder bike and immediately gave up the chase to see if she was injured.

* * *

Joav raced through the forest with practiced ease. In his youth he had been a semi-professional swoop racer and these military speeders were slow in comparison to the racing swoops he was used to. Despite their considerable head start, he could tell that he was gaining on the others.

With expert adjustments to his respulsors, Joav did even change altitude as he sailed over the small creek and headed into the next tree line. Joav agilely dodge right of the falled tree roots and sailed over the sudden drop. The large boulder in front of him took him a bit by surprise but his practiced hands reacted instantly. Joav leaned his bike into a sideways roll to the right until his craft was on its side and used his flaps change his angle and his repulsors to keep him from hitting the rock. This pushed his craft to the right of the path but Joav corrected this continuing his roll so that his bike was no flying on its other side and used his flaps to get him back on course. Having avoided the hazard, he corrected brought his bike back up to the correct flying position and raced forward.

Joav saw an armored figure on a speeder to his left flying slowing in the opposite direction and identified the rider as either Zoran or Zorana. The sound of a single speeder could be heard up ahead. The only logical explanation was that either Zoran or Zorana had crashed and the other had stopped for them. This meant that he was now the only one pursuing the Imperial. Although he could not yet see him, he continued forward towards the sound of the speeder as he had done from the beginning.

It took Joav another minute to get within sight of the Imperial. While not to his own level of mastery, it was obvious by his nimbleness that Sernius had considerable experience flying speeder bikes. Joav continued to close the distance despite the Imperial’s increase in speed after realizing their proximity.

Sernius weaved through a highly difficult series of trees at the highest speed his skills could possibly manage but it just allowed Joav to close the gap even further. Joav fired a series of blasts from his speeder’s cannon that all went wide. For all his flying skills, he had very little experience firing weapons while flying; as dangerous as swoop racing could be; mounting weapons on your bike was strictly prohibited – though not unheard of.

Joav was now only ten meters behind and was continuing to fire shots of opportunity as Serenius weaved across him to maneuver through the trees. Despite his superior flying and close proximity, the course through the trees was difficult enough that Serenius had managed to avoid being hit. A near miss with a tree branch and Joav decided to pay a little more attention to flying and a little less about the blaster. Serenius wasn’t getting away, eventually they would reach a clearing and there would be no way for the Imperial to avoid getting shot with Joav directly behind him.

At exactly the same moment as that thought crossed his mind, Joav noticed a large piece of awkwardly flying metal heading straight towards him at a high rate of speed. Joav took evasive action and it flew harmlessly by. The shield Joav thought, realizing that the shield which had been on his back would not be able to stop a blast from a cannon as powerful as that on the speeders, Serenius had decided to use it as a projectile instead. The shield had enough mass to easily dismount a rider at these extreme velocities.

Shaken for the near disaster, Joav took a deep breath, focused on his surroundings and accelerated to make up the lost ground.

* * *

Confiscating the Lander, loading a few crates of armor and getting everyone aboard hadn’t been difficult; but taking off and flying near a dogfight in a huge, slow moving craft was terrifying. Although the Tartons had been destroyed by the initial missile attack, the Rebel flight managed to pick up two squadrons of TIE fighters. The missile cruisers were worthless in a dogfight and highly vulnerable to the more nimble star fighters and so had been ordered to keep far back from the furball.

The N1-Starfighters were outmatched by the faster TIE fighters but the X-wings, though even less nimble than the N1-Starfighters were far more heavily armed and shielded and actually had an advantage of the TIEs; making the dogfight relatively even.

If it had been Rouge Squadron, it would probably have been a slaughter; but Viper Squad was no Rouge Squadron; at least not yet. Three Xwings from Eric’s squad had already been shot down along with half the Naboo fighters. The TIEs had lost only half that number.

As the Lander started to distance itself away from the fight, Olicc noticed that a few of TIEs broke away to give chase. After a few moments, the two Naboo starships flying cover for the Lander broke off to engage. Two X-wings also maneuvered to cut off the TIEs before they were in range of the Lander.

TIE fighters were never meant for combat in atmosphere and that truly hurt them here. The TIE fighter’s top speed and mobility decreased drastically as they crossed into the Thermosphere. X-wings were far more suited to atmospheric flight and the N1-S performed almost as well in Atmosphere as they did in space; they engaged the TIE fighters and took two out instantly with direct hits. Another was destroyed an instant later when it attempt to avoid an attack and managed to rip off its side solar panel and radiation shield in the process, sending it in tumbling out of control towards Naboo. The final TIE managed to graze one of the N1’s but its shields held and the TIE was taken out a moment later from an X-wing.

The other Rebel craft had managed to fight their way into the atmosphere, as well, to provide cover for Olicc’s Lander and make their escape. A few of the TIEs pursued, but after a few were destroyed soon after entering atmosphere, the rest decided to break off the engagement.

The Lander wasn’t hyperspace capable so they fled in atmosphere. Olicc made arrangements to rendezvous with an alternative, less conspicuous shuttle at their first opportunity. They didn’t have much time before the Empire managed to scramble atmospheric fighters to engage them. Luckily, Eire had anticipated their need and was sending a small cargo freighter of common make to meet with them and make the change.

* * *

The two speeder bikes continued to race through the trees; both riders suffering from fatigue and strained with stress. Realizing that he would stand no chance out in the open, Serenius had kept the chase with in the tree line. Although this tactic had kept him alive, it had also made it impossible for him to escape. It was clear to both pilots that Serenius wouldn’t be able to outrun Joav, but he made one last attempt to out fly him.

Serenius weaved extra wide from an approaching tree and then suddenly hit the breaks, absorbing the heavy force of inertia with his powerful arms and shoulders. Joav spotted the move but had very little time to do anything about it. The last thing Joav wanted to do was fly directly in front of Serenius where the Imperial could then turn the chase around and fire a few shots at Joav’s rear, so he braked and dived to the left of the three instead.

Joav looped around and was glad to see that Serenius wasn’t heading straight into him on a collision path. He was dismayed a split second later to find that Serenius had picked up his sniper rifle and was obviously attempting to target him. Joav’s mind side avasive action but his body never had time. A powerful laser blast hit Joav in the head. The amazing armor that Dark Trooper Armor was, the shot didn’t penetrate the armor but the kinetic energy from the blast was enough to knock him clean off the back of his bike. The speeder continued forward, banked off one tree and exploded into another.

Joav hit the ground hard and lost all the air within his lungs. As he struggled to his knees he was glad to see that his carbine was still slung around his shoulder. He brought it up into firing position and searched for Serenius. He found his bike idling, but Serenius was no longer beside it. Before he could decide to disable the bike to prevent his escape, Joav was hit by another sniper blast to the top of his sternum. The blast jerked his body backwards but didn’t immediately knock him over. The next shot hit him low on his helmet where his chin would be, which caused his head to jerk forward and nearly knocked him unconscious. The next shot him on the sternum again, this time a little higher and to the left than the last.

Joav dropped and rolled and the last shot missed overhead. Joav went into a fast belly crawly to the nearest tree he could use for cover and resumed a firing position as soon as he reached it. Serenius was nowhere to be found. He scanned the general area the pervious shots had come from but couldn’t find any indication of the Imperial’s location. He had time to realize that the shots to his head and upper chest had been intended for his neck, which is a common vulnerability of most armor that Dark Trooper armor didn’t share.

Joav switched his HUD to thermal optical view and scanned the area in front of him for a significant heat signature. He scanned to the left and right but the only things giving off a high amount of heat that he could see were the two bikes. That was pretty surprising because even though the armor did a good job shielding the wearers body heat, the internal temperature regulation system as well as a few other electrical systems usually gave off a high amount of heat from the outside of the suit. Joav considered that the ARC suit might have some sort of a stealth system that masked or turned off these devices. He turned off the thermal optics and after a bit of menu searching activated his motion sensors and increased his external microphone volumes. The motion sensors weren’t picking up anything near by strong enough to display for him and the only sounds he could hear was the amplification of the general forest ambiance he already heard.

After a few minutes of waiting there was a sudden motion from his right. Joav turned his head to see what it was and saw a dark object flying towards him at an arch. His HUD display identified it as an Imperial Issue fragmentation grenade, which proceeded to land a few feet in front of him. Joav considered running or picking it up and throwing it back but he didn’t have time to do either. The grenade quickly exploded and knocked him off his feet.

Joav had become so confident in the Dark Trooper armor that he wasn’t that surprised that he survived the blast. He stumbled to his feet and saw Serenius racing towards him. Joav attempted to shoot him down but quickly realized that he was no longer holding his carbine. Joav searched the forest floor in his general area and found his blaster and dove for it. Joav grabbed the carbine with his body still in the air and attempted to roll into a firing position but found that he wasn’t nearly as agile in armor as he was without. He crashed awkwardly to the ground and took a moment roll over and get back to his feet. It was a moment that cost him dearly.

Serenius was already on him, batting the carbine to the side with a left gauntlet and then preying it from Joav’s grip with a twisting motion. While Joav was still worring about his blaster, Serenius hooked his right arm under Joav’s right arm, grabbed Joav’s right bicept with his other hand and bend down into a shoulder throw. Joav landed solidly onto his back and quickly sat up and attempted to stand. Serenius released Joav’s arm and grabbed his helmet instead. Serenius jerked the helmet as far as he could towards his left and then to his right. He then pushed Joav down to his back again and swung his legs over Joav’s chest to a forward mount position. Joav didn’t resist, he was already dead.

* * *
Zoran had hoped that the Dark Trooper armor’s amazing protection had been enough to protect his sister from her very high speed crash, but as soon as he saw the impossibly awkward position of her body he knew that she was dead. He took off his helmet and walked towards her slowly with tears in his eyes. His life was now empty. Not to long ago he had lost his wife. Now he had lost his twin, as well. All he had ever loved was dead, gone from him forever.

Zoran rolled her limp body away from the tree and pulled off her helmet. Trails of blood from her eyes, nose, mouth, and ears from what must have been numerous internal injuries sent waves of emotions through him. If he not for his state of shock the sight would surely have gagged him.

He then stripped her of the armor and buried her beside the tree that had killed her. He carved her name into the tree with his knife and marked the location on his GPS devise.

Zoran sat by the tree for over an hour, occasionally breaking the silence with soft sounds of weeping. He then said his goodbyes, packed the extra suit of armor to his speederbike and headed off to the Forward Base of Operations (a temporary command center) where he was to rendezvous with the others and wait for extraction.

* * *

That’s it, its over. She had failed. Not just the mission, but also her entire career this time. This was the second Dark Trooper Amor facility the Empire had lost, and this one was her fault. After the loss of the Arch Hammer, and with it, many billions of credits worth of resources, equipment, droids, and armor, not to mention the personnel and ship itself, the Empire had been reluctant to start up another facility. In fact, they had initially decided to scrap the project all together before they reconsidered a short time later after reviewing the data regarding the armor’s effectiveness. Cutting out the combat droids and making the armor for human’s only had cut costs, but the majority of credits went to the resources for the armor itself. With the loss of the Naboo facility, they would likely cut the project all together this time; at least, for the foreseeable future.

To make matters worse, the Rebels managed to get away WITH several cases full of armor. It was doubtful the Rebels would be able to duplicate the armor with their pitiful bankroll, but the armor was sure to show up from time to time in some critical Rebel raid or another.

And she was to blame. It had been Glencora’s idea to use the facility as bait. In fact, she had failed to even mention her plans to her superiors knowing that they wouldn’t be willing to risk the very costly investment – apparently, with good reason. At best, her career was over. More likely she would either be thrown into a military prison for life or possibly even executed.

She hadn’t had any other choice but to flee. With her training as a spy she was confident that she would be able to create a new life for herself, disappearing from both the Empire and Rebels forever.

A light on the main console indicated that she had an incoming transmission. She didn’t dare answer it. It was undoubtedly one of her furious commanding officers looking for an explanation as to what just happened, why they weren’t notified, and why she was she flying her personal ship away from the space station. Obviously, they were smart enough to have but those three things together and had their answer, but she didn’t see any point in confirming it or listening to their demands and threats.

She was well out of range of their tractor beams and there wasn’t anything fast enough on the space station that could reach her before her navicomputer finished its calculations.

Less than a minute later, she made the jump to hyperspace.

[Olicc]

(Epilogue)

Olicc was still getting used to his new house; so far, it still didn’t feel like ‘his’. It would take a few months to become familiar and comfortable. Olicc had been one of the lucky ones with the largest style home, mostly because his house doubled as his personal dojo, which was a condition of his joining the project. It also made for a more pleasant environment for the three wrix cats that were used to the spacious temple and would have a hard time adjusting to the smaller models.

Olicc sat in quiet meditation on a large, ornate rug in the center of his master bedroom. Timber, Teras, and Mana were sleeping of to the side of the room peacefully. The glow lamps built into the ceiling were off, and being windowless, the room offered complete darkness. The cooling unit had shut off for the night so the only sounds that could be heard were the soft breathing of those in the room. He had spent many such hours quietly meditating. Searching. Learning.

The deaths that had occurred at the weapons facility still troubled him, especially Clark and Mainstien’s. The AAR had reveled many things they could have done better but Zazo had assured him that he had done his job well considering the circumstances. Aji and Zazo had decided to add another training program for all Team Leaders and Squad Leaders based on the Imperial Officer Qualification Course from what they remembered, wanted to add and then a little help from Gram who used to teach the course at Carida. Olicc knew a lot about combat and tactics but had always been more of a loner than a leader. That would have to change if he wanted to remain the Team Leader, which he did. But for the time being, he pushed those thoughts away and new ones surfaced.

Olicc had a few theories as to what had happened to him during his initial fight with Rune, but had thus far been unable to confirm them. His ‘vision’ of how to defeat him was too similar to what he had been told of Jedi foresight to be ignored. Such things couldn’t be completely discredited by his lack of sufficient midichlorians. The truth was, most beings had a small number of midichlorians living within them and thus were capable of connecting to the force at some level.

There were stories, though uncommon, of mothers gaining Jedi like strength when attempting to protect a child. There were even cultures of people who had learned to manipulate the Force at will, not unlike the Jedi themselves but often with slightly different skill sets, with midichlorian counts that the Jedi would consider ‘not sensitive’. Olicc believed that his midichlorian had spoken to him. Perhaps it had been a freak occurrence such as the analogy of the mother, but Olicc was hoping that his highly advanced skills in meditation made him more capable of communicating with them. Had he stumbled upon the midichlorians as he had stumbled upon the Teras Kasi ‘Steal Hands’ technique as a boy? Could he learn to communicate with them as the Fallanassi, Jensaari, and Aing-Tii had done?

If Olicc could learn to manipulate the force, his skill would likely resume expanding at the extremely fast pace they had when he had first joined the Teras Kasi temple. It would open a whole new world of possibilities. Even if he were only to achieve the abilities of Jedi intuition and foresight, that would greatly improve his fighting ability as well as help him in many other circumstances. So much more powerful he could be if he gained other Jedi powers such as telepathy, mind control, Force resistance, physical enhancement, and Olicc’s personal favorite, telekinesis. But such skills would also open a new level of risks. Would he become too powerful? The followers of Palawi were the watchers of the Jedi; could he, himself, be corrupted by the Dark Side without a Jedi mentor to guide him? Even if he were not corrupted, displaying any of the above skills could provoke additional unwanted attention from the Empire.

There have been force sensitive Teras Kasi before, Teras Kasi with much higher midicholrian counts than him. Most of these were jedi that went to Buduki to learn Teras Kasi from the monks to enhance their unarmed combat skills, but others were followers of Palawi who sought to monitor the jedi from within. Placing such spies was hard since the jedi generally didn’t accept adult jedi initiates and any child they sent to the jedi would surly be so thoroughly programmed by the jedi that their loyalty would turn to them. These spies had typically been trained in the force in Teras Kasi temples using holocrons or learned from fallen jedi, tricking them into thinking that they sought true apprenticeship from them, then, after killing the fallen jedi, they gained access to the jedi temples under a false story of their history. But Olicc wasn’t categorized as force sensitive. He had received tests from the Teras Kasi temple and during countless arrests during his criminal youth on Nar Shaddaa and was found to have a normal midichlorian count.

Olicc was excited and curious to learn how far he could progress in the jedi arts. Perhaps he could induce the creation of additional midiclorians in the same way he could manipulate his immune system to create antibodies? If so, he might be able to increase them to the level of the Jedi Knights of the Old Republic; perhaps as high as or higher than its greatest masters. With what he knew of his meditative skills, it was highly doubtful that he could ever achieve this, the midichorians would most likely plateau at some point and it was far more likely to do so at a relatively lower volume, but the possibility excited him, nonetheless.

There were many unanswered questions. How would the traditionalists feel about this discovery? Have any other Teris Kasi reported to have achieved this? How would Eirie and the TKO feel about it? Could he use it against the dark jedi? Could they use it against him?

These questions clouded his thoughts; distracted him. He cleared his mind and resumed searched for the midicholrians.