Sith Civil War: Campaign Clone Extermination/Chapter I - The Shadow of the Emperor

The great Super Star Destroyer gently glided towards the side of the Darkest Knight. Darth Malice pulled the lever, and the great ship came to a stop, slowly the ship shuddered as it stopped. He took a glance to the human sitting at the communications station, finishing his debate with the flight control attendant over if it was good to have two SSD's in the same vacinity.

"Finally got that guy top listen to you, I see," Malice said, nodding to the now shut off comm system.

"Took me more argument then I care to divolge to you," Darth Barad-Dur replied, "Well, let's go and join the Grand Admiral. Has the other already left?"

"About five minutes ago," Malice answered, gathering up his robe which he had left on the floor, "Oh, and, when the official military stuff ends, I'm going for a nice, long shower."

Barad-Dur nodded. "I feel like one too."

They exited command bridge, and walked down the long corridor for the turbolift that would send them to the hangerbay.

The Imperial Palace

Grand Admiral Marix leaned back against wall outside of the throne room, dozing off. It had been exactly four days since he had last slept, and even though there had been many times that he had gone longer then that and not had a problem, he had barely had such a trying time. That, compunded with the fact that he had to wait for Darths Barad-Dur and Malice to arrive, and the fact that the palace had such a soothing feel about it, was slowly making him spiral downwards to sleep.

The other men, Adenn and Tarna, had already been debriefed, and had left several minutes before had to carry out thier duties. The only reason Marix had stayed awake this long, was the fact that Tarna had talked to him a minute after leaving the throne room. Marix finally gave up the fight, and closed his eyes, using his well trained balance to keep him from falling down.

--

Malice and Barad-Dur walked through the halls of the palace. Neither one had known until now just how many Royal Guards there were. At every door there was a guard, and there was fifty room per floor. Not only those, but there was regular patrols of four guards that swept through the halls, and every four hours, the entire contingent of guards was exchanged with another contingent of guards.

"Shadow isn't taking any risks, is he?" Malice asked, as they entered a turbolift, only to find that there was two guards in there as well, "I wonder, is the restrooms guarded?"

"Too informal. Talk more respectfully," the guard by him said.

"The restrooms have a guard in there too," Barad-Dur replied.

"Where does he get all these guards?" Malice asked, as the turbolift shuddered to a quick stop.

"Do you really want to know?" Barad-Dur asked, stepping off with a sprint when the door swung open. He was stopped by the quards outside of the door, who said simply, "Too fast. Go slower."

Malice's jaw slackened a bit as Barad-Dur silently cursed them under his breath. The guard obviously it because he said, "Too insulting. Talk nicely."

The guard finally allowed them through. They walked, rolling thier eyes, and the guard said again, "Too loud and too insulting. Walk softer. Don't roll your eyes."

They walked softer and came upon a familiar sight. Marix was standing there, leaning back, his head dropped down in sleep, and on the other side of the hall, right infront of him, was two guards. Barad-Dur smirked.

"Lazy and undisciplined," he joked.

Malice was smiling mischiviously. He crept forward but stopped and looked inquiringly at the guard. The one closest to him did the tinest nod, and Malice went forward.

"I wouldn't do that if I were you," Barad-Dur said, hoping the noise would wake up the Grand Admiral. But, he was too deep in sleep to even notice the presence of other people. Malice, quiet content with his own cleverness, creapt right up to the sleeping form, and roared at the top of his voice.

Barad-Dur had never known quiet how fast Marix could move. But now, he did.

Marix sprung into action, drawing his lightsaber and slashing at Malice so fast, that it was a blur. Only thing that kept Malice from getting killed instantly was the fact that he had kept his lightsaber in his hand all this time. The blade barely caught Marix's blade.

The guard sprung into action just a fraction of a second the lightsaber sprung on. The dropped thier long rifles and raised them, ready to shoot the Grand Admiral.

"What in the name of the Emperor do you think your doing!?" shouted Marix, closing down his lightsaber, "You never scare someone like that! You want to kill someone?!"

"Too mean. Too loud. Talk"

"SHUT UP!"

-

Emperor Shadow looked slowly over all the details in the reports from the actions. Nasty affair, but, the time it had taken to finish the enemy had thankfully been very quickly. He read down to a certain part of the report, and stopped. He re-read the line several times, disbelief filling him. He slowly looked up at Barad-Dur.

"You didn't do anything about the clones?" he asked, "Please tell me it is a joke. Please tell me this rebellion is ended, and not going to drag on."

Barad-Dur glanced at Marix, who didn't even glance at him. Barad-Dur sighed slowly and said, "Yes. It is true."

Shadow's eyes narrowed to slits, trying to not get angry, but it was getting very hard not to just throw the Sith across the room because of his stupidity.

"And, why did you do this?" Shadow asked slowly.

"We only had a Super Star Destroyer and we were heavily engaged," Barad-Dur replied, "It would have been folly to go do so. Especially when we had only two crewmembers on board. I plan to deal with them as soon as I can regroup, resupply, and reinforce."

"You approved of this?" Shadow turned to Marix.

"It was the best course of action," Marix said, "Is it a problem?"

Shadow just started at him in disbelief. It took him a few seconds to recompose himself.

"Of course there is a problem!" he snapped, "There are clones running amok all over my empire! Citizens will die in mass numbers because of this! And you call yourselves Sith Masters. Your lucky I just don't brand you all traitors to the Empire."

"Sire---" Grat'tua began, but was cut off by an uplifted hand from Shadow.

"You have one hour to get ready and leave to finish the job," Shadow said.

"One hour?" Marix asked in disbelief, his eyebrows furrowing in bewilderment.

"One hour." Shadow replied defiantly, "Then, you had better finish the job."