Star Wars: The Eternal Slumber/Chapter 9

Kal watched with interest as the three Sith and their stormtroopers came to a halt.

Kal had everything he needed for a happy afterlife at his disposal. He had managed to rescue his clones early on in his afterlife, long before the great revolution. He had worked hard early on to take back his family that the Sith so wrongfully imprisoned, and succeeded. He was the one that had convinced the council to get back the clones, and even was on the strike team that recovered Mandalore the Resurrector, also known as Alpha-02, from Sith imprisonment. The operation against the Sith had been a huge success. The majority of the soldiers from the Clone Wars had been liberated from the Sith Empire, from troopers up to Commando's and ARCs. Some of the more brutally loyal clones had remained loyal, but most of these were Clone Commanders with a chip on their sleeve or an ARC trooper at a very high level in the army. In other words, people who were doing amazingly well in the Sith Army, and didn't want to give up their rank. Most of the non Mandalorian clones that had entered late into the Clone Wars, Palpatine's "secret army", had been liberated as well. They fought alongside their clone brothers for their freedom, and then flew off into the four winds. Kal had gotten word that a large number of them ended up joining up with the True Empire, a splinter group of imperials that refused to follow the Sith, but still wanted their vaunted empire. The group had been relatively small, more like their much hated enemy, the rebellion, before the clones had come, and now vetween the rise of Fel and Krayt and the clones from Palpatines secret army, they'd become quite a force to be reckoned with. Ever since the operations of the revolution, he and his squad, the group he now calls Prudii Squad, or Shadow squad, had been in high favor with the Mandalore council.

They were short one member at the moment however, as Venku was with the Jedi. When the horizons of war began to show in the netherworld, Bardan, Etain, and Venku had gone back to the army. After a month, however, Bardan became sick of the stodgy Jedi once more and came back, and two months later, Etain followed suite. However, Venku had opted to stay behind. He still was quite the soldier boy, with a fire that burned in his chest so bright he couldn't shy away from the upcoming war.

Kal flexed his trigger finger as he watched the exchange. The stormies were all to one side, centered around a Clone Commander. It made Kal sick to see this imperial lackey; a man that had lead troops against his own. There were at least a hundred more in the Sith forces, but most had left for the Mandalorian way of life.

Nearly directly below him, Lumiya and Caudus stood behind Vader. Vader seemed transfixed on the trees above him. Kal wondered if he had realized he was surrounded. Omega Squad, Etain, and Bardan were scattered in the bushes that surrounded the sith, and Kal and the Null ARCs were divided amongst the trees.

Lumiya suddenly grew impatient. "Vader, why do insist on stopping every few minutes? We are going to lose them."

"I sense them... they are near."

"So lets get a move! You are going to let them get away."

"I am trying to locate..."

"Vader, stop being such a fool and..."

Vader did a 360, ignited his lightsaber, and placed it on her throat. "Keep quite, old hag. I tire of your endless badgering.  You will stay here, and set up a base." he turned to Jacen. "You will flank left, while I go right. Now, leave me."

Lumiya was left in a stunned silence as both Sith left her and a legion of Stormtroopers in grim silence.

Minutes turned into hours as Darman lay in the brush, looking at Lumiya's tent. While he sat in pure silence for hours on end, she occupied herself by fidgeting with various mechanic parts. As the night went on, she finally settled into her makeshift bed. Darman was starting to doze off when he saw the Clone Commander making an exchange with a Stormtrooper, and head for her tent. She rose from her sleep in anger, and blew off his salute.

"What?" She hissed.

"Ma'am, Lord Kun sent us a Manifest of all the Jedi at the..."

"Just give it here." She said in agitation.

Darman quickly switched over to the squad comlink. "Ba'buir, look at my feed."

She began to look down the list, making her way back to the bed.

"Looks to me like the Jedi got hit hard." Said Jaing.

"What should we do, Buir?" asked Niner.

Darman heard Kal take a few calming breaths. "Dar, drop an egg."

Darman smiled to himself and switched his DC-17 to its grenade launcher attachment, and started to squeeze on the trigger.

As if time slowed, Lumiya jumped out of her bed, ignited her gleaming lightwhip. Darman pulled the trigger, and the egg flew out toward the tent. She caught it with the force, and sent it straight back at him.

Darman felt himself be swept away as the grenade exploded.

Rage built inside of Etain's chest as she watched Darman blow into a million shards. She quickly rose from her position behind the tent, ignited both her gleaming blue lightsabers, and charged. Lumiya quickly turned and whiped her lightwhip in warning, stopping Etain in her tracks and making her jump back a step.

Etain threw her lightsaber at Lumiya, hoping to catch her off balance, and plunged, her masters blade in a two handed grip. Lumiya caught Etain's saber, switched it around in her hand, and met Etain's blade. They tood their, trying to push each others sabers out of the way, until Lumiya began to lose ground. She flicked her whip across Etain's ankle, knocking her off balance, and sent her sprawling into a tree.

The Sith slowly made her way toward Etain, whip and saber hissing violently. The battle raged behind her, Omega was fighting violently through the troops, and the Null's and Kal were descending from the trees. She had enough time to see A'Den shot down by the blast of the Clone Commander's Firelance Blaster Rifle before Lumiya caught her attention once more.

Lumiya stared at Etain in anger, raising her whip for the kill. Etain was bracing for death when a shot from the brush hit lumiya square in the hand she was holding Etain's blade in. Etain called it back to herself as Bardan continued shooting at Lumiya. Lumiya called the blaster rifle out of his grip and crushed it with her metallic hand. Bardan took his lightsaber from his belt on his armor, and ignited it into its bright green blade.

The real fight was about to begin.

Bardan Jusik was rusty with his lightsaber. Years of Mandalorian life had made him favor blasters more than his trusty old Jedi weapon, and now he would regret that he didn't keep up with his training.

Etain and Bardan circled Lumiya as she whirled her lightwhip in a glowing arc of warning. They needed to wait for the perfect moment to catch her off balance. The circling seemed to go on forever, until finally Etain attacked. She proppeled herself over the whip and at Lumiya, blades outstretched. Bardan pulled his DL-22 blaster pital and aimed a shot with his free hand for lumiya's foot, to catch her of guard. Lumiya staggered at the blow long enough for Etain to come in for the kill, only to be sent back by a force push.

Bardan kept the DL-22 handy, and jumped at Lumiya's back while she was regaining her balance. She whirled the lightwhip around and slashed at him, leaving three deep gashes in his beskar'gam from the tendrils. He felll back a bit, but dodged the next set of tendrils, went low, and attacked. If he had been as old as he was in the land of the living at the time of his death, he'd probably have nroken his back with this maneuver, but instead he only strained a muscle. He came up in an arc slash, to which she dodged once more, but met Etain, who had risen and flanked her, and got a lightsaber impaled in her stomach.

Bardan looked the woman in her eyes, and saw only a blank stare, and shot her square in the face with his DL-22, finishing her.

Kal looked the Clone Commander in his eyes, and hated what he saw.

He'd seen Jango's face so many times in so many different ways, and had gotten used to never seeing two exactly alike. This clones face, however, was unlike any other he'd ever seen. It was gruesome, if he didn't no any better, he would have said he had a contempt for all life.

"Looks like you'll be spending a lot of time with us, dar'manda."

His face went dark. "Don't spout that Mandie bull at me. I couldn't care less."

Kal merely punched him in his face. "Didn't those Sith scum teach you to respect your elders?"

Bardan strolled up to the fray and handed Kal the manifest. "Free of charge" he said, with a hint of breathlessness in his voice.

"Niner, take over prisoner watch for a moment."

"Yes, Ba'buir."

Kal walked away from the rest of the group and activated the manifest display. It looked like a proper Jedi manifest, showing active squads, Jedi counil members, and every Jedi currently in service and their whereabouts. Each name had an option to see information on the mission. As Kal got about half way down the list, he saw the addition the Sith had put in: A list of prisoners they'd captured, how they were captured, and top priority targets still at large. As Kal looked through the list of prisoners with half interest, he saw something that made him come to a complete halt.

Right there, in the prisoners category, was his little Kad'ika

He picked Venku's name out of the list and viewed how he was captured. It seemed that he was on an advanced recon squad when they sighted the army coming up. A squad was sent after them, but the Sith only managed to take out out one of the four, leaving the job to Darth Revan himself. Revan managed to take out the Jedi known as Dorsk 81 with ease, but went into deep dual with Venku after Tyvokka escaped. Venku lost the dual and was imprisoned inside the new prison camp back at the Jedi base, and Tyvokka was latter captured by the Sith before he managed to tip off the Jedi.

Kal felt the anger burn inside him until it bubbled into a physical shake. He cluched his hands in fists, flexing them in agitation. Kal took off his helmet and looked back at his squad. Fi looked at him and asked, "What wrong, Ba'buir?"

"The Sith have Venku. Niner, take the prisoner to the cells. Etain, Bardan, go meet up with Darman and A'Den, they should be coming in soon.  Everybody else, get some shut eye."

"What about Venku?" Asked Ordo.

"I'm going before the Mandalore Council. I won't let this go unanswered.  The Sith will suffer for this."

Starkiller smiled as Leia ignited her lightsaber.

"So the Princess grew up to be a Jedi. But is it just a rank, or can you hold her own against me?"

She smirked a bit. They were both in a damp ice walled room at the bottom of the base that the Grey Jedi used as a practicing area. It may not have had as many obstacles as most, but the rough terrain and icy floors made it tough.

"Well, there's only one way to find that one out....." she said, and quickly closed the distance between him and her. Starkiller brought his blade from behind his back and blocked it while tilting it on its side, then brought his other hand to the grip of the saber and knocked hers back. He made an upwards slash, to which she blocked, and sent him back a bit with a force push. He regained his balance just as she came for her attack, blocked it, and repulsed her into the far wall.

She staggered up, clearly having gotten the wind knocked out of her. As Starkiller moved in, she regained her fotting and met his blade. The two blades met in furious attacks, each giving way alittle to the other every other slash. Leia managed to gain the upper hand at last when they reached the center of the room. She parried Starkiller's slash, kneed him in the gut, and pushed his lightsaber across the room. The former apprentice of Darth Vader was about to give her a douse of force grapple when she suddenly and unexplainably jumped back onto the walkway.

"Do you yield?" She yelled from above.

Starkiller merely smirked. He gathered himself, pulled one end of the walkway off of the hinges on the wall and onto the floor, recovered his lightsaber, and leaped at her. She caught him in mid air with a grapple and knocked him into the wall. Regaining consciousness, he saw she was making her way down. He called his lightsaber to him as he tackled and pinned her to the ground, forcing her to yield.

He took a long breath as he stood up. "You're better than I expected."

"Still no match for you."

"I'd argue that remark." said a voice from the opposite balcony. Both Jedi turned to see their loved ones; Han Solo and Juno Eclipse, come down the ramp to them. The four embraced their spouses, then turned to each other. Han and Starkiller shook hands, while Juno and Leia hugged.

Leia and Starkiller had opted to stay with the non-force sensitives so they could spend time with their spouses; and therefor were not there when the assault happened.

The four turned in a salute as Nomi, Mace, Obi-Wan, and Mara entered the room. "At ease." she said, nodding to each person. "As you know, we lost most of the MSF in the attack. With the upcoming meetings with the Sentient Republic so close, I thought we should begin to filll the gaps.  I beleive a six made squad is sufficient for the time being, so your hired."

"Thank you, ma'am." Starkiller said halfheartedly.

"Just to keep everyone happy, too, when we do this, Han and Juno may come. I beleive it should be more helpful than harmful."

His smile broadened. It had been a very long time since he did any main army work, not since the Second Galactic Civil War. He had spent his time since with Juno.

This would be fun.