Escape of the Sith

"Star Wars" is © Lucasfilm Ltd. The characters, worlds and terminology derived from the films belong to George Lucas. However, he seems like a nice bloke and I’m sure he wouldn’t mind me using them here in this little "fan fic". Especially if I tell you all to go and see "Star Wars Episode III, Revenge of the Sith." It’s really good! (And it is too!)


Anyway…


Long ago, in a galaxy far away…

STAR WARS
Episode VII (a)
Escape of the Sith




The fleets of the Galactic Empire and the Rebel Alliance had engaged in battle above the forested moon of Endor. It was a desperately fought battle that would determine the destiny of the universe. It was coming to a dramatic climax.




    
Chapter 1.
The vast metal sphere exploded in a pulsating ball of flame. The final explosion came from within, the colossal force ripping the artificial world apart. The product of countless months of construction, the military project which had drained the financial resources of many subject worlds, gone in a flash. The second Death Star had never quite realised its full spherical form, nearly a thousand miles in diameter, before disintegrating. It had been designed with the capacity to eradicate any planets housing enemies of the Galactic Empire. Instead the colossus died that way itself. And with it how many?

A strange silence, or rather a stillness followed. The two fleets paused amid the battle they were waging, as the blinding flare of the exploding Death Star stunned both rebel and imperial forces into a momentary stupor. Then the fighting began again with renewed fury.


The tie-interceptor’s tracking computer picked up the two rebel X-wings on its tail, closing fast. A second later a burst of proton torpedoes hurtled towards the interceptor’s octagonal wing. The other X-wing, meanwhile, dived lower so as to have a clear shot at the interceptor’s underbelly. It let rip too. There was no chance of the imperial fighter escaping both. The fire concentrated on its position, and soon there was another ball of flame and smoke in the vacuum of space.
"That was mine, red leader!" One of X-wing pilots whooped over the com link.
"In your dreams red one- that was mine!" the other came back.
/Both wrong!/ The interceptor pilot thought, smiling behind the visor of a black helmet. The interceptor dropped out of the decoy smoke cloud it had released, rotating around the axis of spherical mid section, which resembled a great eye between the two vertical wings. Stars span in the infinite distance, beyond the first white rebel craft that came into view through the interceptor’s octagonal transpirsteel viewport- the iris of the metal eye. The pilot’s black-gloved hand squeezed the trigger on the joystick, and a stream of laser bolts flew from the interceptor’s wing-mounted blast cannons. The pilot pulled the joystick around to point the craft at the other x-wing, without waiting for the first target to spin away in flames. Stop to admire the your destruction, as they taught all tie and interceptor pilots during basic training, and you get destroyed yourself.

The remaining X-wing fighter came into view but now there was another imperial tie fighter, likewise coming into view. It fired, it’s lasers burned first into the X-wing’s R2 unit, blowing the doomed droid’s domed head off into space. A second later one of the tie fighter’s photon torpedo’s struck home below the X-wing’s cockpit, blowing the rebel ship in half.
The interceptor pilot cursed. /Beaten too it!/
There was no time for such thoughts, for a moment later the another ship had joined the affray, larger but faster than the others. The tie fighter tried to outmanoeuvre it, but soon fell victim to the ship’s forward guns, which scored a direct hit to its local ionisation reactor. The interceptor pilot veered again to engage the new ship, and to avenge the tie fighter it had just consigned to oblivion. The pilot let off a spray of laser fire just as the gun turret to the fore of the saucer-shaped ship swivelled around towards the interceptor, returning fire with equal haste. The interceptor pilot recognised the rebel ship. A few moments before it had shot out of the burning Death Star, just in time to escape the searing conflagration it had caused. I know you, thought the interceptor pilot. Millennium Falcon. At the same time the pilot wrenched the joystick sideways, hoping to evade the Falcon’s laser fire, half knowing that it was already too late.  

The enemies’ laser bolts crossed each other in space. An explosion collapsed the gun turret of the Millennium Falcon, at the same moment as another destroyed the lower portion of the interceptors starboard wing.

The interceptor was thrown into a wild spin, and it was all the pilot could do to regain stability. The lower of the two triangular sections of the wing, which jutted forward like great blades, had been blasted clean off and now hurtled away from the shop in the opposite direction. A less-skilful pilot would never have escaped so lightly, but still the interceptor pilot muttered stern self-recriminations, while steering the crippled craft away. A glance at the instrument panel revealed an array of screaming warning lights- all telling the pilot that the fighter was finished. The only solace to be had was that the Millennium Falcon had now attracted the attention of a Star Destroyer, and in turn had to divert its attention from the wounded Interceptor. Looking around, though, the interceptor’s pilot noticed that several rebel battle cruisers were coming to the Falcon’s aid. This was no place for an incapacitated interceptor to loiter. Meanwhile with the loss of the Death Star as well as the Super Star Destroyer, a certain victory had turned into a disaster for the Empire. Soon, doubtless, the remaining Star Destroyers would jump into hyperspace to regroup on the far side of the galaxy, leaving any straggling fighters to the mercy of the rebel fleet.
The interceptor turned awkwardly towards the moon of Endor, putting the battling fleets behind it. Another vessel appeared on the radar, also heading for the moon’s shimmering blue atmosphere.
/Vader’s shuttle…/ The pilot’s pulse raced. /Can it be? But something’s… wrong…/

The pilot locked on to the tri-winged Imperial shuttle’s signal, and followed at a cautious distance, struggling to maintain control of the stricken fighter, aware of the yellow sparks flying from the half-destroyed wing. And then suddenly space was behind. The interceptor plummeted through white clouds, towards green trees. Many miles ahead the shuttle was setting down sedately on a raised landing pad, its wings folding upwards like a naboo swan alighting on a lake. The damaged interceptor, by contrast crashed into the forest, smashing through branches. It’s wings crumpled as they hit the ground, but the pilot waited for them to take the impact before jettisoning them, instinctively letting them absorb some of the force first. The craft’s bulbous mid section hurled along on its own like a cannonball, and eventually came to rest half buried in torn up soil, with broken tree trunks and branches stacked up before it like an untidy log pile, and a great gash carved in the land behind it.

The round access hatch above the interceptor blew off and the pilot leapt up onto the top, then, with deft agility launched unto the air, and somersaulted down to the ground. Even clad in the bulky flight suit, with its cumbersome helmet, connected by two tubes to boxy apparatus attached to the front of heavy body armour, the pilot moved with remarkable feline grace.  
"Nice landing" the pilot muttered wryly, for no-one else’s benefit, swivelling to inspect the hopeless wreckage of the interceptor.

A shower of meteorites fell sparkling on the horizon. The pilot realised that these were fragments of the Death Star, burning up on entry into the Endor’s atmosphere. Endor was a moon much more fertile and only slightly smaller than Endine, the planet it orbited. It was almost entirely covered with forest, which was not an environment the interceptor pilot was accustomed to.

Dusk would soon be approaching. The pilot looked down to a device attached to the back of one black glove, removing the other glove to press some small buttons thereon. A holographic projection issued from the device, showing the surrounding landscape. A bleeping red marker indicated the pilot’s present position, a yellow one the position of Lord Vader’s shuttle. The shuttle had landed in the Imperial outpost where the Death Star’s shield generator had been installed. For the Death Star to be destroyed, the installation obviously must have fallen to the rebels. The erstwhile interceptor pilot did not like this. Still, remaining here in the woods forever was no option.


After several hours of struggling through undergrowth, across the ever-darkening forests of Endor, the pilot drew near to the installation, skirting the nearby Ewok village, which stretched up into the treetops. Obviously the Imperial fleet had by now withdrawn, conceding victory to the rebels, whose fighters now flew overhead in triumphant formations, while fireworks exploded and music and the sounds of celebration drifted down from the primitive Ewok settlements. Primitives who helped defeat an empire, the pilot had to concede, bitterly. Still, if they were having a celebration party already, the rebels must be complacent victors. The Empire was not finished yet.
/Not if I have anything to do with it…/

Through the trees up ahead flames crackled. The pilot crawled forward, through the cover of foliage, to see what this meant. In a clearing, near the landing pad of the base, below the twisted wreckage of the great aerial that had projected the force shield, there stood a funeral pyre. The pilot let out a gasp.
The golden flames leapt up around the body of Darth Vader, the Lord of the Sith, the Emperor’s most formidable disciple. All was lost. The pilot saw the familiar profile of Vader’s black mask, which for now seemed to defy the flames. Behind the pyre, a pale young man in black gazed wistfully into the flames.
/Skywalker. The Jedi. The murderer./
The unseen onlooker’s hands balled into fists, and then rose to cover the facemask of the black flight helmet, which was an echo of Vader’s. The pilot watched until the young man- Luke Skywalk- turned from the pyre, led away by a woman with braids in her hair.

Numb with despair, the young pilot watched the flames until the body was discernable within them no more. At length the pyre collapsed into itself, and flames began to die down. Glowing embers danced away on the breeze. The pilot stepped out from cover and approached pyre, stooped, and scooped up a handful of ash, letting the ashes cascade between black-gloved fingers.

"You there, don’t move!" a man’s voice shouted, breaking the pilot’s gloomy reverie. The pilot’s head inclined slowly, catching a glimpse of a rebel guard in a peaked helmet and a green camouflaged smock, over a tawny uniform. The rebel was aiming a laser pistol.
"Ok, stand up slowly, with your hands up, and turn around," the rebel called. He came closer. "It’s all over, trooper, best thing to do is give yourself up, and come peacefully."
The plot looked around, nodded slowly, and obeyed. The rebel approached. "You’d better come along with me. I’ll just take your gun there, then…" keeping his pistol levelled, the rebel reached for the blaster at the pilot’s hip, which the pilot allowed him to take. The pilot felt the rebel drop his guard once he had hold of both weapons. Then before the rebel guard knew what was happening, something had jumped up into his prisoner’s gloved hand and then a flare of red swept towards the rebel and he was no more.
The pilot smiled darkly inside the helmet. /It seems I’m the rebel now./


…

"Who goes there?" another rebel fighter levelled his weapon. He was stood on guard on the landing platform above the treetops, where Skywalker has landed Vader’s shuttle, bearing Vader’s body here. The figure approaching was disarming, dressed in the peaked helmet and camouflage smock of a fellow alliance fighter. He also saw that it was a young woman, a girl, really. When she took off her helmet he recognised that she was a strikingly beautiful one at that. Her black hair was tied back but a few loose locks rippled around a graceful face that smiled at him. In the artificial light around the landing pad he did not notice her extreme pallor, or the strange black-crimson hue both to her dark eyes and her lips. He only saw disarming loveliness, long lashes and a shimmering smile.
"Hello," she said in a lilting voice. "Not at the party, comrade?" she asked.
He shrugged, glancing at her shyly. He has not seen her before, perhaps she was newly come from the fleet. "I have to stay here and guard this shuttle."
"Oh dear, how tiresome! Well, allow me to relieve you of that." She produced a metal cylinder, the size of a baton. At her activation a rod of light, white hot with a fiery red outer glow, extended from its end, pulsing and humming. The sentry recognised it as a light sabre, the mysterious weapon of a Jedi… or…
He met her eyes and saw the red gleam. He could not move. Then the burning blade pierced its searing way through his abdomen. He gave an abortive cry.
Two more rebel guards, one male, the other female, appeared in the doorway of the shuttle, at the top of the ramp. They opened fire at the girl with the red light-sabre. She span around, bringing her victim’s body into play as a shield, then drew her blaster and fired around him. Two shots and the first of the guards, the man, fell. Then she swept the light-sabre sideways, which cut like a laser through the body causing the man to fall at her feet, cut almost in two. She swung the sabre as she ran up the ramp, deflecting female guard’s fire from its blade until within range, then sweeping it around to take off her head.

The victorious rebels had been using the shuttle to hold three of the Imperial Storm troopers captured in the base. The despondent clone troopers, deprived of their blasters and helmets, had been sat in the hold, watched over by another rebel guard. Hearing the noise of fire outside, though, the storm troopers decided to make their move. The first one rushed on the guard, and fell on him. The guard’s laser caught the storm trooper in the chest at point blank range, finishing things for him, but the other two came quickly behind. The guard’s next shot deflected of one’s armoured shoulder plate. The storm trooper wrestled him down, holding his weapon arm down to the floor, while his brother clone fell on the guard, inflicting blow after blow into his face until he passed out. Then the young woman appeared around the doorway, deactivating her light sabre, which had done its deadly work- for now. She had cast off the rebel’s cloak she had taken from the man who had tried to arrest her by her father’s pyre and was wearing the black uniform of an interceptor pilot, with the additional insignia of an Imperial Officer.
"Good work boys." She said. "Now ditch this dead weight and let’s try to get a few light-years away from this dump. You- get his weapon first, you- take this one." She chucked her blaster to the storm trooper on the right.
"Yes captain, thank you captain."

The storm troopers, happy to be back doing things and taking orders (as was their purpose) drew in the ramp, and tossed the bodies down from the doorway. Culdara, meanwhile, got the shuttle ready for launch. Having taken the craft out of Endor’s atmosphere, and slipped through the fleet of the rebel alliance before they realised anything amiss, she handed the controls over to one of the storm troopers.
"Where to now captain?" he asked.
She seemed not to hear, gazing with melancholy eyes into the eternal night of space. It hardly seemed to matter. Her experession, even something about her features, though she did not realise it, echoed the look she has seen on Skywalker’s face as he had looked down on Vader’s burning body. Both the Emperor and Vader were dead. "We are all orphans now," Culdara said to herself in a low voice.
"Ma’am?"
"What?"
"What co-ordinates should I plot?"
"Anything… Anywhere. Out of the quadrant. Stay alert for rebel alliance ships, and listen out for Imperial signals too."
She rose and left the cockpit for the mid section. She needed solitude, she needed darkness. It was time to listen to the voice of the force. It was time to find out if she was truly alone, or if anything else remained of the power of the Sith.