Y'Zalli: A Star Wars Story

VIII: Brewing Storm

As we both stood in our battle positions, Karbin suddenly lunges towards me and stared an overwhelming amount of lightsaber thrusts, swings and slashes alike. I struggle just to narrowly block and dodge his attacks. Just as he swings, I duck under his arms, as he manage to cut some pieces of my dreadlock pony tail, and force push him to put some distance between us. "Well, gotta hand it to ya, you're more decent then the purge troopers I've trained with." I grew annoyed. "You Imps talk too much." We resumed our duel as I switch from offense to defense, but I was caught off guard when Karbin knocked my lightsaber out of my hand I'm mid air, kicked me forcing me to the ground and him catching it. "Never understood his fascination with these things." He tossed it back to me as I use the force to pull it back in my grip. "Surprised you didn't run off with it." "I'm not Grievous. Unlike him, I don't let avarice get in the way of my missions." Karbin quickly lunges all four of his lightsabers towards me, barely dodging them by leaning to the right, I swung at him, he leaps back. I charge giving him a barrage of swings and slashes. He swing two of his sabers and as I blocked them, it result in me loosing my balance for he must've put more of his robotic strength in that attack. Karbin raised his glowing blades, ready to strike me down, but I manage to regain myself and blocked all four of them on one knee, engaging in a lightsaber lock. Arrthree could see me struggling and knew he had to do something. He rolled behind Karbin and used his electroshock probe to stunt him, but unfortunately, it was less than effective. Karbin noticed the astromech droid. "Wait, this droid. I know you. You were an agent of The Separatists, an agent of Grievous." Karbin would then kick R3 away, resulting him falling on his backside. "You would ally yourself with an enemy of the Republic? What would your master say?" My emotions boiled as my rage started to erupt and I begun to lift myself off my knee and begun pushing Karbin back. "Heheh. Now the real challenge begins." Karbin said boastfully. Unexpectedly, I force grip him and tossed him from a stone wall, knocking his lightsabers out of his metal claw-like hands, then to the ground and kept the force pressure upon him, forcing him deeper into the ground. "You have no right." His metallic body started to crack and give in to the pressure. "You will keep my master's name out you filthy mouth!" I grit my teeth as I felt something shift in my body. I crushed his legs, then his arms. His screams of agony went from a minor annoyance, to music to my ears. "Go ahead! Do it! Show me what a Jedi of the Republic looks like!" My enraged face converts into a determined look. "With pleasure." I started to close my hand into a fist, but from behind, sounds of a speeder drew closer and closer. "Darryn! Stop!" I turned to see Quora stepping off her speeder, but was surprised to see what took me so long from returning to the base from a supposed stopping Stormtroopers. "What is that?" I calmed down and loosen my force grip. "Karbin. Another Jedi hunter." "Darryn, we need to go. I've been monitoring their communications and they've traced his location. Imperial reinforcements could be here any minute." I stared at Karbin and as he stares back telling me telepathically to finish me off. "Fine." I walk past Karbin over to Arrthree to pull him back up. "You alright buddy?" He beeps reassuringly and thanking me. We both stroll past Karbin to hop on Quora's speeder and drive off. "Run Jedi, run. Commander Karbin to base. I'm in need of an evac." As we travel across the plains of Esso, it was starting to get dark and Quora begun to slow her speeder down as we come to a complete stop. "Why are we stopping?" We all got off as Quora begun unpacking camping supplies and started gathering materials for a fire. "Whenever night time occurs, Esso gets too cold for speeder travel. So we'll have to camp out here for the night." As we finish setting up a small camp, I decided to power down R3 to conserve his power. Quora and I sitting still on the ground in deep silence staring at the crackling fire she started to keep us warm until she decided to break the silence with a question. "What happened to your eyes back there?" I remained silent for a moment. "It's something that all Jedi struggle with. The use and temptation of the dark side of the force." Quora was shocked and confused. "My master taught me that there's a delicate balance in the force between the light and dark and to never use or be tempted by the dark side. It is the Jedi way to forgo any attachments." Quora was even more confused. "Forgo attachments? So caring about the ones you love is a weakness?" I aimed my sight at the fire. "No. In fact, the whole reason I left is that I would be trained by the Jedi and one day, I would to return to my mother and to protect my home as a Jedi Knight. But I was too late." Quora would add to my sympathy. "I too was young when we lost our father." I raised my head from the fire in confusion. "Wait. Our? We?" She elaborated on her plural statement of her father. "My older brother, Dro. We were on Pantora living our normal lives. Until the Empire came. We would eventually fledge to here...but it wasn't long before the Empire and Shaw arrive. We were gonna leave, but our father knew we can't keep running, so he started a rebellion. After a couple of weeks or months, it wasn't long before Shaw captured him and some of his troops. After he killed our father, he...changed. He would lash out against his family, his friends, and one night, he just vanished. Without a trace, he severed all communications from us. And we haven't seen or heard from him since." As we both sat in silence for a moment, another question regarding the fate of her mother popped in my mind. I was hesitant to ask but I would ask and if she declined telling me, I would drop the subject immediately. "What happened to your mother?" I asked. "She was spared from the same fate as our father and died a natural death of age. I secretly believed she died by heavy grief." We both sat in silent, with the fire still burning bright and crackling. "I'm sorry." I offered my condolences. Quora stood up. "We should get some sleep." I got up and stretched. "You're right. I can't remember the last I had an easy sleep. Do you have any power cores at the base?" She answers we do and with that, I switched Arrthree back on. "Hey Stubby, I need you to keep watch." He beeps and whirs in a worried. "Ok, ok I know. Look, Quora says she has backup power converters back at the base. If you run out of power, we'll get you hooked up on one and for a bonus, we'll find ya an oil bath. How's that sound?" He beeps excitedly and in agreement as Quora and I entered our tent and slept. Throughout the night, I would toss and turn for I was enduring a nightmare. I find myself standing in darkness on a white pedestal, hearing various voices. "Darryn." "Darryn." I jerked my head in the directions I would hear my name until I stopped and my mother was standing right in front of me. "Why? Why didn't you save me?!" I was mortified to see her. "Mom I—". "You said you would come back for me. I cried for your help... but you didn't come. Why?!" I turn away covering my ears, only to see Cin. "Disgraceful. After everything I've taught you. This?! Is what you have to show for? Disappointing." I turn away from him. "Master please." I got on both my knees, put my face in my hands. I hear footsteps walking towards me and they stopped. I slowly move my head up only to see my father. "Father... I...". He stood silent as my mother and deceased master started to walk closer. "Failure." Was the last thing he said before I jerked myself awake in cold sweat, taking lapping breaths. I glanced over to Quora, only to find her sound asleep. I got on my feet and crouched my way out of the tent and stood tall. I stretched as take in a breath of fresh morning air and gazed upon the plains as the suns' rays passed through the grass and the light touches everything within it's reach. I glanced at R3, only to see him inactive. I went to check on him, I spotted that his activation switch was still on. "Hmm, must've ran out of power either some time at night or this morning. Either way, thanks for the lookout bud. We'll be sure to get you to a grade-a power converter when we get back." As I load Arrthree onto our speeder, Quora emerged from her slumber and stepped out of the tent. "He ran out of power?" She asked. "Yeah, but luckily he didn't pick up anything throughout the night." Quora and I started taking down our tent, packed them up, hopped on our speeder and departed from our campsite. As we traverse trough the plains, Quora brought up a shocking revelation about me. "Y'know I was awake this morning? you jerked awake and was breathing kinda heavy. Did you have a nightmare or something?" I gave her a quick side eye before accelerating the speeder as we were arriving at our base. As we enter the base, Quora's troops surrounded us, bombarding her with questions. "General, what's our next move?" As kept on asking her, she raises her hand as a request for silence. "I know we've been fighting for a long time. But I believe it's time that we end this. Time to initiate Operation: Storm-Front." The troops gasps and started murmuring. She then began to give orders to prepare for their final confrontation. "What the stats of the metal we've recovered from that imperial convoy?" "Uh, we've managed to make some quite significant and benevolent use of them. So far we've been able to use em' for strengthening our weapons, armor, and even some of our tanks." "Excellent. Make sure it's fully operational. I want everything and everyone is in peak condition." I was confused about the sudden urgency running among the the troops. "Hey Quora, What's "Storm-Front"?" I pulled R3 off the speeder and rolled him on his wheels and followed her to the war table as she proceeds to bring up the Imperial Embassy complex and explains what the operation their initiating is. "Storm-Front is a plan we've been waiting to use. Think of it as a final ace in the hole. With all of the equipment we've "borrowed" we can me stronger armory for a full frontal assault on the imperial embassy. We go in, murk any trooper in sight, and capture Shaw. And destroy any other revenants of the Empire on Esso." I was very skeptical as I plugged a charger cord from a power converter into Arrthree. "It will be unwise to ask how are we to infiltrate the complex." As she continues to explain, one soldier walked up to her and updates her about the progress of upgrading their armory. "Ma'am, with the metal, we've been able to strengthen our tanks." I glance over to the tanks and was impressed.