Prolog (3)

After Master's death or whatever I could call it, I stayed on Phindar for 1 month, testing everything I learned so far and perfecting the defects left. I also read Master notes and opened the Holocron, but knowing the huge quantity of data it can save, it will be long before I read it entirely. I kept her lightsaber and started to hang it at my belt after this.

A message was recorded in the Holocron with a set of coordinates, telling me to go to the planet Dagobah to take some sort of test.

Once I was satisfied with my skills, I boarded the ship and left Phindar once for. After the astromech droid set up the coordinates for the jump in hyperspace, I headed toward the mysterious world of Dagobah.

When I got out of hyperdrive, I appeared near Dagobah and felt something dark. It gave me the same feeling I got when Vader launched that raid. This dark, foul and oppressing feeling emanating from the planet. Nonetheless, I let the Force guide me to land on the planet.

Dagobah was a humid, swampy planet, mostly covered in shallow marshland, interspersed with stifling forests and caves. I don't know if it was because of the numerous animals and insects inhabiting the planet or the swamp themselves, but it stinks and took me some time to be used to it.

Trees were reaching the sky and blocking the sunlight, some flying lizards were flying while emitting strange yells and fog was hiding the floor where tree roots were mingling with one another. All the surroundings gave an almost eerie vibe.

I walked through the swamp with one of my lightsabers in hand, the light from the yellow blade gave me some visibility in this dark swamp. I had to walk carefully otherwise I would trip as the floor was really muddy.

While heading toward the origin of the bad feeling I got, I could that twisted energy amplify as I approached the origin. I sensed another living being near the source, not an animal, it seems humanoid as the presence in the Force was strong.

"Finally arrived, you have." An old voice echoed in the swamp and told me.

Looking toward the origin of the voice, I found a green creature of short stature, around 60 cm wearing worn down with clothes and holding a cane with his three-clawed hands to support himself on his own two feet. He seemed extremely old, had white hairs, long pointy green ears and a prominent forehead.

When I saw him, I knew who he was, History lessons under Master Shaak Ti were my favorites.

"You're the Jedi Grand Master Yoda, a living legend over 900 years old." I had before me one of the strongest Jedi of history like Satele Shan in her time.

"I'm a mere watcher now, and wrong you are, 898 years old, I am." He said with a strange laugh. Master never told me of Yoda laughing but he seems pretty strange maybe living through more than 9 centuries may affect your mental health. "Follow me, to your test I will lead you."

He led me to a cave, the source of the energy I felt when I was in orbit. "It gives me the same creepy feeling I had when Vader was in front of me."

"The dark side, it is. Inside the cave, you may proceed. your worst fear in the cave you will see." Told me the old Grandmaster after sitting down on a rock.

With caution, I walked past Yoda and entered the cave. Inside, the cave seems broad but the place was invaded by vine, tree roots hanging from the ceiling, spiderwebs everywhere and several types of animals laying here and there. The twisted energy, the Dark side was omnipresent inside and seem to slowly seep into my mind.

Around me, I heard the sound of stifling wind then cry echoed and a black, frail hooded figured made of black smoke appeared in front of me. The figure took a lightsaber in hand and a red blade appeared, just after the figure dashed at me with superhuman speed. I lit my second lightsaber and started to defend against the smoke figure assault, but I was unilaterally crushed, his blows were fast, precise, showed mastery and long experience in a lightsaber duel.

"Do you really thought that you, a child, a slave, trained as an experiment, by a Jedi scum that hid like a rat could kill me and destroy my legacy?!" An aged spiteful voice reverberated in the cave along with the clashing sounds of our blades.

"She was right in choosing to not train you as a Jedi, you are egoist, impatient and greedy. You dream to be like her, to say with pride that you are her student, to be a Jedi, to destroy my Empire and kill me. But it will never happen, you're weak and have no legitimacy to claim the Jedi legacy!" He was laughing and his laugh echoed in the cave.

"You're more fit to be a Sith. Join me."

All he said was true, Master didn't train me as a Jedi and it was one of my regrets. I knew I was weak compared to Vader or the Emperor able to fight equally against Yoda.

But I remembered Master training, the kindness she showed me. She didn't train me as a Jedi, because she thought I could be something new, unrestrained by the morals of Jedi and the madness of the Sith.

"You're right! I can't claim the Jedi legacy, because I am no Jedi! I follow my own path! I won't destroy your legacy and kill you, but I will reduce your power and leave you no leeway. You won't be able to fight against the rebels anymore and the Jedi heir will claim your head in the near future. Your Empire will crumble, the Jedis will rise and I will laugh!"

As I said those words, I draw into my anger and launched a relentless offensive, and in a fast move, the red lightsaber fell on the ground after I slashed the hand of the dark figure and then cut him in half.

"I finally understood something, I can fight with anger and be balanced, I just don't need to be like a Sith and fight only with anger and let emotions guide my actions." As I looked at the dissipating smoky figure a cloud of smoke wrapped around me and in a gust of wind, I was sent back at the entrance of the cave.

"Found something, you have." I heard Yoda's voice before falling to the ground under the mental and physical pressure I just gone through.

Taking a moment to calm my breathing, I asked Yoda. "This is why Master wanted me to take the test?" But Yoda didn't have the time to respond as a familiar voice echoed all around the two of us.

"Yes. I taught you everything I knew and gave you a theoretical basis for you to carve your own path. But I can't help you anymore, you now have to think, search the true meaning of it and how to define it."

"Master?! You're a ghost?! A disincarnated voice?!" I was totally flabbergasted after I saw her body disappear in front of my own two eyes, I had a hunch something was going on, but her being some sort of ghost wasn't exactly on the list of hypotheses.

"Always curious. I'm happy that you took the first step to carve your path. Now go, and find your way." Shaak Ti voice echoed one last time, then it was silent.

"Hey Master, you can' let me hanging like that, I have hundreds of questions to ask you." I asked her but she never talked again.

After all this settled, I said goodbye to Master Yoda and left Dagobah with a goal in head. Cause a maximum of problems to the Empire. So, my first target came to my mind easily, to fight the Empire I needed a group, and where to find a better place than a slave market. I chose so the slavers guild that kidnapped me when I was a child, the Karazak Slaver's Guild.

Based in the Karazak system, in the Sujimis sector of the Outer Rim Territories, The Karazak Slaver's Guild competed with other older important slaver cooperatives such as the Zygerrian Slavers Guild and the Thalassian slavers.

Unlike other criminal empires, the Karazak Slavers Cooperative refused to use centralized control over a geographical area. They prefer to avoid fight even if they had to share some resources if they had to, but if the competition becomes too fierce, they usually leave and establish in another region more competition-free.

There was something strange about the KSG, it was that they were surprisingly loyal to each other for a group obtaining money in treating peoples like livestock and making fall into despair. They were ready to do almost everything to one of their members, and if a slaver dies, then his family would be supported by the Kazaraks. But repeated failure would be punished by slavery.

The Guild was ruled by a group of twelve sentients called the central coordinating committee. I would have liked to kill them and totally destroy their Empire, but few things were known about these 12 individuals.

I may not be a Jedi but every person wielding a lightsaber which isn't red in color become a symbol of hope. It happened once, someone non-Force sensitive wielded a lightsaber to fight and become a leader in which people were rallying behind. But using a lightsaber without the Force is pretty much useless because you need to use the Force to guess the blaster fire and parried it efficiently. In the end, he died under a multiple blaster-fire.

Finally, after some travel, my CSS-1 Corellian Star Shuttle exited hyperspace in the Karazak system, above the Karazak planet. When I thought to it, it was a good idea to steal this CSS-1 shuttle to use as my ship all those years ago, it was extremely spacious, luxurious and above all, used as a diplomatic ship by ambassadors. With it, I easily went through the blockade above Karazak and continued my way to land.

Karazak wasn't a beautiful world, far from it, the interest of this planet was that it was riddled with tunnels and caves which were used by the slavers guild as a base of operations.

I posed as a rich diplomat who wanted to buy pretty slaves to have some fun. I've hidden my three lightsabers on me under my clothes and a little mind trick on a guard permitted me to go through the security measures with ease.

The Jedi Mind Trick wasn't exactly my forte, I had less chance to train in it than my other skills, after all, I spent most of my time with Master Shaak Ti until now, and she could resist it easily.

The slave market may be underground, but the tunnels were massive, a ship could easily fit inside. In a place where credits flowing non-stop, it was easy to build majestic structures. The buildings weren't in a modern and metallic style like Coruscant, no it looked like more temples inspired by a lot of cultures all across the galaxy.

Peoples of all races were everywhere, some wearing luxurious clothes and followed by servitors strictly trained, the others wore either simple clothes and a collar able to give them powerful electric discharges, either thin, magnificent clothes and cosmetics bettering their look even further or giving them an exotic vibe.

I had a bad feeling to be once again in a slave market, it wasn't the first time, as a bounty hunter I performed several raids upon slaves' markets, but none of this scale. I was here in the headquarters of the Karazak Slavers Guild. One of the Capitals of slavery in our galaxy.

On a stage, several slaves were being held by a force field, inside were fierce-looking males Iridionians, commonly known as Zabrak with different skin colors and prominent horns.

On another, beautiful female Twi'leks were dancing of all possible colors possible in their races, even the rare Lethan, the red Twi'leks.

Ever since I was born, slavery was prospering under the reign of the Emperor, the Empire massively use slaves to build their crazy projects such as the death star or in the shipyards. Before the Empire rises, the Republic in its hypocrisy let slavery continue even if it was forbidden officially.

Walking through the alley, I saw a lot of people walking with their slaves in toe. Slaves were sold either on stages established on the streets or in the buildings owned by each slaver and for the best slaves either in looks, skills or training-wise, they were often brought in huge auction houses. It was one of the problems, there was no big boss and no centralized system for the collars. Each slaver as his own security system.

After one day, I did a reconnaissance of the biggest trader establishments and had a plan in my head. In the night, I surreptitiously entered the building through the roof creating an aperture with my lightsaber.

Technology can be a drawback sometimes. Confident in the security systems and the collars, there were just a bit more than 30

guards to keep the slaves confined at night and prevent intrusion.

At the end of a corridor, I saw two bored guards discussing about the prettiest slave that came in some days ago. Before they could realize my presence, I took my two lightsabers and brought them to their height and lit them on. The blade appeared and penetrated through their torso, they couldn't even utter a cry and fell limp on the floor, dead.

There was nowhere to hid the dead bodies, so I put them in a dark corner hoping that no one finds them after stealing one of their uniforms and disguised as one of them.

There were around 20 guards keeping watch over the slaves on the 3 subterranean levels and around 10 guards above. The upper floors were used to show the slaves during days or used to negotiate the prices.

I ran through the building while using the force to help me feel my surroundings and assassinated the guards left in a bit more than a minute. My goal was to neutralize all the slavers before they realize my intrusions and alert everyone. If I had failed, I would never have been able to leave this world.

Once everyone took care of on the upper floors, I've gone down to the basement, where the slaves were located. Down the stairs, guards were lazing around and I had no problem to kill them. I continued down the basement, several guards were posted all along which gave me an idea.

Liting on my lightsaber, I throw it in the air toward them and controlled it with the Force toward them, controlling the direction the lightsaber took them by surprise and decapitated them one by one before coming back to my hand. Just like that 6 guards were dead, the slaves started to howl for help and it took me some time to convince them that I would help them later. If they had continued to be noisy, everyone would have known I was here.

Darth Traya always had been one of the persons I admired. Don't imagine wrong, I was far from her level, I made a lightsaber flew through the air, that's all. She, on the other hand could use several lightsabers this way, and fight in a more effective way than if she holds the lightsaber herself.

Heading toward the 3rd level underground, I saw several guards together, and when they saw my lightsabers, I saw one of them ready to activate a communicator at his wrist. Not letting him do as he please, I launched a powerful Force Push toward them which sent them to collide with a wall, and with a rush, before they could raise, I had already stabbed them in the heart once each.

The slaves were stunned by what just happened and the fact that what they assumed to be a Jedi was standing before them.

Finally, all the guards were killed and the slaves were calling me for help, creating a hubbub. Taking the command wrap around the guard commander wrist, I disarmed all the collars. Once they saw this, they started to calm down seeing as I was waiting for silence.

"Fear not, I will free you all, but you have to listen to me. But you can't just free yourself and try to run, you won't leave this world alive this way. There is a blockade in orbit, we'll have to hide and take some time to plan an uprising. Then take all the ships available and flee."

I tried to reason them, being an ex-slave, I knew that even when the slightest glim of hope appears before you, your logic somehow flew out of your head. Even if you have rationally absolutely no chance to escape, when you have hope, even if you shouldn't, you will try.

That's why I tried to avoid this situation if they tried to escape alone, not only will they signal my presence, but it also would have hindered my attempt to free all the slaves.

More than 800 slaves were jailed in those cages. I hurried to free them and explain my plan.

They disguised themselves as slavers and guards, closed the building under false reason, trying to not draw attention toward them. Leaving them taking care of it, I took care of the neighboring slaves' house and interrogated guards with a Jedi skill to obtain some advantage.

I knew I had to act fast, several thousand people who all lived traumatic events, they won't stay put for long and soon the voice of anger would have raised.

After that night, I repeated the process around the biggest establishment. I ordered some of them to keep their collars and board ships and act as if their masters ordered them to clean and repair the ships. Everything that could prove to be useful was loaded aboard the ships, be it food, weapons, fuel, equipment, …

3 Days later, I targeted the auction house of the town. I learned where the control system of the slave's collars was located and planned to unlock them all at once, with the help of the slaves I freed helping me. All armed, with the weapons I amassed during these days.

All disguised as guards, we infiltrated the auction house, close the key locations, and freed the slaves. What came next can be described with only one word, massacre. All the pent-up feelings of the slaves exploded at the slaver's faces.

At the same time, all around the subterranean city, the thousands of slaves I freed were attacking the smaller slaves' houses with each location freed, their number and power grew. Following the plan, we regrouped and evacuated toward the ships before reinforcement could be sent by the ships in orbit or other cities on the planet.

A dozen ships filled to the brim with passengers took off the ground and tried to leave Karazak, the ships holding the blockade succeeded in shooting down 3 of the fleeing ships, and our armament wasn't strong enough in comparison, but with our number, we succeeded to fled in hyperspace while sustaining a few damages and losing 3 ships.

Aboard, the mood was mixed, between joy and worry. The joy of being free, and worry of losing some family members aboard the ships that were shot down. After landing on a world I knew to be safe, people starting to rejoice, to grieve, to cry.

I proposed the slaves to follow me if they wanted to. Some were afraid, others wanted to hide, or to find the remaining members of their family, I did nothing to stop them and left them some food and weapons and gave them 3 ships to go wherever they wanted.

Among the thousands of slaves, I freed, only a bit over 200 accepted to follow me. Those were those who lost their family or suffered heinous torture and wanted to obtain vengeance in all possible ways. I took three ships plus my own CSS-1 Corellian Star Shuttle and most of the food, weapon and equipment stock.

This was the foundation event of my band of merry men. A bit over 200 crew and 4 ships barely armed, but the Empire would soon learn of our existence.

We targeted slavers and the Empire sites, slaves' market, shipyards, outpost, training bases…

Our methods weren't exactly clean or decent like the rebels could be. We never let someone alive and our creed was to create a maximum of destruction. We were depending on our raid on the Empire bases for everything, food, weapons, ships, droids. We were no different than bandits.

We destroyed major shipyards of the Empire and freed the slaves working. It soon became furry in our group because our number grew each time and freed a lot of Wookie, Talz, and Yuzhem. We even got some Givin to join us.

We soon became a thorn in the Empire side, and we knew when the Emperor wanted to get rid of us because we sometimes had to confront The Emperor Shadow Guards and even Vader. Once, I had to fight against an old acquaintance sent by Vader, Boba Fett. Let me tell you that for someone non-sensitive to the Force, he was a war-machine. I think that's what you should be waiting for from a true Mandalorian, not like those pacific pussies that become the Mandalorian people under Satine rule during the Clone Wars.

These strong opponents gave us or more precisely me, a lot of pressure. Nonetheless, I was happy, I was lacking combat experience, and with each fight I became better and polished my techniques, discarding the unnecessary moves, and reacting faster.

I didn't succeed in killing Vader or Fett, but I succeeded in sending back his Shadow Guards to the Emperor inside body bags. From Master data's left in her Holocron, I learned that these guards were the few members left of an organization called the Sun Guard and some Jedi Knights who fell to the dark side and were trained by Vader.

Finally, our luck didn't last long, after a bit more than a year after the creations of our group, we fell into a carefully planned trap. We believed we would attack an isolated outpost, but we may have had a traitor in our ranks because what appeared before us after leaving hyperspace was six Venator-Class Star Destroyer. We were trapped, the hyperdrive system needed new coordinates and time to cool down a bit.

What followed was an epic space battle. That's what I would like to say, but we were sitting ducks in front of 6 of the best warships of the Empire. After my training with Master Ti, I learned that the strange sensation I had while piloting was an instinctive use of Force Meld, a Skill used by the Jedis Ace back in the days.

I succeeded in gaining enough time, dodging the heavy-fire of the six Venator-class to cool down the hyperspace and fled, but only the ship I was in succeed to flee. The multiples impacts did no good to the ship, we were brought out of hyperspace by a failsafe in the middle of nowhere. We were all trapped in a ship in distress in the middle of deep space.

We tried to repair, but the damages were far too heavy and we had no spare parts. With time and the lack of food and water, the crew became nervous and divided. Disputes became fights which soon became a death fight.

Our distress signal bore no fruits. After five days, only 13 members of my crew were alive among the original 50 aboard the ship. Hunger, thirst, rancor, and anger divided us. Soon, we killed each other, the few still loyal to me fought by my side against the others.

The sixth day, a pirate ship above our ship and boarded us. Seeing this, we hide in the ventilation and let them find the dead bodies. While they were searching the ship, we drop stealthily behind them, cross the docking ring, boarded the pirate ship and unlocked the hitch. Then, we killed the few pirates left on their ship.

After landing on the nearest planet, a lawless world, my crew decided to disband after this failure that nearly wiped us out all.

Here I was, left alone in this world full of nothing except rubbles, mines, and pirates. Only a few events before my death and that I started telling you this story.

Let's resume. I headed toward a shady cantina frequented by pirates and criminals in the run. From the conversations around, I heard that the Empire just destroyed a rebel base on the planet Hoth.

This was bad news, not only did the Empire crushed my group, but they also crushed a Rebel base, let's hope that they escaped, otherwise the galaxy would never see the end of this dark age known as the Empire.

As I was drinking a Tatooni Junko, apparently a beverage that becomes popular after I left Tatooine and my job in the cantina. I saw a human woman, a pretty one, with beautiful red hair, a fair skin tone, and thin but muscled stature. What attracted my attention wasn't her appearance, during my year as a leader, I had my share of woman; what attracted me was the presence in the force that she exuded.

It was strong but neutral, neither toward the light side like Master, neither giving a foul and nauseating feeling like Vader or the members of the Emperor's shadow guard. It seems like she was a Force-sensitive individual that didn't undergo any training.

Something extremely rare because the Empire use blood tests at birth on children to test the Midi-Chlorians level. Those unlucky enough to have a high count of Midi-Chlorians are taken from their parents and never seen after that. Maybe killed or trained as Force-sensitive soldiers.

I left my seat and sat beside her at the bar counted and started the conversation. Her name was Celina Marniss, a hyperdrive mechanic who got some problems at her job forcing her to flee and hide in this world.

We discussed for a bit more than 30 minutes while listening to the bith band playing music. She was pretty nice and something told me that we hit well together, maybe before the sunset we may be enjoying each other in a bed.

It may have been possible if stormtroopers in their shiny white armor didn't storm into the bar and shot at us with their blasters. I would have loved to cut them into pieces with my lightsaber, but I was more preoccupied with her safety. I just lost my crew and with a bit of training in the Force, she could become my right hand.

This cantina was a lair of criminals and pirates, so when the troopers came in, everyone draws their blasters and soon blasters were fired in all directions. Taking advantage of this mayhem, we left the place in jumping through the windows, but troopers were outside and started chasing us as we fled.

Stealing a speeder and seating her behind me, we finally made it into safety after a mad race through the desolate world. Getting off the speeder, she rushed into my arms seemingly afraid and didn't refuse to hold a pretty woman in my arms.

Until she lit on a violet lightsaber, the appearing violet blade stabbed me in the middle of the torso.

I wasn't expecting this, far from it. Stepping back, she looked at me with her icy emerald green eyes as I fell back, laying on rubbles.

"Who are…you?"

"The Emperor's hand… Mara Jade." Her voice was perfectly calm, apparently used to kill people.

"I heard rumors about this title, but nothing about you seems like you're not a novice… At least I wasn't killed by anybody, a bit of a relief… But I am sad, I thought I was a good charmer…Huh" Calming my breath, I managed to speak with some difficulty.

She didn't said anything but crouched beside me and started searching me. While she did this, I tried to heal myself using the Force, but I wasn't in condition and healing wasn't one of my fortes.

"So, I assume you were trained since childhood. Raised by an adept of genocide and train as an assassin, your childhood must have been heaven."

Seem like she didn't like my comment because she snorted.

"Are you always this chatty, or is it your impending death that is affecting your mind?" She was really careful, apparently afraid that I used desperate measures or something.

"I don't want to die without a good word. By the way, did uncle Vader offered you cookies?" I said the truth, my death wouldn't be as memorable as I wanted it to be.

"Everyone sees Vader as someone important, but he is nothing for the Emperor. I am his hand; I can hear his call across the galaxy. Vader is merely a pawn; you can be proud to die by my hand."

Finally, she got with what she was searching for and I knew what it was. My two lightsabers and the one I inherited from Master Shaak Ti.

"These will be exposed at the museum of the Empire at the Capital." Hanging them to her belt, she walked toward the speeder after giving me a last glance.

"Bitch…." I could only utter these words at the thought that these fucking imperials bastard could pride themselves while watching these lightsabers. It was a shame, not only did lost my weapons, but I lost my Master weapon.

Here started our story, me dying on this moon while thinking to my past with nostalgy.

While remembering my past, I finally closed my eyes, dying.

I felt my mind disappearing the immensity of space. I knew what it was, everything at heir death become one with the Force, it was even more true for the Jedis. I deducted long ago that Master found a way to maintain her consciousness after death, but if she isn't helping me now, it must be that it is a skill limited to Jedi like some skills are limited to Siths.

While feeling myself disappear, an idea struck me. The Force was bound by time after all the Force can show the future, the present and the past in vision. The Jedi called it Unifying Force. Here, I don't know where or what it was. The force was abundant everywhere, if could the theory of the Unifying Force and sent my mind into the past, I could stop the Empire and save everyone, save Master, my family. It is perilous, but I have to try.

"No, …. You mustn't." I heard Master's voice, and felt her act, maybe trying to stop me, but it was too late.

I was already gone toward another time.

"I will change everything."