The Death Knight Sashath'raw'nourououdou snuk through the underbrush of the dense jungle. He had just ambushed a group of guards and a few techs, and had picked the last bit of info from their brains before killing them. He then made a little display of the bodies. He knew Zekk would be the one to find his little creation. He had it arranged that way .
He came to the end of the jungle to the large barracks/armory/fuel depot about five hundred yards from the Great Temple. One of the guards he killed was a captain, so he found out the bit of information that had been escaping him for so long.....
He stealthily snuck into the barracks, and made his way down the hallways to the armory. Here's where he finds out if all the killing was worth it. He enters the code that he picked from the captain’s brain and entered it into the keypad. The heavy blast door slid silently open. Sasha smiled to himself as he entered the armory. There were racks of blaster rifles and pistols, farther back there was body armor...and in the very back......sure enough, racks of thermal detonators of all shapes and sizes. Pulling a repulsor cart behind him, Sasha began collecting the most high powered detonators. Once he had a large pile of the deadly explosives, he picked out the biggest ones, the kind that could gut out a Corillian Corvette, and linked them all to a single switch on his belt. he set one back on the rack and put the others on the top of his stockpile. When he got to the blast door, he found that it had shut, and there was no keypad on the inside. Oh well. He drew his deep sapphire lightsaber and carved a rectangular hole in the door, and used the Force to pull the chunk out and set it up against another wall. He got three steps outside the door when he looked back behind him. A huge blast door with a thick cyberloc and keypad on it that it had taken him weeks to find the code for, killing dozens of people to get it...and he had just carved his way back out.
Sasha shook his head and looked at the floor at he walked away. He was going to have to start thinking these things through. He began placing the remaining high powered explosives in the barracks building. He was well on his way to the jungle when they went off in a ground-shaking fireball. He smiled at himself and headed back to his ledge on the volcano.
"What is that mark?" Tenel Ka asked.
It took Zekk a second to find his voice.
"That is the symbol of the Death Knights."
They were about to ask more questions, when they heard the explosion. They all whirled around to see a ripping fireball expand outward from the direction of the temple.
"Come!!" Tenel Ka yelled They all raced off to the temple. As usual, As soon as they reached the clearing, there were already ER personnel swarming around the wreck. Only this time, instead of a crashed Bulk Freighter, they saw a huge fire consuming a collapsed heap of rubble. Jacen, Zekk, and Tenel Ka stared slack jawed at the ruin. Jaina put her hands to her mouth in astonishment. Anja looked away toward the ground. Jaina broke the shock first.
"Well, what are we waiting for!?!" She ran toward the former building followed a split second later by her friends. but the heat was unbearable, even a hundred meters away. There was nothing they could do anyway. They headed for the Great Temple to see if there was anything there they could do to help.
"Zekk," Jacen said," I think you had better tell us everything you know about these 'Death Knights'."
"Yeah," Zekk replied wearily ", I think so too."
Sasha woke up an hour before dawn. He was back at his camp on the volcano ledge. He got out of the thermal sleeping bag and stretched, popping several joins. He quickly changed into a fresh TIE jumpsuit and went over to his supply case to grab some breakfast. It was a fairly large case, 4 meters by 3 meters by 2 meters, that held all his weapons and supplies. It was originally made to hold armor and supplies for a whole squadron of stormtroopers, so there was plenty of room for his toys. He had to weld it to braces and attach it to the bottom of his fighter with a heavy worker droid in order to bring it. This made the small craft very hard to handle, but that didn't make to much difference in a craft modified for stealth. He would have to leave it behind of course. His planned escape didn't rely on stealth as much as it did on speed and maneuverability.
Grabbing up his breakfast of four cans of stormtrooper rations and a pack of carbo protein biscuits, he began his morning hike over to the other side of the volcano. His legs were stiff from the running back and forth from the academy to his camp, and all the sneaking he had done to place all the remaining detonators and passive motion sensors in a defensive grid in the jungle around his mountain. Can't be to careful, after all.
He got to the other side and crawled up onto a boulder and looked out across the jungle to the Great Temple, several kilometers away. The sun had just risen and there was a mist hanging above the trees. The temple was jutting out from the jungle. Just to the left of it was a large cloud of very black smoke. So, the rebels hadn't managed to get the fire completely under control.
Far to the right was a large tower, and two more far to the left, and farther to the left. Surface-to-Space heavy turbolaser batteries. There were six of them, arranged in a hexagon just outside the kilometers-wide energy shield. There was also a large spherical emplacement a kilometer and a half to the far left of the Temple. A KYD-150 heavy ion cannon. The energy shield was shimmering above the area around the temple, like the back of a huge turtle.
Sasha shook his head. They spend hundreds of millions of credits on a hi-tech defense system designed to repel large scale attacks from capitol ships, but they had only trainees and a few hundred guards, most of them in space, to repel large scale ground attacks and nothing to keep a single elite commando in check. The jungle was his playground. What Sasha really needed were a few more fellow Death knights to take care of some of the nonsense work he really didn't have time to do, like his next little chore.
No, what he really needed was a hot shower and a decent breakfast. Ah well, he was here by his own choice. I'll be done with this and back to Coruscant before I know it, he thought. He gathered up the cans and empty package from his breakfast and headed back to camp. Back to work.
"So, basically your telling us that there was an elite unit of commandos at the Shadow Academy, and you think one of them is on Yavin IV and is the one that has been killing people and was the one who destroyed the barracks ?" Luke Skywalker said as he stared out the window of his office.
"Yes. That’s the only explanation for the symbol on the tree, and the gruesome way those people were killed." Zekk said in a flat, brooding voice. Jaina shuddered at the memory. Some of them had their throats cut after multiple stab wounds, two had been shot several times in both legs and the upper torso before being killed with a single shot to the heart, one had the upper half of his head blown off......she had never thought that someone could be such a callous killer. Even an Imperial.
"Anyone can kill sadistically." Anja said. She was slightly miffed about her and Zekk's swim being interrupted.
"And the skull drawing?" Jacen asked skeptically
"Its just as easy to make marks in a tree." Anja said. "I prefer hard facts rather then circumstantial evidence."
"But, the only people who even knew about the Death Knights, were themselves. Everyone else who knew is dead." Zekk protested.
"Were they anything like the emperors Dark Troopers?" Luke said turning around.
"Sort of, only instead of being elite stormtroopers with some force training, they were Dark Jedi with stormtrooper/TIE-pilot training. Really brutal."
"How many were there?"
Zekk thought back. "There were 60 candidates...20 failed the first few tests..22 more were killed in training, and I know that at least 11 died in the battle."
"Seven possibilities." Luke muttered. Zekk nodded.
"Isn't there another way to narrow it down somehow?" Raynar asked.
"All of them were clever enough to have snuck in and done the killings....there was one female Death Knight that wasn't strong enough to hang them up like that, two males and another female who would have broke their necks rather then slash their throats.....wait, some of them died of stab wounds?" Zekk asked looking up suddenly.
" four of the ones hanging from the tree, we've found several on the riverbanks, scavenged and decomposed, and three outside the barracks. Why?
"Was the knife a single blade?" Zekk asked
"Yes, it was." Luke said surprised.
Zekk nodded. "There was one Death Knight, an alien, who carried a black handled single-bladed hunting knife. We were pretty good friends. I thought he was a little bit insane I thought."
"Why did you think he was insane?" Jacen asked
"Once we went on an assassination, and he was singing 'Breakfast at Tiffany's'." Zekk said thoughtfully.
Jaina looked at him. "You went on assassinations?"
"What was his name?" Luke asked quickly. Zekk was extremely grateful for the change of subject.
"Sashath'raw'nourououdou."
They all looked up sharply and the room was hushed. "He was a Chiss?" Luke asked in a hushed voice. Zekk nodded. "Was he related to Grand Admiral Thrawn?"
"I asked once and he said that he wasn't. People that officially addressed him called him Commander Thrawn. Everyone else called him Sasha."
"His name was probably the only reason he was let into the Shadow Academy." Anja said, her voice full of contempt.
"Tell that to those guards." Jacen said.
"Wouldn't one of us be able to sense him? I mean he is a Dark Jedi, right?" Raynar asked.
Zekk shook his head. "One of the first things they are trained to do is use the force to hide themselves from other Jedi. They do it so often, it almost becomes involuntary, like breathing."
They were all silent as the implications sunk in. A ruthless killer, trained as a Dark Jedi with the kind of elite abilities that come only with Imperial special forces training...It was Tenel Ka who broke the silence first with a thump on the table with her single fist.
"We must find this 'Death Knight' , and stop whatever evil plan he has. This is a fact."
Sasha was once again clad in his leather armor and TIE-pilot helmet. He moved stealthily through the underbrush just outside the landing field. He removed the long pack from his back. It contained a collapsible tripod with a servomotor aiming system. He attached one of the blaster rifles he had stolen from the armory to the tripod, and connected a remote transmitter. Then he attached a scopecam and an armor plate to the front of the tripod to keep something from shooting the legs or aiming mechanism. Then he set up a timed motion sensitive grenade to the bottom of the tripod that would go off if it was upset.
This was the third and last remote tripod turret he set up. Next he quietly worked his way over to one of the STS heavy turbolaser turrets. He waited a few minutes outside the door before two guards came out. He quickly slipped in before the door shut and went to the control station.
There was a tech in the control room playing mini-golf. Sasha walked right in.
"Who are you??" The startled tech said.
"I'm here to repair the control station."
"Your here to repair the control station."
"I'm going to go about my business"
"Sure, whatever you need to do."
"You should take a nap."
"Good idea......" The tech laid down on the floor and fell asleep.
"Idiot.." Sasha muttered to himself. It was so easy to control the thoughts of weak-minded rebels. He removed the access panel and hooked up a remote control chip that would give him complete control of the turbo laser. He quickly snuck out of the tower. Five more to go.......
An hour later, Jaina, Raynar, Tenel Ka and Lusa were walking to the Rock Dragon to tinker with it a little. Jaina was explaining the plan she had come up with.
"He would most likely be hiding in the volcano chain, so, the idea is that Zekk and I will fly around the volcanoes looking for where this Death Knight might have parked his fighter, and you two and Jacen and Anja will go up to the volcanoes to see if you can find anything."
Sasha's chrono started beeping. He sat up from the flat rock he was napping on. He went over to his datapad on the supply case and uplinked to one of his tripod turrets. Nothing. He linked to another. Nothing. He linked to the last one, outside the landing field. Nothin'-wait a minute.....A slow smile spread across his face as he began to remotely aim the gun.
"Why can't I come?" Lusa asked.
"Because you don't have a lightsaber, and you need to stay here in case we call back for help."
Raynar thought for a second. "Why do we need to walk all the way to the volcano when you and Zekk will be going in the Rock Dragon."
Jaina had to think. "To.....look for clues." she said as she nodded to a pair of guards that just walked past them...
Perfect shot..... Sasha hit the "Enter" button.
Jaina's danger sense flared and she whirled around in time to see one of the guards' heads explode, splattering them all with blood. She quickly whipped out her lightsaber to parry a flurry of blaster bolts that were flying at her. Tenel Ka and Raynar also ignited their lightsabers and began deflecting the deadly bolts. The other guard began firing into the jungle.
"Go for help," the guard yelled at Lusa ", go for he-UH!" he was cut of by a bolt hitting him in his gut. The young Jedi knights all felt his mental scream of pain echoing through their heads, like cathedral bells. They kept parrying bolts and Raynar yelled "Hold it off for a second!" and he locked his blade to "ON" and threw it. he used the force to guide it and it spun towards the source of the attack. The pewter blade flew into the underbrush and the bolts suddenly stopped. For guards rushed toward the site. Hidden behind some fronds they found a remote turret with two legs cut off from the lightsaber. they looked it over and at the base, a red light came on and there was a BEEEEPP. Then a flash.
Sasha broke the link and turned his datapad off with a swear. He thought that the servos on the tripod were precalibrated. Once again, he had the crosshairs centered on Jaina's head and the stupid gun misfired. The mechanism of the tripod was probably off by only a few millimeters. He was going to have to have words with the guy who designed and built the tripods. He would have to have the datapad recalibrate the lasers.
Sasha sighed as he walked back to camp. It was always something....
Jaina bit her lower lip and watched with simmering anger as medical teams took the six dead guards on the transport that would take them back to the morgue on the battle station in orbit. There was a large blast crater where the bomb had gone off and scorches several meters around it where the grass had caught fire. Jaina though she could still hear the guards' mental scream echoing through her head. She clenched her fists an took a deep breath, running through a Jedi relaxation technique. She really wished she could afford the luxury of hating Sasha for going this to them.
Zekk walked up to her with a look of deep concern on his face. "Are you hurt?" he asked worriedly. Jaina shook her head. "No..."
"Your bleeding." He said gingerly touching her face. His fingers came back with a small smear of blood on his fingertips. Jaina thought of the guard head, exploding like a ripe melon hit by a vibro- hammer...."Its not mine." She said in a flat voice.
"Your sure you all right, though?"
Normal, Jaina would be flattered by his concern for her, but she really didn't feel like being flattered at the moment. "Yeah, I'm all right. C'mon, lets get the others and go find this 'Death Knight' of yours before he can kill any more innocent people." Jaina stomped of toward the temple to get the others. Zekk followed close behind.
An hour later Zekk and Jaina were cruising low above the trees in the Rock Dragon. They were both silent as they cruised in the direction of the volcanoes. Jaina was flying the ship as Zekk used the scanners to search for anything unusual in the jungle. There were plenty of life forms and scraps of metal left over from the many battles that had raged in the jungle since the academy had been established on the moon. Zekk noted four human life forms combing through the jungle toward the volcano. That would be Jacen, Tenel Ka, Anja, and Raynar. They were making good headway. He hoped that they were stopping to look for clues. He glanced over at Jaina. She was leaning over the control board checking their speed. Her hair was in a pony-tail, but a few strands had come free, and were hanging down the side of her face, making her look rather lovely. Zekk started to say something when a jolt hit the ship, nearly knocking him from his seat.
"What was that??" Jaina asked urgently.
Hmmm, Sasha thought, They must have better upgraded shields then that model is supposed to come with.
He was once again sitting on the boulder and looking at his datapad. On the screen was a graphic map of the area from the volcano to the Great Temple. The area a few hundred meters around the base of the volcano was a scattering of hundreds of little red dots, his defensive minefield. Just outside the minefield were six portable "Entrapments" that were very good for killing Jedi. Like the four making their way slowly to his camp. They wouldn't arrive for an hour or so, so he wasn't overly concerned with them. His main focus was the green triangle that had been coming toward him. He had a plan for it too. In the green area representing the jungle were fifteen larger red dots with small black dots in the middle. The one just behind and to the left of the Rock Dragon had turned gray to indicate it had been used. The ships new erratic flight had taken it to close to another red dot.
Sasha typed E6 and hit Enter.
In the jungle buried halfway in the mud was a meter-and-a-half long single-shot concussion missile launcher. It beeped and exploded in flames as the missile streaked away upward through the jungle canopy.
Jaina swerved the ship out of the way as another missile streaked past the veiwport. "A little too close..." she muttered as she pulled the ship up away from the jungle to give them a little more room to maneuver.
"Here it comes...." Zekk warned as the missile swerved back and headed for them.
"I see it..." Jaina swerved again, but instead of hitting them, the missile detonated meters from the hull, shaking, jolting them and burning a hole in the shields. She got the small craft back under control just in time for Zekk to see the sensors and yell "LOOK OUT!!" before the third missile burned through the rear shields and hit the ships hull.
On his datapad, the little triangle suddenly winked out. Sasha turned his attention to the other green dots slowly making their way through the jungle. He set the auto defense button on the defense grid and set a countdown of 3 hours. He got up and stretched and started to make his way back to his camp. He had hoped to go on a little longer, but he didn't thing the Young Jedi Knights would find him so soon. He changed into his leather armor and got his 9mm Barretta, his hunting knife and his lightsaber and strapped them all around his waist. He took the rest of his non-renewable equipment and stowed it in his fighters small cargo hold. He buckled himself in and turned on the engines. He redirected all power from the hyperdrive and sensor stealthing equipment and pumped it into the fighters shields and weapons. His was a Shadow Academy prototype modified TIE-Interceptor or TIE-HUNTER, a hyperspace capable attack craft with a hyperdrive unit and shields. The engines were also fairly modern so the craft lost none of its speed and maneuverability. Sasha had to add the sensor stealth for this mission. He had also added a very modern sound system, being the music lover that he was. It was a powerful, fast ship combined the classic fear inspired by an Imperial TIE class starfighter with the unique abilities like the kind that made a Dark Jedi so deadly. A worthy ship for a Death Knight. The craft all together had cost him the equivalent of a dozen TIE-fighters. But it was worth it. This fighter was perhaps, Sasha reflected as he gently lifted off, the one thing in the galaxy he really cared about.
The other Young Jedi Knights were marching through the jungle when Jacen suddenly stopped.
"Something’s wrong.........I think Jaina and Zekk are in trouble." They all scanned the sky for the Rock Dragon but only heard the sounds of the jungle.
"Well.....there's nothing we can do for them. Better just move on..." Raynar said uncertainly.
Tenel Ka sighed "This is a fact."
The four friends pressed on into the jungle.
The Rock Dragon fell from the sky like a stone. Jaina wrestled with the controls trying to bring the craft under some kind of control. The ship crashed through the canopy and hit a large massassi tree branch, snapping it off like a twig. Jaina and Zekk were thrown around in their seat until with a final crash the ship hit the ground on its side. They both tore their restraints off and had to cut a path out of the burning craft with their lightsabers. They staggered away and rested under a tree. Jaina blacked out. She woke up a few seconds later, coughing. She looked over to Zekk. He was laying on his side unconscious. there was a nasty gash on his forehead that was bleeding pretty badly. She tore the sleeves off his flightsuit and folded one of them into a compress and used the other to tie it to his head.
She fumbled in her pocket for her comlink and after a few minutes got the base at the temple. "I need an emergency medical team. Just trace the location of this comlink."
"We're on our way."
Jaina suddenly heard an ear-splitting howl, like the call of some beast that guarded the gates of hell, the nightmarish sound of TIE engines. The sound got louder and louder...then faded. It was headed for the Great Temple. Jaina looked down at Zekk's unconscious form.....but she had to try to stop the Death Knight. She set the comlink, still activated, next to Zekk and gave him a quick kiss on his cheek then ducked into the jungle and ran toward the Great Temple.