Star Wars - Dark Trooper Campaign

Chapter 4: Loyal Allies

At the same time the other strike teams jumped to their battlefields the “Rattattouille” emerged from hyperspace close to the Kriss-system. Their arrival marked the start for Admiral Kaler and his crew. While he brought his ships into position his Sith-overseer Darth Regulus demanded to know what this was about. These were his last words, and he was dead before his body hit the deck. Admiral Kaler then handed a large sack with coins to one of the last assassins of the Alderaanian house Rist, the most controversial of all the noble houses from this planet.

Then the Admiral sent one final speech to the ships of his fleet, to either swear fealty to the Empress or die. Senators Mo’Ore and Organa-Solo became witnesses to a savage battle that broke out between the Cyrus-loyalists and the admiral’s loyal captains.

One of the already defeated Victory Star Destroyers aimed for a final revenge on Admiral Kaler and powered up their main engines to ram into the “Dark Horizon”. The admiral had forseen this maneuver and gave the order to engage the jump drive of his supercruiser to appear behind the Cyrus-loyalists’ rear defenses and thereby crushing them between two lines. At the same time the “Dark Horizon” fired on planet Kriss and all but vaporized the garrison with the meditating Darth Faminis inside.

So when the big target vanished before their eyes, the doomed Victory destroyer aimed for the remaining target on their trajectory: the “Rattattouille”. Rodian veteran Keeto Sars was able to take evasive action and save the consular ship with an emergency hyperspace jump mere seconds before impact.

Aboard the “Heart of the Eclipse” all force-sensitives felt the tremor of Darth Faminis’ death. After the occupants of the two capsules met they fought their way through corridors and shafts towards the central summoning chamber that was hidden deep within the spherical middle-structure of the gigantic spaceship. Luke Skywalker with his green-bladed lightsaber, Trance Killian with her blue blade and Mia De’Ore with her red lightsaber made up an impressive lightshow, almost like a dance, when they took turns in deflecting blaster bolts and even sending some of them back to their attackers, while defending their allies behind them who then struck down stormtroopers, marines, battle droids and dark troopers with their blasters.

But then they reached a blast door that opened to reveal Inquisitor Vengeanar. Luke Skywalker stepped through to accept the challenge of the Sith-lord, who manipulated the controls so the doors closed right behind the Jedi-Master, leaving him without support. The rest of the squad was also effectively cut off from their preferred path, so they had to take a detour through even more enemies intent on stopping their advance.

In the meantime the fighters of Wild Squadron had begun to chase TIEs into close range of their flagship and took strafing runs on the turrets and turbolaser-batteries. During one of these strikes on a group of TIEs one of the pilots missed his shot on the fighter and his missiles instead hit the battlecruiser and blew a hole into the hull. Unfortunately, this breached exactly the corridor that the boarding party was currently taking, and so one of the commandos was sucked out into the vacuum of space. Mia De’Ore also slipped and would have been sucked out as well if Trance had not used the force to hold her back at the last moment until the emergency force fields activated and made the passage safe again. After that the team continued their way to the ritual chamber where a force-barrier blocked their entrance.

Chapter 5: Superior Firepower

Meanwhile the battle on planet Farnid III had reached its climax. Rikx Dinubi in his “Dirt Digger” and Grampclutch as his gunner had started an assault on the front entrance of the garrison and lured the two AT-ST walkers away. Sinsua and Regan used their jetpacks to rain down thermal detonators into the courtyard, while Cookie and Chewbacca threw some explosives at the walkers that were chasing the “Dirt Digger”. Larson, Baran, Colb Coburn and Han Solo took out stormtroopers with their blasters while the Kewo used bows and spears to fend off the invaders. Dr. Ravak chose to fight the empire with her lightbow, a rare weapon that had been a gift from the ancient guardian Anpu.

But things turned sideways when the “Dirt Digger” took a few hits and Rikx Dinubi was wounded. Grampclutch climbed out and started hacking at the walkers with his vibroaxe, while Sinsua provided air support. Reagan, Cookie, Baran and Larson pushed forward and into the base where they discovered Darth Maladis inside a small aboriginal hut in the center of the courtyard. Together with Corporal Coburn and his squad they opened fire on everything moving inside the compound and even threw in a few thermal detonators. The explosion not only killed the Sith lord, but also expanded outwards and approached the republic commandos as well. Colb Coburn and Grampclutch were able to pick up some steel plates as a cover, but others were not so lucky and got caught in the blast wave. Even the walkers and the “Dirt Digger” were toppled by the explosion and Rikx Dinubi was gravely injured. A group of drop shuttles deployed additional troops and walkers from the imperial fleet, when the death of Darth Maladis caused a tremor in the force and set free a green, toxic cloud as a final act of revenge on his enemies.

This progress in battle was also felt aboard the “Heart of the Eclipse”, not only by the force users, but also when the force-barrier dropped and let the boarding party enter the summoning chamber. There, Master Cyrus had already awaited them, with the artifact “Heart of the Eclipse” suspended high in the air, so he could readily access its power. But the intruders also felt a surge of power, as the heart increased their strength and fighting prowess as well.

Confident of his impending victory Cyrus activated some floating holocams and broadcasted the battle in which he intended to humiliate and utterly destroy the opposing heroes to the whole galaxy. All holo emitters and displays in the galaxy that were in some way connected to the holonet showed nothing but this one scene. Then he took his lightsaber which had an ebon blade, and after a short concentration he created a whole army of force doppelgangers that attacked the commandos. Most members of the boarding party fought for their very lives and were barely able to fend off the copies. Only Vengalor felt right at ease and slashed through the enemies’ ranks with his archaic metal sword as if they were merely puppets. But for every doppelganger he felled two more arose, and soon even he saw himself gravely outnumbered and cornered.

As soon as Randrack had found out that it was the artifact suspended in mid-air that gave Cyrus this vast power he used his jetpack to fly up to the pulsating purple crystal ball and tried to destroy or at least drop it. But as soon as he touched the artifact he had a vision and pure, raw power surged through his body so his only chance was to drop himself to get free of the crystal ball. It worked, but when he activated his jetpack again to slow his fall, the pack blew up and sent him hurtling even faster to his death. Trance was the only one to notice and she used the force to slow Randrack’s fall so he would not be injured. But that left her defenses open and her doppelganger used this weakness to knock her down so she collapsed on the floor and Randrack dropped the last few meters as well. The team was surrounded and their chances were very slim.