Star Wars - Dark Trooper Campaign

Chapter 6: The Sacrifice

Over the course of the battle the fleet of Admiral Ackbar had cleared a path through the imperial lines above Tagrom II. Now, the only thing standing between the New Republic forces and the Sith-Lord Darth Bellara was the Vitiation-supercruiser “Harbinger of Doom”, commanded by Admiral Vorrk. But he and his remaining TIE-squadrons fiercely resisted the onslaught. Their cannons shattered the hulls of the Mon Calamari cruisers and the TIEs took down fighter after fighter.

Admiral Ackbar ordered Rogue Squadron to take care of the TIEs while Wolfpack Squadron was tasked with destroying the supercruiser’s cannons. Colonel Greneb was fully aware that his squadron was being wasted as cannon fodder in this desperate fight, but he nevertheless led the assault. Ship after ship of his team was destroyed, but the supercruiser’s defense seemed impenetrable.

Then the A-wing of Rufos “Nose” Jock was heavily damaged in a strafing run. His laser cannons shorted out, the maneuvering jets malfunctioned and his missiles were armed, but got stuck inside the launch tubes. The pilot tried to somehow save his fighter, but got caught in the crossfire of the defense turrets and the impacts from those guns shot shrapnel through his cockpit. He felt almost no pain as a support strut penetrated his torso and rendered his ejection seat useless. It was only a matter of seconds until the slightest hit would set off all the explosives in his fighter at once.

In this situation “Nose” decided to make the most out of it. With a battlecry on his lips he charged full throttle at the bridge of the supercruiser. His squadmates cleared a corridor for him and blew up the bridge deflector right before Rufos Jock maneuvered his A-wing directly into the transparisteel viewports of the bridge. There, the bridge crew stared unbelievingly while Admiral Vorrk tried to escape certain death by diving into the bridge trench, but to no avail. The A-wing still had its almost full payload of missiles and all of them detonated on impact in a cascading firework that totally blew up the front half of the battlecruiser and left the rest floating through space as a burning wreck.

The sacrifice of Rufos Jock had opened the exact window the republic fleet needed to bombard the ritual site on the evacuated planet Tagrom II. Within seconds the third Sith-Lord, Darth Bellara, the herald of war, was burned to ash.

Chapter 7: The final Prophecy

Inside the summoning chamber aboard the “Heart of the Eclipse” the demise of Darth Bellara could be felt clearly, and for a moment everyone believed that the dark lord had been defeated, as all of his doppelgangers had disappeared at once. But in the next moment he made it crystal clear that this didn’t bother him the slightest. With a twist of his hand he telekinetically caught the standing rest of the assault team and pushed them back to the outer walls of his chamber. There he revealed to them that he had never needed the other Sith-Lords in the first place. They were solely meant as a distraction for the republic forces to spread them out thin and leave him with only a fraction of the opposition the Republic could have gathered.

Cyrus reveled in his imminent victory and pointed to the outer walls of his summoning chamber which had become transparent. Through the remains of the dimensional barrier the heroes could see Cyrus’ true body with its countless maws, eyes and tentacles eagerly anticipating the moment when it could crawl through the breach and devour all life in this universe. This view not only sent a chill down the spine of the assembled strike team, but also of the numerous viewers in all the galaxy that were getting feeds by the floating camera drones. Cyrus seemed to enjoy every second of the realization when finally everyone understood his true power, once the ritual was complete. His next step would have been to mercilessly kill off the galaxy’s mightiest heroes while everyone was watching to demonstrate how powerless they were against him.

But just as he unleashed his black ray of annihilation from his hands to scorch the helpless heroes (with moderate power since he didn’t believe they were remotely powerful enough to resist him) Trance Killian stepped in and absorbed the dark energy with the force. Irritated, Cyrus paused for a moment and Trance used this to activate the Spirit Link, a very rare force power that allowed all kinds of beings, even non-force-sensitives, to connect to her and lend her their strength. And it worked: the floating blue symbol that was made up from her initials shone brightly in the dark room, and Mia De’Ore told everyone to concentrate on the symbol and lend Trance all their might to defeat Cyrus.

The additional strength was direly needed because mere seconds later the fallen guardian had recovered from the surprise and once again fired off his dark annihilation beam. But Trance was not alone, as almost everyone in the room concentrated on the symbol and gave her strength. And even more, since the floating holocams that Cyrus had activated not only broadcasted the fight, but also the symbol. The republic troops and the loyal imperial soldiers of house Thul joined in the Spirit Link and reinforced the heroes on the front line.

More and more beings joined the Spirit Link which not only enabled Trance to effortlessly absorb all of Cyrus’ dark energy, but also redirect it as a purified white beam back to the dark lord. This was when his grip on the assault team broke and they attacked Cyrus with everything they had. Lightsabers, metal blades, blaster bolts and even welding torches tore through the fallen guardian’s body while the floating figure of Trance, emblazoned in blue-white glow, sent his own power back to him.

Then it was over: the fallen guardian was vanquished, his life essence ceased to exist. His body, overloaded with energy, exploded and the strike team was barely able to take cover. Trance’s body was caught in the blast wave and smashed against the wall. Bleeding from numerous wounds and drained of all power Trance asked with her dying breath if they had been successful in saving the galaxy. When her comrades confirmed this Trance died with a smile on her face. In hopes to somehow save her life the others took her lifeless body with them as they left the summoning chamber that was starting to get unstable.