A Strike in the Dark

[Jacen Darxtryder]

The cool and calm of a lake on Naboo was abruptly disturbed by the soft, yet sudden landing of a starship on its surface. The sound of the current and waves crashing on the beach drowned out the quick popping sound of the flotation chambers blowing up with air. In the dark of night, the Retaliator's black exterior was hidden perfectly on the deep dark water. Walking down into the hull, Craygen lay down inside his under water speeder. Pressing two buttons, his speeder quickly closed completely shut and the next button plunged his speeder underwater. Turning on his lights, he saw the cave entrance he had mapped out, which would lead him into the heart of Theed. From there, he would take the secret royal path which would eventually lead him to an outpost on the lake behind the Royal Castle complex.

Suddenly a siren started to go off. Looking down at his nav-pad, he noticed that there was a huge crocodile like creature, yet much larger, quickly closing in on him. Slowing down some, he waited until the creature opened up it's jaws to strike. At that very moment, he deployed plasma grenades straight back into the creature's mouth and Craygen turned on his turbo-boosters. A few short moments later, only bits and pieces of the creature remained.

Quickly navigating a few caves, Craygen came out into clear water and silently headed through the river that curved and cut throughout the city of Theed. Coming to the surface, he sped towards shore and hid his speeder in a grassy field. The hissing of his cockpit opening was the final chance for any for-warning of the doom that was to come. Unfortunately, no one heard Naboo's last cry for help and Craygen emerged from his speeder with the element of surprise completely on his side.

Right in front of him was a cliff which was right up next to the wall of the outpost where the Queen's Elite guard was stationed. Pulling out his extension gun, he aimed right for the top of the wall. The pin cut deep into the top of the wall and Craygen held on tightly to the gun as he quickly ascended. As he reached the top, he used the force to propel himself up over the wall and down into the outpost. Rolling forward as he hit the ground, he put his extension gun back onto his belt and grabbed both of his lightsabers. Looking around he smiled, realizing he had timed his arrival just for when the majority of the guards were asleep. Putting on his gas mask, he walked up to the guard at the main building. Raising his right index finger, he lifted the guard up slightly and choked him quickly. This guard would be lucky compared to the others, for his end was quick and he probably didn't even realize what hit him before his end was met.

After a few short minutes of searching teh building and shutting down all outside communications, Craygen entered the balcony overseeing huge hall that had the cots and bunks of all the troops. In the middle there was a small circular area that was clear. Climbing up onto the ledge, Craygen propelled himself forward into the center of the hall and ignited his lightsabers. The bright red light as well as the sound of them igniting woke up all of the troops.

"Welcome to your doom." Craygen said, laughing cryptically as he drew wave after wave of the force into him, before releasing it like a Tsunami. The cries of the soldiers died out quickly. The ones who survived Craygen's offensive Tidal wave were already firing their blasters in his direction. Twisting and turning, Craygen was deflecting and redirecting blaster bolts so fast he barely even noticed that his cloak was getting riddled with holes from bolts that nearly missed him. Just as the last soldier became acquainted with his demise, the 5 commanding officers entered the room, fully armored to the bone and carrying double-sided swords.

"You mock me? I would have thought Naboo's finest would be more challenging than this." Craygen remarked, taking a step forward into an attack stance.

"We'll not give up so easily, my Lord, I'm afraid you will have to take us all at once." The leader said, as they raised their weapons into an offensive mode.

"Actually, I've got a great many things on the agenda before tomorrow morning... so I think you'd like to help me out by killing each other for me." Craygen said, waving his hand in front of them. As he walked away, he could hear the clang of sword meet sword and metal rip through flesh as well as the blood curdling screams of those who were dying. After a few moments, it was completely silent in the hall where the troops had been sleeping.

Reattaching his lightsabers to his belt and grabbing his comlink, Craygen dialed up his Darth Glear who was patiently waiting in orbit with the massive army of the Sith. "Lord Glear, you are in the clear to land." Craygen said, walking outside and climbing onto a speeder bike.

[Jacen Darxtryder]

"Very Well, Lord Glear, you know how to proceed. I am going back below into the depths to deal with the issue the Gungans present. I will face them alone." Craygen authoritatively spoke into the microphone of his comlink.

"Yes, my Lord it sha--.." Was all that came over the comlink as Craygen cut off his underling in mid-sentence and shut his comlink down completely, wanting to be completely prepared for the task at hand.

Walking onto the elevator that took him to the height of the walls he looked out at the bright red thunderstorm that was going on in theed. The Sith had already begun their Aerial assault on the planet and would send in reinforcements to do patchwork here and there. Before long however just as a good seamstress never makes an incomplete shirt, the Sith would have complete control over Naboo, even if they left the previous leaders in charge.

Pressing a button on his gauntlet, Craygen activated his underwater speeder and instead sent it into a hover mode, which brought the vehicle up the wall, and right up against the edge. While it was noisy, Craygen had done all the work to keep the element of surprise, so he saw no need to risk injury. Especially when he had the Gungans left to deal with. I hope these bunny-frogs have some fight in them, otherwise they won't deserve the mercy of my Lightsaber. Craygen thought to himself, as he put his hood back over his head and hopped into the speeder.

Cruising down gradually towards the water, Craygen dipped the nose down and after a couple moments paused, he flipped open a closed off switch which had a blue button marked "The Other Boost" and punched it down hard. This thrust the speeder deep into the water, causing water to shoot and splash out many meters into the air. "I should visit water planets more often" he said, talking to himself as he normally did when he made note of things he realized he enjoyed.

Picking up more and more speed, the speeder maneuvered and navigated it's way through the water better than a dolphin could have, cutting through it like a diamond through metal. Air bubbles and smoke completely invaded the path in which Craygen's speeder left behind. Diving this way and that to avoid underwater cliffs and travel through caves, he could feel Gunga City drawing closer and closer inside. Craygen closed his eyes as he locked in the coordinates into the speeder Yes, I can feel it. They fear what is to come, the darkness that comes to wipe away the lies of the Jedi. Their warriors will not be ready, their army will fall. Tonight is a night for death. Craygen thought, opening his eyes just as the speeder was closing in on the central dome of the city.

The speeder smashed through the dome like a bullet punching through a piece of paper. Pressing a button marked "Eject", Craygen flipped and landed in the center of the dome. The speeder landed just short of smashing into one of the huge flanks of Gungans. His Lightsabers were connected into a staff, glowing a deep blood red color. He was surrounded by warriors on all sides, from twelve through eleven, just exactly the way he liked it. There were dozens, no hundreds of Gungan Warriors circled around him, their vibro-spears pointed in his direction. Directly ahead of him, stood an older gungan, who looked to be their general.

"Putten down yousa weaponsas and no hurtin will be donin' to yousa." The general commanded with authority, fear cloaked very deceptively within his gaze.

"Oh, very well.." Craygen said, sarcastically turning off his lightsabers. "You know with so much water in here, how about a little FIRE, to lighten things up" he continued, jutting forth his hand and using the force to shoot fire forth from his fingertips. The flames completely engulfed the general, but after a moment, Craygen stopped. When he used this technique he liked his victims to be medium-rare, so that he could slowly torture them to death later on.

Reactivating his lightsabers, Craygen propelled himself diagonally to the left. front-flipping as he neared the gungan line of defense, his feet landed on the top of a warrior's energy shield. Jumping off, he struck straight down, cutting the Gungan in half the long way. Just as he hit the floor, he raised his saber up over his head and spun it around several times. It effortlessly cut through the Gungan spears like a metal fanblade cutting a pencil. As he got up, Craygen threw out his free hand in an arc, sending the wall of Gungans to his right flying backwards with a powerful force push.

Back on his feet again, he whizzed around and parried a stab and slash from two other Gungans. They then both came at him from the side. Jumping between them as they slashed again, his maneuver caused them to bury their spears in each other.

But just as he had finished those off, the wall of gungans he had force pushed was coming at him again. Using the force to aide his jump he jumped up and over them. When he landed, six more gungan bodies fell to the floor, headless. Grabbing a thermal detonator off the corpse of one of the dead Gungans, he threw it deep into their ranks. Racing over to his speeder he force pushed all the gungans in his way and jumped inside. Just as the huge fireball of hundreds of thermal detonators went off, Craygen sped off, his speeder nearly escaping the flames.

[Jacen Darxtryder]

As Craygen made his way back amongst his fleet, he immediately noted the inferior beings of the Naboo Royal Army had begun to drive the Sith Army back farther and farther. Glair will have to answer for this. He thought, activating his lightsabers and deflecting a few stray blaster bolts that had come his way.

Looking down for a moment, he pulled up his weapon system on the navicomputer screen. He pressed two buttons and then rested his hands back on the handle bars. "gzzzt, vwwt, ker-chak" were the sounds that his laser canon made as it dropped open from below.

Using the force to activate his comlink, he broadcasted into all frequencies on the sith radar. "All sith forces, attention, this is Grand General Craygen, all forces move ahead, no matter the cost, follow my lead." he ordered, his speeder throwing up a huge cloud of dust as it zoomed right past the the line of Royal Forces.

Craygen's arms spun around in an endless flurry of movement, blocking, dodging and redirecting blaster bolts. Out of nowhere, a soldier had eluded his gaze, and his speeder crashed right into the man's body. Rolling off his now wrecked speeder bike he turned around, his hands extended into a force push. Not far off, he caught the eyes of the Commanding Officer. Pulling him high into the air, Craygen lept up and threw him down to the ground. Using the force to back him up, he slammed down to the ground, with a powerful punch. This caused the ground to ripple like a pebble falling into water. As his hand landed, it struck right through the officer's abdomen, clearing all the way through.

The remaining troops who survived the mini-quake, were so terrified of their new previously unknown adversary that most of them activated the white flag in the back of their blaster rifles. Smiling at his enemies' cowardice, Craygen clenched his fists. Lightning sprung around his hands, growing more and more powerful, until Craygen's entire Body was engulfed by Lightning. Then, crossing his arms on his chest, he threw them out in an arc.

Lightning and Electricity ripped through the ranks of the Naboo Royal Army. The screams and death cries were no match for the large crackle of thunder that followed.

As Craygen opened his eyes and laid his arms at his side, he saw smoke emanating from from countless corpses. Still countless others still had an electric charge ripping in and out of soldiers who were already dead.

Turning around, Craygen found himself in front of the entrance to the Royal Palace. He walked un-eagerly and nonchalantly inside and up the first set of stairs.

A pair of warriors stood between him and Theed's throne room. "Back down and I will let your Queen beg for your lives." Craygen taunted, his eyes glowing with sparks flying out of his clenched fists.

The guards didn't even reply, letting their weapons open fire at Craygen's seeming unprotected body.

Holding out his hands, Craygen absorbed the green blaster bolts into his arms. He lowered his head, an evil laughter coming forth from him. "you bore me" he said, throwing his hands out in an arc. The two blaster bolts shot out of his hands and right into the foreheads of the two guards.

Walking over to them, Craygen bent down in front of their bodies, which had fallen down to the ground. As he stood up, he brought his left arm around his right side before throwing it horizontally back outside. The doors to the throne room, splintered into a thousand pieces and flew in a vortex around Craygen's being. It followed him as he walked towards the throne.

The queen sat with the rest of the Naboo Royal Court at her side. She must not be more than seventeen. Craygen thought, as he bowed, about forty-five feet from the Queen.

"If you have come to kill me then, do what you must, Sith Lord." the Queen spat out, her voice laced with fear, anxiety and nervousness.

"On the contrary, your highness, I have come here to tell you that my master, Lord Tiberian, Emperor of the Sith will be along shortly to peacefully discuss the new government of Naboo." Craygen replied, gathering the pieces of the door around each other with the force, before crushing them to powder. "I believe you will find it quite the same as before." he continued, as he formed the powder into a ball and melted it with force fire. "I am sorry to leave so quickly, but I'm afraid there are matters that deserve my attention. If you were to choose to flee the planet, then I'm quite sure my master will find a suitable Sith Lord to rule." He finished, as he bowed, turned around and left.

As he neared the doorway, he pressed the button on his earpiece and dialed into Tiberian's frequency. "The Queen awaits your company, my Master."

[Jacen Darxtryder]

(Disclaimer: Obi-Wan Kenobi, Qui-Gon Jinn and Darth Maul are property of George Lucas and LucasArts, I don't own them, I'm merely using them at no profit.)

A woman's voice came over the line just as Craygen had finished his message for his master. "I'm sorry, but your call has been dropped and could not be properly completed, please move into a service area and try again." the generic, almost computer generated sounding voice said.

A moment later, he heard Glear's voice in his ear. "Darth, victory is ours, I have a message for you from Lord Tiberian, shall I relay it to you now?" Glear stated calmly.

"No, meet me at the reactor core." Craygen replied, pulling his hood down over his head, so that his eyes could barely be seen.

"It will be done, my Lord." Glear replied, before the clicking noise of Craygen hanging up ended the conversation.

Craygen took his time walking around the throne room and took the left hallway that lead from the Throne Room into the room connecting to the reactor core, looking around at what he had accomplished. Folding his arms, he reached out with the force and his saber handles leapt from their place on his utility belt. They spun around him horizontally, one going clockwise and the other counter-clockwise. He walked past the huge water fountain display and into the area that housed the reactor core. He could faintly hear the far off windy sound of the core spinning, giving off energy and electricity that powered the entire castle. Maintaining the same pace as before he slowly walked to the center of the room and sat on the floor, crossed his legs and called out to the force, centering himself. Closing his eyes, he could see the current of the force moving around him, it never ceased to amaze him.

Then all of a sudden, he found himself hovering about twenty-five feet off the ground. Right below him there were two humanoid Jedi, dressed in the style of the knights from the old republic. One Jedi had long hair down the middle of his back and had a beard and mustache and carried a green lightsaber. The other was a padawan, and had almost the exact same brown colored hair yet had the standard padawan braid of that era and carried a blue lightsaber. Their opponent was an Iridonian, tatooed red and black all throughout his body. He fought with a double-sided lightsaber that was just as red as his tatooed skin. They fought, furiously, back into the reactor core. The Sith Lord not exerting any energy other than what he needed to in order to defend himself.

As they fought out onto the high bridge, the Iridonian kicked the young padawan off, sending him crashing down onto the next bridge, some seventy or so feet below, Craygen estimated. Seeing his comrade out of position, the master went on the offensive, pushing the Iridonian back farther and farther. They eventually reached the energy walls which led to the shoot down to the actual core itself. Their lightsabers danced and played along like a perfectly synchronized symphony, they blocked each other's attacks perfectly. The Iridonian now sped up his backward movement, passing the first wall, then the second, third and fourth, before the fifth wall activated, separating the two combatants.

The padawan rushed as hard as he could back to aide his master, yet the first energy wall closed shut on him, just as he neared it. The master fell to his knees, calling on the force to re-energize himself. All the while, the sith lord paced back and forth, like an anxious father awaiting the birth of his child. A moment later, the flickering of the walls opening was heard, and in a flash the battle had begun again. Once again, the Jedi Master was on the offensive, pushing the Sith Lord all the way back to the edge of the long fall down the reactor shaft. Just as the Padawan was about to reach his master, the last energy wall activated again.

Immediately it was as if the Sith Lord had flipped a switch, in two cuts he had the Jedi Master on the defensive. Then, in a missed parry, the master took a smack to the face from the Iridonian's saber hilt and then gasped as his red lightsaber skewered him through his upper abdomen. "NOOOOOOOOO!" the padawan screamed, as his master crumpled and fell to the floor, still alive, but mortally wounded. Turning off his lightsaber, the Iridonian taunted him, grinning with the utmost of inner happiness.

After a moment, the buzz of the padawan's blue saber was heard, as the energy wall neared it's time to turn off. Without a word communicated, the sith lord activated his lightsaber yet again. The energy wall turned off once again and the padawan struck hard vertically at the Iridonian's upper body, but was parried easily. However, the Iridonian's counter attack missed horribly, and the padawan moved in and kicked his opponent hard in the chest and brought his lightsaber up. Unfortunately for him, all his lightsaber cut was the Iridonian's lightsaber.

Getting up quickly, the Iridonian went all out on the offensive, throwing his opponent back further and further. Then, a swift kick to the Padawan's face and a force push sent the padawan down into the reactor core.

But as the Sith Lord walked to the edge to see his opponent fall out of sight, he saw him holding onto a ledge. A few moments later, the Padawan jumped out and flipped over his opponent. pulling his dying master's lightsaber into his hand he cut the Iridonian in half and watched as his master's murderer fell down into Oblivion.

Craygen watched intently as the padawan and master shared their final moment. Then, descending to the floor, he made his presence known. Unfolding his arms he clapped his hands in applause, his sabers still spinning around him, unactivated. "Good show, that was quite pleasant to watch." Craygen taunted, walking up to about twenty feet away from the padawan who was still panting for breath.

"And who might you be?" the padawan asked, his thumb firmly attached to the red button of his Master's lightsaber, ready to go at any time.

Reaching out his hands straight in front of him, Craygen Grabbed both his hilts and then threw back his hood. "I am the Angel of Death in the Sith Order.. now who might you be?"

"I am Obi-Wan Kenobi, apprentice to Qui-Gon Jinn and Jedi Knight of the Galactic Republic." Obi-Wan said, relaxing and looking Craygen right in the eyes.

"I would kill you, Kenobi, but what is to be gained by killing a vision?" Craygen stated, folding his arms, hilts in hand, but unactivated.

"Angel of Death you say? And yet I sense so much confusion in you." Kenobi retorted, stepping forward.

"That's where you're wrong" Craygen replied, crouching slightly and leaning forward as he activated a lightsaber and leapt through Obi-Wan. Just as his lightsaber cut through the Jedi's flesh, everything vanished.

Opening his eyes, Craygen saw the slimy Twi'lek form of Darth Glear approaching. "Darth, Lord Tiberian requests you accompany the Queen and her court to Corellia.. you are to leave immediately." the Twi'lek said, walking up to Craygen who had stood up.

Walking right up to Glear's face, Craygen force spat right through his throat, and then in the next instant cut him in half with the saber in his hand. "Good to know." He said, leaning over and grabbing Glear's Lightsaber, which he would keep as a memento and a reminder to never fail.

As he walked away however, he looked down and noticed that he was carrying the exact same Green lightsaber that the Jedi Master in his vision had used. Putting it on his belt, he walked off to meet with the Queen once again.