Exile

Exile .1 and .2 Forced into exile, the two surviving Jedi from Xolatis seek refuge on a familiar planet while Lord Darchind and his insidious forces start to grow in number. .1 Striding down the command deck of the third unnamed Mandalorian battleship confidently, Lord Darchind caught sight of the Mandalorian soldier, Voskar. It had been only five days since Darchind’s planned attack on the Jedi emissaries was executed. Darchind at first had been furious at the results, centering all his efforts on chasing after the two Jedi Knights that escaped from his attack. This ended quickly. The search barely broached the city’s limit before two unrecognizable bodies and lightsabers were found. The lightsabers and their crystals were rendered colorless and useless by the fire in the building, but Darchind was consistently sure that the two Jedi he sought to destroy were already dead. Lord Darchind was at first both ashamed and enraged by his small but perceptible defeat at the hands of the Jedi Knight Ikeeriot in his own castle, but the fact that the pathetic fool had been dispatched by nothing more then a crumbling roof made the elixir of life taste all the better. "Darchind," Voskar watched the black cloaked Darchind intently. "You have your ships—our deal is finished, correct?" Darchind paused minutely, watching the lights of the command bridge flash up the carefully crafted Mandalorian armor and then shine on the T-visor of Voskar. "I wish to propose a new stipulation to our deal, Voskar. One I think you will find very beneficial." Voskar growled, "What is this new issue you want to raise? You want my help, don’t you?" Perhaps more perceptive then he looks, Lord Darchind mused. "In point of fact, yes, I do want your help. It involves the Jedi." Voskar was shaking his helmet covered head. "Our war with the Jedi is fought on one front. I will fight with my people and only my people." Lord Darchind clasped his pale white hands together easily, wringing them. Feel the anger, he thought. It clears your thoughts. It makes you what you are and lets you do what you do. Lord Darchind nodded slowly, but pressed his offer. "In exchange for your service in my army, I would give you sufficient payment. After the fall of your empire it will be most valuable . ." The Mandalorian’s gun was out and against Darchind’s chin in a blur. Beneath the hood he wore, Darchind smiled hideously. "The Mandalorians will never fall. What do you mean by this arrogant remark?" Darchind took a deep, trembling breath. Play him. "I am a dealer in commodities, Voskar. One such commodity I deal with is advice. Another in the future. I’ve foreseen that your side of the war—the Mandalorians, will be defeated. With these three battleships and your army however, we can defeat the Republic alone." "You speak nonsense." Voskar dismissed, pressing his finger onto the trigger just a little tighter. "I would never betray my people and hide here in such a way." "Admirable, to be sure." Darchind continued, unhindered. "I do not mean to impugn your sense of loyalty, Voskar. I know that the loyalty of a Mandalorian soldier is not won with words alone." Teeth gritted behind the Mandalorian’s T-visor. "You test my patience, Darchind." "As I’m sure all those not as well versed in your culture does," Darchind continued once more. "I can give you proof of my plan to destroy the Jedi and the Republic. The Jedi recently attacked me and my city—." "As I can see." Voskar said. The tension of the blaster against Darchind’s chin loosened ever so slightly. "As we speak my master, Dihed Carosine is setting up a puppet democracy on Xolatis’ surface. I learned from the proceedings with the Jedi that they do not accept my form of . .control. If you release the gun from my chin, and let me access my holo-device I can show you the beginnings of my plan." Voskar took the gun away but didn’t holster it at his side. "You have one chance to prove to me your plan’s worth." "One is all I need, I assure you." Darchind said softly, pulling the holoviewer from his cloak. He hit the play button and footage sprang to blue holographic light. It showed the doctored footage of the Jedi slaying Darchind’s defenseless politician colleagues in his throne room, followed by the small band of revolutionaries setting their charges throughout the city. "They nearly destroy the whole city, Voskar, and for what? Justice? No. They know nothing of it. I don’t expect your pity or compassion, but I know you would like nothing more then to destroy those that you see here." Clearing his throat from behind the helmet, Voskar stirred. "What is your plan, Lord Darchind?" "Is it not true that most of the Republic’s fleet is leased to them by local systems and their peoples? Do they not depend wholly on their people to go to war for them, while they sit, content, in their core worlds?" Darchind asked. Voskar nodded. "A fact of which we are aware of—and hate." "I would use this footage against the justice administering Jedi—leave it to the Republic’s own people to decide whether they want to aid those who kill the innocent. Those who aid and abed people that tried to overthrow real control and real government. With my broad-wave jamming prototype, I will be able to transmit this holo footage to the worlds of the Republic with no interference from the local or galactic governments. They will, in effect, be blind to the insurrection the Jedi’s inexperience fuels." Voskar, listening intently to it all, nodded slowly. "What do you want of me and mine, Darchind?" Darchind smiled possessively behind the darkness of his hood. "Your brute force. Your skill and battle intelligence. I would like you to be the first of my army, and to train those who would join the one I wish to build under Xolatis’ Military Creation Act." "You still think my people will be defeated?" Voskar said, clearly trying to switch back to the subject in vague hopes of victory. Darchind nodded. "It is inevitable. With your help, we will train an army capable of such a task as destroying the Republic right beneath their noses." Voskar nodded. "I’ll agree to your offer. How much will you pay?" "Set your price." Darchind said. The Republic’s coffers will be open once we pry it open ourselves. Voskar nodded once more. "May I ask you a question, Voskar?" Darchind chanced. "Do what you will, Darchind." Voskar said, sounding exhausted. "What is your name?" Voskar sighed. "Voskar Seknem is my name." Darchind nodded and rubbed his chin in introspection. "Would you take any offense to me addressing you as Seknem?" Voskar stirred, holstered his blaster and shook his head ever so slightly. "Do what you will." "Seknem." Darchind tested it out. "It has a certain . .venomous appeal to it." "Indeed." Seknem answered. "Seknem, how would you like for this battleship to be yours?" Darchind posed. The Mandalorian shuffled his feet uneasily. "I would," he paused. "I would like to name it however," he remarked. Darchind nodded quickly. "Of course, of course. What will it’s name be?" "Mandalore’s Hammer." Seknem said. In memory of a lost cause, Darchind thought happily. He clapped the soldier on the armored shoulder and chuckled easily. "May this be the beginning of a great partnership between the Mandalorians and the Sith." .2 Jon Locke was walking the streets three months after the successful bombing of Xolatis’ capitol when he began to picture just how deep Darchind’s grip was sunken into the side of the planet’s gut. Much of the city’s paved roads and walkways were cracked and sometimes big chunks were even dislodged and thrown to the sides of the streets. People walked wearily around now, somehow leaving their carelessness behind the day that the shockwave and bombs bit into the capitol. These were the people who chanced being out on the street. Those who would commune willingly with the priests that were in growing number. Locke was one of the peaceful protesters of Lord Darchind’s seemingly oligarchic theocracy, still, the days he walked the streets were few and far between. Locke was addressed once by one of the priests in black robes as though he was a peasant to be sent on an errand, but the authority that had leaked from behind the black hood had captured Locke’s normally dominant personality and held it. That had been only a month after the bombing, before Locke was able to get a read on those priests. Locke knew what they were now though. Simple secret police, set up from behind the scenes of Darchind’s government. Locke was the leader of the political opposition to Darchind, and during the last few weeks he’d been getting more and more of what he’d asked for and the opposition was starting to grow brittle to his requests. Once he had even asked for a conference with Darchind’s political advisors to set up an provisional planetary senate and was given it! This of course was swept under the rug, and the day Locke showed up he was denied access to the administrations building. Locke’s new position was to jockey for two separate delegates to be sent to the Republic’s senate, although Locke himself knew the Republic wouldn’t ever allow it. He thought that it might force another group of Jedi to come and mediate that situation, and the people of Xolatis had better opinions of rabid gundarks then they had of Jedi these days. So Locke walked quietly along, the Xolatis sun setting the turning the sky to a dark pink and alerting those intrepid enough to regard the curfew loosely a last chance to get indoors. He wasn’t one to back down. Never had been. Locke had worked numerous times with Alec Uban outside Xolatis—Jon was a newcomer to Xolatis in that respect—a peaceful negotiator, one sent by the Paladins, but one unarmed both physically and without the powers of the Force. He was six foot eleven, a tall man in almost any culture. His skin a tanned one, not at all as dark as Uban’s but a distant shade lighter, his had a head of short black hair, one that stopped above his eyes and danged there frustratingly. He wore a neutral gray uniform, without the usual Paladin emblem of a lightsaber crossed with a judge’s mallet. Locke was a close friend to Alec Uban, although close was very relative to one in a relationship with a Jedi—one could never quite tell where their thoughts were. Locke thought it strange and was at first outraged that Alec would have called for reinforcements from the Paladins and Warriors-for-Justice without including him in the call, but now it seemed fitting that Locke clean up another one of the Jedi’s peculiar messes. Jedi would have called it instinct and foresight. Locke called it irony. Jon couldn’t believe that Alec would have fought lashed out against Darchind without sufficient reason, and the only reason that Locke would ever think sufficient to do so would be that Darchind had to have been a threat to the Republic. Locke could sympathize with this view, but would not agree entirely. Sure, he thought absentmindedly; stepping over a chunk of building. Darchind is a trouble maker, but no one on the level to send a whole group of Jedi against. Perhaps there’s more to the puzzle than I see, but it’s very unlikely, Locke thought. Turning the corner of the Shady Mill’s Cantina and walking straight for his home a few blocks ahead, he became aware he was being tailed. Two SP behind him and another on the opposite side of the durocrete street. Locke shoved his hands in his gray pockets and felt the holdout blaster fleetingly. He pushed it down into the lower leg compartment on his cloth leggings hesitantly. I don’t want them to catch sight of that but . .if I need it, it’s going to take a while to get it out again. The SP trailing a poor little politician like me? I smell an agenda . .Locke thought dryly. I probably got too close to the Jedi investigation. Blast, I knew I shouldn’t have gotten involved with that holonews reporter. He’d drunkenly wooed a holonews reporter into his bedroom and she’d spilled a lot of the information he’d needed to grab a subpoena for the dead Jedi names. Officially there wasn’t an undercover segment of the Paladins, unofficially, he was their first and last ‘agent’. It was becoming increasingly hard not to let his personal feelings and biases enter into the political arena now that Darchind was going out of his way to capture or ‘mandate’ certain Paladin and Warriors-for-Justice members to stand trial for their allies ‘crimes’ against his court. It’s all laughable at this point, Locke thought, picking up the pace and trying to distance himself from the SP at his sides. But the Jedi Order is too busy handling the Mandalorian situation to pay enough attention to this little planetary squabble. Just too many systems that have been in the Republic for hundreds of years to pay attention to a pup like this one. Still, Locke was eager to add new information to his subpoena for the Jedi names. He was about to shed some light on all this . . There was a pin prick at the small of his back and the humble gloved grasp of an SP on his shoulder. Locke whirled, trying to break free of the grip, but it was like a durosteel vice. "Hey!" His body was jerked into the alley he’d been busy passing and he was shoved against the durocrete wall. "Keep quiet, jester." A breathless cold voice rasped behind him. "You’re in our sights now—." "Get your nerf-herding hands off me you stupid—." Locke felt a sudden shock on the small of his back, where the Vibroblade had been trained expertly at his spine. "Careful jester. Move too much and I might accidentally stick ya with this here shock-tip prototype." The man said behind him. Clearly he was enjoying his job. "Alright." Locke said, involuntary tears of pain streaking down his cheeks. "Just don’t stab me with that thing." What a day to walk down the wrong street on curfew time . .he thought desperately. "You’re going to come with us for a little walk down to the administrations building, then you’re going to have a little sit-down with our people." The man rasped coldly. Definitely something wrong with this one’s voice. "Alright, fine, just let go of me and we’ll walk and talk just like you said." Locke said, trying to free up his mind. You have to think clearly when negotiating with people, Alec Uban’s voice echoed strangely inside Locke’s head. It’s not enough to earn their trust—you have to earn information while doing so also. Locke nodded silently and just when he thought the man with the blade might slice into his back and try and relocate his spine, the vice relented. "Let’s go. Darchind is going to talk to you at length." Oh, that’s sounds just fine, Locke thought to himself, trying not to roll his eyes.