Captain Taro "Saint" Priak vs. Knight Remalia Manvar

Located within the Moddell Sector of the Outer Rim territories, the Endor system is a well known location of much importance to the Galactic Civil War. This was the location of the destruction of the second Death Star, and the deaths of both Emperor Palpatine and Darth Vader. It was this victory and this location that allowed the Rebel Alliance to become the New Republic.

The Forest Moon of Endor, designated IX3244-A, is the ninth moon of the planet Endor. Its surface is covered in dense forests of redwood trees. Several of these trees were connected via wood plank bridges and walkways by the local Ewok population, who made their homes within the trees, high above the forest floor.

You have arrived at night. The thick foliage of the trees blocks out almost all external light sources, making it very difficult to see without naturally or artificially enhanced vision, or at least some kind of light. The sounds of nearby streams can be heard, as well as the chirps of thousands of nearby insects and birds. As you begin to settle into the business that brought you here, the loud, startling “TOOO-ROOOO!” of some kind of horn rang out nearby... then another in the distance, and another.

“It should be around here somewhere,” muttered Remalia Manvar to herself while she hiked through one of Endor’s sprawling forests.

Although she had her issues with the way the Jedi of Odan-Urr conducted themselves, chiefly with how they comported with the wretched stooges of the Dark Side, she couldn’t deny the effectiveness of their intelligence-gathering apparatus. When her efforts to gather ancient teachings of the Jedi Order had started to fail, the archivists at the Praxeum on Kiast had pointed her in the right direction. Remalia hoped her current mission would yield similar fruits. She hoped the Force would guide her, because there was no way she could find a centuries-old temple in this maze of vegetation without it.

Everywhere she looked, redwoods stretched into the sky like the fingers of giants straining to grasp the stars above. Thousands of leaves spread in the best arrangement to capture as much sunlight as possible, producing such a dense canopy that almost no light made it to the forest floor. Fortunately, Remalia possessed such a proficiency in augmenting her body with the Force that enhancing her sight posed little difficulty.

As she walked, the detritus of the forest floor squished and crunched beneath the hard soles of her boots, occasionally sending small critters scurrying away. Not long after that, the pitter-patter of tiny feet was replaced by the resonant throng of a horn. And another. And another.

What was happening?

The sound of hurried footsteps coming toward her sent an unwelcome chill crawling along Remalia’s skin. It was a sensation born not from fear, but from the old instincts of a body created to kill. Although those days were behind her, she allowed her right hand to hover near one of her lightsabers . . . just in case.

A tall man and his droid companion appeared from behind a colossal redwood to Remalia’s right. They both were carrying blaster rifles in hand, and appeared to be in a hurry. In fact, in his haste, he ran directly into Remalia.

“Ow! What the—” he said through gritted teeth.

Remalia scoffed and shoved the large man away with one hand, saying, “Watch where you’re going.”

After regaining his footing, Taro raised a hairless brow at the woman standing before him. “Lot stronger than you look, ain’tcha?” he said, eyes drifting down to the lightsabers clipped to her waist. “You a Jedi? Great! You can help us with this little situation we got ourselves in.”

He turned and dipped his head in the direction from whence they’d come. “There must be forty or fifty Ewoks headed this way.”

“A hunting party is the term, if my memory banks are calibrated correctly,” ST-10 interjected.

Taro continued: “And they are pissed.”

Remalia narrowed her eyes, trying and failing to find a reason why she should care. “That sounds like a you problem,” she said before turning to leave, but she stopped when she felt a hand tug her arm. Looking back, her narrow eyes shot first to the stranger’s hand, then to his face. “Remove your hand before I cut it off.”

The hybrid gunslinger said nothing at first, letting the weight of the threat linger while he reached out with the Force to test its veracity. Although he’d expected to find feelings of annoyance or perhaps even anger, he sensed a cold indifference more suited for a droid than a person, let alone a Jedi. Weren’t they supposed to help people?

Taro pulled his hand away. “Come on, Stetson,” he said while waving his hand for the droid to follow. “We’ll deal with the Ewoks ourselves and find our way into that temple.”

Remalia’s eyes widened a touch. “Temple? What temple?”

“There’s some old-as-dirt temple one klick to the east. One of my business associates tipped me off to a lucrative operation runnin’ out of it, so Stetson and I figured we’d do what any pirates worth their salt would do . . . which is rob it. We’re gon’ rob them.”

So the Force was looking out for her after all, just not in the way she’d expected. This must have been the temple she had been searching for. As the implication of the man’s words dawned on her, Remalia’s relief was quickly replaced by the simmering heat of indignation. “I’m not going to let you and your tin can steal from a Jedi temple,” she said while pointing an accusatory finger at him.

Taro lifted his hands in a nonthreatening posture. “Not the temple, the Ewoks campin’ in the temple. We have no use for Jedi artifacts.” A sly grin crept onto his face when he thought of something brilliant. “But maybe you do. So how’s about you and I work together? You get to recover whatever’s in that temple for your people, and I get a nice payday?”

As they spoke, a chorus of resonant thrums echoed out from their right. The Ewoks were getting closer.

ST-10 stepped forward with its rifle in hand to carefully examine the treeline for signs of movement. Once it was certain there were no threats in the vicinity, it turned to address the two, its glowing yellow photoreceptors shuttering. “Whatever you decide, please do so with haste.”

Taro gave Remalia an expectant look.

“. . . fine,” she said, rolling her eyes, “but as soon as you get what you need, I want you and the droid out of the temple. Got it?”

“Fine with me,” said Taro with a shrug. He held out his hand to her. “Name’s Saint, by the way.”

“Remalia,” she said, although she ignored the gesture in favor of marching past him and his oddly-dressed droid, heading toward the sound of approaching footsteps. She unclipped one of her lightsabers — Beckon — from her hip and ignited it, casting her surroundings in a pale green glow.

Taro shook his head before placing his helmet on and marching forward. He and ST-10 advanced with their rifles in hand, creating a wide triangular formation with Remalia taking point.

Rustling in the trees to Taro’s left preceded a warning from the Force that made his breath catch in his throat. The instant his rifle’s multispectrum scope picked up an Ewok-shaped thermal signature, he squeezed the trigger. There was a flash of yellow and a shriek — the last sound the Ewok would ever make.

Chaos broke out after that. Armed with arrows, spears, and sling-propelled stones, the Ewoks unleashed a vicious assault on the trio.

When Remalia opened her mind to the Force, the forest lit up with the life forces of every living being in her surroundings. They burned like flames in the cool night air and eliminated her need to rely upon the Force to enhance her sight going forward, so she dropped it in favor of devoting her concentration to defending herself against the volley of projectiles coming toward her. Her natural agility combined with her armor’s hydraulic exoskeleton allowed her to slice through two arrows before blitzing the Ewok that fired them before it could nock a third. A strong kick to its furry chest hurled it skipping backward across the ground like a stone on a lake.

“There are a lot more than forty!” she shouted before leaning sideways to narrowly avoid a stone that would have cracked her skull had she not heeded the Force’s warning.

“Hope you see why I was runnin’ before, then!” Taro replied. After firing three shots, he tapped into the Force to teleport himself atop a heavy branch on a nearby tree. There was nothing better than a height advantage when laying suppressing fire on enemies.

Meanwhile, ST-10 focused on providing covering fire for Remalia with its CX-101 Crystal Blaster Rifle. Powered by ascendant crystal technology, the weapon fired blaster bolts with a potent burning effect that made a mess of organic material.

The firefight lasted for a few more seconds before the Ewok’s projectiles stopped flying toward them. No member of the trio relaxed their hold on their weapons, though.

“You pickin’ up anything?” asked Taro while scanning the area ahead of them with his blaster rifle’s scope. “Nothin’s comin’ up on thermal.”

Remalia nodded. “They’re retreating.”

“Can’t say I blame them after the whippin’ we just ga—”

“Wait,” Remalia said, “something’s coming, and they’re moving fast.”

A palpable tension hung in the air as the trio readied their weapons, waiting for whatever it was headed their way. The sound of several sets of footsteps moving quickly toward them cut through the silence.

The jungle was quiet, in the way of jungles. The sounds of insects, rustling leaves, and scurrying creatures filled the space between the trees with a dull roar that was interrupted often by the calls of distant birds, but it was all easily and naturally tuned out by any who spent more than a few hours in one. That was a fact of necessity more than convenience, as anyone who didn’t wouldn’t be able to sleep at night, and more relevant to Remy’s current situation, they would not be able to hear any sounds that were distinctly out of place.

Through the Force she felt nothing more than a group of five ewoks moving towards them at an unnatural speed, which she began reacting to immediately by charging right back. The more concerning problem is that they did not run like ewoks. To the best of Remy’s knowledge, the small tree dwellers did not tame mounts for battle, but the quick, rhythmic thumps and cracks were of particularly heavy cavalry. Not what she would expect in any ecosystem so choked with roots and underbrush, doubly so from what she knew of how they repelled the Imperial occupation, the only true knowledge of the species Remy had ever bothered to learn. Waiting until the last second, Remy reached out with one hand and used the Force to flatten all of the underbrush between the spot where she had started and the mystery ewok knights, giving Saint a clear sightline and herself a good look at her opponents.

Impossibly, her opponents seemed to be riding squat, quadrapedal droids of all things. All five were whirling a sling in one paw and tucking a long spear under their other arm like lancers in miniature, only responding to the clear view with battle cries in their high pitched voices. Igniting Beckon, Remy kicked her feet forward into a slide and swung out to cut the spearhead off the central knight. Shoved forward by the momentum of her supernatural speed and the force of her jetpack, she twisted and kicked upward, carrying the droid into the air as the rest tried to swing their lances around and spear her. One managed to carve a furrow through her left arm, but they otherwise blew right past the Jedi and kept on their charge with an angry stream of ewokese. Remy then kicked down with the same strength and straightened, her jetpacks nozzles aiming to spring her upwards, and she made a grab for the knight that was now comically flying through the air. Before she could grasp the furry creature, it whipped the sling out with a curse that was certainly vile, despite her inability to understand it, and she turned the grab into a strike that made the creature fly backwards into a tree with enough force to make an audible crack.

Landing, Remy looked up prepared to face another charge, but saw two smoking wrecks, two ewok corpses, and two fleeing knights, Saint hopping down from the low bough of a nearby tree.

“Now that’s not somethin’ ya see everyday…” he mumbled as he turned one of the broken droid mounts over with his foot.

Like everything the ewoks made, it had the appearance of something ramshackle. In lieu of armor there was bark, and everything was tied together with ropes of dried vines. The mounts appeared to be the lower halves of a pair of common worker droids tied to the bottom of a log. Like everything ewoks made, it seemed to function like it was designed for the purpose, despite looking like any scrap one might find built by children living near a junkyard.

“I see. Not what I had expected, but it makes sense,” Remy stooped to prod at the one droid-log that remained standing, “Ewoks have remained technologically stagnant for centuries, but have learned to make the absolute best of everything they get their paws on. They beat the greatest military the Galaxy has seen in the last millenium with sticks and rocks.”

“An’ now they had decades ta learn how ta make use o’ the old Imperial gear left on world,” Saint gave a whistle, “Any chance ya think they got blasters an’ AT-ATs at that temple?”

Remy stood and looked in the direction all of the retreating forces had gone. This was proving to be far more annoying than she had planned for.

“Not… likely. Any gas canisters have likely long been used up or expired, and vehicles like that have too many sensitive parts to go this long without an actual mechanic to keep them up.”

ST-10 finished a slow loop of the area and stepped closer to the other pair, “These mounts are still powered, somehow, and no battery is lasting that long. Do you think they figured out plasma generators too?”

Saint rubbed the chin of his helmet and nodded sagely, idly thumbing the safety on his rifle, “Yes, an’ no. Sustenance Reactors, most called ‘em. Could stuff ‘em with anythin’ that burns an’ they pump out power fer anythin’ ya need. Empire used ‘em for any settlement that needed constant power but couldn’ justify settin’ up a whole permanent power network n’ what have you. If’n anybody knows what grows fast an’ burns hot on Endor, it’d be these fellas.”

Remy started moving in the direction she was watching. No point in waiting unless she had days, and she most certainly did not.

“Then no vehicles or blasters, but energy shields, lasers, any number of functioning droid pieces reworked into weaponry and traps…”

“Say no more,” the Mandalorian interjected, “Ah wanna be surprised. Ah’ll do some scoutin’ an’ meet ya there.”

Remy turned her head to look quizzically at him, but when she did, he was already gone.

“He does this sometimes. If I had a heart, I would have hypertension.”

The droid waved a nonchalant hand and locked its blaster to its back, “I will run ahead to catch up sooner. I know most of you fleshy types require stamina management, but I would suggest being quick if you want to be a part of the coming battle.”

Remy had no response to offer before ST-10 took off at a run, its ungainly and rigid stride somehow not tripping it up on the thick root systems sprawling on the forest floor.

It was almost satisfying to immediately pass the droid. Remy's jetpack was a product of the recent war, so it wasn’t that surprising that they didn’t recognise it as one, but did it really think she had just walked all the way out here? Regardless, it was going to take a while for that MFX to catch up to the two “fleshy types,” and it briefly made Remy wonder if droids could feel shame.

That was unimportant, however. What was far more important, was that she could only kind of Sense the ewok “hunting party” that had chased Saint to her in the first place. She could feel many of them, somewhere in the twenties to thirties, but they seemed to… fade, occasionally. It was difficult to parse, but it felt like there was some column of smoke in the Force, and the enemies were walking into it, becoming hazy before disappearing, then later coming out the other side. In truth, that meant there could be any number of combatants in there, which was concerning.

It didn’t take long for her to spot her… ally seemed too strong of a word, but it would have to suffice for the moment. Saint sat almost lazily on a branch with his rifle's scope to his visor, looking across a small valley to the steep incline on the other side. It was obvious what he was looking at. Not only was the other side of the valley crawling with ewoks, but it was armored. The paths and switchbacks that criss-crossed the slope were covered by foot tall walls of durasteel plating, with small bunkers sticking up like shiny, vine-covered boulders dotting the hillside. It was all still cobbled together, of course, but short of high explosives, Remy knew that wouldn’t matter. Ewoks didn’t do things halfway, and durasteel was durasteel, no matter who stood behind it.

“This is concerning,” she said as she lowered her altitude to Saints bough, “Any chance surprise will matter?”

“Oh, they know we’re ‘ere,” Saint said, turning to face her.

An arrow stuck out from the glass of his visor. Either he was short of an eye, or it was close enough that he would have a hard time blinking without cutting his eyelid. Raising his rifle again, Saint turned back to his inspections.

“The ‘huntin’ party’ was ta bait us back ta this ‘ere fortress. They’re pretendin’ they don’t know I’m ‘ere, but ah…” he shrugged his shoulders, “Marchin’ like soldiers ain’t mean they got th’ discipline.”

Remy crossed her arms as she turned back to the fortifications. An entrenched, heavily armed enemy with far superior numbers and a planned ambush. Things were finally beginning to feel like a normal job.

“Wait, you said they were camped in the temple? Is this just a forward garrison?”

Saint chuckled and motioned with his blaster to the whole encampment.

“What’re ya talkin’ about? Ain’t Jedi supposed ta know their own temples? It’s overgrown and ‘alf crumbled, but that’s it.”

Remy’s brow furrowed with frustrated realization. The small caves the ewoks were ducking in and out of… were rather square. And the bits of exposed stone here and there were all the same color; white, not the normal mottled greys and browns of stone in this area.

“This place must be ancient, then. It explains the cloud in the Force, they must be… doing something to it in there.”

“Yep. Doin’ somethin’ ta all kinds a normal signals too. Thermals, comms, even mah rangefinder ain’t workin’ right. Think they messin’ with some Jedi artifacts er somn’?”

“I don’t see what that could…”

The behavior of the ewoks changed. Instead of scampering hither and thither, they began to consolidate and gather, mostly towards the top. Drums began to beat, and the largest group of ewoks outside of the largest cave began to cheer as some door inside opened, letting actual black smoke billow out. More of the mounted knights followed quickly behind, shoving the more eager of the ewok soldiers back.

“Lookin’ like they’re tired a waitin’. If’n they got some war leader, this might be easier than I thought. No shields, far as ah can tell…”

True to his word, one ewok about half again as large as the rest climbed out of the black smoke, this one actually wearing armor that seemed glossy and black. Channeling the Force to her eyes, Remy looked closer, details seeming to jump out to her. Indeed, they were wearing black plastoid armor over a patchwork bodyglove, much of it apparently melted into pieces to fit, but the breastplate seemed to be a pauldron of the original set. Emblazoned on that was the symbol of the old empire, painted in silver. They held a staff of polished wood with a chunk of electronics on the end in one paw. The far more concerning bit was that this new ewoks eyes seemed to be focused right on hers, like they were standing no more than a foot apart. Bright, yellow eyes.

A single blaster shot rang out, almost covered by the sounds of increasingly aggressive cheering, a bolt of orange energy slashing through the sky towards the dark ewok. Then, a short beam of red plasma ignited and swatted it right back.

“They found an Inquisitor's old things, it seems.”

Saint craned his head to the side to let his own blaster bolt whizz by, then nodded.

“Give ‘em hell, Knight. We got yer back.”

Remy let her jetpack drop her to the forest floor with a thud, then began to stride, clearing her mind and igniting her sabers. Time to go to work, chances be damned.

The rush of battle was not just familiar to Remalia, but comforting. Although she had strove to make more of herself in the last year, to grow into something more than just a weapon, a small part of herself relished the opportunity to let loose again.

With both sabers in hand, she cleared her mind of everything except for the mission and the myriad Ewoks who stood between her and completing it. She had heard tales of Dark Jedi and Sith who could tap into their Rage to strengthen themselves in the Force. She’d learned that she could do the same not with hate or jealousy, but with a righteous fury and determination to eradicate evil from the Galaxy. It was poetic, in a way — an instrument of evil turned against its makers. The excited energy Remalia often felt before a battle was replaced by an unshakable, nigh single-minded drive to complete her mission. And with that clarity of purpose came a boost to her speed, strength, and agility that eclipsed what her natural athleticism and even her exoskeleton allowed.

When the first volley of projectiles descended upon her, the Echani Jedi took flight with her jetpack, propelling herself up and then forward at a sharp angle. The two Ewoks huddled behind a durasteel embankment jumped with surprise when she landed beside them, but neither were able to react before she bisected them with a quick flourish of her sabers.

While ST-10 remained in its vantage point to pick off what Ewoks it could from higher ground, Taro pressed forward with his Mandalorian Assault Rifle in hand. He’d removed the arrow from his visor, and while the arrow hadn’t taken his eye, it had left him with a gash trailing from the corner to his temple that left a stream of blood running down the left side of his face. How annoying. He was going to pay these bastards back tenfold for this injury.

“Take this, you furry little Dark Side-obsessed freaks!” he shouted while squeezing his rifle’s trigger. While in its auto-fire mode, the weapon practically roared as yellow bolts leaped from the barrel in rapid succession, cutting through the Ewok ranks with brutal efficiency.

Four of the droidriders broke away from the group currently being mowed down by Taro’s shots in an attempt to rush him from the left. He aimed the rifle at them and squeezed the trigger, only to curse when he realized he’d hit the duration of its auto-fire mode. There was no time to change it back either.

He had a better idea. When the Ewok cavalry were close enough to jab out at him with their wooden spears, he tapped into the Force to instantly transport all of them nearly one-hundred meters in the air. Although he didn’t bother to look, the sound of bodies thudding against the ground behind him was all the confirmation he needed that they’d met their end.

Taro and Remalia felled their enemies with such speed and deadly precision that many of the Ewoks fled before they ever got a chance to engage them. Before long, it was just them, ST-10, and the Ewok leader. Remalia dashed forward, confident that her strength and speed would overwhelm the dastardly little creature. She crossed her sabers in front of her to slash in an upward “xesh” pattern but felt her breath catch in her throat when she felt her muscles seize.

It was as if her body and all the momentum she’d built during the battle had slowed to a crawl. Her mind was still intact, though, and she felt a flash of infuriating helplessness in her gut as she watched the Ewok circle to her right. The crimson glow of the Ewok’s lightsaber shone in the corner of her eye. She wanted to scream in defiance, but she couldn’t, not when she hadn’t even finished her initial attack.

But she had a mission to complete. This wasn’t where she was going to die, not to some Inquisitor wannabe on this humid-as-kark planet. She dipped into the wellspring of the Force again to trigger her rampage, instantly shattering the slowing effect the Ewok had produced just in time for her to whirl around and block its overhead cut.

The armored form of her gunslinging ally came rushing up from the Ewok’s flank, firing shots from his blaster that forced it on the defensive. Its saber became a blur of vermillion in front of it as it batted the bolts aside while stepping backward. Taro kept firing, but one of the shots hit the Ewok’s saber in an angle that sent it back at him too fast for him to evade. The bolt struck his chestplate with enough force that it briefly knocked the wind out of him.

Remalia continued her offensive, battering the Ewok’s saber so hard that it sent it toppling over the broken remains of a droid mount. She marched forward, pointing the tip of her saber at the Ewok as it stumbled backward.

With a bewildered, fearful look in its eyes, the Ewok kept its saber in a protective posture between himself and its Jedi assailant. Then, in a mix of Ewokese and broken Basic, it screamed: “Yub underestimate my nub!”

Then, it thrust its free hand forward while projecting a powerful wave of telekinetic force from its palm. Remalia mirrored the same motion with her hand, producing her own Force push that met her adversary’s and overtook it, sending it flying backward until it crashed into one of the durasteel walls with a loud crunch.

Taro arrived to see the Ewok collapse into a bloody heap on the ground, and took that opportunity to call its lightsaber to his hand with the Force. “He dead?” he asked while clipping the weapon to his belt.

Remalia shook her head. “He’s still alive, but barely.”

“Right,” Taro muttered before casting a glance to where ST-10 was perched in a tree, “Stetson, watch the Ewok while Knight and I see what they had cookin’ up in that temple.” The hybrid didn’t wait for a reply from his droid companion, though. Instead, he used the Force to teleport him to where they were standing.

ST-10 landed on its feet in front of them. “You know I detest when you do that,” it said before turning to train its blaster rifle on the unconscious Ewok. “Do hurry, Saint. I’ve had enough of this planet and its bloodthirsty inhabitants.”

“Don’t gotta tell me twice, Stetson. We’ll be back faster than you can shutter your photoreceptors,” Taro said before turning toward what remained standing of the temple complex.

“Unlikely.”

Both Remalia and Taro were relieved to see that there were no more Ewoks taking cover in the temple proper. That relief was short-lived. As they approached the door leading to the room they’d seen earlier, a feeling of dread formed in their stomachs and twisted them into knots.

“The Dark Side is so strong here . . . it isn’t right,” Remalia intoned. “This was once a place teeming with life, with light. Now it’s been corrupted like everything else.” She kept one of her sabers ignited while carefully moving forward.

“Maybe once we get rid of whatever’s causin’ it, it’ll go back to normal. Then Stetson and I’ll be outta your hair, and you can collect whatever fancy Jedi artifacts you can find.”

Remalia nodded. “You’re right. Let’s get this over with.”

She waved her hand to pull the door open with the Force. As soon as the door opened, pillars of black smoke crawled up the weathered walls of the dilapidated temple like writhing serpents. As a foul odor overtook the room, she buried her nose in her sleeve to ward off as much of the stench as she could. Her saber’s lambent aura illuminated the room well enough for them to see the stone altar in the middle of the floor.

Surrounded by strange wooden and stone reliefs with symbols carved in them that neither recognized was a creature. No longer than the hilt of Remalia’s saber, it was curled up on itself in a way that made it resemble a tooka or some other house pet, but the strong aura of the Dark Side surrounding dissuaded either from taking a step further. Its little torso grew and shrank with quick, steady breaths.

“I think it’s sleepin’,” said Taro.

“Good. That’ll make it easier to kill,” Remalia answered while raising her saber, but Taro taking a half-step to the left to place himself between her and it prompted her to lower it. “What are you doing?”

“You can’t kill it.”

“Of course I can. Can you feel that thing? It’s Sithspawn, either twisted or wholly created by Dark Side alchemy. It must be destroyed for its own sake and the sake of all the innocent lives it’ll end if it’s left alive.”

There was that Jedi moral grandstanding that Taro had heard so much about. “Look, I told you I’d not steal anythin’ that belonged to the temple, and I’m a man of my word. But this unnervin’ little critter doesn’t belong to the temple, and I’ve got a strong feelin’ that it’ll earn me a lot of credits.”

Remalia’s eyes narrowed, and she angled her saber in his direction, but she didn’t point it at him just yet. “You’re going to sell that thing?” she asked. The words sounded just as preposterous leaving her lips as they had his.

Taro nodded. “To the highest bidder.”

“I can’t let you do that, Saint,” Remalia countered, “That creature . . . that thing isn’t leaving here alive.”

Taro sighed. “I don’t wanna fight you, Knight.”

“So just walk away.”

“I’m not leavin’ here without completin’ my mission, same as you.”

“We are not the same!” she shouted, a flash of anger slipping through the veil of stoic poise she’d maintained thus far. She shoved past him and marched over to where the creature was sleeping.

Taro saw her strike with her saber, and instinctively reached out to wrap the sleeping creature in a blanket of the Force to pull it into his arms. The saber sliced through the stone receptacle it had been lying in just a moment before.

Remalia whirled around with fury in her eyes and unleashed a flurry of strikes with her saber. The lanky pirate was nothing if not agile, though, and avoided each of her strikes while holding the sleeping monstrosity in his arms.

“Killin’ innocent creatures ain’t very Jedi like, Knight,” he said while ducking and sidestepping her strikes, relying on pure instinct and the Force to narrowly avoid being cut to bits. One cut meant to end him instead struck the wall behind him, leaving a bright orange gash in the stone.

He’d disappeared again. Remalia reached out with the Force to find him but the Dark Side aura lingering within the temple made it impossible to tell where he’d gone. Her grip on her saber tightened, and she mentally cursed herself for not acting faster to kill the creature. “Juvenile or not, nothing so entrenched in the Dark Side is innocent,” she intoned while glancing at the altar again. As the flickering light of her saber illuminated it and the spot where the vile Sithspawn had slept, she made a silent promise to find Saint and make him pay for what he’d done.

After two steps, Remy accelerated to a jog. Then after another two she was running, then dashing. Her body was honed through decades of carefully optimized training, her muscles rewritten and retrofitted with experimental and unholy biotechnology. Every movement was amplified by the technology looted from the Collective, and then even further by the Force pouring through her entire body. As she ran down the hillside to the bottom of the valley, she didn’t even stop to fight the first line of ewok infantry, simply crashing through the small creatures with a might that sent the lucky ones flying off hither and thither. The unlucky ones went flying hither and thither. Near the bottom, she turned her run into a jump and rocketed to the other side of the gorge, nearly fifty feet above the creek at the bottom. She crashed down horizontally on one of the durasteel plates guarding the footpaths, and the force of it crushed the wooden struts and bent the metal itself, slamming the whole thing into the valley wall. Startled screams revealed that the path was not unoccupied, but that didn’t slow her down at all.

Turning to the path upwards, Remy saw the defenders of this fortress were not deterred, a pair of the droid-mounted knights charging ahead a small column of archers. A push with the Force dismounted them, and the sabers dealt with the rest, but as she rounded the next switchback a bolt of lightning crashed in front of her, stopping her dead. Looking up, Remy realised that patches of black clouds had begun forming from the filthy smoke billowing out of the temple, and that they were beginning to crackle with power. Fighting her way up these fortified paths would take far too long… and it was also exactly what they were set up for.

Changing plans, Remy jumped up to the nearest wall, quickly erecting a small Barrier to block the wave of arrows that followed, then began leaping up the hillside towards her true opponent.

Saint sat on his bough, still so relaxed that a casual observer might think him indolent. Indeed, he hummed quietly to himself as he worked, aiming a single shot to blow apart an archer with what looked like a longbow. Then, just as casually, he swooped his aim downward and switched his rifle to full-auto and scythed down the front rank of infantry climbing up the hillside to his own tree. Thankfully, it seemed the crazy Jedi was very adept at drawing as much attention as possible. He actually felt that the ones dying to blaster or saber were getting it easy compared to some of the others. Remy seemed to be adept at leaving red smears everywhere she went.

Switching back to long range, he shot the mount out from under one of those ewok knights, then the backpack of one that looked like it was wearing some kind of power armor. It seemed his bet of that being a plasma battery was correct as a blue explosion tore through it and its nearby squad. They probably made some exosuit out of droid parts.

Turning back to push back the ground forces again, he noticed that ST-10 had finally caught up and started putting in its own work.

“Glad ya could join us!” He called down, then pointed off to the right, “But git over there n’ focus on breakin’ up big charges! Leave the butchers work ta us!”

The droid didn’t reply, simply began running with its legs as its arms continued to work its weapon. Stetson was a snarky bastard most of the time, but when seconds meant life or death, orders were orders.

Unfortunately, the wave of ewok ground forces would not be held back any longer, even with two of them laying into them, crawling over their own dead. Standing on his branch, Saint moved his rifle to his back and thumbed the ignition button on one of his detonators. Continuing to hum, he stretched a little with the beeping barely cutting through the growing yells of enemies climbing his tree. He drew Cheap Lesson and High Price, giving them a small inspection in one hand. Then, pulling the bomb off his belt, he dropped it.

The explosion happened a fraction of a second before it could hit the ground, and with a surge of the Force, Saint stepped out of the smoke a fraction of a second after that, each of his pistols finding target after target. The wounded and dying surrounded him, but with the determination of the insane or mind-controlled, the ewoks continued charging with spears and clubs.

Saint’s steps were quick and lively, almost like dancing. With the height difference, even small hops and quick teleports were enough to confound the stubby reach of these creatures.

Warping to the other side of the valley, Saint began to follow in Remy's footsteps, leaving almost as many corpses as she. He continued humming as he picked up the pace, trying to at least close the distance.

This wasn’t a fight, at least not yet. Just exercise.

Remy had deactivated and stowed Beckon, using just Promises purple blade for when armor necessitated its use. Instead, her other arm held the battered body of an ewok wearing cobbled together power armor, fabricated from droid bodies and old Stormtrooper armor. Swinging it in a wide loop, the heavy suit crushed another two infantry with her strength behind it, and she let the momentum carry it away before the battery pack exploded like a grenade.

Over halfway up the hellside, the defenses were beginning to become more complex, and the fact that this was previously a Jedi temple more obvious. Faint remnants of carvings showed through moss and vines, and window slits permitted… an AT-ATs grenade launcher.

A loud thump sounded and Remy barely ducked in time to not get blasted in the face with a chunk of rock the size of her head. It seemed they got the weapons working, even if they had no explosives left to arm them with. Throwing out her free hand, the weapon slammed back through its window and crunched into its wielder.

The painful ascent was leaving its mark. Piercing arrows, cuts from javelins, bruises from clubs. She could hear that Sith ewok now, bellowing in a voice that was supernaturally deep for one of their kind. It sounded almost like a human voice.

Moving to the next path up, she lost her footing as a pair of huge AT-AT legs shot out from their place hidden behind the armor plating. The wall careened off into open air and Remy barely managed to land on her feet, two ewoks in Stormtrooper armor hopping on top of them to swing at her with clubs. Worryingly, they actually blocked Promise for a moment, and as they fell she noticed they had scrawlings of some inherently disgusting dialect of ewokese.

The armored infantry was thankfully in short supply, allowing her to burst into the entrance of the temple with only a bit more running, though she could hear the fighting continuing behind her. Activating and dropping her smoke grenades for a smokescreen, she turned to move into the entrance.

The inside of the temple was choked with thick smoke and most of it seemed to be filled with living quarters. Remy passed room after room of hammocks, storage, and small kitchens, but she still could not sense any life in here. It was becoming increasingly obvious that the smoke was more than just normal smoke. The weapons outside made it obvious to her that, somehow, the ewok in here not only pieced together Sith teachings on the Dark Side from the Inquisitors belongings, but it also figured out the basics of Sith alchemy.

Rounding another corner, she stopped dead. In front of her, the hallway simply ended, steel cabling forming a sturdy bridge into the large, mined out central chamber of the temple. Everything was gone from what was probably a library. They had likely cleared it out , then continued mining away at the walls, ceiling, and even the floor to make more space in the now cavernous room. More of the cable bridges attached between exposed doorways and windows to other, smaller parts of the temple, and many led down to the main attraction of the room.

Down, far down in the center of the room, the Sith stood on a platform about a hundred feet wide, surrounded by their plastoid-clad elites. Behind them, there was what looked like a throne, small enough for an ewok, and behind that… a huge metal monstrosity that looked like it may have, at one point been what Saint had called a “Sustenance Reactor.” It looked as ramshackle as everything else now, spare parts slapped on willy nilly, and that revolting Darkness corrupted Ewokese covering a huge metal body of turning axles and grinding cogs, the front of the thing a huge, gaping maw of whirling sawblades and fire so hot the air rippled, even from her distant vantage.

Remy wasted no time, charging down to meet her new foes, uncertain if she would win. The Force filled her completely, pushing out all emotion and weakness, but the extreme power that granted might not be enough, given how much she had been bleeding.

Then, from across the room, a volley of orange blasterfire slammed into one of the ewok elites, sending them screeching into the darkness below. Looking up, she saw Saint there, crouching at one of the entrances to the cavern.

Not letting herself lose focus, Remy used her jetpack to leap the rest of the distance and the true fight began. Her green and purple blades meeting the red blade of the Sith. He, Remy guessed it was a he, cackled and swung outward with supernatural strength and flipped her away, raising a hand that clenched into a fist. Bolts of lightning slashed down from the smoke, barely blocked by plasma. The elites behind her seemed to be occupied with Saint for the moment, so the Sith stepped forward and spoke, planting his saberpike vertical to his side. Remy didn’t react to his speech, and not only because she didn’t understand it. Raising both hands, she simply shoved, using every ounce of power she had left. Stopping mid word, the Sith did the same, seemingly annoyed his speech was thwarted, but he didn’t seem nearly as put out as she was. He had simply not had to fight yet, and she had killed probably close to three hundred ewoks already today.

Remy's feet slid backward. Only an inch, but she could barely hold onto her focus with this exhaustion. She felt her perfect focus begin to slip, the Force leaking from her body and taking the rest of her energy with it.

“Sorry I’m late, Darlin’. Need a hand?”

Looking to her left, she saw a hand holding a blaster over her shoulder, just in time for it to fire. With what must be a foul curse, the Sith swung forward to block the shot- and was immediately blasted backward by Remy, directly into the flaming mouth of the Sustenance Reactor.

Collapsing onto her stomach, Remy reached out to Sense if any were left… and there was still some outside. They were dying to something out there, but they also seemed to feel fear, and were running away, now.

“Well lookit that!” Saint moved to the edge of the platform and looked down into the darkness, “Looks like they were growing Ghostmoss! Didn’t know the stuff could be used as fuel, but that’ll fetch me a nifty finders fee.”

Turning back to Remy, he shrugged his shoulder a small amount and holstered his pistol.

“Well, I’m gonna go up an’ help secure this place. You can, uh… rest here, ah suppose. Pleasure doin’ business with ya.”

With that, Saint sauntered up one of the bridges and away. Sauntered. While Remy was stuck laying here.