Chapter 4

Des sat down on his bunk and started to remove the plates of his armor, leaving him clad in only his bodysuit. Hearing the sound of boots on the metal deck, he looked up to see Sev sit down on the bunk across from his. Sev looked exactly like Des, for they were both clones after all. Sev placed his DC-17 in his locker, and started to take off his armor.

"So, have you heard about our new commander?" Sev asked as he took off the right arm bracer.

"Yeah. Heard she was real chummy with Omega." Des replied as he dissasembled his DC. Rumors and gossip traveled faster han the speed of light in the miltary. And even faster with the Commando groups.

"I was told she took it several steps further with one of them."

Des cocked an eyebrow at this. Now this was really interesting.

"Aren't Jedi supposed to not form attachments and all that osik?"

"She's different. This one cares."

Des grunted in aknowledgement. He didn't believe that. All the Jedi saw the clones as cannon fodder, a means to an end. But Des had been wrong before, and he was open to new things. Laying down, Des closed his eyes and fell asleep. Being able to sleep anywhere and at anytime was a skill that all soldiers could do so well.

Hearing the sound of the door at the end of the barracks open, Des woke up to see Niner, Beta Squad's Sergeant, and Bor'ven, walk into the room. Niner, like the rest of Beta Suqad, wore dark grey Katarn armor, but unlike them, he wore a camo net over it. Without any camo-strips woven into it, the net looked like a spider had decided to make the exterior of his armor its home.

"Saddle up boys. General Tur-mukan is waiting for us. Let's not keep her waiting."

Everfree forest/ Equestria

Darth Bane let the griffon's now headless body fall back to the ground. Deactivating his lightsaber, he hooked it onto his belt and stepped over the dead body. The griffon, who's name started with a G but Bane couldn't remember the rest, had very little information, but had served its purpose. He now knew more about were he was. Darth Bane was in a forest called the Everfree in a country called Equestria, which was ran by two alicorn Princesses known as Celestia and Luna, who were thousands of years old. The younger of the two sisters, Luna, had just recently come back from a banishment after she had tried to take over Equestria after she had grown jealous of her sister. Though Darth Bane wondered why the older of the two, Celestia, hadn't killed Luna after the attemted coup. He guessed that Celestia was sentimental. Sentimentality made you weak, and weakness could get you killed. At the last thought, Darth Bane's face cracked ino a rare smile as a plan started to form in his mind.

Aboard the Relentless

Something was wrong, very wrong. The deck shook as the ship took another hit. Niner had sent Des to the bridge to find out what whas happening after he had failed to raise General Tur-Mukan on the comlink. After several more turns, Des finally saw the doors that led to the bridge. Stepping onto the bridge, Des found himself amidst a scene of organized chaos. Men rushed back and forth,carrying out certain tasks that Des couldn't even begin to understand. At the center of it all stood five figures.

The first one Des spotted was Lowbacca. The wookie that had promised to Sergeant Kal Skirata to protect Getain Tur-Mukan. Lowbacca was about an average height for a wookie, two metres, and had grey brown hair covering his entire body. The second figure was a Twi'lek named Kooren. Kooren was short for a Twi'lek, only about five feet and three inches tall. She had red skin, which was extremely rare. Kooren had been exiled by the Jedi Council nearly fifteen years before, and would be their guide on the planet Fondor. Next was the short and skiny figure of Jedi General Etain Tur-Mukan. She wore the tan robes of a Jedi and had two lightsabers attached to her belt. She had pale white skin with freckles scattered across her face. Her eyes were a dark brown and she had shoulder length brown hair. Across her back was a LJ-50 conc rifle that made her look like the rifle's attachment. The next and last figure was Captain Gordon. Everything about Gordon was average. He was medium sized, with his naval uniform worn neatly, and his grey hair shaved close to his skull.

"Captain... General." Des said as he saluted them. The Captain ignored him, but Etain turned to meet Des.

"Good morning..." Etain said. She was young. Probably no more than eighteen years old, which was probably a little young for a Jedi Knight but Des didn't know. It took him a minute for him to figure out she was waiting for him to tell her his name.

"... Des ma'am."

"Well good morning Des."

"Ma'am, what's attacking us and how can Beta Squad assist?"

"Captain?"

"No the-" the Captain was interupted when the ship took a turbolaser hit.

"Helm! Come to bearing 0-2-7! Declination ten degrees!" the Captain yelle

"Bearing 0-2-7! Declination Ten degrees aye sir!" came the respnse from one of the clones.

"Angels Squadron. I need you to harass the Battle-cruiser. Buy us some time." the Captain said. The Relentless had an escort of two squadrons of Corellian Gunships and four squadrons of ARC-170's. And he had just ordered three of the six gunships against a ship twice the size of the Relentless and had three times as many guns. In Des's opinion this wasn't very smart. But then he saw what was displayed on the tactical holochart in front of him. They were severly outmatched, but if what the Captain was attempting worked, it would allow the Republic forces to get out with their skin intact.

The Relentless and its escorts faced a combined force of eight droid fighter squadrons, two Trandoshan slave ships, an Interdictor-class cruiser, and a Techno-Union Battlecruiser. In short, it was an impossible fight. But if they could take out the Interdictor, they could make the transition to Hyperspace. An Interdictor-class cruiser sacrificed firepower for four large Gravity Well generators, which could trick a shp's hyperdrive that a planet size object was in the target ship's path, thus bringing it out of Hyperspace. It could also be used to prevent a ship from entering Hyperspace as it was doing now. But since it lacked the firepower of a normal capitol ship of its size and couldn't defend itself except from close range strafing runs, and so rarely travelled without an escort.

The Confederate commander had made the mistake of leaving the Interdictor exposed along his right flank. Apparently, Captain Gordon had spotted this and was deploying the Corellian Gunships to distact the enemy so he could close with the Interdictor and disable or destroy it. He was rellying on the Corellian Gunship's heavy armor so they could get in close and do what every spaceship captain dreaded. A close quarters shootout. But the manuevre was extremely flawed. First of all, the gunships would have to get past the awesome firepower of the Battlecruiser, and then it would have to deal with the Trandoshan Slave ships as they simultaneously fought the Battlecruiser in close quartes combat. In short it was a suicide mission... a suicide mission for everyone but Corellians. Des had seen six Headhunter snubfighters with Corellian pilots go up against a Trade Federation Cruiser and suffered only four cassualties and with the Cruiser destroyed with all hands.

The second issue was that the captain was holding back most of his forces. A mistake that could cost them their lives.

"Captain!" Des called out.

"What is it trooper?" the captain growled.

"Sir, you're making a tactical mistake. You need to pull back the fighter squadrons to run interference and deploy all the gunships to take out that Battlecruiser, sir."

"I'm not trying to take it out. I'm bying us some time." the captain relied as he turned away.

"Captain, if you don't do this. Those Gunships won't even be able to get three fourths of the way there. But if you deploy all of them Not only will they actually make it, but they will be able to at least dissable both of the Tandoshan ships and damage the Battlecruiser with minimal casualties and with at least three of the gunships intact, sir." Des said. Captain Gordon whirled around, clearly angry.

"If there's one thing I don'tneed to deal with right, it's some kriffing... clone... who thinks he know's more about naval combat than his Captain!" the Captain yelled.

"Then captain... you are being relieved of your command." Des said as he nodded to two MAA's (Master at Arms... essentially naval military police) who stepped forward to grab the captain.

"This is mutiny!" the captain yelled.

"No sir. Naval law says that you are a danger to yourself and the entire crew."

"Acceptable losses!"

"No captain. The death of General Etain Tur-Mukan is not and acceptable loss."

"You're supposed to be completely obedient!"

"No sir. You obviously don't understand basic genetics. You can't predispose someone to be obedient. Only more likely to follow orders."

The captain was now thoroughly enraged. He pulled out his pistol and aimed it at Des. In response, Des dashed forward and twisted the pistol from the captain's hands, breaking several of his fingers in the process. Twisting his left hand, Des turned the captain and yanked his arm down breaking it and bone tore through his uniform, splattering blood over Kooren.

"Now you will release your command to General Tur-Mukan."

"Frag you." the captain said after screaming. In response, Des pulled the captain's arm down further.

"Do it."

"Fine. As captain of the Relentless; I, Captain Gordon, relinquish my command and all vessels, material, and personnel, to Jedi General Etain Tur-Mukan."

"I stand witness to the change of command." a MAA said.

"I accept the change of command." Etain said quietly. Her face betrayed her emotions to Des. Anyone else wouldn't have noticed, but Des had been raised among a million men who looked exactly like himself. Etain was horrified at what Des did. And he admitted to himself that he had gone a little overboard, but what was done was done and couldn't be changed.

"Des?" Etain asked quietly as Captain Gordon was escorted to the med-bay.

"Yes ma'am?"

"What now?"

It took Des a second to figure out that she was handing command to him now.

"Angels Squadron?"

"Who is this?" came the response.

"RC-1028. There's been a slight change of command. I need you to hold position just outside the Battle-cruiser's guns and wait for Hammer Squadron to catch up to you. I want you to take on that enemy force in a combined assault."

"Understood." said the squadron's leader. Des then relayed a similar order to Hammer Squadron, the second Corellian Gunship squadron assigned to escort the Relentless to the planet Fondor.

"All ARC squadrons disengage, and fall back to protect the Relentless. Helm! Bring us to bearing 1-3-5, inclination four degrees. Fire control, focus all fire on the Interdictor class cruiser once it's in range." Des said. Hopefully they would make it out alive.

Equestria/ Ponyville

Jusik stepped off the carriage that had brought him, and his guide, to the town where the slaughter had taken place. Placing his helmet on his head he took a look around. The medium sized town had eye achingly bright and colorful buildings. The one that caught his eyes the most was a large... tree house. The house apparently had been carved out of the still living tree. From it, he could feel a faint darkness emanating from it. The bodies had been moved but Jusik could still spot small patches of blood here and there. A lightsaber would cauterize the wounds it made; even as it killed and injured.

Closing his eyes, Jusik squatted down and placed the palm of his armored glove on one of the patches of dried blood and reatched out with the force. He felt hate, rage, the most base feelings of the Dark Side. But this was different. It felt... reserved. Cold. Calculating. Like those emotions were simply a means to an end. It was unlike what he had been raised to believe. Whoever this Force user was, he controlled the emotions, letting them feed his power. The emotions didn't use him.

Withdrawing, Jusik was left lightheaded and slightly dizzy. Standing up, he checked his HUD (Heads Up Display) and saw that only two minutes had passed. It was an odd feeling that he would never queit get used to. The trances always felt like thay were a lot longer than they actually were.

"Are you alright?" asked his guide as she started to walk twoards the tree house.

"Yes... and don't go in there. I need to check it first." Jusik told the lavender colored unicorn. She stopped in her tracks and turned around, a look of confusion on her face. Jusik decided it was a very good time to mess with her mind. It wouldn't do at all if they came face to face with his target and Twilight froze up when he needed her.

"360 degree field of view with electromagnetic, ultraviolet, thermal, night vision, and broad spectrum filters. I can see everything you do," Jusik said. Taking a step closer with every sentence. Twilight backed up, matching him step for step. "And with the Force I know your deepest feelings. I know what makes you tick. I know what you're going to do before you know it."

Twilight now had her back against the to the tree. She was now thouroughly scared out of her mind.

"I'm a Mandalourian. One of the most feared warriors in the Galaxy." Jusik said as he pulled out a vibro-blade. He could see a crowd of ponies were gthering around them. "I'm also a former Jedi. I could kill everypony in this town and I wouldn't even break a sweat. And let me tell you that is nothing, compared to what a Sith will do. He will take strength from your fear. Your anger. Your pain. He will kill all your friends and family. Cut them to ribbons. He will -"

"STOP IT!" Twilight yelled. Jusik sensed what was coming and threw up a force barrier to protect himself. Twilight's horn glowed purple and she simply tore through his barrier and threw him through the building behind him. Jusik was then smashed into the ground and this process was repeated several more times before he lost track of what was happening. He couldn't fight back, his arms were pinned, and he couldn't concentrate enough to draw upon the force. Then just when he thought it was over, his throat was constricted as she started to choke him. With one last effort, he raised his right arm. Attached to his right arm was a system that, as he had been told by the man who sold it to him, worked just like a Kaminoan Saberdart. But instead of being highly toxic, they were filled with a tranquilizer that could stop a charging Rancor in its tracks. Pressing a button with his left hand, a dart was launched at 156 metres per second. But Jusik never found out if it reached its target, for he passed out after pressing the button.

Author's Note

Damn it... editor's sick. I had to check this myself and I'm not the best when it comes to grammar. Seriously. Then only people who are worse than me are Slaanesh Cultists. (Warhammer 40k Reference)