Star Wars: The Rogue Knight

Republic Assault Ship Leveler

Hyperspace

I reined in my fury and smothered it until it resembled smoldering embers left after a wildfire. Giving in to my anger now would serve no purpose. I was not one of the common rabble that called themselves Sith yet were so easily lost to the poisonous lure of the Dark side. It was the tool, the servant and not the master! I pushed the quiet whispers of the Dark side to the back of my mind where it had always muttered sweet lies.

I stared at Shaak Ti's dark eyes and frowned. She was beautiful when angry. I shook my head in exasperation.

"What exactly did they tell you, Master Ti?" my voice was quiet showing barely a trace of the anger chained within my heart. "That a bunch of Jedi were strolling in Shili's wilderness and I decided to have some fun during a vacation by torturing them to death?" I sneered.

She answered me with a defiant glare.

"I can see it in your eyes. No matter what I tell you, Jedi, you won't believe me. You've made up your mind, haven't you?" I muttered.

"We were fools to believe you for even a moment!" she snapped.

"Let me show you what happened. See the truth with your own eyes."

I darted forward and grabbed her right wrist, stopping her from attacking me with her lightsaber. I placed my right hand on her forehead and submerged both of us in the currents of the Force.

"The Jedi Order and its Council members are not the angels you believe them to be." I said before we were thrown into an echo of the past.

=RK=

Four thousand years ago

Planet Shili

Ehosiq sector

Expansion Region

A Republic trooper fell to the ground drowning in his own blood. Another was hit by invisible force with the power of speeding train and hurled away from the farmstead. A Wookie Jedi was thrown into a nearby building by a wave of raw Force energy. I used my lightsaber as a spear and threw it at a nearby commando who was shouldering a rocket launcher. My weapon flew true and stabbed him in the heart. The still ignited lightsaber floated back to my outstretched hand. I fried another trooper with a purple bolt of lightning shot from the palm of my left hand. And suddenly the enemies in my immediate vicinity were down.

I keeled next to the cooling body of my wife. Her c.h.e.s.t was a burned, smoking ruin. I recognized the tell-tale signs of lightsaber dealt wound. Her once vivid black eyes were misty, sightless orbs staring into the dark sky.

I discarded my helmet and let it fall to the ground. I gently picked up her limp right arm and placed a tender kiss on the back of her still warm hand. The evidence was in front of me, staring me in the face yet my brain refused to believe it. She couldn't be gone! Simply could not! I was torn between denial, grief and anger which was burning hotter by the second.

She was innocent! Ashara wanted nothing to do with the damn war!

I froze. In my anguish I failed to notice it. It was a faint spark of life force coming from my wife. I stared at her body with my mouth hanging open. My left hand traced its origin over Ashara's body. My palm stopped over her tummy. There it was. Tiny. Innocent. Barely formed. And fading fast.

Without thinking I clutched the spark of life with all my might. I drew heavily on the light side of the Force. As much as my body could channel. I trembled with the strain to continue forcing the energies of the Force to pass through me and keep the tiny life going.

The cold, pragmatic part of my mind that was the successful General was screaming that it was futile. That I was killing myself for nothing. I disregarded it. For me it was not futile. This so small moth of light that I was holding in my metaphysical fingers was the last part that I had left from my Ashara. Our child.

Its, no her life, was slipping from my grasp. I could not let her go. I pulled even more power through me.

A storm of light and shadows raged around us. More power than a mortal was meant to wield coursed through my veins. For one vast, endless moment her life blazed like a star. Our Force signatures synchronized and I was engulfed by a blinding light.

I was somewhere else gazing at a tiny, smiling face. It was light red and from it two small copies of Ashara's eyes stared back. I grinned back. I was high on the pride and joy I felt as I looked at my newborn daughter.

I was laughing as my toddler was making her first unsure steps and tried to walk towards me.

Many toys were floating around a bouncing and giggling little girl. I could see Ashara siting next to our child and speaking to her words I could not hear.

A five years old Selene proudly presented me the hilt of a lightsaber she had constructed…

A teenage version of my life who had fairer skin was walking towards me.

"Shh... Daddy. It's not your fault..." I heard a light voice which melted my heart. I could feel warm hands engulfing me into a tight hug before the illusion shattered into countless pieces of sparkling light.

"It's not your fault..." the female voice echoed in my ears.

The spark of light that would have been my lovely daughter winked out. I felt it dissipating into the Force followed by the body of Ashara. I could feel a part of me dying with her. I screamed my indescribable loss at the heavens.

=RK=

Shaak Ti watched horrified the tragedy unfolding in front of her. She could not turn away her head or close her eyes. To make things worse she felt an echo of the emotions ravaging the man who lost his wife and unborn child.

"NOOOOOOO!" Veil's anguished, hopeless scream turned into an animalistic roar.

The Force itself responded to the wordless call and torrents of black lightning bolts surrounded the man like a shroud. She could sense some kind of a void forming in the center of a hurricane made by raw Force which engulfed the grieving man. The fury and anger were gone. There was emptiness, a lack of emotions where Veil was supposed to be. She no longer could feel him in the Force. Yet, he was not cut from it. She could see it moments later when the Republic troopers and the Jedi, who were forgotten until now, made their presence obvious.

Nine commandos opened fire with their blasters. Red bolts of energy exploded couple of meters away from the place where Delkatar was supposed to be. All she could see was a vortex of darkness deeper than anything she had ever seen before.

"That does not belong to you." stated a flat voice which was void of any emotion.

The Echani Jedi who was armed with a lightsaber staff with glwoing azure blades had a moment for surprise to register on her face. The hilts of two more sabers which were tucked in her belt moved on their own accord.

Those weapons hummed to life without warning and a pair of sapphire blades blazed in the night. They spun around in blindingly fast circles and the white haired woman fell to the ground in fifteen pieces.

The lightsabers which belonged to Ashara Vael floated lazily in the air. The remaining Jedi looked at them with fear in their eyes while the commandos continued to fire their weapons at the black vortex.

What happened next was too fast for even a Jedi's eyes to follow. Yet Shaak Ti was unfortunate enough to see it in excruciating detail.

The hurricane made from the Force itself fell apart to reveal Veil standing where the body of his wife used to be. The murderous look in his eyes sent shivers of primeval terror down her spine.

"Damn you all to hell!" he hissed.

One moment the Sith was thirty meters away from the troopers who were shooting at him to no effect. Then he was in the center of their formation. His lightsaber blade was buried in the heart of their Lieutenant.

Veil raised his left hand and darkness gathered within his palm. It twisted and elongated creating a spear of living shadows. He hurled it at a man on the right flank of the Republic line. The trooper died screaming as his body was devoured by such a concentration of Dark side energies that it literally liquefied flesh.

The Sith continued moving faster that the eye could follow. In seconds the remaining commandos were cut to pieces and he was facing three scared Jedi. He looked at the only woman in their group – a young Twi'lek female in her early twenties.

She was trying to say something but words failed her. However Vael apparently knew what she was trying to tell him.

"I know you are sorry, Line. It's not enough."

He moved so fast that he was a blur of shadows and crimson light. The female Jedi tried to parry a sweeping strike but her lightsaber was battered away from her hands. Her eyes widened in shock a moment before her head was cut off.

The remaining Jedi were battered to the ground by torrents of black lightning.

"You will not be so lucky, Masters!" the Sith sneered the last word as if it was the vilest imaginable curse.

=RK=

Present Day

Republic Assault Ship Leveler

Hyperspace

Shaak Ti slid down a wall she did not know she was leaning on when she found herself back in the corridor of the Leveler. The Sith that was towering above her spoke with a subdued voice.

"For a short time I believed that they were there for me. But when I finally broke the two Jedi Masters I captured they told me a different story. The attack was targeted at Ashara. At that time the war was going bad for the Republic and the Jedi Council was terrified. It was a war of attrition that we were winning. So the Jedi wanted their trump card back. Or eliminated forever."

The Jedi Master watched with a heavy heart the anguish in Veil's eyes. That was contrary to what she knew about the Order, past of present. Yet she could feel that the man was telling the truth. The Force itself was screaming at her that the vision was real. A slice of horrific past that she was shown for a reason.

"Why?" she whispered.

For endless seconds Delkatar stared at her before speaking two words that explained everything.

"Battle Meditation. Ashara was disillusioned with the Jedi. So she left them. But once the bastards were losing the war they wanted her back. At any cost. All my wife wanted was peace away from the conflict. And they murdered her and my unborn daughter for it."

He turned around and grabbed his helmet from the ground. As Veil walked away he spoke few parting words.

"They gave you enough information to make you my enemy. It's quite different when you have the full picture, isn't it? "

For the longest time Shaak Ti stood kneeling on the floor, thinking about the nightmare she was shown. And about what the Council decided to withhold. For first time in her a.d.u.l.t life she was doubting her fellow Jedi Masters.

Lies. They were supposed to be the weapon of the Sith. Yet, here she was – being lied and set up by the people she unquestionably trusted since being a little girl…

Neither of them noticed the lithe form of the younger Togruta who listened to their conversation from behind a nearby corner.