Empire and Rebellion

by Snake Staff

60: The Quarry

Twilight’s blue lightsaber crashed into a red blade, and sparks flew. Standing before her was a black-cloaked man in armor and mask, red lightsaber humming with energy. He came at her lightning-quick, ducking beneath a swipe from her single blade and stabbed up towards her head. The alicorn backpedaled furiously even while sidestepping, allowing him to overextend himself. She spun around and made a chop for his wrist, but the dark warrior was quick on the uptake and blocked it. Twilight took another step backwards.

The princess called on the Force, springing into a nimble backflip that put a good few yards of distance between her and him. The man studied her for a moment, then charged again, eating up grassy terrain far faster than should have been possible. He swung an overhanded power blow towards her head, and Twilight met him head on.

His strength was tremendous and gravity was on his side, but her arms contained a surprisingly dense musculature for such a light physique. The two blades locked together, and for a moment neither side could make any headway. Then, without warning, Twilight abruptly released all pressure. She spun out of the way of the blade as the suddenly overextended man staggered, and then completed the twirl by driving her blade directly through his chest.

The man stopped, looked down at the lightsaber punching through his body, and simply nodded. Twilight let out a small sigh, and wiped the sweat from her forehead.

“Well done,” came the voice of Bastila. “Not entirely representative of actual live combat, but a fine demonstration of skill nonetheless.”

“Thanks… I guess.” Twilight snapped her fingers, dismissing the illusionary Sith. “I don’t you realize just how hard it is to give an illusion the ability to act and fight, much less maintain a solid field over his lightsaber the whole time. Doing the same for his whole body wouldn’t leave me with much to fight with.”

“I don’t mean to sound overly critical,” she answered. “Simply to be realistic. In an actual fighting scenario there were many occasions where a true combatant might have punched, kicked, or otherwise lashed out with physical combat. And an illusion cannot throw lightning or unleash waves of dark side energy at you. All these things must be considered.”

“I guess you’re right…” Twilight trailed off, unable to sound entirely sincere. She’d been dueling this thing over and over, on and off, since well before the crack of dawn.

“Please don’t take it personally, my creator simply had access to far more regular sparring opponents than we do now. I’d gladly demonstrate it myself if I could, but…” she gestured at her holographic body with a wry smile. “All the same, it’s clear to me you are picking up on the basics of the single blade remarkably fast, and for that I have nothing but praise.”

“So… what’s next?”

“Isn’t it obvious? Form VI lightsaber drills.”

“Again?” Twilight’s face fell a bit.

“Yes, again. And again and again and again and again and again.” Bastila nodded. “The first and most critical lesson is that there is always room for improvement.”

“Am I going to be doing these until the day I die?”

“Yes,” Bastila answered, with an utterly straight face.

“…But my species doesn’t die naturally,” Twilight squeaked.

“All the better,” the Jedi smiled. “You’ll have all the time in the world to practice!”

---

A glittering cityscape shone brightly beneath the Starry Night’s sensors, countless thousands of buildings that covered the entire surface shimmering like stars with the rising sun. Billions of beings below were just beginning their routines, or perhaps returning home after a long night. In space, thousands of ships crisscrossed every which way under the watchful eye of an Imperial Star Destroyer, the system’s fortuitous confluence of trade routes bringing it many fortunes every passing day. Denon, they called this world.

“It’s a second-rate Coruscant,” Luna thought scornfully.

Nonetheless, this world was playing host to a suspected Jedi. Or at least it had been as of a few days ago, if one believed the Imperial Security Bureau. After their miserable performance on Corulag, the alicorn trusted them as much as she trusted Sidious. Their report was inconclusive, the evidence circumstantial at best.

To hear them tell it, exactly four and half standard days ago a squad of Stormtroopers had been dispatched to arrest or eliminate a small band of dissidents gathering on the planet’s surface. It was expected to be a simple job, for none of the chosen targets had any history of violence or known combat skills. Instead, the troopers had gone out and utterly failed to report back. Follow-up teams had discovered their bodies not far from where they had been due to make the arrests. Most appeared to have been killed with blasterfire, but one man had a short gash burned through his armor and across his heart. Analysts had concluded that it bore enough resemblance to a lightsaber wound to be worth reporting in, and so the Inquisitorius had been contacted.

That was it. No visual or holographic evidence, no witnesses, and very few solid leads. The time it had taken her to arrive was more than enough time to get off the planet, assuming that there had ever been a Jedi here in the first place. Even if there were a Jedi still here, how was Luna to find them? Denon held billions of souls in its planet-wide ecumenopolis, and she didn’t have any clues as to her alleged target’s name, appearance, age, gender, or even species.

Sighing wearily, the alicorn turned her gaze away from the viewport and towards the holoprojector behind her. A young human male in an all-too-familiar white uniform was taking form there.

“Imperial Security Bureau Commander Neeri reporting as ordered, Lady Inquisitor,” he gave her a crisp salute.

Luna studied him a moment. Black-haired, green-eyed, and in the prime of youth with well-defined facial features, the man would probably have been described by human females as handsome. Much more important from her perspective was the Imperial’s mind. Compared to the frustrating tangle of Celebraine’s mind, Neeri positively oozed ambition. She could tell immediately, even without the Force, that he had answered her call so quickly out of a desire to appear prompt and useful to his superiors. Simply being the ranking officer on a prominent world in the Inner Rim wasn’t good enough for him, not by a long shot. That was good. She could use that.

“Commander,” she acknowledged him with a nod of her helmeted head. “Let us start our relationship off on the right foot. Do well and prove yourself in this investigation, and I will see to it that your name comes up before your masters.”

“I would be… most grateful, my lady.”

“I’m sure that you would. But on the other hand, the last officer of your organization whom I dealt with proved a coward and a fool. He suffered dearly for it. I should hope you will redeem the ISB in my eyes, yes?”

“I will,” he said with a quick bow.

“Good, or you shall find yourself losing far more than limbs,” she told him. “In the meanwhile, inform me of the progress you have made since your organization reported to mine.”

“Yes.” Neeri had the decency to openly swallow and look nervous. “After the incident, Imperial forces locked down the immediate area and conducted a full sweep, though we found little of note beyond our dead men. We began searching for the dissidents immediately to round up, of course, but it seems that they have either scattered or left the planet.”

“You searched their residencies?”

“We did, though little was found beyond crude and treasonous propaganda. We have also established tails on known friends, family, and associates, but as of yet we have not caught sight of any of our original targets.”

“And have you any evidence they have left the planet?”

“Tens of thousands of ships leave Denon daily, my lady. It is a trade world. We have of course alerted our traffic controllers and port operators to be on the lookout, but we frankly lack the resources to thoroughly inspect every ship, still less to lock down space travel. It is entirely possible they have fled.”

“And our alleged Jedi? Have we any evidence of them? Anything at all beyond our dead Stormtrooper?”

“My apologies, but no. There is simply too little to go on to narrow down a suspect via conventional means. We believe they were located in the Coresca district four days ago, but it was more than an hour before the area was locked down. Beyond that there are no clues, for nothing recovered from the dissidents’ quarters suggested that any of them knew anything about the Jedi, much less were in contact with one. That is why we called for assistance.”

“I see.” Luna considered the problem for a moment. “It seems apparent to me that if there is a Jedi stupid enough to still be on the planet, we will not find them via any kind of crude sweep or conventional manhunt. The planet is simply too large, the details too vague.”

Neeri’s face visibly fell.

“Instead, if we are to eliminate this enemy of the Empire,” she continued. “We must make them come to us.”

Comments

[Sweetblue]

I am not sure if this is intent but this story is a lot more about Luna than it is about Twilight, i have a feeling that most all Twilight arcs are just to keep some small taps on her while Luna is going over massive character developments.

Just thought to point it out in the case it not being the aim.

[the other sans]

I don’t you realize just how hard

1. I don't think you realize just how hard.

[Totally_Original]

8710028
Tbh, there isn't much story material for Twilight right now. If the story were to focus on her, then all we would get is endless training for her and a massive time skip for Luna.

[Black Hoof]

8710028
8710042
I think the story focuses on both mares’ training, with Celestia coming in when she interacts with one of them, or another important character. It appears to me that we get more of Luna, at the moment, because more things are happening to her than to Twilight, which is currently isolated with a ghost on a remote world. Things might change if Twilight resumes travelling through the galaxy.

[zimmerwald1915]

8710042
A story that focuses on a character who actually does things? Color me shocked.

[Weeb trash]

IT'S STILL ALIVE! HALLELUJIA!

[Dustchu]

Really nice chapter done so far, loving how this is going!

[ABitterPill]

Thank you once again for the update.

I am getting the feeling Luna is going to be whacking the bee's nest with a stick to draw out her prey.

8710028

Frankly I prefer it that way. I am much more interested in Luna's story than I am Twilight's.

[Falkner]

8710028
Twilight remains unchanged. Learning to wield a lightsaber doesn't change who she is. Luna on the other hand has been completely changed by her training...

[Snake Staff]

8713584
Yes. And no. It insults my beliefs with hamhanded propaganda and insults my intelligence with plot holes large enough to drive a Star Destroyer through. For example, given that hyperspace-capable ships are now conclusively able to pierce planetary shields and target individual ships why the hell would any other tactic ever be employed? Why would anyone sink resources into a massive death trap that is a capital ship? Why the hell would you need the Death Star, just spend the money on a billion droid-piloted fighters and have them ram themselves into rebel planets at lightspeed. Why didn't the CIS use this tactic to cripple the Republic given they had four times the number of ships and no organic crews to preserve? Because reasons, stop thinking about things.

And there's also the fact that they go out of their way to make the entire original trilogy pointless. The years of fighting, the desperate struggle against the Empire? Yeah, it was all for nothing, some idiots led by a worthless moron like Hux somehow destroyed the New Republic in a week. Hell even blowing up the not!Death Star is TFA turned out to be pointless, seeing as the FO streamrolled everything with resources they got from... somwhere. And as to all the legacy characters? Han? Dead. Luke? Dead. Ackbar? Dead. And for nothing too, the entire "Resistance" is like a dozen guys in a single ship at this point. It takes a steaming dump all over the characters and movies and books and games I loved, not to mention logic, consistency, or decent characterization. I'm not the greatest writer that ever lived, but I say without a doubt in my mind I can write a much better Star Wars story on my own, for free, with cartoon horses as my protagonists. That's how little I think of Disney Wars.

[DarthRevan]

8713671
Han Solo dying was absolutely the only way to get Ford to do it, don't blame them for that. Ackbar is a meme character and with the voice actor dead they didn't see much reason to keep him I suppose. Luke isn't 'dead' he's a Force Ghost, death isn't real for him. If they kept the EU canon they would have had to do a sequel trilogy where Chewbacca died off screen nearly 10 years before TFA even began lol that would have been a terrible idea to do.

The only reason the hyperdrive based kamikaze attack even worked was because the ship used was a capital ship. It realistically wouldn't work for smaller ships, for the same reasons you've listed. The Old Trilogy becoming worthless due to threats of NotEmpireButTotallyTheEmpire is something the EU also did. Not defending it but you can't claim its unique to the new canon. Edit: As for how the ship managed to hit Snokes ship despite being in hyperspace the simple answer is that it wasn't. It was about to enter hyperspace and was in that increased speed transitional period.

The loss of EU stories is both good and bad, as we already know, but Lucasfilm is set on bringing the most loved parts back. Thrawn was one of the few good parts of Rebels and I really enjoyed the book. If the leaks that everyones been throwing around are true then a new trilogy will be set during The Old Republic era, while being located entirely in the Unknown Regions, and involve the Chiss Ascendancy waging war against the Yuuzahn Vong.

I also dislike calling it Disney Canon since that makes people blame Disney for the choice to de-canon the EU and blame them for the new canon. Disney doesn't control these films, Lucasfilm made all those choices. Sorry for the long post lol

[Nightflight406]

8715589
At least they didn't uncanon clone wars