Star Wars: Slave Of Darkness

The lightsaber was gripped tightly in my hand, the grooves of the hand grip pressing deeply into my palm. The blade wasn't lit, leaving the salle eerily silent.

Darth Rictus had lunged across the room in a blur, likely holding back just enough so that it was even possible for me to defend myself. The first and second strike had been blocked clumsily, but the third had gotten through, scoring a light burn across my ribs.

I had to force myself not to draw on Crucitorn to dull the pain as I had so many times before, wary of how Darth Rictus would punish the act. As such, a line of fire burned under my left arm, threatening to break my concentration.

It was the first time I had allowed myself to feel pain for this long before numbing it in…a long time. Almost half a year, I think.

As soon as the hit had landed, the crimson blade and its wielder had disappeared.

He was definitely messing with my senses, but he wasn't trying to kill me. Not yet, anyways.

No, he was trying to leave a chance of success. A chance to learn the lesson he was trying to teach. There had to be some way to tell where he would strike…

I could still hear his voice, though I couldn't be sure if it was only in my head. It seemed to come from every direction.

"The lightsaber is not a perfect weapon, nor has it ever been such. In its earliest years, it was clumsy and cumbersome, burdened by the need for an exterior powerpack and cable. Often, a simple dead blade would prove more practical."

I could almost hear his smirk as paused to allow his words to sink in.

"That is, until Sith craftsmanship refined the technology to what it is today."

I was only barely paying attention to his words, too busy trying to figure out where he would strike next. Would he go for where I was already injured? Or weaken the other side with a similar strike?

Think. Think.

Would a Sith strike at weakness? Or challenge the strongest?

"The same could be said of you, apprentice. Clumsy and cumbersome, until honed."

The bloodshine blade in my hands blazed to life again as I swept the weapon to my left…just in time to briefly catch the lightsaber screaming in towards my leg.

Once again, it disappeared.

"Shii-Cho was crafted to allow a Force User to wield a dangerous and unpredictable weapon. The Jedi swiftly realized that a blade that could easily cut through durasteel was similarly capable of doing the same to flesh. 

Due to the imbalance of weight between blade and hilt, such occurrences became…frequent among novices."

A line was seared into the back of my right leg. A grunt escaped my lips as my knee buckled and I was forced to the ground.

"How then does one learn to wield such a dangerous thing as an effective weapon?" Darth Rictus paused. It was likely that he was expecting an answer.

Gritting my teeth, I pushed myself back to standing, "Trial and error, I'd assume."

"An excellent answer…provided that one has a large store of prosthetic limbs on hand." The Sith Lord's answering chuckle echoed in the salle, "No, the ancient Jedi learned by instinct and by allowing the Force to guide them. Something altogether different from mere trial and error."

Now I had injuries on both sides of my body. The cut on my ribs would make the blocks and counters on the left side weaker, while the one on my leg would hamper my footwork to the right.

But…perhaps I'd been thinking about this wrong.

Darth Rictus was one of the strongest Sith in the Empire, while I was just a lowly apprentice. So why would he bother challenging weakness if he barely saw me as a threat?

Our lightsabers collided once again, blocking a strike that had been intended for my neck.

Once again, Darth Rictus' leering grin filled my vision, his scarred visage far too close for comfort.

"Progress. But not enough to impress me, apprentice."

The taller Dark Lord pushed against my saber, shoving me back. The damaged muscles in my right calf screamed as my full weight came down on it, causing me to stumble and fall.

Again, the bastard was gone.

"This, I believe, will be your greatest obstacle to learning how to properly wield Shii-Cho. You are a very cerebral fighter. Always thinking. Always planning." He chuckled again.

"Of course, that is hardly a weakness, under the correct circumstances. After all, this trait is what made you so dangerous to the other acolytes."

The strikes came faster this time. I blocked the one heading for my left leg, but just barely tumbled away from a second stab to my ribs.

"Picture the battle as…a river, filled with sharp rocks and moved by a strong current."

Oh great, we've moved onto metaphors. I used the opportunity to push myself up again.

"Those without the Force will flail in the water and be dashed against the rocks. True, they might learn the current's patterns from "trial and error", but not until they are quite bloodied."

The sound of his voice behind me startled me into a wild swing. Darth Rictus' form faded from view just as the lightsaber passed through where he used to be.

"Those with the Force can perceive the current before they ever reach the rocks, even if they do not comprehend what is before them. They learn to swim with the current instead of against it, thus avoiding injury altogether."

"Then why the hell am I not using the Force to do this?" I asked, only barely holding back a frustrated snarl.

"Because of the very trait that makes you dangerous. Your logical mind overpowers your natural instincts. You listen to what you know and ignore what you feel." Though the voice still echoed, it sounded like it was coming from my left.

"A balance must be struck between the two, without allowing either to hold dominance over the other. Instinct tempered by Intellect. Intellect advised by Instinct. You are neither a droid nor a savage beast."

A trick? Or truth?

A certain Jedi once told another that the senses could be tricked and to not rely on them. And I had just spent almost a week blind.

I closed my eyes for a split-second to concentrate…and whipped my lightsaber to my right in a sweeping block, catching Rictus' blade before it could stab into my back.

"Better." Darth Rictus smiled almost approvingly as he faded into view, "You knew that your senses were no longer your own, so your instinct was to disbelieve what you heard and act accordingly. And it only required ten strikes to hammer the point home."

Before I could blink, I again found myself on the ground. I could already feel the beginning of a large, hand-shaped bruise forming on my chest. A small bag thumped into my lap.

A quick glance told me that it was a medkit.

"Treat your burns. Then meditate and consider the lesson. We will begin again afterwards."

The red blade of his lightsaber was extinguished. At the same time, the Dark Lord vanished as well, leaving me alone in the training salle.

...

The Slicers were one of the largest gangs in the lower industrial district, numbering nearly one hundred known members and a handful of smaller affiliated gangs. 

Mostly comprised of humans and a handful of aliens, they were influential enough to dip their toes into a range of markets: racketeering, kidnapping, extortion, slave trading, organ harvesting, black marketeering, murder for hire, and more.

Basically, they had guns, numbers, and influence with the smaller gangs. They were even known to chase off the occasional security patrol.

Captain Maklan had picked the larger Slicers as a target over smaller gangs because of their proximity and aggressiveness. They had a habit of either incorporating or annihilating new gangs that might infringe on their markets, so it was only a matter of time before they made a move anyways.

Unfortunately for the Slicers, once a gang grew past a certain point, they became a known factor. Their main meeting places became known. Their leaders and lieutenants became known. Their partners became known.

The more power they had, the more people knew how much power they had and how far it reached. All one needed to do was listen. And listening was what the former Korriban Regiment soldiers had been doing for weeks, learning habits, patrol routes, and names.

Over the course of three days, several Slicer lieutanents and their guards had disappeared without a trace, throwing the organization into chaos as they tried to figure out what was going on.

It didn't take the remaining Slicer leadership long to realize they were under attack, but not who was behind it.

Information was power in war. Especially when one had access to a Shadow Demon assassin lent by a high-placed Sith backer.

As the chaos grew, the dots on the map multiplied as bases and hideouts were plotted. Assault plans were made and weapons were gathered for one massive hammerblow.

On Korriban, uniform standards had been lax compared to the main Imperial Army. Under Tesser, they were almost completely abolished. Imperial colors had been replaced as individuals customized their armor to better separate it from the official look of the army and disguise it as something else.

With preparations complete, the men gathered outside of an old office building as the moon of Dromund Fels hung high in the sky. Inside of the building were, at best guess, an estimated sixty Slicers.

Maklan checked his rifle one last time. While the weapons they had been issued on Korriban had taken back, the platoon's shadowy backer had kindly provided them with arms and munitions from his own stock. While most of it was trash that one could find on any street corner store, there were a few choice pieces among the bunch, namely three heavy assault cannons.

The medic eyed the chrono in the corner of his HUD ticking down the seconds until the operation began.

"Flint." He called for the soldier over the squad comms, "Everything set?"

"Yes, sir." The man nodded.

"Good. Fifteen to commencement."

When the countdown hit zero, three homemade breaching charges detonated, blasting holes in the durasteel and permacrete walls. And as the gangsters inside choked on smoke and debris, twenty armored combat cyborgs, veterans of the unending horrors of Korriban, charged in.

The battle, if one could call it that, lasted ten minutes.

Elsewhere in the district, the same scenario repeated itself on differing scales as other squads hit safehouses and supply caches.

By the time the sun rose, the Slicers were dead and gone.