Chapter Nine (Darth Shadie: Lady of the Force)

When Shadie walked out of the refresher, she garbed in her most comfortable and flexible dark outfit with her black cape.  Best enter a dark cave dressed for it.  Knarf was handsome as usual to her and he took her hand as they made their way to the cockpit.  The sky streaked into star lines and into the backdrop of space.  Dathomir loomed in the centre of the forward viewport.  Shadie closed her eyes, reaching out in the Force, and pointed.
‘There.  There’s the sphere.’
Brenum set a bearing and head into the planet’s atmosphere.
‘The binary message was from Master Juun like I thought,’ said Trylia.  Knarf smiled strangely to himself, but Shadie took little notice.  ‘To tell us he’d left Coruscant safely.  He’s perhaps a few standard hours away.’
Shadie nodded as she felt a familiar prickling at the back of her neck.  Her danger sense.
‘Starboard!’ she shouted.
‘I see it,’ said Brenum, swerving the ship.  ‘There’s a whole minefield of them.’
There were missile bombs set for sleep, to wake upon detection of the Krayt Dragon.  Sith fighters began to approach and streaked laser fire towards the ship.
‘Hey Knarf,’ said Brenum, ‘you know why Shadie, Trylia and I decided to call this baby the Krayt Dragon?’
‘Why?’
‘Because krayt dragons are difficult to kill and you got to be karking barvy to try to destroy one.’  Brenum veered the ship aft and up.  ‘How many people do you know who didn’t die trying to bring down a krayt dragon?’
‘None, actually,’ replied Knarf.  ‘Well there was that one Jawa who claimed his cousin…’   He shook his head and laughed.  ‘No.  I can’t remember ever speaking to a successful krayt hunter last time I was on Tatooine.’
‘Exactly!’
Brenum steered the ship using the Force to feel the Sith fighters and the invisible bombs the Sith had lain out for them.  Up and down, port and starboard, twirling and flipping, dodging and veering.
Next thing they knew, they were landing on the planet’s night side.
‘So what’s the plan?’ asked Trylia, as they all exited the ship.  ‘You head for the sphere while we fight Lahnius?’
Before Shadie could answer, a large rancor approached, a Night Sister riding it.  Shadie kept her hands by her side, Knarf thumbed his blaster, and Brenum and Trylia stood like Shadie, with their hands by their sides, for now.
‘How do these Dathomiri witches tame those beasts?’  Knarf seemed to size it up and down.  ‘You’d think a Jawa would have better luck taming a gundark.’
‘They’re Force-sensitive, Knarf,’ replied Trylia.  ‘But I’m not sure.  I’m a Jedi and I wouldn’t try to tame a rancor.’
The Dathomiri witch sitting atop the rancor halted it and studied the Jedi carefully.
‘I have a bad feeling about this,’ said Knarf.
The Night Sister called out in her chanting tongue.  Then as one, several dozen red blades lit up the night.
‘Oh, that’s rich,’ murmured Shadie, as she heard Knarf gulp.
‘Lahnius does enjoy the preliminaries,’ said Brenum.
‘Oh, I do!’ came a familiar voice.
From the centre end of the ring of Sith approached Darth Lahnius, his dark hair dishevelled.  Come to think of it, he could have been quite handsome, Shadie observed, but for the dark glare in his eyes.  They glowed of the dark side, his pale skin tone contrasting with the darkness of his irises, as his aura permeated dark side energy,
With a snap hiss, he ignited two red blades.
‘Kill the others, but Shadie is mine!’

Continue reading Chapter Nine.

Start reading from the beginning of Story 1.