The Rebel Faction

<font color=red>The emperor took a moment to calm himself, to clear through with the first phase of this debate. He knew the harder part of the speech was to come now, as the Rogue Jedi Master had just brought with him a great string of arguements. It took the Shadow Jedi Knight a moment to gather his thoughts on the matter.</font>

"Hypocracy, fear, worry, hatred...the Dark Side...you fear the Dark Side, correct Master Jiren? You fear aggression? You fear hatred? You fear all of this. You fear me Master Jiren," <font color=red>his eyes finally cast onto the Rogue Jedi amongst him.</font> "I still pertain to him as my master, for he deserves my respect, he has earned it. He overcame the Dark Side's beckoning cruelty, he overcame becoming a Sith.

"But as he look back in history, there are Light Sides...and Dark Sides...but what's to say there is not a grey side? This has been seen with Master Corran Horn, with Master Durron, even Master Skywalker had what can be signified as a grey side or a 'shadow side'.

"I do not want to consume you all with evil...I am no longer a Sith, and I swear by my soul now, I would never turn down that path. The Dark Side is just that...a darkened manifestation of cereal evil, consuming all within its path. According to the Jedi Code, fear, aggression, hate, all of this leads to the Dark Side, and consumes one with evil. So, then are soldiers on the battle field 'evil'?

"I ask this because I myself, before receiving the training from Lord Vader, though menial I was trained, I was constantly afraid of death, not out of selfish desires, but out of the single primal instinct all living beings have...to live, to see another day and to bring my armies to glory. When soldiers are seeing the draught charge of the enemy after a vicious loss...it incites fear in the soldiers who know death is near. Without fear, we would be stupid, we would charge mindlessly into battle.

"But then...we do fear charging mindlessly into battle...because that would lead to the Dark Side. Fear! We are all afraid of something, anything. What is Master Jiren afraid of? Insubordinate embracement of a new order. Why? Because his sole enemy is THE New Order. He fears another manifestation of pure evil shall arise, and for that I applaud him.

"But Master, you must understand, I am not the Empire, I am not Darth Vader, I am not Exar Kun and most of all...I am not you. Hate, agression, fear...these are tools of the Dark Side I do not intend to emulate and murder with. I intend to heal, I intend to cure, and most of all...I intend to save the galaxy."

<font color=purple>Finally Fearsons' scarlet eyes turned to the already standing Knights and Apprentices, mayhap not the more seasoned, but the younger ones and even some of the old began to rise.</font>

"I am not here to point fingers, I am here to bring to you the attention of hypocracy, but also that of passion, and what you think is right. If you come with me...then do so. If not, I do not hold it against you, and admire your devotion. There is no right and wrong in this room, but I can demonstrate the justice that has arrised from the Shadow Jedi so be it."

Across the galaxies people were being killed. That didn't bother he really, it was more of a threat to personal safety that bothered her. In the end, she was in it for herself and no one but herself - she had to protect number one. With all these power hungry maniacs storming around claiming planets left, right and center, how could she be sure of her safety?

She couldn't. That was the point.

Strata could provide her safety though. She may not have been a Sith anymore, but she could blast the kriff out of anything if needed.

“Cat, give me a profile on the Rogue Jedi Order.”

That was something that caught her eye. As she browsed the various articles they kept popping up. She had never heard of them before - which to be honest was not a surprise as she mostly kept herself to herself, and remained at the Temple whenever it was possible. It had been so long since she’d read any news on anything, that all of the movements through out the universe and all of the factions making them were all new to her. Some though held strong and even she had heard of before, the good old standing foundations of the galaxy such as the Jedi Council and Naboo Sith Order.

Foundations of the galaxy. Pah. Truth be told, she cared nothing for all of them. She’d never found a place to fit in after her dark arts tutor abandoned her training, and she doubted she ever would. In this day and age there were a million people would could storm around in battle equipment bombing things to high hell; you needed to have a special quality to really make it anywhere. Of course, she had the quality. It was just that no one had approached her about it. She’d never actually go in search of vocation, it had to come to her.

She was stubborn like that.

Gash slept little the rest of the following night.

Morning came to a weary Gash as an escape from the horrors which had haunted him during the night. His trip to the office had been silent; he had strode through the Parliament building with narry a word spoken. The one secretary who ventured into his office found the Jedi Master staring distantly out the viewport. The papers dropped onto Gash's desk were ignored.

Corran ventured into Gash's office, and was met with that same blank stare. He seemed to fill the void of silence with hastily blurted concerns.

"Corran, the system is on as much alert as I can put it on. I have domain over the military; not so much over the political system, or the planet. I created RJO, but in doing so, I created a beaurocracy- total power corrupts totally, and I did not want to be corrupted by the power I am forced to wield."

A sad look gleamed through Gash's crimson eyes. "I had never imagined it would become a hindrance, as it has now."

"What will you do now?" asked Mardok Mulear of the Super Star Destroyer Celestial Corrupter, whom stood just next to the emperor of the Rogue Empire. His fleet was far beyond the reaches of this great mimick of the Executor, even though some had sworn that it was larger, and he was thankful he was finally away from the royal beauracracies of the empire. His eyes cast out over Clak'Dor V, where he had only recently slain a great beast to save his apprentices Dakkon Blackblade and Arai Heishi.

"Does it matter?" Fearsons barked back without even cocking his head, simply peering out the transparisteel viewport of his quarters aboard the Corrupter. The ship was a good eight kilometers, maybe nine. Though there were only a few turbo lasers its mightiest power did not quell within fire power. It was the jedi inside that was the true power of the Celestial Corrupter. "What the master and emperor does is of concern only to the master until such a time that the populace sees the plans unravel."

"Yes...my lord," Mardok said apologetically. The man was a Chandrilan and so held with him a great sense of self-authority. The emperor had found him on a refuge for those that had been routed out of the Sluis Van system during the Chimeran Biotests on the planet. It was a gruesome time and now the man was quite thankful to his leader that he had found him when he had. Days after the rescue the camp was overcome with the vicious disease that the Rogue Empire now had in their control.

The stars twinkled against the black sheet of space beyond the emperor's glowing red eyes, which were focused heavily on the sight around him. Every now and again a fighter or a freighter would pass by in order to dock and resupply with the Corrupter.

"I meant in referance to the sudden Chiss threat to Ossus."

Fearsons' face suddenly turned to a contemptuous glower, mixed with a pinge of pain facaded behind the expression. Mardok had seen that look before and knew not to speak when it was bestowed on him.

"I shall dismiss my lord."

The emperor watched as his young commander slowly made off. He was no replacement to Admiral Wyldan.

The admiral with the red eyes, the man who had smashed a thousand Republic forces, the man who had stolen Coruscant- and had it stolen back by one, meddling Jedi and a Noghri named Rukh. The one who had recovered the Blade of Klain; the man who mad manipulated millions.

The man who was not a man at all. Beyond his brilliant intelligence and tactical capability which he was known for, lay a secret beyond the reaches of the known galaxy. The Chiss...

His severe face broke upward in a slight smile. Millions of lightyears from Gash Jiren's discovery of the Blade of Klain, the battle for Ossus had already begun, though none but those under assault knew it.

Three Imperial Star Destroyers had leapt into the Mehkt system, a small, sparsely inhabited system coreward of Ossus. It was widely known that Gash Jiren's favoured strategy when taking a planet was the "Jiren Split"- the taking of two systems, at twelve o'clock and three o'clock of the target, and the use of them as a staging area for the assault. Judging by the incoming enemy vessels, Rogue Jedi forces all, it seemed the Asthentian Admiral had anticipated Thrawn's use of his own tactics against him; no matter. While other Imperial military men used underhanded schemes to achieve victory, Mitth'raw'nuruodo had one infalliable advantage over his foes; sheer tactical ability and wit.

The three ImpStars began a twisting maneuver, unleashing turbolaser fire on the lead craft.

The battle lasted only twenty minutes.

At the end of it, two RJO Imperial Star Destroyers were under Syndic Mitth'raw'nuruodo control, one was destroyed, and two Victory Star Destroyers had been captured besides.

And a million lightyears rimward, a beautiful RogueNet broadcaster was meeting her destiny at the end of a blaster barrel. Virona Ty lay dead in an Ossan gutter, and OsSec sat uncaring, not a security speeder dispatched.