The Darkness Falls - A star wars short story

Memnoch

Hi guys, wrote this short story last night. Its set during the war of the sith, roughly 3000 years before episode I.

I'm a star wars fan but not fanatical enough to know all the details, so I appologise for any liberties/mistakes that I might have made with regards to the Universe/continuity. Anyways, hope you guys enjoy it.

*Disclaimer - the story is based on charecters and settings belonging to lucas arts. The story however is mine, pls don't re-post etc. without my permission



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The Darkness Falls

From the Jedi archives, excerpts from the journal of Tal’rasha.

“I still wonder sometimes, when my mind is less hazy. What is it that gives men strength? That makes some strong and others weak. What is it, that drives some to sacrifice and others to cowardice? What is it, in this universe, that governs the paradoxical nature of our being? What is it, in the force, that draws me to subjugate it, and through this desire, let it enslave me forever?”
“I still wonder sometimes, why I can’t feel love, or compassion, or why I don’t even care. The darkness surrounds me, it is all that I see, all that I feel. The power, the rage, the hate, the fear. It draws me in, I am the darkness, I am the fear. Sometimes, when my mind is less hazy, I wish I would be defeated, I wish I would be free. I thought it would be my strength, but I was wrong. I am its strength. The darkness surrounds me, my mind grows hazy.”
“I am the dark.”
“I am the rage.”
“I am the fear.”
“I am the hate.”

The sun was just rising behind him, the dawn approaching. The shadow of Tal’rasha fell upon the barren desert of Lok. Next to him his ship lay broken, barely in one piece. They had torn it to shreds, pirates, many pirates, there were fifty of them, including several medium class combat vessels, they were all dead, all destroyed. Nothing more than space junk now, nothing more than debris. Yet he had survived, he always did, the darkness would not see him die. He had drawn into the dark side, shielding the ship with the power of the force, destroying the enemy, one by one, and then he had crashed down, screaming towards the planet surface, with parts of his ship breaking up in the atmosphere. He had used the force to cushion the impact of his ship, were it not for that, it would have seemed no more than a twisted lump of metal, not that it didn’t resemble one now. It too was junk now, useless.
But that didn’t matter. He was here, he could accomplish his mission. It was a joke, a very poor one at that. Here was one of the highest ranking generals of the Sith army, and yet he had to come here, like a common soldier, to track down a handful of lowly Jedi, a waste of his time. But that was the decision of the emperor. No Jedi would be allowed to escape from the battle of three leaves. Every survivor must be hunted down, whatever the cost. The intelligence had come in at the last second. A Jedi vessel had run into trouble in the Lok system, battered by pirates they had to escape to the planet surface, while they repaired their ship to make a jump, towards the refuge of the jungles of Endor.
A squad from the Sith army would arrive on Lok soon, but he had been closer, passing by the system on an urgent mission when the message had come to him. He could not wait for them, he could not take the chance that the Jedi survivors would escape before they arrived. He reached into the force, into the darkness, to search for them.
The dark side enveloped this planet, almost completely shrouding it, as it was doing through the rest of the galaxy. But there it was, stoic in defiance, a glimmer of light, in the infinite darkness. He could feel them, their presence, polluting the force. Fifteen, maybe twenty, no more, weak, pathetic, compassionate. “Compassionate,” he spat that word out, as if it were filth. They would be no match for him, in fact he wouldn’t have cared if they did survive, they wouldn’t have lasted anyway. But there was something else there, something in their midst, a smaller flicker of light, but burning in its intensity, he had glanced at it from his ship, and it had nearly scorched him. It had drawn him down onto this planet, and now it was stronger, flowing, pulsing. He would complete the mission, whatever the cost. He knew, that at least a thousand Sith would perish in a battle, because he had to divert from his mission. It did not matter.
He drew away from the light, back into the dark side, deeper into the dark side. His eyes closed, his legs began to move. The force flowing through him, the power, the rage, he began to run. Across the barren desert, his foot steps barely denting the sand, despite his massive build, he ran. He did not know tiredness, he did not know fatigue. The sun rose higher, the barren desert remained barren, sweat flowed from his body, drenching his clothes. Toxic metabolites, built up in his muscles, within his legs, the force cleansed them. He moved with the wind, faster than it, racing against it, a cloud of sand swirled around him, energised by the raw energy of the force that leaked through him.
Closer now, he was getting closer. The sand gave way to mountains, barren as the desert, mountains of rock and fire, it was a good place to hide from the pirates. He bounded up among them, leaping from rock to rock, never opening his eyes, never missing a step. His strength loosened the boulders beneath him, sending them crashing down, as he jumped from boulder to boulder, from rock to cliff. Not long now, they were close. He searched for their ship, and felt it within the force, close to repair, but not ready yet, not finished. Two Jedi were working at it.
He slowed down, concentrating his power to delve deeper, hiding within the darkness, they would not see him, they would not feel him. They would not know he was coming. The planet was of infinite darkness, and he was one with it. There were another thirteen Jedi, clustered around a make shift encampment, and there was the point of light, he could feel its shape more clearly now, but still too vague, still shrouded. But they were weak, they would be no match for him. He would not even need to use his light saber. A pity, he would have enjoyed a good fight. He drew closer.

Memnoch

He could feel it within them, relief, the ship was almost ready, a matter of moments, he could no longer stay concealed. He let go of himself, falling freely into the darkness. He was no longer Tal’rasha, he was the rage. He was the hate. He was the darkness, embodied in this world. The force concentrated in his palm, lightening flew from it, striking the ship, now fully repaired. Striking at the heart of the fuel compartment. It exploded, in a mass of fire and metal, the two Jedi standing beside it, were killed instantly. They had been repairing it, and had never seen him coming. Their will concentrated on using the force to repair their ship. But the others had felt him, felt the darkness, as it roared through him. Light sabers glowed to life, they moved towards him.
They were clumsy, weak, pathetic, how could they dare to challenge him. He howled in rage, flying to the ground, diving beneath the saber’s of the first two Jedi, as they swung at the empty air above him. He felt their handles, deep in the force, and gripping them with his power, he took them into his control. The two young Jedi had barely a moment to register their shock, as their saber’s flew out their hands, and into each other’s chests. Tal’rasha didn’t notice, to him, they were dead long ago, his will focused on the remaining Jedi.
Rolling forward from the dive he had taken, he rose up from the ground, a burst of kinetic energy flung from his palm, hurtling the Jedi closest to him, into the air, and over the edge of the mountain, tumbling down its side. A sabre swung at him, he dodged to the side, jumping over another that swung at his feet. He grabbed the hand of the Jedi whose saber he had first dodged, and flung him in front of himself. Two light saber’s buried themselves into the Jedi’s flesh, where Tal’rasha had been not moments before. The Jedi that had just killed their friend didn’t have time to over come their shock before he was upon them, leaping up to an incredible height over the dying jedi, he landed behind them. A hand on each skull he reached into the force and squeezed, crushing their heads within his palms.
He flung their limp bodies aside, into approaching Jedi, knocking them back to give himself space. He delved into the teri kasi art of unarmed combat, using the force, to enhance his movement, twisting within the air. Every time a saber swung at him, it always arrived where he had been, a moment before. Tal’rasha raged on unstoppably, tearing limb and crushing bone, letting the Jedi kill their own as he manipulated their movements through his guile.
The entire battle did not last more than thirty seconds, until only Tal’rasha stood standing in the encampment. Mutilated bodies strewn around him, with several decapitated head at his feet, he wiped his bloodied hands on his black robes, a maniacal grin stretching across his face. They hadn’t put up a fight, but it had been fun nevertheless. He drank in their death, sacrificed to the darkness.
Now all that remained, was the niggling point of light, it came from a tent, not twenty meters from his feet, he strode purposefully towards it. Delerious with victory and invigorated by his lust for the kill, he almost missed it, and if he had, it would have been his undoing. But he felt it, not an instant too late, from behind him, power, tremendous power, he fell forward, his light sabre hilt flying to his hands, and has he hit the ground, the energy of his red double bladed saber flowed to life, barely blocking the blue one that would have struck him down.
He rolled away and stood up, turning to face the Jedi that had ambushed him and almost succeeded. It was the first time that he had been taken by surprise, in four hundred years of combat. The Jedi’s white robes were stained with dust, but Tal’rasha could feel the force flowing through him. He was powerful, how had he missed it? How could he not have felt his presence. The Jedi had concealed his power, concealed his strength. Shrouded himself somehow, within the dark side of the force, without being a part of it.
Tal’rasha circled around the jedi, his light saber twisting in red light in blurring circles around him, “What is your name, Jedi?” he asked.
“It does not matter,” The Jedi replied calmly. He closed his eyes and spaced his feet apart, raising his light saber in a defensive posture.
“That’s right,” Tal’rasha spat out, “It doesn’t!” And with a silent roar, charged towards his opponent, his saber drawing circles of red light in the air, drawing his opponent for a block to his mid section, so that the upper half could decapitate him. But the Jedi was not deceived, and his saber deftly blocked Tal’rasha’s attack as the two moved apart once again. Tal’rasha could not believe it, this was the first man to survive this attack of his.
He charged again, his eyes closed this time, delving into the darkness, giving himself to it, becoming the darkness, his saber blurred around him, unstoppable. Yet each attack was blocked, each swing avoided, each feint unrewarded. Tal’rasha delved, deeper, and deeper still, loosing himself, drawing from the dark side, but it did not matter. The Jedi could feel the force around him, could feel Tal’rasha’s light saber within it. No matter what he tried, he could not break through. The Jedi drew Tal’rasha into a thrust, and swinging past it, he glided down the length of Tal’rasha’s saber. Had he not moved at the last instant, Tal’rasha’s arm would have been sliced off. As it was, the saber seared through his flesh. Cutting deep into the side of his arm. The two warriors drew apart again, Sith and Jedi. Tal’rasha found himself smiling, this was a day of many firsts it seemed. He withdrew from the force. He could not beat this Jedi, he knew it now, not through strength of force or power, no matter how much strength he drew from the dark side, for the Jedi simply used it against him.
He paced from side to side, casually swinging his light saber, searching for a weakness. The Jedi regained his defensive posture, but there was something different this time, he had seen Tal’rasha’s strength and withstood it. For all intensive purposes, he had won now, the next time they came together, he would kill Tal’rasha. He knew this, and so did Tal’rasha. And then it hit him, in a flash of darkness, Tal’rasha found his weakness. Turning around with incredible speed, Tal’rasha darted for the tent. The Jedi had not anticipated this, and he leaped after Tal’rasha. A malicious grin spread across his face, as Tal’rasha separated his double bladed saber at the hilt, into two red sabers, flinging one of them at the tent, in the direction of the point of light. But the saber stopped mid air, the Jedi had reached into the force to stop it, as hard as Tal’rasha had flung it from his hand, it stood still.
That did not matter to Tal’rasha, for as he had flung half his saber at the tent, he had flung himself backwards at the Jedi. The Jedi had only one instant, and even in the unadulterated knowledge of his impending death, he was only able to make one choice, because he was a Jedi. A choice Tal’rasha knew he would make. And so now Tal’rasha stood next to him, his light saber buried into the Jedi’s body, both hands clutched around its hilt. The Jedi’s out stretched hand, that he had been using to stop the saber with the force, fell to his side, his clenched fist opening. The red light saber, halted in mid-air, also fell to the ground, deactivated. His body slumped forward, his other hand weakly swinging his sabre towards Tal’rasha’s head. But Tal’rasha wasn’t there, he ducked and drew back his saber from the Jedi’s body, and swing it around towards the weakened Jedi’s undefended neck. The blue glow in the Jedi’s saber died out with him, as his body fell to the ground.
Tal’rasha stood above him, wounded, drained, but ultimately victorious. He could not help but offer a moment of silence, to the fallen Jedi that had almost defeated him.

Memnoch

He turned back to face the tent, to see a figure emerging from it. It was a child, a little girl, dressed in Jedi robes. She could barely have been eight years old. She was standing in front of him, not ten metres away. Tears streamed down her face as she gazed helplessly at the body of the fallen Jedi, her small hands loosely gripping a saber hilt. Tal’rasha could feel her in the force, her intensity blinding, bright as the sun. No, brighter, than the sun. He was blinded by it, he could not delve into the darkness, because her light surrounded him. He felt weak, this was the first time he had been separated from the darkness as far back as he could remember. He had to kill her, and it would be over, within an instant, the darkness would re-envelop him in its comfort. Her light sabre glowed to life in her left hand and her right hand stretched out and her father’s light saber flew to it. And now it glowed to life too, as strongly as it had glowed in her father’s. Her tears had stopped flowing, now, and she charged towards him. His light saber came back to life, and swung at her, but he missed, as her tiny form dived between and through his legs, rolling onto the floor she came up on a sprint, running away from him. He turned around quickly and chased after her, clutching his saber in both his hands, she would not escape, she was running to a dead end, the sheer wall of a cliff loomed before her.
He closed upon her, his speed greater, he was almost within reach, she had surprised him before, but not this time, this time he would finish her. She jumped, up at the well, crouching against it like a spring, she used it to propel herself. Like a missile of light she flew towards him, light sabers spinning in the air in a fountain of green and blue. He thrust his own saber forward, in an attempt to block, but it was merely caught between their swings, and flung up into the air. A moment later her sabers were in his chest. She swung herself, up in the air, thrusting the saber’s downwards, slicing through his body, but not killing him. She let go of the sabers as she flew above him, allowing them to deactivate and their hilts fall to the ground. When she came back down, it was with his saber, glowing red and grasped between her hands.
Tal’rasha had an instant, before she arrived, and in that instant, for the first and only time in his life Tal’rasha felt something unique that he had never felt before. He felt, peace.
A squad of twenty Sith soldiers arrived an hour later, to find the scene of the carnage. They found Tal’rasha’s destroyed body, and with it, a data crystal. His light saber lay beside him, in two halves on either side of his body. The data crystal contained his journal.

From the Jedi archives, excerpts from the journal of Tal’rasha: His last entry.

“I still wonder sometimes, when my mind is less hazy. What is it, that makes some men strong? I suspect, I don’t care. I feel it beneath me, on the planet Lok. A glimmer within the darkness. A small yet bright ray of light, struggling against the darkness. It is the only ray of light I have seen in a long time. I am drawn to it, it seems to give me peace. It is the only light in the darkness. I must go to it. It is the only light in the darkness…… I must, snuff it out……”

Memnoch

i'm sorry about the formatting guys, for whatever reason teh copy/paste from word screwed it up and as you know the TAB key doesn't seem to work in typing, so i don't know how to indent paragraphs here.

p.s. comments and criticisms are welcome, as long as they are constructive pls

jedishelly1

Nice fic, memnoch!

Gaijin

Very good indeed. Well done.Really well written and thought out.Usually Fan fiction is utter tripe but it really was an enjoyable read.How long did it take you?

Memnoch

Gaijin wrote:

Very good indeed. Well done.Really well written and thought out.Usually Fan fiction is utter tripe but it really was an enjoyable read.How long did it take you?

thanks

well I had the idea in my head for a while. When I saw "Art of the Saber" I wanted to make my own "star wars" fan movie, and the bones of this idea was the rough background story i had in my head. At the time the idea was just about the "battle" itself between Tal'rasha and the jedi (plural) on the mountain top.
Off course I kinda realised that I would never be able to get the time/recources to actually be able to accomplish this. Since I don't have a digitial camera, suck at martial arts, don't have any props, don't have a clue of how to get enough people together to be organised enough in shooting it etc etc etc etc.

And as with most "ideas" that i have for fiction, this one lay in my head, to become just another idea, in the graveyard of my ideas. But then one night I was awake at around midnight, unable to sleep and bored out of my mind. So I thought, "what the hell" and went ahead with it anyways.

I think it took me about 2-3 hours to type the actual story down as it was around 2am+ when I finally finished :P

Gaijin

When I was reading it I thought it would make a great movie.But true, it would be a massive undertaking for the average joe fan with no real backround in film!

I have been thinking lately that there is real potential for mini star wars movies after episode 3 ends the original saga. Just look at The Art of the Sabre for example,and your own story.Fans/Anyone could make their movies set in the Star Wars universe. It would be very refreshing and dare I say it better than what GL is churning out!?

If those guys who made 'Sabre' had more money and time think what they could have made(albeit without the shades....I've made my feelings clear on that one!)
I can't see George ever allowing it though,even if he did he'd insist on being involved somehow!

Anywho thanks again for sharing your efforts with us.If you have any more do share!I may even try my hand at writing a short but I wouldn't be so confident in posting it! :eek:

Memnoch

well, I do have other short stories that I have written, unfortunately, they are just normal sci-fi, none of them are set in the star wars universe, so they might not interest you. Also I hope to some day get off my ass and submit them to a few sci-fi magazines to be published, so I can't really post them up

This one was my first attempt at a star wars short story. I've got a concrete idea for another one now though, so its really just an issue of when I get down to actually writing it.

As for posting, you shouldn't worry to much about that, at worst some ignorant clown will ridicule it, other than that, you might get some objective constructive criticism that will help you improve, and at best you might find that people actually like the stuff you write, which will provide you encouragement no end.

jedishelly1

I write a bit of SW fanfic myself, and I find that the best place for posting it is the fanfic boards on theforce.net. The majority of the people who read the stories posted there are fanfic writers themselves, so I've found that you're more likely to get good, constructive advice, rather than the flames you get on other sites.