&Than Sion hadn't gotten much sleep last night so he was very tired.  He fell asleep in his seat before the shuttle went into hyperspace. 

He was woken by the voice of the co pilot.

"Rise and shine kid."

Than Sion hated being called kid.

"We are dropping into real space at Verinia," said the co pilot, "it is the nearest Imperial planet to Kazaar.  You are lucky that Vast Empire isn't in battle with the remnant faction on Verinia.  You would have been taking a lot longer trip on public flight if it was."

"I have never heard of this planet," said Sion.

"Most haven't outside of its sector; it has been known to be a good place to disappear if someone is looking for you because of it."

With that the shuttle's hyper space drop out alarm went off.  The stars went back from streaks to white dots floating in space.  Through the cockpit window Than Sion saw Verinia.

"It's beautiful," said Sion."

"You wouldn't be saying that if you saw the other hemisphere," said the pilot.  "The other half is barren, toxic waste land.  It is filled with giant worms and volcanoes.  Not a pretty site."

But before he could go on, an Imperial Class Star Destroyer came out from behind the planet; closely follow by a Victory Class.

"You are entering restricted Imperial air space," the radio crackled. "Identify your self and power down your weapons."   

"This is the Vast Empire Shuttle Forecast," the pilot answered to the Verinian Remnant's hail. "We come in peace."

The radio was silent for a long moment, but then the VR communications officer spoke, "Sorry about the rude hailing Forecast, with Thrawn in power and us remaining independent, we are on the edge lately. What is your business on Verinia?"

"We are dropping off one passenger who needs to take private flight to Kazaar," said the pilot.

The officer on the other half of the communications frequency made a disgusted sound at the mention of Kazaar. "No offence to your passenger, but this planet has seen a lot of problems from certain individuals from Kazaar ever since we came in power. What is your passengers name and are you carrying and cargo?"

"We are carrying no cargo, just Than Sion and his flight bag."

The officer laughed, "I doubt you are talking about the famous Imperial hero Thaan Sion, now that is a name that brings feelings of pride and honor, unlike that Kazaarian rat Dillion and his friends."

The pilot laughed at what the officer said, "no, just someone with the same name. This one is a pilot fresh out of our flight academy.

"Ok Forecast, you are clear to land at military hanger 2 in Verinian City. It is nice to run into someone from another independent remnant."

The shuttle came over Verinian City; it was the new capital of the planet since the original was destroyed in the Guard Wars so many years ago. It was divided into sectors, with the industrial zone to the north, the Space port sector under that on the west side, the military sector on the west side, and the civilian zone in between. It was all spread around small mesas; in fact the city was surrounded by mesas of many sizes. The shuttle maneuvered over the main space port which was divided into a grid system on the top floor for private docking bay and had a large rim going around for commercial flights. The pilot brought the shuttle down and into military hanger 2 to the north of the space port.

Than Sion came down the shuttles landing ramp and onto the hanger floor. The military hangers used to be rigged for pod fighters before the Empire helped liberate the planet from the original corrupt government. The pod fighter launch tubes have long since been replaced by TIE racks and landing areas for shuttles and other military space craft.

A storm trooper brought him to the door that led out of the military hanger area into the space port. He went down a hall to a military security gate; he was quickly cleared to leave into to civilian zone of the space port. He got on the shuttle in civilian clothing so blended easily into the crowd. He made his way to ticket counter, he bought a ticket for a round to Kazaar and headed over to the security gate line. He got to it twenty minutes later. They checked and found his blaster, it was only a small one he was borrowing from a friend but they had to drain the power pack anyways. From there he got onto a hydro lift that went up to the docking rim. He walked over the docking ramp into the commercial ship and took his seat.

After the flight attendants did their safety demonstration, the ship brought up its ramped and shot up into space. When it cleared the planets gravity, it jumped into hyper space.

(Still if anyone wants to add in their character, they are welcome, it has been awhile since I have posted on this story. If anyone wants to make any comments on this story, they are also welcome. The whole story isn't going to drone on about my "peaceful trip," there will be a lot of action after I get to Kazaar.)


-----------------------
FM/PO2/Than Sion/Kaph 2/Wing 1/mSSD Atrus/VEN/VE(=A=)
I don't care about the political part of the government, I care about the part that tells me where the enemy is and lets me loose on them.

As i watched Than Sion, I knew he might be hiding something. I left the spot where the craft took him. I walked back to my ship that crashed on this planet. "SHIP LOG 23.4 I have been running out of food. I might have to steal from..." I was interrupted by a transmission from some ship I did not recognize.
"JAK!! HELP ME! I am being attacked! Please help me! Ple..." the
transmission was cut off. My sister, Maria, was asking me fo help. I now had no choice but to got out of here. I nearly forgot that my ships engines were destroyed. I decided to try and get some sleep. "Like that would happen" I thought to my self.

**New Republic HQ on Kazaar**


After an hour drive, the vehicle finally stopped moving.  The back doors of the mobile holding cell opened to reveal four Rebel Soldiers.  The man, which was obviously the leader, motioned with his gun for Than Sion to step out of the vehicle.  The light stung his eyes a few seconds before they adjusted.  One of the soldiers threw a pair of hand cuffs on him just as he started to get a feel for his surroundings.  According to the sign, the building was the New Republic Head Quarters on Kazaar.  But what caught his interest was an old, rusted structure that was to the left of the HQ over a dried up river bed.  It almost made him feel sad looking at the old smoke stacks that hadn't probably been used for hundreds if not thousands of years.  It was the story of something that once was but no longer is.

One of the soldiers pushed him with the butt of his gun toward the entrance of the NR HQ.  A soldier went ahead of the rest to open the door.  They led him through a series of halls, down a flight of stairs, through another hall, and into an interrogation room.  Two guards entered the room before the other two locked it behind them.  There was a man already in the room that must be the interrogator.  The name tag on his uniform identified him as Tenerb.  They must have gotten hold of his bag because it was sitting on the table.

"Take a seat, Imperial," said Tenerb more as an order than an offer.  "I'll tell you right now not to claim that you aren't one because the evidence it right here."

He held up Sion's Military ID card.  Shit, I knew I should have left that back in the barracks, thought Sion.  If he ever got out of here he wasn't going to make that mistake again.

"Interesting, Than Sion, you are a member of the Vast Imperial Navy.  Isn't that near Verinia?  It also seems this is just a temporary, transitional ID.  You must be just out of the Naval Academy and waiting assignment to a squadron.  The big question is why you are here?"

"I am just on vacation," replied Sion, unable to keep the fear out of his voice.

"I find that hard to believe for two reasons.  One, this is a NR planet and two, you had this.  He held up the small pistol that Sion had borrowed for the trip.  "Things don't match up though.  For one, the energy pack is drained.  There is also the fact that you have a transitional ID.  It could be a cover up, though, for something bigger than we could imagine.  What matters now is that you are an Imperial."

Than Sion thought it was funny that he was making such a big deal about him, that hadn't killed any NR yet, when they had left an Imperial Veteran back at the plantation.

"It seems your existence on our humble planet makes you too valuable to execute just yet.  It doesn't seem like your ready to talk yet either.  Guards, take him to his holding sell."

The soldiers on the out side opened the door to let Sion and the other two guards out.  Two guards were in front of him and two behind.  They took him down a hallway toward the detention block.  His mood went down another two notches when he saw the barred security door up ahead.

He heard two thuds behind him and then saw two blaster bolts hit the guard's backs in front of him.  He spun around to come face to face with a person he had never seen before.  He seemed a few years older than him and had a muscular build.  His hair was black with stripes the color of blood and his eyes the color of emerald.  He had three swords, two small ones sheathed on his belt and a large one on his back.  He still held the two smoking blaster pistols in his hands.

The only thing Sion could say, "Who are you?"

"My name is Jak, but they call me Shadow," replied the stranger.

Than Sion recollected his senses and picked up one of soldiers blasters.

"Why did you kill the guards?"

"Shouldn't it be obvious, I came to rescue you?  There is no time to explain, we will have to hurry if we want to get out of here alive."

Sion just nodded, he didn't have much of a choice.  Plus there was the fact that he was scared out of his wits right now from the whole situation because he knew that the security cameras captured everything.

They made their way out of the basement with out incident.  That didn't seem right to Sion.

"Shouldn't they have reacted to our presence?" asked the new pilot.

"Why would they," replied Shadow.  "The NR meat bags are too busy trying to figure out what is wrong with their computer system.  Let's just say they will not be very happy when they finally find out what the problem is."

So the cameras didn't work in the first place, what had he been worrying about.  A guard came around the corner; Shadow blasted him in the chest.

"Shit, I thought I had everything timed and planed out perfectly," said Jak.  "I guess we are going to have to fight our way out."

Fight on ground, blasters firing at me, bad, was what was going through Sion's head right now.  Jak grabbed his armed to get him to move, leading him to a stairway.

"Isn't the front door that way," said Sion pointing.

"We aren't going out the front door," replied Shadow as they climbed the stairs.  "Up against the wall."

It was more of what he did to him than an order.  Jak Holstered one of the blasters and drew out one of his short swords.  A guard came around the corner down the stairs and Jak cut him down.  Another was coming down the hall going left from the stairs.  Shadow ran up the rest of the stairs and shot the guard in the head.

"This way Sion," said Shadow.

How did he know his name?  He would have to ask about that later.  Shadow led him up a final set of stairs and up onto a landing platform.  There was about two squadrons of military craft and among other things a Lambda Class Shuttle.

"Can you fly it?" asked Jak.

"Ah, sure," replied Sion.

"Good, because that's the one I hacked the lock on," said Jak as he pushed a button to bring the ramp down.

The door, which they had accessed the landing platform with, burst open and a squad of soldiers swarmed out.  Jak calmly took out his pistols and began to fire at the enemy as he and Sion backed into the shuttle.  He took about three down before he brought the ramp up.  Jak had not only gotten the thing open but had also figured out how to start the warm up process.  All he had to do was bring the ship up off the landing platform.  The Rebel Soldiers fired at them helplessly as they became air born.  Jak had already taken control of the rear turret and was now shooting down more of the soldiers that now had reinforcements.

Shadow let out a whoop of joy as they got closer and closer to space.

"We are not out of this yet," said Sion.  "We have enemy fighters on our tails, four A-Wings and a ship I can not identify.  We will identify it as Dark Star because of its shape and color."

It was amazing how much calmer he felt about fighting in the air than on the ground.

"Make that three A-Wings," said Jak cockily.

The enemy was getting closer and so were their shots.  They also were flying like they expected to get shot at now.  They were out of the atmosphere and they just had to make it out of Kazaar's gravity shadow.  Then it hit him, a constant stream of energy from the wing tip of the Dark Star.  He was able to pull out of it quickly but the damage on the shield was unbelievably high.

"Fifty percent damage on shields from that one hit," said Sion with a touch of shock on his voice.

Another A-Wing turned to ashes from the handy work of Shadow.  One of the surviving A-Wings had an uncomfortably long hitting streak that left them at 25% shields before Jak was able to drive it off.
   
"Damn, can't this piece of scrap metal go any faster," Jak said.

"It's a Lambda, not a two man fighter." Than replied.  "Don't worry about my flying; you just keep on taking down bogies with that tail gun."

"Wow, what happened to the scared kid who couldn't even fire a blaster at the obvious enemy?" asked Jak.

"We left him on Kazaar," Sion remarked.

They both were thinking about but wouldn't say it.  They both knew that they were going to die.  The engines were going at full speed and they seemed to be staying right between the planet's surface and the edge of the gravity shadow.

"Dark Star firing!!!" said Jak.

Than Sion veered hard to right and avoided the beam by a few inches.  It was like missing the beam broke the spell that had caused them to stay midway through death and life.  They were almost out of the gravity shadow.  Than Sion already had a jump coordinated for Verinia they just needed to make it through the last leg of the race for their lives.

"Ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four..." Sion was cut off by Shadow.

"Dark star..." the ship jumped into hyperspace before Jak could finish.

"NOW is the time to celebrate," said Sion who was breathing heavily.

"We are ALIVE, you did it!!!" said Jak loudly.  "I knew you could do it Kid."

He then remembered something, "How did you know my name?"

"What?"

"Back on Kazaar you called me by my last name, Sion.  I never remember telling you it."

"I guess I have plenty of time to tell you now.  I crashed my ship on this plant about a week before you got here.  After that week my food nearly ran out and I had to head for the near by town to try and get supplies.  The first thing I ran into was the space port.  I snuck in to see if I could steal some food and ended up in an empty docking bay.  A ship ended up coming in for a landing and I had to hide.  I remember watching the people go down the landing ramp and you were one of them. 

I noticed you seemed to be hiding something about yourself.  So I followed you.  I caught your name by listening in when you went through customs.  I used some money that my sister had given me before I crashed here to get a hold of an air taxi.  I had him follow your cab.  Now you may be wondering why I would have to steal anything if I had money, because I wasn't sure that it was the currency this planet used and I didn't want to draw attention to myself by being wrong or going to an exchange station.  But I just had a gut feeling that following you was important enough to risk it.  The guy accepted it without question.

When we got to the Zalians house I waited ten minutes for you to get to the house.  Then I made my way up to it and listened in on your conversation.  That is when I learned that you were an Imperial.  From listening to radio stations earlier, I was able to figure out that the NR had been combating the Imperials for quite some time.  The DJs' points of views were always from the NR side so I knew that was really interesting.  After you went to bed, I made my way to a machine shed and feel a sleep in a corner myself.  The next day I woke up and waited to see your next move.  When you left the house I followed you."

"Wait," interrupted Sion, "you were there when..."

"You fell apart, yes.  I put the pieces together to figure out that your parents had died because the NR killed them.  That is why I decided to help you when the shock troopers took you away.  After you left, they questioned the Zalians.  They didn't tell them anything though.  I found it amusing that they had probably the bigger threat standing right there and they thought he was a victim of circumstance.  Anyways while some were distracted, I snuck my way into the storage compartment of the shock troopers' strike vehicle because they were about to leave.  An uncomfortable ride later, I snuck my way out and into the building.  The rest you already know.  Any questions?"

"Yeah, why would you have to learn about the situation between the Empire and New Republic?  It isn't exactly breaking news."

The man frowned, and replied, "All I will reveal now is that I had grown up on a planet that was isolated from the rest of the galaxy."

"I see," said Sion.

The man had secrets and he wasn't going to give them up yet.  Maybe he would one day tell Sion, but for now he was just happy to be alive.


Luckily, Jak had enough foresight to hack into the computer and mess with the ship ID so that when Verinian Space Control scanned it they got a NR ID but it came up as STOLEN at the end of the code.  The Imperials on Verinia gave them a valid Imperial ID code and they were off to Vast Empire space.  Sion landed the thing on Abrae after an interesting conversation with the VE space control.  They walked into the building and went their separate ways.  Jak was going to recruiting to become a Storm Trooper.  It was goodbye from there but Sion got the feeling that it wouldn't be the last time their paths met. 


(OCC: I'll put in a reflection soon, plus proof reading the older posts but not changeing there structure, to much history.)

-----------------------
EFL/WO2 Than Sion/Kaph 5/Wing 1/mSSD Atrus/DEF/VEN/VE(=A=)(=*SA*=)[LoM][VC:B][MC:1][SWC]{VB}
For two fricking games I thought the Precursors were powerful beings of light, then in Wizard of Oz fashion they all look like Daxter!!! Oh well, at least he got his pants and the girl.