Face-down across a table in the darkest corner of a disreputable cantina slumped a man who wanted to disappear...and the Vapor Room was a particularly good place to make the attempt.

Primarily an Ugnaught hangout, but attracting its fair share of Rodian and human workers as well, it was an after-hours dive boasting bottomless shadows in every corner. The air hung in dense, aromatic sheets that moved only when staggering beings passed through them. The music was highly hybridized, like the bartenders, who glowered sullenly as they wiped grease-smeared glasses and spread pools of liquor in thin layers across the bar top.

An empty tankard of Andoan ale rested near the slumped man's shoulder. His face was determinedly hidden from view, as if the only conscious desire he had left in him was to keep it that way. When he came up for a drink, which had happened with decreasing frequency in recent hours, he kept his face carefully averted from the cantina's patrons. Greasy hair protruded from what had once been a rigorously maintained queue. His robes were ill-fitting and stained. 

No one in the Vapor Room knew who the man was or what he had done. No one remembered who had brought him to Cloud City...And they didn't care...They just wanted to be left alone to drink until their next shift came around.

The man who wanted to disappear had turned his back on the galaxy, but it hadn't turned its back on him. Despite his very best efforts, he had been noticed! Inevitably so. A man with his injuries on Bespin was rare enough, but one who could still pour a glass of Corellian brandy without spilling a drop...?

Word had spread, and that word was trouble!

Starkiller walked slowly into the Vapor Room, eyes peering into the corners, studying every face and figure he found there. 

The cantina's atmosphere reeked of numerous negative emotions, but threatens not one of them. All eyes turned to him for a moment, then an older Ugnaught with an upturned nose and prominent belly raised a glass above his head to toast to the local King Ozz. The rest of his table purred loudly in agreement. Attention returned to frothing mugs, smoking pipes, and watching the chrono.

The nearest bartender cocked an antenna. The apprentice gestured at him, encouraging him to think about someone else. He didn't want a drink. He had just one purpose: This, the first real test of his Master's new plan, was the only thing on his mind!

It had been a long journey, with many risks taken. None had been as important or as dangerous as this one though...

"What happens if he recognises you?" Chloe had asked him with concern before Jack had left the Rogue Shadow. 

"He won't..." Jack had said, remembering the General's burned eyes and the absent scars on his own hands. His body had changed in subtle ways, thanks to Lord Vader. The Force-signature he had possessed over Nar Shaddaa, in the midst of his murderous mission, would be very different from the one he projected now. 

Calm. Reassurance. Hope.

General Kota hadn't moved for 20 minutes now. according to the feed from the security camera that Chloe had sliced into. Starkiller was relieved to see that it hadn't been a loop. The drunken Jedi was exactly where he had expected him to be, showing no signs of alarm.

He looked around the cantina, making sure that attention had really drifted away from him...then he kicked the table, startling Kota awake! 

The fallen Jedi lifted his head with a jerk, revealing a disheveled shadow of the man he had once been: His cheeks were hollow and thick with stubble. Dirty bandages, wrapped around his head, hid his eyes sockets from view.

"General Kota?"

Kota's voice slurred. "I've paid for this table, so whoever you are, GET LOST!"

Undeterred, Starkiller began attempting to explain his intentions.

"General Kota, I've tracked you across the galaxy from Nar Shaddaa to Ziost..."

"Who are you, boy!?" Kota's brows tightened as he cut the apprentice off. "A bounty hunter?"

"Not quite. But I have been watching you." He leaned closer and lowered his voice. "I think we can help each other out, Jedi."

Kota pulled a face and gestured toward his bandaged eyes. "I'm no Jedi now...Not since...this...!"

"I don't need your eyes, just your mind - and everything you know about fighting the Empire!"

Kota slumped back into his chair, looking more weary than drunk. "Nobody fights the Empire and wins, boy..."

A sudden commotion in the doorway attracted the apprentice's attention: Six Stormtroopers had entered the Vapor Room flanked by two bipedal mechanical walkers, each controlled by a pair of surly-looking Ugnaughts! The lead trooper grabbed the stocky bouncer and began asking questions while his offsiders visually scanned the bar.

Starkiller cursed the Imperials' timing. Chloe had intercepted the message from the local rat alerting station security to Kota's presence, but they had been unable to spirit him away in time.

He sighed and straightened, unhooking his lightsaber and placing himself between Kota and the Imperials.

"You'd better hope that you're wrong about that, General."

With a snap-hiss loud enough to attract the attention of everyone in the Vapor Room, he activated the glowing green blade that had once belonged to the man whose life he'd ruined.

Kota flinched as though he had been struck and dived under the table. At that moment, the Stormtrooper's opened fire - Ugnaughts squealed and leapt for cover as deflected energy bolts ricocheted around the room! Glasses shattered, brightly coloured liquid went everywhere, with the more volatile catching fire and adding to the chaos!

"Stand up, General!", the apprentice called over the racket. "They may be shooting at me right now, but they came here for you!"

Then he was forced to concentrate on the Imperials and their local allies. The mechanical "Uggernaughts" were heavily armoured and armed both! His first priority was to knock them out!

He pushed one onto its side with the Force and overloaded the electrical systems of the second, encouraging the Stormtroopers to scatter! The smell of scorched Ugnaught fur made the cantina smell even worse. From outside, he could already hear the clanking of reinforcements.

Whoever was behind Kota's attempted capture, they weren't taking any chances!

"Come on!" he yelled at the cowering General. "Follow the sound of my lightsaber!"

He turned his back on Kota, hoping that the old man had recovered a significant sense of self-preservation to look after himself. Not only did his would-be rescuer have to take out the Imperials, but he had to do it without harming any innocent bystanders. That wouldn't look good to anyone schooled in the Jedi ways.

As he fought his way towards the cantina's back door, he shouted over the comms to the Rogue Shadow and told Chloe that he would need a rapid dust-off. 

"Same place I dropped you off, I presume?"

"Unless it gets too hot there." He brought the ceiling down on top of one of the troopers as he said that, and then telekinetically threw rubble at another. "Stay close and wait for my signal!"

"Will do. Chloe out."

Starkiller glanced behind him: Kota was finally moving, hunched over like a stunned mine crab with his hands splayed before him. Hopefully the Force would be with him, because Jack knew that with one look through the door that he would have his work cut out for him. 

There were at least two dozen Imperials in the storeroom, taking cover behind crates and barrels. A line of Uggernaughts promised to make short work of him if he so much as blinked.

There wasn't time to hesitate. Drawing on the Force, he burst the barrels, tore the crates apart, and filled the air with debris! Chased by blasterfire, he ran across the room in 3 steps and leapt onto the nearest Uggernaught. Lightsaber flashing, he cut the pilot and the gunner free and used the Force to crudely turn the machine about. Its weapons barked and sent its siblings reeling backwards, showering sparks!

He leapt free, eager to stagger on, firing at random. Kota was keeping up, barely. Starkiller grabbed the old man's arm and dragged him out of the storeroom and along a series of corridors. The Vapor Room's supply dock wasn't far away, and although he expected it also to contain a heavy Imperial presence, getting the Rogue Shadow in wasn't an impossibility. 

The dock was open to the cloud-filled golden sky all along one side. One quick Force jump would do it....

A glimpse of a black-robed figure standing with the stormtroopers stopped him in his tracks. On sight of him, it tilted its black helmet and ignited a red lightsaber. The stormtroopers dropped to their knees and fired.

For the barest of moments, the apprentice was frozen. His stomach dropped away into Bespin's glorious skyscape, and he felt betrayed all over again.

Then his mind caught up with his gut, shouting, That's not Vader! 

The red blade protruded from the top of a long staff, not a lightsaber hilt. The helmet was smooth and rounded, lacking the familiar death's-head aesthetic of his Master's. Instead of two rounded photoreceptors, this helm boasted a single strip visor, suggesting that beneath might lie the face of an ordinary human male rather than whatever blasted visage his Master kept permanently hidden. The figure wore combat armour over a black cloak - the figure looking nearly entirely like one of the Emperor's Royal Guard, but entirely in black instead of red.

Starkiller's blade came up of its own accord. Moving in extreme slow motion, as though the air were made of treacle: He deflected volley after volley from the blasters back at the troopers who fired them. They staggered and fell with smoke pouring from shoulder and neck joints. Their cries barely registered.

The Shadow Guard deflected every bolt he sent his way. When the last of the troopers fell, the guard stepped forward with his saber-staff lowered to charge.

"Stay away from the dock!" Starkiller warned both Chloe and Kota. "We need another rendezvous point!"

"There's a shipping balloon dock not far from you." Chloe responded as Jack's lightsaber clashed with his new enemy's. "What's that noise? You're not fighting Kota, are you?"

"Too hard to explain!" he grunted, not sure what the explanation even was himself. "Get to the balloon dock and wait for me there!"

He broke off communications to block a downward slash that almost knocked him flat. Glancing around for Kota, he was relieved to see that the general was nowhere nearby. Now he could summon the full power of the dark side...

Drawing on the sense of betrayal and shock he had felt on seeing the figure waiting for him - this deadly assassin who might or might not have something to do with Darth Vader - he pushed with all his might!

His ears rang, such was the energy he released. The dock buckled underneath him; rivets popped and welds tore! His assailant went flying across the wide space, arms spread wide apart! The saber-staff cut a long, twisting line in the metal floor as its owner rolled and came up standing!

A bolt of Sith lightning shot from the hand not holding the staff. Starkiller grinned, having anticipated that tactic. He met the lightning bolt with one of his own: They collided in a spitting, crackling ball of pure energy that danced crazily from side to side - the air filled with the sharp stink of ozone.

The hooded assassin grunted and applied more effort. Starkiller met that effort and exceeded it! The ease with which he drove his assailant's lightning back surprised him. For one wielding a Sith blade, the man he was fighting had less power than he should have.

The ball of energy where their crackling bolts met drifted closer and closer to the Shadow Guard: He grunted audibly and leaned physically forward with both hands upraised, one in a shaking claw and the other stabbing the saber-staff into the beam, adding its energy to his desperate attack! 

It was to no avail: The ball inexorably approached, driven by the dark power of Starkiller's will! When it touched the hilt of the guard's saber-staff, all its pent-up energy was drawn into him.

With a truncated shriek the guard flew out the open dock and fluttered away, dead before his feet even left the ground.

Starkiller let the tension flood out of him and brought his arms down. Comming Chole, he followed the directions she gave him to their new rendezvous. It wasn't far, with only a couple of obvious ambush points along the way. Thanking her, he ran through an observation deck and along an exterior crosswalk, barely noticing the view - his mind worked over everything that had just happened, trying to find the sense in it.

A dark figure wielding a modified red blade and lightning, a Royal Guard but wearing all black armour...The Sith connection could not be denied. Unless Darth Vader had trained a second apprentice in the last six months - which didn't strike him as likely, for why would he then set them against each other? - there was only one other possible Master for such a being.

The Emperor.

Great minds thought alike. Jack grimaced as he approached the first of the likely ambush points, an air-conditioning heat exchange, where he would be forced to traverse a wide but long duct and pass through a series of fans. Vader had sent him on a mission to find and kill the last of the Jedi. Perhaps the Emperor had intended the same with his minion.

If so, he would be disappointed by the results. Kota may not have wielded a blade, as he had on Nar Shaddaa, but the Emperor's emissary had died all the same. That would send a clear threat to the Emperor, perfectly in line with Lord Vader's wishes.

Assuming Kota survived, of course...Starkiller could only hope that he was heading to the balloon dock via a different route and wouldn't get himself killed along the way...

A squad of troopers was waiting for him in the heat exchange, with three of the mobile Uggernaughts. He made short work of them, neither rushing recklessly in, nor drawing the fight out. There was no point to be made here, they were simply inconveniences.

He tossed the last of the Uggernaughts into the spinning blades of a fan four times as tall as he was. The fan exploded in a ball of flame, almost taking out its twin farther along the heat exchange. Out of the cloud of metal fragments leapt a second of the Emperor's Sith assassins, saber-staff upraised. The apprentice met him with a clash of sparks and lightning.

Sith against "Sith", they fought backward and forward through the broad, metal-lined space. This assassin was more proficient than the first, wiry and strong with a good reach and penchant for telekinetically throwing items from inside the apprentice's blind spot. He proved to be tough work until Starkiller wrenched the next giant fan off its gimbals and sent it spinning through the air! The Shadow Guard seemed so stunned by the sight of it that he didn't jump until it was too late: One spinning blade took his right leg off at the knee! From then, the fight was over.

Starkiller left the dismembered black-clad armoured body behind and hurried on his way without a seconds thought, through a maintenance area filled with nervous Ugnaughts and up a ramp to the balloon dock.

Stepping out into the open air, he found himself facing another squad of troopers, two more of the Emperor's assassins, and no less than six Uggernaughts. Two transport balloons heavily weighted with supplies hung overhead, motors whirring to keep them on station, presumably waiting to land. Kota was nowhere to be seen. Starkiller bent his knees and adopted a fighting stance.

"Are you sure you want to do this?" he asked his gathered foes, restraining himself from smirking at the unfortunate souls before him.

The answer came in the form of blasterfire from the troopers, a barrage from the Uggernaughts, and a combined charge from the two assassins. He whirled and leapt, filling the air with reflected energy. All thought ceased; his connection to the Force became deeper than it ever had been before! 

He moved with grace and pure reflex, ducking under saber-staff blows, hurling troopers bodily at their Ugnaught allies, tossing walkers off the dock, and even raining supplies from one of the balloons above.

The crew of the balloon bailed out in a small speeder. Seeing it abandoned gave him an idea: When his enemies regrouped for a second combined charge, he wrenched the balloon physically downward from the sky, crashing its entire weight down on them all - and then, when the petals of the explosion were at their peak, sweeping the entire mess off the dock with one cathartic flexure of telekinesis!

He stood in a tiny dome of clear space, exhaling pure energy, as the circle of burning debris rained down through Bespin's thin, cold air below. Triumph and satisfaction filled him like pure helium, buoying him upward.

"How many were there?" asked a voice from behind him.

He turned to see Kota stumbling onto the dock. Although drunk, he was a sobering presence. The empty eye sockets hidden behind his filthy bandage seemed to stare right through the young man before him.

Jack straightened and lowered his lightsaber. He wondered if Kota was about to berate him for causing so much death and mayhem. "I lost count," he confessed.

"Doesn't matter. There will be more. The Emperor's army is infinite."

Starkiller scowled. A telling-off he could handle. Indulgent despair was a different thing entirely.

"We have to go, General."

"It's a fool's errand, boy! You'll be killed...or worse...And what will have changed? Nothing..."

Jack clicked the comlink for Chloe's attention. "I'd rather die fighting than drown in some cantina, old man. Are you with me or not?"

Kota took a step forward, stumbled, and looked momentarily lost. "Do you have a name, boy?"

"No."

That was a lie, but in Starkiller's mind, the name "Jack" didn't even register to him, even as a momentary thought. Again, though, Jack felt as though he were being studied by eyes that no longer existed for Kota. 

"Well, there's no denying your willingness to kill Stormtroopers...I have a contact in the Senate who might be able to use your lightsaber. Where's your ship?"

Jack smirked slightly as the Rogue Shadow rose up behind him, its repulsors whining and ramp extending. "Perfect timing", he thought. "If only Kota could have seen it..."

With one hand in the old man's right armpit, he guided the first of his would-be rebels into the ship.....

Author's Note: Hi everyone. I'm sorry it's taken a while for me to update this book, but my work life has been, unfortunately, taking up a lot of my time, and I'm also going through a rough patch when it comes to writing stories currently unfortunately. However, I managed to find the time and a bit of focus to try and complete this chapter - which honestly has been a draft for months now, but wasn't halfway done for a while....sorry....

I would also like to thank Lokis03277 and QueenZain3 too, among a few others, for putting up with me and listening to me over the last few months when I needed to talk about my troubles with getting back into writing. If you haven't seen any of their work, please do consider seeking them out: I promise you will have a great time reading their books, just as I do.

I can't promise when the next chapter will be, but I hope you all enjoyed this one, and I hope you all have an amazing day/evening.