NationStates Jolt Archive

Planet Discord

Banak stood on the balcony overlooking the training grounds of his academy. Initiates, Apprentices and even full fledged Warriors fought in spars, while on the nearby firing range, still more trained in marksmanship, grenades and rockets. They now numbered in the low hundreds...

Now was the time to reveal their power to the Jedi and the Sith. He knew that no matter how they tried, finding this world was about as likely as finding the birth records of the first Coruscanti citizen. Both were lost in time and Banak's predecessor had only found the place by pure chance, stumbling upon the system while exploring the Outer Rim. They could show themselves and retreat at will. They would be like ghosts.

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A blip appeared on the screens of the ships around Jurai. Sensors would ID it quickly... a TIE Bomber. Only this one seemed to have emerged from hyperspace and emissions showed a hyperdrive was installed on board. The craft immediately altered it's course and began an evasive course to avoid what was bound to be heading it's way, even as it sent out a system wide message of a Yoda-like male grinning widely. Any Jedi would recognize him as Banak. "Silly navy... you treat all Jedi Masters like this?"

And the ship leapt into hyperspace and minutes later was back in the system in an unrelated location, hailing them again. "Yoo-hoo... I'm over here!" and lept once again. He appeared closer to the fleet now and and cackled at them. "What's the matter? Never seen a TIE play tag with a fleet before?" And he's gone in a streak of light. He did this four more times, the last time, sticking out his tongue at the fleet. "Really, by now I was expecting you to have called your Emperor and told him I was playing Catch the TIE." And off he goes again, vanishing into hyperspace.

This time he stays gone a good ten minutes, before re-appearing on the edge of their sensor range. "Boo!"

Good thing his followers couldn't see him now. They'd insist he was out of his damn mind... not that he wasn't, mind you.

Master Banak had left a hundred pilots with angry popped veins and even angrier curses as he flitted in and out of hyperspace like a butterfly. The poor sailors and starfighter pukes of the Navy were left in the lurch every time they tried to get near him.

Then, at last, someone got the bright idea to get the drop on *him* with a non-hyperspace FTL. A large, vaguely cigar-looking battlecruiser appeared out of nowhere in a giant poof of space-smoke and latched a tractor beam on the former Jedi Academy instructor. As he was being pulled in, a dozen cloaked entities surrounded his bomber with various weapons (mostly silver lightsabers), backed up by dozens more of Marines and a few Droidekias. It was a sight to scare the shit out of anyone, but it is likely that Banak would be too insane to care.

"Hold." A voice of command said. Weapons were lowered...slightly. One of the cloaked ones pulled back his hood, revealing a Jedi with a long brown braid running down his back and piercing, haunted blue eyes that stared into the soul. In the Force, the Jedi pulsed with power, power that easily matched all of the other ANBU guards surrounding him combined, power that can destroy the entire hangar bay with ease. Words of royalty reached the ears of the Yoda-species fellow. "Banak. It has been some time. You gave my Navy quite a fright."

The diminutive Crazy Jedi Master would realize that this was Emperor Masaki, far different from the cheerful boy he has known. The Emperor was older, powerful, haunted. The boy he knew was no more, but a man who fought a war against a terrifying Empire who seeks the destruction of his people. A man who would give his life if it meant that Coredia would live on. A man who earned the loyalty of the men and women in the Coredian Interstellar Defense Force not out of fear as Palpatine did, but of immense respect and honor as Vader does, though the Raitei serves the Light. That loyalty was earned a hundredfold through the sufferings the Masaki has endured, yet he has grown stronger for it and was a deadly match for any Sith.

The Emperor Daniel Masaki has truly earned his title of Lightning Emperor by the time Banak came now.

Banak didn't bother to fight the tractor beam... though he didn't seem pleased at being taken aboard like that, by his face inside the cockpit.

The Emperor should remember the craft he was in well... blood red, with a unique insignia on it's wing panels. The bomber was the same one that Lord Barberous had flown to Yavin IV so many years ago.

Banak dropped to the deck with ease and any sensors would say that the Master was packing enough weapons to put up a good fight against the forces around him. And that glint in his eye showed he knew it.

He appraised the Emperor for a long, tense moment. "You've come a long way since the old days on Yavin IV, Daniel." Normally, he would have used his title or his family name, but today he was choosing to use his privilege as one of his old teachers to use his first name alone. "Grown much in body and wisdom..." He looked around slowly. "As for the little game I was playing... you have to have a little fun now and then." He chuckles. "Besides, it provided an impromptu lesson in sneaky tactics to your navy. I pity the one that tries that move on you in the future."

I had a good chuckle. "That may be so, Master Banak. That may be so." With a gesture, the troops relaxed slightly more and allowed me and Banak to move to the Haku's stateroom for our private discussion. Four guards took up positions outside the room, not that they'd be of any use with one as crazy as Banak.

Once there..."Sneaky tactics and short, crazy, green gnomes aside, what brings you to this modest corner of the galaxy?"

Banak removes a small disk from his robes and uses the force to levitate himself to chest level as he sets it on the table. As he floats there, he presses a button and a swirling light shoots out and a map of the galaxy appears.

His demeanor had changed from the hanger. All insanity and quirkiness was gone, replaced by a serious and calculating expression. He knew that Masaki wouldn't buy the act and didn't feel like performing at the moment. "My faction has grown to a strength sufficient enough for me to begin my plans. Plans that will take centuries to unfold, most likely... luckily I've got a rather long life ahead of me, unless something or someone cuts it short. I laid out this plan vaguely to the council the last time we spoke. Now I shall tell you some of it's details..."

He pushed himself higher so he could stand on the table top and pointed at several star systems in the areas that Daniel and the Empire controlled. One was Coruscant. "I can strike at any of these planets I wish and alter events on them, with a little skill and a good dose of luck. Which does exist, no matter what your other teachers told you. I can also cut a swath of devastation through them, should that be required. Triple Zero would be especially easy for my warriors... simply dive deep enough and the Empire stops chasing you." He looks at Daniel. "Have you ever set foot on Coruscant? I don't mean wander the city... but actually set foot on the planet itself? It makes the Shadowlands look like a queen's private flower garden. That is how far down we are willing to bury ourselves in the worlds we target. It will soon come time for the Empire to fall and along with it the Sith. And that will also mean it will come time for the Jedi to fall... should you attempt any plan you have to destroy us. We are not Sith. We are a new breed of Force users... ones unhindered by the Sith and Jedi, but using common sense to take the useful teachings of both and strengthen ourselves with it. As your grandfather did... though he would not admit just how useful such techniques were, much of the time."

I smiled. "Yes. Grandfather did have a way with his teaching philosophy, and I agreed with him on most of the matters. Still, the philosophy of the Potentium is not well-regarded by either the Jedi or the Sith. The Jedi view it as a possible pathway to Darkness and the Sith find any use of the light side a weakness. You and I both know otherwise and you will also find friends among the Council, but there are still holdouts (I'm looking at you, Master Hawkins). The Sith...pfft. Nothing like goading them into a blind rage and then dueling them into a trap full of explosives."

"You and Master David taught me well." I said, nodding at my comment. "Well, your plans are well laid out although I am concerned with your statement that you'd try to take us out. Not that it'd be easy since we'll use asymmetric tactics against the likes of you as you'd do the same to us, but it's the fact that it'd be such a bother. I wouldn't be a good Emperor if I didn't strive to avoid two-front wars."

Banak nods, listening to his old student. "You have indeed learned well. Add in a Force Dampener to keep the Sith in place and it's a flawless victory." He chuckles and walks towards Daniel.

"I don't want to fight you. Or your Order. I see both sides as an evil. The Sith know they are evil and strive to be masters of evil. The Jedi do not realize they are an evil of another sort for the most part and those that know hide in the Jedi Codes to ease their minds. Both sides isolate themselves and cause mass suffering... look at Yoda. Oh yes, I know he seems to be the great Jedi Master with virtually no flaws, yet time and time again, he chooses to folow his Jedi Code instead of what is truely right." He shakes his head. "The Sith are the evil you can see. The Jedi the evil you can only see the results of. Given the choice between the two though... Jedi cause less suffering per capita, so I would side with you. Just tell those damn Masters that I'll force choke them if they start preaching at me." He grins.

I knew better than to rebut his arguments, for I have known the history of the Jedi for too long to be blind to its past actions, especially in the last thousand years. We often sit on our asses too long to act and that's where the suffering results. Still, it's a matter of POVs. I grinned. "In that case, I'll make sure that they'll not preach at you. Will there be anything else?"

Banak nods. "I wish to have a representative from my Order among you. A Warrior First Class that has been with the Order for nearly as long as it has existed and worked with Jedi Masters, for a time. She is, in fact, sitting a ways outside this system, waiting for my signal to either flee or enter the system."

"I see. I will, of course, assign a security team on her if you wish her to be among us." I said. "We've had infiltrations before and it never went well."

Banak just chuckles at his statement. "She'll just drive them insane..." He takes a small communication device and pressed three buttons. "I trust your crew will not fire on a generic freighter?"

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Several minutes later, such a freighter appeared from hyperspace, rotating to line up with the landing bay of the battlecruiser. It was apparently waiting to be brought aboard.

Once it had settled onto the deck and Banak had appeared in the bay, the ramp came down slowly. A striking woman in slate gray robes with twin blasters and twin lightsabers on her belt walked down the incline and up to Banak, head bowed momentarily in respect. "Master."

Banak smiled and looked from her to Daniel. "Emperor Masaki... this is Warrior First Class Alyssa Organa."

The woman bowed her head again, though not as deeply as she had for Banak. "Emperor." Though years had taken their toll, as well as battles, beneath slightly graying hair and a few scars, she was indeed the same woman that the Twins had brought back to the Yavin academy years ago, trained there and had vanished while chasing a pirate vessel across the Mid Rim. "It has been some time since I've been in the presence of a Masaki."

It's not every day that I was surprised by old friends showing up out of the blue, but I was surprised by Alyssa. She was presumed dead after she reported chasing a pirate vessal and never came back, saddening us all. Now I understood what happened to her...

"It has been some time since I've seen you as well." I replied, bowing. "It appears news of your presumed death was an exaggeration. Master Rydo will be pleased to see you once more."

Alyssa just chuckled. "Haven't you heard the holo-reports? Jedi don't die... they just 'go missing'." She looks at Banak. "Master Banak and Lord Barberous captured me on that mission and resumed my training in the... Order."

The short Jedi/Sith nodded. "Yes, she was coming along fine with being a Jedi... but always had a temper problem. Under Rydo she was not reaching her potential, no offense to Rydo, of course. After the capture and resulting debriefing, Alyssa became my personal apprentice and I have taught her everything I can about the ways of the Sith and Jedi and how useful they are much of the time and how useless they are the rest of the time."

Alyssa nodded and took one of the lightsabers off her belt and held it out to Daniel. "Your grandfather loaned me this from his collection. I'd like to see it returned to it, or added into another, if that collection was destroyed on Yavin."

"Thank you." I retrieved the lightsaber. "I inherited Grandfather's collections, so this will be put to good use."

"You've had an interesting life, I'd say. And aside from his acting career, Banak makes a good teacher." I supplied to Alyssa with a smile. "I look forward to seeing how much he has taught you."

Alyssa smirked at him. "Obviously you weren't his pupil for long... deception is the most important weapon Master Banak has. And watching him work is always an education."

Banak tilted his head slowly and looked at the ship. "If you will excuse me, I must be on my way to go pester the Sith. I've been too lax on them..." He started towards the freighter and spoke into his handheld comm. "Dock procedure 7. Initiate launch on my command." The engines of the nearby TIE Bomber thrummed to life. AI or a droid, the TIE was apparently able to operate itself in some fashion.