"What is it?" King asked Rehnar as he examined the soldier on the ground. 

"It's a Sith Trooper." He said darkly, turning the rest of his team. 

"No, that can't be right, that empire has been gone for more than three thousand years," Jack replied looking at the body of the soldier. "This doesn't make sense. What's it doing here?" Queen then walked up next to the soldier and brushed her hand over the blaster wound that was in the armor. 

"This thing has been here for only a few days," She said looking up at Rehnar.

"Which means in turn that somehow, these guys have maintained a fledgling Sith Empire for more than three thousand years." 

"Could it be that we traveled back in time when we hit Hyperspace?" King asked.

"No, that's not it, Hyperspace doesn't result in any vessel arriving at a time period different than one where the vessel left. Also, if that were the case, explain why Rebel soldiers are here." Joker replied. "Anyway, let's get moving to the command deck, there's bound to be some kind of surveillance footage that we can sift through." He said as the group of them started moving along through the bases hallway, as it bisected into two different passageways. If clubs were here, then this would be easy, split the group up into halves and send one down one way and one the other. 

"King and Joker, you go down the right, Jack Queen and I will take the left," Rehnar told the group. Joker and King nodded heading down the right passageway. Strategically, Joker understood why he and King were sent together, they toted the biggest guns, so the less of them were needed. The pair headed down the corridor, Joker's left hand hovering over the lightknife that he had around his hip. The fact that there was some maniac running around with a lightsaber down here startled him. He'd heard stories about the Sith, and looked into them deeper. In the pages of the datalogs that he'd read, things made his skin start to crawl and shake in fear. The yellow-eyed monsters that lurked in the darkness; even though Vader trained them to kill Jedi, more effectively and efficiently than anyone else in the Imperial military. The only groups that had exceeded them were the Emperor's Shadow Guards and Lord Vader himself. 

But Clubs...she would have been perfect. Vader himself even complimented her skills with a lightsaber. Claiming that if she'd been force sensitive, he would have gladly taken her as his apprentice. Joker found himself thinking back on Clubs more and more often, she was important to everyone, but Joker thought she was someone he could trust more than his own thoughts. Her passing was something that he'd never truly forgotten, and nobody could forget something like that. How she'd died, none of them actually saw. But what they did know was that she had lost her life, deactivating a star destroyer sized bomb from crashing into Coruscant.

She couldn't disable it, so she detonated it early. Joker could still remember that no matter what jokes he would tell, be they good or bad, Clubs always laughed at them. He could feel a look of gloom starting to form on his face. 

"Ey Joker?" King asked. 

Joker shook his head to get out of his trance. "Yeah King?" He asked. 

"You think we should call in for reinforcements?"

"What? No. I think we're more than capable." He said, perhaps a little too quickly to sound convincing. King shot him a look over his shoulder at Joker through his visor. Joker could tell that it was a look of distrust, he didn't have to see his face to know that. The heavy gunner turned back to face forward. The only noise that filled the room was the sparking of the lights that were cut by whatever dark side soldier came through here. A new question started to fester in Joker's mind. "How many of them were out there?" 

It was a fair question, wasn't it? The Empires of the past that these dark sorcerers ruled had numbered in the tens of thousands. Some so powerful that they could destroy entire armies of Old Republic soldiers. Though, Joker did have some odd curiosity with them. They were destroyed several thousand years ago, yet there were rumors that circulated was that the Separatist leader Count Dooku was one of them. Eventually, Palpatine revealed that Dooku was, and Darth Maul was his apprentice. 

"Your answer is kinda unconvincing," King replied switching his helmet lights on. Joker sighed and kept moving with King taking the lead. The group approached the command center a few moments later, and they spotted a lone astromech droid in the corner. The control panels were lit up and still working by the looks of it. Joker started pressing several buttons to bring up the security footage to the base. Hopefully, something would be a little more telling about the base attack. The holographic image appeared in front of the trooper as King walked over to the astromech in the corner. 

"What do you got over there King?" Joker asked forwarding the hologram. 

"It's an astromech, let me see if I can get it online again." He said locating the power override on the back of the droid. While he was toying with the droid Joker started to make a call to the other team. 

"Ace, this is Joker, King and I have located the command center." He said hoping to hear some sign of his friends speaking to him. 

"Rodger that Joker, we're enroute," Rehnar replied to the trooper. Joker let out a small sigh of relief and looked over at the hologram again and moved it back to several days ago. It appeared as if everything was normal, until three days prior. The hologram revealed at the center of the base; Rebel soldiers sprinted off toward the interior of the base from the outside. One of them pressed the button to seal the blast door behind them; Joker could hear their screaming and the sound of the blaster fire behind them. More of the soldiers ran, taking defensive positions around the doorway, focusing in on the center of the door as more of them ran. Then the door fwooshed open, and Sith Troopers, led by a cloaked figure with a large dual-bladed lightsaber walked in. Not even flinching from the number of bolts that flew through the air; rotating his lightsaber, spinning it like a massive engine turbine, creating a shield for any troopers moving behind him. 

Joker eyed the hologram in awe and wonder; he'd seen and learned how to deflect blaster fire before. However, it was nothing like this. He watched as the Rebels ran in fear of the red blade and the one who wielded it. The footage continued to play until the hooded figure removed his hood.

Her hood.

She was a Chiss, with deep red eyes and a pale blue skin color. Her hair was short and well kept, tied up a bun at the end, decorating her face was black Sith tattoos, and scars. Markings that signified to him that she had gone through quite a struggle to get to her position of command. He watched the hologram as she approached the command deck, then using the force she choked the commander before stabbing him through the chest with her lightsaber. Before the hologram ended Joker paused it, and the rest of his squadmates arrived. "Joker, what is it?" Rehnar asked him as Queen and Jack waltzed in. 

"Take a look at this." He said gesturing to the holographic Sith. The rest of them eyed the hologram carefully, noticing how fluid her movements were. She was well practiced in the art as far as what they were seeing could tell them. 

"Now the question is...where did they go?" Jack asked them. 

"I don't know," Rehnar replied standing up from the hologram. King after several minutes finally activated the astromech that they had in the corner. The droid whirred for a second before making a series of frantic beeps. 

"Hey, buddy, it's alright, we're not going to hurt you," Jack said walking up to the small droid. The unit had a dome with a smaller diameter top than it's base. The top was flat, and it had a singular photoreceptor in the center of the trapezoidal dome on its head. With a yellow light to the left of its holoprojector. It was orange mostly but had black coloring in some spots. The droid beeped softly in response to the human as if it'd never worked for the alliance in the first place. "What's your name?" She asked the droid. The machine moved forward slightly extending its center leg. It whirred and beeped highly in response. "R6-P9?" She replied. "Okay, R6, what do you know about what happened?" The droid beeped for several minutes explaining all he knew. 

"Okay....so that just confirms what we've been seeing, the Sith have maintained an Empire here for well over three thousand years," Jack concluded.

"So now what?" King asked. "I mean, the Sith have more likely killed the Jedi for us already, so what's the point of us being here?"

"As much as I'd hate to admit it, he's got a point," Queen replied. "We have no purpose in being here; we should just head back to the TIEs." 

Rehnar looked at the group sternly. "Don't be ridiculous; we need to gather more intel about them, find out what they're doing here." He told them. "It's not enough to just find out that they've disabled the outpost, we need to learn more." 

"Yeah, I'm feeling kinda curious myself," Joker replied. 

"You've always been curious," Jack remarked. R6 started beeping and rocking side to side for a moment bopping into the side of Jack. "Wait, what?" She asked it. The droid beeped several times in response to what they'd been talking about. "Wait, they took him, prisoner? Why?" She asked. R6 rotated his dome and leaned down to emulate sadness or some kind of disheartened sigh. 

"What is it?" King asked her. 

"As I said, R6 here says that they took the Jedi prisoner, so we're not done just yet." 

"But why would a Sith capture a Jedi?" Joker asked. 

"I don't know, but we need to find out, and take out the Jedi. And if it turns out that the Sith are up to something a lot worse than just existing, then we need to stop them before they can get off the planet." Rehnar replied. "R6, you're coming with us," Rehnar said moving out of the room, R6 quickly followed behind him. 

"Boss, you can't be serious," Joker said to him. 

"I am, he could prove to be useful." He said as the group stepped out into the hallway behind Rehnar. The group moved through the base toward the outside, R6 was moving slowly with Jack at the end of the line. They noticed that the sky was getting darker than normal and that was when they heard a loud thunderous roar emanating from the forest where they'd left. Each of the commandos looked over in that direction blasters clutched tightly in hand, and they could feel the ground start to shake. Rhythmically, frequently, as if the planet had somehow gained its own heartbeat. The sky here, was red, a deep dark red, like the blood of a fresh kill. 

Rehnar could start to have that uneasy feeling again, and every instinct in his body told him to run however the six of them stood their ground. Until they saw what came over the hill. A massive tan fleshy beast rose over it. With eight red eyes, all glowing on its forehead and teeth looking like vibroknives. It was so large it looked like it could eat any of them with one massive gulp. 

"Uh, boss, you got a plan?" Joker asked him. 

"Yeah, you got one of those stun grenades?" Rehnar asked him. Joker opened his launcher and loaded a stun charge into the main barrel. 

"Stun round ready," Joker replied. 

"Shoot it right in the eye then run!" Rehnar shouted as the massive creature sprinted forward. Joker aimed down the sight and fired one round into the face of the creature. The grenade detonated in a large white flash the creature moved its arms to its head to help recover. 

"King grab R6 and sprint it to the woods!" Rehnar ordered with King sprinting over to R6 and lifting him up and over his back. R6 whirred nervously as the five of them ran as fast as they could back into the dark forest that they had come from, hearing the beast howl into the darkness.