Chapter 1: Homecoming

// Please enjoy this chapter from my FanFiction I started writing all the way back in 2016 and which has since come to conclusion. This represents only the first chapter of over one hundred. If you would like to read more of it please let me know //

It was quiet - too quiet. It had been days since he had noticed any movement in the whole System. He started to get bored. He almost envied the other Commanders which had been order to the neighbor system to quiet the riots. Only he and his command ship had stayed over Mandalore. They were ordered to uphold the imperial presence in this sector and to maybe protect the system from a possible rebel attack. In some way he felt honored that Lord Vader thought of him competent enough to follow such an important task.

After a short stop on Concordia, where they had refilled their fuel cells, they Hesitator was back in the orbit over Mandalore. She circled around the planet as usual. The Inquisitor stood on the bridge of this Star Destroyer, his crimson eyes looked through the windows of transparisteel; before him exapended the endless realms of deep space. His stance was menacing for his command crew, not only because he stood tall above them as the where located the control booths to beneath him. He also stood a stunning 2 meters 10 high. His features where imposing. His chin was sharp and of a deep azure. His cobalt like hair was trimmed to the last millimeter. All of him looked as he was a man of order and discipline. As was the case with all of his species his eyes where wholly red without pupils, which made every human looking into them uncomfortable as they never really knew what he was looking at. A sigil was emblazoned on his deep black chest plate. It let everyone know that he was a general of the Galactic Empire despite his young age of twenty two. Only a handful of other inquisitors where donned the honor of reaching this rank - and almost no one was born of the second inquisition project, which was only started after the incident on Malachor V almost four years ago. The Emperor himself had thought of it as necessary to seize control over the 'jedi situation'. Force sensitive children from across the galaxy had been collected for this project, such as himself. He had only been three years old, when Order 66 had been issued and as such he hadn't been inducted into the jedi order yet. The Inquisitors as a whole where seen as strange and suspicious by other Imperials as their appeareance was mysterious and their 'gifts' where out of this world.

The Chiss stayes away from using the force. Only in deperate hours did he use his lightsaber. He preferred to achieve his victory through Strategy. This skill he had shown impressivly with the systematic demoralisation and torture, which had lead to the timely defeat of the Bothawui Resistance. Through this he had achieved the rank of a general. His actions had been motivated by his idols: Darth Vader and Grandadmiral Thrawn. Thrawn also seemed the only other Chiss in the empire.

In the meantime he had suffered of boredom. He had requested his relocation to Mandalore in the hopes of encountering some infighting between rival clans or their efforts to reclaim Mandalore from the Empire - he would have at least hoped for a small uprising. But since his arrival nothing had happened. No mandalorian Rebels, no clan uprising, not even the slightest amount of unrest by the citizens. His thoughts dreamed of relocating to the front to give his dreary existence a little bit of thrill. Did they still need him on Bothawui? Were the Rebels in the Lothal System still a threat? Or should he assist the others at Phindar? Where would he find a jedi? He was eager for a a thrilling Lightsaber duel.

On of his subordinates interrupted his train of thought.

"General. Our sensors a picking up a ship emerging from Hyperspace."

"What kind of ship, captain?"

"A Dreadnought, Sir. But none known to us."

Suprised as of this statement the Chiss moved closer to the window of the command bridge to catch sight of the incoming Ship. Immediatly as it emerged from hyperspace he knew that it was no trade ship. The silhouette of this dreadnought was well known to him. It was a providence-class Dreadnought as used by the separatists during the clone wars. The image had sprung to him out of the imperial data archives. Only the symbols on the hull differed. The were not of the CIS but of some mandalorian Clan.

"This is imperial territory. A hostile battleship has no buisness here. Give them a warning shot."

"As you wish, General.", replied the Captain and gave the order down the command line.

"Fire the turbolasers!"

The Chiss watched agitated as two small green beams of laser flew through the empty space before they evaporated at the shields of the enemy ship. How would the intruders react. Before he could give the next order, he watched as some sort of capsules emerged from the enemy ship.

"Sir, they're shooting at us with boarding capsules!" an officer reported.

But the boarding capsules weren't the only problem. Out of the enemy hangar emerged a stream of enemy fighters, droid starfighters and mandalorian gauntletfighters alike. Who ever was attacking them, he was well equipped and did not hesitate in attacking the empire head on. Obviously his attacker was very keen on Mandalore and thus started a full scale attack on an imperial Star Destroyer. It was time for the Chiss to show his skills and defend Mandalore.

"Captain, concentrate fire on the boarding capsules. Launch the TIE Fighters and shoot the droids down. Tell the crew to take the defensive position and give those boardings capsules a proper greating."

"To command, General."

The Captatin gave those directives to the varying officers on deck, and they contacted the specific departments of the crew. They were caught of guard and before all directives were assigned the Hesitator was shaken by a strong jolt.

"Sir, their bombers hit our hyperdrive!", cried an Officer.

"General!", another barked, "Three boarding capsules have hit us. They're making their way to the bridge."

"Who are 'they'?", asked the Inquisitor quite shaken.

"Battle droid and mandolorian Mercenaries"

"Thats enough.", the inquisitor snorted, "I will deal with them myself."

"But Sir,...", the Captain started.

"They will suffer.", the Inquisitor cut him off., "For trying to enter my system and dare to directly attack my ship. They will feel my vengeance."

The Inquisitor was in a fury. Who ever commanded this attack would have to pay for it. The Chiss turned away from the window and made quick steps to the turbolift. In motion he put on his black clad helmet. Now every inch of his skin was covered, no blue color was shining through and one could have thought he was human. With a gesture of his hand he commanded to guards to his side as he entered the turbolift.

"Captain, the bridge is now yours to command. Don't make me regret this.", was his last command before he closed the door and descended downwards.

While the imperial crew was eager to repell the intruders in the hallways of the stardestroyer, their fighters in orbit were pulled apart. The cheaply produced TIEs were no match for the Kom'rk Class gauntlet fighters of the Mandalorians. Even though they managed to destroy some vulture droids, there losses where in no proportion to it. The Hyena-Droid-Bombers had annihilated their hyperdrive and where now aiming at the coms.

Deep in the belly of the Hesitator the crimson blade of the Inquisitor just pulled apart a B1 Battle Droid as his comlink flashed. Their long range transmission relayed was dead. No Reinforcements would come - they were all alone with the enemy. With a swift motion he killed the next droid.

No long search was necessary for his next opponent. Just in time he notice a rocket coming straight for him. With almost arrogant ease he stepped aside and thus evaded the projectile. His comrades weren't so quick. A guard was hit in the chest by the rocket. With a thundering explosion he was sent across the hall. As he hit the floor there wasn't much left of him. For the inquisitor this was nothing but a whimp. He cast his eyes straight onto the direction from which the rocket came. At the end of the hall a group of mandalorians where approaching. They where clad in black armor highlighted by rune like ornaments. on the right he saw one smaller specimen with crimson runes, while on the far left of the group was a larger one with deep orange runes across his chest. The where different from the rest of the group as their helmets with the classical T-Visor where crowned by a row of horns, that reminded him of a Zabrak. But how in the nine hells of corellia would a zabrak have obtained mandalorian Armor and why should the attack the imperial Mandalore? This question would have to wait til victory.

He commanded the force at his will and destabilized the fuel cell of one of the jetpacks worn by the mandalorians. Fire leaked from it and it blew up almost instantly. The explosion killed the owner and the remaining Mandalorians where thrown off their feet. Only the two Zabrak where still standing. Their blaster rifles where pointed at the Inquisitor, while they were moving towars him. Yellow bolts of plasma where zapping through the air. The curved hilt of the Inquisitors lightsaber made it difficult for him to evade the fire hail. But he managed to hold his ground even some ricochets hit the remaining mandalorians. Only the Zabrak were still storming towards him an his guard. Just before they reached him, the orange one blastes his jetpack passed over the inquisitor and tackled down the guard. The red one on the other hand encountered the Inquisitor.

The Chiss' lightsaber went down on him, but the Zabrak knew to evade it. In a swift stroke, he hit the Inquisitor into his intestines. Not impressed the Chiss began to attack the zabrak more frequently. His strokes went down on the Zabrak. The armoured one struggled to keep up with this Makashi-Form of Lightsaber combat. Almost tasting victory the chiss moved on, but the Zabrak was not done yet. Somewhere out of armour he pulled out a lightsaber, with a blade in the same red as the one from the Inquisitor. Only the hilt was longer than expected. He seized the momentary confusion of the Inquisitor and made his move. A diagonal blow followed by a vertikal and horizontal one. A kick a whip and another diagonal blow. The Zabrak hold his ground and pushed the Chiss to a defensive stance. He had mastered form IV Ataru and was more than able to defeat this sloppy Makashi from this low budget sith wannabe. With a headbutt he broke the chiss' defensive and made a grazing strike from the torso upward. He split the helmet of the inquisitor in two parts and the blue face was shown. But the Zabrak didn't care, he whirled round and decapitated the Chiss with another blow. The inquisitor's head and helmet hit the steel floor with a hollow “plong” before the lifeless torso toppled forwards.

He looked at his work with contempt. This inquisitor had been no match for him. He glanced at the head, turning it with the tip of his foot so that he could look at the blue face.
‘A Chiss,’ he muttered in his sombre voice, more to himself than to any of the others present, "seems the Empire isn't too strict with their anti-alien policy anymore. First Thrawn and now a Chiss Inquisitor."
‘My lord,’ the other Zabrak snapped him out of his own conversation. He had taken out the guardsman while his ally had defeated the Inquisitor. He had taken the guardsman's lightsaber lance after stabbing him with it. ‘We should move on.’
"Right, Feral. But what do you want with that clunky weapon?"
He pointed at the lance. Before Feral Drar could answer, he grabbed the Inquisitor's lightsaber in the Force and levitated it.
‘This is a much more precise weapon and will serve you much better.’

Feral didn't hesitate and reached for the weapon his leader offered him; he flashed the blade of the saber and twirled it around a little to familiarise himself with the weapon. As a former member of the Night Brothers clan, he was familiar with the use of melee weapons, but he had never held a lightsaber before. He was curious to see how he would cope with this new weapon. His leader directed him and the other Mandalorians towards the bridge. As they made their way through the corridors, they kept seeing debris from battle droids and fallen stormtroopers whose armour appeared to be badly damaged. Few of their boarding parties had survived so far and most of them were in the hangar to keep their escape route clear. It was frightening how weak these stormtroopers were compared to the clone troopers that had once driven them from Mandalore, every troop that had stood in their way so far had been eliminated by them within seconds. The battle droids that had been part of the Death's Grasp inventory had been little more than cannon fodder for the Imperials. It was a blessing that they had found the completely intact ship in a hiding place on Mygeeto. The only one who had delayed their advance so far had been the Inquisitor. Finally, they reached the turbolift that led to the bridge.

Up on the bridge, the captain panicked because the admiral was no longer responding to any of his radio messages, and he was receiving nothing but disturbing news from all the stormtroopers he could reach. Although they were able to hold out against the battle droids, the Mandalorians were so far superior to them that they could only flee at the sight of them. The space battle did not go in their favour either. Although they had managed to take out a few enemy fighters and bombers, the Hesitator itself was little more than a wreck. Only the emergency reactor and the main drive were online. All other systems had been destroyed by the enemy.
'Sir, the lift has been activated. Someone's coming up here,' an officer reported.
The captain swallowed. Unless it was the Inquisitor announcing their victory over the boarding parties, this did not bode well.
'All crew to battle stations, it could be the enemy,' he ordered.

All the officers present aimed their weapons at the lift. The few stormtroopers on the bridge crouched in front of the lift door, blaster rifles at the ready. The captain was not confident that they could withstand an attack, because if the Mandalorians had fought their way through the rest of the crew, why should they fail here?

The lift reached the bridge before the door had fully opened, and their leader hurled the stormtroopers back with a powerful burst of force. The Imperials flew in a high arc against the duraplast windows. A crack ran through the transparent front, but it did not break. The Zabrak drew his red lightsaber and began to fend off the fire from the other Imperials. The officers concentrated their fire on the red-clad figure, as he seemed to pose the greatest threat. But Feral charged through the crossfire towards the Imperials. He activated his newly acquired lightsaber. With several impetuous strikes, he mowed down the officers. However, he almost amputated himself several times, so unrestrained was he with the weapon. It took only a few seconds to clear the entire bridge of Imperials. Only the captain remained. Their leader grabbed him by the throat and pulled him off his feet. The captain desperately grabbed his throat and gasped for air.

‘The plans for the Imperial base on Mandalore. Give them to me. Or you will die a painful death.’
He let go of the captain. The Imperial gasped for air as he crouched on the floor. Then he pulled a datapad from his pocket and handed it to the Mandalorian.
‘Good,’ said the red-adorned man in an icy voice. He activated his lightsaber again and pierced the captain's chest. He was no longer of any use. ‘Set the ship on a collision course,’ he instructed one of the other Mandalorians, ‘We want to show the ground troops who they're dealing with here.’
‘Yes, my lord.’
The Zabrak now activated his comlink.
‘All units, we are leaving the ship. Back to the Death's Grasp. Maul out.’
The Mandalorian from earlier turned back to him: ‘Sir, the Star Destroyer will hit one of the suburbs of Sundari in a few minutes.’

‘Excellent.’

The former Sith Lord looked down through the cracked window at the planet, still lying so peacefully. Soon he would be back on the throne of Mandalore, soon he would have his revenge on the Empire.

‘Come on, Drar, we're leaving the sinking ship.’

Without saying a word, Feral followed Maul, while the other Mandalorians remained on the bridge for a moment to stabilise the trajectory. The two Zabraks entered the turbolift they had come through just a few minutes earlier. Maul activated the lift with a swiping motion of his hand, and the two hurtled into the depths of the Hesitator.