Dorn: A Star Wars Story

15. General

-22 ABY, 17 Years After the Battle of Jakku-

Venn had nowhere to run. Nowhere to hide. We hounded him for twelve long years where little in the galaxy changed with the exception of our continual ceaseless chase. We swiped artifact after artifact out from under their noses, and it genuinely began to feel like there was no place in the entire galaxy that they could hide from us. Within the squad, the Clones had begun to suffer the effects of their accelerated aging. The carbon freezing had bought us some years, but we couldn't hold off the flow of time forever. Rather than it being a hinderance like I originally imagined he would, Dokaas took it upon himself to find ways to inhibit the effects the Kaminoans had put in place in their DNA. He did it all with only mild complaining, and if I'm being honest, his tenacity at keeping Hipshot and Robin alive was a level of dedication I wasn't aware the Chagrian could possess. 

I didn't want to jinx it.

Much to my surprise, he was getting things to work. He stressed continuously that they were temporary fixes - like patching holes in a ship with bursting pipes - but he also kept insisting that he was on the verge of a genetic breakthrough. If anyone was going to make it happen, I knew it was going to be Dokaas.

The rest of my squad remained the same, but they got better, smarter, faster, deadlier. We were predators in every way. We had honed our skills to razor sharp points and used them against our enemies with all of the ferocity expected of Imperial special forces.

But even then, the encounters with Venn became... routine, in a way. The constant back and forth, the trading of blows, our victory after crippling victory against him spurred on by spite alone - all of it became a cycle. For twelve long years, that vicious cycle continued with months to whole years of silence where we would lie in wait, biding our time and staying far away from Republic senses as we could. Gideon fell in that time, the warlords began to fracture, the Jedi returned in force, and it seemed in our slumbering state that the world was getting ready to move on without us. The planets that had always been tacitly Imperial provided us with everything we needed to sustain a fleet the size of Sevens', but we all knew that they could only hide the number of food and other provisions that mysteriously vanished from the ports before Republic log readers became suspicious. They had already begun asking questions. So, we sat in the fringes of the galaxy and just waited. When we would catch word of Venn, we would slide out in the Summa and hunt his men down, rip the artifacts and data from their hands, and slink quietly back into the sweet embrace of the fleet long before any New Republic vessels would ever even know that we were there.

We left no trace.

We gave no quarter.

We simply arrived, took what was ours, and slipped away.

Siqsa had once called his men the "shadows of the Empire", and it truly began to feel like that was exactly what we were.

We were all sitting in the hangar beside the Summa one day playing pazaak when we first got the official notice that things were beginning to change. Our communicator went off and all of us exchanged nervous looks before Novaran tapped the small button. To my surprise, it was the nervous face of Director Dorne that showed on the holo, "Dorn," he spoke, even sounding anxious enough to begin making me antsy, "get up here to the bridge immediately. There has been a development."

That was officer speak for "Something is karked and we need you here".

I glanced back at my squad, who all leaned forward with inquiring looks as I pushed myself to my feet. "I'll be back. Get everything ready to go in case we need to do anything drastic in the meantime."

"Aye aye, Major," Peavey nodded as Farthen and Hipshot hopped up and quickly began grabbing gear to throw into the Summa.

I hurried my way up to the bridge past officers who gave me funny looks and troopers who watched me pass with looks of awe and fear intermingled. I had gotten somewhat used to it, but I never completely got over that feeling when they'd follow me with their eyes like I was some ghost come to life.