Beauty in The Eyes Beholder

CHAPTER SEVEN

The dying screams of the bugs echo through the tunnel. The dark side of the force surges through Palpatine as he thrusts his red crimson blades into another one of this aggressive species. He feels their rage as more and more of them come straight at them...and he loves it. The Emperor once again heads straight at them without any hesitation.

Olyone sees the widening gap between Palpatine and her and the troopers. She looks up at the ceiling and riddles a couple bugs with her blaster rifle. As they crash to the ground dead, she quickly looks around. The bugs are now attacking them from the rear as well, trying to box them in.

The Sergeant yells out to close the gap and reach the Emperor. "Come on, that pale old man is making us look bad!" Olyone sees that those words have worked: the gap begins to narrow. She quickly contacts Dzukya. "Things good in your neck of the woods?"

"Oh yeah, couldn't be better. Bad news, this room is a dead end. A few of those parasites came out of the eggs, wanted to be really friendly...that wasn't happening. We'll try and meet up with you somehow!" Dzukya ends the communication.

The battle rages on as bugs are felled by stormtroopers and vice versa. The usual motivators of a steady paycheck, plus 'three hots and a cot' have fallen by the wayside right now for an Imperial solider. It's all about staying alive, not dying here on some worthless rock in a section of space no one knows about. The flame, black, and death troopers are playing their part, but it hasn't pushed the momentum towards the Imperials.

Palpatine continues to 'feed' off the dark side of the force as he goes through the bugs like a hot knife through butter. He quickly shuts off his lightsabers, lets the dark side wash over him. As he lets out the lightning once again, every bug is frozen in place, consumed by the destructive power. The Emperor doesn't need to hear their screams to know that they're in pain...he can feel it from every one of them. His smile turns into a laugh that gets louder and louder the more the waves of electricity touches more and more bugs. Without any warning, the Sith lord lets off a massive force push that blows back the bugs the way they came.

As the stormtroopers have closed the gap, they see that nothing stands in front of the Emperor. He continues towards the end of the tunnel while Olyone is helping to clean up what left of the bugs at the rear. As she and a flametrooper waste one of these creatures, another bug is able to get behind her and immediately strikes with its tail. Red liquid covers the blade-tipped tail of the bug. The only issue is – that it's not Olyone's blood.

Olyone feels some splatter on her back and turns around. She quickly sees the bug and what's bleeding at the end of its tail: the lead shadow trooper fading in and out due to the damaged cloaking device. The Sergeant lets off a few bolts into the bug, killing it. The bug's tail comes out the shadow trooper and the trooper crashes onto the ground.

"Dammit," yells Olyone. She quickly kneels down and slowly rolls the Shadow trooper over and sees blood coming out of the gaping midsection wound: nothing can be done. Suddenly there's an explosion further up the tunnel. Dzukya and his troops enter. He sees Olyone and heads over to her and the dying shadow trooper.

"What happened?" asks Dzukya.

"I just saved your comrade. Now that's two you owe me!"

Olyone almost jumps back at what she just heard. 'I know that voice!' She gently pulls the helmet off the shadow trooper and sees person's face underneath. A mix of shock and surprise appears on the Sergeant's face.

"You!" It's the loyalty officer from ISB that beat the snot out of Olyone back on Coruscant.

"Commander...Walbett...is my name."