STAR WARS DOES NOT BELONG TO ME. IT BELONGS TO DISNEY, WHICH I HAVE NO PROBLEM WITH… UNLESS THEY TURN EPISODE 7 INTO A MUSICAL, IN WHICH CASE, I WILL DESTROY THEM WITH MY DEATH STAR.

Hello, Muffin-fans! Welcome to my latest story. I just want to make one thing perfectly clear: I love Star Wars, particularly the original trilogy. That being said, this story takes place in parallel to Episodes 4-6, and while you might see some canon characters, you should know now that this story focuses on my OC's. Speaking of which…

MY OC'S BELONG TO ME.

Now, on with the show… story… whatever. Shut up!

Star Wars: Outcast Blades

Chapter 1

Just Another Boring Day

Imperial Star Destroyer Retribution

Most Stormtroopers of the Galactic Empire hated boredom. They had joined the Empire to fight its enemies, not sit in a Star Destroyer for days on end. Then again, most of the Empire's grunts were clones, and fighting for the Empire was all they knew; it was the volunteers that were so often frustrated.

That wasn't the case for 19-year-old Ryan Nimbus. He had signed on as a Stormtrooper, but even after a year of service, he had yet to shoot his blaster at anything but targets on the training room. Unlike his fellow Stormtroopers, however, Ryan didn't mind the boredom; in his mind, boredom meant that he wasn't getting shot at, or that he wasn't risking his neck for something he didn't believe in.

In many ways, Ryan was an unusual Stormtrooper; he was reluctant to follow orders, especially if they were stupid ones, questioned his own loyalty, and occasionally talked back to his superiors.

He also didn't look like a Stormtrooper, if he wasn't wearing his armor; though he was human, he was slightly shorter than the average trooper. He was still of average height, but he would be teased often for standing out among the others. Without his helmet, which he hated wearing for its lack of peripheral vision, he had a fairly attractive face, with short, black hair and storm-gray eyes.

Right now, those eyes were narrowed in irritation as he patrolled the corridors of the Retribution with his fellow trooper and sort-of friend, Grif. He and Grif had enlisted together, but for different reasons; Grif had wanted to enlist in a fit of (in Ryan's opinion, misguided) patriotism, while Ryan had enlisted because he had promised Grif's mother to keep her son out of trouble.

"I'm telling you," Grif said in his baritone voice, "There's no way that the Rebel scum could have destroyed the Death Star; they're all a bunch of farmers and old men! What could they have done to such a powerful war machine?"

If Ryan was everything that a Stormtrooper wasn't, Grif was the opposite; he was big, uncomplaining, not too bright and constantly regurgitated the Imperial propaganda that they were fed daily, to the point where Ryan wanted to put a blaster bolt into his own skull.

"Okay, maybe you're right," Ryan said, knowing that Grif wasn't intelligent enough to catch his sarcasm, "Maybe the Rebels didn't blow up the Death Star; if so, what happened? A technical malfunction at the exact same time as a Rebel attack? Did some engineer drop a spanner into the reactor?"

"It had to have been a malfunction!" Grif said, "The Death Star was impervious to attacks from the outside!"

Yeah, right, Ryan thought; he didn't voice that particular thought, though. Grif might not have been smart, but he wasn't brain-dead; if Ryan said enough anti-Imperial sentiments in a single conversation, Grif would rat him out to the nearest officer, and that would send Ryan to meet a firing-squad. Since Ryan had no intention of dying if he could help it, he kept his mouth shut whenever he saw Grif getting agitated.

Out loud, he said, "Well, if it makes you feel better, man, I heard that we might be deploying soon; maybe you can take your frustration out on the Rebels, if they're there."

Grif brightened up considerably; he was more likely to fight than think, but Ryan had often used that to his advantage back home. No one messed with Grif back on Dantooine. No one had messed with Ryan either, especially after a few years of trying; despite doing his best to avoid fighting, he was actually very good at it.

"So," Grif said, "Where are we headed?"

"Not sure," Ryan admitted, but thankful that he'd distracted Grif, "But I think it was a major Rebel base."

"Was?" Grif echoed, "Why are we going if they're not there?"

"Maybe they came back?" Ryan guessed, "Or maybe they left something important behind."

Satisfied, Grif checked his repeating blaster for the thirtieth time in their patrol; seeing that, Ryan instinctively checked his own E-11 blaster carbine. The habit of constantly maintaining his gear was something that Ryan had been able to teach Grif. Ryan was a bit obsessed with having his equipment in the best condition possible; most of the Stormtroopers in their platoon gave only the minimum effort when it came to maintenance, but Ryan went the extra mile. He wasn't going to get himself killed because of his own sloppiness; not that he had any intention of getting killed at all.

Ryan's musings were cut off when his platoon's lieutenant contacted them via their helmet-comms.

"TK-8992," Ryan instinctively straightened at the use of his serial number, "TK-8993," Grif did the same at his own number, "Report to the hangar bay; the platoon is deploying in thirty minutes!"

Ryan mentally went over the layout of the Retribution. "Stang, it'll take us almost that long to get there; let's book, Grif!"

…

It took the two troopers exactly twenty-seven minutes to reach the hangar bay, where they found their unit: Infantry Platoon 4895, or "Poster Platoon", as they were sometimes called, for their habit of doing everything by the book, and their members being particularly zealous in their duties. Ryan was the exception to that, save for his maintenance and training; that was far beyond what everyone else did.

The other 18 members of the platoon turned their helmeted heads at the duo and nodded; Ryan wasn't very popular, but they knew that he could beat the snot out of any of them, their Lieutenant included. Grif received a nod because he fit in so well.

"You were almost late," their commanding officer barked; Lieutenant Raff was even shorter than Ryan, and seemed to try to compensate for that by being as loud as possible. He was also the only other person in the platoon besides Grif to carry a repeating blaster, even if it was almost as long as he was tall.

Ryan did his best to take the man seriously, but sometimes Raff looked like a child in his white armor; he'd heard a rumor from another platoon, one that wasn't as intense, that Raff's armor had been an ordinary set, but he'd taken it to Engineering and had a good four inches cut off so that it would fit him. Since hearing that rumor, Ryan had to stifle a laugh every time he saw the man, and it was one of the few times that he was glad that he wore such a stupid helmet; no one could see him biting his lip to silence his laughter.

"Sorry, sir!" Grif said, saluting, "It won't happen again, sir!"

Raff glared at them, but since they hadn't disobeyed him, he couldn't punish them… this time, anyway.

"Get in line, you two," he growled; once they did so, he addressed the platoon. "We have been chosen to investigate an abandoned Rebel base on the planet of Yavin IV. As some of you may know, that planet was the Rebellion's main base of operations until five months ago, when the Death Star was destroyed before it could exterminate them."

Ryan made a mental note that Raff hadn't said how the Death Star was destroyed; he took that as a sign that he'd been right, and that he'd won the argument with Grif.

"However," Raff continued, "we received a report that mercenaries, under the Rebellion's employ, have set up camp there; our task is to destroy these mercenaries and find any information on the Rebellion's current whereabouts. Now get into the shuttle, you maggots! Move!"

Though not physically intimidating, Lieutenant Raff was known to give punishments that far exceeded any infraction, and he would even extend those punishments to members of platoons other than his own; the commanders of those platoons couldn't do anything to stop it, either, since Raff's grandfather was a high-ranking Moff. It would be political or even literal suicide to mess with a Moff's family in any way.

The platoon piled into the Lambda-class shuttle, and in a few minutes, left the Retribution.

…

Yavin IV

"Are you ready for this?" Grif asked from his seat in the shuttle, his face almost split in half by his grin, even if it was hidden by his helmet.

Ryan took half a second to glance at the others in his platoon; he knew that if he didn't say this right, they might view him in suspicion.

"I'll let you take the first shot," he said, pretending to be gracious, when all he wanted to do was get back to his safe, boring patrols.

"Thanks, buddy!" Grif gave him a friendly punch on the arm.

Well, at least this armor is good for something, Ryan thought, resisting the urge to rub his arm after Grif's unintentionally painful strike, it kept my arm from breaking; I wonder if Grif knows how strong he really is?

"Stow that chatter, troopers!" Raff yelled, "Do you want the whole kriffing planet to hear us!?"

It took all of Ryan's willpower not to point out that they hadn't actually left the shuttle yet, and thus no one could hear them, not to mention that even if they were outside, they hadn't been that loud, and that Raff's yelling would have been what gave them away.

Instead, he asked a simple question, but one that might save his life. "Lieutenant, what kind of opposition are we expecting?"

Raff glared at him for a moment before answering. "Just some Mandalorian thugs; shouldn't take long to wipe out that trash."

Ryan was once again thankful for the helmet; if he hadn't been wearing it, there was a good chance that everyone in the shuttle would have seen him sweating.

He had a good reason to sweat; Mandalorians were some of the best-equipped, best-trained fighters in the galaxy. They weren't just soldiers; a talented Mandalorian was a one-being army! The worst part was that they weren't predictable; they didn't follow a racial tactic, like how the Trandoshans worshipped hunting. Mandalorians were a culture; any species could join, so long as they could prove that they were warriors.

Of all the things Ryan could have faced on his first combat-mission, it had to be Mandalorians; he could only hope that Imperial Intelligence had gotten the facts wrong, and that his platoon was only facing a bunch of imposters.

Ryan was jolted out of his fear when the shuttle landed on the surface of the planet with thud. The hatch opened, and the platoon rushed out, taking cover behind fallen logs and rocks; a perfectly textbook maneuver. Ryan, on the other hand, went the extra mile and covered his exposed flank with a fallen branch.

Jungle, he thought, looking at his surroundings, They sent us to a kriffing jungle in white armor!? We might as well have a big sign over us that says 'shoot us'!

When it was clear that no one was waiting to ambush them, the Stormtroopers got out of cover, but kept their fingers near their triggers.

"All right," Raff said, this time at a reasonable volume, looking at a holomap, "the temple where the mercs are hiding is half a klick northwest of here; let's move out!"

The jungle was quieter than Ryan expected, but then remembered that only a few days after the Battle of Yavin, the Empire had launched a massive ground assault on the area; anything that had moved had been killed off, and the battle had covered kilometers of jungle. Even months afterward, life was reluctant to return here, if the scorch-marks and craters were anything to go by.

…

The platoon reached the temple in only a few minutes. It wasn't very impressive; it had been old and crumbling even before the Empire had attacked, and now it looked to be on its last legs. If there had been anything useful here, the Rebels had either taken it with them or destroyed it.

Once at the foot of the temple, the platoon stacked up, readying their blasters; most had the standard E-11's, but they also had three thermal detonators. Ryan hoped that nobody would be stupid enough to use them while inside the temple; being buried beneath tons of rubble was not a pleasant way to go.

"Nimbus," Raff whispered, "You and Grif go in first; we'll be right behind you."

That was another thing that Ryan had noticed about his CO; if he liked someone, he called them by their first name. Ryan was the only person in the platoon that Raff called by surname.

Still, if he tried to get out of being point-man, Raff would lose it and start yelling; that would turn a probable chance of getting killed into a near-definite chance of getting killed. Suppressing a sigh, Ryan cautiously entered the temple, Grif right next to him. Straining his ears, Ryan could hear the rest of the platoon following after a few seconds.

At least they aren't too far away if I need help, he thought.

A few moments later, his eyes caught a flicker of light coming from a crack in a door; he held his left arm at a right angle and closed his fist, signaling the platoon to stop. He slowly pointed at the door, then at Grif and himself. Grif might not have been smart, but he learned things eventually; he knew that that meant he was going to be breaching the door with Ryan.

Ryan, on the other hand, was mentally slapping himself; consciously, he was always trying to get away from danger, yet in the tension, he'd let his training take over, and now he had willingly put himself in a dangerous position.

I've got a bad feeling about this, he thought, still, no way out now.

Ryan crept up to the door, then turned his head to look at Grif, who raised his repeating blaster and nodded; Ryan nodded back, then kicked the door down. As soon as he did, he fell to one knee and aimed his carbine; within the room, five humans looked up in alarm.

At first, no one moved; then one of the humans glanced at the others and nodded. Ryan figured that they thought that he was easy prey; after all, they only saw a lone Stormtrooper. They didn't see Grif, who was still in the shadows, nor the rest of the platoon.

Still, Ryan hoped that they would surrender; while he knew how to shoot at someone, he'd never killed anyone before, and he didn't really want to, either.

Sadly, he didn't get his wish; two of the mercs, a man and a woman, raised blaster pistols and fired. Time seemed to slow down; in the back of Ryan's mind, he knew it was only adrenaline, but the rest of him was reacting on instinct. He rolled to the side and fired three times; one shot went wide, but the other two hit the man in the arm, forcing him to drop his blaster. The woman took cover, just as Grif ran in and filled entire room with blaster bolts; his shots caught the three other mercs, who'd frozen for some reason in the open. The unarmored trio, two men and another woman, fell with brief cries of pain.

Ryan saw the only uninjured merc aim her blaster with a shaky hand.

"Don't do it!" he barked, but she didn't listen; instead, she took aim at Grif, whose blaster had jammed. Remembering his promise to keep Grif alive, he aimed and fired. He was aiming at a target less than three meters away, who wasn't even moving, and Ryan had hundreds of hours of practice aboard the Retribution. His shot caught the blaster pistol, sending it flying out of her hand.

"Surrender if you want to live!" Ryan shouted; to his pleasant surprise, she actually raised her hands in surrender…

Before a flurry of blaster-fire caught her in the chest, sending her smoking corpse to the ground. Ryan whirled around to see Lieutenant Raff standing in the doorway, lowering his ridiculously big, smoking weapon.

The room was silent for a moment, save for the whimpering of the last merc, who was still alive. Raff nodded at Ryan and Grif.

"Well done, you two; I guess you're not completely useless," he glanced down at the injured man, "Finish him off."

"What?" Ryan asked, his adrenaline overwhelming his common sense, "Why should we kill him? Why not take him prisoner?"

"BECAUSE I SAID SO, TROOPER!" Raff roared up at Ryan; he would have yelled more, but the sound of blaster-fire cut him off. Both men turned to see Grif standing over the now-dead mercenary.

"Done, sir," Grif said, his voice almost gleeful.

"Nice work, Grif," Raff said, beaming like a proud parent, "Now, all we have to do is…"

He didn't get to finish; Ryan marched up to Grif and decked him, not caring that his fist was striking a plastoid helmet.

"What is wrong with you!?" Ryan demanded, "How the hell could you murder that man!?"

"TROOPER, STAND DOWN!" Raff yelled.

Ryan turned to see at least half of his platoon behind him, blasters aimed at his chest. It was then that Ryan's survival instincts kicked back in; he quickly raised his hands over his helmeted head.

Raff marched up to Ryan and was visibly keeping himself calm enough to speak.

"Trooper, I'm going to keep my men from shooting you for two reasons; first, because I don't want to search this temple for what this scum stole from my family with an under-staffed platoon, and second, because I'm sure that you're simply in shock, since this was your first combat-mission… right?"

Ryan was smart; he knew that Raff was offering him a lifeline, even if it meant being in the loathsome little man's debt. Also, that bit about the mercs stealing from Raff's family got him curious.

"Right, sir," Ryan said, then slowly moved to help Grif up, "Sorry about that, Grif; combat nerves, right?"

Grif nodded, though Ryan wasn't sure if he believed him or not.

Raff clapped his hands together. "Okay, platoon, here's what's going to happen: we will search this temple from top to bottom, until we find the Imperial property that was stolen, and we will return it to its rightful owners."

Meaning you, Ryan thought darkly, and even if I somehow get out of this alive, I doubt I or anyone else in the platoon will get any credit… not that these puppets will even care.

…

Over the next hour, the platoon went through the temple, searching room by room. Ryan was the only exception, however; he was forced to dispose of the dead bodies of the mercs. He was outside of the temple, laying the last body, the woman who'd tried to surrender, in a dignified position.

"I'm sorry," Ryan whispered to her, taking off his helmet to address her directly, ignoring the smell of the burnt flesh and muggy jungle.

While he had been moving the bodies, he noticed something odd: they weren't Mandalorians. Well, they might have been, but if they were, they were incredibly new to the trade. They weren't that muscled to be seasoned warriors, and from what he knew of the culture, it was rare for Mandalorians to leave their armor off, especially in a hostile environment.

So if they weren't Mandalorians, then who were they?

"TK-8992," Raff said into his helmet-comm, "Rendezvous with the rest of us at the south side of the temple; we found what we were looking for."

Ryan stood, nodded once more at the dead woman, then jogged off, his blaster holstered and his helmet under his arm.

…

When he reached his platoon, he was shocked by what they'd found; it was a veritable armory! On one table lay a large number of weapons, many of which were either so modified as to be unrecognizable, or custom, one-of-a-kind pieces. For someone who was enthusiastic about weapons, like Ryan, it was like striking gold.

Another table, this one propped up at an angle, five sets of Mandalorian armor lay gleaming in the sun. Assuming that they were real, they were made of Mandalorian iron, or beskar, a near-indestructible material. Lying next to the center suit was a saber, its tip ending in a cruel barb; again, assuming it was real, it was a beskad, a sword also made of Mandalorian iron.

Behind the two tables, however, was the biggest prize: a ship.

Painted dull-gray, it wasn't exactly a Naboo cruiser; it wouldn't be winning any beauty-contests, that was for sure. It was almost thirty meters long, and almost twenty wide at the center; it was roughly diamond-shaped, though the three large engines at the stern offset that image a bit. Each side of the ship had a quad-barreled cannon mounted on it that looked far too large for a ship of that tonnage. All in all, the ship looked mean, and probably could back up any threat it made.

"What…" Ryan finally tore his gaze away from the treasure-trove to look at his CO, "What is all of this?"

Raff turned to the Stormtrooper with a smirk, too pleased with himself to reprimand Ryan for not wearing his helmet, or failing to address him as "sir".

"This," he said, waving his hand at the find, "is one of the greatest collections of Mandalorian weaponry and equipment in this century; despite its age, everything here is better than anything in the standard Imperial arsenal… and it belongs to my family."

Gone was the ever-yelling Lieutenant; now, Raff acted more like an overeager, spoiled child, combined with a hint of megalomania.

"You're a Mandalorian, sir?" Ryan asked, his sarcastic mouth moving faster than his brain, which was still fixated on the ship.

"No, and no one in my family is," Raff admitted, "but my grandfather has spent a considerable sum of credits to obtain everything you see here, as well as ensuring its authenticity; even the ship was made by Mandalorian hands, and with Mandalorian iron."

Ryan's eyes nearly fell out of his head; if that was true, then this ship was nearly indestructible! Then he remembered something.

"What about those people?" he asked, "Were they Mandalorians?"

"Hmm? That rabble that you helped exterminate?" Raff said, as if he'd already forgotten, "Oh, no; they were thieves who'd ambushed my grandfather's ship last week. They left him unharmed, but took all of this; they left their own ship in exchange for the Mandalorian one. I'm surprised it was spaceworthy, to be honest; I thought it was just there to look fearsome."

"Then why did you tell us that we were hunting mercenaries?" Ryan demanded.

"Because I couldn't tell the higher-ups on the Retribution," Raff said, "If I did, they'd try to claim it for themselves, or try to sell it back to my grandfather; this way, my family doesn't have to pay for anything, and my standing in the family goes up."

Ryan was torn; one the one hand, he was furious with his CO for risking his life for his own personal gain. On the other hand, he was desperately fighting back the urge to say something that would get him court-martialed, or worse.

"But how are you going to sneak this aboard the Retribution?" Ryan asked.

"I won't be," Raff said, smug, "I've sent a personal holocall to my grandfather, who is sending a ship to retrieve the artifacts; we'll simply return to the ship, say that we eliminated the mercenaries, but couldn't find any useful data on the Rebels, then buried our fallen comrade on this stinking planet."

Ryan blinked. "Fallen comrade? Who died?"

Raff gestured to someone behind Ryan; when he turned, he saw the rest of the platoon, including Grif, aiming their blasters at him.

"Nobody yet," Raff said, "but very, very soon."

Bam! First chapter: complete! I hope you enjoyed this, it isn't as long as most of my previous works, but this is an intro chapter. I should mention, however, that I do not have an encyclopedic knowledge of Star Wars, but I will do my best to be accurate. If I do make a glaring mistake, please send me a PM, and I will make the corrections as soon as possible. In addition, while this will be taking place within the original trilogy, I will be putting in a few things from "Clone Wars", "Force Unleashed", and "The Old Republic". Nothing too major, just stuff I liked.

Oh, and that ship? I made that up; I'll be accepting names for it via reviews until the next chapter! If one of you sends me a name that sounds cool, I will give you credit for it in that chapter!

I'll try to have the next chapter up within a week!

May the Muffin be with you!