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Michael "TheZorch" Haney

"Outer Rim Redemption"

A "Nindo of the Force" Sidestory

Ranma's eyes shot open. He had that same dream again.

It was a typical running dream, one of those where you run faster and faster but don't really get anywhere. He was trying to run to his father, trying to warn him. Trying to make him look back to see the cloaked figure behind him. It always ended the same way. Why? Was he being punished for some reason or was he being taught a lesson that he simply wasn't getting? He wanted to forget that day, the day his life as he knew it then ended.

He climbed out of his bunk, which was actually a repurposed equipment bay. His private quarters were small and spartan, on the road he never really owned too many things. In the years since that never really changed, though most of his possessions were stored somewhere else. He never felt the need to put them on display or have them cluttering up his room. He was fine with the few things had had and everything in his room had a purpose for being there. The small private refresher was the one minor luxury that he gave himself, he entered it via a small sliding door next to his bunk.

Ranma splashed cold water on his face from the sink, it wasn't enough to trigger the curse. He had long ago learned what its threshold was. He looked at himself in the mirror, turned his head side to side, for a moment he considered shaving but decided against it. He was older now, no longer a kid, what innocence as a teenager he had died years ago. He had haunted eyes, the eyes of a man who saw too much, who knew the depths of darkness and lived to climb out of it. Though he no longer celebrated his birthday he did keep track, he was 28 now. No longer a boy but still young, yet he felt so very old.

The door to his quarters was a simple sliding panel with an improvised locking mechanism. He rarely needed to use it. Beyond his room was a circular common area that could accommodate several people, but he was the only person here. Well, that wasn't entirely true, there was someone else here. He sat at the large round table that dominated the circular room. Before him, spread out on parchment paper were the parts for a long barreled gas charged slug thrower. Each part was meticulously laid out in logical, neat orderly rows. Laid out next to the parts were various tools and cleaning implements.

"What are you doing?" Ranma asked.

The droid looked up, its red optics focusing on him. "Weapon maintenance, something you should really take more seriously, master."

The droid gestured to a storage cabinet set in the wall. "Speaking of which, I took the liberty of cleaning and recalibrating your blasters."

Ranma frowned, "You didn't touch..."

The droid raised a hand, "I wouldn't dream of it, master, I know how touchy you are about it. It is still where you last left it." Ranma went to the cabinet and there it was where he left it. He didn't know why he made a new one. He got rid of the old one, was happy he no longer had it, but he went and made a new one anyway. Getting the kyber crystal for it wasn't that hard. Actually, you don't find them, they find you. In fact, it was the crystal he found first, and completely by accident, or at least that is what Ranma tells himself. Where the Force was concerned, there were no coincidences though. The design he used for this lightsaber was based on the handle of a samurai sword. It was different from the last one, more elegant, less industrial. The old one had a red blade, this one was white. He didn't know why that was.

Next to the lightsaber, affixed to their leather holsters, were Yin and Yang his blasters. If he were still alive, his father would have a conniption fit if he saw him using guns. But, they were a necessary evil in his line of work. Ranma still had his martial arts, he's added to his repertoire of techniques over the years, but there were times when getting in close enough to land a punch wasn't an option. Anything Goes didn't forego or ban the use of weapons. On the contrary, in Anything Goes "anything" can become a weapon, it was the "dependence" on them that was banned. Fighting styles like kendo had a fatal flaw if you take away the sword and unless the swordsman had another martial art to fall back on they were helpless. The same thing applied to Juyo, he never mentioned that to his old master. It would have been a bad idea, so he devised his own counter to that vulnerability. In secret, of course, had his master learned what he was doing it would have been unpleasant. Those thoughts brought a memory back to him, one from a time Ranma would rather forget.

"Get up! Try again!"

Ranma struggled to his feet. Repeated hits by the remote's zapper wreaked havoc on his nervous system. Back on his feet, he turned to his master, he hated him, hated him more than he hated anyone ever in his entire life. Yet, it was his duty to learn and be obedient to his master until he had nothing more to teach him. Then he could kill him. He saw the smile on his master's face, he knew he was thinking about it. The smile was brief on the Twi'lek's face, however.

"Focus, apprentice," snarled Darth Tormentus. "Reach out with your feelings boy, anticipate the movements of the remote. Begin!"

The moment the words left his master's lips the remote went zipping around the arena. Ranma ignited the crimson blade of his lightsaber and did as he was instructed. He let his hatred and rage flow between him and the remote. Two quick zaps, he deflected these with ease. The remote zigged and zagged performing a faint and let loose three zaps. Ranma could "feel" them, his hand moved almost of its own accord, and he deflected the first two, but he was trained to always be in control. He didn't like it when his body did something on its own and so lost focus and the last zap hit him on the shoulder. At least it didn't knock him down this time, but the force push from his master certainly did.

"The Force guides your hand, why do you keep insisting on resisting it!" his master was furious.

Tormentus smiled then, a thought must have come to his twisted mind. "Perhaps, I should take inspiration from your late father's training style. It is obvious to me that you don't consider the remote that much of a challenge, so you aren't really taking this seriously enough." He then gestured to four armored guards who were stationed at the arena's entrance.

"Set your blasters to kill, the man who lands a shot on my apprentice gets three months of pay in advance and a whole week with the pleasure girl of his choice." the four guards without any hesitation or question raised their weapons. Ranma quickly jumped to his feet, he knew better than to plead with his master for mercy. Mercy was a concept Darth Tormentus did not understand.

"Fire!" Ranma managed to dodge the first two blaster bolts. He ignited his lightsaber and again reached out with the Force. He deflected an incoming blast, then another, then he felt that uncomfortable feeling of his body moving but not where he told it to. It was the Force. This time was different, this wasn't the remote shooting harmless electrical shocks. These were lethal blaster bolts. The holes they left in the plasteel floor and walls of the arena were demonstration enough. For a brief instant, Ranma contemplated letting one of those bolts hit him. It would end this suffering, this nightmare of an existence, but then he remembered his father. A rage filled him. If he died now, he would not be able to get revenge. So, Ranma did the one thing that was anathema to his training, he let go of his control and gave himself to fully to the Force. To the Dark Side.

At first, he simply deflected the blasts away from him, but then he started experimenting with deflecting them in a specific direction. If he angled his lightsaber just right he could send the blaster bolts back where they came from. It didn't take him long to zero in on his first target. The first guard in the row doubled over, his own blaster bolt hit him in the chest. The other three scattered but kept shooting. This only raised the difficulty but Ranma never backed down from a challenge. Another guard soon fell then there were two, then one, and finally the one also fell from a direct hit to the head. Ranma stopped, panting for air, he felt exhausted. He had survived.

Then, he was up off the floor, throat constricting. He gasped for air. His master stood before him, hand outstretched, "The next time you fail to perform to the same degree as you did just now in our training, I will kill you. Do we have an understanding, Vindictus?" He nodded, and the Sith Lord dropped him to the floor.

"Hello, master. Master, master, hello!"

"What!?" he whirled on the droid, who didn't look cowed in the slightest.

"You were gone there for a minute or two," he explained. "Were you having one of those force visions? I've heard of those, not a good omen especially for us about to begin a new mission."

With a grunt of anger, more at himself than the droid, Ranma slammed the cabinet shut. He went around the room to the cold storage bin and pulled out a bottle of Jawa juice. He never stomached alcohol and the last time he allowed himself to get drunk, he woke up female and naked and no memory of the night before. And, he preferred it stay that way. Though he wasn't a virgin anymore and enjoyed a good romp with a pleasure girl or two, or three, now and then, there were things even he wouldn't do. At least, he never allowed himself to be in a desperate enough situation where he was forced to do it. Few knew of his curse, and he liked it that way.

"What mission?" he took a seat not far from where the droid was cleaning his rifle. He was K8T0 but Ranma called him Kato. He was a reprogrammed Sith assassin droid. The reprogramming had weird side effects on Kato's personality which was still somewhat bloodthirsty and he had a biting wit.

If the droid had been capable of rolling its optic sensors it would. "Why are you meat bags so forgetful?" Kato tapped a control on the table and a holographic image of an alien appeared above it. Ranma didn't remember the name of the race, but it was ugly though. Looks like a humanoid with skin so wrinkly it looked like a raisin.

"His name is Vagas Nando," Kato said. "This meat bag was a small time spice smuggler in the outer rim. Apparently, he had a rather over-inflated opinion of himself."

Ranma gave a bored wavy, "How so?"

"He convinced the Black Sun that he was someone of some repute in the galactic underworld and they loaned him a rather large sum of money to smuggle spice into the Coruscant system."

Ranma looked at him, shocked. "The Coruscant system, the most heavily guarded system in the entire galaxy. Was he stupid?" It has been many years since the Liberation of Coruscant. A new Republic had recently been established, the army of the previous Republic was disbanded and the Jedi were falling into the role as keepers of the peace. The Sith, by all accounts, were now extinct, but there were still many Dark Jedi on the loose.

Kato nodded, "Yes, as meat bags go this one is rated on the higher end of the stupidity scale. When a Jedi patrol announced they intended to come aboard and inspect his cargo, he panicked. Vagas jettisoned his entire load of spice and jumped out of the system. The Black Sun, of course, weren't impressed so they put a rather sizable bounty on his head. They want him dead or alive, but preferably dead and in several pieces knowing them."

Ranma dropped his head to the table and sighed, "That means everybody and their pet womp rat is going to be after this asshole. We got any ideas of where he might be hiding out?" Kato nodded, which didn't come as a surprise to Ranma. Assassin droids were methodical when it came to gathering information on their targets. They were masters at learning the habits of those they were sent to eliminate.

"It is not generally well know, but Vagas has some connection with the Grey Hand, a notorious clan of Tusken Raiders on Tatooine," Kato explained. "If he is still in their good graces, he might run to them for a place to hide." Ranma had been to Tatooine before, he didn't like the planet. It smelled, it was too hot, and the sand got into everything. One day, in Anchorhead, he hired a pleasure girl, only to discover she worked for some of the local scum. Rather than lead him to something more private, she walked him into an ambush. They tried to rob him, emphasis on the word 'tried". The whole thing left a bad taste in his mouth, and for a Twi'lek she wasn't even that pretty.

"Only the foolish scam the Black Sun, they won't stop hunting him," said Ranma. "Who are we grabbing him for, the Coruscant magistrate or the Jedi?" Ranma had nothing against the Jedi, he just didn't like their ideology. Their beliefs were a bit too rigid even compared to bushido. Though he was a force user he wasn't much into religion.

"The Coruscant magistrate," said Kato. "Vagas was carrying quite a load, the street value of the spice he jettisoned is estimated to be in the hundreds of millions, so they want him alive, unfortunately. They'll pay thirty million for him, only if he's delivered in one piece. But where is the fun in that?"

Ranma mulled all this information over for a moment, then said, "Finish up here, then prep the Beauty for a jump to Tatooine. I'd like our stay there to be as short as possible." He left the droid to finish his work and went to a ladder set in a recess in the wall. This lead to the cockpit, the ship was an old Corellian freighter Heavily modified with weapons, reinforced shields, and a better hyperdrive. Ranma "acquired" the ship from its former owner, a Rodian smuggler, on his second outing as a bounty hunter in the outer rim. He didn't know the ship's original name, he renamed it the Black Beauty. As a kid, he and his father stayed in a small town somewhere outside Hiroshima and the local TV station played reruns of the Green Hornet. He liked the show because it had Bruce Lee in it. He named the ship after the main protagonist's car. The named the attached shuttle Sting.

He slipped into the co-pilot seat. He knew how to fly, he had to learn out of necessity, so he could easily fly the Beauty if he wanted to. He preferred to let Kato do it so he could meditate before missions. It was calming, the droid was an excellent pilot so he didn't have to worry. The canopy bubble gave him a good view of the outside. Rarely did he ever spend a long time docked at a port or on a planet. Right now, the Beauty was in his favorite place, a massive crimson cloud of dust and gas. Nearby stars made the gas of the nebula shine a deep red which darkened in places. One would think, given his background, he would try to seek out places that were cheery, but he liked it here. The dark colors were actually calming, they helped him focus. He found this place years ago, nobody ever came here. Not even smugglers, the location wasn't near any major trade routes either.

The Black Beauty didn't just float in space out in the open. Deep within the nebula, Ranma found an old wreck. It was ancient, undisturbed for thousands of years. The Beauty was attached to the derelict via a magnetic grapple, to any passing ships that might come here, she would look like just a part of the hull. It wasn't that he wanted to avoid people but he had a reputation and his ship was easily recognized by people who moved in certain circles. The presence of the Black Beauty in a system made those certain people very nervous. He was not a killer, he didn't go out of his way to avoid killing he just didn't kill indiscriminately. This annoyed Kato to no end. Never did he take a life frivolously. There was a time when he would kill without hesitation when he was driven by his rage, but there came a day when he chose to not to kill. That day changed his life.

Darth Vindictus, formerly Ranma Saotome, apprentice to Darth Tormentus ran in search of his master. Sounds of explosions and sirens rang out all across this region of Coruscant. The defense had broken, the troops were in a panic. The Jedi were coming, he had to find his master. He could feel him in the Force and soon found him talking to a high ranking officer. What he heard didn't sound good.

"The emperor's flagship went down in the first exchange," the officer said. "Lord Ulek has assumed command of all remaining forces. She's ordering a full retreat from the system. We are to regroup at Ziost."

Ranma could see his master was fuming, "Where are the rest of our forces?"

The officer looked apologetic, "The majority are scattered, isolated, many have joined up with Lord Ulek, others have already fled the system with Lord Bane on Lord Ulek's orders. We no longer have enough forces to hold the planet."

"Are you telling me that we've been completely routed!?" he could see the shock and disbelief on the Sith Lord's face.

"We had enough forces to repel any assault, how did this happen?" his master moved up to the officer menacingly forcing the man to step back nervously.

The officer swallowed, "My lord, there have been reports of Mandalorians fighting alongside Republic troops. Just prior to the Republic and Jedi fleets jumping into the system, all orbital defense system went offline." His master gasped, shocked at this turn of events.

"We've been betrayed," Darth Tormentus snarled. "Damn House Vizla, damn them all!"

"Lord Tormentus, you are the last surviving high ranking commander on the planet, what are your orders?" the officer saluted, probably thankful that Tormentus didn't kill him for being the bringer of bad news.

Darth Tormentus composed himself and ordered through clenched teeth, "Rally all remaining forces in the area to staging area B, we will withdraw." The officer saluted then turned and ran off to begin putting the orders into motion. Ranma walked up slowly to his master and waited for him to speak.

"Come with me." the Dark Lord of the Sith turned and Ranma followed. He followed his master into one of the larger slave quarters. There Ranma saw hundreds of people, humans and aliens alike, all cowering and huddle together. The Sith Lord ignited his lightsaber and turned to face him.

"We cannot leave these spoils of war behind for the Jedi," his master looked at him with cold eyes. "Their corpses will be a message, kill them, all of them, even the younglings." Without hesitation, Ranma ignited his lightsaber and advanced on his first victims. They were a woman and her child, they hugged one another. Upon hearing his master's words the slaves began to scream in panic. Something deep within Ranma stirred, he couldn't raise his blade to strike this woman and her child down. A near eternity passed as he watched them, tears streaming down their faces, then he heard a voice. A voice he barely remembered, one had hadn't heard in a very long time.

"Boy, remember, it is the duty of martial artists to defend the weak." They were his father's words, spoken to him when he was just a small child. That memory made something well up from deep inside, it pushed away his anger, the hate, the fear. Tears streamed down Ranma's face blurring his vision. The woman, still holding her child, looked up at him with pleading eyes and a look of frightened confusion. Ranma stood for a long moment, it seemed like an eternity, then everything came back into sharp focus and he knew exactly what he had to do.

His blade did come down, but at the last moment he shifted its direction and the crimson blade cut into his master's side. Tormentus's eyes went wide with shock. The Sith Lord gargled what might have been a curse, but the light soon faded from those cruel eyes and his former master fell to the ground his body cleaved in half. The slaves began to stand up, they looked at him and his master in shocked disbelief. The woman and her child were also standing now, looking at him in what was almost terrified awe.

"Remain here, you will be safe," he said before turning to leave. His face, set in a resolute mask, Ranma stalked his way to staging area B where the remaining forces where gathering for the final withdraw. The officer saw him and came running up to him to give him a report on their progress. What he was about to say was cut off with a strangled cry as Ranma plunged his lightsaber into the officer's chest. Some of the soldiers piling into the transports at the staging area witnessed the attack and began to fire at him. Ranma deflected the incoming blaster bolts with casual ease. Using the Force, he ran, closing the distance between himself and the armor Sith troops. Without mercy, without regret, without any emotion, Ranma cut them down one by one. Some he sent flying off the staging area platform to their deaths with a force push. A few of the transports tried to take off. Ranma reached out and with the Force caused one to collide with another causing a great explosion. Two managed to get away, there were still many on the ground with troops inside of them. Pilots desperately tried to start their engines to lift off, Ranma force choked some of them. Time lost all meaning as he slaughtered the rest, Ranma left no Sith soldier alive. When it was over he fell to his knees and remained that way until the Jedi found him.

After many days and many questions, the Jedi let him go. Master Nino Kahn was the most outspoken proponent for his release. Apparently, the slaves whose lives he saved by killing his master had all spoken on his behalf. The decision to release him finally came when he formally renounced the Sith teachings and took back his birth name. He urged the Jedi to destroy his lightsaber, the symbol of what he had become. Of what the Sith had turned him into after he was stolen away from his homeworld. Master Kahn had given him some money, a change of clothes, and put him on a civilian transport to one of the least damaged residential sections of Coruscant. Three years later, he was on level 1313 chasing down wanted criminals and earning money from cashing in on their bounties. That was how his life as a Sith ended and his life as a bounty hunter began.

The Black Beauty emerged from hyperspace in the Tatooine system. The twin suns cast their light into the cockpit canopy forcing Ranma to push his hat down over his eyes. He looked at the desert world from below the rim of his hat. The planet was the same as it was when he last visited here years ago. The only major settlement on the planet was Anchorhead, officially. There were smaller undocumented settlements and moisture farms. Water was a precious commodity on the desert planet. Slavery was also growing to become a big business in the outer rim.

"The Grey Hand's territory is east of Anchorhead and south of the Dune Sea." Kato brought the Beauty into low orbit over the planet.

"It isn't too large, I'm hoping." Ranma didn't like methodical searches, especially on worlds he was none too fond of and he was very not fond of Tatooine.

"I'm afraid it is, master." Ranma rolled his eyes but Kato gestured that he had more to say.

"However, there is one place where he is likely hiding," Kato said. "The Rift, its an ancient lava dome riddled with huge cracks forming natural caves, tunnels, and caverns. The Grey Hand used it as a shelter for generations because it was so defensible." Ranma had seen similar places on other worlds, they did make good hiding places and some were even turned into small fortresses by various crime lords.

"Why do you think he's there?" he asked the droid.

"Vagas is a coward, master." replied the droid.

"There is a ninety percent probability that he is there," Kato explained. "The Rift is very defensible, there are only two ways in or out. That's from the ground, now if you were a force user who could jump really high you could get in via one of the natural skylights in one of the many caverns."

"Alright already, get us down there so we can get this over with." Ranma groused.

To be continued...