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Well here's the thrid part of my HB tie in fics enjoy I'll post the other four later, as with the frist two of these fics this one has been chaged as well.
LT.Hit-Man’s Journal Honor Bound 3

The Tie
That Binds



Ezri opened her tired, red puffy eyes as she sat up on her bunk.

"Damn it, I can't deal with this any more," she thought to
herself as she started looking for anything sharp. Her search turned up
nothing; she tried to take apart her cot but it was unbreakable.

Ezri looked over at LT.HIT-MAN's cot and a fresh wave of despair
washed over her. She wondered for the umpteenth time what was to be her
fate as her mind replayed the last time she had seen LT.HIT-MAN, his
scarred face devoid of any humanity to her. He had been more like a
Borg in some ways, cold, methodical more machine than man, yet he was
more terrifying than a Borg, Jem'Hadar or any of the enemies she had
face before and after the coming of the Empire.

Yes, she had been told about LT.HIT-MAN and she did not, could
not believe the stories about him. However, after she had been given to
him, she saw what he had done to that comm officer, the way he had laid
down the law and what he had expected of her, she knew without a doubt
that the stories about LT.HIT-MAN did not do him justice.

"Damn it Ez, get it together! He's gone!" she chided herself as
she got off the cot and made her way to the shower. LT.HIT-MAN was gone
but she could not help but wonder what he had planned for her; nothing
good, she was sure of that, but she still could not forget about the
way he had treated her. Sure, he had been hard on her, but he did not
take advantage of her.

"Hell he's been though so much...I wonder if he has any of his
equipment left?" Ezri thought to herself as she stripped off the rest
of her uniform. "That would explain a lot of LT.HIT-MAN's rage," she
muttered as the hot water slammed down on her tired body. "And
why he refused to have his way with me," she mused as she suddenly
found herself becoming aroused at that thought.

After Ezri was done with the shower, she put her uniform back on
and as she did the best to button her dress top up, her hand brushed
against the collar around her neck. "Damn it, what the hell do I do
with this?" she muttered as she finished getting dressed. She would
have to have a talk with Grand Admiral Lowe about getting this thing
off. She did not relish the thought of had to live her life, how ever
long or short that was to be, wearing the collar.
At that thought she cursed herself, the Empire, the entire universe
as she took one last look at the cold empty cot that had once belonged to her 'Master' and
she wished her birth had been aborted. She then left their - no, her -
quarters and headed for the mess hall.

As Ezri made her way to the lift she saw a bunch of Imperial
crewers who had be talking amongst themselves, but when the saw her,
the talking stopped. They looked at her.

Ezri took a deep breath and stared straight at the lift doors,
trying as best as she could to ignore the stares that the crewers where
giving her. When Ezri walked into the lift she could overhear the
crewers who where talking to each other. "Is that her?" a droid
technician asked a comm officer who replied "Yeah, that's LT.HIT-MAN's
woman." As the lift doors shut Ezri thought about the crewers and their
strange behavior when they saw her; they had backed away from her like
she was a plague bearer and on a more disturbing note there was fear in
their voices, a faintly familiar fear.

As the lift came to a stop, the few other crewers that got on the
lift walked out in a hurried pace. Some of the crewers that had been on
the lift before it stopped at the floor Ezri wanted had gotten off on
the next deck when they saw her. In some cases, the lift doors would
open and the people waiting, who were about ready to step in, saw her
and backed up out of the lift. As the doors shut Ezri could see their
looks of unreasoning fear, their suddenly wide eyes and the struggle to
keep their fear in check.

After the crewers got off the lift, she was about to step off but
she found she could not. Something was telling her to stay put so Ezri
just stood there trying and failing to make sense of what the hell was
going on as the lift wised her off to who knew where.

The lift stopped after a few decks, and after the same strange
behavior from various officers, the lift stopped. The doors opened, and
Ezri found herself walking out of the lift as a strange feeling washed
over her, like she was being called to; there was an underlying sense
of impending doom.

"Ez, what the fuck are you doing? Get it together, for crying out
loud!" she muttered to herself yet again, but this time there were many
crewers who heard her. The sight of LT.HIT-MAN's woman had put fear
into them, but the sight and sound of LT.HIT-MAN's woman talking to
herself, her head slightly bowed, shattered the last of their resolve.
They walked away as fast and as nonchalantly as they could, hoping like
hell that this crazy woman would pay them no attention.

Ezri saw that there was a hanger bay off to her left and she
started to slowly walk towards it, much like a condemned prisoner being
lead to the gallows. Ezri was hoping that the collar around her neck
would allow her entrance into the hangar.

"Yes, it would be so easy..." Ezri thought to herself as she
could see herself walking to the shielded hanger bay door and just
walking through and ending her misery once and for all as her tired and
battered body exploded in the icy cold black vacuum of unforgiving
space.

But as she was about to cross the threshold that lead into the
hanger bay, the strangely disturbing peace that she felt - that all
condemned and dammed souls felt as they are lead to their deaths - was
suddenly and ruthlessly smashed. Smashed by the ghost of LT.HIT-MAN
that was suddenly standing before her. Ezri started to cry in utter
despair, despair that cast her damned soul into the lowest pits of
hell.

Ezri looked at the image of LT.HIT-MAN looming over her, his
massive arms crossed. There was a look of disgust and pure contempt on
his scarred face, contempt at the sight of Ezri. She collapsed to her
knees as a wave of shame, shame for being so weak, washed over her.
LT.HIT-MAN would have never tolerated such a display of weakness and
her planned action of cowardice, as well as the hatred that cut her to
the bone, hatred of herself for being so fucking weak in the face of
adversity.

But suddenly and quite savagely she felt a rampaging tidal wave
of raw, unrelenting rage. "Would LT.HIT-MAN be so fucking weak, you
stupid bitch!" Ezri yelled to no one in particular, scaring the shit
out of everyone in the hallway, inciting them to run for their lives.

"Fuck, no!" was her reply to herself and with a suddenly dark
burst of resolve she stood up straight, vowing never to dishonor the
memory of LT.HIT-MAN like that again lest she die an agonized death
that her cowardice too richly deserved. With a grim determination, Ezri
let herself be lead by the calling of her destiny.

-----

Lowe and Lieutenant Colonel Tierce were walking out of med-lab
six after LT.HIT-MAN had been placed into a bacta tank. It had been a
close thing. The med-tech, once he had gotten over the fear-induced
shock at the maimed, semi-living vestige of LT.HIT- MAN walking into
the med-lab, had told the two of them that if they had not gotten
LT.HIT-MAN into the bacta tank when they did he would have died right
then and there. That had been a week ago and the med- tech was still
having nightmares about it.

"So what the kriff do you think is going to happen to LT.HIT-
MAN?" Tierce asked Lowe as he tried to wash them mental image of
LT.HIT-MAN's ravaged body from his mind.

"I have no idea. The med-tech says that LT.HIT-MAN had slipped into a deep
coma ever since he came back, and that he is not healing as he
should be," Lowe said as he ran his hand though his hair trying to
understand what was going on.

"Why is that?" Tierce asked as he reached for a well-hidden flask
that he kept close to his heart. Lowe told him that it was unlike LT.HIT-
MAN was giving up his ghost, that he did not want to live anymore.
"That does not sound like the LT.HIT-MAN I know," Tierce said with a
snort, wondering if that was a good or a bad thing.

"We are going to have a problem if he lives though this," Lowe
said with a wan smile, and when he saw the puzzled look on Tierce's
face he added, "No one can go though that shit and come out of it
sane."

"Has LT.HIT-MAN ever been sane?" Tierce asked as he took a long
hit from the flask. Lowe shuddered at that thought and the mental image
of an insane LT.HIT-MAN rampaging across all of creation.
He took the flask that Tierce was holding out to him and took a very long swig from
it. "I don't even want to think about that," he said as they walked
down the hall and the ten stormtroopers stood guard around the med-lab
doors.

-----

Ezri heard a few voices around the corner of the hallway. When
she saw Lowe and the son of a bitch that had worked her over before she
had been given to LT.HIT-MAN, she was about to call out to them, but
she held back as she saw the deeply troubled and fearful looks on their
faces. She stood there waiting for them to see her.

Lowe saw Ezri standing there and was about to ask her if she was
okay, and then what was she doing here, but he stopped up short as he
saw a cold, dead look in her normally cute face and a hint of madness
in her blue eyes. "Oh, kriff... this just gets better and better," he
spat. Tierce saw Ezri and he had an arrogant smirk on his face as he
thought about what her reaction would be to the news that LT.HIT-MAN
was alive. That thought lasted barely a second before fear slapped the
smirk off his face, fear induced as he gazed at the look of pure live
evil in Ezri.

"Hi, Ezri, I have some news for you. You might want to sit down,"
Lowe said as he tried and failed miserably to figure out as to what had
changed Ezri from a thoughtful, caring and timid girl into the cold and
lethal-looking ice maiden that was now standing before them.

"I'll stand, just spit it out," Ezri said coldly as she braced
herself for the hammer blow that was hanging over her head.

"We were mistaken. LT.HIT-MAN was not killed in action." Lowe
never got a chance to finished was he was saying as Ezri suddenly
leaned against the nearest wall, her new found strength sapped by this
lighting bolt.
"W-W-W-WHAT?!?!" Ezri rasped as her mind suddenly put the pieces together.
Now she understood why the crew had been so wound up at the sight of her.
Her mind was having a hard time believing this news as hope started to blossom
in the core of her soul.
"Yes, LT.HIT-MAN is in the med-lab back there," Tierce said, back to his old
arrogant self as he saw the change in Ezri from the bitch from hell to
her old shy and demure self, but what she did next caught them by
surprise. Ezri started running towards the med-lab.

Lowe reached out to stop her, knowing full well that if Ezri saw
the maimed chunk of nearly dead meat known as LT.HIT-MAN she could very
well lose her mind, and if LT.HIT-MAN lived he would not be too pleased
with that. "Don't, don't go in there, you don't want to see what has
happened to him," he said to Ezri as he grabbed her by the arm.

Suddenly, Ezri snatched him by the throat and was starting to slowly
strangle him as Tierce reached for his blaster pistol. They both could
see that Ezri was not going to be stopped by them or anyone else.

"You had better tell me why, and tell me fast. I don't have time
to be fucking around with low life lackeys like you," Ezri snarled as
her rage and anger came back with a vengeance.
In the back of her mind a small part of herself was screaming for her
to stop this before she got herself killed and another part of her dimly
wondered why she was acting like this. Ezri ignored them; she wanted answers and she wanted
them now.

"The Federation and the Bajoran resistance captured and tortured
him," Lowe gasped as he fought to try and get free from Ezri, his mind
still unable to comprehend what was happening to him.

"Let him go now, you dumb bitch, before I blast you into ashes!"
Tierce snarled as he drew a bead on Ezri's head.
Ezri just looked at him. "If you do, you'll be answering to LT.HIT-MAN," she answered.
She smiled savagely as she saw the look dread on Tierce's face, then she
turned to gasping Lowe.

"You'll take me to him now!" Ezri said in a voice that was so
cold and evil that it came somewhat close to LT.HIT-MAN's fear-inspiring monotone.

"OK, OK, just let me go and I'll take you to him," Lowe rasped as
his vision started to fade to black.
"Black as Lord Vader's cape," he thought dimly to himself.

"Fine, but if you try to harm me I'll kill you both." They could
see that she was serious, deadly serious, and they promised Ezri that
they would not harm her.
"Good, because I doubt that LT.HIT-MAN would be pleased to see his property
damaged in any way," Ezri added as she flashed them a cold smile, grinning wickedly
at the sight of the fear that her statement had caused, and let Lowe go.

After Lowe got himself together, he led Ezri along with Tierce
behind them. Tierce was pissed; he wanted nothing more than to really
work this bitch over, worse then he had done before she had been given
to LT.HIT-MAN, and he wondered what LT.HIT-MAN had done to Ezri before
he left for his mission to have caused such a profound change in her.

"You may want to prepare yourself for what you are about to see.
"They really kriffed him up badly," Lowe said, wishing that he did not
have to go back into the med-lab.
He had seen enough of LT.HIT-MAN's busted up body for one day.

Ezri took a deep breath. "Let's get on with it," she said as she
did her best to steel herself against the horrific images that her mind
was showing her.
They walked into the med-lab; it was as dark and as cold as a tomb.

Ezri stopped dead in her tracks when she saw the mangled body of
LT.HIT-MAN floating in the bacta tank like a frog in a jar full of
formaldehyde.

"Your Federation friends really worked him over, almost as good
as we would have done if LT.HIT- MAN had been on your side and we had
gotten hold of him," Lowe said, but his words fell on deaf ears as the
sight of LT.HIT-MAN overwhelmed Ezri.
He was all laid out like a light-year of bad road.

After a long silence Ezri asked in a shaky voice if he was going
to live. Lowe told her that they where not sure, then he and Tierce
left Ezri alone in the darkened med-lab, staring at LT.HIT-MAN.

"My God... what did they do to you," she whispered as she looked
over the scarred, charred and shredded body of LT.HIT-MAN that was
naked save for a skimpy loincloth.

"Well, it looks like I was wrong about why he's so angry and
never took advantage of me," Ezri thought wickedly to herself as she
saw the fair size bulge under the loincloth.
Then she started chiding herself for thinking such a thing about LT.HIT-MAN
in his sorry state of being.

Ezri put her trembling hand on the cool glass of the bacta tank
and let out a tired sigh. "Don't you die on me... I...I...I need you,"
she said to herself as she tried to wash out the image of LT.HIT- MAN's
busted-up body from her mind as she tried to sort out her ever conflicting feelings for
the man in the tank.

LT.HIT-MAN knew he was dying and he was glad. At last he would
have the peace that was so cruelly stolen from him by the rebel scum
back home.
As he thought about that, the old hatred burned in his
scarred soul. Every time he thought about the day his wife and unborn
son had died, it failed to spur him on to fight for his life.

As he felt himself slipping away into the cold finality of death,
he found himself in the same park the day he died along with his wife
and unborn child.
"Well, if this is the hereafter, I can live with it,"
he thought to himself, then started to laugh at his thoughts as he
walked around the park, a cool wind caressing him like the fingertips
of his late wife.

"Go back to her, she needs you," LT.HIT-MAN heard from behind
him. He stooped dead in his tracks in a stunned wonder; slowly he
turned around and standing there was Iris, pregent and unharmed.

"Iris? Is it really you?" LT.HIT-MAN asked the woman that once
held his heart and soul in her delicate hands, not believing what he
was seeing. It was too good to be true and he was right about that.

"Yes, it's me, Voltrick," Iris said as she looked at the man that
had been her husband. The man, who in simpler times saw that she was
taken care of no matter what the cost to him or anyone else.
The man her had given her an all too brief life of peace and love.
As short as it was he had given her true happiness, the man who had given her the
greatest gift of all, their unborn son.

LT.HIT-MAN wanted to hold her close to him, but what did she
think of him now? A half man, half machine freak that should had been
dead many a long years ago, a monster who had killed countless men and
women but strangely enough he never killed any children. That was a
line he would never cross, not even if the Emperor himself was skinning
him one layer at a time.

Iris saw the look of horror, fear and shame in Voltrick's one
human eye and she reached out for him. She had seen all the things he
had done ever since that day when the cowardly rebels had permanently
separated Voltrick and her. At first, she had been horrified by his
actions, but over the years she came to understand why he did all
things he had done.
Not in the name of the Empire or its mad ruler, but in the name of just vengeance and
in raging sorrow that they had been cauged up in a war that they did not care
about as long as they had each other and were left alone.
They had been content to let the universe rot, watching with sorrow over the long
years that Voltrick suffered because of her and their unborn son's murder.
Watched him go to war to fight the rebellion and as he slowly became more
a machine than the man she so truly loved, his body was blasted away bit by bit.

"It's okay, my love, come to me, hold me... I have missed you,"
she said to LT.HIT-MAN, who just stood there for a few wonder-struck
seconds before he took Iris in his arms and kissed her deeply.
Iris could feel the hunger that Voltrick had in the deepest core of his
scarred soul and she hungrily returned his anguished, overjoyed kiss
with the same intensity that was given.

"By all of creation, I have missed you so much," Voltrick whispered
as tears of pain, rage and of a love stolen from him were replaced with
tears of endless joy.
When Iris felt her husband's tears she stared to cry as well.
She felt so helpless that she could not be by his side in his greatest
times of need and the long years of being away from him had taken it's toll on her as well.
The heart braking years of loneliness began to eat away at her sanity
but somehow she found the resolve not to give in to hopelessness and despair.
"I have missed you as well, my beloved husband," she whispered as she looked him in his
good eye, seeing the storm of emotions that were raging therein.

They stood there, unmoving and just looking into each other's eyes; there
was no need for words and if there was they doubted that they could put
into words what they felt at that frozen moment in time.

After a while, Iris let go of Voltrick, and when he saw the look
on her lovely elven face he felt fear but before he could give voice to
his fears Iris reached and placed her finger tips on his quivering
lips.
"Shhh ...you must go back," she said in a strong but gentle voice,
but Voltrick could hear the sorrow and fear in her voice as he tried
and failed to understand what she was saying to him.

"No kriffing way, when you died I thought that you where lost to
me for all of eternity! Now that I have you, I'm not leaving, the
Empire be damned!" Voltrick spat.
He had given his life, his body and his loyalty to the Empire and did all
that the Emperor commanded of him and now it was time he did something for himself
now that he was reunited with his beloved Iris and unborn son. He was happy; he knew
the Empire would do just fine without him.

Iris took Voltrick's scarred face in her warm gentle hands,
kissed him hard, then told him, "You must go back. You are needed, not
by the Empire but by the one you have claimed as your slave."
When Voltrick heard that he felt shame, shame for feeling anything that came
close to the love he felt for Iris and yet before he could say a word
Iris spoke.
"It's all right, I understand and I have no problem with you and Ezri
becoming lovers because I know that you will always love me."

Voltrick was rocked by her words and it took him a good ten
minutes before he could speak. "But I am afraid that I would end up
loving her insteed of you and I'll be damned before that happens!"
he snarled in a voice so intense that Iris had to let go of his scarred
face.

"I know that, but trust me, everything will be all right in the end," she said to him,
but before he could say anything else, a chilling, howling wind came out of nowhere
and standing behind Iris was the boney man with the scythe and hourglass, reaching out for her.

"GET THE KRIFF AWAY FROM HER!" Voltrick screamed as he jumped
into the air and landed a flying roundhouse that busted the jawbone of
the grim one with an obscenely satisfying crack.
Then the man that once had be Voltrick became LT.HIT-MAN again and started
to pummel the still one with an unholy fury that would not be stopped as all of his hate,
rage, pain and loss were released from the restraints that Voltrick had
carefully kept them under.

For the first time since time began Death felt the icy cold hand of fear.

As suddenly as the grim reaper had come he was gone and in his
dark domain he smiled.
It was only a matter of time before LT.HIT-MAN would come to him,
but not before the lethal stormtrooper brought an uncountable number of souls to him.

Iris was stunned.

No one man, god or whatever had beaten Death like a whipped dog,
and she could see the rage within her husband, rage at being denied what
was rightfully his as well as hers and she sought to calm him down.
"It's okay. I'm not going to be harmed, and besides we'll only be parted for a short time,"
Iris said as she kissed Voltrick goodbye.
"I know. But it's so damn hard to leave...we never got a chance to say goodbye,"
Voltrick whispered as he kissed her back.

"That's why I don't have a problem with you and Ezri being
together," Iris said with a sly grin.
"I love you, so go back there and kick ass, you dumb lug."
Voltrick smiled...and it felt good. "I love you to and I swear that I will not rest,
I will not stop until the rebels are ground to dust under my boots.
Then I will rest and thank you for everything, my beloved Iris," Voltrick said
as they kissed one last time.
LT.HIT-MAN then found himself in a gray void and as his body began to heal at a
phenomenal pace he had a reason to live.
Not only for revenge but for honor, the honor of the Empire; for duty, his duty
to uphold the honor of the Empire even on to death because of his
loyalty to the Emperor himself; and for one other reason, a reason that
had been long denied him: love.

The medical droid detected a 500% increase in white cell count as
well as viral antigens as LT.HIT-MAN's body began to regenerate
itself.
The med-droid enriched the bacta with pure oxygen, blood agents,
steroids and genetically engineered proteins in an almost vain
effort to prevent the patient known as LT.HIT-MAN from dying of system
shock.

The med droid brought more med droids online as it found that it
was incapable to deal with this situation by itself and it sounded a
ship-wide alert.

Lowe awoke from his much needed sleep as he struggled with the
half-remembered nightmare that haunted him.
"Hun?" he thought to himself before he realized that there was a ship wide alert going on.
With cold fear he jumped out of his bed and activated the comm panel.

"What the hell is going on, are we under attack?"

"N-N--No sir, it's an alert from one of the med-labs," the pained
voice of the comm officer said.

With a sinking feeling, Lowe asked the comm officer what med-lab
the alert was coming from. "Med-lab six, sir, the med droids and
personnel are calling for you. They say they have something going on
that they can not handle," was the reply and Lowe felt like his brain
had been ripped from his skull and shot into hyperspace.
"I want fifty stormtroopers armed and waiting for me at the med-lab, understood?!"
Lowe commanded as he got his pants on. "Sir? Are you-" Lowe cut the
comm officer off.

"YES I'M SURE, DAMN IT! IF YOU DON'T CARRY OUT MY ORDERS, WHAT
I'LL DO TO YOU WILL MAKE LT.HIT-MAN LOOK LIKE AN IMPERIAL SCOUT GIRL
SELLING JEDI CRISPIES!" he shouted at the comm officer, who doubted
what Lowe had said to him, but he was not going to take the chance and
find out for sure.

He sent sixty stormtroopers.

Ezri was ripped from her fear and sorrow- induced stupor at the
sound of the alert klaxon and with growing horror she backed away from
the bacta tank, watching as LT.HIT-MAN began to convulse wildly.

When Lowe along with Tierce stormed into the med-lab, they saw
Ezri backed agent a wall, her pale blue eyes wide in unreasoning
terror. Then they looked at the bacta tank and saw LT.HIT-MAN twisting
and convulsing as he was racked with unimaginable suffering.

"OH KRIFF!" Tierce shouted as he felt a strange sort of pity for
LT.HIT-MAN. Never had he seen so much pain and suffering, either by his
hand nor at the hands of others in the Empire.
Lowe felt like he was going to puke his guts out but he knew that he could ill aford to be
weak at this point in time, so he took a deep breath and steeled
himself for the horror to come.

"What the hell is going on here?" Lowe asked a med tech, who just
shook his head. "I wish I knew, sir...it's incredible. Something within
him refuses to die...I mean look at the way his body is healing!" the
med tech said in awe.
Lowe looked at the tortured body of LT.HIT-MAN and was struck silent as he looked
LT.HIT-MAN's maimed hand, the broken bones starting to heal,
and within a few minutes there was new flesh growing over the entire hand.
Within ten minutes all of LT.HIT-MAN's wounds where healed, the burns gone,
replaced with new healthy flesh and skin, his internal injuries gone as
his body began to strengthen up.
His heart rate had been so low that on more then one occasion they thought that
LT.HIT-MAN was a goner, but now his heart was beating like a well-maintained machine.

"I want everyone out of here now!" Lowe croaked, and the
stormtroopers gladly left the med- lab; they spread the word that
LT.HIT-MAN was back and ready for action.
This had a strange effect on Imperial morale as the stormtroopers felt overjoyed
that the epitome of the stormtrooper was alive and waiting to strike with unstoppable fury
and willpower to get the job done.
But there was fear as well, fear that the man they revered would see there weakness
and strike them down, so the stormtroopers redoubled there efforts to be the best they
could be in the service of the Empire, lest they die in shame and
dishonor.

The Imperial officers felt pure dread as they saw what they
considered to be a threat to them reborn. It was well known, all too
well known, that LT.HIT-MAN dispised of the majority of the Imperial
high command and on more then one occasion LT.HIT-MAN had shown his
displeasure for the brass in a violent and bloody way.

There had been one time where Lord Vader had to step in and put a halt to LT.HIT-MAN's
display of vulgar contempt for the brass. Needless to say, that was the
first and only time Imperial bridge officers where glad to have Lord
Vader close by.

Then as suddenly as it began LT.HIT-MAN's body went limp.
A fresh round of panic took hold of the med-techs as they scrambled to
stabilize LT.HIT-MAN's condition, but they found that there worries
about LT.HIT-MAN's survival were misplaced as they saw that his life
signs were rock solid and stable.

Everyone watched as LT.HIT-MAN started to straighten himself up
in the bacta tank and just float there, relaxed and mellow, and they
began to calm down, convinced that the worst was over.

Then LT.HIT-MAN's human eye snapped open and a fresh wave of
terror was born as they saw the look of cold, ruthless precision, the
grim determination to win at all costs.

Lowe and Tierce felt a strong urge to pull out their pistols and chew on
a few blaster bolts as they saw the sum of their fears.

They where nearly blinded by the glint of madness that was within the
cold, dead soulless orb that served as LT.HIT- MAN's human eye.

Ezri was about to have a stroke when LT.HIT- MAN's human eye
locked on to her own. She did not need to be a counselor to see the
insanity within it and she suddenly regretted that LT.HIT-MAN was back
in the land of the living.

"Heh heh, nice to see you all, too," LT.HIT-MAN thought to
himself as he closed his eye and let himself drift of into a deep
slumber.

It was good to be back.

A few days later LT.HIT-MAN was out of the bacta tank and it was
not a moment to soon for him; he was going to be a very busy man for
who knew how long.

He was as weak as a newborn scarzar (a large, feline-like animal
with long fangs and eight legs with a poisonous stinger at the end of
its tail) but he was not going to let anyone know that.

Hell no, he had a rep to maintain.

As he was walking towards his quarters, he was thinking about a
certain ex-Federation counselor.
What he had planned for her could easily make or break the Empire's war effort over here.
On that line of thought, he could not know how right he was, but he was going to find
out...the hard way.

However, before he could put his plans into motion, Tierce and a
quartet of stormtroopers intercepted him.

"You are hereby ordered to report to Grand Admiral Lowe
immediately, no questions asked," Tierce told LT.HIT-MAN, who was
standing there his arms crossed and impassive as ever.

"Yah, okay," LT.HIT-MAN said as he stood there. "Is there
anything else?" Tierce was starting to sweat with fear.

"I am...ah, I'm to escort you to the Grand Admiral's briefing
room," Tierce said as he fought to keep his fear in check.
_Smug bastard, he's enjoying this!_ Tierce thought as he saw the grim smirk
that crept up on LT.HIT-MAN's scarred face.

"Lead on."

As they walked, LT.HIT-MAN could feel Tierce's mounting fear and
decided to end the game that he was playing with him.
"What happened down on Bajor?" he asked Tierce, who suppressed a tremor that
threatened to cut his legs out from under him.

"What do you-" LT.HIT-Man grew tired of the bullshit.
"Listen, assface, let's stop kriffing around the bush. Why did you not level the
resistance stronghold on the ridge? It wasn't because of me, was it?"

LT.HIT-MAN stopped and leaned over Tierce, his cold dead eyes locking on Tierce's
fear filled eyes, and when no answer was forthcoming LT.HIT-MAN repeated himself,
this time with a low menacing growl in his voice that made it more than
clear he would not repeat himself a third time.

"We where under orders from the Emperor himself that we were to
take Bajor with light ground force only!" Tierce squeaked in fear as he
saw the stormy look on LT.HIT-MAN's face.
LT.HIT-MAN gave Tierce his most withering gaze, then spoke in a voice
so low and so frightening that the four stormtroopers started to reach for their E-11's.

"If you are lying to me, then there will be no place in all of
creation that you could escape my wrath!" LT.HIT-MAN snarled then suddenly
grabbed the two closest stormtroopers, smashing their heads together as
they tried to draw a bead on him.
Throwing a backwards elbow smash, he cracked another stormtrooper's helmet and sent
him flying back a few feet until he hit the wall and sank to the floor, not knowing what had
hit him. LT.HIT-MAN then spun around and kicked the last stormtrooper
so hard in the nuts that the codpiece of his armor was dented as he was
lifted into the air on the end of LT.HIT-MAN' foot.
When he hit the ground, the luckless trooper was curled up into a fetal position,
holding himself and making some realy niffy gurgling sounds.

LT.HIT-MAN slowly turned around. He knew that Tierce had him
cold. In his weakened state, he had been a few seconds too slow, a few
seconds that spelled his doom as he found himself looking down the
business end of Tierce's blaster pistol. He looked Tierce right in the
eyes and saw that he was telling the truth.

"Let's go, shall we? I'm sure Lowe would not be too happy about
us being late." With that said LT.HIT-MAN calmly walked past a stunned
Tierce and made his way to Lowe's briefing room.

When they walked in, Lowe saw that it was just LT.HIT-MAN and
Tierce and from the look on LT.HIT- MAN's face he knew that he should
not ask about the other stormtroopers.
But, they were his men and he was responsible for them, so he asked,
"LT.HIT-MAN, what did you do to the stormtroopers that were with Tierce?"

LT.HIT-MAN had a sarcastic smirk on his face. "Cleanup on aisle
6!" was his answer. When Lowe heard that he just about lost his cool,
but he took a deep breath and dismissed Tierce.

"LT.HIT-MAN, I am hereby reliving you of all duties," Lowe told
the crazy cyborg in front of him, wondering if he'd live though his
meeting, but he knew that LT.HIT-MAN was way too unstable and he would
be a detrament to the Empire's war effort in this galaxy.

"Good, I need the time off," LT.HIT-MAN said as he started to
make his plans.
Lowe had a fish out of water look on his face; he could not believe what he had just heard,
LT.HIT-MAN needing time off from killing and destroying the enemies of the Empire???

"W-W-W-What did you just say?" Lowe stammered, his mind unable to
comprehend this revelation. He felt like he was shot through with Force
lightning.

LT.HIT-MAN was amused by the look of confusion on Lowe's face.
He knew that Lowe had been expecting him to raise a fuss about being out
of action but he knew that he need to rest, although he would never
admit it.
What the resistance had done to him had really taken a lot out of him
and LT.HIT-MAN knew that he needed to take some time off to
heal. Besides, he had more important things to do rather than being out
on the front lines.

"May I be dismissed, sir?" LT.HIT-MAN asked. Lowe just nodded his
head. As LT.HIT-MAN was walking out of the briefing room he stoped and
looked over his shoulder at Lowe, who had a panicked look on his face.

"Sir, I have a question for you." Lowe was mad at himself; he should
have know that LT.HIT-MAN was not just going to simply walk out of his
briefing room without causing him some grief.
The bastard seemed to enjoy causing him no end of trouble and misery.

"What do you want?" Lowe snarled as he felt a major headache
coming down on him like a BDZ from an SSD.

"What have you done with Trooper Drzic and his squad?" LT.HIT-MAN
asked and Lowe swore that he could hear an underlying tone of concern
in LT.HIT-MAN's voice.

"They are in the brig," Lowe said, then he saw the dark look in
LT.HIT-MAN's eye and quickly added, "Don't worry, they are unharmed and
being looked after. They have not been disciplined, just stripped of
their rank and locked away in the brig, nothing more, I swear."
His voice was starting to crack.
He hoped that this bit of news on the rouge troopers who had come to get
him back on Bajor would placate LT.HIT-MAN.

"Good, I wanted them, all of them and it would be unfortunate if
anything should happen to them," LT.HIT-MAN said then he walked out of
the briefing room. Lowe went to his stash to get himself a strong drink
but he saw that he was out of hooch and this made him angry.

Lowe sat in his briefing room, fuming for a few minutes before he
got one truly nasty idea. He got up and walked out of his briefing
room, and as he was leaving the bridge the crew saw the twisted and
maniacal grin on his face and were afraid, very afraid.

Ex-captain Fortio was in high spirits.
He had been told by highly reliable sources that LT.HIT- MAN's condition was grave
and he might not live to see the next day.
This bit of good news had helped to ease
his fear of what was going to happen to him. Just then the semi-living
dead LT.HIT-MAN came into the brig. Fortio knew that if he did not kill
himself or get himself killed he was in for a long and painful death
for trying to have his way with the alien slut.

He watched in horror as LT.HIT-MAN rampaged in the brig, becoming
a whirlwind of death and roundhouse vengeance as he plastered his co-
conspirators all over the bulkheads of the brig. When LT.HIT-MAN walked
into his cell Fortio was about to soil himself, images of unimaginable
suffering at the hands of LT.HIT-MAN flashing through his mind.

_No, you don't get off that easy_, Fortio heard in his mind as
LT.HIT-MAN stood over him, his crackling black light saber at the ready,
then LT.HIT- MAN slowly walked away and Fortio knew that it was going
to be a long and painful time before he died as fear overwhelmed him.
He soiled himself for a good five minutes.

As time passed on after LT.HIT-MAN had come back from Bajor,
Fortio had a few of his men that where still loyal to him keep him
posted about LT.HIT-MAN's health.
From the spotty reports he got, Fortio was more then fairly sure that
LT.HIT-MAN was walking his last walk into the endless night,
so he felt that he would escape the wrath of LT.HIT-MAN.
He even believed that he might be able to talk his way out of the brig,
and would try to get himself back into service on the
_Baron_, not at his former rank; of course, he knew that would be
impossible. "Busted down to a private, corporal and maybe, just maybe,
sergeant," Fortio thought to himself as he watched Lowe walk into the
brig, snapping him out of a daydream of him striking when the time was
right and finally having his way with the alien whore.
He smiled at the thoughts of what more he would do other than simply using her body.

Yes, she would suffer long and hard for the outrage that he had suffered because of her.

When he saw the dark troubled look on the Grand Admiral's face
his heart jumped for joy. He knew that look; it meant that someone was
dead or as good as dead. "Ah, good to see you sir, I trust all is going
well?" Fortio said as he relaxed.

"You sorry son of a bitch!" Lowe thought to himself. He wanted so
much to reach over and smash that smug and arrogant look off of
Fortio's face, but he told himself to calm down or the plan would go
right down the drain.
Fortio saw the grim look deepen in Lowe's face, and he decided to play it to the hilt.
"I see by the troubled look on your face that you have just been given some bad news.
Care to share it with me sir?" Fortio said with mock sincerity.

"Okay, here it comes, you lousy kriffer!" Lowe thought to himself
as he put an even more troubled look on his face.
"Yes, LT.HIT-MAN's condition has just taken a drastic turn or the worse-" he said to
Fortio, who's face lit with joy.

"That's right, come to papa, you asshole," he thought as he heard
Trooper Drzic and his fellow rogues start to rise a fuss.



"What? What about the LT?" Drzic said as he walked up to the edge
of his cell. He felt all of his hopes starting to slip away.
If LT.HIT-MAN were dead then all they had done, thrown away their careers - and
maybe just maybe their lives - in order to save LT.HIT-MAN would have
been for naught.
Lowe shot Drzic a withering gaze that quieted him and his squad down.
He turned back to Fortio, who was about to say how sorry he was to hear that,
and dropped the hammer.

"-For you, that is, you piece of shit!" Lowe snarled as he saw the look of confusion
on Fortio's face.
"HUH?" was all Fortio could say as he felt his legs starting to tremble.

"That's right, LT.HIT-MAN is going to live. In fact, he's out of
the med-lab and resting well," Lowe said to Fortio.
A savagely frightening smile played across his face as he watched Fortio crawl
over to the bunk in his cell, his legs giving on him as the joy he felt
at the news of LT.HIT-MAN supposed demise was replaced with cold fear.

Faintly, he thought that he was a dead man, but he could not
understand. His sources of information had been loyal to him.
Drzic overheard this and started to cheer. "LT.HIT-MAN lives!" he shouted and
within a few seconds the rest of his men where cheering alongside him.

"SHUT THE HELL UP, I'M NOT DONE YET!" Lowe roared.
Drzic and his men obediently quieted down. This was getting good; they had no idea on
how the other prisoner had gotten on LT.HIT-MAN's bad side, but they
where going to find out.

"B-B-B-But how? My sources are loyal to me," Fortio whimpered as
Lowe slowly turned around and let Fortio really have it.
"All that has transpired has done so according to my design.
I knew that you would be putting out feelers among the crew to keep you
updated on LT.HIT-MAN's condition, in your pathetic hopes that LT.HIT-MAN would die so you
would not have to face him because you had tried to rape his slave woman-"

When Drzic and his men heard that bomb-shell he and them let out a
shocked gasp at that revelation, then they started to mutter angrily
but they piped down so that they could watch this little drama unfold
without interruption on their part.

"I fed misinformation to a select few of my crew, knowing that it
would get back to you."
Lowe paused from his disclosure to savor the look of growing hopelessness
that was on Fortio's face.
Damn, this was getting too good now.
He began to understand a very small portion of how
LT.HIT-MAN's mind worked. It was terrifying and exhilarating at the
same time and he found himself enjoying this dark play on fear.
Maybe, just maybe he could attribute this to how Lord Vader's, hell, even how
the Emperor's mind worked.
He smiled to himself as he thought about how much closer to that dark power he had come.
Soon the dark side would be his.

"Perhaps you would like to talk to LT.HIT-MAN about your
mistreatment?" Lowe purred as he let himself be swept away in dark
pleasure, Drzic and his men started snickering amongst themselves.
He quickly added, "Do you think I was just going to sit back and let you wait for
the end at LT.HIT-MAN's hands for the dishonor you have brought down on
this ship, it's crew and the Empire as well? I think not."

Lowe turned and began walking out of the brig, stopping dead in
his tracks as yet another evil idea came to mind. He slowly turned
around to face Fortio.
"By the way, LT.HIT-MAN sends his warmest regards.
He looks forward to having a little chit-chat with you,"
Lowe said as he shivered in dark joy as Fortio uttered a soul shattering
wail of hopelessness before breaking down and blubbering like a baby
amongst the loud, boisterous heckling that Drzic and his men where
giving him. Some of them were dire promises of what Drzic and his men
were making to Fortio were about what LT.HIT-MAN was going to do to him,
others were bets that were being made, sending another silver of
fearful delight racing up and down Lowe's spine.

With a loud laugh he left the brig, letting Drzic and his men continue the working over that
he had started.

After all, they need something to do while they where cooling their heels in captivity.

"Yes, everything is just fine," Lowe thought to himself as he
walked back to the bridge.
His men watched as he entered, looking away from the dark and predatory look on his face.
He sat down, asking a comm officer for the latest news from the front lines, and when the
comm officer told him that everything was right on schedule.

That was the icing on the cake and Lowe felt a whole lot better.

LT.HIT-MAN stood outside his and Ezri's quarters. He reached out
with the dark side and found that Ezri was cleaning up.
"Well, that's just going to have to wait," he thought grimly as he stepped though the
door.

Ezri was making up her cot when the door opened.
She felt a chill in the air; slowly, she turned around and standing there was LT.HIT-MAN
and she could see the troubled look on his tired, scarred face.

"Master? What is wrong?" she asked LT.HIT-MAN as she stood at
attention, her eyes looking downward. She had gotten the idea of what
LT.HIT-MAN had been playing at before he left for his last mission, the
one that nearly ended his life, and she knew the game of domination and
submission all too well from Dax, the now dead symbiont.
She found herself much to her dismay enjoying that game.

LT.HIT-MAN looked at his slave and saw to his delighted surprise
that she was starting to understand who was the boss between them, but
now was not the time for that game.
"We have much to do in the morning, so it's time to get some sleep," he said
to her as he began to strip off his battle scarred armor, "You may watch me if you wish.
Play time is over for now, but do not forget who's the master here," he added as
he neatly put his armor away, enjoying the uncomfortable look that Ezri
was giving him.

Ezri looked up at her master, and when she saw him starting to
remove his uniform after the armor was put away she felt a familiar
dampness beginning to from between her legs.
"Does LT.HIT-MAN sleep in the buff?" she thought to herself as her anticipation began to grow
with each moment as LT.HIT-MAN stripped down.
When he stopped at his gray boxers she let out a small frustrated, but relieved, breath.

LT.HIT-MAN smiled to himself as he walked into the shower. He
could feel Ezri's confused emotions. She was lusting after him; that he
knew for sure and she was mad at herself for feeling that way about
him. He knew that her mental resistance to his will was just about gone
and it would only be a matter of time before he had her where he wanted
her, but only if they lived through what had to be done when they
awoke.

After he was done with his shower LT.HIT-MAN put on his boxers
then for a kick he wrapped the towel around his waist and calmly walked
out of the bathroom.

Ezri felt her breath catch in her throat when she saw her master
walk out of the shower with the towel around his waist. Her mind
started to conjure up images of what LT.HIT-MAN's most important body
part looked like and how it would feel to the touch.
"Damn it Ez, chill the fuck out. Maybe everyone is right about you! You are a slut,
WHORE!" her mind screamed at her as she watched her master get into his
cot, then dropping the towel onto the floor from beneath his blanket.

LT.HIT-MAN could feel Ezri's mental anguish and decide to ease
her pain, after all she had carried out his orders before he left by
keeping herself, her uniform and their quarters spotless.
"Relax, slave, I understand how you feel. I find you attractive as well-" he
smiled at the startled gasp from Ezri when he landed that bomb-shell on
her. "-If I wanted you I'd have you on your knees by now-" his
amusement grew as he saw Ezri sub-consciously licked her lips at his words.
"-But now is not the time or the place. When and if I decide to take
you I will let you know. Now strip down completely and get into your
cot, we have a long day ahead of us," he said as he watched as Ezri
started to remove her uniform.
Her hands where shaking so badly that it took her a few try to get her bra off
once her uniform shirt was removed and he could see that
her nipples where hard with arousal, so hard in fact that it looked painful.

Ezri was in a tizzy. When her master LT.HIT-MAN told her that he
found her attractive she nearly screamed as she felt a strange mixture
of relief and dismay rush through her.
Relief that she was wanted, though even as a mere possession, she was wanted;
dismayed because she found herself fighting to keep herself from jumping on her master right
then and there.

As she got undressed Ezri saw that LT.HIT-MAN was watching her
like a hawk, noticing how aroused she was. Shockingly enough she saw
that he was starting to get aroused as well, and it took all of her
willpower to crawl into her cot as the firestorm with in the core of
her being began to scream for release.

"I'll be keeping an eye on you," LT.HIT-MAN said in a cold voice
as he fought down his growing lust, tapping his cybernetic eye to
override the input feed and auto shut off.
(Thanks Sheppard the idea :-\ )
"So it would be ill advised to try anything." He smiled as he saw
the panicked look on his slave's pixie-like face, and just to be a
bastard, he added, "And I mean anything." He closed his human eye,
knowing that Ezri had caught the implied meaning behind that comment of
his and drifted off into a much-needed sleep.

Ezri just laid in her cot, staring like an animal trapped in a
car's headlight at her master's scarred face as he slept. In this case
it was LT.HIT- MAN's cybernetic eye that was glowing a low blood red.

After a few untold hours Ezri drifted off into a deep, erotic dream-
filled sleep that she would awaken from refreshed but still high
strung.

"Remember what I told you. Keep your eyes down and your mouth
shut and only speak when spoken to," LT.HIT-MAN said as they walked
towards the comm room.
"Yes, my master, I'll remember that," Ezri said, and from the gravely disturbed
look on LT.HIT-MAN's hard, scarred face she was afraid and rightly so.

When the doors opened to the comm room LT.HIT- MAN took one look
at the comm officers and in the fiercest voice he could muster he said
to them all, "Leave, NOW! And keep your mouths shut if you want to live
to see tomorrow!" as he played the laser sight over each of their
foreheads.

Within less than a minute the comm room was deserted.

LT.HIT-MAN locked the doors to the comm room and started to type
in an encryption code that would give most slicers the sweats, then he
walked over the holo-net sender and began to type away at it.

Ezri watched as her master typed, a layer of sweat building on his forehead.

She felt the icy cold hand of fear tickling her spine as she began to
wonder what had LT.HIT-MAN so bugged out. "Do you really want to know?"
she thought to herself as LT.HIT-MAN continued to hammer away at the
console, praying that they would live though this.

*******

On Coruscant the Emperor had just finished taking a long and
relaxing bath along with a few of his most skilled concubines.

"You have to admit that being the absolute tyrannical ruler over a galaxy
has its perks," Palpatine thought to himself as he sat back on his
throne. He looked at his royal guards and told them to leave.
Without a word the crimson clad warriors silently glided out of the throne room.

Emperor Palpatine took a look around the throne room and with a
bone chilling smile he began to spin around in his throne as fast as he
could.

"WHEEHEHE, HEHE!" he cackled evilly as the throne began to spin
faster and faster until he could stand it no more, then he stopped the
throne, laying back and enjoying the spinning sensation.

Yes, being Emperor was the best, and he began to chew on a sugar stick.

After Palpatine was done with the sugar stick noticed an incoming
call on the holo-net. He checked the caller ID and saw that it was
LT.HIT-MAN, his next favorite person next to Vader. Putting on his most
evil and ruthless face he keyed in the call.

********

"What is it, my loyal hand of death, good news I hope for your
sake," the floating holo-head of the Emperor whispered coldly as he
looked down on LT.HIT- MAN and some young woman that were kneeling
before him.

"Now or never," LT.HIT-MAN thought to himself as he initiated a force mind-link
with his master.

_Forgive me my master, but I must speak to you this way on a most
important matter_ LT.HIT-MAN thought, hoping that the Emperor was in a
good mood. If not, he, and quite possibly his slave Ezri, could die
because of his invasive force link.
The Emperor's eyes narrowed into malevolent slits
_This had better be good my loyal hand or you will die_,
The Emperor thought as he looked down on the humbled LT.HIT-MAN.

_It is, my master, this young woman that was given to me as a
pleasure slave has Force potential. With your approval I wish to train
her in the ways of the Sith, once I have finished bending her to my
will_, LT.HIT-MAN thought as he felt the ripple of surprise from the
Emperor. Fear washed through him like a tidal wave of acid.

The Emperor looked down at the raven-haired woman that was bowing
before him. This was not good news at all.
_What does she know of the force?_ Palpatine thought as
he started to search LT.HIT- MAN's mind for the truth on this most disturbing turn of events.

_She knows nothing, my master, that is why I decided to speak to
you like this so that she could not over hear us_ LT.HIT-MAN thought as
he felt the glimmering seed of hope.

The Emperor had not struck him down.

Emperor Palpatine remained silent, then he looked down at Ezri
who was fighting her fear. Fear at the grim visage of the Emperor she
had shot a glance at, the long silence, then with out warning her brain
felt like it was on fire.
She grabbed the sides of her head, letting out a low moan as she tried and failed
to block out the hellish fire that was invading every part of her mind and being.

Ezri managed to get a side glance at LT.HIT- MAN. His human eye
was closed, his craggy brow was heavy with sweat as he seemed to be
concentrating deeply. When she moaned she saw that damnedest thing; the
look on her master's face changed and she could see anger on his face,
and the one thing she had never expected to see: cold, unreasoning
fear.

LT.HIT-MAN knew what the Emperor was doing, and he felt fear
racing an icy cold path in his veins, then he felt rage starting to
burn in his blood, trying to destroy the fear within him but neither
rage nor fear seemed to have the upper hand as they fought of control
of LT.HIT-MAN's mind, body and soul.

_If you kill her I will hunt you down and your death will be of
legend!_ LT.HIT-MAN thought solemnly as his rage finally got the better
of him, overwhelming his fear that kept his thoughts in check and
that's when all hell broke loose.

Emperor Palpatine heard that dark foreboding thought leap from
LT.HIT-MAN's mind like an assassin's dagger and he turned his idle
thoughts on his servant.
_You dare to think such a thing? Now you shall pay for your treachery!_
the Emperor hissed venomously as he used his vast dark side powers to slowly
tear LT.HIT-MAN part atom by atom.

LT.HIT-MAN knew that this was more than likely the end for him,
but at least Ezri was safe.
_You hope_, LT.HIT-MAN thought and he was drenched by a cold wave of fear and he
could see in his mind's eye the Emperor smiling, feeding off of his fear.

Ezri watched as the pain went on that his face changed, and there
was no fear, only hate, and then with out warning the pain stopped and
she fell to the floor of the comm room.
She saw LT.HIT-MAN began to writhe in pain, pain that made what he had endured
at the hands of the resistance look like an orgasm compared to this bit of hell that she
was now seeing.

"No! Not him! Take me instead," Ezri thought as she started to
reach out for her master who was on the floor, curled up into a ball as
pain stole his life away from him.

Emperor Palpatine looked down at Ezri as she reached for LT.HIT-
MAN. Her force powers were minor and would never be a threat to him, so
he waited until she was about to reach the stricken LT.HIT-MAN before
he blasted her with a surge of dark side power, but he was a tad too
slow.

LT.HIT-MAN was so ashamed, ashamed for being so kriffing arrogant
that he thought that he could ask his master for such a thing, thinking
that his loyal service to the Emperor would garner him the privilege of
having Ezri as his apprentice.
Ashamed for his treacherous thoughts that now doomed him and Ezri to oblivion.

_Damn it_, he thought to himself as he felt Death closing in on him like a proton torpedo
that was locked on to a disabled ship, speeding to deliver the coup de
grace, when he felt a hand on his arm. Then things got way too
strange...he could see Iris and Ezri melded into one hauntingly
beautiful woman.

_We are here for you, our love_ the twin voices said and his pain was gone, but as
suddenly as this happened Ezri/Iris was ripped away from him and swallowed up in
a swirling cloud of crackling black lighting.

LT.HIT-MAN mentally threw back his head and let out such savage
howl of rage and pain that it shook the _ Baron_ before he threw
himself into the swirling black cloud.
His thoughts were gone; in it's place was the raw primal instinct to not only survive,
but to crush, kill and destroy everything, fight and protect the one that had been
his by destiny.

Emperor Palpatine had been enjoying this game, and he smiled as
he sent a mental force storm to rip Ezri to bits in order to break
LT.HIT-MAN before he not only killed LT.HIT-MAN but drained him of his
life essence, but the Force, both the light and the dark side, where
not going to allow that and with a fear so cold that it paralyzed
Palpatine as he saw that LT.HIT-MAN and Ezri had a Force destiny that
would not be denied by him nor anyone else.

Palpatine watched in horror as the enraged LT.HIT-MAN plunged head long into the
force storm of his and ripped both a strange woman that looked like Ezri and another woman
from the grips of the dark side storm.
Palpatine then let out a shriek as LT.HIT-MAN sent a force backlash that
threw Palpatine from his throne.

The last thing the Emperor saw before darkness took him was
LT.HIT-MAN surrounded in blood red flames looking right at him.
The cyborg was slowly raising his human hand towards him, and there was a
look in LT.HIT-MAN's face so cold, so evil that Palpatine felt fear,
the same fear he had felt a few days ago, and all became clear.

*******

Lowe was running towards the comm room when he had heard what had
happened.
He knew that he had no choice but to kill LT.HIT-MAN.
He was just too insanely dangerous to let live, but when he had heard that
Ezri was with him when he had stormed the comm room he knew that there
was going to be a lot bodies to clean up afterwards, if they lived
through this.

"Your orders are simple. Kill everyone one in the comm room, no
prisoners are to be taken, no matter who it is," was his standing
order. Tierce was scared, but he knew that this was the way things had
to be. "This time your sorry ass is mine!" he snarled as he slapped a
fresh clip into his blaster pistol.
He did not know how wrong he was as he, Lowe and a hundred stormtroopers made
their way to the comm room.

As Lowe and his men were coming up to the comm room they were
suddenly thrown around like a leaf in a cyclone as the _Baron_ started
to shake violently. The shaking only lasted a few seconds; a few
seconds of pure terror.

"WHAT THE KRIFF WAS THAT!?" Lowe yelled into the suddenly dark
hallway. Within a few seconds, the emergency lighting came on as Lowe
wiped the blood from his broken nose. Lowe and his men got themselves
together as the main lighting came back on with and sense of urgency
and cold fear they ran to the comm room, each of them wondering if they
would live to see the next day.

*******

Darth Vader stood silently on the bridge of the mighty SSD _ Executor,_
like a grim statue of cold black marble. He was smiling to himself under
the forbidding skull-like helmet. Yes, the Empire had the
rebels on the run...soon they would be crushed like gnats before the
power of the Empire.

"Lord Vader, the INT _Harpax_ and _Red Claw_ are standing by,"
Admiral Thrguss said to the impassive Sith lord.
"We have the rebel scum now," he added. Vader was about order the fleet to attack when it
happened.

Thrguss just about soiled himself when he saw Vader sway, then
without warning he fell to the deck and was still.
"OH KRIFF! GET THE KRIFFING MED DROIDS UP HERE NOW!" Thrguss screamed as the chaos reigned
supreme on the bridge of the _Executor_, but slowly Vader got to his
feet and in a shaky voice he ordered the fleet to set course back to
Coruscant, leaving the bridge crew in shock.
"B-" Thrguss never got the chance to finish what he was going to say as Lord Vader
grabbed him by the face and crushed it. Thrguss's head exploded in a spray of ruined
flesh, cascading blood and pulped brain matter.

"GET THIS FLEET BACK TO CORUSCANT NOW!" Vader roared as he lost
his cool. The bridge crew went crazy, not because of Thrguss's bloody
end or the rage in Vader's voice, but the fear that they heard in that
raging voice of the Emperor's right-hand man. Never had they seen or
heard Vader give in to fear and they knew that they had less then a few
seconds to carry out the crazed Sith lord's orders before they shared
the same fate of the late and unlamented Thrguss.

Vader took several deep breaths to get a hold of his fear.
The disturbance in the force had flooded his mind with the images of his
master the Emperor, LT.HIT-MAN and a strange looking woman, then
nothing. But he could feel death, fear and madness and he knew that the
Emperor was in grave danger, and if the Emperor was dead then it would
be up to him to keep the Empire together, lest chaos run free setting
the galaxy alight in the flames of doom.

*******

On Coruscant the Royal guards stormed into the Emperor's throne
room followed by a legion of stormtroopers and saw the Emperor lying on
the floor by his throne.
The guards ran up there fallen master while the stormtroopers tore the throne room
apart looking for the assassin who just may have killed the Emperor
and thus the Empire as well.

Emperor Palpatine opened his eyes and saw the Royal guardsmen
standing around him.
He could sense their fear, and he smiled weakly.

He heard in the distance the stormtroopers who where swarming all over
the place like ants and they started to rip the walls apart when they
failed to find anyone else in the throne room but the Emperor, looking
for assassination devices.

Emperor Palpatine got up from the floor, waving away the Royal
guards as they reached for him.
He then dusted off his black robes, though there was not a speck of dust in the throne room.
The Emperor was grand standing to make it look like there was nothing wrong and that
he was in control of the situation.

Emperor Palpatine was about to tell everyone to leave when he
felt something wet on his face. He put his hand to it and he saw that
it was covered in blood, his blood, and his eyes went wide in fear.

Emperor Palpatine took out a white handkerchief from one of the
pockets inside his robe and pushed his nose shut to stop the flow of
blood.

"Everyone out now!" the Emperor snarled and everyone came to a
stop and just looked at their master.
One trooper was snickering to himself at the sound of the Emperor's voice.
Palpatine raised a hand and fried the snickering trooper and this time he let go of his nose
and said in a raised voice, "EVERYONE OUT NOW! AND TAKE THAT OFFAL WITH
YOU!" Two stormtrooper grabbed a leg each and started running for their
lives down the stairs.
The dead trooper's head was bouncing like a basketball being dribbled as it hit
each stair with a satisfying crack.

The Emperor smiled savagely at that sight.

Once the throne room was emptied the Emperor sat down in his
throne, holding the handkerchief to his nose an

LT.Hit-Man’s Journal Honor Bound 4

Death of a Soul
Birth of Death Incarnate


LT.Hit-Man deactivated his light saber, hooked on his belt then
leaned down and scooped Ezri up in his arms, putting her head in the
crook of his cyber shoulder and started to walk out of the comm room,
ignoring everyone around him.

Lowe waved his hand for his men to get out of LT.Hit-Man's way.
As he passed them, they all could see that despite the cold look of
death on his scarred face that there was a strange light in LT.Hit-
Man's human eye, and they realized that the he had finally opened up to
someone and that he was in love with Ezri. It was the only answer that
would explain LT.Hit-Man's actions around his slave. How this tied in
with the Emperor and the coming of Lord Vader they did not know, and
for the most part they did not want to know but in time the question
would be asked.

Ezri felt something cool on her forehead, and her eyes snapped
open to see her master standing over her with a cloth in his human hand
and a blank look on his face.

"What happened?" she asked weakly as she tried to sit up, but
found that she could not and fear began to take hold of her heart.

"Easy there, my slave, rest. You have been though a lot," he said
to her in a calm, quiet voice as he stroked her forehead with the cool,
damp cloth. She felt the vague twinges of arousal.

LT.Hit-Man put the cloth down beside the bowl of water on the
desk and took a deep breath, knowing that what was to happen next was
going to be the hardest challenge that he had to face and found himself
wishing he was out on the field of battle.

"Get it together, you weak ass piece of shit!" he snarled to
himself, cursing himself for being so weak as he fought down his fear,
fear of what was raging within his heart demanding to be released. He
straightened himself up and turned to face Ezri, his slave.

Ezri saw - no, she felt - the struggle within her master as she
watched him walk over to the desk, put the cloth down and stand there,
his head hung low, shoulders slumped forward.

The counselor part of her kicked into gear as he straightened up.
"What has happened, I need to know," she asked in a calm voice. Ezri
knew that she would have to dig for the answers but she was too far
into what was happening to back out now.

LT.Hit-Man sat down on his bunk and folded his hands in his lap,
looking down at the floor, then slowly, ever so slowly, he looked up at
Ezri. He could see the strange look in her pale blue eyes, the look of
fear being pushed aside in order to find the answers she was seeking,
concern for him as well as for herself and the alien feeling of what
only could be called budding love, love for him despite the fact that
he was a monster to her and he felt an unfamiliar tightness in his
throat.

"You have the potential to use the Force," LT.Hit-Man said as he
watched her face. She tried to understand what he was saying to her.
"You mean what you did to me when I struck you?" she asked. Her voice
was a little more than a whisper as she though back to that terrifying
moment that forever etched in her soul.

LT.Hit-Man allowed himself the luxury of a small tight smile.
"Good, your insight serves you well." he said in a pleased voice. His
smile grew a little more as she saw Ezri smile, albeit a ragged and
fearful smile, but it was a smile nonetheless and he could vaguely
detect a hint of smug satisfaction from her.

Ezri was thrilled and a bit fearful. "So this is what he had in
store for me when he was healing me," she thought to herself with
wonder and a hint of disappointment, disappointment at the fact that he
did not want her as a lover instead of a slave.

"We have something similar. It's called psionics. It's a rare
gift for some beings," Ezri said as she propped herself up on an elbow
and rested her head in her hand in a seductive manner, listening to
him, unaware of her posture.

"Oh, you little minx," LT.Hit-Man thought as he slowly licked his
lips and reveled in the small shudder that racked Ezri's body. "Do go
on," he said as he got up from his cot and emptied the bowl in the
bathroom and filled it with some fresh watter.

"Well, even the most advanced psi user could not do what you did,
even among the Betazoids and Vulcans," Ezri said as she felt the
growing dampness between her legs. When her master had licked his lips,
she had a flashback of the last time she and Julian had made love and
of the way he had used his thoughts on her, but instead of Julian it
had been her master LT.Hit- Man who had been probing her hot love nest.

"Damn it," she thought to herself as she so desperately needed
relief, either by LT.Hit-Man or from herself but she knew this was
definitely not the time or the place for that.

LT.Hit-Man was alarmed by what his slave had just told him. The
Emperor had to be made aware of this, but then he felt the needful lust
radiating from her and he was thankful that he was in his trooper armor
so that Ezri would not see the painful hard-on he had.

When he came back into the room he put the bowl at one end of the
desk and threw the cloth into the slot where it was vaped in a flash of
light.

"So you wish to train me in the ways of the Force?" Ezri asked
breathlessly as the thoughts of such power filled her with a dark
excitement that matched the lust she was feeling.

LT.Hit-Man could feel the dark flower that was coming into bloom
within Ezri and he was ecstatic. "Yes, I do, but for you to understand
the true nature of the Force you must be made aware of it's history."
He sat as he sat back down on his cot, fighting the pain in his crotch
as his painfully erect member demanded to be released and satisfied.

Ezri could see the contemplative look on his face, and from the
way he slowly sat down she realized with a pleasant shock that he was
turned on and the firestorm in her mind and body began to burn all the
more fiercely.

"D-Do go on," she stuttered as she fought down her ever-growing
and pressing need. She knew that what her master had to say was of
vital importance.

LT.Hit-Man grabbed his pillow and put it behind him as he leaned
against the wall by his cot.

" Twenty five thousand years ago, our galaxy was at war as
warlords such as Xim the Despot fought for dominance. This was when the
hyperdrive first came out." Ezri was stunned by how far back her master
was taking them, and she just laid there listening and her lust started
to die down a bit as she listened.

"After the fall of Xim the Despot, the Old Republic was born,
along with the Jedi Knights!" LT.Hit-Man spat, and Ezri recoiled at the
venom in her master's voice. Ezri saw the look of hate and rage in her
master's eye but she crushed her fear and asked him a question.

"Who are the Jedi Knights?"

LT.Hit-Man took a deep breath, held it and released it, forcing
himself to relax. "There are two sides to the Force-" he pulled out a
credit chip and held it up for his slave to see. " -there is the light
side-" he turned the chip over "- and there is the dark side." He took
a breath and went on. "The Jedi scum were the guardians of the Old
Republic that was corrupt. The Jedi believed that the light side of the
Force was the right way, then there was the Sith who used the dark side
of the Force." Ezri could see the raging storm of emotions that her
master's human eye held but his cold face hid, and she waited for him
to go on as she felt a sudden fear start to take root in her heart and
mind.

"A thousand years ago there was a war between the Sith and the
Jedi. The Jedi won the war by treachery and betrayal, and for a
thousand years the Jedi believed that we the Sith where extinct."
LT.Hit-Man waited to see if his slave was understanding what he was
saying, and to his tainted delight he saw that she had heard and
understood his every word.

Ezri asked her master if she may use the bathroom. She had to go
badly as her mind pondered LT.Hit-Man's words and he thankfully nodded
his head.

LT.Hit-Man watched as Ezri made a bee line for the bathroom, and
he took a deep breath and forced himself to cool off, dreading what was
to come.

After she had relived herself Ezri took the time to splash some
cold water on her face.

"Fuck, Ez, this is getting really freaky!" she thought to
herself. She had sensed the emotional storm that her master was going
though and she began to wonder if this was such a good idea, but she
knew in her heart this was the way it had to be and she took a few
minutes to relax, then with a grim determination she stomped out her
fear and went back to her bunk.

Once he saw that Ezri was comfortable he resumed the history lesson.

"For a thousand years the Sith hid, rebuilding their strength as
the Old Republic became even more corrupt with each passing day. Then,
Emperor Palpatine, my master, took down the Old Republic from within
when he formed the Empire." Ezri saw a wicked smile in her master's
scarred face and she felt her fear starting to try and reassert itself.

"That was after the Clone Wars. You see, while the Old Republic
was around slavery throughout the galaxy was a big deal, thanks to the
corrupt leaders of the Old Republic. Emperor Palpatine played up on
that in the senate of the Old Republic. Hell, even his own home world
of Naboo had been invaded by the Trade Federation and all the Old
Republic did was sit on there collective asses while millions died at
the hands of the Trade Federation's battle droids, until the Jedi known
as Qui Gon Jinn and his padawan Obi-Wan Kenobi said 'the hell with the
Old Republic senate' and freed Naboo. The Trade Federation was found
out to be the instigator of the unlawful invasion of Naboo and they
lost everything."

Ezri was spell bound by LT.Hit-Man's words, but what her master said next took the cake.

"You see, the Trade Federation's invasion of Naboo was
masterminded by Darth Sidious, the top Dark Lord of the Sith, but
little did anyone know that Sidious and Senator Palpatine were one in
the same." LT.Hit-Man smiled as he saw the look of total disbelief play
on Ezri's face.

"WHAT?!" was all Ezri could say as she watched LT.Hit-Man's face
for any clue that he was messing with her mind.

"Yep, it's true, at least from what I had been able to find out.
You see, he wanted to show the galaxy just how corrupt and inefficient
the Old Republic had become, as well as to avenge the Sith for the
Jedi's treachery a thousand years ago. He wanted power and revenge, but
he also wanted to bring order to the galaxy. The outrage over slavery
was reaching a flash point and he knew that if he did not do something
about it the whole galaxy would be engulfed in flames as war reigned
supreme."

LT.Hit-Man took a few minutes to relax before he went on.

"After the Trade Federation bit the dust, they reformed into the
Corporate Sector and they set up cloning facilities on the world know
as Hoth. You see, after Palpatine became head of the Old Republic
senate, his first act was to get slavery abolished, so in order for the
Corporate Sector to regain their lost credits and power they had when
they had slaves working in their factories, they resorted to using
illegal cloning and genetic engineering to gain all that back before
Palpatine took over. Not only did the Corporate Sector clone slaves by
the shipload, but they had also created a vast army of genetically
augmented solders."

Ezri saw a dark grin play out on her master's face, and from that
grin she had to know what happened next. "So what happened, did the
Jedi stop the Corporate Sector or what?" she asked and LT.Hit-Man could
see that she was taking what he was telling her to be the truth, and it
was.

"Yes, the Jedi marshalled their forces to put an end to the out-
of- control Corporate Sector, and as the war was coming to a close,
that is when the Sith struck! " LT.Hit-Man thundered and Ezri jumped at
the sound of his voice.

"Yes, the Sith stomped them down into the dust, and again the
Jedi used treachery and there was massive biological warfare and Force
weapons that ravaged the Sith. But in the end the Sith won, the Old
Republic was gone and the Jedi purge began," LT.Hit-Man said with grim
satisfaction.

Ezri shivered at the word 'purge' as her mind conjured up images
of mass graves and round-ups, concentration camps and ovens. LT.Hit-Man
could sense his slave's growing horror and he told her to look at him.
When Ezri looked at her master she saw that he had a mournful look on
his face.

"You see, after the clone wars ended, there where only two Sith
Lords left: Emperor Palpatine and Lord Vader. The purge was a necessary
evil. The Jedi had to be wiped out unless they rebuilt the corrupt Old
Republic worse then it had been before the Clone Wars."

"Then the rebels dared to rise their hand against the Empire.
They wanted to rebuild the Old Republic. They just could not let it die
the death it so rightly deserved!" LT.Hit-Man snarled and Ezri wanted
to recoil from him, but she found that she could not. As she looked
upon her master's face she could see the flames of hate and death in
his human eye, but she could also see pain and unimaginable suffering.

"W-W-What happened, tell me about it," Ezri said as she steeled
herself for the horror that was sure to come. The counselor part of her
had to know, but deep down in the core of her soul she knew that she
had to stick this out in order to help her master, the man she was
hopelessly falling in love with.

LT.Hit-Man looked at Ezri and he could see that she was waiting
for him to go on, but more disturbing was the strange look she had in
her pale ice blue eyes.

He did not want to tell her this, more to the fact he did not
want to relive this horror that haunted him day and night, never giving him a moment's
peace of mind but he just had to tell her, and try as he might he could not
keep it to himself any longer.

"I'll do better than that. I'll show you," he said grimly and got
up from his cot and slowly walked over to his desk. As Ezri watched him
a strange thought crossed her mind. "He's like a condemned man walking
to the gallows." She shivered violently at that thought.

After he had opened the drawer in the desk, Ezri saw that her
master had something in his human hand. It looked like a necklace of
some kind and she felt her breath catch as he activated it.

"This was my wife Iris," LT.Hit-Man said, his voice as cold as
the void of deep space as he looked at the holo of the red headed woman
dressed in a black dress that seemed to be like a second skin on her,
but instead of making Iris look like a whore the dress accentuated her
large full breasts and it showed off her well sculpted body.

As Ezri looked at the holo of her master ex-wife she could see
that compared to her small sender frame, Iris was neither fat not thin
but she had an athletic body that had more than likely stopped a few
hearts. On the face of the holo she could see that Iris had down to
earth smile that could warm up even the coldest heart.

Ezri slowly looked up at LT.Hit-Man, whose face was a cold
lifeless mask of stone, but when Ezri looked into his deep cobalt blue
human eye she could see the flames of doom. "I'm so sor-." LT.Hit-Man
whipped up his cyber hand so fast that Ezri thought he was going to
strike her down and she backed up. For a few tense moments she did not
move nor did her master, who was just holding up his cyber hand, not to
attack her but to silence her. "It was a cool summer's day when it
happened."

********

Voltrick had just finished looking over the power feeds on the
GR-84 repulsorlift engine and everything was looking fine. "Ok, Troler,
you can drop it," Voltrick said to his co-worker who slowly lowered the
GR-84 into the frame of T-88 speeder bike. The droids began to
molecularly weld the GR-84 to the T- 88's frame.

"Hey Voltrick, there's a call for you on the Holo-comm," His boss
called out from his office. "Who is it?" Voltrick asked as he finished
typing up his report on the data pad that he was carrying. "It's your
wife," The boss shouted, and there where a few cat calls from some of
his co-workers. Voltrick just shot them a "Knock it off" look, then
walked over to his boss and handed him the data pad as he walked over
to the Holo-comm receiver.

"Hi Hon, what's up?" he said with a smile as he looked his wife,
but his smile vanished like a morning mist as the first ray of sunlight
touched it because of the worried look on her face.

"What's wrong?" Voltrick said as fear stabbed him in the guts.

Iris could see the fear in her husband's deep cobalt blue eyes.
Sure he was stern, but he had never hit or said a mean word to her.
Life for the two of them was rough. After all, the credits he made as a
test pilot of new repulsorlift vehicles barely paid the bills, but
theirs was a happy life, but now she had to tell him the news and she
was not sure how he was going to take it and that was what scared her
so much.

After she tried to speak but failed to get the words up, Voltrick
told her to spit it out. "I'm pregnant," Iris blurted out, and she
started to cry as she her husband's face went blank and lifeless. After
a very long and intense few minutes he spoke, his voice a mere whisper.

"H-H-How?" Voltrick said as his mind tried to understand what
Iris had just said to him. He felt his guts hit the bottom of the
floor.

Iris managed to choke back her tears. "The Doctor said the dermal
implant failed and that I'm five months along." She waited for Voltrick
to start screaming in rage. They had not planned on this and she was
not sure how he was going to take it, but what he said next shocked
her.

"Do you know what it is?" he said as wonder crept into his voice.

"We're going to have a boy," she told him as hope filled her
heart because she could see that he was shocked to shit about this but
there was joy in his eyes, eyes that had stolen her heart a year ago
and never let it go.

"YEEEEHAAA KRIFFING HOOWWWAA!" Voltrick screamed in pure delight
as he started to dance around like a madman. His boss and co- workers
heard his scream and came running over to see what was going on, and
when they saw him dancing around like someone had lit his toes on fire
they thought he had a brain seizure or something.

"Iris, I'll be home in half an hour! I love you!" he said and
when he saw her crying in relief he felt his heart starting to race,
and he wanted so much to reach out and hold her close to him. Iris just
nodded her head and cut the Holo-comm link.

Voltrick turned and saw his boss and co-workers looking at him
like he was hopped up on spice. "Boss, I'm taking the day off,"
Voltrick said as he flashed them a shit eating grin.

"Why, what's going on?" his boss asked and Voltrick told them the
good news. "I'm going to be a daddy!" and started to laugh manically as
everyone started to yell and clap him on the back.

"Go take a few days off. I'll give you a call when we need you to
test fly the T-88 you lucky bastard." When Voltrick heard that he ran
from the office to the locker room, the only thought in his mind being,
"I'm going to be a father? Un-kriffing-real!"

Iris was just siyting down trying to figure out what was going on
when Voltrick raced into their small apartment. "Hon, are you okay?" he
asked as he pulled her to him and planted a long hard kiss that left
them both breathless.

"I'm fine," Iris said as she looked at the man who had given her
so much, and now had given her the one thing she wanted the most, a
child, and her heart melted. "Hey hon, get dressed up, we're going to
celebrate," Voltrick said as he look into her emerald green eyes, and
like every time he did he fell in love with her all over again as he
smiled a rogue's smile.

All Iris could do was nod her head as she went to their bedroom.
When she left to go and get changed Voltrick ran into the kitchen and
started to pack up a picnic basket. He had an idea that would make this
blessed event all the more special.

As Voltrick finished packing away their lunch, he felt a pair of
hands caress him behind the ears, where his lower jaw connected to his
upper jaw, and he shivered in delight. "What did you have in mind,
hon?" Iris purred seductively as he turned around to see her dressed in
that black dress she had been wearing when he met her for the first
time, and he felt a painful swelling in his groin.

"A-A-A-ah." was the only sound to come out of his mouth as his
jaw hit the floor. She looked even better in the dress than any other
time he had seen her in it.

"You're drooling," Iris teased as she planted a deep, hungry soul
kiss as her hand snaked down to his crotch and squeezed with a gentle
ferocity that sent his mind into orbit.

Iris saw the picnic basket and out of the corner of her eye and a
wicked gleam sparked in her eyes. "A box lunch, eh?" she whispered in a
voice so hot Voltrick felt his blood begin to boil to the point of
combustion.

"Yep, I thought we'd go back to the park were we first met," he
said breathlessly as he felt Iris undo the clasp his pants. "I'm hungry
now!" Iris rasped as she felt Voltrick slip a hand into her dress and
start to message her painful hard nipples. and with that said she
dropped to her knees and took his hard cock into her mouth and began
nibble his shaft.

Voltrick just leaned back on the counter as he felt Iris suck him
deeply down her throat. "A-A-A-are you sur-" Iris cut him off by
squeezing his throbbing balls as she increased the speed of her bobbing
head.

Voltrick could feel that he was close to his breaking point and
he slid down to the floor. With an evil grin, he said to Iris, who just
looked at him with an equally evil grin, and said lustfully "Two can
play that game." He flipped her over so that she was laying on his
chest with her legs over his head and he undid her dress and pushed it
out of his way as he began to pull her panties off with his teeth,
gently nipping Iris on her inter thigh, ecliting a gasp of pleasure.

Once the panties were gone he slid his fingers along her thighs
to part the lust-swollen lips that hid her hot, slick love nest, then
he saw her throbbing clit and gently nipped it and was rewarded with a
nip to the tip of his manhood.

"Oh, you want to play like that, do you?" and he slid his tongue
deeply into her wet love slit and felt her shudder before she continued
to pay lip service to his hard cock.

Voltrick could feel that she was getting close to losing it after
a good five minutes of his tongue darting in and out of her hot wet
snatch and he folded his tongue around her clit as he started to suck
on her love bead.

Iris felt a shock wave beginning to build up with in her and she
raked her long finger nails gently up the middle of Voltrick's scrotum
as she began to rapidly thrust her head up and down as she increased
the suction on his iron hard fuck stick.

Voltrick felt the increasing pressure on his happy hard-on and
started to slam his folded tongue as fast and as deeply as he could
into her as he made a meal out of her. Together they flew over the edge
into an eternity of unending love as two minds, hearts and souls became
one.

Voltrick handed Iris a glass of melt water wine as they finished
up their picnic and went out to the nearby park.

"Are you sure it's alright for me to be drinking?" she asked as
Voltrick looked at her with a look of pure love as they walked to a
secluded spot.

"Yes, it's the non alcohol kind." He showed her the bottle as
they sat. Iris took a sip from her glass and she let out an amused
laugh as she saw Voltrick wink at her and then lick the edge of his
glass in a manner that left little to the imagination.

"You're a loon, you know that," Iris said as he took her in his
arms and started to whisper things that he wanted to do with her right
then and there that would have made a Hutt blush.

Voltrick looked Iris in her bright emerald green eyes and he saw
her and him as an old couple with their kids and grandkids running
around them and his heart stopped for a beat or two.
"I know, but you still love me, right?"he said
as he laid a hand on Iris belly and let out a strangled
gasp as he felt a dull kicking sention.

Iris let out a pleasant sigh as she felt their son kick and she
looked into Voltrick's deep cobalt blue eyes. She felt time starting to
stand still as she felt the love that was in his soul reach out for her
and their child.

"I will always love you, now and forever, you dumb lug," she
whispered, then she took the glass drank from it until it was empty,
throwing the glass as she reached up for her husband's head, and she
kissed him deeply and shared the wine that she was holding in her
mouth. As the two of them kissed and felt time slow down and come to a
halt they did not notice the Imperial ground car that was passing them
by at that moment.

Voltrick heard a loud crack. He started to break their timeless
kiss. "Thunder?" he thought as something wet hit him in the face, and
he opened his eyes and died.

Voltrick looked down and saw Iris leaning back in his embrace,
and he gently bought her head up and found himself looking into her
cold lifeless eyes that where now a dull green instead of the bright
life and love fill emerald green that they had been less then a second
ago that had given the promise of a lifetime of love and freely took of
the same promise he had made to her.

"WHAT?" was his only thought. He could not hear the shouts and
blaster fire that was being let loose around him as rebel assassins and
stormtroopers began to open up on each other after the rebels had blown
up the Imperial ground car that had held General Dragooses.

Voltrick felt something wet covering his hand that was on Iris's
belly, and he looked down as the cold realty of it all hit him. His
hand was covered in blood, so much blood that he felt himself drowning
in it.

" NO!" he screamed as he tried to stop the flow of blood. It was
a useless attempt to save his dead wife's life.

Voltrick felt something in his hand and he drew back his blood
soaked hand and screamed as he found himself holding his headless son's
half formed body. The miracle that would live on after he and Iris were gone was
dead, as dead as his heart, mind and soul.

Voltrick just sat there, his mind locked up as the horror of
reality sent his mind and soul into the lowest pits of hell.

A squad of stormtroopers were mopping up the bombed out and
blaster-scarred park when they came across a man covered in blood and
holding a dead woman.

"Oh kriff," a stormtrooper said as he looked at the bloody scene
before him, and reached out for the man, and when he saw the man turn
and look at him, he saw the dead child in his blood soaked hand and
started to claw at his helmet, luckily getting it of before he puked
his guts out. His squad mates reached to the man by his arms, trying to get
him to let go of the dead woman and headless baby however there was a frighting
look in the man's eyes that stoped them in there tracks.

Voltrick looked down at the stormtrooper helmet that had landed
by him, it's pure white color starting to soothe his scarred mind. The
look of death and fear that the helmet instilled called out for him.

The stormtroopers saw the man lay the dead woman down and put the
headless baby in her shrapnel-ravaged belly in a vain attempt to make
things normal.

"Oh hell, he's lost it," one of the troopers said as he watched
the man lean down, kiss the dead woman and mutter something that they
could not hear, then the man turned away from the dead woman and child.
They started to point there E-11's at the bloody man as fear began to
eat away at their minds like acid.

Voltrick reached out with a bloody hand and picked up the helmet.
It was cold to his touch as he traced the skull-like form of the
helmet, leaving a trail of blood where his trembling fingers had
passed. He could feel the dark power of fear calling out to him from
the helmet and he slowly stood up as the darkness filled him with
unholy strength.

"Yes, there will be no escape from me!" the man snarled and the
stormtroopers started to tremble with fear as the man stopped looking
at the helmet, slowly turning to face them, and when they got a look at
the cold dead look on the man's blood-splattered face, they ran, for
what was looking at them was no longer human.

Gone was Voltrick NaFeel, and born out of the blood and death
that day was LT.Hit-Man, and the galaxy would burn in his divine
retribution as he brought the purity of oblivion to all life around
him, starting with the rebel scum that had sealed their fate this day.

LT.Hit-Man’s Journal Honor Bound 5

The Hungering Darkness Within


For a long moment neither LT.Hit-Man nor Ezri moved or said a
thing. LT.Hit-Man had a blank look on his face as he relived his life,
death and rebirth.

As Ezri watched him slowly stand up, she took a deep breath and
tried to calm herself. Ezri had been bombarded by a storm of hate, rage
and agony so deep that she nearly fainted from its intensity as she
listened to what LT.Hit-Man had told her about his past. She felt a
deep pity from her master, who had once been a loving and hard working
man but had become a twisted monster when the rebels had ripped his
wife and unborn son away from him. She was having a hard time dealing
with what she was feeling. After all, how many friends and co-workers
had she lost to the Empire as they carved up her galaxy like a chainsaw
going though the trunk of a small tree?

“You and your Federation are just as much a victim of the rebels.
If they had the good sense to accept what was happening back home we
never would have ended up here," LT.Hit-Man said as he took out his
canteen and took a long swig from it, forcing down the horrors of his
past.

"What do you want from me?" Ezri asked in a hushed whisper as she
worked up the courage to speak. She was dreading the answer but she had
to know, lest she go mad with curiosity.

LT.Hit-Man took a last look at the holo-locket, then slowly
looked back, right into Ezri's fear-filled ice blue eyes. He told her
in a voice that was flat and lifeless - after all this was not the time
for weakness or playing around - "I wish to train you in the ways of
the Sith. Together we can bring this destructive conflict that is
ravaging your galaxy to its final conclusion. Then, once order had been
established, we will return back to my home galaxy and then the rebels
will be hunted down and exterminated for there treachery."

Ezri just sat there contemplating this. There were so many
questions that she had racing around in her mind that she was unsure of
what to do. LT.Hit-Man could see that Ezri was thinking this over and
he waited. He had all the time in the universe.

"Tell me more," Ezri said as she wrapped her cot's blanket around
her. The air in there quarters had suddenly grown colder and was
getting colder with each passing moment as dread filled her soul.

"I'll show you something. Look at the bowl on my desk," LT.Hit-
Man said as he walked over to Ezri who cringed at her dark lord's
approach. While Ezri was looking at the bowl, he made a small motion
with his fingers and the bowl began to slowly rise up from the desktop
like a ghost from the grave.

Ezri looked from the bowl to her master, who had a blank look on
his scarred face, then she saw him move the fingers of his cybernetic
hand and then out of the corner of her eye. The bowl slowly floated
back down to the desktop.

"That is nothing. With the Force at your command you can easily
lift a ton with you mind alone, bend weak minds to your will, and crush
the life from your enemies," LT.Hit-Man rumbled. He reached out with
his mind and slowly began to feel Ezri's growing Force awareness with
the cold fire of the dark side.

Ezri felt her entire being becoming flushed as she felt the rush of power
that her master was feeding her, unaware of it, and she felt like she
was in a ring of fire was searing her.

"Stand up," her master said calmly, and she stood up, swooning
with the power that was like a slumbering beast slowly awakening to
hunt as a dark hunger started to batter down her defenses.

"Reach out with your mind, picture the bowl lifting into the
air," LT.Hit-Man whispered into her ear, and she felt the heat that had
been smoldering in her body begin to burn as his breath caressed her
ear and neck spots. She closed her eyes and reached out with her mind
as she saw the image of a hand picking up the bowl.

"Good, let the Force flow though you, bend it to you will,"
LT.Hit-Man whispered as he saw the bowl begin to slowly rock back and
forth. He felt the painful need of his body and mind demanding to be
fed as he breathed in, smelling Ezri's scent with each passing breath,
and it was like a drug as it filled him with a heady rush of lust.

Ezri opened her eyes, and when she saw the bowl floating there a
few inches in the air, she was stunned. She had doubts as to what her
master had said to her because she had been tested before she had been
joined to the Dax symbiot, and one of the many tests was the psi test.
A psionically active person would not be joined to a symbiot because
psionics caused insanity and eventually death for both the host and the
symbiot and her psi potential was so low that she was deemed perfect
for a joining. Her mental stability and over all psychical condition,
not to mention that she was the only Trill on board, only vindicated
the decision.

"Huh?" was all she could think of, but when she was about to turn
to ask her master to teach her more, a wave of excitement raced though
her mind. The bowl suddenly fell and hit the edge of the desktop and
fell to the floor, spilling out the water that had been in it.

"SHIT!" Ezri thought to herself as fear at her master's
displeasure at her screw- up with the bowl filled her mind.

LT.Hit-Man felt the wonder that his slave was feeling as she saw
the bowl rise up from the desktop, only to be crushed by fear as it
fell to the floor. When Ezri turned to face him he kept his face blank
and cold, but secretly he was overjoyed. When the Emperor was training
him in the ways of the Sith he had done the same thing to him as he had
done to Ezri, but instead of a bowl the Emperor had him try to levitate
an old book that had been filled with ancient Sith text. He had failed.

"You have done well. Most beginners fail that test. The Force is
strong in you,” he said in a flat, dead voice. He had to be strong;
this was no time for weakness.

Ezri looked up at LT.Hit-Man's cold, scarred face, mere inches
from her fear- paled face, and she found herself trapped by the
overwhelming intensity in her master's cold blue eye, much like an
animal trapped by the lights of an on- coming transport.

She started to lean forwards to kiss him as she felt her arousal
sky rocket, feeling his hot breath on her cute pixie like face as she
became so aroused that she thought she’d go over the edge right at that
moment.

LT.Hit-Man could see the raging hunger in Ezri's pale ice blue
eyes that was so intense that he had to back away unless he took her
right then and there. This was not the time and it took all of his
considerable willpower not to throw her to the floor and ravage her
like a starving rancor that had been thrown an unfortunate soul.

"Clean up the mess," he said in a low whisper as he stood up
straight, and added as he saw the look of outraged denial, in his
slave's eyes, "It is time to sleep. Rest, because tomorrow your destiny
comes to pass one way or the other," LT.Hit-Man said in a voice so deep
and so grave that it put a damper on both of their growing needs.

Once the spilled water was cleaned up and the bowl was disposed
of in the slot, LT.Hit-Man stripped out of his blaster scared armor
down to his gray boxers and as he was getting into his cot he could
sense that Ezri was staring at him. He stood still for a few seconds so
she could get a good hard look at his scarred body, then he got into
his cot as he felt the madding lust play out in his slave's mind and
body, a body that he would claim in due time.

Ezri stripped down to her bra and panties and slowly got into her
cot. Two could play this game and it took all of her willpower not to
smile when she saw the pupil in her master's human eye widen with a
hungry lust.

"Let him stew on that," she thought wickedly as she pulled the
blanket over herself, once she was laying down LT.Hit-Man reached for
the light switch and plunged they into darkness save for the blood red
glow of his cybernetic eye.

"Know this, destiny plays no favorites and when you awake you
shall had a choice to make, choose wisely." Then LT.Hit-Man shut off
his cybernetic eye, leaving Ezri to ponder his words in darkness as he
went to sleep.

*****

Ezri awoke from her deep sleep, her mind and body refreshed as
she heard the Imperial March start to play. LT.Hit-Man had set his
alarm clock to play the Imperial March instead of the usual buzzer and
she looked to see if her master was still in bed, but saw to her
surprise that his cot was empty and made. She got out of her cot, made
it, then walked into the bathroom and took a shower. As the hot water
pounded down on her body, she felt her mind becoming sharper with each
passing second.

Once the shower was done with she got dressed in her uniform,
looking it over to see that it was creased in the right places, that
there was not a speck of lint on it. She then took her boots and
polished them until she could see her face in them.

Once she had the boots on and her dress pants tucked into the
tops of them, she took a look at herself and found to her startled
delight that the uniform no long felt wrong on her.
In fact, she enjoyed the crisp and hard creases, the power that it radiated from it.

She then saw that her silky black hair was getting a bit too long
for her liking, then realized that the crew on the _Baron_ had closely
cropped crew cuts, but LT.Hit-Man had never had her cut her hair. She
ask him about that later but she was hungry, and so she walked out of
their quarters, standing tall and proud as confidence filled her. Not
with her head hanging low and hunched over like she had in the past,
indeed this day marked the end of the old timid Ezri and gave birth to
a strong and confident Ezri even though she did not realize this.

As she walked towards the turbolift that would take her to the
mess hall, she watched the crewers that she passed by. Some of them
looked away from her as they gave her a wide berth, others pretended
not to see her, and when she passed them by they would start talking
amongst themselves. They had seen the change within her and they knew
that whatever had caused this change could mean that their lives where
in grave peril.

Ezri could feel their fear as she walked by them in a crisp, no
nonsense, kick ass and take no prisoners attitude, and she drank deeply
of their fear. With each passing moment her spirit took flight and
began to soar like a great flying predator on the hunt. By the time she
reached the turbolift she had a smile on her face that would have made
people feel at ease and in some cases lustful, but when they saw that
look in her eyes their souls recoiled and shriveled in fear.

As she stood in line to get her meal she could see that the
crewers' fear was growing, and she began to slowly unravel the mystery
of true power. She was not LT.Hit-Man, but she could understand the
power of presence and dark will. She understood that fear was to be
used like a scalpel to surgically cut away a person's resistance to
make them moldable to her will, not be used like a club to crudely
smash down someone's volition.

As she walked towards a table that a bunch of stormtroopers,
ships gunners and regular Imperial army personnel, she began to
understand why she was willing to submit to her master LT.Hit-Man and
she felt more at ease with her lot in life.

As she ate her meal, she was savoring the fear that was pouring
off of the crewers at her table. They still remembered her from when
the ex-captain Fortio had tried to rape her while they stood around and
egged him on and she felt a dark surge of hate.

The crewers at the table that Ezri had desired to sit - by a
strange twist of fate the table that Fortio had tried to rape Ezri on -
were talking about what Imperial troops always talked about: weapons,
old war stories and the like. When LT.Hit-Man's woman sat down at the
empty spot at their table, they got ready to start heckling her, but,
seeing the change within her from the cold, ruthless look in her eyes,
they shut up and began to eat their meals. They looked out of the
corner of their eyes from time to time to see Ezri eating her meal in a
highly suggestive manner that bought a painful swelling to their
bodies.

Ezri was enjoying this game as a dark wave of power washed over
her entire being. Now was time to the drop the hammer on them. All of
them.

Ezri took a bit of her food and slowly lifted it to her mouth,
aware that all of the crewers at the table where watching her with
lusty interest. Slowly, she nibbled at the tidbit on her fork and then
slowly sucked it into her mouth in such a suggestive way that it left
nothing to the imagination.

Ezri chewed her food slowly as she drank in the mixture of raw
lust and cold fear that was ripping their minds and bodies apart as she
felt her own arousal awakened.

"MMMMMM she moaned in pleasure as she swallowed her food. As the
crewers where on the edge of an orgasm-denied insanity, she looked
right at them all with a malevolently erotic smile that shook them to
the core of their beings.

Ezri closed her eyes as a dark orgasm ripped throughout her mind
and body. She had done it; she had reached out and broken them, all of
them. One by one the crewers got up from the table, their meals no
longer appetizing as they realized that it would be a good idea to
leave as fast as they could.

As they left they said to each other that they had things to do
and that they where late. The gunnery crewers were the first to leave,
then they where followed by the regular Imperial army troops and then
the stormtroopers, who were the last to leave as their conditioning to
ignore fear battled futilely against their terror that had been induced by Ezri's
dark will.

As the last and unlucky stormtrooper hurriedly left the table
Ezri sat back and looked at the rest of the crewers who had seen the
power play. She smiled that smile of hers and went back to her meal.
"Oh yes, there will be a reckoning,” she thought as she finished her
food in peace.

LT.Hit-Man was sitting in Lowe's briefing room. Lowe asked
LT.Hit-Man what did he wanted hoping to get this meeting between him
and the insane stormtrooper over with.

"What do you want? We are really busy right now," Lowe said, know
that LT.Hit-Man was never the type to use five words when one would do.

"I want Yates and his ship," LT.Hit-Man said, his voice like an
empty void; there was no life to it whatsoever.

Lowe just looked up from his data pad in a shocked silence then
he started to really lay into LT.Hit-Man.

"WHAT?! I'm not pulling Yates or his ship from his duties. His
mission is necessary to putting this galaxy under the Emperor’s
control. I'm not giving going to pull him off of his mission so you can
go joyriding around this galaxy. Is that understood?"

LT.Hit-Man just raised the eyebrow above his human eye and said
in a voice that made him sound like he was trying to explain to a slow
child the concept of death, "I don't want him or his ship for my
personal use. I want him to pick up Trooper Drzic and his squad. I want
them to get some action while I'm gone."

Lowe was starting to feel a little unnerved at that. He wondered
if this would have anything to do with the incident in the comm room
and the coming of Lord Vader when he was done with his mission back
home.

"Where are you going?" Lowe asked as dual fears entered his mind.
Fears of letting LT.Hit-Man out of his sight - who knows what hell he
would raise if he left to his own devices that could put the Empire's
mission in this galaxy at risk - and the fear of keeping LT.Hit-Man
around vied for dominance of his mind.

"Me and my slave have some things to take care of. That is why
I'm taking some time off. I need the rest, after all. The Feds did a
number on me, but I've been though worse than that-" LT.Hit-Man tapped
his cybernetic eye and then his rebuilt shoulder and arm before adding
"- but I'm not quite up to spec right now."

Lowe felt like someone had walked up to him and slit his throat.
This was the last thing that he had ever expected to hear from this
insane stormtrooper. "Huh?" was all he could say as he fought to get
his head on straight.

LT.Hit-Man just smiled to himself then he got back to the
business at hand. "Yes, I and my slave will be leaving in about two
weeks from now, and we do not know when we'll be returning, if we
return."

Lowe just about went though the roof when he heard that. "Your
thinking of deserting, are you?" he asked in an awestruck voice, but
when he saw LT.Hit- Man's face suddenly change from it's normally cold
blank look to a look of outrage, Lowe began to back away in a fear so
savage that he was sweating.

"WHAT!!!!!!" LT.Hit-Man roared. He felt like he had just been
sucker punched and he put the smack down on Lowe as he reached out with
the dark side and started to twist Lowe's guts into a knot. "IF YOU
EVER, EVER SUGGEST THAT I AM GOING TO DESERT THE EMPIRE LIKE THAT
AGAIN, WHAT I'LL DO TO YOU WILL MAKE YOUR WORST NIGHTMARES LOOK LIKE A
QUIET DAY AT THE BEACH WITH A LADY FRIEND!" LT.Hit-Man screamed as he
sent Lowe crashing into a wall.

LT.Hit-Man knelt down beside Lowe, who was writhing on the floor
in hellish agony. He felt like someone was using a dull, rusty dagger
to slowly turn his guts into hamburger. LT.Hit-Man realized his
mistake; Lowe had misunderstood him and he lost it on the pain-stricken
Grand Admiral whose life was slowly running out on him, and reached out
with the Force to heal the dying man.

Lowe was in some Sith hell as the pain surged though every fiber
of his beating. No one could go though that much pain and still be
alive.

Just as Lowe was about to give in to despair at the though of
spending his afterlife in this torment, it stopped. Slowly, he opened
his eyes and saw LT.Hit- Man kneeling above him, his hands held a few
inches from his healing body. Lowe realized that he had only one chance
to live. He summoned up every ounce of his waning strength and
willpower, intent on slamming the heel of his palm just under LT.Hit-
Man's nose, breaking it and driving the shards of bone into his warped
brain and killing him outright, damn everyone and everything else.

The fatal blow never landed as Lowe found his wrist in the
unbreakable grip of LT.Hit-Man's human hand as he felt something cold
and sharp at his throat. He looked down to see the tip of a wicked
looking spike that was sticking out from the back of LT.Hit-Man's
cybernetic hand, pricking his voice box.

Lowe slowly looked up, dreading what he would see in LT.Hit-Man's
eyes, but what he saw shook him to the very core of his soul. There was
a strange and foreboding look on the scarred face of the madman who had
him dead to rights. A fraction of pressure from LT.Hit-Man's cybernetic
hand and he would drown in his own blood. However, what really had Lowe
so freaked out, almost to the point of fainting from fright, was the
strange look in LT.Hit-Man's eye...a look of dark terror, pain, sorrow
and even an alien look of pity. For a long and agonizing time neither
man moved, nor spoke.

"Ezri is a creature like me, Vader, The Emperor and Exar Kun,"
LT.Hit-Man's grave voice said as the madding silence was shattered.

Lowe felt his blood run cold at LT.Hit-Man's words, for they were
starting to make things clearer to him. Namely, the strange change
within Ezri when he and Tierce had encountered her as she was making
her way to the med-bay that LT.Hit-Man was in after he got worked over
by the resistance on Bajor.

Slowly LT.Hit-Man pulled his cybernetic hand away from Lowe's
throat. There was a low *snick* as the spike was retracted back into
LT.Hit-Man's cybernetic hand and he stood up, gently bringing Lowe to
his feet.

"The Force, both the light side and the dark side, are playing
their bloody game of irony and we are just the pawns in that game,"
LT.Hit-Man said as he let go of him. Lowe watched as LT.Hit-Man walked
over to his chair, seeming like he was decades older now than when he
first walked into his briefing room.

Lowe walked over to his chair, his legs felt like rubber and he
was thankful to be off his feet when he sat down.

"Just what the hell is going on here?" Lowe asked as he found the
strength to look LT.Hit-Man right in that cold, lifeless blue orb that
was his human eye.

LT.Hit-Man was tired, but now was not the time to rest no matter
how much he wanted to. He could not walk away from his destiny, and as
much as he wanted to walk out the briefing room at that point in time
to get on with whatever his fate was to be, he could not. Not without
giving some kind of explanation as to what was going on. After all, it
was Lowe's ship.

"The reason I said that me and Ezri may not return is because the
hand of fate is upon us all. The next few week’s time will tell the
outcome of all of our lives," LT.Hit-Man said as he kept his face
blank, for the icy cold hand of fear was grabbing at his heart at that
moment.

Just when Lowe thought that he could not be more afraid of the
machine-man that was sitting before him, he found that he was wrong. He
had grown use to LT.Hit-Man's up-front and bloody manner, but now he
was talking like some cryptic Jedi scum and that was really starting to
eat away at his diminishing resolve to keep cool as he talked with
LT.Hit-Man like acid.

LT.Hit-Man could see that Lowe was getting to the point where he
might do something rash, so he held up his cybernetic hand to keep Lowe
quite for a few minutes as he explained what was going down.

"The Sith are not kind to those who belong to it."

Lowe bit down on his bottom lip. He was about to tell LT.Hit-Man
to get to the point and quit kriffing around, but he found that he
could not speak as he saw something in his mind, but no matter how hard
he tried to focus on the blurred image he could not see it. A strange
feeling of vast understanding teased his mind like the fingers of a
playful lover.

"This war is about more than just territory, more than worlds to
be gained and to be lost, more than blood of the countless lives that
well be lost on all sides of the conflict before it is over with once
and forever," LT.Hit-Man said as he let out a deep, tired sigh, running
his cybernetic hand though his severely short crew cut.

LT.Hit-Man knew that what he was about to tell Lowe could end not
only his life but that of Ezri's and Lowe's and who knew where the
killing would stop once it started.

"Look, I'm going to tell you something but you can not tell
anyone, not even your lover, if any, Not Vader or even the Emperor no
matter what!" LT.Hit- Man said in a low whisper as he fought down a
slight tremor in his human hand.

"It can't be that bad, can it?" Lowe asked fearfully. He had seen
the tremor in LT.Hit-Man's hand and he knew that LT.Hit-Man knew that
he had seen it. "It could be," LT.Hit-Man said in his trademark flat,
lifeless voice wishing that he could keep this to himself but found
that he could not.

Lowe opened a drawer in his desk and pulled out a bottle of home
brew, cracked it and drank deeply from it, then much to LT.Hit-Man's
surprise as well as his own he offered the bottle to LT.Hit-Man who
took it and pounded it back.

"Thanks, I needed that." LT.Hit-Man said as he handed the bottle
back to Lowe who finished it off.

"Okay, I can keep cool on this. I have a feeling that sooner or
later this was going to happen. I don't know what, but I just don't
care anymore," Lowe said to LT.Hit-Man. He found himself realizing that
if he lost his life because of what he was about to be told that it
would not matter, but the bitch of it was that he had no idea why he
was feeling like this. He knew that it was not the drinks he just had.
No, this was something deeper than that but as to what, who knew.

LT.Hit-Man was about to tell him not to be to hasty on that but
when he saw the look of the damned in Lowe's tired eyes, he remained
silent for a few seconds, then told him.

Once he was done speaking LT.Hit-Man got from his seat and left
Lowe to ponder the revelation that he had been let in on.

LT.Hit-Man’s Journal Honor Bound 6

Of Dark Teachings


LT.Hit-Man walked into the hangar bay where Drzic and his men
were formed up after having been released from the brig. He looked over
the men, each standing crisply at attention. Each of them wondering
what the man before him had in store.

"All right, listen up and listen good!" LT.Hit- Man said in a
loud, menace-filled voice that shook his men to the bone. "You all went
AWOL in order to save men from the resistance back on Bajor." LT.Hit-
Man walked along the front row of his squad. He looked each one of the
men in the eye as he marched past. To their credit, they managed to
keep their fear in check. "That's why you're still sucking air instead
of being shot for deserting your post." LT.Hit-Man reached the end of
the front row of stormtroopers. He them began to walk up the side of
the squad formation, circling like a shark, hunting for the weak ones
that would be cut out from the squad.

"As of now, you no longer belong to the Empire," LT.Hit-Man said,
and to his secret delight, there was not so much as a low murmur at his
words. Yes, these men would do just fine.

"Your sorry asses now belong to me." LT.Hit-Man walked behind his
squad. He could sense the fear that was slowly coming to a boil in his
men; yes, they would do just fine, indeed. He could feel the battle
within them as they fought down their fear, to keep a calm, cold and
professional mindset, lest they show their weakness to him, earning
displeasure.

"I, however, will not be leading you for awhile." LT.Hit-Man
started to march down the other side of the squad, towards the front,
as he carried on with the briefing. "Something has come up that demands
my attention elsewhere." LT.Hit-Man came to a stop at the head of the
squad. He took a moment to look each man over before he spoke again,
having found his prey.

"Sergeant Drzic, front and center!" LT.Hit-Man shouted as he
crossed his arms, allowing a scowl to form on his scarred face.

Newly promoted Sergeant Drzic stepped forwards and slammed his
booted foot down on the hanger's deck plates. "Sir!" he said, standing
crisply at attention.

"Sergeant Drzic, you will be in charge of LT.Hit-Man's HellHounds
until I get back," LT.Hit-Man said as he let his gaze wander over his
men, adding, "You and the Hounds will be transferred over to Rear
Admiral Yates's latest command, the _Cerberus_. I want you all to get
some action while I'm gone." LT.Hit-Man started to walk towards his
squad. He could feel their fear and he drank deeply of it.

"And remember this! To hell with the beatings! If morale has not improved by
the time I get back, I'll give you something to cry about!" LT.Hit-Man
snarled as he grabbed his victim, one of newer members of Hounds who
had started to tremble with fear at the sight of LT.Hit-Man, and beat
the armor off of the cowering man before letting him fall to the
hanger's deck, a bloody pulp of nearly dead meat. Now came the best
part.

"Medic!"

***

LT.Hit-Man was strolling towards the mess hall, his stomach
grumbling. He was hungry, and he was in a good mood. He had watched as
the HellHounds got on their assault shuttles; fifteen men per shuttle.

Within three minutes after he had dismissed his squad. Drzic even
dragged the bloody and beaten trooper that he had laid out as a morale
booster onto his shuttle, cuffing the dazed trooper in the head for his
cowardice along the way.

LT.Hit-Man walked into the mess hall and came to a sudden halt as
the dark ripple of fear and hate washed over him. He quickly regained
his composure and looked out to see what was the source of this hate
and fear, and to his shocked delight he saw Ezri sitting at a table
eating her meal. More to the point, he saw the change within her as the
cold fire of hate burned fiercely with in her. He could feel the fear
of all of the crewers that were still in the mess hall.

"Ahh, I see that you are up and about. Good, because your destiny
is now at hand," LT.Hit-Man said as he sat down across from her,
ignoring his meal and looking straight into her pale, ice blue eyes.

Ezri was just about to finish her breakfast when her master
walked in and she could feel the power of the dark side pouring off of
him, the same dark force that had been awoken with in her when she got
up today but only stronger, much stronger. "Yes, my Master. I wish to
become one of the Sith, not a slave," she rasped as she knelt, forcing
herself to look right back into her Master's cold, dead blue human eye,
fighting down the last of her fear that had been so desperately seeking
it's release all day long.

LT.Hit-Man kept his face blank as he continued to look Ezri in
the eyes, and seeing no weakness whatsoever, was overjoyed by her
declaration. Yes...the Sith would have a new apprentice. LT.Hit- Man
stood up and told Ezri to follow him. They quickly left the mess hall,
leaving the rest of the crewers who had heard what Ezri had said to
LT.Hit-Man, and their fear skyrocketed. It was bad enough that they
had one dark lord of the Sith on board, but now he had an apprentice.
No one had suspected that the alien slave that had been give to the
LT.Hit-Man as an appeasement gift would be dangerous. Dangerous to
them, that is.

As the door to their quarters slid shut behind them, Ezri kneeled
once again as LT.Hit-Man spoke. "Are you sure about this? Once you
start down the path of the dark side, forever will it dominate your
destiny!" he said in his most cold and fear-inspiring voice as he
looked down at the kneeling Ezri.

"Yes, my Master, I do wish to learn the ways of the Sith," Ezri
said as she felt the darkness within her start to fill her mind, body
and soul. Soon, she would have her vengeance, and then she and her
Master would set this galaxy ablaze in the cleansing flames of war.
Only the strong would survive the coming storm of death.

LT.Hit-Man reached down and removed the collar from around Ezri's
delicate neck. "Arise, my young apprentice. You are a slave no more,
but a new initiate to the dark side, the true power of the Force."

Ezri stood up. She knew that the next few days would be hell on
earth for her. She had no idea how right she was, but she drew on her
growing Dark Side powers to lend her the strength she would need in
order to survive her training in the ways of the Sith.

"Come, it is now time for your first lesson. I will teach you the
true meaning of horror," LT.Hit- Man said as they walked out of their
quarters. They walked down the hallway, the ship's crewers scattered
out of the way as they passed by, the looks of cold and ruthless
determination on the two Force users' faces telling them "stay out of
the way or die a death that no one should have to die."

Ezri could feel her fear clawing away at her. What did her Master
have in mind? A small part of her did not want to know what the crazy
cyborg had in store for her first lesson, but she ignored that small,
whining voice. This was her destiny, and no one was going to stop her.

"I can feel your fear, young one. Yes, you will learn fear, make
no mistake about that," LT.Hit-Man said as they got into a turbolift.
Luckily, it was empty. Ezri felt her fear grow at her Master's words,
but when she heard him say; "You'll adapt. If you do not master your
fear, you will die," she wanted to faint, but strangely enough his
words calmed her down as well. Maybe it was because she knew who and
what her enemy was, and that gave her comfort as she vowed, "I will
master myself. Fear is my ally, not my enemy!" She said that to herself
over and over again as she built up her dark will, fighting down the
hard struggle within herself. She would not fail.

LT.Hit-Man could feel the raging conflict within his apprentice.
He drank deeply of her fiery passion that fueled her will to win, her
rage at her weakness and her fear of what awaited her at his hands.

LT.Hit-Man and Ezri walked out of the turbolift and into the
brig, all the while LT.Hit-Man smiling to himself.

Timothy Jones was starting to accept the fact that he was not
going to get out of this brig anytime soon. No matter what he tried, he
could not escape. When he first woke up, he started to screaming in
terror, terror at what he saw as he looked down on his maimed body,
terror as the medical droid that was hovering over him jabbed him with
a nasty looking needle, then it was lights out.

When he woke up the second time he found himself in his cell all
alone and still legless. It had taken all of his ragged willpower not
give into despair as he learned to move around by using his hands.

His first meal was bought to him by two stormtroopers, one holding the bowl
of what looked to be a thick, gray sludge and a spoon. "What is this?
What are you going to do with me?" Timmy squeaked in fear as the
stormtrooper handed him the bowl. "Be quiet, Federation scum!" the
stormtrooper said as he backhanded Timmy in the face, sending him
crashing to the floor, his "meal" spilling all over him and the floor
of his cell.

Timmy cringed in fear as the two stormtroopers took a second to
smile under their fear-inspiring helmets, watching Timmy start to sob
like a baby. Then they left, leaving Timmy to cry for a few hours.

After a while, he slowly picked up his spoon and began to scrape up his
food. The cold gray paste tasted like the glue he used in his arts and
craft class he took when he was kid. Time lost all meaning to Timmy as
the days dragged on and on and on, the guards bringing him his food
every eight hours or so. After the fifth or sixth day, he stopped
asking about what was to happen to him as he dealt with his situation
as best as he could.

Timmy was sleeping when the door to the brig opened up. He slowly
opened his eyes, expecting to see the two guards with his food. But
when he saw the cyborg stormtrooper and a young woman enter the brig he
let out a scream, recognizing the cold and malevolent smile on the
scarred face of the cyborg that the resistance had worked over.

LT.Hit-Man walked over to the whimpering Fed that he had spared
from his hellish rampage on Bajor.

"Now watch and learn the true meaning of terror," LT.Hit-Man said
to Ezri who began to feel pity for the doomed man before her.

LT.Hit-Man took out a small scalpel from the med-kit on his
trooper belt. "I told you no one would be walking out of that cave
alive," he said to Timmy as he reached out and clamped his cyber hand
down on the whimpering man, hoisting him into the air.

"Your 'friends' are dead. You are my prisoner and now I shall have my revenge," LT.Hit-
Man said as he slammed Timmy down onto the hard cot. He held up the
scalpel to Timmy's face so that the dim light would reflect off of the
wicked looking blade.

Ezri felt like she was going to puke as she watched her Master
slowly cut the skin that connected the doomed man's upper jaw to his
lower jaw. She nearly jumped when he screamed as the blade slowly
peeled away the flesh over the muscles of his mandible.

"Watch and learn, my young apprentice," LT.Hit- Man said as he
slowly reached into the gaping, bloody wound and pulled on the muscles
of Timmy's jaw, causing Timmy to scream even louder.

LT.Hit-Man took a bunch of muscles in between the pointer finger and thumb of his human
hand and slowly twisted them into a knot. Then, as Timmy bucked under
him, he used the scalpel to sever the muscles and watched as the left
side of Timmy's jaw went slack. LT.Hit-Man then stepped back to look
over his handiwork.

"Come here, my young apprentice," LT.Hit-Man said to Ezri in his
most commanding voice. He wanted her to see this up close so that she
would never forget what she was bearing witness to.

Ezri slowly walked over to see what LT.Hit-Man had done. Her legs
were like jelly. "Ez, you can do this...you have to do this," she said
to herself. She took a deep breath, held it for a few seconds, then let
it go as she steadied herself up and walked over to see the man who was
lying there before her, his eyes locked on to hers. She could see the
look of trapped terror in them, begging her to spare him or at least
kill him quickly.

LT.Hit-Man watched as his apprentice looked at what he'd done. He
could sense the struggle within her, the dark side of her soul
grappling with the last ragged tatters of her caring and compassionate
side for dominance of her mind.

"I sense the conflict within you, my young apprentice," LT.Hit-
Man rumbled darkly as he slowly cut Timmy's top lip from his face.
Timmy's shrieks filled the air of the brig with suffering and horror as
LT.Hit-Man slowly peeled the top lip off and dropped it to the floor.

Ezri was sick with horror and terror as she watched her master
apply his dark skills. True that this was war, but was all this torture
necessary? "Damn it, Ez. You knew that this was not going to be some
damn walk in the park get together. This is no time to be sitting on
the fence for fuck's sake!" Her mind spat in disgust of her weakness.

"There is no conflict, only resolve, my master!" Ezri said in a
voice as cold as Hit-Man's as she crushed down the last bit of her
humanity.
She let the dark side fill her with the same heady power that
she had felt in the mess hall as her face became as cold and as hard as
a demon. She swept away the last of her caring and compassion,
denouncing the light side of her soul.
Never again would she be a weak, spineless girl she was.
Now, she was on the path to her true calling, and she welcomed the chilling death of her soul.

LT.Hit-Man was ecstatic; now would begin the real work. He had
broken her mind, body and spirit. Now he would mold her.

Ezri watched, cold and impassive to the suffering that the
legless Federation prisoner was in as LT.Hit-Man began to skin the man
one layer at a time. Every so often, LT.Hit-Man would look up from the
screaming thing that had once been a man and saw that Ezri watched the
luckless man on the blood soaked cot. She was so wrapped up by what he
was doing that she never noticed when he looked at her.

LT.Hit-Man looked into the pale ice blue eyes or his apprentice
as saw that she had the same cold, dead look in those eyes as he had in
his one deep cobalt blue orb. Yes, she was taking this bloody first
lesson in the ways of the Sith well. With a secret smile known only to
him and the dark side, he continued the bloody living vivisection on
the mewling chunk of agonized meat on the cot, feeling the cleansing
coldness of the dark side as it filled the spot where his soul had once
been.

Time had no meaning in that brig as the air became thick with the
rich warm coppery smell of freshly spilled blood. The cold terror that
that hung in the air like a deadly mist seamed to seal the carnal house
that once was a brig from time itself as the horrific business
continued.

Hours, minutes, seconds; no one could know how much time had passed
from the frist moment LT.Hit-Man began to peel Timothy like a bloody orange,
separating the skin to expose the muscle beneath it.
He cut away a group of muscles like the biceps and worked his way over every muscle
group, taking care not to sever any major arteries. All that was left
was a heaving mass of exposed organ and bloody bones.

"Well, I must say, this guy is all heart," LT.Hit-Man said to
Ezri as slid his human hand under Jones's still beating heart, slowly
tightening his grip on the wet pulsating organ, savouring the finality
of death that was about to dealt to the suffering bag of nearly dead
meat.

Ezri shuddered in dark orgasmic pleasure as she felt the cold
hand of death reaching out for the doomed man. She found herself
becoming aroused, and it took all of her growing dark side power not to
give into the urge to jump her master as he held the dying man's heart
in his hand. "Mmmm," Ezri moaned, clenching her hands into fists so
hard that her nails were digging bloody half moons into her palms.

LT.Hit-Man slowly, almost lovingly released Timmy's heart.
"Come, my young apprentice. You have learned the lesson of horror; now it is
time for a short rest before I teach you the lesson of vengeance," he
said as he slowly walked away from the bloody mess that he had made.

"What about him?" Ezri asked coldly as they made their way
towards the brig's door, the coldness in her soul starting to slowly
recede back to that black spot in the core of her being. "What -about-
him?" was the answer.

As they started to walk down the hall towards their quarters,
Ezri watched as her Master told the two fearful stormtroopers to clean
up the mess.

LT.Hit-Man and her watched as the two stormtroopers sucked
it up and walked into the brig; within 3/10ths of a second they heard
the sounds of the stormtroopers puking their guts out. As they resumed
their walk to their quarters, they both enjoyed a cruel laugh at the
stormtrooper's expense.

Grand Admiral Lowe walked away from the video monitor as he felt
his legs start to wobble like old rubber bands.
He had been watching LT.Hit-Man and Ezri as they walked into the brig,
he had been keeping a close eye on the mad cyborg ever since the incident in the Comm room.
He was sure that LT.Hit-Man knew he was being watched, but the thing that got Lowe
was the fact that LT.Hit-Man seemed to be playing along with him,
acting like he did not know that he was being watched.

Lowe just about jumped out of his seat when the security monitor
cut out on him, but a few minutes later the monitor came back on and
what he saw would haunt him for the rest of his days. The last thing he
saw before the disruption was LT.Hit-Man slowly moving towards the
cowering prisoner, Ezri watching on from behind.

Then when the monitor came back on, Ezri and LT.Hit-Man where
walking out of the brig, leaving what was left of the Federation
prisoner lying on the blood-soaked bunk. Luckily, Lowe managed to run
into the washroom in his quarters before he puked his guts out. He had
never realized the degree to which he must become of the dark side in
order to acclimate to such horrid sights...

By then, LT.Hit-Man and Ezri were back in their quarters
meditating. LT.Hit-Man sat on the floor facing Ezri. _So, my young
apprentice, how are you holding up?_ LT.Hit-Man said as he opened a
mind link with her.

Ezri felt like there was something trying to burrow into her
brain, like what she had felt in the comm-room but not as painful, so
she mentally opened her mind to the sensation and that is when she
heard her Master's words. _I am doing just fine,_ she thought back,
waiting to see what would happen, and she was surprised when she heard:
_Good, good, you are learning well._ But this time, the voice sounded
like it was fading, so she focused her mind on LT.Hit-Man's words. For
and hour they just sat there and contuned their mental exercises.

_Now you are ready for the next step in your journey to the dark
side,_ Ezri heard as her Master got to his feet, but what surprised her
was his extended human hand.

Slowly, ever so slowly, and a bit fearfully, she reached out to
take his hand, and they met, she felt a wave of fear, hate, lust,
compassion, caring and kindness that were all swirling though her mind
and body like a chaotic tornado.

She let out a small gasp as her Master slowly and gently helped
her to her feet. Her mind was still having a hard time believing how
gentle this dark man could be even after seeing the horrific evil he
had committed on the legless Fed prisoner as well as his own crew
members.
"Damn it, Ez...this is so freaky," she thought to herself as
she took a brief look into LT.Hit-Man's human eye. She could see that
he was struggling with something that he could vaguely understand.

LT.Hit-Man felt like his heart, mind, soul and body were being
ripped apart from the raging storm of emotions that that slammed into
him like an ion cannon when Ezri, his slave-turned-apprentice in the
ways of the dark side took his hand in hers.

His feelings for her had caught him unprepared. It had been so
many long and bloody years since he opened up to anyone that it was as
if he had never felt these feeling before, and he was having a Sith-
of-a-time trying to sort them out, let alone understand them.

"Come. Now, it is time to learn of vengeance," he said when Ezri
was on her feet.

As they walk towards the brig that the Gunnery Ex-Captain Fortio
was cooling his heels (yes, an ISD has more than one brig), the crewers
that came across them backed away in fear. News of LT.Hit-Man's meeting
with the Emperor had spread like a plague throughout the Imperial
strike force, but the rumors that had been spawned that day where so
many that the truth would never be known for sure.
As they watched LT.Hit-Man and Ezri walk past them, they started to pray that they
would be ignored. After the two passed the crewers by without so much a
glance in their direction, they let out a collective sigh of relief and
got back to their work. But the dark seeds of fear were still there
within their hearts and minds, sleeping and waiting for the first
bloody rainfall so that they may bloom.

When Fortio saw them, he began to cry.

"Yes, my young apprentice. He is yours to do with as you see
fit," LT.Hit-Man said as he leaned up against the brig wall so that he
could watch the show. He could taste the death that was in the suddenly
cold air of the brig.

Ezri smiled, a hungry, predatory smile, at Fortio, who had
dropped to his knees and was begging her to spare his worthless life.

"Stand the fuck up!" Ezri snarled as she walked towards the man who had
dared to violate her body and soul. Her rage was starting to get the
better of her, so she took a deep breath and bent her growing hatred to
her dark will.

Fortio knew that he was going to die and so he forced himself to
his feet, hoping that by complying with Ezri's orders she might kill
him quickly. At least he'd try to have some dignity before the end, or
so he hoped.

"You like my body, don't you," Ezri purred in a seductive yet
deadly voice as she pinned Fortio up against the wall of his cell.

LT.Hit-Man saw this and felt a pang of jealousy that had hit him out of
the blue like a sniper's rifle shot and it took him a few minutes to
beat down that jealousy as he watched Ezri slowly reach between the
cowering Fortio's legs.

"What the kriff are you doing?" Fortio stammered as he felt his
arousal starting to grow within him. This was so wrong but yet it felt
good and that had him in a bind as he began to sweat. His mind and body
were thrown into utter chaos.

Ezri could feel him reacting to her touch as she lazily caressed
his balls. "Why, I'm giving you want you wanted when you tried to take
me in the mess hall," she rasped throatily as she ground herself
against the trembling Fortio.
He fought down the urge to throw Ezri to the floor and kriff her spots off,
but with LT.Hit-Man standing there, watching them with that cold hard look on his
scarred face, well, that kind of put a damper on things.

Ezri heard Fortio let out a small whine as she slowly increased
the pressure on his nuts, alternating between squeezing and stroking.

Ezri could tell that the time was close, so she leaned closer to
Fortio's face and gently brushed her lips across his. "I know this is
what you want. I can feel it," she said as she felt Fortio starting to
tremble his cock harding as she played with him.
He felt himself starting to reach his breaking point.

LT.Hit-Man watched with more than a passing interest.
This was getting a little too strange for him. Sure, he expected her to kriff
him up for trying to rape her, but when she started copping a feel on
Fortio, he was more then a little surprised. He was going to say
something, but he found he could not speak, nor could he move.
This began to worry him.

All LT.Hit-Man could do was stand there and watch as Ezri
continued to have her way with Fortio and stewed in the savage jealousy
that had taken root within him.

Fortio was so humiliated. This was not how things were done.
He felt so used and so dirty. "Please, no more, I'm begging you. Please
stop," Fortio whined as he felt the confusing combined feelings of lust
and fear, hatred and self-loathing. Lust for what was being done to
him, fear for the way this crazy alien bitch was having her way with
him and feeling so helpless to do anything about it.
Hate for being used and abused like this, unable to kill Ezri for this outrage while
LT.Hit-Man just stood there watching, and the self-loathing at being so
weak and helpless. Fortio started to cry as these feelings started to
get out from under his control.

When Ezri heard him begin to sob, felt the feelings that were
ripping him apart, she struck.

"And now you will pay for you stupidity!" Ezri snarled as she let
her hate have free reign. She crushed Fortio's testicles with a
modified Force choke hold, smiling savagely as she felt Fortio's stones
being turned into a bloody pulp, hearing him scream like someone had
poured boiling oil on his now ruined genitalia.

"Did you really think you could try and have you way with me and
get away with it!" Ezri whispered, using the modded Force choke hold to
slowly pull whatever was left Fortio's balls out though his manhood.

She could feel the bloody gore starting to soak through Fortio's
uniform pants and she felt so alive as the dark side lent her the power
she needed to complete her revenge on the doomed human that she was
holding by his ruined manhood.

"Only in the end do you FEEL the full power of the dark side!"
she hissed venomously as she ripped his cock off with a hideously loud
and wet ripping sound, feeling a dark orgasm rock her entire being.

LT.Hit-Man started to laugh at the bloody sight before him.
"Talk about a hand job from the Sith!" he cackled gleefully as he watched
Ezri drop Fortio to the floor, who was holding himself as he curled up
into a fetal position, his mouth opening and closing like a fish out of
water. A thin reedy sound was all that could be heard from him.

Ezri then delivered the coup de grace by wiping her bloody hand
cross Fortio's ashen face in a gentle, almost loving manner, leaving a
streak of blood, pulped testicles and other bits of gore.

LT.Hit-Man looked at Ezri, who's cute pixie-like face was
flushed by the dark power she had used to exact a suitable revenge on
the fool who dared to lay a hand on her in such a vile manner.

"Well done, my young apprentice. It is true you are one of the
Sith now. All that remains is to hone your skills," LT.Hit-Man said as
he found his mobility restored. He approached Ezri, slowly raising his
hand and putting a Force choke on her.

"Never forget who is the master and who is the apprentice,"

LT.Hit-Man said to Ezri in his most cold and fearsome voice. A voice
that would make Darth Vader's rumbling basso sound like a high pitched
steam whistle. A voice that made the quite menace that was in the
Emperor's voice seem like a tribble going up against an AT-AT.

Ezri felt that there was nothing that she could not do. She felt
as if she could crush the life from a star with a mere wave of her
hand, exterminate an entire race with a low whisper...yes, she would
conquer all who stood before her, dispensing life and death on a whim.

She turned to face her master, who was just looking at her with
that cold lifeless look on his scarred face. Before she could say
anything, she felt the life being choked from her. As he spoke she
desperately fought to break the indomitable grab that was around her
throat, but try as she might, she could not, then with out any warning
whatsoever she fell to her knees and it felt so right.
She stopped her futile struggle and listened to her Master's words, the old adage
coming to her mind: "Don't get cocky. There is always someone out there
who is stronger, faster, meaner and more ruthless than you are."

"It could be fatal to forget," LT.Hit-Man said as he towered over
Ezri, waiting for her to make the next move, the move that could end
her life or spare it. As he waited, he felt like there was nothing that
could be denied him...vaguely, he wondered if this was how Lord Vader
or the Emperor felt as they reveled in the sweetness of power
overwhelming.

"I will not forget, my master, I live only to serve you." Ezri
said in her most submissive voice as she dared to look up at the Dark
Lord of the Sith who stood above like an unstoppable juggernaut.
It felt good to be as she was before him. She saw a brief glint of
jealousy in his human eye and it felt good to know that she had at last
gotten to him, that he felt something toward her other than the cold
dispassionate outlook that one would have for a piece of property. She
was not going to risk his wrath. Not now, not ever.

"Good, now let us leave, for there is much for you to learn yet,"
LT.Hit-Man said as he released the Force choke that he had on her.
Then he reached out with his cyber hand to help Ezri to her feet.

Six stormtroopers stood outside the door as the two of them
exited the brig. They had coming running when they heard Fortio's
agonized scream that had echoed throughout out the ship like a banshee
as he paid for his crime, but they did not enter, knowing full well who
was in there, not wanting to end up dead if they were lucky.
Their fear saved their lives, for it was more than a sure thing that LT.Hit- Man
and Ezri would not tolerate any intrusion while they were doing
whatever it was they were doing to the gunnery Ex-Captain.

Ezri noticed the stormtroopers standing there. She could feel
their fear and she drank deeply of it.
"You will leave that person as is, or you will suffer far worse then Fortio did.
Do I make myself clear?" Ezri snarled. She wanted Fortio to suffer long and hard for
what he had done, and there was no way in the Sith that she would be
cheated of that by anyone.

The lead stormtrooper looked from Ezri's cold but cute face to
LT.Hit-Man's cold scarred face, somehow managing to keep from pissing
himself when he heard LT.Hit-Man say, "I'd do as she says if you value
your worthless lives," in his second most menacing voice.
Then without another word they left the badly frightened stormtroopers standing
there.

"I'm not going in there. You go in there," one stormtrooper said
to another one as he backed away from the brig. "Naha, you go in there,
I'm not." another stormtrooper said. He had no desire to see what had
happened, even though he had seen countless horrors on the field of
battle over his six long years as a stormtrooper.

"All right, knock it off. We're out of here. Last one to the
canteen is buying the brew," the stormtrooper squad leader said as they
broke into a double time march away from the brig.

It would be six long days before gunnery Ex-Captain Fortio died.

Six days of unimaginable agony.

LT.Hit-Man's Journal Honor Bound 7

The Darkest Apprentice


LT.Hit-Man looked away from the view port of his modified
'Sentinel' class shuttle to Ezri, who was meditating quietly on the
floor. The stretched-out starlines of hyperspace helped to put his mind
at ease, but going home was never an easy thing to do.

Her face was tranquil as she reached out to the Dark Side with
her mind. He watched as she slowly breathed in and out. Her small, firm
breasts would slowly press against her black tunic as she breathed in,
he found himself wondering how her flesh would taste as he swirled his
tongue over her nipples.

'Being naughty again are we?' Ezri thought towards her Master as
she picked up on his thoughts. She opened her eyes and saw a strange
smile on his scarred face. This was not the smile that would scare the
shit out a person, but it was a warm, almost tender smile.
That was what was so strange about it.

LT.Hit-Man let out a small, dry chuckle. "Indeed, my young
apprentice, but there will be time for that later," he said as she saw
the sly, knowing smile on Ezri's face; that was the counterpoint to his
own sly lustful smile.
"Come over here, we're about to drop out of hyperspace," he said as he turned back to the
readout on the nav-comp.

Ezri got to her feet. It had been a strange trip back to the home
galaxy of the Empire - an Empire which had come a-calling to her own
home galaxy a few short months ago. She was excited, there were many
things she wanted to see in this new galaxy. LT.Hit-Man had told her
about Coruscant, the first place they would be stopping at when they
dropped from hyperspace.

The shuttle dropped back into real space with a flicker of
pseudo-motion into high orbit of Coruscant and was immediately
challenged by the three Imperial Star Destroyers which moved to
intercept them.

"Unidentified shuttle. This is Imperial controlled space. Identify
yourself or be destroyed," was the message that came over the comm
system as LT.Hit-Man brought the shuttle to a halt.

"This LT.Hit-Man, operating number VX-101. I have business with
the Emperor, so get the hell out of my way or I'll come over there and
rip your colon out and feed it to you. Do you understand?" LT.Hit-Man
said in his most menacing voice. Ezri smiled as she sensed the fear
coming from the lead ISD that was hailing them. She looked over at her
master; he had the same smile on his face that she had.

But before there was any reply to LT.Hit-Man's words there was a
flicker of pseudo-motion as the SSD Executor drop out of hyperspace
less than two kilometers from the shuttle and the ISDs.

Darth Vader looked out of the Executor’s bridge view port. He
could sense the presence of LT.Hit-Man, and to his surprise, he felt
the presence of another force user. "Open a channel to that shuttle,"
Vader said, his gaze never leaving the craft.

LT.Hit-Man was about to put a force choke on the Admiral on the
lead ISD, when he saw the Executor drop into real space he decided to
ignore the Admiral, knowing full well that Lord Vader would be dropping
him a line. Less then three minutes had passed between the appearance
of the Executor and Darth Vader's call.

"Ahhh, Lord Vader, I trust all is well while I have been gone?"
LT.Hit-Man said to the flickering image of Darth Vader.

"You may dispense with the pleasantries, LT.Hit-Man," Darth Vader
rumbled as he saw the Emperor's other apprentice. His cold black gaze
fell upon the figure in a black hooded-cloak that was standing behind
LT.Hit-Man, and judging from the being's slender frame it appeared to
be a female humanoid. Darth Vader’s curiosity was more than piqued at
this. "Who is that with you?" Vader rasped as he folded his massive
arms across his broad armored chest.

"She is the reason why I have returned to Coruscant, as well as
to give the Emperor an update on the Fourth Fleet ; which I have been
assigned to.
With your permission I would like to come aboard your ship?" LT.Hit-Man asked,
totally ignoring the badly frightened Admiral that had originally challenged him.

"Permission granted. I look forward to hearing your report,"
Vader said, then the comm link between the Executor and the LT.Hit-Man's
shuttle was cut. LT.Hit-Man closed down the shuttle's comm system,
leaving the Admiral that had called him out to wonder what was going
on, then LT.Hit-Man set a course for the gaping maw that was the
Executor's hangar bay.

"Master, who was that?" Ezri asked as she sat down beside LT.Hit-
Man, who had a strange smile on his scarred face, a smile that looked
like he was reliving a painful memory mixed with a look of respectful
thanks.

"That, my dear, is Lord Darth Vader. That man is second only to
the Emperor in the Dark Side. We have an...understanding," LT.Hit-Man
said as the shuttle landed on the hangar floor. "I warn you now, do not
piss him off! He has killed more beings than I have seen days. Be wary
as well, for he does not know that the Emperor has given me permission
to train you in our ways. There are only three Dark Lords of the Sith
that I know of: The Emperor, Lord Vader and myself," LT.Hit-Man said as
they got to their feet. Ezri was becoming uneasy as she saw the glint
of dread in her Master's human eye. Not outright fear, but a low sense
of dread that was growing much like a pot of water coming to a slow
boil, she fought down her own growing fear.

"But you need not worry. Once I explain to him what is going on
I'm sure he'll understand. If not, well, he'll have to deal with me
first," LT.Hit-Man said as the shuttle's landing ramp started to slowly
descend. Out of the corner of her eye Ezri saw LT.Hit-Man's cyber hand
come to rest on the hilt of his light saber. Now she was worried. With a
heartfelt prayer that went unsaid by either of them they started to
walk down the landing ramp.

Ezri looked out from under the hood of her black Sith robes and
was shocked to see the row upon row of stormtroopers and other
personnel all lined up and standing at attention. She could sense their
fear as they passed them, but it was impossible to tell who or what was
causing it; The sweet, seductive fear that she found so refreshing. But
what she found strange was the total silence on the hangar bay; the
only thing that could barely be heard, if one made the effort, was a
low humming sound.

LT.Hit-Man was impressed; he did not think that they would get a
reception such as this. It felt good to be back home as he stepped down
the ramp and headed forward, looking straight ahead. They passed the
rank and file of the Executor's crew, line by line. The other thing
that impressed him was how quickly the crew had been assembled in the
hangar bay on a massive ship such as this. LT.Hit-Man smiled to himself
as felt a cold chill race up his spine, signaling the arrival of Lord
Vader on the Hangar Bay deck. A mental gasp from his apprentice, who
was total unprepared for the arrival of Lord Vader, raced through his
mind.

"Ah, Lord Vader, it is good to see you my old friend," LT.Hit-Man
said as he stood face to mask with the second most feared being in the
Empire. There was a mental 'Huh?' from the entire crew on the hangar
bay when they heard that, but what really brought the house down
mentally was when they heard Lord Vader say, "Indeed, it has been some
time my friend since we last talked."

A doomed tech let out a "hmm, hmm" when he heard that, but
neither Lord Vader or LT.Hit-Man, nor any bridge officers, did
anything; they would deal with him for this breach of discipline as
well as quite possibly putting all of their lives in grave danger once
they were dismissed, and the icing on that sweet cake of fear was that
the doomed tech knew that his ass was grass and the Executor's crew was
the lawnmower.

Unknown to anyone, even LT.Hit-Man and Ezri, was that Darth Vader
had a slight ghost of a smile on his scarred face beneath that grim
mask. He did like LT.Hit-Man; it was rare for him to find anyone in
this galaxy that was worthy of his respect, let alone someone that he
could call friend. Yes, they had been through quite a few missions
together and Vader was impressed with LT.Hit-Man's grim, bloody, up-
front and to the point attitude. The Dark Side had chosen well in
bringing him into the ranks of the Sith and he knew that LT.Hit-Man had
nothing but respect for him as well. He found that a refreshing change
from the fearful respect that was accorded him from the rest of the
Empire.

As they walked out of the hangar bay, only Darth Vader and
LT.Hit-Man knew of the chaos that was going to be running rampant
through the rumor mill about this meeting of the two Sith Lords and
they drank deeply of that thought. But the best thing about it was just
as the turbolift doors to the hangar bay were closing on the dismissed
crew, they got a nice view of the doomed tech being used as a piñata by
the rest of the crewers and troopers.

Ezri felt like she was going to be crushed to death as she stood
between the two Dark Lords of the Sith. When she saw Darth Vader, she
thought she was dead and there was the devil, coming to claim her soul.
It was taking all of her burgeoning Dark Side powers to keep her fear
in check; her master's words about Lord Vader weren't helping any.

The turbo lift doors opened and the three of them headed for
Vader's chambers to talk when LT.Hit-Man saw someone out of the corner
of his eye.

"Piett, you old bootlicker! How are you doing?" Admiral Piett
turned to face the person who had dared to speak to him like that, but
any harsh words he had to say died like a person who tried to scream
with a slashed throat when he saw the smiling, scarred face of LT.Hit-
Man. Vader and Ezri were watching in grim amusement as they saw the
color drain from the suddenly sweating man.

"Gee, Piett, it seems you have climbed the ranks since I last saw
ya," LT.Hit-Man said as he saw the rank bars on Piett's uniform. Piett
swallowed a few times before he found his voice.

"It's nice to see you as well, LT.Hit-Man. So how has life been
treating you?" Piett simpered. The last time he had seen the mad cyborg
was when he had just been a flight controller for the ISD 'Devastator'
when Lord Vader had captured the Tantive IV. LT.Hit-Man had led the
boarding parties on that mission. There were about sixteen heavily
armed rebels in the cargo bay that had managed to keep the
stormtroopers at bay. That was, until LT.Hit-Man came down there to
take care of the problem personally. To this day Piett still broke out
into a cold sweat when he thought about that; he had seen the after-
action battle footage from the stormtrooper's helmet cams. It had taken
three weeks for the maintenance droids to clean up what was left of the
sixteen rebels.

LT.Hit-Man was enjoying putting the needle to Piett. "So what
happened to Ozzel and Needa?" he asked as he let his "friendly" smile
grow a bit more. He watched Piett fight down his fear in order to
answer him.

"Well, hmm, you know how things are on the Executor," Piett said
as he dug his fingernails into the palms of his hands, using the pain
as a distraction from his fear.

<After the rebels on the Tantive IV had been dealt with and the
Devastor was underway, he had been bringing Lord Vader a report on the
ship's fuel supply when he ran into LT.Hit-Man. He made the mistake of
thinking that LT.Hit-Man was just another stormtrooper and began to
chew him out for being in his way as he rushed to give Vader the
report. When the stormtrooper just stood there as he was yelling at him
he suddenly found himself being choked by unseen hands and he began to
cry like a baby, thinking that it was Lord Vader who was putting the
choke hold on him.

But then he saw that the stormtrooper to whom he had been reading
the riot act was slowly closing his massive armored hand into a fist,
reaching up with his other hand to remove his helmet.

"You dare talk to me like that, you bitch!?" the stormtrooper
that was killing him snarled in a low, gravelly voice. The helmet came
fully off to reveal the scarred face of LT.Hit-Man, and that's when
Piett felt something warm run down his left leg. There was no need to
look down to see what that was; he knew that he pissed himself and he
felt rage mix with his ever-growing fear. He was going to die such and
undignified death, one that only the weak should die, and that made his
rage grow, but it was far too late to use that rage to change the
outcome of this chance encounter with the mad stormtrooper.

But as suddenly as the strangulation began, it stopped. Piett
began to suck air in great, wheezing gasps, his brain beginning to
throb at the sudden influx of oxygen.

"No, you don't get off that easy," LT.Hit-Man rasped as he leaned
over the cowering man. "Know this: wherever you go, I'll be there.
Whatever you do, I'll know about it. And when you least expect
it...BOOM! YOU'RE IT!" LT.Hit-Man said, his voice growing louder and
louder as he spoke in a strange accent that no one had ever heard
before. Piett and the rest of the crewers that were watching this open
and vulgar display of Dark Side terror figured that it was an accent
from LT.Hit-Man's homeworld, wherever that may be.

All Piett could was utter a low, mewling whine as he got a long
and very unwanted look at the dark fire of hate and death in the insane
trooper's cold, dead human eye. He knew that his days were numbered and
he found himself wishing that LT.Hit-Man would kill him there and then,
instead of playing this demented game of Rancor and Ewok (cat and
mouse). Then without so much as another word LT.Hit-Man turned and
started to walk away as Piett fainted. The last thing he saw before the
nightmare made real cyborg left him to ponder his fate was a smile...a
smile that made Hoth seem like Tatooine in comparison.>

LT.Hit-Man could see that Piett was reliving their last encounter
as beads of sweat began to pour from the terrified man's troubled brow,
but he had more important things to attend to, so he leave him
alone...for now.

"I guess Ozzel and Needa failed to get a good shine on Vader's
boots, eh?" he said as he slowly turned to leave the cowering man. "By
the way, is that boot polish on the corner of your mouth?" Then LT.Hit-
Man did something that caused the Executor's bridge crew's blood to run
cold: he started to chuckle as he walked back to Lord Vader and Ezri.

"Kriff, not again," Piett whined as he felt the crotch of his
dress pants start to grow damp as he the three Dark Siders left the
bridge.

"So what brings you to Coruscant?" Vader asked his only friend as
he looked Ezri up and down, feeling the Dark Side flowing though her
lithesome body. She kept her eyes turned to the floor of his quarters
as she fought down her fear. He was starting to become a little uneasy,
for the Jedi were dead, all of them wiped out by his hand. It was quite
a shock to have another Force user in his presence.

LT.Hit-Man put himself between Ezri and his old friend and
comrade in arms. "This is Ezri," he said as he pointed to his
apprentice. "I have returned from our mission to ask our master for
some info that will help me train her in the ways of the Sith." LT.Hit-
Man kept his hand just above his light saber in case that bit of news
did not go over well with Vader. He felt the hate of the rebels wash
over him, as well as the need to protect Ezri. That in itself was
strange...strange because he was still unfamiliar with those feelings
that had been taken away from him. Regret, regret that he may have to
kill Vader, his one true friend in the Empire, as well as the twin
primordial urges of long-buried lust and a need for closeness to
another being that came surging to the surface of his twisted soul as
those feelings washed over him like an emotional tidal wave.

"I see. Does the Emperor know of her existence?" Darth Vader
rumbled as he looked at LT.Hit-Man, his own hand hovering over his
light saber as well. LT.Hit-Man's unspoken warning to him had been
received and he found himself in the backwash of the feeling that was
radiating from his old friend, like the rays of some dark sun that
caused his own long buried and denied needs to break free from the iron
prison of his dark will. The needs that any man would have for the
joining, not only of body but the joining of mind and soul to woman as
the memories of his past; his wife and that wife-stealing bastard
Kenobi, who had forever locked him his this hellish prison of mind,
charred flesh and cybernetic shell. It all threatened to send him
springing into an out of control madness that could only be temporarily
oppressed by blood, death and terror, and it was taking all of his vast
Dark Side power to bring them to heel.

Ezri was feeling faint as the dark tides that pulled at the two
Dark Lords of the Sith caught her up in its near lethal undertow. Her
own needs and past pains of love lost and new love found, hammered at
her mind and soul threatening to send her over the edge into the dark
pit of madness that she now found herself standing on. Her own need to
defend the one she was in love with was urging her to strike out that
the black masked Sith lord should he dare to raise a hand against her
Master, and that in itself was also pushing to the point of no return,
one that would end in death on a scale that would make the war back
home look like a schoolyard fight.

For a long frozen moment in time, neither of them moved, nor did
they say a thing, scarcely daring to breathe as the darkness grew and
grew; burning each of them with its cold, hellish touch. The door to
Lord Vader's quarters opened and three sets of cold, dead eyes, organic
and cybernetic, suddenly spun and locked onto the being who had dared
to break the stillness in that cold room, the doomed man who had come
to tell the three dark children of the Sith that the Emperor was
demanding their presence on Coruscant. The Bridge crew had been trying
to page Lord Vader and LT.Hit-Man for well over fifteen minutes, but
since there was no answer to their hails, Piett ordered one of the
comm-techs to fetch them. Piett only had a vague feeling that anyone
who went to tell them of the Emperor's wishes would not live to see the
next day. So, as revenge, he sent the comm-tech who had snickered after
his "accident". He was obviously capable of a truly fitting revenge for
that doomed man's laugh at his expense.

The comm-tech only had time enough to let out a high-pitched
scream which was suddenly and most ruthlessly cut off. The cold and
dark madness that had been building up in Lord Vader's chambers like a
lighting strike in a howling storm of pain was unleashed. The Comm-tech
was blasted into ashes, leaving only a smoking skeleton; standing there
in rolling clouds of oily smoke that filled the bridge of the Executor
with the hellish stench of charred meat and raw terror. The sizzling
bones collapsed to the blackened deck.

The three of them let out a deep sigh like they had flown over
the blissful edge of some dark orgasm. They drew a deep breath as the
cold fury had been released from each of them, leaving their senses
heightened well beyond human understanding. Three bodies refreshed as
if they had enjoyed a long and pleasant sleep after being awake for
over a week straight.

Lord Vader lead the dark trio from his chamber, with LT.Hit-Man
to his right and a foot behind him, Ezri on his left and the same
distance behind Lord Vader as was her Master.

"Why were we disturbed?" Vader rumbled as he towered over Piett,
whilst slowly raising his right hand indicating that Piett was going to
need some serious cough medicine should the reason for the disturbance
turn out to be something trivial. LT.Hit-Man put on his second most
fearsome smile, the one reserved for klingons, members of Section 31
and members of his squad. Ezri had flipped the hood of her black Sith
robes back allowing the bridge crew to get a good look at her sarcastic
smile, as if daring them to make a crack about her non-humanness.

Piett however surprised them all by looking right up at Darth
Vader, he knew he had nothing to fear from them; any mention of the
Emperor would shield him for their wrath.

"The Emperor has been calling for you and LT.Hit-Man for well
over fifteen minutes." he said calmly and took a very savage enjoyment
as he saw their eyes grow wide with a mix of fear and surprise, so much
so that he even dared to push his luck with them.

"Needless to say he is displeased, after all you know how his
hates to be kept waiting." Piett said as he let a slightly regretful
look creep across his calm face, there was a strangled gasp for the
rest of the bridge crewers when they heard Piett start to back-talk
Lord Vader. As if that wasn't bad enough in itself, back-talking to
LT.Hit-Man and the strange alien woman that was with the two cybernetic
nightmares from the Sith was to much for them to keep quiet on. Slowly
but surely as the sun rises and the sun sets, they began to shuffle
away from the doomed man praying that they would not be noticed as the
hammer came crashing down on Piett. They could not help but wonder why
he had become suicidal, let alone why he was choosing death from the
Sith.

Vader slowly closed his raised fist one finger at a time, until
only his index finger remained unbent.

"Do not presume to know what displeases the Emperor." Vader said
as he pointed his unclenched finger at Piett as if he was scolding a
child for some boyhood indiscretion. Then the three of them glided
towards the bridge turbo-lift, leaving every one of the bridge crewers
save for Piett - who was standing there looking out the bridge view port
with a smug grin on his face - in total shock.

"That was nasty what you did to that poor comm-tech, I like it.
Perhaps you might want to consider joining the Sith." the bridge crew
heard LT.Hit-Man say. Piett just closed his eyes as he felt an all to
familiar dampness between his legs, as the bridge echoed with a peel
of insane laughter from LT.Hit-Man that caused a few more bouts of
bladder hostility. one weapons technician actually worked up the balls
to look up from his tactical display, only to see that there was no one
on the bridge but the bridge crewers and one very shamed faced Piett.

Ezri had a slight sweat form on her brow as she flew the shuttle
on its course for the Imperial palace, through the mind-boggling
cityscape as other vehicles flew by. She had been unprepared for the
grandiose sight of the seemingly endless capital city of the Empire,
yet that was not what had her sweating. Her Master and Lord Vader were
standing behind her, their steely gaze seemed to bore through the back
of her skull as she put the shuttle into a lazy looping turn that
brought the looming Imperial place into view. She tried to mind speak
with her Master but found that his mind was sealed off from her, with a
slightly fearful shock she found that she could not sense Lord Vader
either, it seemed that they were having a private chat between
themselves.

This was her first test at an actual shuttle landing, so far so
good but should anything happen she doubted that she would be able to
handle it. She was unsure if her Master or Lord Vader could get the
shuttle under control in time.

"You doing just fine. I have faith in you my young apprentice."
she heard her master say, his words instantly dispelled the mental image
of the shuttle slamming into the mountainous palace that was home to
the darkest lord of the Sith and Emperor of the dreaded Galactic Empire.

'Thank you my Master' Ezri thought towards LT.Hit-Man as the
lowered the shuttle's landing gear touched down. A phalanx, of what
looked to be red armored and robed stormtroopers, began to match
towards the shuttle in perfect unity.

Darth Vader could feel the fear from Ezri, LT.Hit-Man's
apprentice. He suddenly knew what the Jedi consul had seen and felt
when he had stood before them those many years ago, when Qui-Gon had
taken him for his home on Tattooine. The landing ramp was lowered and
then the three of them began to walk towards the cavernous entrance to
the Imperial palace.

'No fucking way!' Ezri thought, as she looked up at the hundred
flight stairway. It was wide enough to accommodate a division of
stormtroopers standing side by side, and was a thousand stairs per
flight.

"Distance does not concern the Sith." Ezri heard Lord Vader
rumble menacingly as the three of them, flanked by the Royal guards
took the first step that would bring them before the dark master of the
Empire. Ezri snuck a sidelong glance at LT.Hit-Man, who's scarred face
was as blank and devoid of any feelings as ever. Taking her lead from
him, she drowned out every thing around her and focused on the task of
taking one step after the other.

'Are you ready to met the Emperor, Ezri?' she heard LT.Hit-Man
whisper to her mind, startling her out of the mental coma she had
placed herself in, as they began the long ascent to the throne room of
the Emperor.

'Huh, what the?' Ezri thought, as she looked up to find herself
along with the two Lords of the Sith standing before a massive set of
red doors with a gold border. They were at least two stories tall and
fifty foot wide, each of them had the gray symbols of the Empire .
Standing on either side of the doors were a hundred stormtroopers in
gleaming white armor, gone were the Royal guards that had escorted
them from the shuttle. She looked back down from the small plateau that
they were standing on at the seemingly endless flights of stairs that
they had just walked up.

As Ezri looked down at the bottom of the stairway, all she could
see were the ant-sized beings that traveled past the terrifyingly
beautiful Imperial palace. What had taken her by surprise was the fact
that she was not even tired, in fact she felt like she had woken up
refreshed, and that had her confused no end.

Both LT.Hit-Man and Darth Vader smiled to themselves as they felt
the shocked disbelief from Ezri, as she got a good look at were she now
found herself. Without even knowing it she had used the Dark Side to
boost her stamina as they had made the long trek to the Royal throne
room of their Master.

'Indeed she is strong in the Force.' Darth Vader thought towards
his friend LT.Hit-Man, who allowed a brief smile to dart across his
face, like a mouse scurrying across the kitchen floor.

'I know it was quite a shock to find a Force user in another
galaxy, especially when she was given to me as an appeasement gift.'
LT.Hit-Man mentally said back; while they had been making their way up
the stairs they had been catching up on old times. They had made the
long, arduous journey to their Master's dark lair so many times, that
using the Dark Side to boost their stamina came as naturally to them as
breathing comes to most beings.

'HOLY SHIT!' Ezri thought, as her ice-blue eyes almost bugged out
at the sight of the two and a half mile grand hallway, which in turn
lead to an even more massive set of five storey black doors with the
Imperial symbol done in lightning blue. These were flanked with a
legion of stormtroopers. Ezri looked up and was further shocked to see
that every hundred feet or so around the walls was a stormtrooper
standing on a platform at least fifty feet from the ground. Each stood
there at attention with his E-11 across his broad chest, like he was
carved from the light gray walls themselves. Every third stormtrooper
was a Royal guard, also stood at attention with his force pike in his
right hand, ready to bring it crashing down on anyone who dared to even
think of causing a problem for the dreaded Emperor Palpatine. Unknown
to anyone save for the most trusted members of the Empire the floor,
walls and ceiling were rigged to generate a massive particle
disintegrator field that would flash-fry anything in the hallway; while
the stormtroopers would open fire on any unlikely survivors, safe on
their shielded platforms. Just below the guard platforms were hidden
alcoves within which was a Droideka/destroyer war droid, armed with two
E-Webs and a concussion grenade launcher and shields that were as
strong as the armor plating on an AT-AT.

Needless to say, one only came to see the Emperor at their own
risk and they planned the visit a week in advance. That was if you were
on Coruscant, beings from other worlds planned their visits a month
ahead; if you could not make the time to see the Emperor then you had
no business seeing him in the first place! Depending on how important
your visit was, or how much the Emperor tolerated you, a being would be
allowed the privilege of an immediate audience with the Emperor. Or if
you were one of the very select few like Darth Vader, LT.Hit-Man or
Grand Admiral Thrawn whom the Emperor genuinely liked, you could come
and go as you wished and for whatever reason you saw fit; so long as
you were not foolish enough overstay your welcome.

As they made their way towards the throne room Ezri felt like the
troopers were watching her, their eyes hidden inside their helmets
tracking her like the targeting system of an automated phaser cannon.
She had pulled the hood of her black Sith robes over her head before
they left the shuttle, that had helped to shield her from the curious
gaze of the courtiers that flitted to and for in the palace, but it did
little to shake the stormtroopers and Royal guard's seemingly all-
seeing gaze.

LT.Hit-Man could sense his young apprentice growing discomforted
and opened a mind link to her.

'Easy Ezri. Relax, they're just doing their job just as we have
to do our's.' He thought to her, his words helped to easy her tensions
but still she felt like the cold darkness of this place was slowly
crushing the life from her.

'I know my Master, but still this place - all that I have seen
here - is so...so overwhelming' Ezri thought back, as she took a deep
breath and slowly let it out forcing herself to relax. His softly
thought words helping to sooth her troubled soul.

'They're more scared of us then you are of them, namely me and
Lord Vader, to them we're like some dark gods you don't want to piss
off. Open yourself up to the Dark Side, reach out and drink deeply of
their fear, soon they will come to fear you as well' LT.Hit-Man thought
as he bolstered her slightly flagging Dark Side awareness with some of
his own stored Dark Side power.

Ezri pushed away her misgivings and let her mind take in the
feelings that were hanging in the dry cool, crisp air of the Imperial
palace. Her Master's power began to flow over her like a refreshingly
cold spray from a hose on a hot summer's day; Ezri was pleasantly
shocked to feel the stormtroopers and Royal guards low-burning fear
flare up as they passed each of them by, to then slowly die down as
they marched onwards towards the ever looming throne room doors.

Darth Vader could feel the conflict within LT.Hit-Man's
apprentice, as she fought down her growing anxiety with her Dark Side
awareness. He too had been swept up in the dark grandeur of the
Imperial palace when he first walked to the throne room alongside his
Master, the Emperor. Strangely enough he began to feel the start of
pangs of caring towards this alien woman, that his old friend claimed
as his; mind, body and soul. He had started to wipe this feeling out
from himself but he decided to let it grow just to see what, and where
it would lead to. If need be he could discard it like he had done with
all of his past feelings for anyone.

LT.Hit-Man decided to have some fun while they were walking
towards the throne room, he reached out with his force senses and
locked in on a stormtrooper - who was the most fearful of their coming
- and mentally formed the images of his cutting out the legs of the
Royal guard beside him with a tripping motion.

"AHHHHHHHHHH." The luckless Royal guard screamed as he found
himself falling towards the pristine royal hallway floor. Screaming not
because he was falling, oh no nothing as trivial as that; no he let out
a scream because just before he found himself doing a belly flop from
his post, he had seen the mental image of LT.Hit-Man's cold, cruel
scarred face leering at him. The worst part of it was when he heard
that mental image say in some dreadful, backwater-world, hick voice
"Hey Ya'all watch this!" then he found himself an unwilling member of
the Imperial airborne division.

*CRUNCH, SPLAT* The Royal guard's flight courtesy of LT.Hit-Man
airlines, came to a very sudden and undoubtedly painful stop as he
crashed through the roof of "Bob's Ewok on a stick and trinket
Emporium", miles below on one of the thoroughfares arrayed around the
Palace. It sold over thirty kinds of Ewok on a stick, ranging from Ewok
sushi on a stick, to Ewok deep fried in gungan fat on a stick to hungry
travelers who came to the Imperial palace on business, or just to see
the sights. Bob also hawked off cheap baubles of dubious value, ranging
from air-conditoned thermal underwear to toilet seats that
automatically adjusted to fit the dimensions of your ass, to the rubes
who came to the palace at grossly inflated prices; his hook line was
that the Emperor himself used such items. This was bantha-dung but the
Emperor tolerated it, because of Bob's daring and almost Sith-like
ability to sell anything to anyone at anytime. More to the point was the
rather large contribution Bob made to the Emperor's wrinkle cream fund
on a yearly basis. The sights ranged from the Hanging Gardens, where
lovers could sneak off for an outdoor romp in total privacy.

<Or so they thought. Unbeknownst to anyone, save for the higher-
up's on the Imperial food chain, was that the feared Imperial
Intelligence Bureau installed hidden micro holo-cams throughout the
Gardens. You see the Intelligence Bureau was also one of the top
providers of quality adult entertainment on the holo-net's pay-per-view
channels, the Bureau also had a very lucrative deal with the Corusctant
Inquirer; after all the galaxy was hungry for all the juicy and dirty
deals of Imperial court life. The main chart topper had been when a
certain visiting princess - from a now dead world - had been caught on
holo-tape with three Wookies, a Hutt and six top Imperial officials,
needless to say it had been a long time before that scandal died down.
When the Emperor had been asked for his views about the incident, on
live holo-net news, he chalked it up to Rebel propaganda; whilst
mentally laughing at the irony of his statement.>

There was also the "Tipsy Tie Pilot" bar - where every hour was
happy hour - the floor show of can-can dancing 'troopers' was a big
draw, as they sang "The Empire and Blasters forever". The top selling drink
was something that the Emperor came up with himself, a drink called a
pan-galactic gargle-blaster.

The surprisingly grounded Royal guard began to trash around, as
the pain from his broken back sent his soul into some Sith-spawned
hell. Bob began to try and squirm his fat carcass out from under the
body, none of the trooper's or guards left their post or even looked at
the Flight display as it had happened, when LT.Hit-Man was in town it
was a fair bet something like this was going to happen.

The luckless stormtrooper who had the misfortune to draw LT.Hit-
Man's attention, had not gotten off that easy. As he had watched the
Royal guard do the swan dive out of the corner of his eye, he suddenly
heard LT.Hit-Man's low, menacing whisper of a voice 'Suck it up you
cowardly piece of shit, or next time you'll wish that had been you!'
Then he was flooded with images and feelings of such horrific terror,
that he lost all control of his bowels and bladder. He had just started
his shift not less then five minutes before Lord Vader, LT.Hit-Man and
the strange hooded figure had walked into the Royal hallway, the
luckless stormtrooper now had six hours of standing there in his soiled
armor before he would be relieved; if at anytime in his life he would
need to rely on his stormtrooper training it was now. As the growing
stench of human waste began to slowly claim his breathe, as ruthlessly
as any Dark Side Force choke hold.

Darth Vader had enjoyed that, the other thing he liked about his
friend was his dramatically creative flair for cruelty at the right
time and right place. He could sense that Ezri was becoming more
relaxed, as fear washed over not only the Stormtroopers and Royal
guards, but the Imperial courtiers that had suddenly made themselves
scarce after LT.Hit-Man had put the whammy on the stormtrooper and
Royal Guard. Yet there was one thing about that lesson that the LT. had
just taught Ezri, that had him concerned.

'Are you sure you have not gone over your officer/trooper
casualty quota for the month?' Ezri heard Lord Vader mentally ask her
Master, that had her curiosity more then perked.

'No my good friend, I still have about fifty or sixty left and
you?' The LT answered.

Darth Vader let out a wistful sigh.

'I have about ten left, it's been one of those months on the
Executor' he thought back, as the three of them were walking up to the
mountainous throne room doors. The badly frightened stormtroopers
snapped to attention, with a resounding stomp of their armored feet
that echoed throughout the Royal hallway, like a crash of thunder.

'Officer/trooper casualty quota, what's that?' Ezri asked the two
Sith Lords' as they waited for the doors to open for them.

'It is one of the perks of being one of the Sith. You get to kill
a set number of underlings who have displeased you in anyway you see
fit. Right Vader?' LT.Hit-Man answered as they watched the throne room
doors open with a deliberate slowness.

'Damm right!' Vader mentally said, as he let out a low rumbling
chuckle that boomed throughout the Royal hallway like the tolling bells
of hell.

As the massive Throne room doors shut behind them, Ezri saw that
they were in an antechamber. There was a man in black scout trooper
armor stood there, along with a legion of Royal guards. The man in the
black armor walked towards them as they made their way towards a turbo-
lift, that would lead to the Emperor's throne at the top of the
Imperial palace.

"Lord Vader, I must speak with you." the Imperial commando said.
Lord Vader stopped and looked at him for a moment, then the two of them
stepped into a small alcove leaving LT.Hit-Man and Ezri standing there
wondering just what the hell was going on.

A few minutes later Darth Vader rejoined them sans the Imperial
commando, both of them could sense the rage, fear and tension that was
radiating off of the Sith cyborg.

Ezri was about to ask Lord Vader if everything was all right, but
she stopped short when she saw the warning look from her Master.

'Is he ok?' She thought towards LT.Hit-Man as Darth Vader had two
of the Royal guards drag away the dead commando, whom he had silenced
with a force choke when the commando had given his dark master the
news.

'Something has upset him terribly. I would not ask about it,
he'll tell us about it when he sees fit to. Until then it would be a
very wise idea not to push you luck on the matter' LT.Hit-Man answered
back as the three of them entered the turbo-lift, he had never seen his
old friend as upset as he was now. As much as he wanted to know what
was going on, in order to help him, he kept his peace because deep
within his own scarred soul he knew that this was something that Vader
had to face alone.

Emperor Palpatine watched as Darth Vader, LT.Hit-Man and a young
woman walked into his lair and knelt before him. He let them wait for a
few moments as he drank in their slight discomfort, with a casual wave
of his withered hand he dismissed the six Royal guards. Then he leant
forward with a deliberate slowness, before he spoke

"I do not like being kept waiting." His voice laced with a dark
menace that made Ezri swallow nervously, waves of coldness washed over
her. Much as she wanted to look up at the man that her master bent a
knee to, she knew that would be a mistake, quite possibly a fatal
mistake.

"It was unavoidable my master." Vader rumbled as his mechanical
breathing seemed to echo though out the dimly lit throne room. The news
from the deceased commando had affected him more then he thought, he
hoped that the Emperor would not ask about it because he was unsure as
to how he would react. He needed time to get himself in order.

"Indeed." Emperor Palpatine said as he got to his feet, watching
the three of them like a bird of prey hunting for it's next meal. "But
that can wait, LT.Hit-Man it is so good to see you." Palpatine said in
a slightly acidic voice - that told LT.Hit-Man he had not forgotten
about the incident in the Baron's communication's room - with a slight
smile that sent a chill up the deadly cyborg's back.

'Right, got to play it cagey or it's tits up on the platter for
us' he thought as he said "It is good to be back my Master."

The small part of him; the smart ass, rebellious part, had put a
slightly sarcastic tone in LT.Hit-Man's voice that the Emperor had
picked up on, the Emperor's eyes narrowed into slits that seemed to say
"Your skating on thin ice boy, lose the attitude, NOW!"

"And you are?" The Emperor asked as he looked down at Ezri, he
knew full well who she was.

Ezri felt her soul whither at the Emperor's hellish gaze, she
could sense the evil that was pouring off the old man before her. "I'm
Ezri, my Master." she said in a reverent tone of voice, hoping that
would appease the Emperor.

"Very well, we can discuss all over dinner." Emperor Palpatine
said with a casual voice, as he walked towards a door that was off to
one side of the throne room. Lord Vader got to his feet, followed by
LT.Hit-Man and then Ezri, who watched out of the corner of her eyes to
see when her Master would get to his feet. She knew that it would be a
good idea to let her Master lead the way in this meeting with his own
Master.

The four of them sat at a table that was more then five meters in
length. The Emperor at the head of the table, Vader to his right
LT.Hit-Man to his left with Ezri sitting beside LT.Hit-Man. They were
joined by a young woman, a girl really, with red/gold hair and bright
green eyes who sat beside Darth Vader and across from Ezri.

"This is my other apprentice, Mara Jade." Emperor Palpatine said,
as he had a squad of servants started to bring in tray upon tray of
foods from all parts of the galaxy and began to serve them. The
servants wisely left Lord Vader alone; one of the servants had made the
mistake of offering Vader some food and had been brutally Force choked
to death by Vader who then had her carcass dragged away, word quickly
spread throughout the small army of servants that took care of the
upkeep of the Imperial Palace not to offer the Dark Lord anything less
they meet the same or even worse fate.

Due to the horrific injuries that he had suffered at the hands of
the now-dead Kenobi, when they fought that fateful light sabre duel all
those years ago, Lord Vader could only take in pre-digested liquid
proteins that tasted like cardboard paste. In order to do so he had to
remove his helmet/respirator in the sterile air of his private
meditation chambers on the 'Executor', in the Imperial Palace or in his
fortress "Bast" on the bleak out of the way world of Vjun that had been
given to him by the Emperor.

Having to sit though a meal while others ate like normal beings,
further embittered his troubled soul and he cursed that thrice-damned
Kenobi for turning his maimed body into the inescapable prison he found
himself in.

Ezri waited until LT.Hit-Man started to eat, a few minutes after
his Master the Emperor began to eat.

"I never knew that you were training yet another apprentice my
Master, do you think she has what it takes to be one of us?" LT.Hit-Man
asked the Emperor in his usual cold monotone. The Emperor just looked
at him

"Do you think your apprentice has what it takes to be one of us?"
he drawled with a vague, but noticeable, hint of menace. Cutting a piece
from his Calboglon steak.

"I was not questioning your decision to train this..young one in
the dark ways of the Sith my Master, it seems to me that she has not
seen many of the horrors of war as my apprentice has." LT.Hit-Man said
as he took a drink from his steaming mug of kaffa, knowing full well that
his Master was playing a game with him. Yet to what end he did not
know, so he would do what he did best, deal with it! Out the corner of
his cybernetic eye he saw that Mara Jade was giving him more then the
once over, so he would ignore her for the time being. What he did not
see was that Ezri had seen Mara giving him the look, nor the daggers
that Ezri had given her.

"Is that so? And makes you so sure of this?" Palpatine asked as
he sneaked a sidelong glance at Ezri and Mara. He saw what had gone
down, from Mara's slightly lustful appraisal of LT.Hit-Man to Ezri's
jealous death gaze. His vast dark side powers alerting him to the
impending conflict, as their feelings grew with each passing second.
Mara's adolescent lust and Ezri's flaring jealousy. 'This should prove
to rather amusing' He thought, as he talked with LT.Hit-Man' whilst
keeping an eye on the two new apprentices of the Dark Side.
Palpatine knew that there was a good chance that this would erupt in a
possibly full blown no-holds barred cat fight, it would be interesting
to see which one of the two women would be the stronger.

"The little tramp, I'll rip the bitch's eyes out!" Ezri snarled
under her breath, her hands balled into fists after she put them down
at her side. No one looked at her Master like that, though she was not
sure about what was going to happen between them. After all the shit
they had gone through together back in the Alpha quadrant, something
had changed between them after the fifth day of LT.Hit-Man teaching her
the ways of the Dark Side, she had put what she and Julian had together
behind her. She wanted LT.Hit-Man and she would be damned if she was
going to let anyone or anything come between them.

It was taking all of Ezri's fledgling Dark Side power to keep
herself from jumping across the table and strangle the little slut, so
instead she forced herself to calm down and began to think of a way to
subtly teach Mara Jade a lesson that she would not soon forget. Her
jealousy began to work it's poisonous magic on her dark and stormy
soul.

Lord Vader was so wrapped up in the news that the Imperial
commando had given him, that he was damn near oblivious to what was
going on around him, let alone tune into the two shadow games that
there being played around him. The verbal jousting match between his
Master, and his old friend and comrade-in-arms LT.Hit-Man. Nor the
stalking of his Master's apprentice Mara, by LT.Hit-Man's apprentice
Ezri. He was forced to relive his life, as he tried to come to terms
with the facts of that whore, Queen Amidala's final betrayal; she and
him had a son. And to add the proverbial salt to the wound was that he
was more than sure that low-down, cowardly, wife-stealing, kriff-head
Kenobi had a hand in this as well; someone would pay dearly for this
vile stab in the back.

Mara Jade was in a tizzy as she drank in the sight of the
fearsome LT.Hit-Man, that she had heard so much about from her Master.
Never had she seen someone so intense and yet enjoy being so keyed up,
his scarred face told the tale of some long ago battles that would be
with him for the rest of his days. Yet he was not ashamed by his
disfigurements, no he wore his scars proudly like medals of honor,
courage, dignity and loyal service above and beyond the call of duty to
their Emperor.

His eyes really had her on edge, his glowing red cybernetic eye
blazing like the flames of war; a direct opposite of his cold blue
human eye, an eye of a hunting predator. Looking into that human eye
sparked the memory within Mara of when the Emperor had cornered her the
sauna room, after she had taken a dip in the pool and had his way with
her. She crossed her legs as she became excited, not only by her
lustful thoughts and memories but also by the power of the Dark Side
that was flowing around the dining room like an invisible fog.

As the dinner progressed LT.Hit-Man gave the Emperor a run down
of the Imperial war effort in the Milky Way galaxy, the Emperor listen
impassively, from time to time he could comment on how pleased he was
with the Imperial fleet's systematic crushing of Federation worlds.

"Though we have a viable infrastructure in the Milky Way, we
still need some supplies, namely stormtroopers and TIE pilots as well
as tibanna gas, we still have not found a suitable replacement for it
over there." LT.Hit-Man said as he finished off his fillmaine salad.

"Very well, draw up a list and I will have a convoy sent to our
forces in the Milky Way, I'll send Line Captain Velkaria Illushtin on
the SSD 'Kriff Nuts'." The Emperor said with a casual voice and smiled
as he watched LT.Hit-Man choke on a bit of his salad as he tried to keep from laughing.
"Do you find something amusing my left hand?" the Emperor asked as he
watched LT.Hit-Man regain his composure.

"No my Master, I just found that name rather odd for one of your
mighty warships." LT.Hit-Man was still tickled pink by the name of that
SSD, despite a valiant effort to keep a straight face.

"Yes it seems that the R&D staff for the SSD line were so overjoyed by
their success, that they had themselves a small drunken celebration in
which they chose that name for the second SSD that was under
construction at the time. They even entered it into the Imperial fleet
data base." Emperor Palpatine said as he took a drink of his wine.
"I thought it to be a cute name so I let it stay." LT.Hit-Man wanted to
ask why but saw the look in the Emperor's yellowish eyes, he decided to
let it go at that so he turned to face Lord Vader and asked what had
been happening since he left on his mission to the Milky Way.

When Vader told him about the treachery of Harkov and Zaarin,
LT.Hit-Man's relaxed but guarded mood became dark and apprehensive.
"I hope they died a slow agonizing death for their betrayal." LT.Hit-Man
said with a venomous snarl, wishing he had been there to deal with the
traitors himself; if there was one thing that he hated more then the
rebels it was a traitor to the Emperor.

"I dealt with Harkov myself and Grand Admiral Thrawn disposed of
Zaarin." Vader said in colder then usual monotone as he slowly closed
his raised fist.

'Mister squishy strikes again, eh my old friend?' LT.Hit-Man said
mentally to Lord Vader, who let out a low rumbling chuckle at that,
LT.Hit-Man was the only who would dare to use Lord Vader's nickname in
his presence and live to see the next day.

'Indeed Hitty, indeed. It was so sweet to strangle the information
as to the location of the rest of the pack of traitors from him as well
as his worthless life.' Vader thought back and smiled to himself as he
heard LT.Hit-Man let out a dry chuckle.

Ezri saw that Mara had slightly recoiled at her Master's cold
snarl about the news of the traitors and decided then was the time to
strike, but held off when she saw the Emperor looking at her like he
wanted to throw her to the table and screw her until she became
unconscious. While the two cybernetic Sith lords talked, overcome by a
wave of revulsion she continued to eat her meal; occasionally she would
sneak a look out the corner of her eye, to see if the Emperor was
watching her and every time she did she would meet the Emperor's evil
lusty gaze, shivering at mental images her mind came up with.

"So how is old Thrawny?" LT.Hit-Man asked as he reached over to
the platter where a bbq'ed Tomet was laid out and ripped some ribs off
beginning to strip the meat from one of the ribs as he chewed on it.

"Grand Admiral Thrawn is away on a mission in the outer-rim."
Vader said, not relishing the bad news he had to give to his old
friend.

"Ok, when you see Thrawn send him my regards, congratulations on
his promotion and for dealing with that rat bastard Zaarin." LT.Hit-Man
said before he bit down on the striped rib bone, there was a loud
crunch as he cracked the bone open so that he could get at the marrow.

The Emperor smiled as he watched LT.Hit-Man eat because it
reminded him of the pet Sung-Wa which he had as a pet when he was a
kid, when he sicced it on another kid who had tried to muscle him for
his lunch credits.

LT.Hit-Man stop eating wiped his mouth with the napkin that had
been placed by his plate and looked over at the Emperor who was smiling
that evil smile of his, LT.Hit-Man took this as a good omen and spoke.
"My Master I was wondering if you would send a few of the TIE-Defenders
and Missle-Boats or the blueprints for them with the convoy that you
are sending to our forces in the Milky Way. All we have are the
standard TIE's, TIE Bombers, TIE Interceptors and Assault Gun Boats
before we left."

The Emperor nodded his head "I will include four of the Tie
Defenders and four Missile Boats as well as the blueprints in the
convoy." he said, hoping to lull the slightly rebellious assassin,
before he dropped the hammer on him; to order to bring him back under
his full control, he was still bitter about what had happened between
him and LT.Hit-Man back on the 'Baron'.

"You are too kind my Master." he said as he gave a slight bow out
of respect for his Master, then Vader dropped a few bombshells on him
as the old saying goes bad news always comes in three's.

"Much more has happened since you left us LT." Vader said in his
cold voice, but there was a slight tint of regret in his voice that set
LT.Hit-Man's nerves on edge. "General Rom Mohc was assassinated by the
rebels as he began to put his Dark Troopers into full production." Lord
Vader said as he shifted around in his chair in order to get as
comfortable as he could, soon he would have to drop the hammer not only
on LT.Hit-Man but his Master as well.

"What?! tell me how this happened LT.Hit-Man said in a
slight rage-raised voice, Rom Mohc had been the one to approve his
application into the Imperial armed forces, he had been at the
recruiting center on LT.Hit-Man's home world at the time LT.Hit-Man had
applied for admission, but was rejected because he was far to violent
even for the Empire.

<Namely Mohc had heard a commotion out in the main foyer of the
recruiting center and came out to see what the problem was and found
LT.Hit-Man strangling the recruiting officer who had the misfortune of
telling LT.Hit-Man that he had flunked the psych test as two
stormtroopers were about to blast the loony into ashes, a mere shout
from him put a stop to that as well as the strangling of the nearly
unconscious recruiting officer. After a brief discussion Rom Mohc told
the raging LT.Hit-Man that if he could beat him in unarmed combat he
would be admitted into the Imperial armed forces, if he failed he would
die, when Mohc had seen the enraged man who was causing the problem he
just knew that the man had the potential to go far in the Empire. He
had to be sure that he could handle himself in a fight and that he had
not gotten a hold of recruiting officer that he strangling by mere
chance. After half an hour of bloody hand-to-hand combat the loony man
stood victorious but it had been a costly victory from him, two broken
legs a dislocated shoulder, nearly blind in one eye from a vicious
thumb jab to the said eye and a nose that was smashed flatter than a
ship in a black hole. Rom Mohc had not gotten off that easy, he ended
up with two black eyes a broken wrist and his balls swollen up to the
size of grapefruits, that had put him out of the fight, that had been
the only time he had been defeated in hand-to-hand combat since he got
out of the academy on Carida. The very next day the madman was shipped
out to Carida to begin his training that would be the beginning of the
galaxy-wide reign of terror of LT.Hit-Man.>

"How did he die?" LT.Hit-Man asked as he drained his refilled
glass of wine as a stab of bitterness washed over him.

Vader explained how the rebel saboteur along with the help of the
traitor Crix Madine blew up the 'Arc Hammer' and he felt like shit for
telling him the grim tale each word was like a mouthful of ashes.

"Kyle Katarn is a marked man!" LT.Hit-Man said in a voice so cold
that you could almost see the frost in his breath, as he clenched his
hands into fists and fought down the urge to get up from his seat grab
a ship and start a bloody reign of death that would set the galaxy
ablaze.

The Emperor just looked at LT.Hit-Man, feeding off of his cold
hatred much like they were feeding their bodies with the food at the
table, he was going to say something but decided to hold back and let
this dark game play itself out.

"I have some more bad news." Vader said, feeling like he had a
dead albatross around his neck and waited for LT.Hit-Man to calm down
before he spoke, when LT.Hit-Man asked him what was the bad news he saw
a tired look in his old friend's one human eye and he felt sorry for
bring down the hammer on him but what he had to say had to be said and
done with. "General Veers died in a battle on Hoth as we over ran a
Rebel base, many good troopers died in that battle but we killed a lot
more of the rebel troops than they killed of ours." Vader said with
deep regret he respected Veers' calm and tactical ruthlessness as he
went about the business of a ground war.

Ezri watched as her Master LT.Hit-Man suddenly became still like
someone had brutally shoved a dagger into his back then without warning
he stood up, his face as pale as a blood-drained corpses; now he was
pissed.

LT.Hit-Man had studied under Veers for seven years, before he was
singled out by the Emperor to be trained in the ways of the Dark Side
and then to become the Emperor's left hand of death. He had enjoyed the
way Veers had taken apart a problem and come up with the most unlikely
solution to the problem that worked out in the end. Best of all he
found that Veers was not a self-centered, glory seeking ego-maniac, no,
Veers was more than willing to not only listen to the advice that was
offered to him by those under him, but to act on it as well and as an
added bonus he was willing to give credit where it was due. Should you
kriff up while under his command you got a reprimand and an order to
clean up your act, the second time you kriffed up around him you got
beat down to less then 1/100th of a millimeter of your life, once you
recovered enough to understand what was going on you got a warning that
next it was lights out, the third time you kriffed up Veers would put a
blaster to your head and pull the trigger, no questions asked and no
answers given.

LT.Hit-Man just closed his human eye as he listened to this bit
of bad news no one could see the rage that he held in his cold blue eye
but the rest of them at the table saw his glowing blood red cybernetic
flare up like a supernova as he fought down the overpowering urge to
rip someone's head off and drink deeply of their blood!

Yes even though LT.Hit-Man had been a slightly psychotic adult
when he enlisted, Veers had given him the final piece of the puzzle of
life that changed him from a male to a man as a son learned about life from his father,
as the stormtrooper branch of the Imperial army became his surrogate family to take the
place of his dead wife and unborn son that had been butchered by the
cowardly rebels.

SMASH! LT.Hit-Man slammed his fisted down on the table where he
sat, sending the remains of his meal crashing to the floor, scaring the
shit out of everyone there.

Mara Jade looked away form the raging LT.Hit-Man unable to
withstand the darkness that reached out from him, like the hands of a
murderer that was applying the death blow to his victim. Nearly
dropping dead of fright, her body was thrown into utter chaos as her
feelings changed from lust to outright fear as LT.Hit-Man slowly stood
up.

Vader was scared if only for a brief moment, not that you could
see that on his hideously scarred face but the usual rhythm of his
mechanical breathing skipped a beat as that fear tapped him on the
shoulder. Vader crushed his fear but slowly reached for his light sabre
just in case his old friend had finally fallen into the howling pit of
madness that he had be so close to.

Ezri stopped glaring at Mara Jade and slowly looked over to her
Master, her eyes widened with fear, she had seen him angry but never
this enraged before and she wanted to speak in hopes of trying to calm
him down, the look of cold hate from his human eye put an end to any
words that she had to say.

Emperor Palpatine just sat there watching LT.Hit-Man and he knew
that the mad cyborg was on the thin razor's edge of madness, he had to
act quickly unless he lost control of his lethal servant.

"Sit down, now!" he said in his most evil and commanding voice as
he slowly raised his right hand ready to encase LT.Hit-Man with Force
lightning if he needed to, in order to reassert his dominance over his
dark warlord.

LT.Hit-Man felt like his soul was slowly being stripped away from
him piece by piece like everything or anyone that he cared about. The
Dark Side was goading him into bloody madness, he looked over at the
Emperor and saw that he was ready to spear him with that terrible Force
lightning that he could summon up with a thought and for one insane
moment LT.Hit-Man entertained the notion of daring the Emperor to try
his luck with him.

For a long drawn out moment no one moved or said a thing, as the
Dark Side watched this frightening drama play itself out.

"My master some disturbing news has come to my attention." Darth
Vader rumbled knowing full well that the hammer he was about to drop
could very well cost him dearly, in ways that even he could not fathom.

At the sound of Vader's words everyone looked over to the black
clad cyborg Sith lord, even the enraged LT.Hit-Man who fought down the
homicidal rage inside him.

"Oh and what is this news?" Emperor Palpatine asked as a strange
sense of dread began to take root in his dark and twisted soul.

Lord Vader dismissed the servants from the dining room much to
their relieved delight. "It is confirmed that Luke Skywalker is my
son." Darth Vader took a perverse delight at the looks of out and out
surprise on the faces of the Emperor, LT.Hit-Man and Mara Jade.

"Leave us." Emperor Palpatine said to LT.Hit-Man who had snapped
out of the dark rage that had been twisting his soul a few moments ago,
Mara Jade who looked like she was about ready to puke, she had been
told that Skywalker had been the one to blow away the Death Star. Ezri
did not know about Skywalker but she had a "Who the hell is this person
and what's the big deal about him?" look on her face.

"As you wish my master." LT.Hit-Man said as his hate started to
simmer down but was waiting to flare up once more. Then he turned to
face the Emperor and smiled to himself at the slightly concerned look
in his hellish eyes. "Will you allow me access to the books of Sith
teachings?" LT.Hit-Man asked as he and Ezri knelt before the decaying
Emperor, Ezri saw that Mara Jade was giving her Master the once over
again, now she was pissed.

'It's high time this bitch learned to keep her eye off of my
master' Ezri reached out with the Dark Side and flipped the bowl of
hot soup over that Mara Jade had been picking at, the boiling Sarba
soup landing right in her lap.

"KYIEEEEEEE" Mara screamed as the hot soup scorched her groin and
she doubled over so fast that she slammed her head on

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