"And all though the Death Star, not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse droid," LT.Hit-Man said as he read the holiday story to his apprentice Spike, who was starting to fall asleep. He had had a long first day at Imperial school #34556. Spike had beaten up six kids for their lunch credits, used the dark side to intimidate his teachers into giving him a passing grade and started up a gang with him as the leader. Yes, young Spike's lessons were coming along just fine. LT.Hit-Man was about to read more of the holiday story when he heard some crewers talking loudly, thanks to his cybernetic ear. "Hold on a sec," LT.Hit-Man said to the sleepy boy who was fighting off the sandman; he was enjoying this story. Hit-Man got up and walked over to his quarter's door, opened it and stepped outside. There was a high pitched scream that suddenly changed to a low gurgling that was savagely cut off by a sickening crunch. "I SAID THAT NOT A CREATURE WAS STIRRING, NOT EVEN A MOUSE DROID, GOT THAT?!" LT.Hit-Man snarled to some of the crewers who were coming up the hallway, only to stop dead in their tracks when they saw LT.Hit-Man holding a tech by his throat. The tech's head was looking down at the floor with wide fear filled eyes, his neck at an unnatural angle, and he slowly grew still. The other crewers turned around and ran for their lives. LT.Hit-Man walked back into his - no, his family's - quarters; his wife Admiral Daala was busy talking over something with Grand Admiral Sheppard along with General Yates, Phong and the rest of the old gang. All of them save for the one who had tried to betray Sheppard at the high point of the final battle that put the Federation and this new galaxy under the new Empire's boots. He noticed that Spike had fallen asleep with his favorite stuffed Ewok (teddy bear) clutched to his chest. There was a smile on young Spike's face that warmed his cold heart and LT.Hit-Man gently tucked his adopted son into bed. Then he marked where he had left off before he was so rudely interrupted by the thoughtless techs that had paid the ultimate price for disturbing him and his son's story time. He would finish the story tomorrow night. He was walking over the food slot to get himself a cup of coffee when Mimi, one of Fifi's rancor pups, lumbered up to him and rubbed her head against his cybernetic leg, then looked up at him, hoping that he would give her a snack. LT.Hit-Man reached down and started scratch the pup behind the ear. Mimi's clawed foot began to twitch uncontrollably. (pretty Norman Rockwell eh?) "Good girl, you're such a good puppy," LT.Hit-Man said as he ordered up his cup of coffee and a slab of Jedi jerky for Mimi. "Sit, sit, that's a good girl stay, STAY!" LT.Hit-Man said to the rancor pup who was sitting as still as stone. He placed the Jedi jerky on the tip of her nose. LT.Hit-Man could see that Mimi was doing well in her training; when he first tried this trick Mimi had bit his hand off to get the chunk of Ewok steak that he had at the time. Luckily for him he had used his cybernetic hand to try the trick with. After a few minutes of Mimi staying absolutely still, LT.Hit-Man smiled. "Okay, GET IT!" he said with a slight laugh as Mimi flipped the Jedi jerky off of her pug nose and grabbed it out of mid air, ripping into it with glee. After she had finished her treat, Mimi went and curled up in her basket, dropping off to sleep as LT.Hit-Man started to read over the latest troop training reports. Some of the conquered races in this galaxy were being tested to see if they would serve well to fill out the rank and file of the Imperial Army, and he was pleased to see that the Klingons were starting to shape up well into shock troops/E-web fodder. Once the Klingons learned that the Empire was not to be trifled with, they fell in line and as a result they enjoyed a privileged status in the Imperial armed forces; they wanted honor in battle and they got that when the Empire started the offensive against the Borg. LT.Hit-Man shivered at the thought of the Borg; he had no problem with the wholesale extermination of those poor soulless bastards. He saw it as a mercy mission; the Empire had released them from their mindless torment. Admiral Daala walked into their quarters; she had a troubled look on her face. When LT.Hit-Man saw his wife he remembered the other reason he had no problem with the total destruction of the Borg. They had done made the Empire's war with them a personal one; they had captured Daala and made her into one of them. That's when it got personal; they made their fatal mistake by messing with the woman he loved. "Hi hon, what's wrong?" LT.Hit-Man asked as he walked over to Daala and gave her a quick kiss. He had seen the troubled look on her face and he wondered who was going to die next. "It's been a long day," Daala said as she went over the to food slot and ordered herself an extra strong coffee and sat down. "First I had to space a kriff-wit of a navigator who nearly got us all killed on the SSD _Blood Raven_ when he did a blind jump after the last few of the Dominion cap-ships jumped us. We nearly landed in the heart of a star," she said as she kicked off her boots. LT.Hit-Man walked up behind her and started to gently massage her tense neck and shoulders. "He's lucky you got to him before I found out about this," LT.Hit-Man said gravely as he felt Daala beginning to relax at his tender touch and waited for her to go on. Daala let out a snort and said, "Ya, I should have let you have him, but he pissed me off, the stinking coward." She took a deep drink from her coffee. "Then after we wasted the Dominion cap-ships the hyperdrive crapped out, so after I spaced that coward of a navigator we had to wait a few hours for the tech and droids to get the hyperdrive back on-line. Meanwhile I went to have a coffee and found out that some asshole in ship's stores had forgotten to restock the coffee before we left to finish off the rest of the Dominion." LT.Hit-Man sat down beside his wife and wrapped his arms around her. She leaned her head against his chest, thankful that he was out of his old blaster- scarred armor. As she listened to his heart, she felt more relaxed as she began to go on with how her day had been. She still could not believe how gentle and loving the feared LT.Hit-Man could be, let alone that he and herself were husband and wife even after all the years they had been together. "So just as we get underway I get a call from Grand Admiral Sheppard telling me to forget about the Dominion and get back to base." Daala looked up at her husband's scarred face and she could see the deep thoughtful look in his human eye. She hated to break the bad news to him but it had to be done. "It looks like someone has been breaking into our most secure bases, depots and R&D centers. Sheppard has told me to come and get you; he needs your special talents," Daala said as she got up and got herself another cup of coffee. LT.Hit-Man had a really bad feeling about this. For the most part, his talents and skills that he had gained as the former Emperor's left hand of death had not been needed after this galaxy had pacified. He was not happy; he had been looking forward to spending a quiet holiday with Daala and their son on Coruscant. "Did Sheppard say anything on who or what was B&Eing our bases?" he asked as he put on his old blaster scarred armor, hooking on his lightsaber to his belt as he took his old E-11 and checked it over. Daala watched as her husband went from the gentle and loving man that she had been snuggling up with a few minutes ago to the cold, ruthless killing machine that had caused so much untold tears and suffering. She could see the low flame of rage start to burn in his cold blue eye and she knew that he was pissed. "No, he did not, but he was really freaked out." She shivered as she remembered how Sheppard had been when he called her. He looked like he had not slept for about four or five days and he had sweat on his troubled brow. LT.Hit-Man had seen Daala shiver as she told him the deal with Sheppard and that did not sit well with him. It took a lot to get under Sheppard's skin and from the tone of Daala's voice and the cold look in her eyes he knew that this was going to be a really bad mission, so he broke out his Gau-19a, strapped the ammo pack to his back, cranking up the power level to full. After that he had the Gau-19a's micro replicator load the ammo packs with 60mm Hi-Ex Travem tipped rounds. "You and Spike take it easy while I'm gone, okay, hon?" LT.Hit-Man said as he walked over to Daala and gave her a deep kiss. When they parted he could see the look of fear in her eyes. "Don't worry love, I'll be fine," he said as he tried to smile but instead of a smile he had a twisted smirk on his scarred face. Daala was really nerved out. She had come close to losing the man she loved more then a few times. First she lost Tarkin to the rebels back home, then after she finally opened up and let herself fall in love, she fell for one of the most feared beings in the Empire, next to Vader or the Emperor had they been alive. After LT.Hit-Man had nearly bit the dust on Farseen 12 she had been dreading every mission that he would go on; after all, her husband got the worst missions. There was no one else who could do them. She often wondered how she would survive if LT.Hit-Man left and never came back. LT.Hit-Man could sense her fears and sought to comfort her. "Don't worry, I'll be fine, I need you here to take care of Spike so be cool," he said and called Mimi over to him. Mimi had been dreaming that she was running lose in a Cardassian city when she awoke to her master's voice and from the tone of LT.Hit-Man's voice she could tell that the shit was about to hit the fan. She bounded over to LT.Hit-Man excitedly, her stubby tail wagging. LT.Hit-Man and Daala exchanged one final lock, then LT.Hit-Man with Mimi in tow left their happy home. Grand Admiral Sheppard was looking over several reports of break-ins and they were all the same. He called over to Phong, "Do the security cameras show how the intruder got past the encryption codes and auto blasters?" Phong bit out a curse. "No, from what I have been able to find out, the intruder didn't even bother to hack the encryption codes. He just walked in then left his calling card and walked back out." He was dead tired when Sheppard called him and told him about the intruder. He had spent nearly a full day sifting though all sorts of data and found that whoever or whatever this intruder was had not tampered with the security encryption codes. They had not shown any signs of having been compromised and he was at his wit's end on trying to figure out how the intruder had gotten into their bases. As Sheppard and Phong talked a door opened and they felt a chill. "LT.Hit-Man, reporting as ordered." Sheppard turned and told LT.Hit-Man to have a seat as he wiped the sweat off of his troubled brow. LT.Hit-Man saw that and was vaguely unsettled by it. Mimi sat down at his side. "So what do you need from me, sir?" LT.Hit-Man asked. Sheppard told him about the break-ins and then added, "I found this hanging above the heating gate in my quarters." He held up what looked like an oversized red sock. LT.Hit-Man was puzzled. "Sir, I don't understand, why did this intruder leave you that for? If they were after you, why are you still alive?" Sheppard blew his stack "THE SON OF A BITCH IS PLAYING A GAME WITH ME! I WANT HIM DEAD, GOT THAT?!" LT.Hit-Man was not happy with the way Sheppard was ragging on him and was about to put him in his place but from the tired and freaked out look on his face LT.Hit-Man decided to cut Sheppard a break and kept silent. "This was inside," Sheppard said after he forced himself to calm down and held up a black rock for LT.Hit-Man to see. LT.Hit-Man got up from his seat, took the black rock from Sheppard and looked it over and his uneasy feeling began to grow as this started to become vaguely familiar to him. "It's a lump of coal," Sheppard told him. The uneasy look on LT.Hit-Man's scarred face was threatening to crack his forced state of calm. LT.Hit-Man handed the lump of coal back to Sheppard and asked if they had any idea whom was responsible for this. Sheppard let out a dry laugh. "You're not going to believe this but the one who's playing this game with me and the rest of the Empire is some being from an old earth legend." LT.Hit-Man bit his lower lip as he waited for Sheppard to spill the beans. He knew that this was not going to be good and unknown to him his cybernetic hand reached to his lightsaber. "This legend is very much like one that we have back home," Sheppard said as he reached for a data pad. LT.Hit-Man was starting to tire of this nonsense. "Look, sir, tell me who you want dead an I'll take care of it," he said in his third most intimidating voice "Easy there, Hitty," Sheppard said, enjoying the scowl on LT.Hit-Man's face. "I told you not to call me that, you son of a bitch. I put up with enough of that bullshit from the Emperor. You are not him, got that?" LT.Hit-Man said in a light, pleasant voice but there was no missing the menacing undertone that was there. Sheppard could see that LT.Hit-Man was starting to get into a really foul mood, with a shiver he handed LT.Hit-Man the data pad. "The name of the intruder who has been breaking into our most secure bases and leaving his calling card is none other than Santa Claus." LT.Hit-Man looked up from the data pad and from the strange look on his scarred face Sheppard could see that death dealing machine man before him was started to get the bigger picture. "You have got to be kidding," LT.Hit-Man said as he finished reading the data pad. This 'Santa Claus' had the same MO as Karglaerfvoa, the man who would leave toys to all the good boys and girls back home. He would leave an Ewok skull for all the bad boys and girls back home; LT.Hit-Man knew this to be true because every year since he was about six years old he had found one on his night table the morning after. LT.Hit-Man smiled as he pictured the small mountain of Ewok skulls that he had tucked away. "So you want the fat boy put out of business, eh?" LT.Hit-Man said with a shark's smile as he saw the pic that was in the data pad of jolly old St. Nick. Sheppard told him that was the case. "Cool, the fat rat-bastard never gave me anything I wanted for the holidays when I was a screaming brat. Pay day big time!" LT.Hit-Man said as be began to laugh menacingly. Sheppard felt his blood turn to ice water as the image of LT.Hit-Man as a child playing with a bright, shiny new E-11 that he had got for the holiday came to mind. LT.Hit-Man looked at Sheppard who jumped when LT.Hit-Man spoke in that insanely happy voice. "Old Santa ain't gonna be so jolly when Me and Mimi drop in for the holiday," LT.Hit-Man said then turned to face the spunky rancor pup. "Ain't that right, Mimi?" Mimi was crouched down, her stubby tail wagging as she rowed playfully, then she started to chase her tail excitedly. Sheppard suppressed a shudder as LT.Hit-Man and Mimi left. No one should have to suffer like that but this Santa Claus had to pay the price for his foolishness. To toy with the Empire was to court death. SOMEWHERE IN THE NORTH POLE All was quiet on the storm-whipped plains of snow and ice, save for the howling wind that was whipping the falling snow around so badly that visibility was cut down to a few mere inches before someone's eyes. At the very center of the North Pole was small wooden house. A warm and inviting light that spilled out from the frosted windows, a stark contrast to the desolate white wasteland that surrounded it. One would think that such a place would be a nice place to live until they saw the high, barb-wired fence that surrounded the house, and the two heavily armed guards standing post outside the door. Santa Claus A.K.A. St. Nick A.K.A. Krusher Kringle was in a really bad mood. Time was running out before he had to make the Christmas Eve run and the elves in the toy truck section had been falling behind in their truck wheel production. After Old St. Nick wasted them all in ways that would have even made LT.Hit-Man cringe in fear he replaced them. Hopefully things would get back on track; the rest of elves had seen the fate of their unfortunate brothers and they redoubled their efforts on each of their sections as bloody fearful images danced in their heads. Elf #4321 walked into the C&C of Santa Claus's arctic sweat shop. "Sir, there's a request for more stuffing from the dolly section. They say they're down to their last ton of stuffing." Cecil the main overseer of the jolly old tyrant's empire told the elf to have the quarter master send up sixty tons of stuffing and added, "Make sure that they are not running low on anything else; we don't need the boss coming back here again!" It had been a lucky thing for him that Santa had been in a good mood when he purged the toy truck section; otherwise, he would have joined those unfrozen souls who had failed their boss in death. Cecil walked over to the monitoring station and read over the latest production reports as an army of elves raced around like frantic ants, barking out orders. "At least things are getting back to normal," Cecil said to himself. Ever since the coming of the Galactic Empire and the collapse of the Federation, things had been hell on Earth for them, but now things seemed to be cooling off as the new Imperial citizens began to get back to paying their boss the homage and more importantly the money that they had been shelling out for centuries before the coming of the Empire. Dr.Bollocks of Section 31 of the banished Federation, Proxima Centauri the liaison to the Cardassian Obsidian Order along with Graham Orton of the Romulan Tel'Seyar were sitting around a table with the old fat man that had done what none of them could do: break into the Empire's most secure base and make off with a shitload of intelligence and weapons designs. "Ho Ho Ho, boys, so what can I interest you in?" Santa said in a jolly, thundering voice as he finished snorting a line of coke. Dr.Bollocks looked at Proxima Centauri and Graham Orton along with several others. Adanna Symphony, the Klingon woman; Gillian1234, the last of the founders from the dominion; Redimp, who was another Cardassian, and Highlander, who was an ex-Federation captain. He knew that this was not going to be good but the remnants of the Federation, Cardassin union along with the Romulans and rogue Klingons along with what was left of the Dominion had gone into hiding in the Badlands and were slowly rebuilding their shattered fleets and armed forces. They knew that they had no way of matching to awesome firepower of the Empire, so in a desperate move they came to see the man who was thought to be nothing but a myth. They had put out feelers to gather as much info on the Empire and their MO and tech and by pure chance they came across one of Santa's feared fingers of death that had been setting up a meeting for his boss and a bunch of Ferengi who had served LT.Hit-Man's fan fic review and the purge that followed in order to get out of this galaxy. "Well, umm, you see, Santa Claus, we need the info that you have on the Empire. We intend to use it to exterminate the Imperials," Dr.Bollocks said as the fat man smiled at him with a twinkle in his eye. "Is that so, and why should I help you?" Santa asked the S-31 spook as he lit up a stogie. He could see that these men were desperate, could smell the blood in water and he waited. An opportunity of this magnitude only happened once in a lifetime, so he was content to let the three men in front of him sweat it out for a bit before he laid the deal out under his own terms. LT.Hit-Man was creeping up to the top of a massive snow drift, Mimi start to scratch at the thermalite armor that she was wearing. "Mimi, cool it!" LT.Hit-Man snapped as he looked out with his cybernetic eye and Mimi let out a small whine but stopped scratching. She hated wearing this armor; in fact, she was in a foul mood. If there was one thing that Mimi hated more then the taste of a Ferengi it was the cold. "Two guards, man this fat son of a bitch is arrogant," LT.Hit-Man said to himself as he zoomed in on the armed elves with the distance binocular that was built into his cybernetic eye. LT.Hit-Man hefted his Xerrol Nightstinger and lined it up with the first elf's head and despite the fact that the two elves were wearing some kind of multi-optical goggles they had no idea that they were being watched. LT.Hit-Man took up the last few ounces of pressure on the Nightstinger's trigger and the weapon bucked slightly as an invisible blaster bolt streaked towards its target. Elf #2860 and Elf #90865 were bored and pissed off. Through a carefully planed starvation the Guard Elves were lean, fit and as ferocious as rabid ferrets. Santa had picked them out for sentry duty himself. They had wanted action, but found that guard duty was a real bore; they wanted to kill something but the only thing that they had killed were a few polar bears that had strayed to close to the complex. The rich scent of spilled bear blood had marred the pristine white snow an ugly red as the Elves' 30mm ED-5s spat out a stream of caseless 30mm nitro tipped slugs. After a few seconds of firing the bears were blasted into bloody, steaming chunks of dead meat that froze quickly and with a few scant mints were buried under a blanket of fresh, storm driven snow. The blaster bolt exploded the head of Elf #2860 in a spray of shattered bone, charbroiled brain matter and steaming blood before the headless body toppled into it's white tomb of snow. Elf #90865 dropped to one knee and began to hose down the area with 30mm fire as he fought down his fear, starting to call into the C&C. All he got out was a gurgling rasp as his chest was blasted open, searing his lungs before his eyes became as cold and dead as the snow and ice around him. Cecil had been sitting in his command chair in C&C half dozing when there was a call from the comm system. "C&C we're u-GGGACK!" Cecil spoke into the comm system mike, "Say again, Elf #90865, repeat your last transmission." But all that Cecil got back was the howling wind over the headset mike that the Guard Elf had been wearing. He looked up at the vid monitor that was tied into the security camera that was covering the main gate and all that he saw was endless white. "Sir, what do we do now?" Raga the comm tech asked. Cecil told him to dispatch a squad of Guard Elves to the front gate, then suddenly the screen that was tied into the front gate security camera lit up for a few scant seconds before fading to static. Fear griped them all. LT.Hit-Man jogged over to the fence and scanned it with his cybernetic eye. "500,000,000 volt fence. Pah, that would not stop a rogue cream puff let alone the main man!" LT.Hit-Man snickered as he set a micro-ton thermal detonator pack for a few seconds before he took cover behind a huge chunk of ice a few feet away. Under his snowtrooper helmet he was smiling as the micro-ton cooked off in a screaming row that took up the fence and sent up a massive gut of flames, smoke, steam and chunks of ice that came down like a rainfall. "Now we're cooking," LT.Hit-Man thought to himself as he came out from behind the chunk of ice. He was shocked by what he saw. Gone was the small house and standing in its place was a massive building. LT.Hit-Man realized that a holoshroud must have been hiding the building, then he and Mimi stormed in. Each of them could feel the fear from the damned souls within. "Holy gift-wrapped reindeer shit!" Cecil said as he saw the two intruders. Then when he saw LT.Hit-Man remove the snowtrooper helmet he just about pissed himself. "S-Sound the alert and arm every elf! I'll run and tell the boss that the Naughtiest One is here." LT.Hit-Man was looking around the huge building. He could see row upon row of tables that were covered in toys and hastily pushed-away chairs (Santa had been in a good mood last year and decided to let the elves sit this year while they worked.). "Where the hell is everyone?" LT.Hit-Man snarled. It had been few minutes after he had wasted the guards out front and blew up the main gate. A few minutes too long since he killed anyone. Suddenly alarm klaxons came blaring to life. "Jeez, what are they trying to do, deafen me?" LT.Hit-Man spat. Now he was annoyed, and his annoyance grew with each passing moment as he and Mimi hunted around for Santa Claus. Santa Claus and the three men had just finished cutting the deal. In exchange for the tech and intel, once the combined might of the Federation, Cardassian, Roman, Klingon and Dominion fleets had destroyed the Empire, they would give control of the wormhole over Bajor and the one that lead to the Empire's home galaxy to him. As they were just finishing the deal alarm klaxons blared to life, scaring the shit out of them all. "WHAT IN THE NAME OF HELL IS GOING ON HERE?" Santa yelled to the elf guards that were in the posh meeting room where Santa was wheeling and dealing with his guests. Suddenly the door was slammed open as Cecil ran in. "LORD SANTA, IT'S HIM!!!! " the overseer screamed in a panicked voice. Old St. Nick got to his feet, his cheeks red with fury. "WHO'S HERE?!" Cecil took a deep breath. "It's him, the Naughtiest One of all!" Santa was having a really bad trip now. "You don't mean?" he asked in awestruck fear. "Yes, it's him, LT.Hit-Man!" Santa Claus looked over at his guests, who were as white as snow. "HO HO OH SHIT!!!!!" he said then he told Cecil to stop him at all costs. LT.Hit-Man and Mimi had walked into the main storage area that was filled with toys. The place was barely lit; LT.Hit-Man had switched over to the night vision system in his cybernetic eye that lit everything up in a pale green. "Come on, where is everyone," he snarled as the killing fever started to really put him in a pissy mood. Mimi had stopped for a second and when LT.Hit-Man looked over to see what the rancor pup was up to he let out a small chuckle. Mimi was reliving herself on piles of pukeymon toys. Suddenly everything exploded in into a blind white haze. "Kriff!" LT.Hit-Man snarled as he mentally switched off the night sight system in his cybernetic eye and jammed his eyes shut. Mimi was at his side in a flash and he could hear her snarling at someone. LT.Hit-Man slowly opened his eyes and saw that there was a shitload of elves all around him, on top of toy crates, on the catwalks above him and they had him surrounded. Each of the fuckers was holding a nasty looking blaster rifle of some kind. "Surrender, most naughty one of all, there are ten thousand elves that have you surrounded, each of them a crack shot!" Cecil shouted through a bullhorn from a catwalk a few feet from LT.Hit-Man and Mimi. "The main man doesn't know the meaning of the word!" LT.Hit-Man spat. Mimi howled her agreement of that, then with a sick smile on his scarred face LT.Hit- Man looked up at elf who had so foolishly demanded that he surrender. "I'll tell you what, though, you sorry son of a bitch, why don't you come down here and I'll show what candy canes are really good for!" he added as he made an obscene gesture that left nothing to the imagination. "Blasphemy!" shouted one elf, "Sacrilege!" cried another. Cecil told them to quiet down. "He's just trying to rile you up, keep cool," he said. His own anger was started to eat away at his calm resolve to do what had to be done. "Son of a whore. I'll show him the folly of desecrating the most sacred holiday." Cecil had no idea for the bloody hell that was about to be let lose. "This is you last chance give up NOW!" LT.Hit-Man's replied by holding his cybernetic hand up and raising his middle finger. His psychotic smile grew when he saw the look of pure hate on the face of elf that had ordered him to surrender spread to the rest of the elves. "Right, you had your chance," Cecil shouted. "And so did you." was LT.Hit-Man's rejoinder. "READY." "Ya, I'm ready to kick your sorry asses!" "AIM!" "Yes, I'm going to really boot fuck the lot of you whores!", sweaty hands steadied their weapons, twitchy fingers flipped weapons from safe to full auto. There was a tension so thick that you could feel it. LT.Hit-Man welcomed the crushing pressure; this was the rush he had missed as he took up his lightsaber in his cybernetic hand and his E-11 in his human hand. His blood was pounding though his veins, setting his senses ablaze. He could taste the rich coppery tang of freshly spilt blood. Mimi was starting to foam at the mouth at the thoughts of terrified screams that were suddenly and ruthlessly silenced as her fangs ripped into rich meaty flesh, snapped bones asunder and ruptured organs in an explosive spray of blood. Cecil and the elves were on the edge of panicked madness. Never had they face such a threat as the naughtiest one that was standing before them, not even when Santa had flayed the last batch of elves for missing their quota of toys. In his dark nether region the Grim Reaper watched the unfolding massacre and drank deeply of the fear that was laid out like a banquet. "FIRE!" Cecil yelled. "ABOUT KRIFFING TIME!" LT.Hit-Man yelled a few milliseconds after him. POP POP POP POP POP POP POP POP POP was the sound that the elves' weapons made as they pulled the triggers. LT.Hit-Man and Mimi suddenly found themselves looking at ten thousand corks on the end of strings. Santa had got really fried on some kick ass LSD and decided to pull a prank of his elves; he had replaced all of their weapons with toy cork guns. He had intended to have the elves try and off him as part of a drill but Santa's guests had shown up before he could play his prank on the elves and he forgot about it. The guards who had been out front had been cleaning their weapons before they got posted to sentry duty, they were the only ones to have any real weapons at the time LT.Hit-Man came a- calling. "Ha, don't the little badasses look so cute," LT.Hit-Man said darkly to Mimi as he looked at the elves who were suddenly soiling themselves as they realized that Santa had played a trick on them, a trick that would spell their doom as LT.Hit-Man ignited his inky black lightsaber. "You had better not cry, you had better not pout, Santa Hit-Man is coming to town!" LT.Hit-Man sang a happy song and slightly off-key voice as he lashed out with his lightsaber, cutting three elves down. The air was filled with chaotic sounds of a crackling lightsaber and panicked screams of cold raw terror that nearly drowned out LT.Hit-Man's singing as the frag feast increased in tempo. "He knows if you have been bad or good so be bad for badness sakes!" LT.Hit-Man sang joyously as he let off a long ripping burst from his E-11 that blasted huge steaming holes in a group of elves that had tried to rush him. "OVER TO YOU MIMI!" Mimi was driven into a frothing madness as the scent of fear and sweat mixed with scent of bodily waste. Suddenly realizing that highlighting it was the rich meaty scent of carded elven flesh, she spied an elf that was running as fast as it's little legs would allow him and she lopped off after him. Elf #43569 heard the thundering footfalls coming fast behind him and turned his head. He screamed as he saw the rancor pup bearing down on him, foam dripping from its fangs. He let out such a soul shattering scream that everyone there stopped to see Mimi jump into the air and land on the elf, knocking him to the ground before an obscenely loud, wet ripping sound made them all wince. Mimi's jaw locked on to the hapless elf's arm and ripped it out of it's socket in a tidal wave of blood, then came a crunching sound that made some of the elves puke. Mimi grabbed the screaming elf in her mouth by his little pointy head and began to shake him like a rag doll in the mouth of a rabid pit bull as his skull caved in under the unimaginable pressure of her powerful jaws. With one last shake the elf's head was torn clean off of his maimed neck. With a gulp Mimi downed the delectable treat and let out a loud ripping fart that echoed though out the storeroom before she launched herself into a group of cowering elves. Cecil was shouting orders in a pitifully vain attempted to restore some kind of order to the howling chaos that was running rampant like a bull. Suddenly he felt a cold chill grab him by the spine. He spun to see LT.Hit-Man standing before him in his blood-and-gore-encrusted snowtrooper armor, his lightsaber crackling malevolently. His E-11 was glowing white-hot, but what scared Cecil to the point of falling to the floor a gibbering mass of quaking flesh was the holly, jolly smile on his scarred face. "Merry ho ho!" LT.Hit-Man said in a voice that sounded like a happy boy on Christmas day who had unwrapped a gift to find that it was what he had asked old St. Nick for and Darth Vader putting the choke hold on some poor sob all rolled into one. He shouldered the spent E-11, then grabbed a thermal detonator, armed it and shoved down Cecil's screaming mouth, snapping off his teeth like cheap toothpicks. Cecil got up and started running around like a headless reindeer as he clawed frantically at the thermal detonator as it's beeping increased in speed. LT.Hit- Man stood there and watched the yapping elf run towards some of his brethren who scattered as he came close to them. Cecil let out one last muffled screamed of terror before the thermal detonator cooked off in a muted ka-boom that took out sixty elves who had been to close to the doomed elf, plastering the area with a wet, sticky lingering red mists. "Roasting elves over an open fire!" LT.Hit-Man sang as he became one with dark side that was more then willing to lend it's power to the raging stormtrooper who was creating some much sweet death, blood freezing terror and rampaging madness. With in a scant ten minutes of bloody raging fury LT.Hit-Man and Mimi had massacred over ninety percent of the elves. "Ha ha," LT.Hit-Man sang as he emptied his reloaded E-11 into the backs of a group of fallen elves. Mimi let out a loud, satisfied belch; this had been some fine feasting. "SSSSSMMMMMOOOOOOOTTTTHHHHHHH!" LT.Hit-Man gasped as he looked at the small motions of charred, mangled, blazed and diced elves. The thousand of so cowering elves that were left were rounded up and lined up against the nearest wall and LT.Hit-Man was about to blast them into ashes with his E-11 and Xerrol Nightstinger when he had an idea that put a hellish smile on his face. "Oh no, you little badasses don't get off that easy!" he said as he had Mimi fetch him a big roll of tinsel which he used to tie the elves' hand together, and then linked them up with the other elves in a long line. Then he and Mimi with the elves in tow set off to find Santa. After a bit, LT.Hit-Man was looking around some kind of room and let out a low whistle when he got a really good look around him. "Man, it looks like the old son of a bitch has been skimming off the top," he said as he picked of some kind of vase that looked really old. "The guy's taste in interior decorating is reason alone to frag the fat boy." LT.Hit-Man dropped the vase, smiling as it shattered into pieces, then he felt it, the growing fear that was ahead of him. He broke out the Gau-19, then the lights went out and plunged them into darkness. "What?! They have got to be kidding me," LT.Hit-Man said as he switched to thermal imaging and he saw the reddish out lines of forty elves starting to flood into the room with a grim determination to kill the one who had really fucked up Christmas. LT.Hit-Man let loose with the Gau-19, creating a strobe light effect as it started to pound out 60mm rounds at truly frightening rate. The elves that were before him had found the weapons that the hopped out Santa had hidden and began to trade fire with LT.Hit-Man who had crouched low as a torrent of 30mm shells screamed over his head missing him by a few scant millimeters. As quickly as it had started, it was over. The 60mm shells had turned the elves into a thin red paste before they ripped though their pulped bodies and blasted holes the size of a transport truck in the walls and surrounding structures. LT.Hit-Man pulled out a flare, popped the top and threw it before him as he switched back to normal sight and let out a low, approving whistle at the carnage before him. "Damn, that was sweet." LT.Hit-Man reached out with the dark side and within moments he found his prey using the fear he was feeling. Soon the real fun would begin. Santa was having really bad trip, almost as bad when he caught Ms. Clause in bed with a reindeer, two elves and a bottle of Jack Daniel's. He popped a few tabs of LSD and tried to relax as the drug worked its way into his system. "What are we going to do?" Dr.Bollocks asked in a panicked voice as fear chilled his blood. He had seen some of the few intelligence files concerning LT.Hit-Man. After that he never slept soundly again as nightmares of death and terror tormented him. "Ho Ho Ho, don't you worry, I'll deal with the Naughtiest One when he shows his ugly face," Santa said with twinkle in his eyes. Dr.Bollocks looked at Santa. He doubted that this fat, drug-using old man could mug a drunken elf let alone save them from one of the most feared beings in the Empire. He pulled out his phaser and cranked it up from stun to full power, his cohorts taking their weapons in hand. "I'll taste his blood!" Adanna Symphony snarled, showing her fang filled mouth as she pulled out her bat'leth. She had no idea of the pain she would suffer before she found her soul in Gra'va'gor (Klingon hell) and began to swing the Bat'leth with the grace and skill of a well-practiced Da'Har Master. Proxima Centauri had his Veron-t disruptor in hand. This earned him a disapproving glare from all those around him but under the circumstances they were glad he had it. As they all got their weapons ready they managed to fool themselves into a false sense of security. LT.Hit-Man found himself facing a massive wall. He could sense his prey on the other side of the wall. "Hmm...this could be interesting," LT.Hit-Man said as he studied the wall. After a few minutes of study he found that the wall was impervious to normal weapons, not even his Gau-19 or lightsaber would be able to breach the wall, so he started to rummage around in his pack until he found the proton grenade. After he herded Mimi and the elves to a safe area LT.Hit-Man slapped the proton grenade, set the timer for a few minutes and ran as the proton grenade began it's countdown. "FIRE IN THE HOLE!!!!" LT.Hit-Man yelled as he dove around the corner where Mimi and the elves were. There was a slightly cracked grin on his scarred face. The proton grenade cooked off a second after he had dove around the corner and the explosion rocked Santa's massive sweat shop. LT.Hit-Man got up and looked around the corner and saw a gaping hole in the wall, but to his shocked dismay the wall was unbreached. "What the Kriff!?!?" he swore as he walked to the hole in the wall. As he looked at the end of the hole he could barely make out the thin shafts of light that shone though the small cracks in the wall. "Hot damn!" LT.Hit-Man said as he pulled out his lightsaber, ignited it and began to cut his way through. Santa let out a dry, hacking cough as he got to his feet. He and his guests had been planning their escape when the room they were in was rocked by and explosion that knocked them to their feet amongst a cloud of smoke from the burnt out lights that exploded when the shock waves from the proton grenade hit them. "Shit!" Santa muttered as the smoke cleared. He could see LT.Hit-Man standing there, the red shine of the emergency lighting casting a hellish glow around him as it reflected off of his snowtrooper armor. "Yo ho ho guess who?" LT.Hit-Man said in a merry voice, as merry as a man who wakes up to see a time bomb in front of him and seeing the counter going from one to zero as he watched the shocked survivors get to their feet. LT.Hit-Man saw the fat one who had cause the Empire so much grief and was on him in an instant. "Put your head between your legs and kiss you fat ass goodbye!" LT.Hit-Man snarled as jammed the Gau-19 to Santa's head. Santa managed to keep his cool as he got up and sat down in a chair. "Well, if gunning down an old man in cold blood like a coward is all you know, then do it," he said as he lit up a stogie amidst the shocked gasps from everyone there. "Bad move on your part, fat boy, your death will take ten times as long!" LT.Hit-Man rasped as his eye became a slit of cold rage. He fought to keep his rage in check. "Oh come on, why don't you fight me man to man? Have some balls for once!" Santa snapped as his own rage began to smolder. Dr.Bollocks and his co-conspirators just watched in shocked awe. They knew that someone did not talk like that to LT.Hit-Man and expect a quick death but what happened next really blew their minds. LT.Hit-Man put down the massive Gau-19. "What did you have in mind?" LT.Hit-Man asked as he watched Santa walk over to desk that had a foot and a half case on it. LT.Hit-Man readied himself to force strangle Santa should he try and pull a blaster on him. Santa was feeling good. He had the Naughtiest One where he wanted him. He turned around with a foot long dagger in each hand. "Shaves?" LT.Hit-Man asked as his face grew colder. "They don't call me mister machete for nothing, you know," Santa said as he tossed one of the wicked blades to LT.Hit-Man who lazily snagged it out of the air and looked the lethal blade over with an approving smile. "Let's go," The fat man said as he turned and started to walk towards a door. "So why ware we fighting in here for?" LT.Hit-Man asked as he followed Santa into a huge empty warehouse, ever ready for a trap. " I like to have some room to maneuver in." Santa said as swung his blade a few times in lethal looking waves of cold steel. LT.Hit-Man just nonchalantly shrugged his shoulders as the rest of the few living beings followed the two combatants into the warehouse in a sickening fashion at the bloody game of iron that was unfolding before them. "Here, there, it doesn't matter, you're still going to die all the same," LT.Hit-Man said as he stripped out of his snowtrooper armor. Oh yes, this was going to be sweet. It had been a long time since he had a good out and out blood brawl. "I'm going to spank your naughty ass so bad that you'll wish you had never been born," Santa said as he drew himself into a classical fighter's crouch. "Whatever. Are you done yakking or are you hoping to die of old age!" LT.Hit-Man said as he put himself in the classical repose stance to Santa's posture. "I'm just waiting for you to make the first move, if you can. Are you done talking or are you hoping to die of old age?" was Santa's counter quip. "Let's mambo!" LT.Hit-Man said. Dr.Bollocks felt like he was going to throw up at this barbaric spectacle. Adanna Symphony nodded in grim approval; this was how true warrior fought and died. The rest of them held their breaths as the men rounded each other in a tightening circle that brought them closer. Mimi knew better then to interfere; her master had told her to watch the elves that were standing besides her, quaking in terror. Santa swung high in a strike that would have slit LT.Hit-Man's throat had he been aiming there and with a speed that was well hidden by his roly-poly exterior he brought his blade down in a backward strike that blocked LT.Hit- Man's blade that would have gutted him. In a shower of sparks, the two blades met with a loud ringing that sounded like a tolling bell of doom. "Come on, make it easy for yourself. I promise your death will be quick," LT.Hit-Man said as he skipped back from the fat man that would taste his steel and launched a furious barrage of slashes and jabs that Santa block artfully. "It'll be you who's on the floor," Santa spat as he lashed out with his blade in a tight arc, slicing deeply into LT.Hit-Man's midsection. He just managed to dodge LT.Hit-Man's counter thrust that would have driven his blade thought the button of his jaw and though the top of his head. LT.Hit-Man smiled. This was just getting better and better. "Not bad, old man, but you'll need more than that to take out the main man," he said as he faked with a left punch and slashed Santa on the side of the head, cutting him deeply and nearly taking out Santa's right eye. The killing fever began to set him ablaze in a killing frenzy that would make Boba Fett cringe in fear. "You're all talk, boy!" Santa rasped as he lashed out with his blade, this time aiming for LT.Hit-Man's windpipe. He would have nailed him had not LT.Hit- Man threw up his cybernetic arm and shoulder blocking that telling blow with a bone jarring clash of steel, then he slammed his forehead into Santa's face, smashing his nose flat in an explosive spray of blood. "DIE, YOU NAUGHTY BASTARD!" Santa screamed as he returned the favor to LT.Hit-Man and slashed him right between the eyes. The two of them jumped back and started to really play the game for keeps. LT.Hit-Man was on cloud nine as the dark-side-fueled killing rage reached it's peak and started to laugh. "YOU ARE SO DEAD! YOUR DEATH WILL BE LEGENDARY EVEN TO THE SITH!" he shouted joyfully as he became a whirlwind of razored death and launched himself at Santa. With every ounce of skill, rage, pain and raw dark side power, LT.HIT-MAN threw such a barrage of swings that Santa could not stop all of the jabs, slashes and punches as the true meaning of fear came to him in the last few seconds of his long life. First LT.Hit-Man grabbed Santa's left wrist in his human hand and crushed the nerve endings, rendering Santa's left hand useless in a howl of pain, then he made two blindly fast slashes with his bloody blade across Santa's ponderous gut, bloodying the blade all the more. For his last strike he punched out with his cybernetic hand nailing Santa in the side of his head where he had slashed him. There was a loud crunch as Santa's eye socket caved in on itself, his eye was by the optic nerve. Santa knew that he had only scant seconds to live but still he would try to save his fat ass. "Whatever the Empire is paying, promise you I'll double it, triple it even!" he gasped as he felt the icy cold hand of death upon him. LT.Hit-Man stopped and everyone there held their breath in shocked wonder and waited in cold fear. LT.Hit-Man was smiling, not his trademark cold, death, inhuman smile, but a smile of unrestrained joy. "Now that sounds like a mighty interesting deal-" Santa felt a starburst of hope began to blossom with in his terrified soul, but it was ruthlessly crushed much like a rebel under the foot of an AT-AT when he heard: "But Grand Admiral Sheppard has bought and paid for your sorry ass. You should not have kriffed with the Empire, and the main man always delivers!" LT.Hit-Man yelled as he slashed Santa's throat so brutally that Santa's head flew off into the air, hit the back wall and landed face up, his cold dead, glassy eyes staring at Dr.Bollocks who screamed and passed out, hitting the floor with a meaty thud. Proxima Centauri started to make some really funky gagging sounds as he tried and failed to keep himself from tossing his Christmas cookies, the extra chunky kind, before he was joined by Graham Orton along with Adanna Symphony. Gillian1234 had revert to his/her (You can never tell with founders) gelatinous state as fear ripped away Gillain1234's sanity. Redimp and Highlander just stared into empty space as their brains locked up at the sight of unholy carnage that they had just witnessed. "MERRY KRIFFING CHRISTMAS!" LT.Hit-Man yelled, snapping them out of their horror-induced shock. They looked over to see the bloody LT.Hit-Man who was holding up a bloody data pad that could only mean one thing. The wail of sheer hopelessness that was ripped from their souls was far sweeter to LT.Hit-Man than any Christmas caroling. "First up is Clash of the Titans by Paul Cassidy, parts 1 to 13," LT.Hit- Man says to the prisoners. "Gets a 10 out of 10 blaster bolts! I love this, Vader is the Emperor, Voyager is wasted, the rebels join the Empire who seems to be fighting a losing battle against Species 8472." LT.Hit-Man smiled before going on. "Luke is joining dark side under his father, Emperor Vader. Hopefully he'll turn Luke from being such a whining Jedi bitch to a proud dark lord of the Sith. The Enterprise gets wasted and in Chapter 13 Series 8472 gets their heads handed to them, but who knows, ever changing are the fortunes of war and Species 8472 just might have a few tricks up their sleeves." Ten elves were lead away from the thousand that he had taken prisoner and were executed with a blaster bolt to the back of the head. Proxima Centauri was lead away from his co-conspirators. "You know, people tell me that I should get into the sprit of the holiday, and they're right," he said with a nasty grin as he pulled out a long strand of Christmas lights and started to walk towards Proxima Centauri, who started to blubber in fear. LT.Hit-Man grabbed Proxima Centauri by the face and started to shove the lights down his throat, then he reached up Proxima Centauri's ass and pulled one end of the light out as the rest of them watched in horror. "Think cold thoughts, cause this is going to be hot," LT.Hit-Man said as he plugged the strand of lights in to a wall socket. There was a loud crackling sound that was droned out by Proxima Centauri's tortured shrieks as the power ripped though his body. LT.Hit-Man watched as Proxima Centauri's smoldering body began to twitch as the power char- broiled the poor troll from the inside out. "Battle for the Milky Way Galaxy 1 to 7 by Grand Admiral Reid." LT.Hit-Man's cracked smile grew by leaps and bounds as he read the fan fic. "Gets a 10 out 10. I love the attitude in this fic and the way Ensign Trekkie keeps thinking that he's so important even after he gets gang raped by a bunch of butt pirate wookiees is laughable." LT.Hit-Man looked out at his guests and he saw the looks of horror and disgust and it took him a few minutes to stop laughing. "I like Captain Nix and Spyda Blade. They're mean and nasty, not as mean and nasty as I am, but I'd trust them in a fire fight. Hell, if them and me were working together we'd have beaten down the Milky Way like a whipped dog. I'm sure they would benefit from some of the things I could teach them." LT.Hit-Man dragged in a cart that had a big bowl on it, surrounded by twenty mugs. "Time for a break. All this fan fic reviewing makes me thirsty, so in the tradition of Christmas I managed to rustle up some egg nog," he said as he handed each of his guests a mug. He put the bowl down for Mimi. LT.Hit-Man knew that they did not trust him so he drank his down first then had himself another one. After a few minutes they drank theirs down. Bad move on their part; you see, LT.Hit-Man had held the mug by the top, the palm of his cybernetic hand over the top of the mugs and he used the gas gun built into his cybernetic hand to release a deadly chemical agent. Within a few minutes ten elves were clawing at their faces as their flesh began to melt off of their skulls. "Well, it looks like this batch of egg nog is past it's due date, so I might as well whip up another batch," he said as he watched them start to puke. "I'll be back in a second. Mimi, make sure our guests don't leave." He walked out of the hole in the wall. Mimi started to howl as she paced around to make sure that no one tried to escape. After she ripped apart a few elves that had so foolishly run for it, the rest of them got the idea that not to push their luck as they watched Mimi lick her bloody fangs. LT.Hit-Man walked back into the room with a huge blender and a few other items. "All right then, let's see here," he said as he added the ingredients into the blender. " You know, we seem to be missing eggs of all things, can you believe that?" LT.Hit-Man said with mock outrage. "Looks like I'll have to find a substitute." He looked at each of them, then with out any warning he grabbed Gillian1234 and stuffed him/her into the blender before Gillian could ooze out of his grasp, put the top on and held it there. "Let's see...I think we'll start with grate," LT.Hit-Man said with a crocodile's grin, and slowly reached out to push the button. As he did he could hear a muffled, blabbing scream. He looked into the blender and saw two terror-filled eyes looking out at him from the murky mess in the blender. *CLICK* *BWAAAAAAAAAAA* the eyes disappeared as the blender roared to life. After a few minutes of hysterical laughter, LT.Hit-Man stopped the blender "Damn, that's not working. So let's try grind! Hehehehe." *CLICK* *BWAAAAAA* *CLICK* *CLICK* *BWAAAAAAA* *CLICK* *CLICK* *BWAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA* LT.Hit-Man started and then stopped the blender. He did this for about five minutes before he stopped the blender again. He looked over at the rest of his guest stars for this most holly jolly fan fic review. "Hah, hell, that's not working either!" LT.Hit-Man said disgustedly as he looked into the blender, smiling as he saw the frothy mess inside. "Let's crank this kriffer up to full power." *CLICK CLICK CLICK* "That should do it. Let's see here, we'll try.......LIQUEFY!" LT.Hit-Man purred in his third most malevolent voice. *CLICK* *BWAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA* Gillian had but a few scant seconds to scream a choking sob before his/her world exploded into a hellish vortex of pain as the blender's blade renders him/her into bubbling goo. After about an hour LT.Hit-Man stopped the blender. Well, more to the point the blender stopped itself as it shorted out. "This looks just about right," LT.Hit-Man said as he slowly took the top off of the blender and took a sniff. "WHOOOOO that's twisted!" he said as he slapped the blender lid back into place, making some gagging sounds. "Guess that was a bad idea," he said with a shrug of his shoulders before he dumped the gory contents of the blender into the garbage incinerator. There was a slight whooshing sound as LT.Hit-Man fired up the device. "This fic, called Unrequited, is by Lord Shaithis, but a preview of things to come. It's odd, but it has dead Jedi so it gets a 5 out of 10, until it's done then we'll see," LT.Hit-Man said as he quickly force strangled five elves. "Now this fan fic, Osiris by Michael O'Shea, is right up there with IP, WWE and HB. I mean, yowsa, Michael captures the lessons of infighting between the factions of the Empire very nicely and the way he plays up the manpower shortages in Commander Gardat's fleet and the solution to that problem is quite original, and the new ship he whipped up is real nice. Death by hyperspace...what a way to go. I hope to see more of this fic. It would be a shame if it was left undone," LT.Hit-Man said as he looked over the data pad. "Osiris gets a 10 out 10 for sure." LT.Hit-Man closed his eyes as he reached out with the dark side and a few hundred candy canes floated into the air from the crate that he had found when he went and got the blender. LT.Hit-Man opened his eyes and smiled as he watched the candy canes slam into the ten elves that had stepped forwards in hopeless resignation, pin cushioning them. "Sweet!" LT.Hit-Man cooed as he started to look around. "You!" he shouted at Adanna Symphony, who to her credit found the force of will to look at LT.Hit-Man with some more than fear as rage began to burn with in her. "What do you want, you honorless dog!" she snarled. LT.Hit-Man smiled. This was just getting to be to good. "My friend and ex-CO Nathan "The Enforcer" Yates has put out a request for your sorry ass." He looked at the rest of them. "And all of you have been targeted for erasure. You should not have pissed off the regulars of ASVS. Now you're dealing with me!" he snarled as he walked towards Adanna Symphony. She could see the hate in his eyes. "Pick up your toy." LT.Hit-Man pointed to her Bat'leth. "I won't even use my lightsaber." He unhooked it and threw it down by his Gau-19. Adanna Symphony watched as LT.Hit-Man walked over to the cart that he had brought in. He pulled out a big two-pronged fork and a cordless carving knife. "Let's rock, bitch!" And the two of then began to head towards each other. "Hey Mimi, you want a drumstick?" LT.Hit-Man called out. Mimi started to pant then howled loudly, scaring the shit out of the elves. They soiled themselves at the sound. Adanna Symphony let out a Klingon battle cry and swung at LT.Hit-Man's head, but her bat'leth was artfully captured in between the tines of LT.Hit-Man's fork as he dropped to one knee. She looked down when she heard a faint ringing sound and she saw the lethal smirk on LT.Hit-Man's face as he cranked up the carving knife between her legs. LT.Hit-Man started to laugh as he slammed the carving knife's blade into the hip socket of her left leg. LT.Hit-Man's face was covered in bits of tattered flesh as the knife ripped her hip socket open. Her screams drowned out the hideous sound of the carving knife grinding against her hip bone. LT.Hit-Man dropped the carving knife and slammed the heel of his cybernetic hand into the raw, gaping wound. Everyone including LT.Hit-Man winced at the loud snap as her leg was knocked clean out of its socket in geysers of blood. The leg landed with a wet, meaty thud a few feet away from Mimi who started to drool. "Go get it girl!" LT.Hit-Man said over his shoulder as he rolled out of the way of Adanna as she fell to the ground screaming in unimaginable pain. LT.Hit-Man, suddenly weary of the game, slammed his foot down on her throat, crushing her windpipe to a bloody pulp, silencing the shrill bitch forever. Mimi started to tear nosily into the severed leg with gusto. "The Lay of the Holy FAQ by Björn Paulsen is a medieval fan fic about the never ending battle between the sane and reasonable members of ASVS and the trolls that have infested the NG like cockroaches," LT.Hit-Man said as he ripped Santa's beard off and began to clean the blood off his boots. "It gets a 10 out 10. I am looking forward to reading the next part of this fan fic," LT.Hit-Man said as he slowly roasted ten elves with force lighting, the stench of charred flesh started to makes everyone, save for LT.Hit-Man and Mimi, gag as eyeballs boiled and exploded, hair turned to ashes. Graham Orton snapped and he tried to run for his life but with snap of his fingers Mimi ran after him, howling and slobbering along they way. "That's right, bring him here," LT.Hit-Man said as he dug up some gift wrapping. Graham Orton let out a girlish scream as Mimi grabbed him by ankle and slowly dragged him back to the waiting LT.Hit-Man. LT.Hit-Man wrapped up Graham in a bright cherry red wrapping paper, stepped back and looked the doomed man over. Then, as a final touch he tied a green bow to his head. "Now to make sure that my gift will not get soiled when it's delivered," LT.Hit-Man said as he threw Graham Orton onto a conveyer belt that led to a machine that vacuum-packed gifts in a cellophane wrapping. LT.Hit- Man switched on the machine and within seconds Graham Orton was all done up nice and neat. "Much better," LT.Hit-Man said as he watched Graham slowly asphyxiate, then he took the gift and put it into a huge red bag. He would have mean gift to deliver before this night was done. After he was done with Graham Orton, LT.Hit-Man walked over to one of the semi-living elves and took a huge bite out of its body. "Mmm. I think it's a little undercooked, what do you think Mimi?" LT.Hit-Man asked the rancor pup. She took the cooked elf from him and started to eat it. After a few bites she dragged the elf over to a spot where the floor was blasted open, dug a deep hole and dropped the elf into it and quickly buried it. "I thought so. Oh well, we have plenty more elves where that came from." He looked at the gibbering elves that started to scream and beg for their lives. "Death Star's Revenge and An ASVS Christmas Carol by Chuck Sonnenburg get a 10 out 10 each. Death Star's Revenge is about what could have happened when the first Death Star was about to blow away the rebel scum on Yavin 4." LT.Hit-Man started to pace around with a strange gleam in his human eye. "An ASVS Christmas Carol is a really sweet take off of an old classic, A Christmas Carol. The main star of this most joyous fan fic is one of your brethren, Timothy 'Ebenezer' Jones. Three times he was offered the chance to repent and three times he refused and he pained the ultimate price for his idiocy, just as you will pay for yours!" LT.Hit-Man snarled as he started grabbing elves left and right, slamming them into walls, the floor and the ceiling while singing "Deck the Halls With the Heads of Elves." Within less then five minutes the slaughterhouse that had once been the strong hold of the arctic despot's vast empire was awash in even more blood as twenty elves met their gory end, their internal organs plastered all around and in some cases the unlucky ones were nailed to the wall as they still lived. "You know, we seem to be missing something. Now what could that be I wonder?" LT.Hit-Man said as he looked over at Dr.Bollocks, Redimp and Highlander who were on the verge of a horror-induced catatonia. "I KNOW!" LT.Hit-Man said as he snapped his finger. "We forgot to set up and trim a Christmas tree. Mimi watch them, I'll be back in two shakes of a rat's tail," he said as he left the three doomed men and the elves who had passed out after LT.Hit-Man showed them his skills in the fine arts of interior decorating. After about five minutes, LT.Hit-Man was cursing up a storm as he pulled a huge pine tree though the hole he had made with the proton grenade. "Come on, you kriffing whore, get in here!" he snarled and with one mighty pull the tree was though the hole and he began to set it up. "Right now the fun begins," LT.Hit-Man said as he woke the elves up and when they saw the tree they had no idea what was going on but they knew that this was not going to be good. LT.Hit-Man suddenly and quite savagely start to disembowel twenty of the elves then he took their eyeballs and pinned them on the needles of the pine tree after using their intestines as a garland for the tree. "Looks good," LT.Hit-Man said as he stepped back to look over his handy work. "You know this is the season for giving, right?" he asked before he grabbed Redimp by the face with his human hand. "I think Grand Admiral Sheppard would really like some new boots," LT.Hit-Man whispered to Redimp as he held up a butter knife that he had taken from his mess kit, then slowly began to skin Redimp alive. An hour later he was done and the mewling thing that had been Redimp was still alive. LT.Hit-Man took Redimp and dumped a bag of road salt on him and his insane laughter battled for domination with Redimp's agonized shrieks before his body gave out from the pain. "Hmm...Cardassian jerky. What do you think Mimi?" LT.Hit-Man asked the rancor pup as he started to cure Redimp's skin. He had though about giving Sheppard a pair of alligator boots but after the third world war back on Earth before the founding of the Federation alligator had become extinct so this would have to do. Mimi walked over to Redimp's carcass, spit it once and turned her nose up at it. "Okay, forget that idea then," LT.Hit-Man said as he looked out at the cowering survivors. As LT.Hit-Man was walking past the lined up survivors, covered in blood, bits of ragged tattered flesh and other unidentifiable bio matter, Highlander puked, right on LT.Hit-Man's boots. "YOU SON OF A BITCH!" LT.Hit-Man screamed as he reached out to rip his head off but stopped as he got a truly nasty idea. "Be back in a second," he said as he hopped, skipped and jumped into the well-stocked kitchen. Santa always seemed to be having a case of the munchies and thus the reason for all the goodies that he found in it. After a few minutes of noisily tearing apart the kitchen he walked back into the room with a sack full of cans. "You know, what would the holidays be without the holiday beast for dinner?" he asked as he dumped out the sack to reveal can after can of cranberries. "But first you have to stuff the beast," LT.Hit-Man said as he handed Highlander a can and a can opener. Once the can was opened LT.Hit-Man handed Highlander a spoon. After all, he was in a giving mood; it was the season for giving. After his fifth can Highlander threw down the spoon as he felt like he was going to puke again. "Oh no you don't!" LT.Hit-Man snarled as he tore the top off of another can, grabbed Highlander and started force feeding him the cranberries. "YOU EAT THEM, ALL OF THEM!!!" LT.Hit-Man screamed as he crammed can after can of cranberries down Highlander's throat, almost choking him to death. "You don't get off that easy you sorry son of a bitch!" LT.Hit-Man thought to himself as he finished ramming down the last can of cranberries. Highlander was in hell as he started to drown on the cranberries feebly trying to shove his fingers down his throat to puke them up. "Now it's time to roast the beast!" He heard a low floomp and a steady hissing sound follow that. Highlander weakly looked over to LT.Hit-Man who was standing there with a flamethrower. Highlander had time for one scream before LT.Hit-Man let him have it with the flamethrower. The light from Highlander's burning body cast a hellish light on LT.Hit-Man's scarred face and Dr.Bollocks made the mistake of looking at him. Gone was the happy if not slightly insane grin that had scared him so much. In its place was a cold lifeless look that was devoid of any humanity, compassion or any other human emotion. Dr.Bollocks start to tremble in fear. LT.Hit-Man looked up from the charred body of Highlander and right at Dr.Bollocks who pissed himself before he fainted from fright. Dr.Bollocks opened his eyes and let out a terrified scream as he saw LT.Hit-Man look down at him with a visage of cold death. "Chuck and the rest of the ASVS'ers are pissed off with you, insect, and your asinine flooding of ASVS. Now you shall pay the final price for you stupidity!" LT.Hit-Man rasped as reached out with a combo of a force strangle hold and levitation and lifted the screaming man into the air. "There is but one thing left before this Christmas fan fic review is complete," he whispered in a lethal and malevolent voice as he looked at the bloody Christmas tree. Then, before Dr.Bollocks could scream, LT.Hit-Man impaled the troll on the top of the tree with such brutality that the top of the tree ripped though Dr.Bollock's lower back, and explode out of his guts. LT.Hit-Man turned and picked up the bloody red bag and threw it over his shoulder and started to walk away, leaving Dr.Bollocks to slowly die in agony. "Come on Mimi, we have work to do," LT.Hit-Man said as he walked over to the main computer that he had found in the sub-basement of Santa's polar stronghold and downloaded ever scrap of info that was in it. As LT.Hit-Man and Mimi started to hike their way back to an Imperial out post in Canada LT.Hit-Man was counting down in his head, "5, 4, 3, 2, 1!" There was a blinding flash followed by a massive shock wave that just about put LT.Hit-Man Mimi flat on there backs as the B-101 5,000 MT nuke that LT.Hit-Man had set to erase everything with a hundred clicks of Santa's icy domain went off. As LT.Hit-Man entered Canada he and Mimi were met by a detachment of snowtroopers who were conducting war games in the cold northernmost parts of Canada. The games stopped when LT.Hit-Man bloodily commandeered a Chariot LAV. "This is LT.Hit-Man, operating number VX-101." he snarled into the comm system. "If any of you bitches get in my way I'll exterminate each and every one of you so kriff off!" The last thing he need was a bunch of yo-yos getting in his way as he gunned the Chariot LAV to full speed. After a few hours of traveling at 600 KPM the LAV stopped at the starport in Niagara Falls Canada. LT.Hit-Man threw the bag over his shoulder as he and Mimi started to look for a ship to hijack. LT.Hit-Man was about to violently take a lambda class shuttle when he felt a strange sense of hopelessness emanating from somewhere around the busy starport and for reasons unknown to him he set off to find out what was going on. "Where's daddy?" Ivy McCorovitch asked her mother as she got closer to the small fire that was barely keeping her and her family alive, the wind starting to pick up. Tina McCorovitch looked at her daughter and told her that their father was out looking for a job. Ever since the war between the Empire and the Federation their life had been one nightmare after another, their friends and family that had died during the war, their lost home. Her husband who had worked as a computer programmer lost his job because he could not understand the new Imperial technology and the worst of it were the lies that the Empire was spewing out that everyone was happy and that there was plenty for everyone. "I guess the old adage about everyone loving a winner and hating losers holds true in any galaxy," Tina though to herself as she did the best she could to comfort her children. Drake McCorovitch dropped the scant armload of wood that he hoped would keep his family alive though out the cold bitter night. He looked at his family and at the rest of the poor souls that had been displaced by the war. He choked back a tear as he thought about who many had died during the night, taking their own lives as hopelessness stole way their will to live or were taken as sickness raved their tired bodies. The worst was when other preyed on the weaker to survive or just out of plain meanness as the lean years got worse and worse with each passing day. After he and his wife settled their children down for the night they began to talk, unawares that they were being watched. "So did you get the job?" Tina asked as she snuggled up to her husband in order to comfort him as well as herself. "No, they would not take me because I am not good enough. Damn it, if they would take the time to show me how to program their computer once I know I could do it," Drake said, thinking back to the arrogant son of bitch that had turned him down and how he wanted to reach out and choke the living shit of him. Tina felt her husband tense up, then he let out a ragged breath. She looked up and saw the look of hopeless despair start to set into his hard-edged face. She took a deep breath and spoke. "I could get a job at Minsansa," she said, her voice laden with disgust mixed in with fear and despair as the thought of working in such place made her want to throw up. "No! There's no way I'll have you become a whore. I'll find something. Somehow, some way, I'll find a job or something!" Drake spat as rage tainted his fear. "Hell, maybe I'll organize a demonstration at the governor house," he said as he began to delude himself with false hope. "Ya right, remember what happened in Oslo when they tried to protest, they all got gunned down by those damn stormtroopers," Tina said. There was a grim silence for a few minutes then they agreed that they would figure out something when they got up. They started to settle into an uneasy sleep. LT.Hit-Man got up from where he had been hiding as he spied on these poor souls. As he listened to them he started to remember his own troubled childhood. "This is so wrong," he thought himself as he started to walk away. After the war, Sheppard had done all that he could to see that everything got back to normal for the average Joe. All of the governors had reported in that everything was fine. LT.Hit-Man looked back and saw the family huddle closer together as they tried to stay warm and he felt a rage that took his breath away with it's intensity. "Someone will pay for this!" LT.Hit-Man snarled as he felt a killing fever unlike any he had felt before turn his blood into molten copper. He stormed out of the starport. Governor Tariss was just about to cut the holiday beast for him and his family when they heard the security guard start speaking. "Hey you, you can't go in there." "Get the kriff out of my way!" A gruff snarling voice said. Then the security guard started to shout. "GUARDS GUAR-ACKSS!" his yelling was ruthlessly cut off by a strange snap hissing sound followed by a low gurgling. "What the hell?" was all Governor Tariss had time to thing before the door to his dining room exploded and something landed at his feet. He numbly looked down to see the maimed body of the security guard laying there, his blood staining the plush shag rug an ugly brown. Governor Tariss looked up from the body as his family's screams snapped him out of his shocked state. He saw a monster of a man with a cyborg eye dressed in bloody snowtrooper armor with a red bag strapped to his back and at his side was a baby rancor. LT.Hit-Man looked over the family. He saw the governor standing there with a large fork and a carving knife and started walking towards the terrified man. "GET OVER HERE!" he snarled as his cybernetic hand shot out like proton torpedo with a solid lock on and he lifted the screaming man off of his feet by his face as his family started screaming even louder. "SHUT THE KRIFF UP OR I'LL GIVE YOU SOMETHING TO CRY ABOUT!" LT.Hit-Man yelled as he looked at the feast that was on the table before him and the Governor and his family. Up the hallway came the sounds of bootsteps and the telltale clinks of armored men. LT.Hit-Man reached out and ripped off a leg of cooked beast. He took a big bite out of it and chewed it for a few minutes. "Not bad, not bad at all, a little dry though." Governor Tariss was freaked out. This lunatic killed his security guard, roughed him up and threatened his family so he could review his cooking? What the hell was going on here? He thought all this as his mind tried and failed to comprehend what was going on here. "What do you think, Mimi?" the loony cyborg said as he threw the leg over his shoulder. Governor Tariss watched in mind numbing horror as the baby rancor leapt into the air and grabbed the offered morsel in its fanged mouth. As he watched the baby rancor slowly chew on the leg, the sounds of the bone being crushed in those powerful jaws filled his mind with the image of that jaw coming at him, wrapping around his face as his head was ripped clean off in a spray of blood. Just as he was about to speak a squad of stormtroopers burst into the room with their weapons pointed at the crazy Borg " Let him go the squad leader shouted as he draws a bead on the back of the man who had the governor by the face. "Mimi, be cool," LT.Hit-Man said as he turned his head to face the uninvited dinner guests. "Who are you?" Governor Tariss asked as he suddenly found his voice and he found himself getting a very long and most unwanted looked at the cyborg's scarred face. "LT.Hit-Man, operating number VX-101, and your sorry ass is required." The temperature in the room suddenly dropped to near freezing as fear clawed at their minds and for a long, tense minute no one moved. "Ha, LT.Hit-Man, umm, sir, what do you want?" the squad leader asked as he managed to fight down his fear. He had served with LT.Hit-Man in the battle for the Borg home world and he had no intention of getting himself or his men killed. "You and your men are now under my command, let's go," LT.Hit-Man said as he dropped the governor to the floor then grabbed him by the by the top of his head and started to dragging the man out of the dining room. The stormtroopers looked at their CO and when they saw him following LT.Hit-Man and the baby rancor at what he thought was safe distance they all followed him, leaving the governors terrified family to there own devices. "What is that ship loaded with?" LT.Hit-Man asked a very shocked starport controller who just stood there gaping at the sight before him, a monster of a cyborg man in blood-splattered snowtrooper armor holding the governor by the hair, a baby rancor and twenty stormtrooper armed to the teeth standing there before him. You had to feel sorry for him, for he had been looking forward to a late holiday dinner with his family when his shift ended in five minutes. "I asked you a question, next time I'll rip your head off and feed it to my pet." The loony cyborg pointed to the baby rancor, which started to growl and foam at the mouth. "Ah, food stuffs sir!" the controller stammered and held out a data pad, praying that he would live to see the next five seconds as the cyborg took the data pad from him and began to read it. In the back of his mind he was wondering why on Earth was the governor was putting up with his kind of treatment but one look at the cyborg's scarred face put an end to that line of thought. LT.Hit-Man finished reading the data pad then he turned to the stormtrooper squad leader. "Get some cargo droids and unload that ship, NOW!" he snarled as he force his rage down before he killed someone. "B-B-B-But that cargo is destined for Adres-6." the starport controller said and from the way LT.Hit-Man looked at him, he started to cry. LT.Hit-Man took a deep breath, this shit was getting on his nerves but he kept his cool. "Look, Adres-6 is a rich agricultural world. They don't need these foodstuffs. It's all luxury foods and don't worry, you're not in any shit, go home and stay out of this," LT.Hit-Man said to the starport controller, who had a look on his face like someone had handed him sixty four pound bars of gold pressed latinum. Within a few minutes he had someone take over for him and he was out the door with much joy in his heart. LT.Hit-Man let go of the governor's head. "Stand up," he snarled as the stormtrooper squad leader came into the star port control room. "Off loading complete sir!" the squad leader said as he crisply saluted LT.Hit-Man. "Excellent. Now go and commandeer as many hover trucks as you can. If anyone gives you a problem, tell them I need them and if that does not quiet them down, shoot them," he ordered, then he added, "then get them loaded with the cargo." LT.Hit-Man smiled and the squad leader saw that he had a plan and for some strange reason he started to smile under his stormtrooper helmet. He rounded up his men to carry out LT.Hit-Man's orders. "What is this all about?" the governor asked but when he heard LT.Hit-Man say, "I'll do better than tell you, I'll show you when the time is right." Governor Tariss felt his blood run cold. Silent night, holy night! All is calm, all is bright. Round yon Virgin, Mother and Child. Holy infant so tender and mild, Sleep in heavenly peace, Sleep in heavenly peace. Silent night, holy night! Shepherds quake at the sight. Glories stream from heaven afar Heavenly hosts sing Alleluia, Christ the Savior is born! Christ the Savior is born. Silent night, holy night! Son of God love's pure light. Radiant beams from Thy holy face With dawn of redeeming grace, Jesus Lord, at Thy birth. Jesus Lord, at Thy birth. "What is going on?" Tina McCorovitch asked her husband as they woke to the sounds of someone singing. "I have no idea," Drake said as he got up. His kids woke up and ran to their mother. Drake asked some of the other displaced people as they gathered together and tried to figure what was happening as fear started to set into there chilled hearts and minds. "Okay, lights up, but gently," LT.Hit-Man said to the stormtrooper squad leader as he started to walk away from his hijacked Chariot LAV with the governor in tow. Drake ran to his wife and kids when the spotlights started to shine on them and they saw a line of stormtroopers standing there armed to the teeth. "Damn it," Tina said as she saw a towering stormtrooper in gleaming white armor and the Governor of Canada walking towards them. The rest of the displaced people got ready to fight. They knew that they had no chance of winning but by God they would make them remember this Christmas Eve, the Christmas Eve when people who had nothing to lose fought the Empire who had oppressed them so cruelly for so many years. Maybe then others would rise up and throw off the chains of oppression and let the Empire know that they would not go quietly into the long cold night. "I am LT.Hit-Man of the Galactic Empire." When the displaced people heard that all thoughts of a bitter fight to the finish left them. They had heard about him; the same psycho who had exterminated the Ferengi and massacred thousands of Federation soldiers curing the war and raw terror took hold of them. LT.Hit-Man could taste their fear and he savored every moment of it. He smiled that cold smile that had been the last thing that many beings had seen before they died by his hand and added, "Your being here is wrong." Drake felt a rage start to battle with his fear. Where the hell else were they supposed to go? The Empire had taken their homes, their loved ones and left them with empty promises and the cold earth to sleep on with no chances of getting a job. Leaving them to fend for themselves. Well, this was the last straw. He hugged his wife and told her to take care of the kids and started to march towards the monsters that stood before them and to his destiny. LT.Hit-Man watched as a single man started to walk towards him. He flipped the laser sight in his cybernetic eye on and put it between the man's eyes as he spoke. "So come, come out of the cold and eat with us." Everyone there felt like someone had just shoved a blade in their guts as the shock of LT.Hit-Man's words filled their minds with disbelief. Not that anyone could blame them. "The Empire meant what it said about helping to rebuild your shattered cites, to help you get back to a fairly normal life under Imperial rule," LT.Hit-Man said he could see that he had their attention so he pushed on with what he had to say. "But the recent Borg attacks and minor rebellions kept people like Grand Admiral Sheppard and the other commanders of the Empire out in deep space tried to defend the Empire and its peoples, that includes you all as well so we trusted men like this useless bag of shit!" LT.Hit-Man spat as he pointed at Governor Tariss who started to whimper as the images of crazed homeless people ripping into bloody giblets filled his mind. "People like him who saw an opportunity to make some money and to hell with everyone else. Well, that shit does not fly with me," LT.Hit-Man said as he put a choke hold on the governor as he went on. "I may have done some horrific things during the war. That was war, the war is over, I can't make up for things I did then or in my life but I can change, just as we all must change, so that there will be peace between our peoples." LT.Hit-Man released the choke hold from the governor who started to heave, trying to get as much oxygen as he could. "Change not just for ourselves but for our children, the ones born here and the ones who have come from my home galaxy, for all the generations to come." LT.Hit-Man saw that his words were reaching them. "People like this sorry son of a bitch will be dealt with, your Federation is gone, it's time to face the facts. You are Imperial citizens now and the Empire watches out for it's own, but make no mistake what so ever the Empire is running things around here. We will have order, we do what we must to keep the peace. It's a two way street. If you keep the peace, we don't have to come down on any one. If you rebel, you will be crushed. It's simple, really. Once you see that and live by that then you will not have to worry about us coming down on you because we would have no reason to." LT.Hit-Man saw that he had them where he wanted them so he put the final icing on the cake. "You must have compassion as well as power not just to rule but to rule well. Stop worrying; come embrace the new way of life. All things change. It was the Federation's time to go, so come live in peace and enjoy what a good and just life has to offer." With that said LT.Hit-Man switched off the laser sight. The displaced people watched as the feared LT.Hit-Man ordered his men to start setting up some portable shelters. Once that was he had them and droids that had been brought along start setting up some tables. LT.Hit-Man told them that this was but a temporary measure until they could arrange something more permanent as the food stuffs that he had "liberated" were cooked. LT.Hit-Man told the governor to grab a plate and start serving the displaced persons who had lined up to grab some chow. They still could not believe what was going on, but they realized that if the Empire wanted them dead they would have just came and shot them down like dogs instead of setting all this up just to poison them. "I'll not demean myself for these weakling scum," the governor told LT.Hit-Man as his arrogance reasserted itself. LT.Hit-Man just shook his head, then before the governor knew what was happening he found himself hoisted into the air by his dress shirt by LT.Hit-Man's cybernetic hand. SMACK SMACK SMACK LT.Hit-Man bitch slapped the governor with his human hand as his face grew cold and lifeless. "You'll do as you're told. The alternatives are not pleasant, ex-governor!" LT.Hit-Man rasped as he let go of the humiliated man and just stared at him. Wisely, ex-governor Tariss forced himself to slowly get to his feet as he fought down his fear, salvaging as much dignity as he could and started to dish out the food along with the rest of the stormtroopers who were serving the chow. LT.Hit-Man watched the displaced people as they ate their first hot meal in a long time. "Yes, things are starting to look a little better now," he though to himself before he relived one of the stormtroopers and lend a hand. And for the first time in a long time, LT.Hit-Man felt good. Drake started to say grace as he and his family sat down to eat. Once that was done his son Limroy added, "God bless us, everyone." Then the shit hit the fan. "LT.HIT-MAN, WHAT IN THE NAME OF THE SITH IS GOING ON HERE!" Everyone stopped what they were doing and looked to see who had yelled, and standing there was Grand Admiral Sheppard along with General Yates and the Cleaners and from the cold look on Sheppard's face they could tell that he was pissed. LT.Hit-Man walked up to Sheppard with a smirk on his face and pointed at the Ex-Governor. "Sir, this lowly maggot has been living high on the hog while these poor people were left with nothing." He then pointed to the ragged group of displaced people who were started to tremble with fear as the Cleaners stood there with there E-11's pointed in their general direction. "Despite your orders for the humane treatment of ex-Federation citizens," LT.Hit-Man said as he folded his arms across his armored chest and added. "So I took care of this problem, as well as the other problem that brought me here in the first place," and left it at that. Grand Admiral Sheppard began to worry when LT.Hit-Man failed to check in at the appointed time. Then when he heard about the nuke that had gone off in the north pole, he had General Yates get the Cleaners together and they headed back to Earth in a Lancer Frigate that had been a part of the main Imperial strike force that was overseeing the final destruction of species 8472, who had attacked after the Empire had finished with the Borg. He left the fleet in the hands of Admiral Dalton who had proven he to be a capable Admiral curing the Borg war. As the Lancer was en-route Sheppard had gotten a report of LT.Hit-Man's encounter with the 28th Timber Wolves snowtrooper unit that was in war games exercises, then of LT.Hit-Man's rampage at the Governor's home. He was not happy with this; he had given LT.Hit-Man a simple search-and-destroy mission but he had to go and make a mess of things. Sheppard was considering having LT.Hit-Man shot for this, but two things made him reconsider: one, this was unlike LT.Hit-Man's usual mode of operations. Sure LT.Hit-Man had a tendency to get a little carried away in the heat of battle, so he could excuse that, but LT.Hit-Man usually never went after non-combatants so he had to know why he had dropped in on the Governor. Second of all Sheppard had some doubts that even with the Cleaners at hand that he could put LT.Hit-Man down for keeps. For a long moment Sheppard and LT.Hit-Man just stared at each other. "General Yates! Show the Ex-Governor the error of his ways, but don't kill him," Sheppard said to Gen.Yates who was smiling like a loon under his helmet. He had seen the aftermath of war many a time as the citizens tried to rebuild their shattered lives, but there was no call for this. Earth was one of the most prosperous worlds in the Emperor's new territories. There was more then enough to go around, so when the boss called for him to put the smack down on the weasely Governor he was all too happy to do so. "My pleasure sir!" Yates said as he dragged the Ex-Governor outside and tried a few new moves that he was considering adding to his list of unarmed combat. He practiced a move called the "Sidewalk Slam" until he felt he had it down pat, much to the Ex-Goner Tariss's painful despair. "Come, LT.Hit-Man, we'll talk about this on the way back to the fleet," Sheppard said as he smiled at the Ex.Governor's fearful screaming as Gen.Yates worked over his shoulder and down to the ground. "Well, did you get him?" Sheppard asked once they were underway and in Sheppard's briefing room. LT.Hit-Man smiled evilly as he reached into the red bag and pulled Santa's head and threw at Sheppard. who caught it. He had grown used to LT.Hit-Man's blood thirsty style. "The fat boy ain't coming to town tonight, sir!" LT.Hit-Man said as he pulled out the data pad full of info that he had drained from the computer in Santa's base. "It's all the info I downloaded from a computer I found in Santa's base. Knock yourself out, sir." Sheppard smiled and told LT.Hit-Man that he'd have Phong look it over, then he asked LT.Hit-Man to give him a run down on what had happened during the mission and what happened after he offed St. Nick. LT.Hit-Man knew that it would be a long debriefing, so he had a droid get him a cup of coffee and began to tell Sheppard what had happened. MUCH LATER Sheppard had listened to everything the crazy cyborg had told him. He was troubled by the news about the meeting that LT.Hit-Man had crashed when he and Mimi had put the old tyrant down for the count. "Why did you not interrogate them?" he asked LT.Hit-Man who just smiled that maddening smile of his. "I was too busy, sir?" Sheppard just about went though the roof when he heard that. "What do you mean you were to busy? What were you doing?" he snarled as he felt a headache coming on. "I was doing a fan fic review, sir," was LT.Hit-Man's reply and Sheppard suppressed a shiver. "Okay, but still, you should have questioned them. The last thing we need is another rebellion on our hands." LT.Hit-Man just smiled. "I bet you a year's pay that they're hiding in what's called the Badlands. Think about it; the region of space known as the Badlands is nothing more then one big plasma storm. No one goes there. It would be the perfect base of ops," he said to Sheppard who agreed with him. It was good tactical planning, but still with the war with Species 8472 raging they could ill afford a war on two fronts. "How can you be sure that's where they're hiding?" Sheppard asked as he poured himself a drink and nearly dropped his glass when he heard LT.Hit-Man say, "I'm not sure, they could be anywhere." "WHAT!" LT.Hit-Man held up his cybernetic hand to quiet down the Grand Admiral. "But what we have here is an opportunity to end any rebellions before they begin to cause us any problems," LT.Hit-Man said as he drained the dregs of his now cold coffee. "Do you mind explaining what you're talking about?" Sheppard said before he slammed his drink down and poured himself another. If there was one thing he hated about LT.Hit-Man it was when he got all cryptic on him. "Easy, remember what I was doing when you found me?" he asked Sheppard as he got himself another cup of coffee. Sheppard nodded his head. He thought that what he had done with for the displaced people had been strange. Strange because it was so unlike LT.Hit-Man to do such a thing but he enjoyed the bit where LT.Hit-Man had piped some old Earth holiday song though the P.A. system of his "donated" Chariot LAV. Then it dawned on him what LT.Hit-Man was talking about. LT.Hit-Man saw the look of relaxation play across Sheppard's face and took that as his cue to speak. "That's right, we started living up to the promise of a better life for all, better than they had under the Federation and they'll put a stop to any rebellion, they will not risk losing what they have gained. Would you risk losing a life that has been the best that you have ever had? I wouldn't." Sheppard knew that LT.Hit-Man was right. He dismissed the tired-looking stormtrooper as he started planning on how to deal with any possible rebellions in the making. THE DEATH STAR LT.Hit-Man and Mimi walked into their home, glad to be back. It had been a long and strange mission for them and they wanted to sleep. "Spike, Daala are you home?" LT.Hit-Man called out as he started to strip off his snowtrooper armor. Mimi went and laid down in her basket, let out a toothy yawn and settled down for the night. "Spike's over at his friend's place, he'll be spending the night there," Daala called out from the bedroom. LT.Hit-Man smiled. It was good that his son was out for the night. He was tired and just wanted a quiet night tonight. He heard the pitter-patter of his wife's footsteps. He looked up and his jaw hit the floor at what he saw. Admiral Daala was wearing a red and white fur trimmed elf hat, the kind you see on the head of department store workers at this time of year, a silk net body stocking and a few strategically placed bits of mistletoe and nothing else. "So have I been naughty or nice this year?" she asked with a silky purr and a predatory smile on her face. "MERRY CHRISTMAS TO ALL, AND TO ALL A GOOD NIGHT!" LT.Hit-Man yelled gleefully as ripped off the last bits of the snowtrooper armor and then chased his wife into the bedroom. The End Merry Christmas from LT.Hit-Man and family to you and your family. Good day, Good night and God bless.