And there is ONE MORE CHAPTER after this! The final showdown! And I’ve neglected so many chores trying to get this done this weekend! I would like to be done already please! D:
Chapter theme song is Levi vs. Female Titan, for the Atton-space/Selyn-Nihilus battle.
I read on the internet that Bao-Dur is supposed to die helping HK get to or from the secret droid factory on Telos? I almost considered doing that, but I decided in the end to do it the way I’ve imagined it for a long time. I also nabbed some Cut Content dialogue from a thing that shouldn’t happen to Atton except under certain circumstances which I forget what they are but I’m pretty sure would not be completionist LSF, but it was just too dramatic to pass up. XD
Part 13: Malachor V
The Ravager lay dead ahead of Citadel Station, grinning like a jawless skull as it majestically closed to attack. Its fighter and light ship escort buzzed alongside it like carrion; a crude, obvious metaphor, but impossible to deny. The Republic fleet had just dropped out of hyperspace and was closing with them, already firing on them and taking fire in return.
It hadn’t always been the Ravager. Once it had been the Regent, one of the proudest ships in the Republic fleet – and a ship that she had sent to its death on Malachor. Commander Helvotha had captained it, with Jedi Knight Yserys, when her former captain had committed suicide rather than fight the Mandalorians anymore.
And now Selyn was flying into the thick of battle on a Mandalorian shuttle, surrounded by big armoured men with Visas at her side. She couldn’t see outside, but there were two more Mandalorian shuttles, flanked by Tagren in the Basilisk, and Atton in a snubfighter he’d begged off Lieutenant Grenn on Citadel Station. The others were still on the station, helping the people there as best they could, except for Bao-Dur and HK, who had disappeared. She could feel turbolaser blasts cutting through space towards them, and she was helpless. Her heart thrummed inside her. Soon they would land, hopefully, and begin working their way up to the bridge, where Darth Nihilus surely waited.
They were slowing, the landing gear was down, there were additional sounds that told her the shuttle was in atmosphere again, and a clunk as they touched down. The landing ramp was dropping and she ran out with the others. Today she didn’t have to be the General. Mandalore was in charge, directing some of his men to place explosive charges against the… wall, not the door.
The wall exploded and the Mandalorians poured through, their heavy blaster rifles making short work of the remaining Sith soldiers taken off guard. Mandalore walked through the breach after them slowly, the very image of a dread conquering warlord, then beckoned her through.
He was speaking to Bralor as she walked up; Kelborn was there too, and spared her a wave. She waved back. “And our cargo?”
“It’s being brought aboard, and soon teams will be dispatched to the target sites. You were right about the vessel, Mandalore. It is of Malachor… it still bears the wounds of Mandalorian guns.”
“Then let’s finish this. And remind the galaxy of Malachor V.” He turned towards her and chuckled. “Been waiting for this for ten years. It’s time to do things the old-fashioned way.”
“Is that the close-combat way, or the vast quantities of explosives way?” she asked solemnly.
He laughed. “Yes.”
He hadn’t been in a real dogfight in years, and every second was praying that he hadn’t lost his touch as he weaved and juked his way through waves of lasers. One good thing that Citadel Station had to offer him was an old Vorpal D-32, which was a ship he was familiar with: small, weak lasers, but fast. The rest of their small fighter squadron was staying a little closer to home, taking out any Sith fighters that ventured too close to them. The Republic fleet was hammering the Sith support ships from the other side, true, but otherwise he was a bit isolated, aside from that Mandalorian Basilisk flitting around and stealing half his kills.
Missile lock. He pulled back on the controls, drawing on the Force to thread his way through an impossibly tight space between a cruiser and a pack of other enemy Vorpals. The Sith apparently didn’t believe in maintenance, as most of them looked ruined or wrecked in one way or another – dragged bodily from the husk of Malachor and fixed just enough to fly, just enough to be very dangerous to him.
Laser blasts came spraying past his cockpit canopy and he gritted his teeth, searching out those slivers of open space between ships he could nip through to discourage tailers. His finger was always on the trigger, pumping every last bit of energy he could spare from the shields and engines into space, punching through withered armour, through already-blast-scored canopies. Every enemy he took out was one less for Selyn to worry about.
He got this.
Another Vorpal shot past his view and for an instant he stopped firing. The back half was blackened and charred, but the front half was painted up to look like a horrific blue monster, shrieking defiance to the enemy.
A hit to his rear shields jolted him out of his shock. “Frakking Force-damned Sith-spit!” He went into a twisting spin, trying to track the one that had shot him, without losing the Vorpal – the one stolen from his old squadron. That was my wingmate’s ship. Togruta named Komaren, Blue 6. Okay dude, not as good as me, but still a hot hand in a Vorpal. And he got shot down, got smashed into the surface of Malachor like a bug on a speeder windshield.
And now some Sith was flying his ship.
A Jedi was in control at all times. Yeah, he was mad, upset, he had to acknowledge that, then focus on what was really important: staying alive. He wasn’t here for revenge. He was here to clear out as many enemies as possible, to make things safer for Selyn, so she could destroy the source of that awful hunger he felt from here, tugging on the edges of his senses.
Blue 6 tucked in behind him and began firing.
Colonel Tobin was aboard the ship, a grey-skinned shadow of his former self, consumed with hopelessness and regret. He seemed lucid enough, but Nihilus’s power had touched him deeply.
“If we destroy his ship without fighting him, would he die?” she asked.
“This ship… is it his weakness?” Tobin shook his head. “It should not exist, yet it cruises the darkness between the stars. He tore it from the mass shadows of Malachor, along with his fleet… that is a measure of his power.”
Mandalore grunted expressively. “Hnh. This ship is barely holding itself together. The structural damage should have destroyed it long ago.”
“He holds it together,” Tobin said feverishly. “And he keeps us all alive, just enough, like rotworms within a dying beast.”
“Hnh. More Jedi tricks.”
“No, not Jedi. Not Jedi at all.” Tobin shook his head slowly.
“If he’s so powerful, why hasn’t he stopped us, then?” Mandalore demanded. “We’ve attacked his ship, killed his soldiers, and he’s done nothing.”
“It is because he sees planets, stars… not people. To him, the planet below, the station with its teeming life, only that is massive enough to demand his attention. There is nothing to be done except wait. If you go to him, he will destroy you… and your last moments shall be of shadow… and pain.”
“We will chance it,” Selyn said. “To attack him may be to doom ourselves, but to do nothing will doom Telos and Citadel Station.”
She sent him to help the Mandalorians – even an unpleasant person like Tobin should have a chance for redemption, and he truly regretted what he had done in joining Nihilus – and continued on her way.
They were almost to the bridge when Visas stopped suddenly and turned aside, to a side passage. “If there is time, I would like to center myself. There is a meditation chamber within my cell that I would visit one last time.”
Selyn nodded, so Visas slipped through a door to a chamber that had once been a rec room for crew members, flowing lines and decorative pillars, less functional and more aesthetically pleasing than the rest of the ship. It was dark now, and the grey metal made it darker. She sat cross-legged in the centre of the room and whispered, but Selyn could hear her.
“Past the surface, there is the Force. Where once there was a world that was strong in the Force, now there is a barren wasteland. It has taken time for me to return here. I lost my way, but I’ve been stronger for the journey. What happens now shall not be done out of hate, or revenge, but for the sake of all life. And I ask you, finally, to forgive me.”
She stood and turned to Selyn. “This body is a prison no longer.”
The pull in the Force was getting stronger; it was getting harder to concentrate, harder to fight. He could still see the ships around him, but Telos in the background was no longer blue and brown with a little green and a big metal shield, but three blackened chunks of rock orbiting each other closely. He was in the same ship as then, alongside the same ships… All that was missing was some Mandalorians. He knew he was hallucinating in the Force, and yet he couldn’t fight it…
…I should have stayed in that ship, let it drift until the power ran out, let it drift in that battlefield until the storms dragged me down…
Laser fire struck his flank, punching through his shields and snapping off a wing, and he jammed the controls hard right. If he didn’t power through this supernatural interference, he was going to die a whole lot quicker than crashing on Malachor.
“Beyond this door is the bridge.”
She knew. She’d been here before. When the lights were on and friends greeted her here. “Visas, you don’t need to come with me.”
Visas laid an earnest hand on her arm, her eyeless sight meeting Selyn’s through her veil. “It was never a question of need. And I would follow you wherever your path leads. This thing must be done. It must come to an end.”
Selyn nodded and tapped the door control, the double entrance grinding open reluctantly.
It was an image out of a slow nightmare. The viewports lay blasted open, there were no lights other than a few feebly flickering terminals in the crew pits where zombie-like crewmen stood at attention. Cables and struts had fallen from the ceiling, creating cobwebs of durasteel and rubber. The stars shone untwinkling, the battle outside the ship sparkled, but in here all was still and dark.
At the very bow, the very farthest viewport, stood a single figure cloaked in black. She almost couldn’t see him against the stars. But she could feel him, a deep, mindless pull in the Force. There was a faint ringing in her ears, a chime from the Force as it flowed towards him and vanished.
She moved forward with a slow, sure stride, almost mystical in her purpose and detachment. “Yserys.” Now that she could feel him, she was sure. She had known him, once. A human with a big smile, a smile that had been killed by the war before ever Malachor.
He turned – so he could still hear her. A deep, garbled rumble came from his throat beneath a white mask like a skull. She held out a hand to keep Mandalore and Visas back, and kept walking forward. “You can feel the emptiness of this planet. Kreia has lied to you.” Kreia lied to everyone, but not without purpose. She knew that now. “There is nothing here for you. Turn back.”
He wouldn’t. He’d keep going, drain what he could, the thousands living on the station and fighting in the space battle barely enough to keep him going a while longer. Even her students, strong in the Force as they were, would not sate his hunger. But then, nothing would, if Katarr had not.
But she, cloaked in the power of her students, wreathed with Light, surely she was a tempting target. She walked closer until she was at a conversational distance. “Or if you must take a life, take mine, and spare the others.”
She couldn’t allow him to take the lives of her students through her. She waited, gazing sternly at the white skull-mask he wore; he raised a hand to her with a gesture of power. Wait for it, wait for it…
She tore off her veil of Light, baring her empty core, her true self, and Nihilus stumbled.
He felt something through the Force, a sudden weariness, and almost slammed his Vorpal into the side of the cruiser while he was distracted. “What the hell was that!?”
Blue 6 was still on his tail; whoever they’d gotten to replace his old wingmate was just as good as his old wingmate. Don’t tell him it was his old wingmate, zombified by the frakking Sith Lord. That was impossible.
But whatever it was that had tried to steal his Force, it was gone now, the hallucinations were gone, and he was back in control, flirting with the Ravager’s turbolaser cannons, sending golden lines of explosions racing out across its surface, spinning around his opponent’s attacks.
It was almost like he was losing touch with physical reality, the more he sank into the Force to help him pilot; he was melded with his ship, the two of them one unit among a vague and yet crystal clear field of life and death. Somehow, he’d looped around a smaller Sith cruiser and was now on the Vorpal’s tail, lacing it with laser fire. Not for the first time, he wished the Vorpal had bigger guns. Although then it would be slower, and he didn’t want that. “C’mon, you sunova-”
Another fighter moved behind him to try to distract him, but he jinked, sending its shots wide, and then the Basilisk swooped in, clearing his aft. “Thanks, Mandalorian.”
“No problem, Republic.”
The steady stream of lasers on the Blue 6 Vorpal finally broke through its shields and stabbed into its engines, turning it into a small red and yellow fireball. He shot through the middle of it and spun, seeking his next target.
Nihilus collapsed with a desperate groan, and she stood tall over him as the Force rippled in reaction to both of them, gazing at him with pity and sadness. She walked a few paces closer, quietly. “We are much alike, you and I,” she said to him as he gasped and choked on the deck of his ship, mewling in agony. “We both suffered the loss of our Force bonds; we were both broken at Malachor in the same way; we both died without dying. But I cut my bonds and remained myself, a scar in the Force, a dead spot. You… you could not, and now you are a weeping wound in the Force, and everything that you were and are and consume is pulled into that vortex of death that began with the death of the Regent. But think, Yserys. Is it such a bad thing to die, to rest? Your younger self would not have wanted this slaughter that keeps you barely alive. Would it be so bad to be released from this pain?”
He crawled to his feet and ignited a lightsaber; Yserys’s orange lightsaber. If he could not kill her in the Force, he would kill her physically.
Her lightsaber blazed in her hand and she took a ready stance. She had to defeat him without the Force. To risk connecting again to her students was too dangerous for them.
“I will help you!” Visas cried. “He is too strong for you to defeat alone.”
It was true; she couldn’t sense Nihilus’s strength while she had clamped down on her connections, but the wave of Force power that picked her up and sent her flying backwards was strong enough for starters. Mandalore dropped to one knee to catch her and set her right side up again.
“Thanks,” she breathed.
“Go get him, kid.” She nodded and ran towards Nihilus as Mandalore turned to shoot a pair of guards trying to sneak up on them.
Visas was readying her lightsaber, preparing – to stab herself with it!? “Visas! What are you doing?”
“My life… for yours.”
Selyn grabbed her arm. “No! Not that way. I did not bring you so that you could kill yourself-”
“Look out!” Visas raised her other arm, and whatever Nihilus was doing in the Force blew by them both. “Then what use am I to you?”
“Can you… use your Force-bond with him to disrupt him, weaken him somehow?”
Visas was silent a moment, then lowered her lightsaber. “I can try.” She sat down cross-legged, and Selyn was left to face Nihilus alone.
He was taller than her, but he moved slowly, unused to physical combat after so long, after having relied on his terrifying Force powers to dominate others for so long. She still had to be alert: without the Force, she would have no early-warning system of danger, would not be able to mitigate any powers that affected her physically. She’d have to dance rings around him to take him down.
Time seemed to slow as she ran towards him. She might not have the Force, but she had her reflexes, and he had his tells – a flick of his fingers and she twisted sideways, avoided whatever he had tried to do to her. Their lightsabers clashed, sparks flying, and she was swinging past his guard when suddenly it was like she was trying to cut through water instead of air; the next thing she knew, she was blasted back, and and her body was on fire with pain.
She hit a broken console and could not move for a moment. The only way she had survived was because of Visas’s help. If she didn’t do something quickly, he would destroy his former apprentice for her betrayal, and then she would be done for as well. Gritting her teeth, she crawled to her feet and moved to attack again.
She wasn’t quick enough to dodge the next attack and she hit the same console. But she got up again. She had to. Even if her body gave out, since she couldn’t use the Force to sustain herself, she had to.
Nihilus stared at her through the black sockets of his mask as she came on yet again, dragging herself forward, hollow and empty and with determination blazing from her eyes. He flung his arm out towards her. She was engulfed in a wave of darkness and cold, suddenly blind to the world around her, hearing only her heartbeat and whispers in the distance.
Most of them sounded hateful or pleading or sad, but one of them sounded familiar, calm and wistful. “Your command echoes still, General.”
“Bao-Dur?”
“And I obey, as I did at Malachor V.” He couldn’t hear her, it seemed. He was far away, down on Telos, his voice channeled to her through the void – and the other void – despite her deafness in the Force. “I have destroyed planets for you, General. But now, this once, if we could save something in this galaxy… I need to do this, or I will die inside. Like I died at Malachor V.”
“You and me both,” she said softly to the darkness.
“I know you can hear me.” She started, inhaled abruptly. Did he mean now, or in general? “I have always known. It is why I followed you. You know where you must go. It calls to you still. And she must be stopped, there, now, or she will bring the screams of Malachor V to the galaxy – just as we carried the echo all this way. Now, Malachor V comes to us. And I wish to face it, this last time…”
She didn’t understand, but she felt touched. She hoped she had been meant to hear that, and that it was not just his innermost thoughts traveling to her.
She broke through the cloud of darkness and slashed Nihilus across the chest. This time, he fell without a sound. The ravenous pull fell still.
She held her posture a moment, longer, panting, and Visas rose quietly and came up behind her. “I must look upon him.”
Selyn waited for her. When Visas rose again, she asked: “What did you see?”
“A man. Nothing more.”
Mandalore waved them on. “Let’s get out of here and turn this thing into debris!”
They reconvened on Citadel Station, where she met up with her team in the Ithorian compound. They were tired but exuberant, relieved that Telos had survived. Except for Bao-Dur, who was smiling, but solemnly. She went to him. “Bao-Dur… did you speak to me in that battle?”
“…Yes. I tried. I couldn’t sense you; it was a shot in the dark.”
For her, literally. “You called me General, again.”
“Forgive me… Selyn.”
“Never mind. What did you mean? Why did you speak to me?”
He smiled, his eyes drifting away from hers in embarrassment. “It was a… sticky situation. And I didn’t even enter the droid factory.”
“Droid factory?”
“You’ll have to ask HK about it.”
“You want to go with me to Malachor V?”
The gentle smile dropped from his face, but his expression remained clear and relaxed. “I do. I have my own trials to face there. I have to face what I created. It might not have scarred me like it did you, but…”
“I understand,” she said. “I was planning to take everyone, certainly. I don’t want to leave them behind now. You’re all important to me. But, Bao-Dur…”
“What is it?”
“Whatever you have to do… Do it because you have to, not because of me.”
He nodded. “I understand.” A ghost of a smile drifted across his face again. “Is that your order, to not treat your will as an order?”
She smiled back. “No. You are free to decide for yourself.” Her own smile faded. “I mean that. I would hope that throughout your life, you would stay on the path of the Light. But no one, Jedi or Sith, can force you to do or be anything.”
“And if I choose to follow your will, because I respect you?”
“Then I won’t stop you, and I won’t abuse such trust in me. I hope.”
He offered her a hand to shake. “Thank you, Master.”
“You’re welcome. Just… let me face Kreia alone. I think that’s something I have to do.”
“I’ll watch your back. Speaking of which, Mandalore’s been staring out the window for a few minutes now. You should go check on him.”
She smiled. Bao-Dur was healing, too. “I will.”
As she left Bao-Dur and approached Mandalore, he spoke, unprompted. “Do you know what she told me, in those last days on the Outer Rim?”
“Revan?”
“Yes. She told me that the Mandalorian Wars were our doom, and that we had been deceived. That it had never been our decision to wage war on the Republic. Revan said the Mandalorians didn’t invade Republic space ten years ago because it was our choice. We were tricked… our entire people sacrificed as pawns… and never knew it. She said there was a war coming. That it was waiting out in the Unknown Regions, in the dark, waiting for us to destroy each other.”
Selyn stared. “A war? This war?”
He shook his head, still staring at the distant stars.“No, not this one – another one. More terrible. Against an evil we couldn’t begin to comprehend… a war of belief, that had been fought for thousands of years. Revan went off to fight it.”
So that was where she had gone. “And left you here.”
“Revan was one of the greatest military leaders in the galaxy, in history. She knew what she was doing.” Finally, he turned to look at her, and the silver helmet nodded gravely. Mandalore’s voice was hard as stone. “And I always follow orders.” His gaze shifted past her shoulder. “Well, well, look what the kath hound dragged in.”
Admiral Carth Onasi laughed as he approached them. “Canderous. I’d recognize that antagonistic growl anywhere. So you’ve been tagging along with General Tekeri?”
Mandalore shrugged. “Might as well. She knows where the good fights are at.”
“Yes, the Republic is in your debt for destroying the Ravager.” Carth made a resigned face. “It’s incredibly strange to be saying that to a Mandalorian. Even you.”
“It’s about time we heard it, though. What’s with that poncy uniform? Revan didn’t leave you anything good to wear? How’s the kid?”
“Hey, I just wear the uniforms, I don’t design ’em. Dustil’s all right. We… we’re talking.”
“Good, good. I bet you’re dying to talk to Tekeri, so I’ll leave you to it.” Mandalore clapped her on the shoulder, shook Carth’s hand, and walked away.
Carth shook his head as he moved to take Mandalore’s place in staring out the window, though he looked towards the planet, not the stars. “He never changes. Hope he never does. We’re lucky to have him leading the Mandalorians.” He trailed off.
“Admiral?”
A wistful smile tugged at his bearded face. “It’s a little beat up, but it’s still home. I wasn’t able to be here to protect it when the Sith attacked the first time. This time, you gave me a second chance. I owe you.”
“My pleasure.”
He finally turned to her. “Admiral Carth Onasi of the Republic Fleet. I’m sorry we’ve never had the opportunity to meet before, but I know of your history, and I know of you a little through Revan. If you have a minute, I have some questions for you.”
“Yes, certainly. I’ve gathered that she was close to you, when she found her redemption. If there’s any way I can help, I’d be glad to.”
His expression eased. “Thank you. So, I know you were exiled ten years ago, I know you wandered beyond the Outer Rim… Did you… find any trace of her?”
“No, I’m afraid not. I knew almost nothing of what was happening in the galaxy while I was exiled… In fact, I avoided it. I’m sorry.”
He nodded like he’d expected that, his shoulders rolling back to hide his disappointment. “It’s… all right. It was a long shot, really. She’s only one person in a big galaxy, although she leaves a long wake behind her.”
“When did she leave?”
“Almost four years ago… She said that there were places where she had to walk where I could not go – places that she could not bring those she loved. …It doesn’t get any easier.”
“I’m sorry.”
He looked back out through the viewport, another sad smile on his face. “I would have done anything she asked. And when she told me to stay here, to keep the Republic strong, that was the hardest thing of all. She said that she believed something had been behind the Mandalorian Wars. That it hadn’t been the Mandalorians’ choice to attack the Republic. Whatever it was, I think she went off to find it… to fight it. Maybe you know our history together… We saved the Republic. But it was like the war didn’t end for her. She would keep remembering things that she had done, and it kept driving her. And she kept using it as a wall between us. And I think she finally remember something terrible she had done during the Wars. And she went to put an end to it. She left without warning… And here you return, with her ship, without her.”
“The Ebon Hawk? Yes, I know. I wondered where she was, too.” With the navicomputer voice-locked…
“If, in your wanderings, you find any trace of her…”
“Do you want me to tell you where she is?”
“No.” He took a deep breath. “Only tell her: Carth Onasi is waiting for her.”
Selyn’s heart went out to him. She’d pieced together his history of loss from what Mandalore, HK, and T3 had told her. And here, he would wait – forever if necessary – for Revan. He would do as she had asked of him. But his yearning longing was a controlled tug at her senses.
She wondered if Atton would feel the same for her, if she left again.
Impulsively, she hugged the Admiral. He started at the unexpected contact.
“I haven’t seen her since the Mandalorian Wars. But what I knew of her before… If she loves you, then she loves you with all her passion, and being away from you hurts her as much as it hurts you.”
“I know,” he said softly.
“I will tell her,” she said. “She will be glad to hear it, even if it makes her sad.” She let go of him. “Stay strong, Admiral Onasi.”
“I will,” he said, and smiled.
Malachor V lay ahead, green lightning erupting through its atmosphere and visible from space, a perpetual aurora of doom and gloom clinging to it. The Ebon Hawk slowly cruised closer; Selyn was trying to find where Kreia was, and Atton was trying to find a place to land nearby. “Easy, babe. It’s just weird gravitational forces and stuff.”
“Are you talking to the ship?” Mical asked incredulously.
“Don’t tell me you’ve never done it,” Atton tossed back, taking a tighter grip on the controls. “Selyn, you got a location yet? Because I don’t know how much longer I can hold her.” Come on, baby. Fly for me.
“By that green glow to the northeast,” Selyn said, still moving as if in a trance. She didn’t want to be here, he could tell. What did she hear in the Force? What did she feel? He couldn’t do anything about it, anyway, except help her get it over with faster.
“All right, buckle in and hold on to something. It’s going to be rough.”
Rough turned out to be an understatement as the ship dove closer to the planet. Gravity was weird here, like the whole planet was a tractor beam emitter, and then they hit the roiling atmosphere and everything went to hell.
When he regained consciousness, the view out the window was stationary, so that was a good thing. Probably. The bad news was it looked like they were wedged in a canyon above a long drop. The only way out was going to be through the upper hull access hatch.
His neck was sore; he’d probably gotten whiplash bad. Would the Force help heal it, or at least numb the ache until they were done here? How was everyone else?
He unbuckled and stood carefully. The engines were already off, shorted out in the crash, so he didn’t have to worry about that. Selyn was unconscious in the co-pilot’s seat, but Mical was already bending over her, lifting her to carry her to the medbay. Fine. Mical was physically stronger than him, anyway.
Mira was stirring in the common area as they came through. “What kind of landing do you call that?”
“I call that ‘hooray, we didn’t explode in a fiery conflagration’,” Atton replied. “What more do you- oh, no.”
Bao-Dur hadn’t fully gotten his harness on before they were caught in the stormy skies, and now he lay still in one corner of the lounge, blood on the wall and the floor beneath him. He wasn’t breathing; Atton couldn’t feel any trace of his mind or spirit or Force.
Atton took a deep breath, trying not to get too emotional, trying to hide how shaken he was; he still had work to do. Bao-Dur had been a good guy, even a friend. They’d gotten along pretty well. Above him, his Remote beeped anxiously. “I’m sorry, Remote. He’s gone.”
If he’d waited even another five seconds before beginning their descent, he wouldn’t be dead. But he hadn’t heard anyone protest over the intercom, so he’d thought they were ready…
Mira wiped a sleeve over her eyes and sniffed. “Right. We got a job to do. Selyn’s not up yet, but the rest of us are. We have to find Kreia before she does.”
“Kreia has used her since the beginning,” Visas said. “I concur. She must not be allowed to have this confrontation she’s planned.”
“I’m the best scout, so I volunteer to go on ahead. You guys wait a bit before following me. Mandalore, you coming?”
“I’m coming,” said the Mandalorian grimly. “This world is taboo to my people, but I’m not letting you kids waltz into a Sith stronghold alone. Although I might leave the fighting of the old woman to you.”
“Sounds like a plan,” Atton said. “Mira, let us know when you want us to follow.”
As she left, he heard her grumbling: “Why can’t we ever go to Alderaan or Ithor or someplace without metal and jagged rocks and packs of bloodthirsty beasts?”
The Sith Academy thing wasn’t so hard to find, but he had to say it was a miracle it was as intact as it was, considering the state of the rest of the planet. That is, the floors were still level. It seemed deserted, too – other than a token few guards at the front gate and at the doors to the lower level, they didn’t have to fight their way in, wandering the grim grey halls unchecked. And really, wandering – this place was huge. And depressing. He wasn’t sure if it was the decor or the Dark Side. Both, probably.
He wasn’t sure if that was suspicious or not. Hadn’t they been attacked by dozens, even hundreds of Sith over the last few months? Shouldn’t there have been hundreds more? Or had they all gone out into the galaxy to cause trouble? Whatever the case, it wasn’t because Selyn had been through before them. As far as he knew, she was still sleeping in the medbay.
He peeked through the door to the final lair and saw Kreia, dressed in black like a proper Sith, kneeling on the floor. He couldn’t feel any trace of Selyn yet, and there should have been, if she’d been there already. So Kreia was definitely still waiting for her.
Killing Kreia might kill Selyn. But if they didn’t do anything, Kreia would kill Selyn all by herself, and that he – they – couldn’t allow. “Yep, she’s still there, waiting creepily.”
Mira flexed her left arm. “I say we fire a rocket at her right now, and blow her screaming, burning body into the heart of this planet.”
He shook his head. They didn’t know Kreia like he did, and he had the uneasy feeling he himself barely knew Kreia. But he knew about attacking Jedi. “It wouldn’t work – if there were other distractions, maybe, if she wasn’t telepathic, maybe. If you want to kill her like that, you need something else to occupy her attention, otherwise you might just wound her. And then we’d all be in trouble.”
“You are wrong,” Mical said confidently. “Manipulation is Kreia’s strength, not battle. We have a chance; we just have to figure out how to make use of it.”
He glared at the brat, but he had to believe, or else this whole exercise was useless.
Using the pillars for cover – not that it mattered, Kreia was blind and saw through the Force anyway – they encircled her, then stepped out, one from each of the four directions.
“We’ve come a long way, Kreia… don’t bother getting up,” Mira said, pointing her rocket launcher at Kreia. Probably she had the best shot, with that thing. They’d all have to act as her distraction.
Kreia didn’t sound the slightest bit surprised. “Ah, the huntress. To come alone… you are braver than I thought.” Wanting Mira to think she had fallen for it?
“She is not alone,” Mical said, stepping forward and lighting his lightsaber. “We stand with her.”
Visas joined them. “And with her, stand all the Jedi.”
Well, they’d taken all the good one-liners. “And now I come in, saying something suitably heroic.”
Kreia tilted her head imperially. “Children with lightsabers… but not Jedi, I think. Come close, let me look upon you and see what her teaching has forged. An assassin, a wasted pawn… a blinded slave… and a fool.” Oh good, he still got his old nickname. “Which of you wishes to try yourselves against me? As you can see, I am unarmed.”
She pointed at Mical. “You, perhaps? You are a wasted pawn of the Republic, young one. You could have been so much more, even with your wide-eyed innocence, your naive love for others. Think. Think, before you throw away your life for her. Think of everything you will lose by dying. Your lusts unfulfilled. A dance, unfinished. A love, unrequited. Think before you give it up so quickly.” Mical swallowed hard and looked unhappy, but he looked determined, too. A proper hero, he was.
Kreia turned to Visas. “And you, blind one, you have hungered to strike me down ever since you saw the bond the exile and I share. Can you feel the Force running through me, even past the veil, past your bloodied eyes? You know you cannot win.”
Visas said quietly: “The Force runs strong within you, Traya, but in the howling of a storm, it is difficult to hear the whisper of a blade.” Traya? Who was Traya? Was that Kreia’s Sith name? It was appropriate, and he hated that it was appropriate. Sith shouldn’t try to be clever.
Kreia shook her head, her voice a venomous hiss. “You have forever been the blind one. You were given a gift few are ever given, and yet you let your gift of sight warp you, twist- You think your existence under your Lord was torture, Miraluka? I will make you see. And you, assassin… You were stronger than I thought – to spare the beast that wished to kill you. I felt it, faintly, even here on Malachor. Come, huntress. You have tracked me so far. Cast away your past for this moment.” She turned to him. “And now… at last, the fool.”
“Yes, tell me what you really think,” he said, affecting boredom. “You’ve only been doing it since we met.”
He’d thought her face couldn’t get more contemptuous. He thought wrong. “You only delay the inevitable. You have been difficult to sense before… but not now. You can cloak your mind only for so long. It is only a matter of coaxing the right thought to the surface. Your desire to protect the Jedi… and the hope that she truly cares about you… She will fall before me, you know. And when I am done with her, she will view you with all the contempt I do for a murderer such as you.”
“Are you done with your masterclass yet?” Mira demanded, and raised her missile launcher. Mical took a deep breath, steadying himself in the Force, and then yelled as he charged; Visas moving with him. Atton closed with the others, trying to figure out how they were going to coordinate this effectively.
It all happened so fast. One moment, they were all attacking, the next moment, Mical’s yell was cut off by an invisible choking grip around his throat, lifting him a metre into the air; Visas was struck by lightning, throwing her down, and Mira’s missile was pushed back towards her, detonating and knocking her out.
He was out of there. He couldn’t take on Kreia single-handed. Nope.
He crouched in the shadows of the hall outside, too close to Kreia yet too far to help the others, and watched as more Sith than they’d seen so far entered and removed his companions, unconscious and bound. So they weren’t going to kill them. Would they try to convert them? He had to follow, to rescue them, and then they’d meet up with Selyn when she got here and try to be… actually useful, because their pre-emptive strike had been the most useless thing he’d seen since the idiot assassin back on Telos the first time.
He crept through the long corridors in the wake of the guards, then came to a sudden halt when a grey-skinned scarred figure stepped out in front of him, red lightsaber glowing. Frak.
“And I get the fool,” Sion rumbled disdainfully.
He tried to smirk, but it came out more of a sarcastic snarl. “Funny – that’s just what I was thinking.”
Steady. Hold on to the Force. He couldn’t beat this guy with strength alone. But… he could probably beat him. And that would be one guy less for Selyn to worry about.
“You think to protect her,” Sion said. “But all that will happen is she will come and protect you. You all are a weakness to her, parasites that sap her true strength, and you in particular most of all, because she loves you.” He punctuated his words with vicious swings of his lightsaber, and Atton jumped back rather than block.
“Yeah, you know what? From a certain point of view, you may be right, but you’re also as wrong as all the other Sith. Because she has the strength to do that. And we don’t just take her strength, we give it, too. You know how hard it is to really, really love someone?” He counter-attacked, finally, the finesse of his Echani training showing up just when he needed it most, and he actually managed to drive Sion back a few paces.
“I only know how painful it is. Because I love her, too.”
“You sick freak.” All right, he wasn’t going to defeat the Sith Lord by calling him names. “But you don’t understand. I might not be on her level, but I’m sure as hell not backing down from this fight. Because even if you’re right, and all that’s going to happen is she has to save the dude in distress, maybe you’re wrong, and this is what I can offer her. She’d do no less for me.” He kicked Sion in the knee, and felt it crack, saw Sion drop to his knees, but was forced back by a wild side-swing.
Sion stood, his crumpled knee mending itself before his eyes, and only then did Atton begin to be truly afraid.
Fear is of the Dark Side. The old Jedi Council was afraid, and that’s why they’re dead. I have to see this through… just like all those dumbass superhero Jedi I always admired and despised.
He’d become the thing he’d once hated. And even though he was staring his own death in the eyes, that didn’t seem like such a bad thing from here.
“In my own way, I seek to protect her, too,” Sion said. “You know what Kreia will do to her once she arrives. She will break her, remake her into her intended image, and the one that we know will be no more.”
“And when I am done with her, she will view you with all the contempt I do for a murderer such as you.” Kreia’s remembered words dropped a lump of ice into his gut. She won’t be Selyn if she viewed anyone with contempt…
“You… you don’t actually know her,” he said, haltingly. There was a weight on his mind, and he was all out of quips…
“I would rather she be dead than changed, and so I will kill her first, before she can be corrupted and destroyed.” Wouldn’t you rather see her dead than broken by Kreia’s tender mercies?
“No,” Atton said, but it was a struggle to say it, and he didn’t know if he believed himself. Wouldn’t she give her life to save her soul?
Sion’s lightsaber impaled his chest, his left lung, and he choked and fell to the cold grey floor, coughing blood.
She’d run all the way from the Ebon Hawk, through the jagged black-and-green landscape, following the trail of her friends and Kreia’s sense, but still she hadn’t caught up to them. She’d never been on the ground here, and it was not like what she had expected, but there were spectres enough of the past littering the ground even without the constant howl in the back of her mind. But running had let her release some of the emotion from finding Bao-Dur dead, after all they’d planned together, and she felt a little more in command when the surprisingly graceful wall of the Sith Academy rose before her. She met Mandalore there. “Are the others inside already?”
“Seems like. I’m just keeping our route back to the ship safe. I haven’t heard anything from them in about half an hour.”
Her forehead wrinkled. “I hope they’re all right. Can I ask you to keep watching the path? I’m going in.”
“That was my plan anyway. Every few minutes one of those beasts shows up and I shoot it. Good luck.”
“Thank you.”
She stepped forward onto the bridge across the chasm to the Academy and stopped short. She sensed Sith ahead of her, and as she watched, a dozen of them uncloaked from their stealth generators… and knelt in obeisance to her, like to a returning queen. They would not harm her yet.
She walked down the line of black-clad and masked assassins and into the Academy.
A Sith in black master’s robes and a double-hilted lightsaber approached her. “Hail, Lady. The mistress offers you a choice. Either you may try to save your ‘friends’…” He gestured to her right. “Or you may take your revenge all the faster.” He gestured to the left. “Either way, prepare yourself.”
“Thank you,” Selyn said. “But it’s you who should prepare yourself, if you try to challenge me.” She turned to go right, then whirled as the Sith attacked her.
She fought her way through to the prison and found three of the cells occupied by friends. “Mical! Visas! Mira! …Where’s Atton, and the droids?” Only T3 had been still on the ship, tootling indignantly about being left behind even while he busily repaired what he could.
“I don’t know,” Mical said; he was the most alert of those there, although he had bruises on his throat. But Mira was unconscious, covered in burns, and Visas was moving slowly, as if moving pained her. He went to Mira and picked her up, carrying her out of her cell. “We… we tried to challenge Kreia in your stead, to save you from whatever she has planned for you. It… went poorly. Atton was with us; I’m not sure where he went or how he got away.” Selyn touched Mira’s forehead, trying to heal her with the Force; it seemed to work a little, because Mira sighed and her expression eased.
“We don’t know where the droids are,” Visas said. “We didn’t see them leave the ship.”
“He’s in pain,” Selyn said, closing her eyes and reaching for him. “He’s in trouble. Mandalore is still watching the exit, can you make it there? I think I cleared most of the Sith from the entrance to the Academy… although there could be reinforcements.”
“We’ll be fine,” Visas said, reaching out and plucking their lightsabers from a nearby locker with the Force. “You trained us. We might not be a match for Kreia, but together we are strong.”
“Be careful,” Selyn said. “Try not to fight yet. When you get out, try to get back to the ship.”
“I-I’m sorry we couldn’t be more help,” Mical stammered, head hanging.
She put a hand on his arm. “You did your best, and I’m proud of you. Meditate when you get to the ship, and think of me. I’ll hear you.”
He straightened. “Understood.”
She kept her mind on them as they left, alert to see if she had to come to their aid, but it did not seem that they were attacked. And she also needed to find Atton, quickly. His sense was very weak in the Force. He was close…
She heard a rasping breath as she entered a wide room with pillars, and sprinted to his side. “Atton!” She rolled him over and pulled him into her arms, resting his head on her shoulder. His dark hair was soft against her cheek. He didn’t look good; brutally stabbed in the chest, his limbs and body crosshatched in charred lines. Even his face had been slashed. Sion had tortured him, and she felt her heart constrict at the result, pain he unconsciously transmitted. At least he still had all his limbs.
He coughed, his sky-grey eyes cracking open, and a trickle of blood ran from his mouth. No, no, no, mouth-bleeding is bad. She could feel him clinging onto the Force, trying desperately to stop the wounds, to keep breathing, to stay alive, and she added her strength to his. It wasn’t going to be enough… “H-hey. You’re… alive. Did… I… save you yet? Your eyes…” Her eyes were horror-stricken, she knew. But he smiled fondly, hazily at her. “Th-that bad, huh? Always was ugly… now the outside matches.”
“No, no, don’t tease me now-”
He snorted a laugh. “Was waiting for this, but… ‘s not fair… let you down… was s’posed to save you.”
“You did, Atton. We all saved each other, but you saved me the most.”
He managed a weary smile. “Tired of living anyway… too many deaths… never told you… lied to you…” He turned his face away from her, frowning a little, and tears began to slip down her face. If he died, would she fall? No. If she truly loved him, she would not, not even here in her deepest nightmare. All of her fears about it flashed before her mind anyway, then vanished again as he began to speak again. “I don’t want you to see me like this. I don’t want to die in front of you. Can’t bear it. Loved you from the moment I first saw you, thought you were a dream… tried to play it off as a joke… wasn’t funny…” He snorted weakly anyway, and her heart thumped at his confession, then his face tightened in pain. “Hurts when I laugh. Hurts… You… saved me… Joke’s on me… Hurts to talk… Hurts to breathe…”
“No! Atton! Atton!!” He was slipping away, his sense fading, his eyes already closed with his pain still etched on his face. She tightened her arms around him, pulling on all the Force she could find, all the life and love she had in her, and flung it around him, filling him with it.
His eyes popped open and he breathed.
“Atton!” She was tired now, but he was alive.
“Whoa- how- why- look out behind you!”
No time to look, no time to think, she felt the danger too, and she’d jumped forward on pure adrenaline with Atton still clutched in her arms. Sion had lunged at her from behind a pillar. She jumped again, turning to face him and putting Atton down so he could stand on his own two feet.
“Why didn’t you-”
She drew her lightsaber, and he followed suit, although he was still a bit shaky. “You don’t think I’m going to let you die when that’s only the second time you said you loved me?”
“Didn’t think you’d have a choice! Where are the others, did you get them? I was going to, but I got side-tracked with Ugly over here.”
“They’re fine. Go to them!”
“But you’re weak now, from helping me, that was their plan-”
She paused long enough to give him a bright, hopeful smile. “I’m fine. I can do this. Go take care of them.”
“…Fine. I love you.”
“I love you too.”
Sion waited grimly as Atton fled the room, the door closing behind him. “He will not get far. There are others here. All you have done is drain your strength so he can die again, and you will die with him.”
“I believe in him,” she said quietly. Yes, she was tired. No, it didn’t matter. “Your concern is no longer with him, Sion. And you wouldn’t understand, I think.”
“You should not have come to Malachor,” Sion growled. “She will break you, your mind, your body… you will be lost. Return to the surface, let the planet claim you, as it claimed the other Jedi… there is no reason for you to suffer at her hands.”
“I would not have expected mercy from you, Sion.” Especially after what he did to Atton.
His glare grew sharper. “It is not mercy. What awaits you will destroy you. She will break you, as she did me, and you will no longer know yourself.”
“I must see her, Sion. I am not afraid.” It wasn’t bravado. Kreia could be cruel to her, could torture her mind or her body, could manipulate her as she had been doing all along – but Selyn knew her, and loved her. Kreia could not truly betray her, because all she did was for a purpose, and that purpose was that she loved Selyn. And she herself was stronger now. She would not be turned into a second Kreia, or a mockery of herself.
Kreia had the strongest will of anyone she’d ever known, but she was only as human as Selyn was.
“I cannot let you. If you pass, you will not return as you are now. Return to Malachor – or go through me. There is no middle ground.”
She raised her lightsaber. “Then it will be as you wish. I don’t wish to fight you, but I must pass.”
Now he smiled, a sinister split in that wounded face. “I am ready for you, Exile. I have waited years to see the last of the Jedi fall before me, to join the rest that lie buried in this planet’s core. The end of the Jedi is at hand.”