The Acolyte trembled nervously as he approached the Sanctuary. Beyond its obsidian doors was the inner sanctum of Nihil's most holy of leaders, Sacred Saint Akar Xiylehn. The Holy One had the final say in every single aspect of Nihil society; he presided over their unified religion, shaped their economy, oversaw the government, and commanded the unparalleled might of their army. The Sacred Saint was deity to the Nihil, considered by billions to be the most powerful individual in the universe.
Ashamed of his inadequacy, the Acolyte was unsure why he had been chosen to bring the news to the Holy One, for surely there was someone of greater status more worthy to come so close to their blessed leader. But he had never once questioned his orders, and to do less than his absolute best was to invite quick execution. The commands of one's superior were never to be second-guessed.
He stood before the imposing black gates of the Sanctuary, facing the Sacred Saint's guard of honor, a contingent of no less than fifty Nihil commandos in full ceremonial armor.. The Acolyte fingered his simple mask unconsciously as he held out a holocron containing the information he was to pass to the Holy One as verification to the guards. Wordlessly, the guards examined the evidences presented and allowed him through.
The Acolyte approached the door and laid his hands on the smooth bone knobs, pushing open the black gate.
The Sanctuary was a monument to ancient Nihil history, preserved through thousands and thousands of years in the exquisite beauty of the stone architecture. To a learned eye, the sharp sweep of the giant chamber's walls and jutting peaks of parabolic obelisks set in archaic patterns on the vast floor spoke of the Nihil's tumultuous genesis and glorious golden age. They were also meant to remind all visitors of the Nihil's eternal enemy and its never-ending will to extinguish their freedom and way of life.
Sacred Saint Akar knelt in the center of the chamber where an overlap between two rings of the towering spires formed a symbolic sculpture representing the mighty power of the Nihil people channeled to him as their supreme leader. He was aware of the Acolyte before even he had laid his hands on the doors. Unlike the Acolyte, who was dressed in a drab brown tunic and mask of the same color as befitted his lowly status, he wore a magnificent robe of blue and black and a polished white mask with intricate patterns carved on its bone-like surface.
"Approach, faithful one," he bade the Acolyte, speaking in the ancestral language of the Nihil.
Haltingly, the Acolyte came forward and stood outside the ring of spires, not daring to enter. He held the holocron in his hands, presenting it to the Holy One. "There is news from the Inquisitors in the Void sectors. A small assemblage of the Inquisition's fleet was destroyed by a single foreign ship. It was said to harness powers equal to those of the Rayaj, eradicating an hundred and twenty-six ships of the Inquisition."
A diagram of the unidentified ship was displayed by the holocron.
"The Rayaj are unshakably loyal to me and our divine cause, for to defect is to die. This was the work of a heathen spawned from within the Field, an abomination born of the unholy Force who has discovered the power of the Rayaj. He will be found and sacrificed, as must all who follow the Force," Akar pronounced.
The Acolyte went on, reporting the rest of his message. "Yes, my lord. Also, most encouragingly, the Grand Fleet of Unification reports that it is ready for your word to begin the incursion through the Field, full forces have been gathered and await the beginning of the campaign."
Beneath his mask, a smile came to the face of Akar Xiylehn. Even knowing all along that one could never return from the Sanctuary of the Sacred Saint the Acolyte had performed his duties admirably.
Stepping out of the two rings, Akar placed his hand on the Acolyte's shoulder and inhaled deeply. The Acolyte had no chance even to scream as his body was dissolved into dust and sucked into the empty black maw in the Sacred Saint's mask. The brown robes and simple mask fell to the floor, the Acolyte within erased from existence.
Akar felt not so much as a twinge of regret or remorse at having so thoughtlessly wiped a life away. It was expected - demanded - of all Acolytes that they be willing to be sacrificed, as had been laid down through the ages by their revered traditions.
He held out a hand and the holocron floated from the folds of the empty robe where it had fallen. He plucked it out of the air, studying its carved surface. It contained the combined knowledge of thousands of Nihil soldiers who had witnessed the foreign ship wreak their own destruction, Akar would study it hard and well so as to understand this enigmatic aggressor. It would not do to have such complications on the eve of the Nihil's new Crusade, when they would finally extinguish the Force and bring peace, peace as the galaxy had not ever known.
The divine cause of the Nihil could not be stopped--would not be stopped. They had spent close to the last two hundred years ensuring that this time, nothing would remain in their wake.
Revan's plan was unbelievable; ignite the Force in a race dead to the Force for millenia.
"What even makes you think such a thing can be done?" Kuryama asked, sheer astonishment plain in her voice, the shock too much to hide.
Revan's smiled widened. "You yourself are proof that it is possible."
Kuryama knew exactly what Revan was talking about –the terrible agony of the Force ripping from her, the searing pain that went beyond anything a mere physical shell could hold.
And then . . . the emptiness. An aching void always inside her that begged to be filled, willing to devour anything if only it would make the pain stop.
She stepped back, needing to give herself distance from the unwelcome memories. She barely noticed Visas stepping in front of her, as if she could shield Kurymama from Revan's words and the memories they provoked.
"Master, are you alright?" she asked, her sightless eyes turned towards Revan.
Kuryama forced herself to get it together. She couldn't fall apart. She didn't have time for the luxury of emotions now. "Yes,Visas, I am fine. Thank you."
Her eyes still on Revan, Kuryama put away her lightsabre. "So I was reunited with the Force, but the means remains a mystery. We could search and study for the next thousand years and not ever discover how it was possible with me."
"A thousand years of study are not necessary, Kuryama," Revan responded, the trace of smugness in his voice beginning to grate on her. "The Miraluka standing behind you is the key. I cannot explain why she is so important, because I do not know myself. I only know that in some shape or form, she is the key to resurrecting the Force. That is all I know and all there is to it."
Atton spoke up. "Revan, that was the most bewildering story I've ever heard. And I don't think I understood a word of it. If that's your plan, how do you plan to go about your plan? And more importantly, where in this whole whacked-up scheme do we fit in? 'Cause I'm not seeing it."
"You are going to help destroy the Null field so the rest of the Sith and Jedi will be able to follow us here, to where they must be," Revan answered simply, ignoring Atton's dripping sarcasm.
"Wow, you make that sound so easy. So how do we destroy something that doesn't even really exist?"
"If you would care to keep your tongue in check I will explain."
Ignoring Atton's muttered, "That'd be nice", Revan continued.
"The Null field is not perfect, it never has been. As can be expected of anything, it has its defects, and over time those defects have grown. As time wore on, the Null field began to allow tiny slivers of Force energy through instead of immediately snuffing it out. Of course, it took hundreds of years - possibly more than a millennia, and by that time the Nihil were already quite a powerful society. So they created the Relay worlds; planets that orbit no star but instead travel the entire circumference of the galaxy, skimming the surface of the Null field. The Relay worlds capture and absorb those small traces of the Force that manage to trickle through the field, counteracting the forces of entropy, in order that it might remain as dead as it was at the very beginning."
Kuryama felt something hollow twist in the pit of her stomach as she began to grasp Revan's plan.
"I have been to some of these planets, and they are within a few hundred years of bursting from the amount of Force energy they have collected over the millenia. Should such a thing happen, then that concentration of the Force would rush back into the Null field and overcome its deadening effect; it would become just another part of the galaxy."
"If I understand you correctly," Visasa said slowly. "Then what you suggest--"
Revan flashed a charming smile that was wasted on Visas. "We need only destroy one. The imbalance would trigger a cascade effect across the rest of the Relay network."
"Just how the kek do you destroy a planet?" Mira and Atton, the two non-Jedi, yelled in perfect - but completely unintended - harmony.
Another frightening smile played over Revan's face. "You won't have to. You will protect the man who will."
"Great, who's that?" Atton wearily asked.
"A former Jedi. One with whom I believe General Nari is familiar."
Kuryama heard the heavy note of implication in Revan's voice, sensed a misdirection. She whirled around to face the doorway. There stood a broad-shouldered man in the black robes of a Sith, his head shaved and eyes darker than his dark skin.
She knew this man, but it could not possibly be him, he had died years ago at Malachor V with all the rest of those Jedi, save her. But there he was, standing in plain sight, in complete contradiction to what she knew to be true.
"Dalez?" she whispered, almost to herself. "You're alive?"
He couldn't possibly be real. She'd seen him go down, he'd been the first to fall under the Mandalorian guns. His bleeding body had stained the gray mud red as he sank in the muck, his body never recovered.
Kuryama forced herself to deal with this as a General.
"You died at Malachor V," she said flatly, as if she were reading statistics. "How is it that you stand here now?"
"The Jedi Orann Dalez died. But he was reborn Darth Oden. I am the Lord of Destruction." The deep voice substantiated the illusion. It was him.
Kuryama kept poking. "And your allegiance now lies with the Sith?" she asked.
She was beyond bitterness. The galaxy had gone to ruin, and with it had dragged down everyone she'd ever known. Either they turned or they died.
"My allegiance is to seeing order spring finally from the ashes of this ruined galaxy," Dalez informed her impassively. "But I will not suffer an enemy to end all life, to end the Force itself. I will fight alongside you against the Nihil as I once did against the Mandalorians."
"If this matter is settled," Revan interrupted, "we have planning to do."
Rigel's first shots went well wide of the target, smattering the ground and sending sharp stone chips flying everywhere. His target, a commander-looking figure with a more elaborate mask than his counterparts, dodged out of his line of fire. As Rigel tracked him with his blaster he managed to strike hits on several of the other soldiers. His illegally modified blaster's shots cracked through their white armor and hit flesh. Blood splattered, bodies fell dead to the flat ground.
Wailing howls of rage sounded from the enemy soldiers, causing Rigel to think twice about congratulating himself.
He let loose with another volley, but this time they were prepared for it. Wielding their black energy blades as efficiently as any Jedi or Sith would a lightsabre, they deftly deflected his blaster bolts straight back at him. Instead of humming as lightsabres did, the alien weapons hissed and crackled as they were swung, blocking his shots at every turn.
Rigel ducked behind an engine housing to avoid being hit by his own blaster fire and rapidly rethought his strategy. Trouble was, he had no strategy. He did however, have a grenade.
With a prayer that the enemies below would be as unprepared for a plasma grenade as they had been at first against his blaster, Rigel chucked the explosive into the middle of the group and silently counted down from three. Right on cue, the grenade detonated in a searing orange explosion.
White-armored soldiers flew in every direction from the blast radius, some charred corpses, some still very much alive. Rigel shot at them as they landed on the stone ground, picking off a few who were slow to bring their energy swords to bear.
There were still plenty of enemies left, and he didn't have another grenade, so he started shooting again.
It was hopeless, and Rigel knew it. They all seemed to be as good as Jedi and he was just one man with a blaster and a bottle of booze he hadn't finished yet. Even if he'd been a Jedi he couldn't possibly have stopped them all. He was going to die on a creepy planet that didn't orbit a star, out beyond the galaxy itself, killed by an enemy no one had ever seen before.
As cool a death as that sounded like, Rigel didn't want it. Too scary.
Besides, if he had to die, he figured Lara should at least be there with him.
While thinking his dismal thoughts, Rigel heard a mechanical whirring noise and saw a hidden hatch open up a few feet away from him. A blaster cannon rose from the compartment and targeted the advancing white-armored soldiers. He heard an electronic whine and immediately ducked back behind the engine housing and covered his ears.
Sizzling green bolts erupted from the blaster cannon, impacting the ground in and around the enemies with the force of mortars. It took only a few shots to eradicate the enemy soldiers. The cannon then turned its attention to the alien dropship. Unable to stand up to the cannon's concentrated fire, the dropship was gutted and burst into flames within seconds.
Rigel stared in disbelief at the burnt bodies and wreckage of the dropship for a moment before coming to an obvious conclusion.
Quickly, he climbed back through the small droid access hatch and wriggled his way into the ship. He found Lara right where he thought he would, leaning over the weapons panel on her console. She flipped a switch and turned to face Rigel as he heard the blaster cannon retract into its hidden compartment overhead, a very smug smile on her face.
"You're welcome," she remarked.
"Thanks, but I had everything under control," Rigel retorted.
Lara's self-satisfied smirk grew wider. "Yeah. About as under control as that time on Naboo when I had to rescue you from those drug dealers who imprisoned you in that submerged cage with a pair of prostitutes."
Rigel stiffened. "Hey! Come on, that was different! They were so stoned I might have gotten somewhere! They did have the codes, you know!" he protested.
"Never mind. How do things look back there?" Lara enquired.
"Not good. You were right, the buffer conduit is completely fried. We're going to have to jury-rig something if we want to get this bird off the ground again. Thanks for the assistance, by the way."
"No problem."
"Are you okay?"
"Yeah, I'm fine. Just got knocked on the head a little too hard. Any chance we'll have more company any time soon?"
"I honestly don't know. They never should have fallen for the smoke screen, so I wasn't surprised when someone showed up to inspect our crash. Then they made a couple of naive mistakes against my blaster and a grenade. They recovered from them fast as heck, but I got the distinct impression that we're about as alien to them as they are to us. It might give us an advantage or at least some time to make repairs."
"Can we make repairs?"
"No. But that doesn't mean anything, now does it? We'll get by, I promise you. Whitecap's just as good broken as she is fixed."
The two Talion Hunters shared a laugh at his absurd statement, well familiar with the illogical logic behind it. The Whitecap had gotten them out of situations Lara would never have dreamed could be escaped and had born up with less functioning parts than were required for flight. At times, the cargo yacht seemed virtually indestructible.
Gradually, the laughter died out as they looked out over the eerie landscape, with its unnatural blue glow and the exotic structure in the distance.
"Since I doubt there are many five-star hotels in the area and I don't happen to feel like taking you on a desert honeymoon, I'm going to get to work on that buffer conduit," Rigel declared.
"Yeah, you do that," Lara responded dryly. "I'll warn you if any more party-crashers show up."
"Thanks, honey."
"Shut up, Rigel!"
They took the Ebon Hawk, Revan insisting on piloting his old ship again and for the simple fact that only he knew how to get to the nearest Relay world in a region of space where standard hyperspace navigation was thrown out the window. Kuryama sat in the co-pilot's seat next to him, carefully observing his unorthodox procedures.
In the rear compartment, near the engine core, Darth Oden sat silently, black eyes focused on nothing visible. Visas had moved to the infirmary simply to be farther away from him; something about the Dark Lord disturbed her deeply. In an attempt to stave off the creeping tension threatening to throw them both into dour moods, Atton and Mira sparred with each other, practicing a particularly brutal form of hand-to-hand combat that was taught by paramilitary anti-terrorist organizations.
But there was no escaping the atmosphere. This was a ship filled with mortal enemies turned allies; a ship where no one truly understood or trusted the others. Visas shivered at the sight of Darth Oden. Atton and Mira scowled constantly in Revan's general direction. Kuryama and Revan each tried to function as if the other was not there, trying not even to converse.
Unfortunately, Kuryama had several questions for Revan, and they weren't going to be answered by studious noncontact. Conversation was unavoidable.
"When you summoned me, I instinctively knew what I had to do to survive the passage into the Unknown Regions," she said bluntly from the seat next to him. "And if the Null field is as thorough as you say, then why weren't Atton, Mira, and Visas killed by the journey? They did not have the protection of the balance, so how did they survive?" Kuryama asked.
Revan sighed at the question.
"The Miraluka is the one piece of this puzzle that fits both everywhere and nowhere," he said, his eyes examining the instruments. "She is undeniably connected to events in ways I have yet to unravel. The only clue I can give you is that what the Null field means for us, means something entirely different for her. I cannot explain further because I have no other answers." Revan turned to face her and saw the active interest in her eyes. He'd always excelled at playing professor. "Now Jaq and the Huntress on the other hand, are not Force sensitive. In fact, they are profoundly non-sensitive. The Null field has no effect on them."
Kuryama snorted. "That's nonsense, Revan. I've been traveling with them for some time, and they're not just sensitive. They're Jedi material."
"And I can see what your own senses see, but I perceive the entire picture. They were given the Force, Kuryama. It is not the same, despite having the same appearance. Whatever they have become is not what we commonly think of as Force-sensitive," Revan responded. Kuryama brushed aside the condescending tone of his voice.
"Kreia..." she whispered as the truth struck her like a physical blow. Even from beyond the grave, Darth Traya, that double-crossing, manipulative, utterly amoral old witch continued to run her life. She could not leave any matter untouched by her poisonous grip, even in death. If the hag were not already floating in a million pieces among the twice-dead ruins of the perditious Malachor V, Kuryama would have throttled the woman with her own two hands.
Even Revan's ears pricked at the sound of the despised woman's name.
"Darth Traya was a fool," he pronounced with dispassionate distaste. "Oh yes, I've kept informed," he added as Kuryama gaped. "She believed she was aiding me with her myriad schemes, lies, and manipulations. In the end, she was so blinded by her own alleged wisdom and selfishness that she nearly did all the Nihil's work for them. Traya came within steps of sending the galaxy into the very same oblivion she claimed to oppose."
Revan shook his head in utter disgust.
Kuryama knew he had probed her mind to reach that conclusion. She didn't care. He deserved to know the awful truth of what his former master had done. She did nothing to hide the memories of Kreia's cruel exploitation of her and many others. They sat like stinging, salted wounds in her soul, laid bare for all to see. Let him read it - and let him know that she had no intention of being controlled ever again.
The navigation computer began flashing a warning indicating an unsafe exit from hyperspace. Revan took control as the whiteness of hyperspace converged into the dotted black expanse of normal space. In the distance ahead they saw the ghostly blue glowing sphere of the Relay, orbiting no star, against the almost solid white backdrop of the galaxy's edge.
"Alert the crew, we've arrived," Revan ordered, stretching his neck as he took manual control.
Kuryama sprang from her seat and left the cockpit. Walking up to the infirmary, she opened the door and nodded to Visas. The unspoken message was understood and Visas was immediately on her feet and following her, lightsabre at the ready. The sounds of physical struggle coming from the main hold caught her attention, and Kuryama found Mira with Atton in a headlock. Atton was cursing most profusely.
"Atton! Mira!" she barked.
In a flash, they both backed off and turned their attention to her.
"General!" they responded in unison.
"Get ready, we're about to make landfall," Kuryama ordered. They both immediately got to checking and strapping on their gear.
Satisfied, Kuryama moved past the main hold and towards the rearmost section of the ship. In the engine compartment she found the man she had once known as Orann Dalez sitting with his legs crossed and terrible black eyes seeing as it were straight through the hull of the ship and into the void of space.
"Orann, we're approaching the Relay."
She felt Visas tense behind her as Oden shifted his penetrating gaze.
Startling her, Kuryama saw a flicker of humanity in his dark eyes. There was even the slightest trace of sorrow in his voice.
"My name is no longer Orann, General. In some ways perhaps it never has been. Darth Oden is who I am now."
Oden rose to his feet, he waved his hands over his belt and a pair of fitted silver bracelets, each with a concave chevron positioned beneath the hand, clasped themselves over his wrists.
"I am ready," he pronounced.
Following gut instinct and phenomenal energy readings, Revan brought the Ebon Hawk down through the clouds of the Relay's blue atmosphere. If anything, the surface of the planet was even more unsettling up close. Blue light shot forth from cracks in the otherwise flat surface of barren rock that stretched from horizon to horizon, dotted by sharp, faceted spires. Amid the host of the tall stone monuments, one in particular stood out; this one the base of an intense blue beam that shot up into the sky.
Between ten and twenty alien ships had landed in the vicinity of the active spire. Revan recognized them as short-range Nihil troop transports, only a small garrison but still capable of carrying enormous numbers. The blade-like ships also had cannons. As the Hawk approached, giant armatures on the ships' spines shifted and brought guns to bear.
The Force moving through him, Revan instinctively threw the Ebon Hawk into a defensive roll, firing off a few shots with its own dual cannon. The maneuver managed to spare the ship hits from sizzling black energy blasts from the Nihil artillery, and Revan instantly gunned the afterburners, putting the spire between him and them.
Swinging around the spire, Revan saw something unexpected. A cloud of black smoke rising from the end of a long skid mark. Someone had crashed - and very recently. Both to investigate and hide the Hawk in the smokescreen, Revan landed the ship just down-wind of the source.
He reached out through the Force and found to his utter surprise that the source of the smoke was a pair of smoke grenades lodged in the engine compartment of a combination yacht/cargo ship of a well-known, if outdated, design. He made a mental note to examine the strange find later and sprang from the pilot's seat.
Revan found the crew waiting in the main hold. Some of them he knew, others he had met only hours ago, and he was about to trust the first step of the resistance to their hands. But he knew he couldn't have made better choices had he personally picked each and every one of them.
Kuryama was quite simply the best - she was one of the few Jedi he'd trusted with a rank equal to his own during the war. Jaq 'Atton' Rand and Mira the Huntress he knew less about, though he had a certain familiarity with Jaq from the days of the Jedi Civil War. Both he could easily tell were with Kuryama to the end, despite their preconceived bias against Jedi. The Miraluka, Visas Marr, about whom Revan knew both so much and so little, he knew just from their short interaction was fiercely loyal to Kuryama - almost obsessively in his opinion. Visas saw her as a savior, a messiah - and she was a faithful disciple.
Lastly he considered Darth Oden, the Dark Lord who had spawned from the death of the man he once was. His will to destroy was so powerful that he had come to be beyond many of the laws that governed life itself. He alone wielded the power needed to start the unmaking of the Null field. Regardless of his many questionable motives, he was the only one capable of doing what had to be done. There was no one else.
This mission would make or break their alliance, and decide, for good or evil, the fate of the resistance.
Time ticked away, he would have to make this short.
"We all know what's at stake," Revan informed them. "If the Null field is not brought down, the Nihil will have their invasion without any fear of retaliation. Their campaign will be swift and absolute. With the galaxy under their rule the Force will die and along with it everything it affects. The last time the Nihil tried, they nearly succeeded and plunged the galaxy into centuries of chaos. It all began here, with the forming of the Null field, and this is where it will end. With the destruction of the Null field we will begin the undoing of the Nihil's legacy of hate."
Heads nodded in agreement, approval. Weapons were checked grimly.
The cargo ramp opened, the unnatural blue glow of the planet spilling into the ship.
"The time is now," Revan proclaimed.
Atton cracked his knuckles. "Let's do this."
Without a word, Darth Oden bowed and headed down the ramp. Kuryama slowly followed, Visas striding in front of her with her lightsabre at the ready. Atton and Mira sauntered along behind the others at their own pace, restlessly fingering blasters and explosive devices.
Revan stood at the base of the ramp and watched as they disappeared into the smoky, blue haze. Just before she passed out of sight Kuryama turned back to face him. She opened her mouth to speak... then shook her head, biting back the words. Instead she gave him a look that took him back almost fifteen years.
She was going to risk everything once more because she believed him to be right. The unspoken message was as clear in her eyes as it had been that one terrible evening when he had first planned his treason against the Council.
As Kuryama turned and was lost to his sight, Revan pushed the retrospective thoughts out of his mind. The level of danger was potentially every bit as extreme to him as it was to those embarking towards the glowing spire. The less distracted he was, the better were the chances that they would all make it off the Relay world alive. He had some investigating to do, however.
He skirted across the zone concealed by the smoke cloud which drifted ever so slowly in the constant, listless breeze. He inspected the ship responsible for the smoke. Letters that had obviously been blazed across the gray expanse of the outer hull with a plasma cutter on low setting spelled out the word 'whitecap'. As he came nearer, Revan noticed an exposed blaster cannon on the ship's spine tracking his movements, he also noticed a man crouched next to an open engine access panel.
He saw the man put a hand to his ear as if receiving communication from a small headset, which was exactly what he was doing. The man shot to his feet and instantly whipped out a blaster, training it on Revan.
Revan obligingly held up his hands in surrender, hoping to mollify the man and whoever was controlling the cannon, though he could easily have neutralized both.
"Stay right there! Who are you?" The man demanded.
"I could ask the same thing," Revan responded, keeping his voice even. "There aren't many people who come this far out beyond the Rim."
The answer threw the man's thoughts into disarray, though he didn't let a bit of it show. "Yeah, well. Then there are those people who didn't have a choice."
"What wrong with your ship?" Revan asked. The man mumbled something evasive but his thoughts betrayed him easily; the ship's primary engine buffer conduit had explosively failed and he was working feverishly to fix the problem by attempting an ill-advised bypass.
"Here, this might help," Revan called out casually and flung his lightsabre at the man, who caught it easily.
The man frowned. "What, are you crazy? How will this help?"
Revan leaped easily up to the top of the ship, took the lightsabre from the man's hands and moved his fingers expertly over the weapon. He unfastened a tiny clasp, slid off a protective housing, and snapped open the hilt's two halves. He withdrew the focusing crystal and handed it to the suspicious man.
"If you're going to go through with that dangerous bypass, you'll need something capable of handling the energy load, otherwise you'll likely blow your entire ship's power grid. Use this," Revan advised.
The man's eyebrows raised in intrigue and surprise at Revan's helpfulness.
"You're a Jedi," he observed.
Revan nodded tolerantly. So far, the man's intelligence had failed to impress him.
"Thanks, I think this will work." He put his hand to his ear again, activating his ear-set. "Lara, I think you can let this one go. Trust me." The man offered Revan his hand. "My name's Rigel, Lara's inside training the cannon on you; sorry about that, we don't know who to trust out here."
Revan shook the man's hand, admiring the strong, firm grip. "Calum Jan, Jedi Knight," he responded. It wouldn't be in his best interests to let the man know he was Dark Lord Revan of the Sith. "I'd suggest you work fast, this planet is occupied by exceedingly hostile forces."
Rigel nodded his head meaningfully. "I know, we've already met. Somewhere in that cloud of smoke are the remains of an alien ship and tons of totally evil-looking bad guy corpses."
Examining the surroundings through the Force, Revan found that the man's assertion was true. He was surprised that they had managed to kill so many.
"They will return, I guarantee that. And there is another reason you will want to hurry."
"What's that?"
"This planet is going to be destroyed."
Rigel's jaw dropped. Revan heard tinny noises from the man's ear-set; Lara, he guessed, making her own flabbergasted reply.
"Y-yeah, I suppose that's reason enough to hurry things along," Rigel mumbled. "It's okay if I use this?" He asked, indicating Revan's lightsabre crystal.
In answer, Revan opened his cloak, revealing six extra lightsabres hanging from his belt and four more strapped against the inside of the vesture.
"I guess you're fine," Rigel answered for himself and got to work.
Revan surreptitiously passed a calming wave of Force influence over Rigel to enable him to work with greater efficiency. His ship and its cannon could be useful for his part of the plan. Absently, he cast his gaze over towards the glowing spire, where he expected a battle had already broken out.
The white-armored Nihil soldiers seemed innumerable. Once Kuryama and the others got within a half mile of the spire the hordes of soldiers had closed in on them, attempting to swamp them with sheer numbers. For their part, Kuryama and the others killed them nearly as fast as they came, but it didn't deter the unending waves of reinforcements.
Each soldier wore body armor of such a bleached white that it looked more like bone than steel, the masks covering their faces even more so. Most of them wielded sinister-looking hand devices that discharged deadly black energy bolts. Others, however, bore weapons eerily similar to lightsabres except for the horrid black color of the energy blade.
The first of these energy sword-wielding soldiers Kuryama had faced was easily dispatched. With one strike of her lightsabre she knocked aside the black beam and stabbed the Nihil soldier in the face. The next one was not so easy. It brought Kuryama to the grim realization that the Nihil were quick learners; naive from having never before fought a war, but fast to correct their errors.
Kuryama and Visas both cut into their enemies with vicious resolve, plunging their lightsabres into scores of Nihil soldiers, deflecting hundreds of shots from their energy weapons, and fencing off those wielding the black lightsabres. The two Jedi dealt death with staggering proficiency.
Lagging slightly behind so as to give Kuryama and Visas room to wreak their destruction, Atton and Mira launched their own attacks with blasters, hand grenades, and explosive rockets. Searing detonations scorched craters and tossed horribly burned soldiers into the air. Waves of blaster fire from their weapons raked the white-armored Nihil, killing dozens and ricocheting off spinning energy blades to cut down yet more.
At the front of the small column, Darth Oden inflicted far more horrific death than the others combined. The first Nihil soldiers to die had fallen to his blades. When he jerked his wrists, Oden's hands had become enveloped in an eerie dark blue energy field similar to that of a lightsabre. Flattening his hands, the energy straightened into long blades that were all but identical to lightsabres. Nothing could stand in his way, every swipe of his arms cleaved one or more Nihil soldier, every thrust impaled someone, every retraction of his hands blocked an energy blast and sent it back at the attacker with deft precision.
They reached the spire over a trail of smoking, mutilated bodies. Inside, only a handful of Nihil soldiers waited, each wielding a pair of black energy swords. Atton and Mira hung back to take potshots while the two Jedi and the Sith occupied the Nihil's blades.
Unlike those previously encountered, these Nihil were adept with the sizzling energy swords. Kuryama and Visas were forced onto the defensive, kept busy fending off the blistering attacks and unable to move forward. Slowly, they began to give ground, yielding step by step to the furious assault of their faceless foes. Their black energy swords were everywhere, slashing, sweeping, cutting, and stabbing at such a fast pace that Kuryama found it increasingly difficult to think past making her next desperate block or deflection.
She heard Visas cry in pain and was distracted for split second. Her lightsabre wavered and a black beam hissed into the breach as she tried to close the hole in her defense. Gasping with shock and pain, Kuryama felt the energy blade graze the side of her chest and inflict a searing flash of agony before she pushed it away with her lightsabre.
The pain brought her mind sharply back into focus and she fathomed the Nihil's battle strategy; it was an unreserved attack intended to overwhelm the opposition's ability to formulate adequate defenses. She'd fallen victim to it and nearly paid the ultimate price. But it was also a weakness, for a lack of guard could be found in that total attack.
Instead of flinching back and surrendering yet more ground to her adversary, Kuryama struck back vengefully. There was a terrible clashing as the two blades met in full-force. Not expecting her sudden turn of change of tactic, the Nihil was momentarily stunned by the counter-strike, and Kuryama pressed her advantage ruthlessly, sensing an opening. Her judgment was correct, the Nihil took an extra second to collect himself for his next attack. Into that tiny window of gained time, Kuryama unleashed the strongest Force pulse she could summon at the spur of the moment, compressing it into a blast no wider than her fist.
The Nihil had no chance. The pulse bored a hole through his mask and took off half of his head.
As the corpse fell before her, Kuryama turned to aid Visas, who was bleeding heavilyfrom her arm. Showing fierce determination, the Miraluka was holding off the two Nihil with everything she had. She had disarmed one of them, forcing the other to toss his second energy sword to his companion, but they still were able to contain and press her farther back.
Kuryama took a Force-assisted leap towards the valiant Miraluka. Flipping in midair, she cleaved off the arm of the nearest Nihil, who uttered an inhuman scream of pain. Landing beside Visas, Kuryama shared a quick look with the Miraluka and they instantly went on the attack.
Visas easily picked off the injured Nihil with a deft slash across the chest. The remaining Nihil was unable to fend off their joint attack with his single blade and fell to simultaneous strikes from both his opponents.
They looked around, Darth Oden was nowhere in sight.
"Where's Oden?" Kuryama yelled to Atton and Mira. She got frantic pointing in response. Looking in the direction indicated, she caught a glimpse of Oden's black figure silhouetted against an intense blue glow shining through an enormous archway that led to a cavernous chamber in the center of the spire. Kuryama saw smoking pieces of dismembered Nihil lying on the floor in his wake.
"Hurry!" She urged Atton and Mira, taking off in a sprint after Darth Oden, Visas close on her heels.
Following the trail of bodies, Kuryama soon found herself at the mouth of one of the largest open chambers she had ever seen. Conical in shape, it had an enormous diameter and rose to a staggering height. It was like the Senate Chamber on Coruscant turned upside down. And in the center of the vast room at the heart of the spire, the blue light that was so prevalent everywhere on the Relay world was compressed into a concentrated stream of pure light, rushing downward into the bowels of the planet itself.
It was at the edge of this whirlwind of blue light that Darth Oden halted. His hands no longer engulfed by his bizarre lightsabre beams, he spread his arms out from his chest and tilted his head back, preparing to call forth his power. Kuryama could barely see him against the brilliance of the light.
They had come far enough. Oden had to complete his task alone, there was nothing any of them could do but guard him.
Kuryama held her hand up to halt Atton and Mira. "Stop here. This is as far as we go."
Their faces both grim, the two crouched by the side of the arch and trained their blasters out towards the open terrain where the Nihil soldiers would be massing for a crushing counter-attack. Visas stood at Kuryama's side, holding her blue lightsabre at the ready. Kuryama's viridian blade hung down at her side as she surveyed the grounds beyond.
The white figures of Nihil soldiers were rapidly gathering outside the spire. Something was deterring them from entering, however. None, it seemed, were willing to set foot inside the massive structure.
Kuryama saw sweat beading on Atton's brow and Mira's neck muscles tensing in anxious anticipation of the inevitable battle.
When their numbers were so many that it seemed they would be pushed into the spire from sheer force of pressure, the Nihil charged at the foursome holding their ground underneath the soaring arch.
Mira and Atton each tossed a thermal detonator at the oncoming horde and unleashed a hail of blaster bolts. The twin explosions sent tremors through the floor, blasted large craters, and incinerated scores of Nihil in their tracks. The torrential wave of blaster fire cut down yet more. But the Nihil's relentless numbers pressed in unceasingly, not in the least bit discouraged by the staggering casualties.
As the two with the blasters kept firing, Kuryama and Visas both launched themselves forward with Force-assisted jumps and landed right at the head of the advancing column. The blue and pale green lightsabres sang out, chopping and hacking apart the charging Nihil soldiers with resolute purpose. Deadly black energy bolts were now flying from the Nihil's weapons, dotting the walls and the floor with scorch marks and deflecting off Kuryama and Visas' whirling lightsabres, the rebounds often dispatching other Nihil instead of their intended targets.
Swarming with incredible force, the Nihil began to slide troops around the two women furiously working to keep them at bay, forcing Atton and Mira to adjust their aim. They mowed down dozens only for hundreds more to rush in to take their places. Corpses riddled with holes from blaster fire were piling up on the smooth floor of the spire while still more fell with hands, arms, and heads missing from lightsabre wounds.
It didn't matter how many died, more rushed in to replace them. Eventually the crush of their numbers began to push Kuryama and Visas back, every inch of lost ground covered with freshly dead bodies. Atton yelled a warning and threw another thermal detonator as the two Jedi leaped out of danger, and the explosion decimated a large number of the front-runners. Burning Nihil bodies flew in all directions.
Kuryama and Visas retreated almost entirely back to the arched entryway. The Nihil were flooding into the spire's antechamber and filling it wall to wall with their numbers, despite all efforts to continue keeping them at bay.
This was to be their last stand.
Suddenly, a massive tremor shook the entire structure. Far behind them, at the center of the spire, Darth Oden had unleashed his full power.
Orann Dalez had committed acts of nearly unfathomable destruction before, but nothing came close to what he was now doing. He was wreaking not only the annihilation of a planet, but beginning a chain of similar events that would cascade across the entire rim of the galaxy.
It took Oden far more effort and concentration than anything he had ever attempted, but as Kuryama, Visas, Atton, and Mira held off the Nihil juggernaut he sank his power deep into the core of the Relay world. With tremendous strength of will he tore apart the ancient constructs buried miles down under the planet's surface, halting the current of blue light that he recognized as a visible representation of the Force being sucked down into the giant reservoir that was the Relay.
The disruption cause seismic waves to ripple out in all directions, opening up thousands of additional cracks in the flat rock surface. The blue light that gushed from deep within the planet started turning white as the shaking grew in strength.
The storm now raging inside the Relay world would soon engulf the whole planet with its unadulterated destructive fury. The countdown had begun.
As the brightness in the central chamber grew to a damaging degree, Darth Oden left the swirling, chaotic mass of blue and white light to stand with those who traveled with him. He gave Kuryama a nod - a gesture more than ten years old between them - that she instantly understood: mission accomplished.
Oden jerked his wrists and flattened his fingers and the two dark blue lightsabres blades sprang forth from the gleaming silver wristbands he wore. Kuryama and Visas both brought their own sabres into high guards. Atton and Mira abandoned their long-ranged blasters for up-close-and-personal weapons; Atton grabbed a vibrosword and Mira took a pair of close-range ion repeaters.
As one, they charged at the waiting Nihil army.
In disarray from the quaking ground and blinding light, the Nihil fell before them in giant swathes of carnage. Outside, they could see the Nihil ships powering up, the glare of the planet's blue-white light reflecting sharply off their polished silver hulls and blade-like curves. And on the plains before them, the five companions saw the full assembled might of the Nihil forces on the Relay. There were thousands and thousands of them around the spire and in between the ships. Already they were in the process of evacuating, their leaders apparently knowing full well what the seismic tremors and bursting white light portended. But many thousands of soldiers still stood to block any escape for the intruders.
Rapidly, the Nihil closed in around them, forcing the five to stand and fight.
The bizarre beams stemming from Oden's hands cut down Nihil soldiers by the dozen. Visas used both her lightsabre and crippling blasts of concussive Force energy against the horde. Kuryama swung the viridian beam of her lightsabre in a whirlwind of death. Blood flew from deep wounds inflicted by Atton's vengeful vibrosword. Wrist rockets and blistering fire screamed from Mira's launchers and repeater-pistols. Hundreds lay dead on the ground but the Nihil simply pressed harder to prevent their escape, even as the shaking and rumbling of the Relay roared louder.
The cracks in the ground began to split wide open, some devouring hundreds of Nihil soldiers and smaller ships that had yet to take off. The apocalypse clock was speedily running down, the Relay world had very little time left.
A new sound suddenly joined the cacophony; ship-mounted blaster cannons. Red and green bolts of heavy fire rained down on the Nihil around the five companions who desperately fought. Looking up, they saw the familiar gray and red hull of the Ebon Hawk swooping in on their position, guns blazing, followed by a smaller gray vessel with just as much firepower aimed at the Nihil army below.
Almost angrily, the Nihil ships retaliated, filling the whitened sky with black weapons fire. The two ships evaded the black discharges deftly, still raining fire of their own on the Nihil ground forces around the five embattled individuals.
As the Hawk screamed in for a landing, the gray ship laid down a torrential hail of pulverizing shots that cleared a wide enough area for the other ship to touch down.
Revan didn't even bother putting the Hawk to ground. Instead, he held the ship in a low hover a few feet off the rock and lowered the cargo ramp. Oden, Kuryama, and the others didn't need any encouragement and hurriedly jumped aboard, the Nihil horde never more than a few feet behind. As soon as the last pair of boots hit the ramp, Revan pointed Hawk's nose to the sky and gunned the engines. The gray Whitecap followed close on his heels. Those few Nihil ships that had made it off the ground screamed after them while the sky burned brighter and brighter.
From space, the Relay world no longer glowed blue, it had flashed into a white nearly as bright as a star.
The Nihil ships pursuing the Ebon Hawk and Whitecap suddenly broke away and abruptly jumped to hyperspace.
A moment later, on the planet's surface, the already-enormous fissures in the ground tore open completely. Giant shelves of the red rock were forced upward as the planet itself started to burst apart. The white glare boiled away, ripping the Relay's atmosphere with it as it dissolved into space, leaving behind only the red surface that continued to contort.
Poised and ready to make the jump to hyperspace, those on the Ebon Hawk and the Whitecap watched as the planet burst like a colossal bubble, releasing a dazzling blue cloud amongst the trillions and trillions of tons of pulverized rock.
Just before Revan gave the order to make the jump, they saw the blue cloud disperse, spreading faster than the eye could follow, beginning to make its way around the rim of the entire galaxy. Soon, very soon, the same events would repeat an uncountable number of times on identical Relay worlds all along that rim and the Null field, weakened already by the loss of one Relay, would be utterly erased.
