EPISODE IV - CHAPTER FOUR
Captain Piett made his way toward Lord Therin's quarters. As he did so, he thought back to everything that the dark haired Sith woman said about his commanding officer. IN the six months that they had been there, the same amount of time he dealt directly with Lord Therin, the man realized he didn't know a bloody thing about her personally. In that amount of time one would usually learn a few personal tidbits about the people you work under - likes and dislikes, foibles and other things. But this was the first real look into Lord Therin's life that he had ever had since she came aboard the Accuser.
He made it to the door of her quarters and went in, noting that the door just swished open without protest or having been locked. He was surprised that he had been able to enter so easily. Had she been so tired the night before that she just forgot to lock up? It was a worrying thought. "My lord?"
"Just a moment, Piett." Nathrrya's voice came from the fresher just before the door opened and she stepped out pulling on her usual dark green leather jacket. The captain, for some reason, couldn't help but stare even though he'd become quite used to both her and Tara's choice of clothing style. It also could have been the mental connotation that Lord Therin was not long finished with her morning shower. Either way, the man forced himself to look in another direction.
She sighed. "I didn't secure my door last night, did I?"
"No, my lord. That appears to be the case."
"Damn the Emperor and damn his hulking metal ball of scrap." She looked over at her captain as she walked to her desk and tapped a few of the buttons on the comm. unit. "I take it we've arrived?"
"Indeed we have my lord."
She nodded and turned her attention to the communicator. "General Madien, see to the transfer of Captain Antilles and Princess Organa to the Death Star. And General, if any of Tarkin's lackeys make your life difficult direct them to me." Nathrrya had a knack in dealing with self important officers.
"Understood, my lord." The general replied before the comm. shut off.
Nathrrya now turned back to her captain "How are the Lars holding up?"
"Quite well considering that neither have been on a starship in many years, much less a military one." Piett took his normal professional stance and clasped his hands behind his back.
"Good," she said. "I'm certain they're hiding something but it can wait, I've got that delightful child Tarkin to deal with and his overgrown toy."
Captain Piett did his best to hide a smile at her scathing contempt of the man in question. Lord Therin really did enjoy insulting Grand Moff Tarkin and the Death Star in every possible way she could think of and each time became more and more creative on her part.
The woman took a moment and studied her soft spoken officer for a time, and clearly it was beginning to make the man uncomfortable. "Tara told you, didn't she?"
"My lord?" The pitch indicated Piett was clearly confused by her question.
"Your mental shields are impressive for a non-Force sensitive, Captain," she said. She turned from her desk and leaned her hips against it. "Most of the time I have no idea what you're thinking. But at the moment you're practically screaming the name 'Malavai Quinn'. Therefore Tara has told you about him."
Piett nodded. "She has, my lord, though I'm uncertain if she revealed too much."
Nathrrya lowered her head and thought this over as she pulled her lower lip into her mouth to chew on it thoughtfully. "If I know Tara she's given you a very condensed version of events which would include the fact that Quinn and I were lovers and he tried to kill me."
The Captain swallowed. For some reason he was feeling really warm and perhaps it was just the room… or him… it had to be the room. "Yes, my lord, that's correct."
Nathrrya smirked, seeing the man sweat. "Relax, Firmus you look like a man holding a live thermal detonator and don't know what to do with it." She chuckled. "You may remind me of Quinn but I know that you're not him." Her eyes seemed to sparkle as she took a few steps towards the captain. "Now that I think of it, I don't believe I've ever inspected your quarters now have I Piett?" There was something playful and teasing in her words.
"My... my lord?" Piett was truly baffled.
The Sith just smiled playfully as she walked past her captain swaying her hips as she did so. All Firmus Piett could do was turn and openly stare wondering what had just taken place.
. . .
Eight Imperial admirals and generals were seated around a black conference table. They were busy talking amongst themselves as they waited for Grand Moff Tarkin and Lord Nathrrya Therin to arrive. Admiral Motti and General Tagge were in their own discussion.
"Until this battle station is fully operational we are vulnerable," General Tagge argued. "The Rebel Alliance is too well equipped. They're more dangerous than you realize."
Admiral Motti had his own opinions of the other man and his own thoughts were more towards just wanting to get the Death Star into use to show the galaxy that you don't mess with the Empire. One just doesn't. "General, they would be dangerous to the Imperial Starfleet… but not this battle station!"
Tagge shook his head in disbelief "The Rebellion will continue to gain support in the Imperial Senate as long as..."
Suddenly the door to the conference room opened and all heads turned as Grand Moff Tarkin, governor of the Imperial outland regions, entered. Following just behind was Lord Therin and going by the scowl on her face the Sith Lord was none too happy to be there. It was no secret that they despised each other for their views on ruling the Empire were as far apart as two people could be and still be on the same side.
"The Imperial Senate will no longer be of any concern to us," Tarkin announced. "I've just received word that the Emperor has dissolved the Senate permanently. The last remnants of the Old Republic have been swept away." Tarkin took his seat at the head of the table but there was some murmuring going on from the others. Tagge was the most outspoken one of the group. The news just made his job much harder and he was clearly appalled.
"What!? That's impossible! How will the Emperor maintain control without the bureaucracy?"
Tarkin smiled evilly and Nathrrya made a mental note that the man looked like a shrivelled prune when he did that. "The regional governors now have direct control over their territories. Fear will keep the local systems in line - fear of this battle station."
Nathrrya rolled her eyes and give Tarkin a look that said he was dumb to think that fear alone would work. In her experience it usually had the opposite effect.
Tagge had to suppress a smile when he saw the Sith's reaction to the Grand Moff's statement. "And what of the Rebellion?" he asked. "If the Rebels have obtained a complete technical readout of this station, it is possible, however unlikely, that they might find a weakness and exploit it."
"The plans you refer to, General Tagge, will soon be back in our hands." Nathrrya spoke for the first time. The notion was reassuring to all of the men present but it was mostly for Tarkin's ears. For all she knew this was just a fool's mission and she wanted to be done with it.
"Any attack made by the Rebels against this station would be a useless gesture, no matter what technical data they've obtained!" Admiral Motti preened. "This station is now the ultimate power in the universe. I suggest we use it!" The man seemed to think the Death Star as an infant and he the proud father of such an upstanding child.
It took everything in Nathrrya's reserve to keep from snorting a rebuttal that would be regretted later, not that she would care. But the man did rub her the wrong way.
"Don't be too proud of this... technological terror you've constructed, Admiral." Nathrrya growled as she began to walk around the table to where the pompous man was sitting. "The ability to destroy a planet is insignificant next to the power of the Force."
The round-faced man that was Motti looked up at the woman defiantly. "Don't try to frighten us with your sorcerer's ways, Lord Therin. Your sad devotion to that ancient religion has not helped you conjure up the stolen data disks, or given you clairvoyance enough to find the Rebel's hidden fort-"
Motti began to choke suddenly. He wasn't able to take a breath in and he clawed at his neck trying to do away with whatever barrier was in the way. Both Tarkin and Tagge watched in morbid fascination as they saw an evil smile cross Lord Therin's lips, her eyes turning yellow and her hand raised and made into a fist.
"Really, Admiral... I find your lack of faith... disturbing." Her tone was ominous.
"Enough of this!" Tarkin snapped. "Therin, release him!" I really don't want to train up another underling.
The redhead glanced at Tarkin a moment. She didn't want to acknowledge that she heard the man but she did. "As... you... wish." She dropped her hand and Motti fell forward onto the table, gasping for air. She walked back to where she had been standing, behind Tarkin and out of his view.
"This bickering is pointless," Tarkin said. "Lord Therin will provide us with the location of the Rebel fortress by the time this station is operational. We will then crush the Rebellion with one swift stroke."
Tagge saw the woman shake her head in disbelief if Tarkin thought it was going to be that easy.
. . .
"Tarkin wants me to do what?"
Nathrrya and Tara were standing in their quarters upon their X-87A Phantom within the Death Star docking bay. There was no way in space the two women were going to take bunks on that abomination. Nathrrya had a longer meeting with the generals and admirals before she was dismissed with orders that she needed to forward to her unofficial apprentice. Nathrrya was scowling the whole time but she needed to tell the younger woman.
"They want you to torture the princess to get the location of where the stolen schematics are, as well as the location of the Rebel base." Nathrrya was chewing her bottom lip and convulsively clenching her fists, trying to keep herself calm as she used her cousin's breathing techniques. "Not like it's going to work or anything."
"Spast it, Nat, I haven't done that in… a long time. I really don't want to either." Tara was not thrilled with torture missions. When Overseer Tremmel sent her to question three captives within the prison of the Sith Academy she pretty much let them all go and killed one of them, but only because he attacked her. Openly torturing someone did not sit well with her any more than a Kowakian Monkey-lizard did.
"And I'm not going to let you, either," Nathrrya finally said, turning her attention to the younger woman. "I need to have a chat with the princess, anyway. I might as well say I'm going to do it because you're my apprentice and nobody orders you to do anything without my approval… and I don't approve. Even if the Emperor ordered you directly."
"You think I would?"
"No, but I'm stating it for officiality." Tara's comm. unit started to beep at her side and she picked it off her utility belt and looked at it. Her face was neutral and Nathrrya only looked at her. "You going to answer that?"
"It's Sparkle Star," Tara said. She silenced the unit and returned it to her belt. "While you were resting he called me and we spoke for at least three hours." Tara smirked at the bemused reaction she gained from the redhead. "I know. I was rather surprised myself."
"What did you two talk about?"
Tara shrugged. "He apologized for scrapping HK-79 and then we just talked about almost nothing of importance. He told me about his mission and why he was on Tatooine and he swore that he wasn't stalking me, but he also said he's interested in getting to know me better. I told him about Dromund Kaas and about my upbringing, but that was all."
Nathrrya frowned. "You didn't tell him…?"
The brunette shook her head. "No, I didn't say anything about where we came from, hell I have no idea if any of these planets exist anymore." She paused for a moment, looking at the floor near Nathrrya's feet. "Nat… I've meditated on this a long time, but why are we both here? I mean, scientifically and logically, we should be dead. There was no nutrition source, no life support, nothing that would keep us alive for that long in carbonite. Realistically, we should have been dead after five years, if that."
The older Sith had thought about this herself a few times, and Tara made a decent argument about their situation. She thought back to how they even ended up in carbonite to begin with and promptly shrugged it away into the recesses of her memory. It was a time and a scenario she was not ready to deal with or think about just yet. Tara probably thought and felt the same way but at least she wanted to talk about it.
"I don't know, Tara," she finally said. "But one thing's for certain, when we fought Revan I know the two of us had a change in our views of the Force. That was the biggest point of alliance between the Empire and the Republic and it was for a cause that benefited both sides, not just one."
"I know… the 'Living Force' is what you think kept us alive."
"Right. And there is obviously something it wants us to do, so we need to do it."
"Get rid of the imbalance?" Tara asked.
"Get rid of the imbalance." Nathrrya nodded
. . .
The two Sith women exited their small domestic cruiser and had parted ways on the hangar deck. While Nathrrya headed towards the detention cells, she saw that Starkiller had come to the hangar to collect Tara and take her somewhere. The older Sith could only smirk. While Tara was getting better at suppressing her emotions and not letting them scream out through the Force, Starkiller was still learning that trick and his signature screamed interest in the younger woman. In her mind, Nathrrya could only wish the poor bugger luck if he was going to attempt anything with Tara. She wasn't one to be easily tamed and she remembered that when she learned Tara had done the near-impossible in order to marry a Mandalorian. Tara loved him and she wasn't going to let anything get in the way of that.
Until the Eternal Fleet came into the picture.
Nathrrya frowned and shook the memory from her head a second time as she walked along the corridor of the detention block towards the cell where the princess was being held. She cast a glance at the hovering torture droid that floated alongside her and frowned deeper. It was a very crude and simplistic device, a black sphere with a multitude of protruding arms and needles and other assortment of pain-inflicting devices. As already indicated, she had no intent of actually using this Force-forsaken thing on the princess. She just had no intent on following Tarkin's orders, period. But this scenario gave her the opportunity to speak to the princess again and finish what she had started in relative privacy.
Two Stormtroopers preceded the Sith into the princess' cell. From where Nathrrya stood she could see the determined defiance in the princess' eyes and she had to give the woman credit for her courage in the face of danger, but that courage gave way to fear when she saw the droid hover in just before Nathrrya entered.
"Leave us!" Nathrrya ordered the two troopers. They obeyed easily enough thanks to the Force suggestion she'd put behind her words. Then she turned to Leia. "And now, your Highness, we're going to discuss the location of your hidden Rebel base." She gave a very unreassuring smile as the cell door snapped shut. Once it had been closed, she waved her hand and used the Force to bolt the door. The cell block commander wouldn't be able to open it even with his override codes if he wanted to.
The hovering torture droid was giving off a steady beeping as it moved closer to the princess, brandishing a very large, nasty looking hypodermic needle. Nathrrya pointed her palm towards the menacing machine, fisted her hand and brought it down, causing the droid to lose power and slowly hover downwards to the floor. For good measure she walked up to it and kicked the forsaken thing into the corner of the cell.
Leia looked towards it, stunned, and was convinced it wasn't going to be moving any time soon. She turned her attention to the Sith lord, slightly fearful of what could happen now. She'd heard stories of what Vader could do when he was apparently being "nice", so she could only imagine what Nathrrya was capable of. "W-what are you going to do now?"
The redhead only leaned against the wall and shrugged, her facial expression impassive. "Nothing," she said. "Aside from talk. We never did finish our conversation when we were aboard the Accuser. Besides, I'll be damned if I follow any order Tarkin gives me. If he wants something done, he should bloody do it himself." Leia looked to be having trouble with this concept. "Trust me, princess, I hate him and his Force forsaken hunk of junk as much as you do, if not slightly more. Death stations and super weapons and I don't get along well."
"Well… that's unexpected." Leia had to admit it, the woman before her was different, for sure. "Are you still going to assert that I'm Force sensitive?" She was a little more snarky now that she didn't seem to be in any real danger, but she was still wary.
The Sith grinned. "Because you are!" she said. "I know what I sense, Princess. Haven't you ever felt something before it happened? Perhaps you were in some sort of danger and you were able to avoid it, or during a debate in the Senate and you somehow knew who was going to vote how and why?"
The young woman nodded. "Yes, some of the time. I always attributed that to luck."
Nathrrya shook her head. "There's no real thing as luck, my dear. There is the Force, and it's swimming around you whether you believe me or not. It's there with you, a part of you, and that leads me to wonder exactly who your biological parents are. One of them, minimally, had to be a Force user, possibly a Jedi."
Leia furrowed her brow. "I thought the Jedi couldn't have attachments."
"It's always been a laser-brained idea," Nathrrya said passively with a swish of her hand. "I know from experience that not all Jedi followed that rule blindly like others."
That caught Leia's attention and she looked at the Sith with surprise. "You knew a Jedi that was married?"
Nathrrya nodded. "I did. And the irony in it all is he fell in love with and married a Sith." She couldn't contain her laughter seeing the horrified expression on the other woman's face. "It's not that bad! When the Jedi met her, she was a Jedi padawan, but it would be revealed later that she was a Sith runaway. That Jedi was a close friend of mine, and I poked that in his face as often as I could for good measure… but those meetings were few and far between."
Leia was desperately trying to processes the information she had just been given by the Sith woman and, for some reason she couldn't fathom, she knew that Lord Therin was telling the truth. The look on the older woman's face was a mix happiness and deep sadness. Leia realised that this Sith was far more complex than she had thought. Something was bothering the young woman, however.
"Just how old are you?"
Nathrrya's mood changed. She no longer had that comfortable sense about her and the aura she gave off immediately darkened, went solid and her features went a little cold. The change seemed to create a chill with how fast it had occurred. "All you need to know, Princess, is that I'm much older than I appear. One day, should the Force will it, you will know the truth about me. But until then that is my burden to bear."
"And, what about the other woman?" the young woman asked.
The Sith had collected the interrogation droid and was dragging it towards the door when she stopped at looked at Leia over her shoulder. "You mean Tara? Consider her in the same ship I am." She then unlocked the door and exited, leaving the princess to her thoughts and opinions about what was touched on.
. . .
"Well?" Tarkin asked as Nathrrya entered the Death Star's main control room.
"The princess' resistance to the mind probe is considerable. It will be some time before I can extract any information from her." The Sith lied effortlessly. She made sure to scowl at the man.
"Governor Tarkin, the final check-out is complete." An Imperial Officer said interrupting whatever it was that Tarkin may have said. "All systems are operational. What course shall we set?"
Tarkin considered the question as he turned to Lord Therin, a bemused look on his face. The woman couldn't fathom why… he still looked like a prune. "Perhaps she would respond to an alternative form of persuasion."
The Sith narrowed her eyes. She had a bad feeling about this. "What do you mean... exactly?"
The man's smile sent a chill through her. "I think it's time we demonstrate the full power of this station." Tarkin looked at the officer who had interrupted. "Set your course for Princess Leia's home planet of Alderaan."
The officer saluted. "With pleasure." He said before going to carry out the order. The man really knew how to sour the Sith's mood and she made sure to glare at him. If looks could kill, well Tarkin would have been dead a long time ago.
She pulled out her comm. link and activated it. "Yes, my lord?" Piett's voice answered.
"Piett, I want you to set course for the Alderaan system and wait at the outer edge until the Death Star arrives."
There was a longer silence than normal. "Understood, my lord," came the reply.
Tarkin looked on curious as the Sith put her comm. link away. "We can dock your Star Destroyer, Lord Therin." He informed her mildly.
"I'm aware of that," Nathrrya snapped, "But if you think I'm leaving my ship at the tender mercies of your battle station, Governor, then you're delusionally mistaken." The way she spat his title made it clear the woman didn't think he was fit to govern much of anything, least of all the Death Star.
. . .
Galen's body went flying across the room and he landed hard on his back. The wind was knocked out of him and the resistive training material of his arm was smoking from the hit Tara had given him. He staggered to his feet, coughing.
"Come on, Sparkle Star!" Tara cried with a smile. "You're going to let me kick the kriff outta you? I'm a girl!"
He looked towards the other woman and coughed again, pointing his finger accusingly at her. "Spast woman! You changed your technique!" He called his lightsaber back to his hand and activated it.
Tara was putting on a show of twirling the double-bladed lightsaber she was now using. When they had started she was dual-wielding, just as he was, and somewhere when he was about to win their little duel she connected the blunt ends of her hilts together and they locked into a completely different weapon. Galen had never seen this before. Tara was practically dancing around the training room with her green blades. He almost couldn't take his eyes off her.
"It's called improvisation, Galen," she defended. "Even if we didn't have sabers I'd still kick your ass because I can do weaponless combat too."
Without warning she Force-leaped over to him and he just had time to raise his weapons to block her overhead attack. The blades clashed with their electric zapping and red and green sparks sputtered around the two Force users.
"Who the hell are you?" Tara smirked at the man and pushed back against him and leaped into the air flipping over and landing on her feet. Both of them were breathing deeply from their duel and Tara deactivated her lightsabers. Galen did the same and the two closed the large gap between them. The woman held out her lightsaber to Galen and he took it after replacing his on his utility belt.
"My own design," she said. The man looked at how the ends of each hilt were securely locked into one another. Tara reached up and pressed two small buttons near the ends that made them click and she twisted them apart. "If I ever needed an edge I could change my fighting style, turn my sabers into a double and scare the crap out of my enemies. It usually worked. As far as I know, I'm only one of two Sith that had a lightsaber designed like this."
"Your hilts are very light," he noticed. He gave one back to Tara and pulled one of his out. For one thing, her hilt was much smaller and that made sense - her hands were smaller than a man's. The metal was shiny, well taken care of and was etched in black Sith lettering that he couldn't read. Tara noticed him looking at the words.
"Prayers of fortitude and mastery of the Force," she explained. "I had those added by a metal worker when I had them designed." She watched Galen for a moment. "A leader of the Sith told me that the lightsaber is an extension of the Force user. So I wanted them to be a unique as I was considered to be."
"You certainly are unique," the man said. He gave her the weapon back and watched as she replaced it on the opposite side of her utility belt. From where he was standing, the woman looked good. He couldn't deny that Tara actually was attractive in more ways that just one. The way she fought was an extension of her personality - always changing, you never knew when she was going to do something different. Her choice of clothing style, to him, indicated that she was more bold and free spirited than others and she wasn't afraid to flaunt it.
Tara cleared her throat and Galen shifted his gaze to look her in the eyes. He instantly blushed when he realized where his eyes had been when his mind began to wander. "You're attracted to me, aren't you?"
He looked away, almost sheepish. "It's obvious?"
"A little…" Galen looked back at her and held her gaze for a moment. "Let's go take a walk."
As the duo were about to leave the training room the felt a mild shake in the metal. Looking at one another Galen noticed Tara had frowned. The feel was unmistakable as each ship, no matter how it was built, had the same shake. The Death Star had entered hyperspace.
. . .
The planet of Alderaan sat quietly among the vast sea of space as the Death Star approached the planet. Grand Moff Tarkin stood in the control room of the massive super weapon and watched the green planet through the viewing screen. Behind him the door to the room swished open and two Stormtroopers escorted a bound princess onto the bridge. Lord Therin followed behind, an obvious scowl on her face when she saw the Moff.
"Governor Tarkin, I should have known it was you yanking on the leash on this whole situation. I recognized your foul stench almost immediately."
Nathrrya had to hide a smirk. Tarkin, on the other hand, wasn't amused. "Charming to the last," he said, turning to face the princess. As he did Leia got a view of her homeworld on the viewing screen and a furrow crossed her brow. "You don't know how hard I found it signing the order to terminate your life!"
She scoffed. "I'm surprised you had the courage to take the responsibility yourself!"
The Moff either didn't hear her or he didn't care about the verbal assault. Instead he only gave a wicked smile and that alone gave Nathrrya a very bad vibe. Something in the Force shuddered but she couldn't place what it was.
"Princess Leia," he crooned. "Before your execution I would like you to be my guest at a ceremony that will make this battle station operational. No star system will dare oppose the Emperor now."
What the hell…? Nathrrya stood more at attention. What was that spast doing?
"The more you tighten your grip, Tarkin, the more star systems will slip through your fingers."
"You say that now, Princess, but I believe that once we demonstrate the power of this station, let's say… on your homeworld of Alderaan, the galaxy would think differently."
The look on Leia's face was backed up by the Sith woman. "What the hell are you talking about Tarkin! You're not going to use this thing on that planet!"
"Alderann is peaceful!" Leia argued. "We don't have any weapons!"
"Would you prefer another target then, your highness?" Tarkin asked Leia, ignoring Nathrrya's outburst. "Perhaps a military target? I grow weary of asking this, so I will do so one last time. Where is the location of your Rebel base?"
Over the intercom Leia and Nathrrya heard a officer's voice indicating the approach to the planet. They were within range now for that attack. Leia looked at the screen of her home and dropped her head. "Dantooine," she said softly. "It's on Dantooine."
Tarkin grinned. "See, Lord Therin? She can be reasonable… though it would have been easier had you actually done what I had ordered you to do."
"I don't take orders from you, Tarkin," Nathrrya ground out, her hands fisting. She was ready to strike the man down right then but held back. Tara had some truth in stating that the two of them couldn't take on the whole Death Star on their own.
The old prune looked back at the princess. "You're much too trusting, though, your Highness. Dantooine is too remote for an accurate demonstration." He turned to Motti then. "Continue with the operation. Fire when ready."
"No!" Nathrrya stepped forward and several posted troopers held their rifles up at her. "You son of a nerfwench! Do you have any idea what that's going to-!"
Motti had already initiated the sequence. The lasers began to charge and the outer cone lit up along the edges as the Death Star came to life. The lights got brighter and became more powerful and the lasers came together at the center of the cone and formed one large mass of energy which shot away from the super weapon and raced towards the unsuspecting planet.
There was an enormous flash of light and then nothing. In almost no time at all the planet was gone, reduced to space dust. There was a suddenness about it… seeing the planet there and then not there the next moment. There was silence and then came the shock wave.
Nathrrya felt it almost immediately. The Living Force churned violently around her and in the viewing screen she could almost see the waves as they clashed into one another as the balance of life and death was pushed so severely out of whack. Her head started to pound and she felt dizzy, causing herself to have to lean against the nearest wall.
"Lord Therin, are you alright?" Nathrrya grit her teeth hearing the words come from Tarkin, even though he had no feeling behind them. He didn't care if she was or wasn't. She stood up and looked towards the man, her eyes so yellow they were unnatural and sent waves of fear into the room.
"How dare you!" The Sith looked up, her eyes turned yellow and were already being tinted orange. "No, I'm not bloody alright, you force blind imbecile! Do you have any idea of what you've just done!?" Nathrrya tried to stop the incessant ringing in her head. "If my mental shields weren't as strong as they are I'd be in far greater pain than I am. I thought seeing a world become a lifeless ball of rock was bad, but what you've just achieved makes what happened to Ziost look pleasant in comparison."
"And hopefully it will send a message to anyone who opposes us. I have, after all, demonstrated the power of this station and secured respect for the Empire."
"You're stating the kriffing obvious!" Nathrrya had taken to massaging her temples to alleviate the headache that was now building behind her forehead. She felt sick to her stomach. "I'm talking about what you've done to the Force, you idiot! The destruction of that planet left a wound that probably won't heal, and I doubt that it would. It's almost impossible to explain the magnitude of what just happened to a non-Force user."
Nathrrya was beside herself. She took a few steps towards the Grand Moff and raised her hand towards him, but only pointed a finger. "I'm going to take great pleasure in killing you, Tarkin… and part of me wants to on matter of principle. But if and when I get the chance, I will take it and you won't see me coming. Mark my words, you piece of bantha scum..." -her eyes flashed red, taking her into the deepest recesses of the Dark Side- "...you will not live much longer."
Tarkin held his head high and looked at the woman from the top of his nose. "Lord Therin, need I remind you that I am your superior officer. The Emperor has put you under my command. I do not take lightly to such threats." He turned his head and addressed the Stormtroopers. "Take the princess back to her cell to await her execution."
As the Troopers took the princess away, Nathrrya's comm. link beeped.
"Lord Therin! You're needed in medbay three-oh-four. Your apprentice has collapsed."
"Spast!" The redhead turned to leave but Tarkin called out to stop her. The woman didn't listen.
. . .
-Twenty Standard Minutes Earlier-
The two young Force users were in some hallway past where they had been sparring. The two were standing close to one another as they walked and not and again Galen or Tara would whisper something to the other and smiles would grace their faces.
"So, this 'Living Force'," Galen said. "It's something that lives in all of us?"
"Yes. It's as a part of us as we are of it. The Force is not just any kind of energy that manifests in Jedi or Sith. It's in every human, every humanoid, to some degree or another. The ones who are most sensitive in it can use it for good or ill, hence you have the Jedi and the Sith."
Galen listened to the woman and had a completely different opinion of her. Since he'd spoken to her on the holocommunicator and apologized for destroying her droid, she had been a very different woman. Truthfully, her views were questionable - they weren't the views of a Sith Lord, not any Sith Lord he had studied about or experienced, since Lord Vader was really the only person he was in contact with. There was also General Kota and the Emperor, but Tara didn't fit either category.
"So, if you're not Sith, what are you?"
Tara stopped walking and looked at him. He noticed she stopped and turned to face her, his eyes looking down on the petite woman and waited for her response. Tara wasn't sure how she wanted to answer that. She wondered if she even should. She took a breath. "I didn't say I wasn't Sith," she started, "and I'm not saying I'm a Jedi. I'm just… a Force user who wound up on one side of a credit chip when really there's a Light Side, a Dark Side and everything in between."
The man watched her as she looked away and clicked her teeth together. When she turned her head back her eyes caught his and they could only look at one another for a long moment. Down the hall there were the sound of marching footsteps and several Stormtroopers on their rounds came by. The two started walking again, smirks on their faces.
"So… am I right in thinking that you have an interest in me?" She made a side glance at Galen and raised an eyebrow.
"Perhaps," he said. "We've been consistently running into one another during our missions for the last six months, you beat me down every time we meet up, you wear very questionable clothing which I personally wouldn't consider clothing at all and I can't seem to stop thinking about you."
At least he was truthful. Tara didn't sense any deception in his words and his signature was relatively calm about it. From the way he was looking at her and the way she felt so comfortable near him, she didn't know how to react. One thing for certain, she did feel uncomfortable about the way this was going. It was too similar…
"Am I to believe that you're flirting with me, Galen Marek?" What the hell was she doing…?
The man stopped and grabbed her wrist, making her stop and turn towards him. Something in his eyes spoke out to her when she locked their gazes. His were a rich brown, dark and soothing to look at. In her mind she couldn't see Galen being a true Sith, not with eyes like that. He had a temper, surely, but something about the calm side of Galen wrapped around her and gave her the same sense of calm. It was a very different feeling from before.
"Tara… I'm not interested in fighting you. Honestly, I'm past the point of flirting. I think we've beaten around the bush long enough because I know I have feelings for you. I just don't really know what they are yet, or even if you have anything similar. I won't assume you do."
She pulled her bottom lip into her mouth and nibbled on it. Galen sucked in a quiet breath when he saw it. Part of his mind told him to bite that lip for her, but he resisted. He took another step and brought them closer together. Inches separated them and he could feel the power of the Force around the woman. It was an older power, definitely stronger than his own or even that of his master. It baffled him but he didn't want to think about power or strength or anything with the Force. He only wanted his attention to be on the woman before him. Just the woman.
She tilted her head up slightly and Galen's instinct brough his head down to her. He could practically feel the warmth from her just before their lips met, but something happened and the two of them came apart from one another. Without warning something in the Force clashed violently around them and wracked his mind with the worst kind of pain imaginable. He cried out and wrapped his hands around his head and leaned back against the wall, feeling dizzy. His vision blurred and he shook his head, trying to regain his senses.
What the kriff was that? He looked around, befuddled. As fast as it came it was gone and he felt this sudden sense of nothingness seep into him, like he'd lost a part of himself - it just wasn't there anymore. He looked around, trying to figure where it had come from but his eyes only fell on Tara.
"Oh… Spast!" He dropped down to his knees where Tara lay on the ground, her body spread like she had been hit with something large. Her chest was barely moving and blood pooled around her head - her nose and ears were bleeding. "Tara! Someone - Help!"
He pulled the woman into his arms and picked her up, holding her close to his body. At his cry the same set of Stormtroopers rounded back towards him that had passed a little while before. He looked towards them. "Alert the medbay and get word to Lord Therin that her apprentice has collapsed!"
"Right away sir!"
Galen followed two of the troopers down the hall as quickly as they could to the nearest medbay. Once there he placed her limp body down on the bed and stepped back as the medical technicians scrambled around her and worked to find out what happened. Galen could only recant small pieces of what occurred to the woman - he'd been too disoriented to really know. He didn't even know if she screamed, but apparently she had since the troopers indicated as such. The man stepped back against the wall and leaned back, running his hand down the front of his face and holding it over his mouth for a moment. He sighed.
Please, he thought. Let her be okay.
Twenty minutes later the med staff had Tara hooked to a kolto drip and had cleaned her face of the blood. There was a hovering med droid nearby with another hyperdermic needle in Tara's arm replacing the blood she had lost. The monitors showed a much slower heart rate and her breathing was shallow. The woman was pale to begin with but now she was ghost white. If she hadn't been on the monitors, Galen would swear she was dead. When he heard the door swish open he turned his head and saw that Lord Therin had come in. She was at Tara's side in an instant.
"What happened?" Galan asked her. Nathrrya didn't seem to hear him right away - she was too busy looking over Tara with her own eyes to assure herself that her friend was okay. Even Nathrrya thought Tara looked horrible. She cursed under her breath and finally turned to Galen. Her eyes were yellow but they returned to normal soon enough as she looked at the man.
"What you felt, what she suffered from, was the destruction of a planet in less than five seconds. There was a hole blasted into the Living Force."
Galen's eyes went wide and he had trouble conceiving that. The rumble he felt just before he felt dizzy, it meant that…
"The Death Star was activated."
. . .
There was an eerie silence among those present on the bridge of the Accuser. Everyone there were in shock and were trying to comprehend what happened and what they all had just witnessed.
Navigator Pressly blinked in stupefied horror and slowly sat back in his chair. "Nine Corellian Hells!" he breathed quietly. "I can't believe it… I mean, I know that's what the Death Star's main function was, but to actually see it being used on a populated planet…"
Piett's face had gone pale and his heart beat wildly in his ears. He had not been mistaken on what his eyes had beheld just then. The captain strategically leaned close to his captain's chair because his legs had gone weak in the shock. The room was so utterly silent that it was loud. Piett could only nod at Pressly's statement. He didn't think he could speak right then even if his life depended on it.
Lord Therin was not going to be pleased. The crew of the Accuser knew her standing on the super weapon and both Sith women were very vocal about it. Then the man grimaced; there were quite a few aboard the Star Destroyer that were either from Alderaan or who had family planetside. He frowned - there were going to be AWOL reports in his very near future and they were going to be plentiful.
. . .
The Kuat system was significantly distanced from the Alderaan system, but distance did nothing to lessen the feel of the void that was now rippling through the Force.
Darth Vader had been present at the Kuat Drive Yards overseeing the completion of the Super Star Destoryer, Executor when he felt the ripple rush through the Force. He turned his gaze out of one of the massive viewports and looked off into the vast sea of blackness and twinkling stars. What he had felt was the destruction of a planet. He knew that much.
It seemed that Tarkin had finally demonstrated the power that the technological terror possessed. Tarkin had to be joyously proud of the accomplishment. A brief thought through the Sith's mind made him wonder if it had been worth it and was tickled at the thought of what else the Death Star would target and terrorize.
But there was one small part of him that was vastly disgusted at what occurred and it was that minuscule part of his heart that was still Anakin Skywalker.
. . .
The Imperial Throne room was this vast expanse, decorated to show the architectural genius that was used to build the rest of Corouscant. Posted at regular intervals along the inner perimeter of the room were the red-clad Imperial guards with their shouldered vibrostaffs. Emperor Palpatine was sitting upon his throne with his Hand just off to the side. Mara Jade glanced at her Emperor and frowned when he began to emit this evil cackle of delight. She had felt something but it was muted, and she could only guess that the Emperor had been shielding her from whatever it was that had occurred through the Force. Part of her didn't want to know.
The young Hand had been blindly faithful to the Emperor for years, but when the Sith woman, Nathrrya Therin, came into the picture her defiant resolve about Palpatine was waning. During the initial introductions, Mara had felt something from her master that she'd never felt before: fear. It had only grown when Palpaine learned there had been a second woman who had not yet recovered from hibernation sickness. For Mara it didn't take her long to figure out that the fear Palpatine had was because he couldn't control the women the way he could control Vader and herself. Mara doubted the man could control them at all. The two Sith women, to Mara, apparently joined Palpatine for no other reason than necessity and one of two things could happen when Palpatine outlived his usefulness - they would leave and do their own thing, or they would turn against him and kill the man.
The latter seemed to be more likely.
. . .
Master Yoda shifted uncomfortably atop a tree stump he had been sitting on. His old, wrinkled face wrinkled more in his deep thought at the shudder he had felt run through the veins of the Force. He closed his eyes and took a shaky breath in.
"Miscalculated the Emperor has," he said. He allowed himself a slight smile. "Clouded, unpredictable the ancient Sith's actions become, they have."
Master Jinn's shade frowned. "That cannot be a good thing."
"Know I do not," Yoda stated. "Good thing for the Emperor it is not. Unknowingly sealed his downfall has become."
. . .
Starkiller's Rogue Shadow was docked in one of the many bays of the Death Star. Upon his request, Juno Eclipse was to stay on the small ship and help take care of Kota while they were on the Death Star, for obvious reasons. It was doubtful that Tarkin would tolerate an old Jedi general's presence on the Death Star.
Juno had been in the back of the ship when she heard something crash towards the bow. She rushed to the front and saw that the Jedi had fallen and was sprawled on the deck of the ship's bridge.
"General Kota! Are you alright?" The woman knelt down beside the older man and assisted him off the floor carefully and maneuvered him back into the chair he had pretty much designated as his.
Kota was dizzy. "I… I will be. Thank you for helping me up, girl."
She looked at him with concern in her eyes, not that he could see it. "What happened?"
Apparently she hadn't felt the vibrations within the hull of either the Rogue Shadow or te Death Star. He frowned. "The Death Star's main weapon was fired. A planet was just blasted into space dust. What system are we in?"
Hearing what the Jedi was saying Juno hurried to the console and found out in moments. Her chest felt immediately tighter and she had to swallow - her mouth had gone dry. She turned frightened eyes to the unseeing Jedi. "We're in the… Alderaan… system."
The man was grim faced. "Then Alderaan is no longer in existence."
. . .
Old Ben watched Luke practicing with his father's lightsaber and a small practice remote. Suddenly he had to turn away to sit down. He faltered, wondering if he were about to faint.
"Are you alright? What's wrong?" Luke asked as he switched of his lightsaber.
"I felt a great disturbance in the Force... as if millions of voices suddenly cried out in terror and were suddenly silenced. I fear something terrible has happened." The old Jedi said as he rubbed his forehead seemingly to drift into a trance. Suddenly Ben's gaze snapped to Luke. "You'd better get on with your exercises. I fear you will need that lightsaber far sooner than I had wished."
Author's Note: This little story seems to be gaining a little bit of popularity and my boyfriend and I are rather pleased that people are finding this story enjoyable. We work very hard on it, going back and forth with it, and we've gotten to where we actually figure out what is to be taken up in each chapter before we start writing it. Chapter Five is in the final stages of production and should be up in about a week. So please, leave a comment, review or opinion and let us know how we're doing on this. ~Jhen