"What do you mean 'gone'?"
"Admiral, sir, I mean gone when I say it. There is nothing left on Talmar. The entire colony was wiped out, sir."
Republic Rear Admiral Onasi winced at the news. Talmar was the third colony they'd lost in two days.
It had all begun so fast: The Wilderness had barely reported in with desperate news of an unknown enemy attacking Mortear III, when six other systems came under simultaneous attack. The enemy fleets were larger and more terrifying than anything Onasi had ever seen. All six systems fell within hours. The enemy didn't bother landing ground troops to subdue the planetary militias, they simply bombed every military and government position from orbit and the planets were quick to capitulate. The Republic hadn't heard back from any of them.
Now, it seemed, they were finished accepting surrenders. The Republic Mid-Rim colonies of Hadad and Reeches had recently been cleansed of all life. Now Talmar had joined those lifeless planets. Not a soul survived whatever the enemy had unleashed on those worlds
Carth was tired of being in this situation, where all seemed lost before he could begin to fight back. With the Republic so weak, he didn't think they even could fight back. Worse still, they had almost no time. The enemy was not taking the same approach as had the Mandalorians or the Sith, who had slowly worked their way inward from the Outer Rim. This new enemy was skipping vast swathes of Republic space to hit the most crucial worlds, ignoring thousands of lesser systems to bite deeper and with more teeth.
Desperation reaped desperate measures, but Carth was afraid that after the Mandalorians and the Jedi Civil War, the Republic had played its last hand. The Jedi long gone, they were more vulnerable than ever.
"Alright. Thank you, Captain. Dismissed."
He wasn't going to stop fighting, not for one moment, but he knew that he was at the end of his rope. His fleet orbiting Telos was the largest the Republic could muster; two capital ships, eight cruisers, ten frigates, and fifteen gunboats. The rest of their forces were being drawn in a line around the Core Worlds. But, realistically, there was very little they could do if the enemy struck again.
And they would strike again. Of that there was no doubt.
Carth cursed to himself and looked out over the fleet. He'd recalled patrols from all over the galaxy to have a force this large, and it was still a fraction of full strength. It wasn't fair that it had come down to this again; he'd already fought this same battle twice before. He doubted he'd be able to do it again.
Visas awoke with a gasp, struggling to control a wave of panic. She was lying naked on a cot beneath a long cloak and with a smooth mask covering her face. With effort, she forced down the horrors that tried to overcome her, memories of the terrors inflicted on her. Gradually, her racing heartbeat slowed and she read her surroundings through the Force.
Lying on a cot beside her was Kuryama, her master. Visas could have sobbed with relief that Kuryama was uninjured.
Again, terror threatened to erupt inside her when she felt three other presences, like a set of identical ripples, which resonated in the Force the same way Lord Nihilus had. They seemed like they could be kin to the Dark Lord.
Without fully knowing what she was doing, but with the knowledge that she had to protect Kuryama, Visas leapt upright, casting off the hated mask. The three figures started in confusion, and she punished them for their laxity. She rammed her elbow into the nearest one's dull gray mask, whipped around and drove a foot into his stomach and kneed him in the face. She didn't stop to think about anything as she took them on, grabbing the second by his arm and wrenching it all the way around until bone popped audibly. As he fell, she slammed a foot into his groin and jumped for the third, clamping her hands around his throat.
Visas and the drab-robed figure crashed to the floor. Her knee was in his stomach and her hands around his neck, crushing his windpipe. He made no attempt to fight back, just flailed his arms and made pitiful choking sounds from his alien throat.
"Visas, stop."
Kuryama's command rang clear with authority through the fog of Visas' mind. She instantly pulled her fingers from the man's neck and jumped to her feet. Kuryama was sitting on the edge of a second bed, naked as was Visas, an identical black cloak and silver mask lying to one side of her.
Standing over the one whose arm she'd broken, Visas leaned viciously on the injured limb, causing the man to cry out in pain. "Where are the Master's robes?" she whispered venomously.
Behind the drab mask, the man started to speak. Visas was thunderstruck to hear the arcane tongue of her former master coming from his lips, begging her to stop hurting him. She took her foot from his arm and answered in the old language.
"Tell me where the Master's robes are or I will hurt you much more than this."
Desperately, the man told her; their clothes were underneath the beds.
Satisfied, Visas lifted all three of them with the Force and hurled them through an open doorway. She took her first good look around.
A room of bare gray rock walls, it was larger than the dormitory on the Ebon Hawk, but not much larger. It held only the two small cots and a single piece of furniture in one corner. There were no windows, and the light came from glowing lightbanks along the perimeter of the wall and ceiling.
Visas reached under the beds for their clothes while Kuryama frowned at her. The first thing she did was pull her hood over her nonexistent eyes. She hated that she had let Kuryama see them. Just for once, Visas shut out her Force sight, so she wouldn't have to see her Master's disapproval. She was relieved by the simple familiarity of her black and red robes. Putting them on was like greeting an old friend. At least, it was what she supposed it must be like, as she had never had any friends.
"Why did you do that, Visas?" Kuryama asked as she pulled on her undergarments.
"My life for yours, Master. I will protect you to my dying breath."
Kuryama donned her signature gray garments with surprising speed. "But they meant us no harm, Visas. I could feel that much from them."
"I did not have the luxury of such inspection, Master. I acted as I must if I expect to keep harm from you."
Dressed, Kuryama leaned over to lace on her boots. "There was another reason, wasn't there?"
Visas looked away.
"Visas, it wasn't the noise that woke me. Through the Force I felt you in a helpless panic. You don't have to tell me anything, but I need to know if you're alright."
She briefly considered telling Kuryama of those most personal horrors to which she'd been subjected by Darth Nihilus, but quickly rejected the thought. Her Master had enough to worry about; Kuryama needn't concern herself over her.
"I am sorry, Master. For a moment, I thought I could feel my old master. I will be more attentive in the future."
She heard Kuryama sigh in acceptance.
Only when she slipped her lightsabre on its short chain around her wrist did Visas feel secure once more.
Kuryama and Visas heard the sound of footsteps from beyond the doorway. They turned to see four figures in dark blue robes and gray masks. Their smoothly symmetrical masks were similar in design to those worn by the Nihil; which were themselves eerily close in appearance to the one which hid the face of Darth Nihilus. But they were different from the Nihil and the Dark Lord in that the eyes and mouths of the wearers were visible, instead of a black pall looming behind the faceless mask.
These four were smaller and thinner than the ones before. The lead one spoke in a soft voice, a feminine voice.
"We have done you no harm. Please do us none?"
"Who are you?" Visas asked, keeping a firm grip on her lightsabre and shielding Kuryama from the perceived threat with her body.
"We..." the masked woman spread her arms."We are those who remain, the descendants of those who did not join with the servants of the Saint in his empire. I am Kess. My sisters are Myr, Siv, and Kal. We are slaves allowed to live only because we tend to the spirits of the Wall; the Saint's servants cannot, only we can."
Visas drew back in puzzlement.
"You understand them?" Kuryama asked.
"Yes, Master. My old master spoke in a dialect very much the same as this, and he required me to understand him. I had little choice, and was forced to learn."
"What did they say to you?"
Visas translated.
"Please ask them why they took us from our companions." Visas immediately repeated Kuryama's question to the one named Kess.
"We sensed you, and knew the Rayaj would come for you. They would torture and enslave you, or bind your souls into the Wall, because you are similar to them. You have both felt the intimate touch of the power only they can wield, but are heathens who do not follow the path of the Saint," Kess answered.
Listening to Visas' interpretation, Kuryama formed her next question. "Who are the Rayaj?"
"Enforcers of the Saint's will. They are a high caste within the empire, and have nearly unlimited power. They cast lightning and fire from their hands, and it is believed they can destroy an enemy's mind with a single thought. Those of us they cannot enslave they hunt down and kill, for we, too, are similar to them but not of them. We resisted the Old Revolutions, when the Saints of old took power over the empire. We cast ourselves out from the rest of the people to live by ourselves, but the Rayaj would not suffer us to exist without their domination."
"If you are slaves to the Rayaj and the servants of the Saint," Kuryama said, fingering her lightsabre, "then why did you not leave Visas and I for them to discover? Why did you take us here?"
The four masked women talked animatedly amongst themselves in low voices before Kess answered. "We hate the Rayaj and all the servants of the Sacred Saint. Though they hold us as slaves, for us to do our work they must give us a small degree of liberty. We have used this limited freedom to aid you because the Saint's servants fear you and believe you capable of bringing harm to their empire. There is nothing we wish for more fervently than to be free of their dominion. Thousands of years ago, they first began oppressing us because we did not share their views of the Force as our everlasting oppressor, like they preached. We saw its true nature; that it was no more evil than the other mechanisms by which our ancestors were dominated. Their machines caused terrible suffering, but they were not evil. How then could the Force be evil? It was only another tool of oppression, and perhaps as much a victim as we were.
"You are creatures of the Force. We are not. And you may yet be able to free the spirits of the Wall.
"The Wall was formed from our brothers and sisters, and all those deemed traitors to the Saint's empire, simply because they did not submit to the beliefs of the greater whole. To the Sacred Empire, differing beliefs are treason. Our people were hunted to near extinction for it.
"But if you are able to destroy the Wall of Treason, the Saint's homeworld of Malayvin will be vulnerable. There are some of us who have waited generation upon generation for this opportunity. They would lay down their lives to aid you and rend apart the Sacred Empire. We are yours."
Then, to Kuryama's disbelief, they all fell to their knees, touching their masks to the floor in reverence.
Revan blocked the regret from his mind as the deafening explosion rocked the forest for miles around. The hillside erupted in gigantic gouts of flame, tossing dirt and rubble hundreds of feet into the air and over the surrounding countryside. Chunks of burning debris, melted and twisted by the intense heat, were hurled into the trees, snapping small trunks and setting fires in the immediate area.
At first he was skeptical that the damaged torpedo they'd salvaged would even detonate and be sufficient to destroy the crippled ship, but he was proven wrong. The blast had completely obliterated the once-faithful ship and left nothing intact that was larger than a swoop bike's fin.
As the others - Bastila, Juhani, Jilon, and Norryl - were transfixed by the violent funeral pyre of the deceased ship, Revan turned his gaze into the thick forest. He could sense the other Jedi and Sith much farther into the trees. They were already forming into small groups, seeking strength in ever more concentrated numbers.
They needed to gather as one, and continue on despite the loss of the two most important individuals.
Revan didn't know if success was possible without General Nari and the Miraluka, but he'd brought the Jedi here, and had to lead them regardless. Now that they were here, he had to get them out of the forest, and into far greater danger, towards the Temples of Sacrifice that lay in the valley beyond the hill line.
"We've wasted enough time here, we have to go now," Revan urged the silent four. One by one, they reluctantly turned away from the dead ship and headed with him back into the trees.
"The others are not far," said blond-haired, pale-skinned Norryl. "I can sense them. They have been gathering into groups of their own. Some of them may have heard the blast, but I suspect the Nihil will be quicker to investigate. We should be on guard."
"I agree with Norryl," Juhani responded in her musical voice.
Norryl's words proved prophetic. Not fifteen minutes into the forest they encountered a large contingent of Nihil soldiers, a dozen blade-bearers among them. There was no way to sneak around them, and the faceless, white-armored soldiers had already detected them.
There was nothing for it but to stand and fight.
Before the masked men could open fire and fill the forest with screaming black fire, Norryl unleashed a killing web. Branching red lightning, crackling with deadly power, shot from her fingertips and tore into the approaching enemy. Eight Nihil soldiers were reduced to ash within seconds by her attack.
As they returned fire, the Jedi ignited their lightsabres in an instant to deflect the barrage of black energy bolts while Norryl struck again with her destructive power. She hurled a wave of Force distortion at the leading troops, rending them into pieces smaller than the dead leaves on the forest floor. Blood soaked the ground as the Nihil charged forward, black energy blades igniting in their ranks.
Moments before they met the Nihil's charge, Revan looked briefly into Bastila's eyes. She needed no urging; she had already begun to sink into the Force. It was in her eyes as she gave him a silent, loving, but stern admonishment to face the battle ahead. They exchanged a brief nod of the head that conveyed so much more.
Revan wasted no time. From inside his cloak, he produced a pair of identical red blades. As he plunged himself into the fray, he could already the effects of Bastila's power overcoming him.
He sliced into the first three almost without thought; he barely noticed the severed limbs and bisected bodies that fell before his sabres. His mind was inundated by a righteous drive, impelling him to succeed, making him stronger than ever. At the same time he could feel the resolve of his enemies weakening. Revan was smiling as he tore through another five without much effort.
Further within the Nihil swarm, Norryl was a wind of death. Her lightsabre never touched her hands; she didn't need its assistance to wreak incredible slaughter. Force waves erupted from her hands, lightning danced from her long, swirling hair and raked from her fingers. She seized Nihil soldiers, alive or dead, with the Force and used them as flail weapons against the others, often forcing the blade-bearers to slice open their own comrades.
Her miserable orange eyes glowed with an unnatural fire. Dark veins on her pale face stood out sharply in the flashes shooting from her fingers. She never slowed her attack, not for one instant, while the power took its toll on her body, draining ever more color and substance from her flesh.
Several yards away, Jilon was engaged with the blade-bearers. He was swift with the lightsabre, blocking thrusts and pressing his attack with calm thoroughness. Bastila's power washed through him as it did the others. It made him feel invincible, as if he could do anything. Three of the snarling, masked attackers could not force him to give ground. He cut into their defenses and evaded their black blades at every turn.
Juhani was a feral death machine in the midst of the Nihil contingent. She used her blue lightsabres to maximum effect in confluence with the rest of her body in acrobatic leaps and quick rolls which devastated her enemies.
Against the power of the Jedi and Bastila's battle meditation, the Nihil were soon killed to a man. Over fifty of the white-armored soldiers lay dead on the ground, most in more than one piece.
Revan looked around at his companions. None had suffered any serious injuries, but Norryl looked more haggard than ever. Cautiously, he walked up to her and asked to inspect her wounds. She made no protests and he gently touched a hand to her forehead.
He was completely unprepared for the pain he felt inside her. It was a pain she inflicted upon herself, an agony of the soul stemming from a past experience that she tenaciously clung to even for all the misery it caused her. Norryl was fueling her Force powers with her own life force.
She was on a death quest, Revan realized. She wanted to die, but die fighting with all her strength.
He couldn't let her die. Not yet. He still needed her.
Remorseful that he had to prolong her suffering, Revan let his Force powers regenerate Norryl's body, restoring tissue and muscle that she'd sacrificed for her destructive powers. When he was finished, her skin was still pale and her eyes still orange, but she was no longer skeletal and withered.
A single tear welled from Norryl's eye when he pulled away.
"I'm sorry," Revan whispered.
She tossed her hair back and crossed her arms. "What is your command, my lord?"
"We gather the Jedi."
It took less than ten minutes for the first group to find them.
"So maybe a few of you would like to come clean?"
There was no question as to who was in charge. Mira had firmly placed herself in authority, with the aid of her ready arsenal, and held the Talion Hunters literally at her mercy.
"Okay," Lara started, "the deal is, Atton here is Jaq Rand, the most successful Sith apostle there ever was. The Jedi knew just how dangerous he was and sent us off to kill him. Only we weren't successful. He wasn't on Korriban when we arrived there and some teenaged snot blew our cover in less than two days. The only thing we were able to salvage from that mission to get us our pay was rescuing a couple Jedi prisoners."
Mira raised her eyebrow, but otherwise didn't react. "Atton? You have anything you want to say?"
Atton's scowl seemed to envelope his whole face. "Not really. I've gone through the whole confession thing with Kuryama already. That's a part of my life that's over and done. But I'll tell you what I told her: Jaq is dead, and I will never be him again." He glared balefully at Rigel. "So if you want someone tortured, do it yourself."
Rigel shrugged. "Okay, no harm no foul. We got paid for that assignment anyway, so we're not in the market for you anymore. Otherwise we'd have shot you on sight."
"How very comforting."
Lara looked hopefully to Mira, who still held them at gunpoint. "This is what we do, Mira. People pay us for justice when they can't get it from the Republic. You're a bounty hunter; you know how life is. Rigel and I aren't holding any grudges, we just do our jobs. I'm sure you can understand."
Slowly, Mira's blasters came down. "Yeah, I guess I do understand. I actually know a lot about you two. That's why I never took up on any of your bounties; because I knew the kinds of things you do and what you are. I heard about your assassination of that Ilonian dictator, and that time when you wrecked the Exchange drug shipments into the Devrita sector. To be honest I felt cheered at that news.
"But I don't want to hear any more death threats from either of you, or I'll put a pair of shots through your heads before you can blink."
"Don't worry," Lara replied, "we're not--"
Out of nowhere, she was struck in the face by a flying blade.
Lara fell to the ground screaming in pain as the others ducked to avoid more of the deadly projectiles hurled by a group of Nihil who came charging in from all sides. Mira lit up her blasters and gunned down two with a single burst. Atton winced as one of the razor-sharp knives nicked his arm and punished his attacker by taking off his head with an overcharged rifle blast.
As suddenly as the attack had come, it was over. There had been no more than six Nihil, and not one of them had fired a shot; but they had done their damage.
Mira kept her blasters out and her eyes peeled at the surrounding forest as Atton crouched down next to Rigel, who was holding Lara in his arms, trying futilely to stem the river of blood flowing from the horrible wound in her skull. The blade had wedged in her left cheekbone just behind her eye and sliced her cheek open as it poked into her jaw. Her blood was everywhere, and Rigel's frantic, misguided efforts to remove the knife only made things worse.
Atton yanked the man's bloody hands away from his Twi'lek companion's ravaged face. "Stop it! You're only making it worse and you're going to kill her!"
"But I can't let her die!"
Both men glared at each other. Atton, in helplessness; Rigel, in sudden, unreasoned hatred.
They both were caught by a sound coming from Lara. Through the blood pooled in her throat and mouth, she managed to get out in a whisper, "I'm... sorry, Rigel..." Suddenly, she was racked by a heaving cough. Blood, saliva, and stomach fluids erupted from her throat. Her convulsions stopped.
Lara lay dead in Rigel's arms.
"The Force burn you for this, Revan!" he cried bitterly. "This is all your fault for bringing us here!"
Atton left Rigel to his grief and went up to Mira, who was now carefully scanning every tree. "What is it?"
Mira shook her head. "Something's different. I'm not sure what, but I think we need to get out of here."
Atton glanced back uncomfortably to Rigel cradling his dead friend's bloody head in his arms in anguish. "I don't think he's going anywhere. I'm no expert, but I'd say he and she were a lot closer to each other than simply partners on the job."
"I know," Mira sighed. "They've been through a lot together. The Republic ought to have been pinning medals on their chests for all the things they've done instead of hunting them like the murderers they kill." A sudden noise riveted her attention. "Get him moving, Atton. We need to leave right now. I think whoever took this Jedi from his ship is coming back."
"How do you--?" Atton began, but he could feel it himself; hungry anticipation riding on the air like a repugnant odor. The fine hairs on the back of his neck stood up. Mira holstered her blasters and brought to hand a stripped-down, modified version of a light Mandalorian repeater rifle.
Atton grabbed Rigel's shoulder. "She's dead, Rigel! There's nothing you can do! We have to get out of here now or she died for nothing!"
Rigel glared up at him. "She believed in you, Rand. I don't know why, but she did." He let go of Lara and got to his feet. He picked up a broken fragment of a Nihil's mask. "Wherever we get to next, I am going to kill everything that wears this mask."
After retrieving Lara's equipment and distributing the supplies between themselves, Rigel left his dead friend with a full belt of plasma grenades that had been wired together. As they hurried from the scene of the battle, Rigel activated a tiny device that had been wedged inside her belt buckle.
Red and orange fire exploded behind them, turning the trees and ground into an inferno that consumed the scattered bodies.
Lara's funeral pyre.
Malachor V, in all its horrible ugliness, had a seductive charm. Its shattered surface like a celebration of death was welcoming and familiar. He had long ago lost track of the number of days he'd spent in nothing else but walking the planet, immersing himself in what it meant to be dead but alive. It was a joy he shared with the devastated world.
He had forgotten his own name, for it no longer held any meaning for him. He was no longer that man; that man was dead. His rebirth had fundamentally changed him, made him someone else entirely. Inside him, he could feel always the presence of that great void, the nothingness of death, and he began to draw comfort from it. Like the Force, he realized, it was an energy field, and it now lived in him, forging an irrevocable connection between him and death.
The Force was not alone in binding the galaxy together. It had a counterpart, a second nature, an opposite. As the Force connected every living thing, the power of the void he felt connected all things dead.
As he walked along, stepping carefully over crevices from which poured the incandescent green light, he saw someone. A robed figure knelt on the hard ground, uttering strange, oddly compelling words he'd never heard before and could not understand. He stopped in front of the kneeling figure, taking in the black robes, cowled head, and most strikingly, the white and red mask that covered his face. There were eye- and mouth-holes, but nothing was visible behind the mask, only darkness. And yet, he knew without a doubt that the stranger was looking directly at him.
He felt no fear at the inscrutable gaze, only a sense of kinship. This man belonged here, on the dead planet; he could feel that much. The masked man had no presence in the Force, save for his sheer lack of presence. He was like a whirlpool where one expected a serene lake, a thing defined only through its lack of definition.
He heard again the man speak in his alien tongue, addressing him. Though he couldn't understand the words, he could almost grasp at their deeper meaning. The sounds were so familiar, yet so distant and obscured.
One word, however, stood out from the others. The masked man spoke the word 'oden' to him, and he knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that he had been assigned a new name. Whatever the meaning of the word, he knew it was appropriate.
He stared one last time at the kneeling figure, the masked man devoid of the Force, and continued on.
The connections formed by memory finally made sense to Darth Oden. He was kin to the Nihil; if not in flesh, in spirit. They existed outside of the Force because they were bound into death, much as he was. The slave uprisings against the Rakatan Empire that ended in the destruction of worlds had had much the same effect as the experiment on Malachor V, but the consequences were far greater. Entire races had become as he was; inextricably connected to the energy of death and yet still living.
His difference was that he was Jedi where they were not. He had command of the Force where those uncounted billions had never been touched by it save for when they were dominated by those who did command it.
But there was one other whom he still did not understand. A pilgrim, perhaps, from beyond the Null field, who had somehow gained a connection to the Force. There could be no doubt, the Lord of Hunger was of the Nihil. Everything Oden remembered from their brief encounter with each other attested to that fact. He wore their mask, spoke their language, resonated the same auras, and had their powers. And yet he, like Oden, could also wield the Force.
He felt the two generals close by; he was nearly upon them. The scattered Jedi and Sith were gathered again. To his surprise, he sensed a large host accompanying Kuryama. Even more surprisingly, they resonated with the all-too familiar echo of whirlpools.
It didn't matter, Darth Oden decided. Soon enough there would be answers.