Rigel had been silent ever since committing Lara's body to the flames. After a few abortive attempts, neither Atton nor Mira even tried to engage him in conversation, choosing to let him simmer by himself. For their part, they weren't in the mood for talking either. Mira drove them relentlessly from the crash site where Lara had died, able to cite only that she felt something wrong. Atton couldn't argue with her because he could feel it himself.
Like something stretched nearly to the breaking point, the whole forest seemed to be holding its breath in anticipation. But of what, they could only guess.
The sudden squawking of the comlink followed by Revan's authoritative voice was startling to the extreme. "Alright, talk to me, Mira, Rigel, anyone of you. What's your position?"
Mira quickly adjusted the volume and radioed back. "Close to linking up with you. We're about half a mile from intercept point."
"Good. I think you should know that there's been a few developments on our end."
"I'm not surprised. We've had a few of our own. Lara's dead."
"One of the bounty hunters?"
"Yes."
There was a long pause.
"Well, that certainly isn't what I wanted to hear."
"I know. Rigel isn't happy about it either."
"Ok, listen. You get here as fast as you possibly can. There's no way I can explain this to you, but you are being hunted by two of the Nihil's deadliest disciples. They are more powerful than a Jedi and more heartless than the bleakest assassin droid. You must not let them catch you!"
It was the first time Mira had heard such consternation in Revan's voice. He sounded afraid.
"We're on our way."
The forest thinned as the company of Jedi left the hills behind. There were twenty-five Jedi total, fifteen of them Sith who had served a number of Dark Lords. As Revan and Kuryama had made clear from the beginning, there were no longer allegiances between them that mattered. Jedi and Sith alike stood to lose everything, as did everyone in the galaxy if the Nihil succeeded. When the galaxy was subjugated, the Nihil would eventually kill the Force, and then anyone and everything touched by the life of the Force would die. Even the small percentage of life that could exist without the Force would simply be assimilated into the greater Nihil race and forever disappear from the galaxy.
To keep the Jedi and Sith united in the same cause, Revan and Kuryama had both fallen back on familiar roles; the Dark Lord and the General. Fear of Revan and respect of Kuryama bonded the two rival factions in purpose.
And then there were the Pariahs.
Nearly twenty blue- and brown-robed outcasts from Nihil society who had appeared along with Kuryama and Visas were a total mystery to Revan. He had not one scintilla of knowledge about the people behind the eerily familiar masks who followed General Nari as she were a goddess. That he knew nothing about them was profoundly disturbing. The dead zone they occupied in his mind was matched only by the enigmatic Visas Marr, whose true significance had yet to reveal itself.
Though it did not bring him any comfort, Revan had to accept that even he did not have all the answers.
Atton, Mira, and Rigel had joined them shortly before they left the hills, their pursuers seeming to have given up the chase. Revan was not fooled by the shadowy beings he could just barely sense, knew that they were only trying to lull him into complacence. But the three rogues had been completely taken in by their stalkers' strategy. Revan saw no point in reminding them that the two hunters were still out there. Sooner or later they would strike, it was only a matter of when.
Revan was concerned that Rigel could become a liability. The man had to be restrained from attacking the Nihil Pariahs following Kuryama. He saw no reason for the bounty hunter's continued presence among him and his Jedi followers, yet some inner voice warned him not to let Rigel out of his sight.
He felt much the same way about Jilon and Norryl; the two most volatile individuals in his tiny army. They despised each other with a deeply personal hatred beyond anything of mere doctrinal and philosophical conflict. But they were too valuable to lose control of.
As the day wore on, it became increasingly clear to Revan that he and his diverse company would not reach the Temples before the sun set on the horizon. Both the prospect of spending a night on the relatively shelterless terrain that lay before them and that of marching on into the night to hit the strongholds in the darkness when they were exhausted seemed pure suicide. They both raised incredible risk, but he eventually decided that they would have to stop and rest.
He halted the tiny army at a rocky hillside with sparse tree cover that was positioned less than fifteen miles from the now-visible Temples in the distance. It was a compromise between the two only options they had. They would rest for several hours of the night and strike out at the Temples before the Nihil patrols reached them. In the pitch blackness of the cloudy night they would assault the barrier that kept them from the core of the Nihil Empire and the homeworld of the Sacred Saint.
All the Jedi and Sith were ordered to sleep. Revan wanted them to recover as much strength as possible in the short time they would have, and let none but Darth Oden stay awake. Oden didn't sleep, he hadn't slept since Malachor V, and so would act as their watchman. The Nihil Pariahs also insisted on taking short shifts of watch duty as they stood guard in a tight circle around Kuryama and Visas.
Holding himself to his own orders, Revan crossed his legs on the ground and fell into a trance of half-sleep. As he drifted from consciousness, at the far corners of his mind he could sense the two dark entities moving in closer.
It was mortal screams that woke Kuryama. Her eyes snapped open at the ear-splitting shriek that cut through the night air and she scrambled to her feet. Even before Kuryama found her feet, Visas was up and at the ready, her blue lightsabre gripped firmly in her hand. Kuryama ignited her own viridian blade and took a quick inspection of the scene before her.
The camp was in utter chaos. The red and violet blades of the Sith and the blue, green, and yellow sabres of the Jedi pierced the night everywhere as they jumped to their feet and threw themselves forward at the white menace that attacked out of the dark. The Nihil swung their black energy swords smoldering with a dark yellow-orange glow, biting against the resistance of the skilled Jedi and Sith.
The battle was escalating rapidly. Though Kuryama could still see the first man who had fallen, a Jedi with his torso severed, the numbers of Nihil soldiers coming in was swiftly turning the area into a body-choked deathtrap.
Seeing no other alternative, Kuryama plunged into the battle. Behind her, the Nihil Pariahs charged with her, and Visas somehow maneuvered herself in front of her so she could shoulder the brunt of impact with the enemy. As the Miraluka hit the first three, a blast of Force lightning accompanied the devastating sweep of her lightsabre to cut down two of them before they could bring their own blades to bear.
Soon after Visas' initial strike, Kuryama's lightsabre bit into the enemy. Her viridian sabre hummed in the night air amidst the cacophony as she struck against her opponents' black and orange blades. Her first strike was deflected, forcing her to defend with a quick cut back. As the Nihil pressed the attack, she deliberately drew him out by faking a weakness in her guard. As she hoped, the Nihil overextended himself to go for a killing blow, and she evaded his blade to sink her lightsabre into his chest.
Even before the body could fall to the ground Kuryama whipped around to face two more identically dressed, blade-wielding soldiers. She leaped at them, twisting in midair to lend more power to her blade. Her scything swing cut through the torso of one of the soldiers before he could raise his guard to block her attack. But she wasn't fast enough on the defense to avoid being grazed by the other's energy blade. It raised a line of stinging welts on her shoulder where it burned away the layers of her gray robes. Grunting in pain, she unleashed a knotted Force pulse at the Nihil which shattered its white armor and cracked every bone in his body.
Having gained a few brief seconds of respite, Kuryama took another glance around the camp. She saw blue-white and red flashes in the thickest group of Nihil and assumed it to be Norryl's doing. Jilon and a tattered group of Jedi were assaulting the Nihil's flank. And Revan and Juhani were leading a large contingent of Sith in an attempt to break through the Nihil's encircling forces. She, Visas, and the Nihil Pariahs were attempting to hold the campsite, which Kuryama clearly saw was going to be a fatal endeavor.
Suddenly, a large explosion from what could only have been a thermal detonator illuminated much of the countryside, and Kuryama saw what she had desperately hoped not to see.
A full column of Nihil troops were almost upon them. Numbering over a thousand strong, they were crushing in from behind, cutting off any possible escape back across the plains. They couldn't hold their position against that many, already three Jedi and four Sith had fallen. They had to move forward; into the jaws of the Treason Wall.
Kuryama abandoned trying to hold back the onrushing Nihil and dashed to get to Revan, attacking only those enemies that got in her way. Eventually she found herself back to back with the sabre master.
"Revan, we have to move forward!" she yelled.
"I know!"
"Why didn't Oden warn us?"
"He's abandoned us and kidnapped Bastila!"
"What?!"
They had to end their conversation prematurely as they hit a dense pocket of assaulting Nihil troops. Kuryama didn't even try to fight them all. In her desperation, she began drawing forth powerful waves of concussive Force energy that she hurled ahead at her enemies. As more and more of the white-armored soldiers fell victim to her attacks, their numbers thinned enough to allow Revan almost free reign with his long red lightsabre.
Watching Revan fight was like seeing a flash flood demolish a shaky house. He struck with blinding strength on his attacks and flowed like liquid around his enemies' retaliatory strikes. At times he seemed to be using several different lightsabre forms at once and at others it seemed as if there was nothing but overriding hate guiding his red blade. The Nihil blade-bearers, skilled as they were, were no match for Darth Revan, Dark Lord of the Sith.
Behind them, the Nihil Pariahs charged forward to secure Revan's flank, and Atton of all people was rallying the rest of the Jedi and Sith scattered about the remains of the camp.
As their allies lifted some of the burden from them, Kuryama leaned close to Revan. "This may be our last chance. We have to get away!" Revan responded with a brisk nod and raised his fist in the air.
All of a sudden, the breath was torn from Kuryama's lungs. The night seemed to become even blacker as the air around them rushed into a vortex around Revan. Lightning crackled around him and then exploded from his fist, extending in finger-like tendrils that sought out the white-armored soldiers as a released blast of air rushed simultaneously outward from his body. The ropes of lightning crashed down around the Nihil soldiers, snaking in and among them in search of bodies to destroy. It tore through their numbers, gouging smoking holes in flesh and bone.
When the lightning ceased and all the attacking Nihil lay dead on the ground, Revan swept his hand around in an arc, extinguishing every lit lightsabre and sending the battleground into utter blackness. A harmless glow flared to life in his upraised hand as he spoke to his allies.
"Our next course of action has been chosen for us. We must assault the Temples of the Treason Wall tonight. We will move in the darkness and strike from the darkness, and we must not be drawn into the open."
A wave of murmurs passed among the Jedi and Sith.
"Silence!" Revan hissed.
As everyone obeyed, a new sound was heard in the stillness; battle cries. The thousand Nihil troops were nearly at their doorstep, only a few hundred yards away.
"Those soldiers expect us to make a stand here. We will not play by their rules. We must attack where they do not expect us. Onward to war!" he shouted. As the rest of them roared their approval, a nearly imperceptible wave of light washed over them all. Kuryama felt it affecting her, filling her muscles with vigor and her mind with clarity. And when Revan began running into the darkness, everyone followed.
Sprinting through the pitch black night with only the light of Revan's hands to guide them was almost effortless. Dozens of feet pounded the ground beneath them at lightning-quick speeds as the Jedi, Sith, outcasts, and the trio of misfit mercenaries alike tore across the landscape.
They covered over four miles in ten minutes, when the effects of Revan's power wore off and their bodies again felt the physical drain. Revan, however, looked more focused than ever when the Force speed wore off. He marched resolutely ahead with absolutely no signs whatsoever of fatigue.
With a hand, he motioned Kuryama forward. He pointed off into the darkness. "Watch."
As she stared, Kuryama saw the lights come to life far off in the distance. Thousands of them. With a start she realized that they outlined an enormous ship, a Nihil capital ship. The low profile as if of a crouching predator, the crescent-shaped, blade-sharp scoops in its smooth-lined hull were all illuminated by thousands upon thousands of running lights.
"Oden is there." His features hardened. "And he has my wife."
"What could he possibly want?" Kuryama asked.
"You would know better than I, Kuryama." Revan raised an eyebrow at her. "After all, he was your lover."
Caught off guard by his blunt statement, Kuryama fumbled for words. "Revan, I... we weren't..." She sighed in frustration. "That was a long time ago. We were all something else before the war. He's a complete stranger to me now. I could no more tell you what he wants than I could tell you how you fell in love with Bastila."
"That's true," he admitted. "But reasons aside, I have to face him, and perhaps more importantly, help him take that ship."
"I don't understand."
"Neither do I, not entirely. But somehow we have to take control of that ship, or we will all die at the Wall."
"I don't like the prospect of dividing our forces now."
"It's imperative. I, Juhani, and Norryl will go. No one else."
"How will you get there in time?"
Revan smiled reassuringly. "I'm a prophet, remember? If I say we'll get there, we'll get there." This forced Kuryama into a smile of her own.
She unconsciously lit her own hands as glowing beacons while Revan fell back, picking up the red-robed Juhani and pale-skinned Norryl as he split his path from the main group to head towards to running lights in the distance.
"Master." Kuryama was startled by the sudden appearance of Kess beside her.
"What is it, Kess?"
"Why is Lord Revan leaving us?" the blue-robed outcast asked.
"He says he must help one of our allies deal with that imperial ship in the distance."
"Master, may I suggest we leave this open ground?"
Kuryama furrowed her brow. "How are we to do that? The terrain is open plains and hills between here and the Wall."
Kess gesticulated with her hands as she elaborated. "Yes, I realize that. But we are very close to the Wall now. Perhaps close enough to take refuge in the catacombs that run under the Temples and out onto the plains."
"Tunnels?"
"Yes, Master."
"Will not the Rayaj know of them?"
"Perhaps they will. But on the surface the Temples will be guarded by thousands of soldiers. Underground and inside the Temples there can be no such concentration of strength. The defenses will be weaker and we will not be as exposed to the sky."
The Nihil Pariah spoke truth. The last installation of this importance that Kuryama had attacked had been guarded by thousands upon thousands of Nihil soldiers; she expected the Temples Of Sacrifice would be similarly defended. Taking an underground route, rather than throwing her forces into the meat grinder of a frontal assault, would greatly increase their chances of survival.
Kuryama nodded to Kess. "Take us to these tunnels."
Kess waved her hand and her three outcast sisters came forward from among the brown-robed men, who marched along at the flanks of the group. They fanned out a good twenty feet ahead of her, lighting their way with what looked to be brightly-glowing glass shards.
After continuing on for a few minutes, one of them trilled with discovery. Kuryama looked on in amazement as a section of the grassland shimmered a moment and rose several feet into the air, exposing a torch-lit passageway. The four Nihil women crouched around the opening and waved her and the Jedi forward.
They hurriedly followed the four into the subterranean passage, their numbers filling much of the tunnel by the time the four women closed the entrance.
Kess elbowed her way through the close confines back into the front with Kuryama and Visas. "The tunnel will widen farther ahead and branch off in several directions."
Kuryama nodded. "We'll figure out where next to go from there."
As Kess promised, the tunnel did widen. The earthen walls, only six feet apart at the entrance, nearly tripled in spread and gave way to fine-worked masonry. The floor too, changed from hard-packed dirt to a smooth, dark gray marble. Lit by evenly spaced torches, the tunnel had a surreal stillness and quiet that made it seem like nothing so much as a tomb.
When they did finally come to the fork in the tunnel, Kuryama could sense something amiss. It was as if the air was stretched like a cord under tension. She could feel her gentle probings with the Force disappearing into a hollow in her perception like a whirlpool.
Unsettled, she stopped.
"What is wrong?" Visas asked.
Wordlessly, Kuryama turned around. She heard Atton and Mira both scream in warning as a pair of blades sank into her chest.
Darth Oden looked with awe over the immense drive core of the Nihil capital ship. It was easily twice the size of his ship, and he knew the ship had three of them. He felt a rush of pleasure imagining the sheer power put out by the three massive engines; kinetic force on a scale neither Republic nor Sith ship engines could ever match. It was truly a thing of beauty.
Getting onto the ship had been delightfully easy for him and Rydak. Having gained knowledge of the Nihil hierarchy from the Pariahs, Oden was able to formulate disguises for both of them that kept the hundreds and thousands of enemy soldiers in too much fear to question their presence among them. He and Rydak wore masks identical to those worn in one of the highest castes within Nihil society; the Rayaj, personal enforcers of the Saint's will.
Darth Oden and his servant strode unmolested through thousands of Nihil troops, the unconscious body of of Jedi Bastila slung over Rydak's shoulder.
She was only now recovering from her deep sedation, cautiously opening her eyes and flexing her fingers. Oden knew it wouldn't take very long for her to start wishing she could remain comatose.
Rydak had set to work quickly once he and Oden cleared out the vast engine room for their purposes. The experienced Sith already had Bastila stripped and stretched out over the sharp white steps leading up around the pulsating engine core. Her ankles and wrists were bound to the floor with modified force cuffs that were magnetically bonded to the steps over her limbs; a mark of Rydak's specialized profession.
He and Darth Oden watched the pain of her agonizing position slowly hit her reawakening mind. To her credit, she didn't cry out from the torturous pressure of the sharp-ridged steps on her back, but she was unable to prevent tears of pain from pooling in her eyes. Rydak observed with considerable pleasure as she tried to dislodge the restraints on her wrists and ankles with the Force, only to find that she could not so much as brush them with her Force powers.
Dispassionately, the Sith leaned cruelly on one of her arms until she couldn't contain her cry of pain.
"I can tell what you're thinking: Why won't it work? I'll tell you why. I'm a Force Suppressor, one of the nastier varieties of Sith. That gives me the ability to control your connection to the Force, so you can't do anything with it that I don't want you to. Were you strong enough, you could tear your hands free from the restraints, but the Force is not going to help you."
Bastila glared at him, but still said nothing. Satisfied that he had made his point, Rydak stepped back to make way for Darth Oden to stand above the bound Jedi.
"What purpose will this possibly serve, Oden?" Bastila hissed at him.
Oden crossed his arms and smiled down at her. "I am helping Revan's cause, and furthering my own. He will come for you, there is no doubt of that. Because he knows everything that happens along this line if he doesn't. You know what he is; he's no Jedi, nor is he Sith."
She stared defiantly back up at him. "Revan will always be what he needs to be."
"He is a prophet!" Oden roared, his voice heating with rage. "Did you never wonder why or how he switches allegiances so easily? Or did you foolishly believe him some 'prodigal knight'? I know enough about true prophets, enough to know that Revan is one.
"Prophets don't perceive the universe through the Force the same way as the rest of us; they see every action or decision with its consequences, sometimes far down the line. Revan saw this whole thing coming before the Mandalorian wars began. He saw it every step of the way and how the slightest deviation would send the galaxy plummeting into the abyss. The Council were too afraid to face the necessity of Revan's cause, thoughtlessly believing their self-fulfilling visions to be true prophecy while Revan saw everything.
"Now he has led us here, where even his prophetic insights are failing him. Were we to continue on, we would all perish at the Treason Wall because Revan has been blinded. I am saving him, and all the other Jedi who would have been led to their deaths."
"Enlighten me, Oden. How will holding me at your mercy save Revan and the Jedi?"
"It will force him to change tactics. He knows I'm gone and that I've taken you. And this is one fork of events that will rivet his mind. Because you are involved, he will be fed intense visions of what I do to you and what I intend yet to do through your mind link. He will see this fork as plain as day, and nothing will stop him from coming, and bring enough passion to succeed.
"I want him to come. He and I must wrest control of this ship into our hands in order to allow General Nari and her followers time to break the Treason Wall. And after that, when you are both of no further use to me, I will release you and let you and Revan continue on your mad quest. I have my own plans for this ship when Revan is done with it."
"What plans?"
"Revan will fail," Darth Oden pronounced. "There is no way for him to succeed in this wild scheme of his. He knows what lies down this line and yet he stubbornly persists, despite knowing that in the end, to carry through will require a sacrifice he cannot ask of his followers.
"I am salvation, redemption for the galaxy. I will baptize it in blood from the ashes left behind by my destruction of its broken civilization. The stage is set; every Nihil-occupied world must die. And I will begin my own crusade right here and right now."
He turned his dark eyes to Rydak. "You can have her now."
Sadistic delight spread Rydak's face in a wide grin. He bent over Bastila and produced a curved knife with which he carved a crescent-shaped incision on the side of her breast. She bit back a cry as blood oozed from the fresh wound. Rydak wiped the blade on his palm, rubbing the blood over his hands as he talked to Bastila like a surgeon to a patient.
"When there were others of my kind, some of them would take their women with vibrorods or some other instrument that left no mark. I always preferred the old-fashioned way, with lots of blood in lots of places. It makes the experience so much more special, and as I understand it, far more humiliating and painful for the victim.
"So shall we get started?"
Bastila finally did scream as he made two curving cuts from her collar down across her chest. The wounds bled profusely as Rydak rapidly worked his knife, slicing her all over with ritualistic cuts. By the time he finished, her body was on fire with agony and covered in blood. But she knew the pain had only just begun.
Carth Onasi stared in disbelief down at the ensign in his arms, the ensign who had only moments ago had hopes, dreams, aspirations. A piece of explosion-borne shrapnel from the ceiling had impaled the poor kid and he bled to death in the Admiral's arms. A look around the bridge of his cruiser, Pure Of Heart, was demoralizing.
More than half of the bridge crew lay on the floor dead, many of the surviving crew critically injured. The bridge itself was a wreck; several power conduits had exploded in the walls, setting damaging fires, while he and the crew tried desperately to fight back with everything they and the ship possessed. In the end, they were powerless against the awesome might of the enemy fleet.
Admiral Onasi's fleet had scored some early kills against the enemy's advance scout, which they at first had mistaken for the main fleet for all its size. Twenty ships, averaging a medium tonnage, had appeared first and set upon his ragged fleet. They'd held their own for a while, destroying eight small ships and four larger ones.
But shortly after the Republic inflicted their last casualty, the full force of the enemy came down on them. A hundred ships of capital tonnage and a hundred and fifty smaller ships quickly swamped Republic resistance.
Onasi's fleet had less than eight ships remaining, only two of capital class, the rest lost to the enemy's overwhelming firepower. They were surrounded on all sides, breathlessly waiting and wondering why they weren't dead yet.
It came as a surprise when the communications screen clicked on, showing Onasi the bridge of one of the opposing ships holding steady in front of his cruiser. A black-robed figure wearing a white and red mask sat on an ornate chair on a raised circular platform. Beneath him, a ring of white-armored figures sat at their posts, monitoring instruments and sensor feeds. The whole chamber was lit by a glowing ring of light along the outside of the raised platform, highlighting the white of the ship master's mask.
"By the authority of Sacred Saint Akar, the Nihil Empire demands your unconditional surrender."
Onasi was surprised to hear Galactic Basic come from the alien's mouth. The last few times when they offered planets the choice to surrender, they had broadcasted images of captured Republic soldiers under torture begging for the commanders to surrender the planet.
Beaten or not, Telos was not going down without a fight.
Setting the body of the dead ensign aside, Carth stood. "You want our surrender? Well here it is!" With both his hands he made a single-fingered gesture and hurled a vile epithet at the faceless man on the screen.
There was no response. The camera feed clicked off.
Carth turned to the weapons officer. "Tell me his shields are down, lieutenant."
"Affirmative."
"Signal the other ships," he ordered. "Direct intercept course on that flagship, full speed."
"Aye aye, sir!"
Pure Of Heart's rattled engines roared back to life and the ship hurled itself forward, leading the remnants of Admiral Onasi's fleet on what would be a collision course with the monstrous ship facing them.
"Last resort, Admiral?" the lieutenant asked.
Carth nodded. "A little thing I learned from the Mandalorians: When you are outnumbered and the situation is hopeless, you must attack."
Carth's ship hit first, slamming into the prow of the Nihil ship at nearly full speed. As the forward section crushed inward, cracking the thick armor plating of the Nihil ship, the remaining bulk tore the breach wide open and sent up a flare of detonations along the hull. Pure Of Heart disintegrated in an orange flash as its drive core ruptured, toxic reactor fluids heating the blaze to nearly solar temperatures. The silver hull of the Nihil ship blackened under the intense blast.
When the other Republic ships hit, they punched clean through the buckled armor and caused massive structural damage. The entire forward section of the silver ship was collapsing.
The last ship tore straight through the enemy's main reactor as it detonated, and the mighty Nihil capital ship erupted in a red-orange sheet of explosions.
To be continued...
