IX. White Knuckles
A pounding heart pumped adrenaline through every vein, his vision tunneling toward the closest target to him, the nearest receptacle on which he would unleash his wrath. As Carth beside him began the slow process of aiming his blaster pistols, Namenlos was already surging forward, drawing his razor-sharp knife from its sheath on his forearm.
He was upon the silver-armored Sith soldier before Carth had brought his weapons to bear, and long before the Sith could react to his snarling, indomitable charge. As he hit, he slashed the deadly edge of his knife into the seam at the Sith's shoulder, where the armor couldn't protect him. Muscles parted, tendons ruptured, ligaments snapped beneath blade, the Sith's arm became unhinged as he screamed and fell backward as the rest of Namenlos' body crashed into him.
Two more Sith melded into the blood-red haze of his vision as the first target slid to the ground, immaterial. Lashing out with all his frustration, his rage, all his pent-up fury at his own helplessness and inability to safeguard the sovereignty of his own life, he smashed the hilt-end of his knife into the crotch of one of the Sith leaping for him, crushing through weak armor plate and flooring the unfortunate.
The second Sith drew a sword, swung madly at Namenlos, who jumped back out of range of the blade, his battle rage crystallizing into pure focus of what he needed to do in order to stay alive. His knife was no protection against the longer blade of the sword, so he ducked and dodged, infuriated that he was on the defensive.
Suddenly, a hail of red blaster bolts put down the Sith before he could connect with his longer blade. Namenlos looked back to see Carth taking crack shots at the Sith security team now swarming the hall. Diving to the floor, he scooped up the Sith sword in his hands as he ducked across Carth's line of fire.
Two Sith crossed his path; he didn't hesitate, feinted to one side and ran them both through with a single thrust. The hardened point cracking through armored joints, h could hear the surprised gurgle of their last breaths from behind their opaque masks as he spun away to meet the next attack.
The sword in his hands felt like a natural extension of his body; he felt knew exactly how to direct its deadly edge to the greatest effect, how to reap the most cut for his swing, chop, or thrust. The feeling of such complete and utter control over the blade was tremendously liberating, a revelation of lethal power.
A door opened to his left, revealing a menacing, black-clad, masked figure wielding a double-bladed sword. Carth took a few shots, but his blaster fire was turned aside by nothing more than a warding hand. Bastila shouted a warning, but Namenlos already knew that this was a man of dangerous power.
His opponent twirled his dual-sword and beckoned. Namenlos growled his acceptance of the man's challenge and leaped forward.
His first blow was easily parried by his adversary. As he pulled back, he twisted his body and launched a kick at the man's torso, which was also blocked by a concerted downward chop of his forearm. As his body completed its movement, Namenlos struck again with his sword, forcing the man into a blade-lock. Grunts of exertion hissed past his teeth as Namenlos leaned in close for leverage, bringing his face inches from his opponent's. In the narrow slit of the man's cloth mask, Namenlos saw eyes which mirrored the set determination in his own
He was intrigued by the warrior spirit in his adversary, and if he hadn't been engaged in a battle for his life, he would have been enraptured by the mix of serenity and passion in the man's eyes, evidences of powerful and dangerous contradictions of the soul.
A sudden powerful shove caught him off guard, and Namenlos found himself at the mercy of the strange masked man. His sword was knocked clear; he would never reach it before his adversary brought the razor point of his own sword down on his body. Namenlos lurched forward anyway, going for the elusive hilt of the sword. He could hear the whistle of the double-sword as it rushed through the air to cut him open, anticipated the searing pain of it slicing him clean to his bones.
He couldn't move fast enough. Every particle of air seemed only obstructing him, slowing him down, keeping him locked in place so the man's sword could do its work.
Finally, after what seemed like an hour, time ticked away another imperceptible instant and he completed his lunge, made contact with the leather grip of his sword, and began twisting his body around to bring the edge to bear for a parry.
His opponent's sword wasn't where he expected it to be. It hadn't impaled him yet, hadn't even reached him yet. Namenlos looked up in surprise.
The black-clad, masked man lay on the ground, wheezing a last breath and vainly clutching his chest, which was split wide by a smoking gash. Bastila stood over him, a glowing double-bladed sword held in her own hands.
Grateful though he was for not being dead, the sight of those amber blades in Bastila's hands sent a ripple of panic through Namenlos; not memory, but something baser, more primal. The yellow glow of her sword meant something terrible to him, but he didn't know what.
Still clutching the hilt of his sword, Namenlos got to his feet. Looking around, surveying the carnage, he realized the Sith were all dead. Slumped on the ground either in pools of blood, covered in charred black blaster marks, or in several smoking pieces, Sith corpses were everywhere. Some were silver- and red-armored soldiers, but others were technicians and other personnel in gray uniforms. Each of these had mortal sword wounds, wounds from his own blade. Namenlos wondered if they were attacking him, or had merely been in the way as he went after the stronger ones. Nevertheless, he couldn't summon any pity for any of them; after witnessing the kind of terror they inflicted on the innocents it was hard for him to think of them as anything but monsters.
Bastila deactivated her glowing sword, the twin amber blades retracting into the hilt with a sharp hissing sound. "Lock the doors, Carth," she ordered.
The Republic man was quick to comply, getting to work immediately on a console directly beside the door they'd entered. It slid shut obediently, closing off access from the hallway and, presumably, cutting off further Sith reinforcements.
"Can you access the building's schematics from here, Carth?" Bastila asked.
He shrugged. "I can try."
"Good. In the meantime, I'm going to take a look around."
"Be my guest."
More out of curiosity than anything else, Namenlos watched Bastila as she prowled about the room, checking any of the doors and briefly perusing several computer terminals. The place was rather large, with a ceiling easily twice as high than that of the hallway outside. There appeared to be some sort of airlock system along one wall, some equipment lockers beyond, and more terminals at a large station in the center of the room, festooned with lights and gauges of all sorts. Most of the uniformed technicians were slumped around this station, apparently where they had been working.
The place looked like a laboratory of some sort, which made the black-clad warrior dead at Namenlos' feet look even more out of place.
"Who is he?" Namenlos asked, indicating the man whose chest had been split open by Bastila's laser sword.
She looked over to him. "He appears to be a Sith Acolyte; an apprentice not yet deemed worthy of carrying the title of full Sith. He hasn't even his lightsabre yet."
"Lightsabre?" he said quizzically.
She held up the hilt of her sword, nodded. "The weapon of a Jedi. It requires a certain level of mastery of the Force to be able to use one effectively. Otherwise, it is more of a danger to its wielder than his opponent. Even so, such evil knowledge as has been imparted to men like this is harmful enough even without a lightsabre."
"So these Sith, they use the Force?"
Her countenance darkened. "They use the Dark Side of the Force."
It was his turn to furrow his brow. "The Dark Side?"
Instead of answering, Bastila waved a hand to dismiss the subject. "We can discuss these things at further length when we reach the Enclave."
Rather than be frustrated by her evasiveness, Namenlos let the conversation slide. He nudged the corpse below with his foot. "I wonder what he's doing here."
Bastila shrugged. "He was probably just passing through this room on his way somewhere else in this place." She narrowed her eyes and looked over at Carth. "On that note; Carth, have you had any success?"
Carth grunted. "Almost there. Just let me disable a few more systems." A minute later he exclaimed, "Got it! Let's go."
The room beyond the Sith lab appeared to be a detention block of some sort, judging by the row of force-cages along the wall. The stark utilitarianism of the place, the dull tiles of the floor, the plain white walls, and the homogeneous lighting suggested it was also an interrogation room. As Carth scanned the area with his blasters at the ready, he spotted a force-cage at the very end of the room that was active and occupied.
"Hello? Who's there?" the prisoner called out at the sound of the opening door.
"What's your name?" Carth asked cautiously. In his experience, if someone was locked up, even if it was in the enemy's camp, there was usually a reason.
"Janos, Janos Merdula," the prisoner answered. "Them accursed Sith threw me in here just for pulling a profit. Said I wasn't minding my duties to my fellow citizens just for keeping some cash to get food on the table and not paying their million and one fees. I tell you, we royally screwed ourselves letting them Sith come and set up shop."
As Janos continued babbling, Carth approached carefully, placing himself in front of Bastila and her prisoner Namenlos. It wasn't that he particularly cared about the well-being of either of them aside from his blasted duties--the act of placing himself at point was just instinctual to him. Carth wanted to be the first able to respond to any threats that should appear; he didn't want to have to rely on Bastila to react in case of some unexpected attack or ambush or any one of a thousand different scenarios in his mind.
As he got closer to the force-cage, he was eventually able to see that Janos was a tough, lean Togruta man wearing grimy trousers and a work jacket stained with suspicious colors. Carth wondered if he actually could smell the acrid odor of spice wafting from the prisoner, or if he was just imagining that scents could pass through the energy field of the cage and ever even reach his nose. He wondered just what kind of "profit" this man Janos had been getting. Certainly nothing savory, that was for sure. He silently applauded the Sith for taking such a man off the streets; even if he hated them, they did occasionally make the right decisions.
"Please, can you let me out? I saw the guards rush off, I guess to get you, but it looks like you can take care of yourselves. Let me out?"
Before Bastila overruled him, insisted they free the man, Carth answered with a firm "No."
"Wha--You're kidding, right?" Janos' face reflected disbelief.
"Carth..." Bastila started ominously.
He shook his head for emphasis. "I said no. You're staying right there, pal. We can't trust you."
Janos laughed nervously. "Me? Of course you can trust--"
"No we can't!" Carth exploded. "I hate the Sith, but me and them are on the same page about keeping junkies off the street!" He'd seen his share of junkies in his day, as well as the terrible ruin they and their drugs brought on families. Anyone stupid enough to start jacking up on spice deserved to be locked up, and anyone selling the stuff deserved to be put to death. The subject was almost too painful for him to contemplate.
Janos' expression changed to one of genuine panic. "But you--you don't know what you're talking about," he sputtered.
"Don't tell me what I do or don't know," Carth growled. "I know exactly what I'm talking about. I know all the warning signs, and I darn well know how to spot a dealer." He couldn't get that old mental image of a poor overdosed kid out of his mind, just an eighteen-year-old, killed by someone like this.
Carth clenched his fist. "We don't have time for this."
Bastila was slightly pale. "Yes, we should leave immediately."
"Hey!" Janos yelled. "You can't just leave me here! What about--"
Carth had had enough from the junkie; the man was dead anyway for the choices he'd already made. He knew exactly what to do. It took only a few keystrokes on the control pad to overload the active force-cage. Janos dropped without a sound as thousands of volts surged through his body all at once, frying his brain in an instant.
The galaxy was now short one junkie, and Carth couldn't be happier.
Bastila looked stricken but said nothing.
Carth turned away. "Alright, let's--"
Before he could finish the sentence, he was violently tackled from behind, slammed up against the wall by a hissing, furious Namenlos. He could feel the Cathar's sharp nails digging into his shoulders through the jacket. His head ricocheted painfully off the hard wall as Namenlos throttled him back and forth, livid with fury.
"You filthy, lying murderer!" the Cathar screamed in his face.
Thankfully, for Carth, before Namenlos could get his hands around his throat, Bastila quickly stepped up to him and put two fingers to the side of the collar around his neck. The Cathar instantly let go and staggered back several feet, hissing sharply.
"Thanks," Carth muttered to Bastila, who responded with a curt nod.
After a minute, Namenlos looked back up, clutching his neck. His eyes were blazing hatred. "Murdering son of a schutta!" he snarled. "What'd you do that for? He was no threat to you."
"The man was a dealer!" Carth shot back. "Do you know how many lives dealers ruin? Probably a lot more than most Sith. Their drugs do in more Republic citizens each year than have been lost in this whole rotten war. Families torn apart, lives ruined, all for their blasted drugs." Carth swallowed down the bitter memories.
Namenlos' glare did not falter, he looked unfazed even despite Bastila's demonstration of her control in getting him to back off. Carth wasn't sure he had a lot of faith in Bastila's supposed control either. His hand hovered close to his blaster just in case.
"You didn't know that," he hissed. "You saw that he didn't look like you and you judged him for it. You're no better than the Sith."
"Don't give me that bantha-crap! I know dealers when I see them. I should, too--I lost my son to one!" Carth hated having that memory dredged up by this inhuman madman who couldn't possibly understand what it had been like for him.
"You saw what you wanted to see. You murdered him over an assumption! He could have been no different than me."
"Oh, right, you," Carth scoffed, now too angry to stop his own tirade. "You. I lost my ship and lot of good people just to come after you. Now I'm starting to think it wasn't worth it, that this has been a rotten Jedi bait-and-switch worth a lot less than its cost in Republic lives."
"You're right," Namenlos snarled. "You should have left me alone."
"Both of you, that is enough!" Bastila chided, putting herself between the two of them.
Carth glared back at the Cathar. "This isn't over."
"Never," Namenlos vowed.
Carth turned away. "Let's get this over with."
Juhani's eyes snapped open as she felt the beast die. A sympathetic connection she'd never realized was there alerted her to the creature's death, one of her only friends in the world. A sudden coldness gripped her heart, her breath came in ragged gasps. She'd never felt what death was like, not like this.
She tried to tell herself the Kath hound could simply have fallen and broken its neck, but the instant it entered her mind she knew it was a lie. It had been deliberately killed. The thought of what that could mean caused her to unconsciously reach into the Force for comfort for just the slightest of instants before she withdrew herself speedily. Already she could sense the others gathering to her, the creatures who kept her company in her seclusion. Kath hounds and horned bulls came through the trees of the grove to group around her, offering their company and support. Before she could think to try to send them away, the comfort of their presence overrode her desire to sacrifice herself for them.
If she was to die, she would not die alone--not alone, as she had lived. A Kath hound at her side purred its reassurance.
Juhani gulped and clutched her lightsabre as the Jedi she'd expected finally came into sight.
She frowned. There was only one. She had expected an entire team of dedicated hunters, but there was only old Nemo.
Nevertheless, she ignited her lightsabre, the same blade that had killed her master Quatra. She knew she could do this, she would not surrender her life.
"You shouldn't have come, Nemo," Juhani warned him. She was surprised by how even her voice was.
"Why are you hiding out here, Juhani?" Nemo asked. Her knees nearly buckled at the understanding in his voice. How could he be here to kill her?
He was trying to deceive her, get her to lower her guard, and then he would strike. Juhani strengthened her resolve. "You killed one of my friends," she said flatly, again surprised by the strength of her own voice.
A look of concern passed over Nemo's wizened face. "The hounds are dangerous now, Juhani. They have been attacking settlers. They have never done that before." He frowned at seeing all the creatures assembled around her. "What have you done to them?"
For an instant, Juhani felt exultant in her own power, that to which only she could lay claim. She let the moment pass. "How could you know what is it like to feel as I feel? You will never feel loneliness or despair. You are wordlessly accepted, while I am not!" She gritted her teeth against the bitter tears that threatened. "I am not good enough for you, not good enough to be a Jedi, so I have fallen to the Dark Side!"
Nemo shook his head sadly. "I don't believe that of you, Juhani. You were always--"
"I have fallen! You think you know me but you don't!" she shrieked. "Enough talk, old man, you know the truth. That is why you are here. Defend yourself, or I will be your doom for coming here!"
Screaming with all her hurt, all her lonely desolation, she leaped for him. Nemo quickly brought his own green lightsabre to hand and turned aside her blow.
"Don't do this, Juhani. Don't do this to yourself," he said as she struck again, ineffectually.
"You did this to me!" Juhani screamed. "You! Every one of you did this!"
She struck again, but once more he easily parried her blade. Juhani was beginning to realize her turbulent emotions were only impairing her. She felt like a child again, a helpless child with no business playing at adults' games. When Nemo disarmed her with a single deft stroke of his sabre, she broke down crying with the futility of it all.
Juhani stumbled backward, trying to think, to stall, to do something, while Nemo continued to approach her slowly. He lowered his lightsabre. "Not everything is as you think, Juhani," he said cautiously. "You could come back with me. The Council would--"
"No!" Her head snapped back up. She could hear the growls of her friends in the trees as she clenched her fists and screamed her defiance at the old Jedi Master. The power of it reverberated in the air around her, a sympathetic bubble of intangible Force energy radiating out from her.
Suddenly, one of the Kath hounds leaped for Nemo, snarling. Even as he was bringing his lightsabre around in a cutting chop to bring down the hound, several more broke into a run and threw themselves at him. Feeling the creature's death only fed more power into the bubble around Juhani, enticing more hounds to come and defend her.
As one, the pack of snarling beasts jumped on the Jedi, and despite his weapon, she instantly knew he could not survive; there were too many hounds. Nemo turned to desperation as he was assaulted from all sides by his rabid attackers, but even that was not going to be enough. Snapping jaws and razor teeth seized his clothes, ripped into limbs. Nemo started screaming in pain.
"No! No, no, no!" Horrified, powerless to stop what was happening, Juhani sank to her knees, clutching her head and mumbling "no" over and over again until she was too numb to even recognize the saliva hanging from her open mouth or the blood on her scalp from her sharp nails scraping across skin.
Once Nemo's screams had ceased, the Kath hounds scattered in confusion, slinking around for a few moments before darting back into the shadow of the trees, leaving his mangled corpse in the open, accusing her with lifeless eyes. Juhani kept expecting - kept hoping - that he would get up, tell her it was all just another Jedi test, another cruel deception. But he didn't. He didn't move.
She'd killed Quatra, now she'd killed Nemo. Juhani now knew there was no hope for her.
Bastila was painfully aware of the pungent odor of smoking lightsabre wounds from the multitude of charred bodies that stretched down the hall they'd come. Other corpses were blackened from blaster burns on their pristine silver armor, or stained by smears of blood spilled by a furious sword. The metallic, coppery tang of blood was thick in the air as well, threatening to make her gag; it dripped freely from the tip of Namenlos' sword, trailing crimson droplets on patches of the white tile not yet defiled by death.
Things had gotten quite desperate. Being too preoccupied with growling over his confrontation with the livid Cathar, Carth had mistakenly left an avenue unsealed on their way through the Sith base, allowing security teams to hem them in from three sides. His contingencies of sealed passageways cutting off Sith reinforcements were failing, flooding the halls with angry Sith who pinned them down well away from their objective, the governor's chambers.
For several minutes, the world was ruled by pure mayhem. Bastila's twin amber blades were more than occupied turning aside the hails of blaster fire from Sith riflemen, and all her attention was focused on merely staying alive. She wasn't able to track Namenlos through much of the battle, but after the fact she could see quite clearly the trail of destruction he left in his wake.
Even with the intellectual and emotional core of his mind gone, obliterated, he had still retained much of his proficiency with the edged blade. Muscles retained their memory of the countless hours he'd spent his life over in learning the most artful, esoteric forms of lightsabre combat, and their baser roots, the blunt and straightforward styles of swordplay whose only purpose was for dealing death quickly with as little expenditure of energy as possible.
Much of that knowledge was still intrinsic to him, imprinted not on his brain but his very limbs themselves. The sword stained with the blood of tens of Sith soldiers attested to the depths of his rage and the level of his commitment to his own life.
Bastila shuddered a little, toying with her diaphanous mental connection to Revan's collar to reassure herself.
In the end, between Zaalbar's roaring Wookiee bowcaster, her skill with the lightsabre, and some last-minute acts of desperation on Carth's part, they'd managed to drive back the relentless tide. Carth had mumbled something about killing half the Sith garrison in the process. Bastila wasn't sure she could disagree with that assessment.
She was now acutely aware of how little time there was left. The Sith could be vectoring forces from the blockade fleet in orbit if they felt the need. If not, there would still be ground troops rushing to respond to the emergency. If ever time was of the essence, it was now. She hurried her pace.
"How close are we, Carth?" she asked, peering nervously at the sealed doors to either side of the hallway, ill at ease.
The Republic officer briefly consulted a datapad. "Should be just another few hundred--" He stopped, looking up.
They all came to an abrupt halt at the sight of the man ahead of them. Bastila's heart raced, she remembered this man's face; he was the one from the hologram, the one who'd killed Tarisian Prime Minister Halrand Jynn right before her eyes. His head was shaven, probably in tribute to the great Darth Malak, even his eyebrows had been sheared away, leaving only the cold, cruel stare of a predator on his face. There seemed to be no redeeming qualities that even identified him as human, as if somehow, without altering his appearance, he had changed himself into something less than a man. His stone-like blue eyes glared at her without a soul, hate and loathing of the good the only thing driving his mind.
Namenlos was already moving when the Sith governor raised his hands. Bastila flicked on her lightsabre in preparation of deflecting whatever dark power he thought to throw at her. She was anticipating a blast of lightning, a thundering howl of conjured flame, or a crushing net of air sent to rip her limb from limb.
She was completely unprepared for the paralysis field he cast at her and the others.
Leaping forward, Namenlos was able to duck to the side and escape the full effects of the poisonous power, but Bastila, Carth, and Zaalbar were all hit full force. Carth toppled as he lost control of his muscles in the act of raising his blasters, Bastila and Zaalbar were frozen in place, weapons still clutched in their hands but useless.
Bastila panicked. She couldn't move a limb, couldn't break the cement-like lock on her muscles to so much as twitch a finger. Even just breathing and moving her eyes was difficult. Encased in the Sith's foul power, she was utterly helpless, completely at the mercy of the merciless governor. She knew she was going to die, or worse, be presented as a prize for Malak. Both alternatives scared her like she'd never been scared before.
She desperately didn't want to die, and couldn't make herself stop staring forward at her doom.
Smiling his cruel smile, the Sith governor was approaching her slowly, savoring his all-too-easy victory, when the ragged figure of Namenlos and his bloody sword blocked his path.
A look of bemusement came over the Sith's face. "Worthless fool," he muttered, and produced a glittering sword of his own--the same as Bastila had seen impale Prime Minister Jynn.
The Sith swung with released fury, intending to cleave the interfering Cathar's head from his body. Quick as his opponent, Namenlos brought his blade up in a swift block, growling as he pushed forward against the Sith's strength. The governor stepped back out of the lock and made an undercut straight for the ribs, but Namenlos shoved the blade aside and launched a strike of his own, yelling as his sword whistled through the air.
Side-stepping and parrying, the governor avoided the lunge and held Namenlos at bay, content to circle. "You are strong in the Force, nameless one," he said, beckoning. Namenlos only growled in reply.
As they clashed again, Bastila thought she could feel the strangling grasp on her limbs weakening. Newfound hope flooded through her. She could beat this, nothing was impossible. Diverting her mind away from her doomsaying thoughts, she focused on probing the web around her, looking for the crack in its weave that would allow her to unravel it. She tried not to think of how terrifying not being able to move was.
"You waste yourself defending these doomed Jedi, nameless one," the governor taunted as he unleashed a series of intimidating moves intended to overpower the opponent. Being smaller and more agile, Namenlos used his size and weight to his own advantage and the Sith continued to lunge for him, tiring himself out.
"You have great darkness within you; you could be the greatest Sith who has ever lived! Give up this foolish loyalty to the Jedi. Embrace the Dark Side! Break their chains!"
Still, he did not respond to the Sith's words. Bastila worked furiously at her invisible bonds. She could almost feel the greasy tendrils encasing her, could almost begin working to unwrap them.
"Surrender to the darkness!" the Sith commanded.
Finally, Namenlos broke his silence. He snarled in fury, striking with more force and passion than he'd yet displayed. Even the Sith governor seemed unprepared for the level of ferocity the Cathar had unleashed, and was forced back by the power of the assault.
Suddenly, Bastila felt the paralysis field break, the Sith having to divert his concentration solely to the battle at hand. She, Zaalbar, and Carth were free from its dark clutches.
She started to move, only to fall flat on her face, belatedly realizing her muscles were drained. Frantic it took her several seconds more to regain control of herself and work on getting motion back in her limbs. She wondered if this was how Namenlos had felt when she snapped the collar around his neck.
The metallic ringing of the two combatants' swords filled her ears like the loudest roar she'd ever heard.
Finally, after a minute, seeming to her like hours, she was able to find her feet, but Carth and Zaalbar were still down. She looked down the hall and saw to her consternation that Namenlos had lost his sword, was on his knees bleeding and glaring up at the vindictive Sith governor.
"Such a waste of talent," the ruthless Sith clucked. "Who ever thought such potential could be found on this backwater?" He brought his sword up to deliver the killing blow.
Bastila knew she had to do something--fast.
Suddenly, he faltered, disbelief filling his features. "Impossible!" the Sith breathed. "He is dead. R--"
Bastila acted. She hurled her lightsabre with all her might, and was rewarded by the spinning amber blades neatly and punctually severing the governor's neck before he could utter his realization.
Namenlos keeled over on his side, breathing in palpable relief. Bastila panted with relief of her own at how close the governor had come to revealing to Revan the truth. When she looked back, Carth and Zaalbar were beginning to get to their feet.
"He's dead," she said matter-of-factly. "Hurry, let us get what we came for and leave. I fear it has taken us far too long."
