Chapter Nine: The Right Path
When Tobin reached their tent, Jalia's face was ashen and her breathing shallow. Each short breath ended in a gurgle, and already Tobin could see blood pooling in her mouth and dripping down the side of her cheek.
He carried her inside and laid her down on her cot. She kept her eyes closed, and he could feel her trying to ease her pain with the Force. "I'm here," he whispered. He took her hand, and sent as much energy into as he could.
"It's too much light," she whispered weakly.
Tobin stopped, stunned. "You're so much stronger than you…realize," she whispered. "Tobin, I'm sorry for the pain I caused. I…" She stopped and coughed. Blood sprayed from her mouth.
Tobin felt suddenly frozen with a panic and fear he'd never felt before. "Mother, what do I do?" he asked.
"You survive," she said when the fit faded. "You survive and grow strong, and when the time comes, you will restore balance to the Force. You are the Chosen One." She forced her eyes open. "I never told you how proud I was of you, my son. And how much I love you. I will always love you, and I…" She stopped speaking though her lips continued moving.
"Mother," Tobin begged desperately. "I don't know what to do without you."
She turned her head toward him. Her lips stopped moving, and instead he felt her reaching out to him in the Force. He embraced her mind in his. He held her hand when her eyes widened. Her spasms grew worse as she tried for and failed to get air, and her damaged heart shuddered.
The widened eyes lost focus, and slowly dimmed. In the Force, Tobin felt her slowly slipping away from him. He tried grab on to her. He used all the healing powers he had, all the strength he could garner, but it was not enough.
Let me go, my son, she whispered to him. There is no death. There is only the Force.
Whether he let go, or her presence grew too tenuous to hold, Tobin would never know. All he knew was that one moment he still felt her, and the next she was gone. He looked down and saw the life fading from the body. Then, the body itself began to fade. She grew lighter and lighter in his arms, until there was no weight at all. There was a faint sparkle around the outline of her head, and then she simply faded away into nothing.
A moment later, he felt a spike through the Force, and sensed that Valus too had finally succumbed.
As quickly as that, Tobin was completely, utterly alone. He could not move, nor even breathe. There were no tears because he could not believe she was gone. The images his eyes observed were trapped by a disbelieving mind.
He stood and stumbled out of the tent, but quickly froze. He was surrounded by death. Literally. Hundreds of Sith shades stood around him, filling the floor of the tomb. They did not speak to him, but instead merely stood staring. Finally, one figure moved forward. It was the ghost of Darth Sidious himself.
"The last Sith is dead," Sidious said. "The last Jedi as well. You are the last vessel of our teachings. The last vessel of the Force. For your sacrifice, we honor you. We will assist you as we can. Escape how you might."
Tobin did not thank them, for these were Sith. They did what they did for their own sakes, not for his. Instead, he nodded and ducked back into the tent. He grabbed his mother's lightsaber and the holocron, and nothing else.
When he came back out of the tent, he found himself alone once more. The shades of the Sith were gone. However, on the currents of the Force he could feel them moving. Pirates and troopers alike began to feel indescribable chills. Men inexplicably fell off the edges of cliffs or chasms even though they should have clearly seen the danger.
Fear began building among the invaders, and that was exactly what the army of dead Sith wanted. The fear fueled them and gave them strength, and their attacks became even more intense. Objects flew from walls. Stones shot up from the floors or down from ceilings. Men felt sudden spikes of icy cold in their chest and a strange pressure on their chests, and then fell suddenly dead to the ground.
Tobin sensed the Zabrak call for a general retreat. As far as he knew, with Jalia's death his job was finished. The Imperials attempted to be more thorough in their search, but when an entire squad stepped off a cliff when the floor literally disappeared under their feet, the Imperial commander decided it was also wiser to withdraw.
Tobin left them all behind. He emerged from the catacombs near the pirate shuttles. He sensed at least three men guarding them. It was easy to fade completely into the Force. He knew from Valus's reaction in the past that when he did this he not only faded from the senses of those around him, but also from their sight.
He approached the three, and steadied himself. He emerged from the Force before them, his green saber pulsing. They started to cry out, but he cut them down quickly.
It took only a moment to pull his robes off and switch with the burn-scarred robes of one of the dead guards. The guard he chose was an Ubese, with a complete environmental suit and mask.
Or so it appeared. In fact, once he shed the pirate's suit, Tobin discovered a young human male only a few years older than himself with just the hints of a mustache. In all likelihood, the young man was playing off the fierce reputation of the Ubese to enhance his own career.
Once dressed as an Ubese warrior, Tobin carried the now disrobed pirate to one of the other drop shuttles. Once inside the shuttle, he programmed an automated course into the nav computer that would take the shuttle into orbit and then launch into a series of random hyperspace coordinates.
He left the shuttle and followed his own footsteps in the sand to where the other bodies lay. Behind him, the shuttle launched amid a flurry of sand. He laid down with the bodies, and waited.
A moment later, he heard the searing roar of a heavy turbolaser blast ripping through the air, followed a moment later by the report of a distant explosion. He opened his eyes and looked up at the fireball in the sky that had been the shuttle.
The pirates started pouring out of the catacombs moments later. Tobin saw many harried, wide-eyed expressions and knew the Sith shades definitely took a toll. At their lead, his face twisted by a grimace of hate, came the Zabrak.
"Cahrrak, what happened?"
Tobin quickly realized the question was addressed to him. He made a show of stumbling to his feet. "The Abnormal did some magic on me."
"No more," the Zabrak said. "No more Abnormal magic from here on. Get your arses aboard." He started walking up the ramp. "Moff Hershied better by VERY nice to me after all the men I wasted in this stupidity!"
Tobin followed after the Zabrak without a word, and in moments he and the rest of the pirates were rocketing skyward. He saw the all too familiar star destroyer that he and his mother lived on for so long and closed his eyes in an attempt to force the memories back down.
Within sight through the portholes of the shuttle, he could also see two Imperial corvettes in orbit. Both ships brought their turbolaser batteries around to the surface and began to fire.
The shuttles docked and the pirates unloaded. As the others headed about on the way to whatever duties awaited them, Tobin wandered toward the invisible barrier holding the atmosphere in. He stood there inches away from naked space, and watched as the Imperials continued to bombard the surface of the planet.
In his mind, Tobin could hear the outraged screams of the Sith shades as their tombs and catacombs were destroyed. Still the barrage continued unabated, targeting a swath of land as the ships orbited. It took much longer than if they were the old star destroyers, almost five hours all told, but in the end the entire surface of Korriban was blasted into molten glass.
When the last shot was fired, the corvettes spun around away from the pirate destroyer, and set a course for the nearest hyperspace lane. The voices of the Sith faded as the objects and alchemy that contained their souls were destroyed. The power Tobin held inside him was the last vestige the Sith had.
He was the last vestige of the Jedi as well.
"Carhhk," an unfamiliar voice said.
Tobin turned and saw an Ithorian pirate motion for him. "The boss was looking for you. You okay?"
"The Abnormal must have done some mind trick," Tobin lied. "I feel weird."
The Ithorian made a sub-vocal growl from one of his throats. "Go lay down. I'll tell the boss you're hurt."
"Thanks."
He did not go back to Carhhk's room, though. Rather, he made his way through the body of the ship to the all-but-forgotten communications deck. He did not know what he expected to find there, but he knew what he hoped for.
He stepped to the edge of the pit leading down to the observation window.
His heart skipped a beat. She was there—a lean figure, somehow regal as she stood with her head bowed before the window. Her eyes were covered with the veil as always, but as he moved and saw her profile, she looked as beautiful as ever.
Suddenly his cheeks blazed as shame crashed down on him. His mother was dead. His Sith master died defending her, and all he could think about was a pretty girl. He truly wasn't worthy of the tasks his masters had given him.
"Hello, Tobin," Klinti said softly.
The shame burned brightly a moment more, and then faded to an emptiness inside. He took off the Ubese mask and walked down the steps. "Klinti," he said.
"You've changed," she said. She turned her face toward him and smiled wryly behind her veil. "You're much brighter now. Stronger."
"I've learned a lot," Tobin confessed. "How are you?"
"Older," she said. "No wiser, but definitely older." She turned back toward the window. The destroyer broke orbit and followed a different route away from the planet. "I saw two lights extinguished on the planet. One blue, one red. Both were very strong."
"My mother," Tobin admitted. "And my other teacher."
"I'm so sorry." She was, too. He could hear her sorrow clearly. "You're not the same boy I knew. Before you were all light. Now you're gray. You've killed." She said the last almost as an accusation.
"I have," Tobin admitted. "I did not want to, but I have killed. I killed many of the men on this ship down there, before Mother died."
"You are a boy no longer," Klinti said. She reached out a hand, and Tobin took it without hesitation. "When the Zabrak finds out you're aboard, he'll try to kill you. What will you do?"
"I will kill again, until I don't have to kill any more."
She bowed her head, and her sorrow stabbed at him. "And when will that be? Once you become a killer, there never seems to be a time to be anything else."
"I didn't choose this path."
"But you can choose to stay on it, or pick your own."
Tobin thought about his mother and Valus staring at him expectantly. He was the sum of their training. He was the last fully trained Force-user in the galaxy. He was of royal blood living as fugitive. What paths were there?
He felt from her then something he had never mastered—visions of futures that could be. He saw a future of him falling before a hail of blaster fire. He saw a future of him standing atop a mountain of corpses with a crown on his head. He saw a future of him savagely boarding imperial ships and killing with glee.
He saw a vision of he and Klinti entwined together on a bed in a small home in a peaceful world.
Paths, he knew. Paths that opened and closed with every choice he made. He knew then that Klinti loved him, and that she could be his if he but chose the path with her. He also knew that path was not the one his masters wanted; not the one the Force demanded.
He held her hand to his lips and kissed her fingers gently. "I must follow the Force."
Klinti froze. "The Force seems to be a cold mistress," she said. "It has led so many to death."
Like it led your mother. Tobin caught the unspoken comment and realized it was the truth. The Force had led her to her death, and the death of Valus. The Force was not all powerful, nor was it some omnipotent power. Those following it were not gods, as witnessed by the terrible number that have perished.
But the other paths she showed were no less palatable. "There has to be another way," he said to himself.
"My sight is limited," Klinti said. Her voice caught as the path she desired faded from her foresight. "Whatever you choose," she said again, "I will aid you anyway I can."
Tobin pulled her hand until she stepped to him. He wrapped her in a tight hug, and was startled when for the first time since reaching Korriban he felt tears streaming down his cheeks. The tears washed down his face, and the tension in his chest suddenly erupted into sobs so powerful they stole the strength from his knees. He collapsed to the ground, even while Klinti continued to hold him. She sat down with him, and said nothing as the wave of grief swept over him. He cried for his mother and for Valus. A part of him, he knew, cried for the future he would not be able to have with her.
He couldn't say how long the fit lasted, but when at last the sobs stilled and the tears stopped flowing, he leaned back and studied Klinti. Her veil had slipped off and her face was just inches from his. Her smile was gentle and sad, and she was just as beautiful as ever.
Their lips touched, and then melded together for the longest time. Slowly she lifted a finger to her lower lip, where the last of Tobin's tears lingered. "Wherever our paths may lead us," she whispered, "I will still love you."
"And I will always love you," Tobin said. She leaned toward him this time, and all conversation, all grief, and thoughts of the future, were lost in an all too brief explosion of joy.
On a forgotten deck of an ancient ship, two lost souls made plans for the future.
Tobin Solo Fel Artin, last repository of all the knowledge and power of both the Jedi and Sith, sat cross-legged on the deck across from the Miraluka pirate named Klinti, and discussed their options. Their clothes hung disheveled from their shoulders where they had hastily redressed.
The first, most obvious limitation was Tobin's initial idea of trying to take command of the star destroyer itself. "You could kill Zabrak and Aleusa and all the rest of the command crew," Klinti told him as they talked far into the night cycle, "but it wouldn't matter. There are only a handful of Unitarians on board. The crew wouldn't follow you because you haven't proven yourself. It doesn't matter how powerful you are, you can't do everything yourself."
Tobin nodded. "That makes sense. So trying to take command would be a mistake, but I can't stay either. The Zabrak wants me dead, as does Aleusa. So I need to get off this ship. I have no credits and I have no contacts, and I need some way to challenge the Emperor himself. How do I go about becoming a pirate?"
"You go to the Rings, of course," Klinti said.
"The Rings?"
She nodded to herself. "Of course, you never knew. I forget how young you were, Tobin. The ship rarely went there because it was so big, but Zabrak and your mother often did. The Rings is the largest of the free trade outposts in the Corporate Sector. That's where privateers go to recruit new crew, and that's where aspiring captains go to get their own ships."
"Do you know the coordinates?"
"I do. Better than that, Zabrak is going to be recruiting to replace his raiding party losses. He's going to be going in the next day or two. He takes me because I can see sometimes if someone is going to be trouble or not."
Tobin nodded as plans started swirling in his head. "Does he take guards?"
"Always."
Tobin studied her closely. She was beautiful, with their recent coupling she seemed to glow to both his eyes and the Force. He wanted to protect her. If the Zabrak found out she was helping him… "Will you come with me?"
Klinti became perfectly still, as he remembered her doing during his last tenure on the ship. It was a response to pressure or stress, possibly genetically programmed. He could not even see her breathing as she pondered the question.
Finally, she spoke: "The Zabrak and Aleusa would not let me go willingly. I've assumed most of the daily administration of the ship, and my 'gifts' have benefited them in getting the right people in the right positions."
Tobin leaned forward and took her hand in his. "Klinti, would you come with me?"
Her fingers closed around his. "If I can, I will."
"I may not be able to do everything at once," Tobin said, "but this I can do—I will protect you. While you are with me, no one will touch you."
"You would kill for me?" From another woman's lips, that would sound like a gushing hope. From Klinti it was almost a dirge. And yet…
"While on Korriban, I studied with the last Sith Lord. He taught me that all life has a price, and that sometimes the value of the life you are faced with is less than the value of your need to take it. Your life is the highest value I know. If you are in danger, I would kill the universe to save you. But I will never kill needlessly, like Zabrak."
Klinti bowed her head, but did not let go of his hand. "Then I will come with you."
