Chapter 8

Time check: 15 days, 3 hours, 24 minutes, 35 seconds before the Triumph

We have arrived. The High Council's retribution made manifest.

Our coming is heralded by the grim march of armoured feet and rustling robes. Vindicators lead the formation, bearing interlocked breacher shields and plasma rifles. We, the Jedi triumvirate form its nexus. Our piercing gaze sweeps the gilded corridors for any sign of wayward kin.

Vermillion klaxons wail impotently. I hear the distant echoes of confusion and panic. The desperate calls for intelligence and support as the enclave stumbles to rouse from its self induced torpor.

It is too late. We are already among them. All that is left is the cold calculus of casualty and reprisal.

The first moment traitors know of this fact is at Kaiden's Bridge. The Sentinels posted are met with overwhelming salvos of plasma fire and spurts of flame. Our attack is so swift, so overwhelming, there is no opportunity for retaliation. Bodies are scorched and blasted apart. Men and women are immolated, howling as their flesh melts into slurry. We march on, not even slowing to douse their wretched corpses.

The bridge takes us to Tranquility Plaza. It is a riot of screaming children and women, stampeding over each other to reach adjoining exit tunnels and lifts. The mass of traitors is so numerous, Vindicators could shoot blindfolded and fell them by the scores.

Bodies are already twitching on the floor from the mob's self inflicted vandalism. Sentinels struggle to quell the unrest.

"Brothers! Sisters! Remain calm! Enter the turbo lifts in groups of three!"

"This one is full! You and the child will have to wait for the next one!"

Their pleas and attempts to moderate the riot are ignored. The sounds that tremble across the dome are shouts of terror.

"Force, save us! Forgive us!"

"My wife's pregnant dammit. Let us in. Let us in!"

"Mother! What's happening? Why are they killing everyone?"

It may be surprising to see such a lack of courage among Jedi, even traitors. But the simple truth is many of these men and women are unblooded. Paying lip service to the Jedi Code and lacking true combat experience beyond practice and petty skirmishes. They are right to fear the true elite.

The faithless are so preoccupied with their petty concerns, they don't even notice our entrance. We are halfway across the plaza before a child finally catches sight of us.

"They're here!" she shrieks. "The Order is here!"

Traitors reach new heights of hysteria. They begin pushing and shoving, scrabbling into the tunnels and lifts like rodents. I catch glimpses of tearful children being ripped away from screaming parents. An elderly Vultan is trampled underfoot trying to keep hold of his charge.

We bear witness to this debacle with the dispassionate interest of statues. But I will admit this spectacle is disheartening. A reminder that civility is a mere facade to the primal responses of fight or flight. No amount of discipline can remove an instinct ingrained since existence.

The first fear. The fear of death.

"What a clusterfuck," Ciras remarks, shaking his head. He turns to Revan.

"Should we stop them?"

"No, ignore noncombatants," Revan replies calmly. "Draw your blades. Let the real enemy come to us."

At his command, the front rank of Vindicators lock energized breacher shields and draw blasters. We take our place at the center of the shield wall.

The Sentinels see our intent. They abort their attempts at crowd control and being shoving towards us, rallying into a speartip. A Nautolan directs the defenders into formation with commendable speed. When his warriors have aligned, he bellows a final order.

"Break them! Make the false Order regret this folly!"

The charge is punctuated with the thunder of boots and war cries. They crash against us, slashing furiously to find gaps in our shield wall. Sparks of lightning and aftershocks pulverize concrete. Blaster shots pulse out through shield slits. Above all the cacophony is the shrieking of lightsabers on metal as the two sides wrestle and curse.

A Vindicator is pulled out of formation and sliced apart by a dervish of blades. Another is blasted into atoms by raging lightning arcs. We bear the losses stoically, letting their fury wash over the wall like a passing squall.

Our discipline is rewarded. The onslaught begins to ebb like a receding wave. Enemy muscles tire. Breathing and swinging becomes strained. At this sign of weakness, our allies strike.

"First rank! Onwards!" Ciras barks.

Vindicators heave back with synchronized precision, bashing their breacher shields against the mountain of flesh. There is a thunderclap of metal on bone. The enemy reels back in pain.

"Into them!" Revan orders.

The shield wall parts. Our second rank surges forward, vibroblades drawn. Traitor flesh cleaves open, smoking hunks of muscle and sinew spatter against the walls. Blood squirts from severed limbs and bodies thud to the ground, thrashing. The air grows slick with mingled screams, ozone and curses.

Revan is in the thick of it, hood up, separating limbs with each stroke. He chops off a head. He impales. He bifurcates a duelist diagonally from shoulder to sternum.

I stay close to his side, an impenetrable wall of fury and muscle. As his champion, his "Malak", it is my simple honour to end threats against his life before they can reach fruition. I performing that duty now, intercepting a blade meant for his heart. My fist crushes the Twi'lek's mouth, reducing teeth to splinters. Ciras runs him through with his blade.

"With him, with him!" he roars.

The melee devolves into a slaughter. Heretics are sliced apart by the combined fury of army and Jedi. Profaning the stonework with their treacherous blood.

I will credit these heretics with bravery. Most of the fallen chose to flee our judgement. But these cleaved to their duty, misguided as it was. It does not matter. The brave died screaming like the craven.

Noctua makes the final kill. The Nautolan leader collapses at her feet, a mangled mess of twitching tentacles. She winces visibly as we regroup.

"Are you hurt, sister?" I ask.

"An old wound," she state, waving my concern away. "Much more inconvenient than this poor rabble."

I cannot disagree with her assessment. The resistance we have encountered so far has been scattered and unorganized. A credit to Mysteel's surgical sabotage. Even so, these heretics have become complacent. Overconfident. For decades, they have spit in the faces of the High Council, scoffing at their ineptitude, satisfied that the Throneworld had no solution to their blasphemy.

They should have known. Known that their heresy could not go unpunished. For all they ever had was time and that time has ended.

"The enemy preserve their strength though," she observes. I nod, looking around the slaughter grounds. Most of the mob managed to escape into the capillaries, leaving only the dead and dying at our feet. "If allowed to rally, the traitors may still overwhelm us."

"Haste then," says Revan. He points to the central tunnel.

"Our sister is isolated. We must join our strength as soon as possible." At his command, the shield wall resumes its implacable advance. We march past the mounds of corpses, past the countless orphans screaming over their parents' bodies and strike deeper into the bowels of the heretic's den.

Time check: 15 days, 2 hours, 58 minutes, 4 seconds before the Triumph

We encounter true resistance at the Sanctuary Gardens. The area has been hastily entrenched with upturned pulpits, broken monuments and chopped oak. The moment we step foot on the canopy grass, defense turrets sprout like moles from surrounding foliage. Golden combat drones emerge from ramparts, pelting us with blaster fire. Another line marches up the main walkway to meet our advance.

"They've bypassed Mysteel's overrides," Ciras observes. He raises his rifle. "Shields up! Tactical advance!"

Vindicators respond immediately. The shield wall reforms. Snipers peel away from the main group, slipping behind cover to high ground. I raise my hand in a warding gesture as does Revan and Noctua. It is fortunate that we do for the chug of cannon rounds and small arms envelopes us nanoseconds later.

The assault is withering but futile. Most of the shots dissipate in front of us, rippling away like drizzle on a pond. The few shots that penetrate our erected Aegis patter harmlessly against the breacher shields.

Vindicators return disciplined volleys through their shield slits. Plasma fire blasts defence droids apart. Sniper rounds reduce turrets to smouldering ruin. The stink of leaking hydraulics is putrid, threatening to overwhelm a battlefield already saturated with choking fumes.

And yet the defenders do not retreat. Droids hold ground stubbornly, continuing their futile downpour of blaster shots. Dying in their dozens to slow our advance.

"Obstinate bunch, aren't they?" Ciras remarks. "Squandering resources on this meatgrinder."

Revan glances at the sergeant, brow furrowed.

"Do not underestimate," he warns. "Their behaviour suggests a motive."

"To what end?"

"They want to keep us on open ground," my brother replies. "The enemy is trying to achieve something."

His observation is prescient. Khorinar breaks radio silence. "Multiple new heat signatures detected," the sergeant reports. "Enemy reinforcements are inbound,"

I scan ahead. A phalanx of traitors is emerging from the major conduit tunnel. They march past entrenched droids, robes unfurling with gestating malice. The hairs on my skin stand on edge. Something is different about these warriors. Their auras are brighter than the Sentinels, more attuned to the mysteries of the Force. But there are more disturbing nuances.

The accumulated taint of primal forces mars their features. Many are adorned with tattoos, obscene patterns that can trace their origins to Korriban. Their robes have stained and darkened, their skin has shrivelled, and ruin infests their eyes.

Noctua senses their taint. "Dha verda," she snarls.

I understand her meaning. The newcomers are...were Consulars. Those most precious of resources reserved for pivotal engagements. Now they are Force shriven, men and women that supped too greedily from the altar of forbidden knowledge. Letting disciples of the Sith pollute their minds with practices of atrocity. Some may even be our mortal enemies. They are all cursed souls in the end.

Incipient lightning begins rippling from the their fingers. I sense overlapping choirs of energies bubble and froth into new agonizing forms. The air is trembling, giving birth to screams of insanity that shake the enclave's very foundations.

"Brace!" Revan shouts.

Reality rips asunder. Energies from beyond the veil bleeds out, blackening the sunlit dome. It forks out in molecular rending arcs, ripping and tearing through solid matter. The raw fury of the Force roars like a tsunami and crashes against our Aegis.

The three of us gasp. Our wall of Force flickers madly, struggling to maintain cohesion. Pure malice bleeds through the cracks, snapping and slithering. Eager to feast on our souls. My temple throbs. Rivulets of sweat fall down my neck. I squeeze my eyes shut, feeling the pressure reach an excruciating crescendo.

"D-damn it!"

Our Aegis breaks, shattering into a million shards of glass. Shockwaves and air splitting harmonics crash into our ranks. Vindicators begin dying. Several are ripped apart, their constituent atoms separated by raging tempests. Others simply explode, body parts raining in all directions. The shield wall crumbles like wet sand.

"Defensive positions!" Ciras shouts.

Vindicator withdraw. Several move to take cover behind ripped tree trunks and crumbling masonry. Others commit to dragging away the wounded. Our retreat does not go unpunished. Droids identify command personnel and begin delivering withering suppression fire. Khorinar is pitched back by a head shot. Montigue dies screaming, shredded by lightning tendrils.

Many soldiers would be unmanned at this point. The otherworldly dread we inspire among the uninitiated has been documented extensively. Discipline falters. Accuracy becomes non-existent. But the Vindicators do not break. They fire in bitter retaliation, unleashing controlled salvoes of plasma to cover their retreat.

The Consulars remain untouched. Their own Aegis smothers the hellfire with contemptuous ease but the distraction is enough. Our vanguard is preserved in an orderly fashion.

It takes several agonizing seconds for Revan and Ciras to haul a maimed private behind a giant boulder. I drop a groaning flame trooper next to them a moment later.

"We're suppressed," I note. The Sanctuary Gardens has been swept into a maelstorm. Thick tendrils of energy uncoils and writhes in realspace, bleeding in from the Force itself. I can feel the chug of blaster fire, the actinic buzz of lightning pricking my skin. Any attempts at a massed countercharge would be a suicidal endeavour at best.

"Our allies are no match for such esoteric might."

"No, they are not," Revan agrees. He glances at Noctua. She is standing twenty meters away, behind a collapsed monument of Tharsis Orne. Soot and debris have caked her robes but she seems utterly unconcerned by the fallout. Her mouth is bared in a snarl beneath eyes bright with battle lust.

"Sister!"

Noctua turns. My brother makes a complex pattern of finger gestures. His devised battle cant.

Show them the error of their ways.

Our sister nods and rises. Ciras tries to call a warning but Revan puts a hand on his shoulder. He shakes his head.

"She's going to get herself killed," Ciras protests.

"No, she won't," Revan assures him. "This is what our sister is here for."

He turns to me. "Three pronged attack. Make sure our sister gets close."

I give a curt nod.

Revan's charges up the right flank, exposing himself to snapping coils of lightning. He leaps and rolls, jumping from cover to cover, managing to stay just ahead of the onslaught.

I complement my brother's example. Stepping out to the left, droids immediately inundate me with salvoes of enemy fire. But I do not flee. I am a wall, marching into the carnage, deflecting shot after shot and letting my Aegis soak the worst of the tempest. Vindicators make use of our distraction. Gatling lasers roar. Disintegrators and missile launchers unleash withering salvos of punishment. They hammer into the enemy Aegis, explosions so bright it pains the eye.

The devastation unleashed by each side is ruinous. Reality crumbles. Stormwinds surge across the gantries, ripping corpses and tree trunks into the air.

Through this pandemonium, Noctua hobbles in plain sight. Brazenly. Almost foolishly so, but our feint has limited the ire inflicted upon her. What few plasma and crackling bolts she receives patters harmlessly against her erected Aegis. Cannon rounds glance aside, ricocheting to powderize solid rock.

She is ten meters away before the enemy attack her in earnest. Lightning, as vivid as the storms of Manaan rip and roar at Noctua.

The Keeper of Sanctity raises her hand. Projectiles explode in front of her in a shower of spilled force. Then it is gone.

"This is foolish," Noctua growls. "I can sense the boundaries of your strength."

The Consulars hesitate. They can sense a change. The palpable aura pulsating from Noctua's ravaged form. Something is coming, something deep from within the blackest wells of infinity. A heretic, mottled with battle scars shouts out a command.

"Stop her! Unleash every level of hell, but stop her!"

More of the faithless summon destruction, crying out forbidden words of power. A maelstorm descends upon Noctua. Razor sharp winds accelerate even faster, ripping through stonework, solar arrays and discarded metal. For a moment, our sister is engulfed in a wall of noise and fury. Then it is ripped away.

By rights, Noctua should have been atomized. The enemy's conjured inferno should have claimed her as surely as a moth to the flame.

Our sister remains standing, completely unharmed.

The Consulars gape at her, stunned. For a moment, I can feel their fear. True fear. Noctua stares back at the traitors, eyes cold with contempt.

She speaks a word.

The sound is nothing as simple as air compression. It is less a word than a shudder in the very fabric of the reality.

The traitors feel it. A mental hammerblow. Part of their phalanx collapses like a house of cards. Battle scarred veterans clutch their heads, screaming incoherently. Blood pours out of their orifices. The rest of them reel away, bloodshot eyes wide.

Revan leaps out of cover, pointing his blade at the Consulars. "Now! With her!"

I move to join him while Ciras redirects the offensive. "Priel, covering fire!" he snaps. "Assault teams, regroup!"

Sharpshooters rise from ramparts and begin picking off lone defence droids. Breacher squads begin their implacable advance, locking energized breacher shields.

Revan and I crash into the Consulars, cutting through them in a whirl of slashes and parries, picking up momentum as we run. They respond awkwardly, ranks of bodies blocking each other's movements. Many are hacked down before they can even summon war-cries out of their scarified throats. By the time we reach Noctua, our robes has been spattered with sickly black blood.

"Do you require assistance, sister?" I ask as we approach.

"No, ask a better question."

The remaining heretics regain their wits. Like hornets, they streak towards us, flooding the air with shockwaves from splayed-wide hands, desperate to end their torment. Noctua draws a breath. Heretics attempt to ward themselves but no mental defence is sufficient.

Killer harmonics wash over them. Traitors reel, screaming. A Vultan begins clawing at her face, drawing lines of blood. "Get it out! Get it out!"

The adjacent Sullustan tries to calm her. His companion spins around, horror etched on her taut features. "No! Noooooo!"

She swings wildly at a nonexistent tormentor. The Sullustan's head thuds to the dirt, mouth agape.

Amidst this carnage, Vindicators arrive. They reap a path through the horde, slicing and decapitating. Step by step, metre by ichor-stained metre, they push the Consulars back from us. Sniper beams rip through the sky, puncturing skulls like rotten cysts. Blood spurts and gushes. There are rivers of it, a tribute to war's perfected art form.

The art of death.

At the center of this slaughter, my brother stands tall. He cleaves through a snarling Umbaran and raises his blade high.

'Fight on!' Revan shouts.

Blasters roar, battle-cries are unleashed, and the hordes of the heretics scream in hatred and desperation.

'Fight on!'

Time check: 15 days, 2 hours, 37 minutes, 19 seconds before the Triumph

The cacophony of battle recedes. Isolated droids are picked off, sacrificed by the few traitors that flee deeper into the enclave. Those who remain are in no condition to escape.

Dozens of traitor Jedi and Sith lie in mental ruin, mewling and weeping. Most are a gurgling mess of charred flesh and broken bone. Some are splayed in disturbing contortions, mimicking the agony in their shrivelled souls. Others are gibbering nonsense, their minds ruined beyond all salvation.

The foetid stink of voided bowels is overpowering. One heretic is so unmanned, he succumbs to slamming his head against the wall repeatedly, letting a viscous paste leak out between the cracks of his skull. A foul taste rises in my gorge. I spit it out.

"Force above, I think I am going to be sick," I growl.

Revan looks on, silent. I cannot sense horror or pride from him. Unlike the countless souls that infest this galaxy, his aura is hidden to me. Whether by intent or natural aberration he is a ghost in the plane of the senses.

"Put them out of their misery," he says eventually.

Vindicators present flamers, nozzles spitting blue flame. The roar of promethium engulfs the chamber. Our former brothers and sisters scream as their bodies are liquified. Heretics writhe as flesh chars and sloughs off bone. Fat bubbles and pops, fanning the conflagration. In moments, they are reduced to smoking sludge. We watch the horror silently, grim faced. Such is the fate of all traitors.

Ciras approaches us, face pale. I sense unease within him. From all of them. It is the ingrained anxiety that the uninitiated have for the unknown. That is understandable at least. The powers unleashed on this battlefield were of an entirely different magnitude to what mortals should witness.

He sneaks a furtive glance at our sister. Noctua is hunched several meters away, the dead already an afterthought. Her gaze is locked on the escape tunnels where further prey awaits. She senses Ciras' scrutiny and turns back, eyes narrowed. The soldier looks away immediately.

"I've been around a lot of your kind, boss," he croaks. "A lot. None of them could do..."

Ciras struggles for words before gesturing to the stinking pile of melted offal.

"...this."

Revan nods. "It is a craft from a bygone age. Only the Keepers of Sanctity on Coruscant possess the knowledge to weaponize the Force in such a matter. They call the technique 'True Words'."

Ciras shakes his head. "I don't care what it's called. What did she do to these poor sods?"

Revan pauses, considering the question. For a moment, I believe he won't answer. Such secrets are not for outsiders to know. "We are protected," he says eventually. "Melanin for radiation. Antibodies for diseases. People have evolved...limiters that shield us from the harshness of reality. However many are ignorant of their natural defences against the Force."

The sergeant holds up his hands, exasperated. "Wait, you've lost me. Are you saying exposure to the Force is lethal?"

A nod. "Every soul claims varying degrees of affinity to it," he explains patiently. "but none can be exposed to its raw energies fully. So we access the Force through a filtered mental veil."

He spares a glance at Noctua. Her stooped silhouette is foreboding, twisting to monstrous forms as the flames leap higher.

"As a Keeper of Sanctity, our sister knows how to lift that veil. Her words shatter the aegis so the traitors are exposed to the Force in its purest, rawest form. It destroys them."

Revan turns to face the sergeant directly. His eyes are hard as flint.

"Make no mistake Ciras. The Force is not to be trifled with. Light Side, Dark side... these are meaningless qualifiers. Labels to describe a power far beyond the scope mortal minds can comprehend."

"Even the Jedi?"

"Even us," agrees Revan. "To the Force, we are simply sentient microbes pawing at the shallow end of an infinite sea. We may tap into it, use it for our own ends, but the well of infinity brooks no master. And without protection, even the lightest step into that abyss will destroy you."

The flames begin to die down. Revan moves towards the exit tunnel. "Order your soldiers to regroup," he calls back. "We must press the attack."

Ciras looks like he wants to ask more but discipline holds his tongue. He glances at me instead.

"Sometimes..." The soldier pauses and shakes his head. "No never mind."

His hesitation surprises me. Ciras is the exemplar of audacity. His exploits on Solace are ample proof of that fact. "Go ahead, Ciras. Speak your mind."

He takes another breath. "Sometimes, I say to myself that you and the Boss Man are like us. Flesh and bone. Mortals."

"We are," I assure him. "Jedi are not unique. We bleed and die just like everyone else."

"With respect, Exon, I think you know that isn't true," Ciras replies. There is an odd tremor in his voice. "Your kind have access to powers better left to gods. When you go to war, it reminds me your kind are literally a breed apart. It terrifies me."

I blink. Ciras has never spoken in this manner before. The honesty is unnerving. For a moment, I catch a glimpse into the psyche of an outsider bearing witness to occult powers. From that perspective, I begin to appreciate how the wider Republic must view their protectors.

It terrifies me.

Ciras moves away, shouting orders for Vindicators to fall back into formation. I linger, casting one more look at the funeral pyre before moving to join my brother and sister.

Authors Notes:

Thanks to everyone who has responded to the story direction so far. I really appreciate it! Please keep letting me know what you think. =)

Responses to reviews:

RevJohn1197 chapter 13. Feb 10, 2018

Thanks, it's great to have you back!

Just a Crazy-Man chapter 13. Feb 8, 2018

You betcha! Got to throw that phrase in at least once. =)

Guest chapter 13. Jan 31, 2018

Q: I guess Revan's really a Mandalorian.

A: No, Revan isn't a Mandalorian. Noctua would call Exon 'Vod' or anyone she considers worthy of being referred to as such. It's more an indication that she's still tied to her old culture.

Q: Noctua's new right? I can't remember her being in your older works.

A: Noctua is a new character. Her role and Mandalorian heritage will be addressed later on.

Q: Who would win between Grand Admiral Thrawn and the Revanchist?

A: Sorry, I don't know enough about Grand Admiral Thrawn to make an educated guess. =)

Q: Will Vima Sunrider (daughter of Grand Master Nomi Sunrider) appear in this?

A: Funny you should mention the Grand Master and the fact she has a daughter. This will become a matter of importance as the story progresses. The daughter won't be involved personally but the fact she exists will also have…ramifications.

LeonCaboose chapter 13. Jan 30, 2018

Thanks, I'm glad you're enjoying it so far!