"At least Plagueis was right about the timeline."
Corran felt the fury boiling inside his body, that Sith had left, just up and left when he could have helped. He owed Corran, without his help, he wouldn't...
"Corran!" Anakin barked.
Corran allowed the colours of his eyes to darken to an orange glow, it felt good. He lowered them onto the young Solo and barked, "What?"
"You need to balance yourself with the dark and light, letting go to your raw emotions is just as bad as not using them at all."
Corran had enough of his games, it's what the boy wanted, what he taunted and teased out of him. Anakin will have to deal with the consequences, "You've seen my power, there isn't any who can match that, why should I continue to bend my knee to lesser beings..."
And in a flash, he felt the anger and hatred wash away. Like a switch being flicked. In fact everything had been flicked off, he couldn't touch the Force at all. He glanced around, locking eyes with Anakin, "I can't control it, it's..."
"It's a normal part of becoming a Master of the Force. A Master has control over every aspect of the Force, light and dark. The tradition had always been to have a watcher until you found your inner peace. You're doing well, considering how fast I threw you into it."
The cloud lifted from around him, and he felt the Force rushing back into every part of his body, and the anger boiling his blood. Only this time, he kept it in check, not pushing it down, but he didn't allow it to control him.
He took another few breaths, and looked up at the sky. The Storm was still hours out, but they could feel it approaching. All the preparations were made, defences were as good as they were getting. Corran didn't want to think about their chances through. If they had entire squadrons of Death Stars, maybe, but their most powerful weapons wouldn't make much of an impact. And the scary thought was that he was one of the most powerful weapons.
He didn't want to think about it.
"So how did this knowledge get lost? It seems like knowledge that'd be hard to wipe from the universe."
Anakin wasn't focusing on him anymore, his mind was elsewhere. He still replied though, "It was a single Jedi knight who was being escalated to Master, he had a massive affinity to the Dark that hadn't been detected. He hid it well, allowed time to pass, and killed off every single Master of the time. It wasn't something they were willing to put into something like a holocron, a Jedi Knight who wasn't ready would get corrupted trying to reach Master level too early."
Corran nodded, thinking back to his initial training on Yavin 4. If somebody like Kyp Durran had stumbled on a Holocron that told him how to become a Master he'd have fallen harder and darker. Probably past the point of recovery.
Extending his senses out into space, the Storm couldn't be missed, they were very bright beacons in the Force. Some of the Spheres had stopped at the outer rims systems, and were systematically destroying anything there. Luckily there were a lot of uninhabited systems. It wouldn't take them very long before they'd find a planet with life, and they'd extinguish it without a moments hesitation. They didn't have enough resource as it was, to stretch them out would be suicide.
A large portion of the Spheres were on a direct course for the Corellian system, given what had happened to the scout Sphere. So naturally, it'd been the best place to stage a defence.
From talking with Luke, the missile development went very well. Luke hadn't been able to help with the theoreticals of the missiles, but once it came time for development, he said he'd been entranced with the project. Although, he kept on talking about how he was going to dismantle the project if they survived. Anakin was right, Luke Skywalker wasn't a true Master, he only saw things one way, through the light, anything else was evil.
The sad thing was that he'd trained an entire order of Jedi to think the same way. That wouldn't be an easy task to remedy.
***...
Corran hated the waiting. It'd always been the worse.
"If we survive this, do you think Plagueis will be back?"
Anakin shook his head, "No, however, you might need to worry about whatever he creates. I can't picture him making a planet of cuddly Ewoks, it'll be powerful, and he'll be its God."
The Force around him suddenly become thick, like breathing in a sauna. The sun vanished, eclipsed by a enormous sphere. From his vantage point, it looked to be ten times the size of the moon, but given the distance, it'd probably make the planet he was standing on look like a mere asteroid.
"Are you sure it'd a good idea to make us the target?"
But Anakin wasn't replying anymore. His eyes had glazed over, his hands were covering custom grips he'd made. He wasn't just interfacing with the computer, he was the computer; and that computer had access to every lense, every sensor, and had control over every weapon they possessed.
However it made Anakin the biggest target in the solar system. Well, soon to be second biggest target.
In his mind, he heard Anakin's calm voice, 'Create a wormhole inside the Sphere blocking our light, open the other end in the sun. And then prepare yourself.'
Corran didn't need the external energy input to open a wormhole anymore. He could draw the energy from the life around him.
Stretching out to the Sphere, it felt like looking into the sun itself, so much power, so much raw power. He didn't search for the Sphere itself, just found the brightest spot. He ankered part of his mind there, and the other half he sent to the sun, and the moment he opened it, he felt pain and fear flashing from the closest Sphere. And it a second it went quiet.
And then the pain started. He'd gained the attention of every single Sphere in the system, and they started to burn him up from the inside, with pure focused Force energy. He let go and opened up the the energy, every single bit of it.
***...
"Jaina, Sphere 5 is your target, make a line for 10, then divert and attack." Anakin's said over her headset.
Jaina glanced down at her computer display. The Sphere's had only just jumped into system, it should have taken the computer longer to sort out everything, but instead everything flashed up on her screen instantly. She felt her heart sink, over four hundred Sphere's were sized, catalogued, and place on her screen.
Four hundred.
And in a second, the first changed colour. Dead.
Her target wasn't the closest to the planet either, It was her job to intercept anything heading toward the planet. Anakin had gotten it wrong. In the time it took her to breath in to speak, Anakin's voice came over her headset, "Trust me Sis."
She even received a picture of his cocky grin in her mind.
***...
Luke fought to remain in control. The sudden arrival of the Sphere's was sending his chest wound into sudden spasms, like something inside was reaching out, trying to claw it's way to the surface. It felt like Abeloth was inside of him, a small part of her that was stopping his wound from healing was trying to take control. She was thriving in such immense power.
Anakin's voice echoed through his head, 'She doesn't have the power to take control, but you can use her. Use her ability to take control of others, focus on a Sphere and stretch your will from your wound into it.'
Luke clutched at his chest, almost trying to push it back in, he cried, "No, I can't, I won't use that evil."
'I'll show you where the Dagger of Mortis is, and you can kill her properly. She isn't powerful enough to take over yet, use her.'
Luke yelled back, "No, I can't allow her to get free, I can't."
And with that, he dropped to the floor, focusing on the wound in his chest, trying to fight back Abeloth.
***...
"Luke is down, leave him, you need to take his station, backup is coming to take over. Fire at 10, 9, 15 then 2."
Tahiri turned around to see Luke Skywalker on the ground, his hands to his chest, fighting some sort of internal battle. It'd all started so quickly, one second the sky was clear, then she was surrounded, they were everywhere. She looked at her computer screen, and hit the keys, sending out two thousand of her Dovin Basal missiles.
Her adaption of the plants had been basic and brutal, she didn't have time for more, it'd been an integration of technology and her Vong sense. The missiles were powered by traditional motors, but the living warheads were programmed to create a massive black hole if they felt threatened. And when the missile was about to hit, it sent a spike of nutrients to the active part of the plant, and it opened a black hole. A large one. A Shaper could have done a better job, but not even Anakin could tell them the location of the new Yuuzhan Vong planet.
She watched at the missiles screamed out, like a massive swarm heading towards their target.
The disadvantage of being so immense, is that every action they did was visible through the Force, she could sense number ten turning its attention on Jaina's fleet, and felt it sending the energy to melt the entire thing into sludge.
And then the energy stopped, it noticed the missiles heading in it's direction.
A lazy Force push was thrown over the area containing the missiles, but it passed over the area without touching the missiles. They were cloaked in the new artificial Ysalamiri field. The lazy Force push turned more intense, but still without making them so much as shudder. And then they hit, all two thousand.
It wasn't a large explosion, exactly the opposite; craters begun to form and the metal around warped, driving into the middle. Each missile hit in successive order, adding to the power and magnitude, sucking everything into the void. Then everything seemed to blur as the light itself was sucked back into the black hole. The missiles kept on driving home, and then suddenly it stopped, and the Sphere was gone. No wreckage, nothing.
It worked.
Then the ship around her started to heat up. Fast.
***...
Jaina stopped swearing at her brother as the closest Sphere imploded into nothing. It'd been about to melt her into sludge, but it was suddenly gone, and in it's place was a clear sight at the target designated number 5.
Knowing she was about to send legions to their death, she yelled brutally to her Squadron, "Number 5, twenty barradium strikes, hit the same spot as the Being ahead of you."
Guttural roars came back as a reply.
She'd scanned the entire military available, and separated those with low Force potential. She'd given them the option, be segregated to a portion of the planet, away from anything that could do harm. Or to have the Force striped, have some protection against the Storms abilities and fight.
An overwhelming portion of the military agreed to be stripped. She'd hoped that with them being similar to Yuuzhan Vong, with no Force presence, they'd be invisible to the enemy.
When the Sphere focused on her ship, it was only her's that begun to heat. Her troops didn't get touched.
The downside was that her troops lost any instinct to preserve their own lives. They'd prefer to kamakazi into the enemy.
She hung back as an assortment of small crafts powered towards number 5, all with Baradium warheads strapped to their bases.
The first one hit, and the explosion blossomed bright against the metal shell. Seconds later, another ship flew into the explosion and added to the explosion.
***...
Time stopped.
Corran didn't seem to notice when his body vanished. And his current form was, well incredible.
He could see everything. All the Force belonged to him, it was him. He could feel himself inside the smallest blades of grass, and inside the gigantic Spheres. His body wasn't material anymore, the surge of energy had woken up dormant genes passed down from a very long time ago.
And in a flash of awareness, memories came flooding into his mind. Of his birth, as a slow unintelligent jumble. Dark, and alone, he learnt self awareness, managed to pull himself into something more. It could have been a day, or several thousand years, but he begun to explore himself, his abilities, himself.
Communication with others like him started first. Sharing of ideas, strengths, abilities, and it wasn't long before some started to take the ideas by force, forcing themselves on others, and stealing the information. He'd been quick to build mental defenses.
Then the war began, and he needed to evolve. He pushed the life around him, encouraging it to flourish, and quickly helped smaller organisms to evolve into forms that gave him more energy to access. Those days were brilliant, he bonded with the creatures, and helped them grow stronger, more independent.
Then the first of the intruders arrived. Something that wasn't born from him. Even then, his creations were stronger, more self aware. The intruders were destroyed easily. He kept defeating threats against him, even as others blinked out around the universe.
His gave his more promising creations something none others before had, creativity. They continued to evolve, from four legged animals, to bipedal Beings. He stripped them of comforts, like a warm coat, so they were forced to create fire, then made the hunting harder, so they were forced to innovate. They were all completely controlled by their maker, and over the distances, the maker held strong to their will.
Corran managed to fend them off, but it took out a large population of his creations, and he knew this would be the first of many attacks. So he put all of his will into creating a defence. He started small, finding links between the energy, followed the traces that allowed for instant communication across vast spaces, and made those links more solid, more tangible. It took many years, but he managed to make it large.
His retaliation was fast and hard. He opened up a link to the insectoid home, and dragged the planet and all into his system. Corran attacked hard and fast against the new world, ripping the consciousness from the new world, and allowed him to spread his consciousness across two worlds.
Another few hundred years passed, and another intruder attacked. Stronger this time. He did the same again, and had three worlds floating in his system.
The fourth captured planet seemed to be the thing that rallies all the other consciousness against him. He was the greatest enemy in the galaxy.
Corran's creations were at a point where they could travel between the worlds in the system without assistance from him, and all four species working together seemed to be incredible builders.
My creations envisioned them, the third captured species worked out the technical details, and the insectoid species began construction. And knowing the treat they were up against, they created a new moon, one capable of defence against anything else. One that could annihilate anything approaching.
And...
Corran suddenly felt an awareness driving into him. From far away. Or long ago?
The memories stopped flooding in. He hesitated for, well probably a nanosecond, and stretched his presence across the solar system, the five planets he'd grown up around. Those memories, they felt like his. Like he'd lived through them.
However, he remembered with exact precision how to control the wormholes, and could make them far larger. He focused on a Sphere that was on a collision course with Drall - where the Killiks originated - and opened up a wormhole in front of it, one large enough to swallow the entire Sphere, and opened the other end onto the sun. It disappeared in a flash of molten slag.
He knew without doubt that he could end this entire threat now.
He focused on every single Sphere in the system, linking to the center of each, and pulling all the links to one exit point, and pushed them all towards the sun.
Only he felt something pulling. Something strong. Something immensely powerful. Enough to reach through time itself for him.
He desperately clung onto his reality, but he couldn't find any handhold, couldn't find any sort of anchor point. And felt himself slipping. Everything around him swallowed into a massive blur of brightness, the sun appeared around him in every position in the sky, glaring down at him. And in a flash it stopped.
He looked through his own eyes, at the green grass he'd landed on. He'd regained his physical body. He tried to open up to the energy again, to be what he just was. But nothing happened. It'd taken an incredible surge to get him there. He stared around at the green empty pastures, and looked into the sky to see a shiny new centerpoint station.
That hadn't been shiny and new for almost a million years.
He could see ships flying around it, with flashes as some sort of weapons went off. He'd arrived in the middle of a massive battle.
He felt utterly helpless.
"How were you draining my power?"
Corran spun to see a human figure standing behind him. Only it wasn't human, only an illusion, but one with physical presence. Corran stammered, "Who are you?"
"I've become known as Corel."
Corran staggered back, "Oh god."
"I have been known as that also."