Chapter 28

Almost there... thought Peri as he watched from his hiding place as the generator hovered high over the heads of Thera and the Togruta while they danced with the brilliant red light changing shapes between them with rapid clashing sounds.

"Now, Teethree! Now!" shouted Peri into his comlink.

In the control room, T3-D4 twirled the data uplink beeping wildly.

Syriu'us batted away Thera's lightsaber blade with his, then kicked her in her side sending her stumbling to the floor. He felt the danger above his head immediately and leaped straight up into the air. T3-D4 had managed to crane a large generator from a upper story landing in an effort to help Thera. Syriu'us stretched out his feelings with the Force. He had done this before, and each time marveled at how more easily and more creative he could make time seem to slow down and control his adrenaline and strength, and ultimately control the danger that threatened his life.

He felt the falling machine in the Force as he accelerated toward it, a combination of its falling and his Force jump. He raised his arms and began spinning, building the dark side of the Force into his body, until he impacted the generator. His lightsaber bored into the machine first and he discharged his Force energy causing the parts closest to his body to molecularly explode, the remaining fragments further from his body to buckle uncontrollably in a fraction of a second and turning into odd-shaped projectiles that, in the next instant, ricocheted away from him in a loud blast. As he fell, he stretched out into the Force again reaching after the shards of the generator and directed their momentum toward Thera.

Peri watched as it all happened in amazement and awe having never witnessed so much use of the Force. He began to forget that he as hiding, and seeing Thera in danger of the barrage of shrapnel he yelled, "Thera! Look out!"

Thera cursed in her mind that Peri had exposed himself. Feeling the accelerating projectiles in the Force, she waved a hand using the Force to redirect their path harmlessly to the side. She also felt Syriu'us train his attention on Peri. Immediately, she risked turning from her opponent and Force shoved Peri back into the corridor where he must have been hiding originally. An instant later, a large bin crashed into where Peri had been standing, tools and other odd-shaped contents from the bin splattering in all directions. Then several crates began slamming into the bin pushing the growing mass of odd metallic shapes into the corridor where Peri had just disappeared.

Thera reached out for one of the flying crates and swung its momentum back toward Syriu'us. He easily redirected the crate aside and stepped back a pace as Thera leaped toward him. She landed and swung her lightsaber to slice him in half. He deflected her swing and they traded feints ending in their blades held together as they slowly circled each other. They glared into each other's eyes, both exerting themselves to breathe evenly as there worn bodies recuperated from their duel. Thera felt Syriu'us in the Force probing her mind. She focused her will into the Force and let her mental anger drive his influence away from her. He smiled at her and spoke.

"He's not dead, not yet," he said sounding reassuring. They continued to circle slowly. Then Syriu'us withdrew his lightsaber and extinguished it, and faced her squarely.

"And I promise not to kill him as long as you are alive."

She lowered her weapon, but left her magenta blade glowing brightly, eyes silently fixed on his, mind gradually expanding within the Force. They stood motionless facing each other, Thera's blade humming, and faint blaster fire with random explosion punctuations.

"I can see your destiny, and I am not who you're after," said Syriu'us. Thera searched for signs of deceit in the Force, but found none.

He spoke in gentle tones, "You've been mentored well," he continued, "you are strong in the Force, but you're not a Sith yet. Come with me, and I will teach you the full power of the dark side of the Force." He turned and started pacing in a circle again as he continued, "And you will become one of the greatest Sith Lords of all time, and together we could bring peace and justice and order to the galaxy."

As he spoke, Thera felt the dark side of the Force emanate as if from his voice through the words that he spoke. She held her peace, but began to feel currents shift within the Force in ways she had never sensed before. She had learned to trust her feelings since Mandalore, but the Force seemed to withhold the clarity it had given her since then as well. Patience, she heard the voice of her brother in her mind, chiding her for her childhood frustrations for her failures in mastering the Force. You can't bend the Force to your will without first embracing it and allowing it to consume you, he had told her just before leaving to become a Sith Warrior.

Then suddenly, something he said struck her.

"And one day your offspring will carry on your legacy, the Force be willing."

She felt a knot grow in her stomach. It felt the same as when she spoke with Peri in the water vessel. The Force began to expand her mind, not just to the destiny that lay in front of her, but beyond to what value her life held within the scheme of the whole galaxy. She began to feel less like a key piece of a puzzle and more like an artist who would design them. She began to sense limitless possibilities within the currents of the Force rapidly materialize in her mind.

"It is the future that you sense," she heard him speak. His voice sounded more like an echo reverberating everywhere, even inside of her.

"Always in motion," he continued, "and never certain until it lies directly in front of you."

Thera concentrated, and expanded her mind to try to understand better the things she could sense in the Force. Immediately, she felt an inrush of fear and suffering, not hers, but surr0unding her future.

"You're a closed book," he continued again, "your mentor has taught you well, but I can feel the Force surrounding your presence. Tell me how grand it looks, your future!"

Suddenly something did become clear to her. This Sith Lord had no idea what her future held; the Force had not granted him any of this vision of her future; …his weakness. He was after something, something that he knew was valuable, valuable within her, and he was carefully leading her to give it to him.

The building's frame rumbled from another explosion. Thera's blade hummed. He stood, arms folded, facing her just meters away, waiting. She focused on being calm so as to not betray her intention. The Force flowed through her limbs, and finally the clarity she had always been able to trust slowly materialized in her mind. This foe would die, but it would begin with his next move. She began to pull her Force presence in to herself, as A'pratti'ka had recently taught her to do.

Syriu'us sighed, "You try my patience. Perhaps I've misjudged your usefulness."

Thera responded, "Either that or you are all out of words of wisdom."

His expression changed fluidly from peaceful, to stoic, to resentful, and finally to angry. His arm moved in a flash and Thera felt herself off balance and weightless and travelling backwards at a high speed in an instant. She felt the wall a moment later which nearly knocked her breathless. She landed gracefully on the floor.

She looked around quickly and finding the nearest exposed vertical I-beam she threw her lightsaber and used the Force to guide it spinning toward it. She heard a loud noise that she realized was the Togruta bellowing as he flew through the air after her, lightsaber raised, ready to pounce. She summoned the Force and leaped as high as she could mere moments before he landed next to where she had been standing and sent a shockwave with the Force radiating through the building away from him. Seconds later, Thera in mid-jump directed her lightsaber as it sliced clean through the I-beam diagonally, and then began to return to her as she descended back to the floor. The upper I-beam segment slid slowly down the lower segment until the effects of Syriu'us' shockwave knocked it loose and set it free sending it along with much of the ceiling crashing toward the floor.

Thera ran as fast as she could searching for the quickest way to the lower levels to escape to safety. The whole building was rumbling in commotion as things began to crash and fall. Suddenly she heard droid beeps that she realized were coming from the building's announcing system, and she saw the door to an elevator slide open and the surveillance camera above it twitch.

"Thanks, Teethree!" she shouted as she ran into the elevator.

Immediately the door slid shut and the elevator began to descend.

As she caught her breath, she heard more beeps from T3-D4 through the elevator comlink.

"Peri should be alright where he is, but the rest of the building is collapsing. Try to route power to an elevator on the East side so I can go get him as soon as this is done. Be careful, Teethree and I may just give you a kiss when this is all done," she told him. She grinned as T3-D4 chirped wildly and then tuned out as the door slid back open. She looked out into the vast main lobby above the ground floor, debris randomly raining down from the rumbling ceiling. She began expanding her awareness in the Force, knowing that Syriu'us would not be far behind her. She heard a crash that shook the elevator, and immediately she rolled out into the lobby as a red lightsaber blade pierced through the top and began cutting a shape. She held her magenta blade at the ready as seconds later, Syriu'us came crashing through the top of the elevator. He immediately began racing toward her. She could feel his anger boiling uncontrollably and hyper-focused on her. She met his onslaught of lightsaber blows, receiving every calculated strike with patient defense. She was slow once, and he managed to kick her in the stomach knocking her backward.

"So," he began breathing heavily and sounding condescending, "do you think he loves you?"

"What?" she responded confused.

"The man you saved up there; he's not suitable for capable offspring!"

"Why do you think I worry about my future?" she spouted back.

The building began to shake more rigorously and loudly. He rained another barrage of lightsaber blows forcing her back to the safer portion of the building near the East side, until he was able to shove her with the Force against a wall. He looked at the elevator a meter from where he stood. Thera recognized it as the elevator T3 should have been sending to Peri.

"Your thoughts betray you," he growled. "I'll kill him when I'm finished with you alright, but his droid gets it now, since he won't be in any further need of it. I'll bet I can fry his circuitry!" He reached out his arm and blinding lightning danced from his fingertips connecting with the droid terminal. The lights above the elevator, and all of the indications went dark. He growled again, continuing to pour lightning that seemed to glow brighter into the terminal until every orifice of the elevator assembly began spraying sparks, the panels either exploding outward or catching fire, and the doors slid open as the hydraulic controls failed as well. Thera heard another similar explosion from the elevator she had taken down moments earlier, and others began to occur further elsewhere in the lobby, audible above the raucous of the unstable building. Syriu'us seemed to be enjoying himself as the dark side continued to emanate immensely from him. The lightning stopped and he looked at Thera with glowing orange eyes.

"That just happened to his droid, and I'll cook him the same way!" he said full of fury.

She tried desperately to feel for the droid in the Force, but every indication showed that the utility droid may have suffered the way the elevators had. Thera was furious. She felt the Force swell within her, the dark side answering her emotions.

Syriu'us raised his lightsaber and said, "You'll never be a Sith!"

"And you will no longer be a Sith," she said back, and rocketed her arm out so quick she felt like she almost threw it out of socket, but the Force released from her and shoved his body with a power he was unable to repel backward through the air into the open elevator shaft. His body slammed into the back of the shaft with the loud cracking of bones, and less than a moment later disappeared as the elevator T3-D4 had been operating moments earlier sped past the shaft opening and crashed into the ground floor level below.

Thera sighed in what felt like an overwhelming relief as she felt Syriu'us' presence in the Force disappear. She walked over to the wall, and spun herself into it and slid herself to the floor feeling more exhausted than she had ever felt and felt herself crying. T3 was gone – that little droid was precious– and Peri was still several stories up. The building finally began to collapse noisily into her level.

Not long into their duel, Thera had decided to use the building as a weapon. The building had a four-story base much wider than the skyscraper which towered several stories higher, the top being unfinished, probably intending to go more stories even higher. She had systematically destroyed the structure's key support points utilizing them in the various stages of their duel so that the skyscraper would eventually crumble straight down, leaving only the base standing intact – it was a brilliant plan; Jev was right, compensate for your weaknesses. As the floor began to shake, she sprang to her feet and began moving quickly away from the falling wreckage as dust clouds began to grow thicker and spread everywhere.