A/N: The next installment in the infant Hutt that is this story. Special thanks to all who reviewed, either here, through email, or at www.kotorfanfic.com. Aroseb - I'm just as awed by your story. Don't sell yourself short. Nima Onasi - I emailed you...can't tell you how grateful I am that you've continued to read and review. Myxale - thank you. I wish I could say it was easy, but it's about as easy as bleeding all over my keyboard. g Shadow39, thank you. Winterfox - thank you for the glowing review! And yes, my memory failed me on Jagi and Selene. About Master Vandar--I plead poetic license...I figured if it looked like a duck and walked like a duck, it ought to talk like one, too. g
Nexus of Power
Bastila
The Force ejected me with head-splitting pressure. I lay on the ground, staring blankly up at Canderous. "I can't," I said brokenly. I am a failure as a Jedi. The Council was right to send me here. A suicide mission would save them the trouble of having to expel me, and ensure I didn't fall to the Dark Side.
Through the stone doorway, I saw a woman, a Force-adept from the look of her, bent over a large obsidian slab on which a body rested. "Dustil!" I gasped.
"What? Oh, for--Mandalore's mother! Between him and Little Blue, I've had it with teenagers." He brought the repeater up and set to aim for the woman.
Just then, the Sith Witch raised her arms and a maelstrom sprang to life, whipping through the room. The torches guttered and even in the hallway we could feel the wind from her energy, sucking the air into the room.
I understood then. This place was some sort of collector of Dark Side energies. As Jedi become one with the Force when their lives end, so the Sith become one with the Dark Side, and according to their beliefs, never die. "She's building power--calling on the Dark Side," I said hoarsely. "This place is like the Star Forge. A nexus."
"Speak to me in my language." Canderous crouched next to me. "Where do I shoot?"
Through eyes squinted to protect me from the dust, I saw Carth leap forward. He engaged the Sith witch with swords, but some sort of fog surrounded them. The witch used a black-bladed Sith sword against Carth, landing several blows true. I winced, prepared to hear his cries of pain, but the fight continued in an eerie silence.
"Perhaps defeating the Sith witch will diffuse the nexus." I grasped at any straw available.
He snorted. "I don't know who you've been adventuring with, sister, but things don't happen that way around us. Get this blockage down, now! I can't just stand around while Republic gets his ass kicked. Revan'll have my hide."
I shook my head. He still assumed we would emerge alive from this place. "This place is too strong in the Dark Side. I would be overwhelmed." Every horrible self-doubt I'd ever felt about myself pushed its insidious way into my mind. The lives of three Jedi, two warriors, children, and a struggling settlement rested on my shoulders, and I failed them. May as well try carrying a full-grown rancor on a lattice of sugar-straw candy.
Canderous shook me until my teeth rattled in my head. "Snap out of it, Princess! You're the only one who can do this."
"I'm not strong enough to defeat that thing. I'm barely holding onto consciousness as it is." The Dark Side energies building around the Sith witch pulled at me with burning claws. I kept my eyes open wide, because every time I closed them, the dark pull sucked me under.
"You are as dense as permacrete!" he said harshly. He pulled grenades from the bandolier across his chest and looked down at me. His features were stark, hewn from stone and iron more durable than the crumbling temple around us, and infinitely more implacable. Merciless. "I don't know the clever words like Noura does, and I'm not full of Republic platitudes like Onasi, but I know the language of battle, and I recognize it when a warrior possesses a core of fire so hot it forges unbreakable blades."
"I'm not strong like Revan. I'm weak."
He tossed a grenade into the room . Over the explosive sound of the grenade, he laughed bitterly and shouted, "Do you really believe I'd let a weak woman into my bed, Princess?" He began to fire the repeater, uncaring that his blaster bolts were sucked harmlessly into the maelstrom. "Do you really think a weak woman would survive it?"
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