snowfur--Thanks, and as always, thank you for the review.
Author's Note: My Darth Krayt is NOT A'Sharad Hett. I wrote this before the identity of Krayt was revealed. The common speculation at the time was that Jacen was Krayt, however this proved false. This is one of those times when it helps to remember that Heaven Falls is COMPLETELY AU. This was set in the same universe begun by Gods of Dark and Light. The Vong war happened, but differently than cannon. Please keep this is mind when reading this chapter.
Thanks--Darth Marrs
Chapter Thirty-Six: Star's End
Low Earth Orbit, Saturday, January 25, 2002, 5:32 a.m. GMT (Friday, January 24, 11:32 p.m. EST)
Even as Antaran ships died under the suicidal collisions and staff cannons of the dwindling Goa'uld fleet, the bulk of the remaining Antaran fleet continued on toward Earth, assuming positions over the horizon in such a way as to encircle the entire globe.
As they assumed their positions, each ship sent out a pulse of energy.
On the surface far below, Senator Robert Kinsey walked out of the office of his mansion in Virginia and stared up at the sky. He could see easily ten circles just over the D.C. area, to his perspective each the size of a distant lightbulb, but clearly visible in the night sky. Their light rings flared against the strange luminosity that still filled the night due to the massive battle in orbit.
In the distance, he could see the occasional fires across the city from damage caused by the quake earlier that evening, and the tsunami that swept over all the low-lying areas. But what interested him was above.
His masters had summoned him. It was time to prepare the way.
Darth Krayt stared at the strangely shaped Gao'uld vessel. He did not even move his hand as the ship, easily weighing a hundred tons, lifted off the hole, levitated ten meters clear, and then slammed with ground-shaking weight back to the ice. Ignoring the stunned Osiris, Darth Krayt stepped to the edge of the hole and stared down. And down.
The hole appeared to be almost two kilometers or more deep. He turned to the Gao'uld. "Does this ship have a means of getting me down there?"
"The transport rings," Osiris said. "I shall operate them for you."
"Do so."
Two kilometers below the ice, Teal'c, Daniel, Samantha Carter and her father Jacob, and Kyle Katarn watched the carnage in orbit. The last of the ha'taks had exploded, and the Antaran ships were easily overwhelming Anubis's mothership, which finally exploded in a spectacular ball of flame that lasted exactly as long as it took to exhaust the ship's oxygen supply.
"I count around three hundred fifty Antaran ships left," Kyle said as he eyed the mid-air display panel. "Looks like they're assuming a coverage area over the planet."
"Tess told Agent Mulder the Antarans were going to terraform the planet to be more suitable to their physiology," Carter said as she watched. "That alone might be enough to wipe out the whole human population."
"Well, we wanted to wait to see how the battle panned out," Kyle said. "I'll give this to the Empire, they make one mean warship. If there had been even two star destroyers, I think both the Goa'uld and Antarans would have been history. But so much for that." He settled back into the chair and leaned back. "I'm going to be pretty wrapped up for a while. Try to keep the bad guys off my back."
"We will do so, Master Katarn," Teal'c said with a nod.
A ray of light shone down on the Jedi as he activated long-dormant systems. The ground underneath them began to shake when suddenly the floors in a cavern ten meters away collapsed. A strange, almost squid-like object of glowing light rose into the air.
Suddenly it shot up through the ice, penetrating almost two miles effortlessly. A second followed, and then a third and fourth. As if a dam broke, suddenly hundreds, even thousands of the strange objects shot up out of the floor, through the ice shelf, and into the air beyond. The last drone shot out just as they heard the sound of transport rings, and turned to see a horrifying figure clad in strange armor standing next to Osiris.
"Where is Katarn!" the strange creature said in Goa'uld.
Kyle stood suspended above the horizon of the earth. There was no cold, nor heat. He felt no breeze. But he saw. He saw the wreckage of thousands of ships forming a ring of debris around the planet.
He saw the Antaran ships contacting their sleeper agents on the surface—at least those agents that had not already been hunted down by the FBI and the Antaran hybrids from Roswell.
Across the planet, in sites not yet destroyed by Darth Krayt's indiscriminate barrage on India, energy plants began producing massive amounts of carbon dioxide that poured into the atmosphere. Between the increase in greenhouse gases and the roiling clouds of ash from the death of a subcontinent, the whole Earth began to bake.
Kyle saw all of this as if he were a part of the Earth itself, and he realized then that was a part of the Alteran technology, and also part of his heritage. Like the rest of the humans from his galaxy, he was a direct descendent of the Alteran people. This outpost, this technology, was his heritage. And this very planet was the cradle of his race.
He was able to wield the Ancient technology better than anyone else on Earth could have hoped or imagined.
He launched his drones through the atmosphere. The Antaran shields were on par with or greater than those of the Asgard. The drones ripped through them as if they were paper. Long strings of drones sliced through each Antaran vessel, targeting the drive and power systems. Suddenly the massive ships began exploding, one after the other in quick succession.
He pulled heavily from the power of the zero point module and reached into the atmosphere of the planet itself. A few drones left each of the strings that were devouring the Antaran fleet and headed back into the atmosphere to the edge of the ever-increasing ash cloud. The lead drone suddenly vaporized in a twenty mile wide sphere of light that lasted only a second. In its absence, the air remained, but all particulate matter larger than a few molecules was simply gone. Other drones moved down into the ash cloud, similarly vaporizing massive amounts of ash.
Kyle knew that, though he could not bring back the lives lost in Darth Krayt's assault, he could still save the planet itself.
"You shall not pass," Teal'c said as he cradled Darth Nihl's lightsaber cane.
Krayt stared at the man incredulously and then focused his attention on Teal'c's weapon. "That belonged to a servant of mine."
"Darth Nihl was his name, I believe," Teal'c said. "Master Katarn cut off his head and gave me this weapon. And he taught me how to use it."
Krayt made a summoning gesture to pull the lightsaber cane from Teal'c's fingers, but the Jaffa was expecting just that after many hours dueling with Katarn, and let himself be jerked forward slightly without losing his grip.
He activated the blade. "Are you too cowardly to fight a mere mortal, Sith lord?" Teal'c called.
Krayt activated his saber, and with a roar charged forward.
Kyle watched, floating in space, as the Antaran fleet died. Through the almost omniscient sensors of the Alteran outpost, he could see the frail, gray bodies of the Antarans pulled through hull breaches in their ships. He could sense the build-up of energies in the reactors of each vessel on the verge of exploding. It was at once beautiful and profoundly saddening. Each ship held hundreds of thousands of Antarans, and there had been a thousand such ships. Millions of advanced, sentient creatures died due to the sheer stupidity of conquest and war.
Below, the redirected drones continued to fight the advancing ash cloud, making progress in removing hundreds of tons of particulate matter from the air. He could not remove all the smoke, but if enough of the particulates were removed, it would make things a lot safer on the surface for everyone.
He turned his eyes back to the heavens and concentrated on making the probes continue as he willed. Only a few dozen Antaran vessels remained. The battle was almost over.
Teal'c wiped the blood from his split lip and stared at Krayt with grim determination. In a fair contest of strength and skill, Teal'c was almost able to hold his own. But fighting a Sith Lord was not a fair contest.
So far Teal'c had been choked, thrown, levitated to the ceiling and kicked hard enough to break three ribs. Krayt did not show a single mark for all the Jaffa's efforts.
"You are brave, little man, but stupid," Krayt said teasingly as Teal'c continued to bar the way to Kyle, who sat engrossed in a strange throne framed by light. It was, the Sith presumed, the weapon Anubis wanted so badly.
"You shall not pass," Teal'c said again defiantly as he roused himself for another flurry of blows. Krayt blocked, parried and slid the blows away without any show of effort, and with insulting ease swiped Teal'c's blade away and impaled the man with his own.
"I will let you keep your head, little man," Krayt whispered to Teal'c paling face. "But I will eat your heart when Katarn is dead."
"I will eat yours, when he has cut it out," Teal'c spat back. Then he fell backward off Krayt's blade. Beyond him, Colonel Carter and Daniel dropped to their knees and opened fire with their P-90 carbines. Krayt slashed his saber so quickly it formed a virtual shield against the weapons fire. He then jabbed out a hand, and the two defenders flew sprawling back into the chair room. Jacob lifted a Zat gun and fired, again only to have the fire deflected by the lightsaber.
Instead of Force pushing, Krayt pulled. Jacob Carter, and within him, Selmak the Tok'ra, watched as the red beam of light approached them. With the speed of thought, Selmak said to Jacob, I shall miss you, my friend.
And I you, Jacob said. Thank you for giving me a second chance to live, and for forcing me to make the most of it.
And then Jacob Carter and Selmak died as Darth Krayt cut off Jacob's head with an angry hiss.
"Dad!" Colonel Carter screamed, her eyes already moist with tears. She fired off another quick round with one hand while reaching for her grenades with the other when she felt an invisible hand grasp her neck.
The hand pulled her to her feet, and then off the ground. Krayt stood a meter in front of her, his saber still lit. "Are you ready to die now, little girl? Shall I have fun with you first?"
Suddenly Sam fell hard to the ground as Krayt flew backward against the far wall. The light behind them dimmed and the general lights in the chamber came on as Kyle Katarn stepped away from the chair and put a hand on Sam's shoulder. "I'm so sorry," he whispered. "The threat is gone. He's all that's left. And that is my battle as well."
She nodded and backed away to where Daniel was still trying to pick himself up.
"So you're the all mighty Darth Krayt," Kyle said. "Darth my ass. What would your father say if he saw you now? Or your mother?"
Krayt picked himself up from the wall and relit his saber. "They died many years ago," Krayt said. "At my hand."
"You say that as if it's something to be proud of," Kyle said. "Han was in his nineties. The man could barely lift a blaster and you slaughtered him. And your mother—Force help me, how could you do that to her? Your own mother?"
"She was a Jedi first, a mother second," Darth Krayt snarled. "She was always a mother second. We were always a lower priority for her."
Katarn nodded. "At least the truth comes out. Tell me, Anakin, are you going to insist on wearing that stupid mask, or are you going to fight me like a man, face-to-face?"
With an angry growl, Darth Krayt ripped off the verduun crab armor helmet and exposed the ancient, lined but still distinct features of Anakin Solo, one time Jedi Knight and master of all the Sith.
"You were always too sure of yourself, Katarn," Krayt barked. "But you're old now, despite your tricks to skip time. Like my namesake cutting down Obi-Wan Kenobi, another Anakin will cut down an old man who used to be a master."
"You're not a rosy-faced boy yourself any more, Anakin," Kyle said as he lit his purple saber. "I know Jacen's and Tahiri's deaths shook you, boy. Maybe more than any of us knew. But to turn into this…this caricature of a Sith is beyond morbid. How have you stayed alive?"
"The Sith have many secrets the Jedi never knew about," Anakin snarled. "Our alchemy can keep the body alive for decades beyond a normal lifespan. Mixed with stasis chambers, I could easily see another hundred years. But with a Gao'uld sarcophagus, I may see a thousand!"
"You won't see another," Katarn said. "I knew your grandfather, boy. And I'll tell you this. I'm may not be another Obi-Wan Kenobi, but you are most certainly no Darth Vader."
Carter was not in Santa Fe when Kyle faced Darth Nihl. She had no way of knowing what it meant for a Jedi Master to face a Dark Lord of the Sith. Daniel was there, however. "We need to get out of the way!" he urged.
Suddenly the room filled with lightening pouring from Krayt's hand. Kyle easily caught it with one hand and shot it back with the other, forming a conduit of himself. Walls shook under invisible forces as the two masters fought not just with blade, fist and foot, but with all the powers of the Force. Lights shone from nowhere, lightning flashed. Objects flew through the air at each, only to be deflected somewhere else.
The air tingled with the smell of ozone, as if a lightning storm were upon them.
The two opponents moved at times faster than Carter's eyes could follow, while the very next moment they would stand perfectly still, hands held up as if almost to palm each other. Each such still moment would end with each man being thrown from the other. Instantly battle would be joined again.
As the two fought, destroying everything in their midst, Carter glimpsed a strange blue fog near the rings at the base of the hole in the ice.
Her eyes snapped back at the sound of a cry, and her heart froze as she saw Darth Krayt standing over the now kneeling Kyle, a red lightsaber run through the Jedi's chest.
"So it ends for you, just like all the others," Krayt said. "You called me Anakin Solo. That name lost meaning for me a lifetime ago. This is the only real power—the power of death."
"Didn't Luke teach you anything, you stupid idiot?" Kyle gasped harshly. "I am a Jedi. I will become more powerful than you could possibly imagine."
"Maybe, but it won't be here!" Krayt pulled out his saber, raised it for a killing blow, but then howled in agony as an unseen force threw him away from Katarn and into the throne chair. The Sith lord jumped back to his feet, favoring his side, to face this new assault.
Siana Delun stood before him, her blue eyes blazing from below a curtain of blue hair. To her right stood Max Evans and Liz Parker; to her left Isabel Evans and Michael Guerin. All five had their hands outreached, palms up.
"What idiocy is this?" Krayt demanded as lightning began playing around his fingers. "Do you think mere children could harm me?"
A massive torrent of blue energy lashed out at the children like a hundred whips. The whips snapped harmlessly against the force field created by Max Evans. When the lightning faded and the force field dropped, the five young people stood unaffected.
Still on his knees, with blood running down his chin, Kyle Katarn chuckled. "Take a good look, Anakin, at the future of the Jedi. Those who stand by my padawan are Antaran-human hybrids, but their power signature can be passed on. My padawan has it now, too. They are Jedi the likes of which history has never seen. You see your conquest of the galaxy as your destiny. When I look at them, I see you dead in the ground, and a glorious new future unfolding. It ends here and now."
"Never!" Krayt screamed as he lit his saber and charged.
Siana, Max, Liz, Isabel and Michael reached deep within that power each held in their hearts, funneled it through the Force as Siana had taught them all just in the past few days, and struck down the master of the Sith.
Darth Krayt; who many decades ago went by the name Anakin; who as a baby was held and loved by Leia Organa Solo and Han Solo; who as a young man was a famed and powerful Jedi instrumental in the war against the Vong; and who as a man stripped of youth and the love of his brother and wife during the war with the Vong, discovered within himself a hatred none ever knew existed; the same Darth Krayt stopped mid-stride and looked down at the gaping hole burned through his near-impenetrable crab armor six inches into his torso, and in that instant he realized that he had died. He would never bring peace and order to the galaxy. The same dream that seduced his grandfather and namesake to the Dark Side of the Force had now seduced Anakin Solo to darkness. Only, there was no Luke to guide him back to the light. There were no Masters to show him the folly of his ways.
There were instead five teenagers staring at him with expressions ranging from compassion to cold contempt. He stared back as he fell to his knees, and then face first to the floor.
"Master!" Siana said as Katarn fell. "Max, help!"
Max was there at her side, his hand hovering over Kyle's chest.
"If I were a true martyr," Kyle whispered, "I would say to let me pass into the Force so that you would be free to find your own futures." He grinned weakly. "But Teal'c told me I could not die until after I had tried Dutch chocolate ice cream with Girl Scout thin mint cookies. I don't know what that is, but he said it was worth it."
"It is," Max said with a grin as he began healing the Jedi master.
They all heard an angry snarl, and turned in surprise to see the Gao'uld Osiris standing in front of them with a Zat gun. "This weapon cannot be left to the Tau'ri!" she hissed.
Just as she finished the last word, they heard a thud, and the Gao'uld's eyes rolled up into her head. As she fell forward, they saw Teal'c holding Nihl's unlit lightsaber cane in his hand. "The Sith missed my symbiote," he said weakly. "And he left my head."
Teal'c knelt back down as Carter and Daniel both rushed to his side to render aid. The warrior allowed himself to be carried far enough to look down at Krayt. With his foot, he rolled the Sith over.
"I told him I would eat his heart when Master Katarn cut it out, but it does not appear he has a heart left." He looked at Siana and the others, and then with obvious pain but slow dignity, he bowed.
Siana, her blue eyes moist, returned his bow with a smile. The final battle of Earth was over.