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Thirty-Seven
(Only The Strong Survive)

Malysa Kolos focused mainly on keeping her calm as she listened to the conversation between Admiral Ackbar and Interim Chancellor Fey'lya in the former's office aboard Home One.

"With all due respect, Acting Chancellor," Ackbar said patiently, "I think it is possible that you are not fully aware of all the factors in play here."

"I know enough," Fey'lya retorted dismissively. "The Imperial fleet is trespassing in our space, and I have no ships to intercept them with because you've got them all on some idiotic paranoid operation at the edge of the galaxy. Now that I'm Chancellor, I can issue an official order as your Commander-in-Chief to-"

Suddenly bursts of static flickered across the transmission before it broke up entirely and the connection was lost.

Ackbar looked across his desk at Malysa, who sat in her chair with a studiously innocent expression, pretending to examine her fingernails.

"The HoloNet relays in this sector are notoriously unreliable," she said mildly. "It's possible one of the relays between us and Alderaan has gone offline." She looked up at the admiral with feigned concern. "We may be completely on our own out here."

"How unfortunate," Ackbar said dryly. "I shall have to lodge a complaint with HoloNet maintenance."

"You should," Malysa said, unable to completely suppress a sly smile. "I guess now you'll just have to use your own judgment, without any input from our new Chancellor."

Ackbar gave her the Mon Cal equivalent of an ironic smirk. "A terrible inconvenience, to be sure."

On the bridge of the Obi-Wan Kenobi, Wedge similarly had to contain his disappointment as he heard the news. "What will we do now?" he said, his tone dry enough to vaporize a small lake.

"Us poor dumb old boys are gonna have to think for ourselves," one of the pilots said over the carrier group frequency. "It'll be a disaster."

"Cut the chatter, Rogue Nine," said Tycho Celchu, though Wedge could hear a hint of amusement in his friend's voice. "Old Ben, any estimates on when the Imperial fleet is going to get here?"

"Based on their last check-in, I estimate about three hours, Rogue Leader," Wedge replied.

Tycho switched to a private channel. "That only puts them about an hour ahead of the Burned fleet," he said grimly. "Cutting it pretty close."

"This whole operation is cutting it close," said Wedge. "If the team out in the satellite galaxy fails, we're in big trouble."

"Just like the good old days," Tycho said wryly. He switched back to the general frequency. "All right, back to work, Rogues. Let's see how much more junk we can spread around out there."

"I got another load of mines for you whenever you're ready, Rogue Leader," Booster Terrik put in. "And then me and the Venture are gone."

"General, hyperspace activity!" the sensor officer reported suddenly. "Incoming contacts in the outer system."

"From which direction?" Wedge asked, leaning forward in his chair.

The sensor officer read his monitors for a moment before answering. "From outside the galactic plane, sir. Telemetry from the sensor buoys confirms it's the Burned fleet."

"Damn!" Wedge swore, turning to his command board to bring up the sensor readings on his own screen. "Comm, give me fleet-wide."

"Channel open, sir."

"All ships, this is General Antilles. The first wave of the Burned fleet has arrived in the outer system earlier than expected. Repeat, Burned vessels in-system now."

"This is Ackbar," the Mon Calamarian admiral's gravelly voice said a moment later. "All ships to battle positions. Deploy droid-control ships and activate mines."

"Comm, get me the Errant Venture," Wedge ordered. When the channel was open, he continued. "Booster, you still have that cloaking device?"

Booster paused rather tellingly. "Er…"

"Yes, I know I told you to get rid of it," Wedge said patiently. "But right now I don't care how many laws you're breaking with that big red monstrosity of yours; I need your help."

"Yeah, okay," Booster conceded. "I'll have my techs hook it back up. Give us a few minutes." He paused. "Having been a part of a few of your other plans, I want a great big reward on the off chance whatever you're about to do works. Enough to fix the Venture up real nice."

Wedge allowed himself a small, grim smile. "Booster, if this works, I'll transfer the credits into your account personally. Call me back when you're ready."

Out in the satellite galaxy, Han let the Millennium Falcon slowly drift to a halt. The immense Star Forge outside completely filled the viewports with its bronze bulk, given distinction only by the luminous shapes of the few viewports visible at this distance and angle.

In the seat behind him, Darth Vader leaned forward. "What is it?" he demanded. "Why are you stopping?"

"We're almost in range of their point-defense turrets," Han explained as he eased up on the controls. "Even if their sensors are telling them we're an asteroid, this is still closer than space junk ought to be." He scowled at the huge space station outside, knowing what he would have to do. "When we try to board, they're going to know this is really a ship no matter what their sensors are telling them, and they're gonna throw everything they have at us. Ordinarily, I wouldn't admit this, but… I'm not sure I can fly through all that. If we're gonna get to Anakin and Ben's group, we're going to have to do some serious maneuvering while dodging some equally serious firepower."

With great reluctance, Han released the controls and stood, then turned to look at the black-armored figure sitting behind him. He took a deep breath, hesitated for a further moment, then wordlessly stepped out of the way.

Chewbacca snarled something better left untranslated and got up from his own chair as Luke appeared in the cockpit hatchway.

Vader stood from his chair and rose to his full height, looking down at Han with an expression unreadable behind his mask. Something in his posture suggested respect in the silent look he gave Han through his opaque black lenses, though it could just as easily have been contempt.

"Hey, not a scratch," Han warned as Vader sat down in the pilot's chair.

"I will treat the ship at least as well as you do," Vader replied sarcastically as he spun the chair around and looked over the controls.

Han began to step forward, a caustic retort on its way up, but Luke placed a hand on his chest to gently but firmly hold him back.

"We'll take care of her, Han," Luke said softly. "I'll make sure of it."

Han bit back his fury and settled instead for glaring at the back of the Dark Lord's helmet. He raised a hand to point a finger at Luke. "See that you do!" he snapped, then turned and left the cockpit.

Chewbacca woofed an interrogative as they walked down the corridor, to which Han replied, "'Cause I can't sit up there and watch this."

As he entered the main hold, Mara looked up at him from her seat at one end of the curved acceleration couch. "It's for the good of the mission," she said solemnly. "You're showing some real maturity here, Solo."

"Yeah, don't remind me," Han growled as he headed for the turrets. "Chewie, Artoo, you're on damage control."

The blue and white astromech bleeped in acknowledgment, and Chewbacca snarled grumpily, but fetched his toolbox out of its storage compartment.

Han paused next to the ladder to look back inside the hold. "Well, you coming with me or what, Red?"

Mara smirked lightly as she stood. "I call the dorsal turret."

Han frowned. "I get the dorsal turret."

"Not if you don't call it first," Mara replied as she sauntered past him, still smirking.

Han sighed and shook his head as he started down the ladder. "What was that you were just saying about maturity?"

As the Phoenix prepared for the micro-jump further into the system, Leia stood on the balcony in the throne room at the top of the command tower and looked at the chair in front of the huge, panoramic viewport. Technically, this was no longer a throne room, as the throne itself had been removed and replaced with a standard Imperial-style command chair, but still she could sense the echoes lingering in this place.

She had heard the story from Luke and Mara, and the parts Jacen was willing to talk about, but until now Leia had resisted coming up to the throne room, the place where her counterpart had spent so much time, the place where she had spun her schemes and ordered untold horrors upon her subjects.

The place where her son had killed her.

Though the room was largely bare now, the layout indicated that it had once been sumptuously furnished, the entire chamber visible from the throne platform. Disturbingly, Leia recognized much of her own personal tastes in what remained of the decorations and the overall architecture.

Lady Vader had been a cruel, sadistic Sith Lord, but on some level she and Leia were the same person, and that unnerved her to no end. Until she had boarded this station for the first time, she could only have imagined in nightmares what she could have been like under the corruption of the Dark Side. Now, here was the evidence all around her.

This station was designed to amplify Battle Meditation; she could sense it, could feel the focal point here in the throne room, centered on the throne platform itself. Leia didn't want to be here, but if she was going to coordinate this battle, use her powers to reinforce the hearts and minds of the troops in this, their most desperate hour, here was where she had to be.

The comm panel mounted on one arm of the chair buzzed, and Thrawn's voice said, "Are you ready, Master Organa Solo?"

"No," Leia murmured quietly to herself.

She paused, took a slow, deep breath, and quickly sat down in the command chair. "Ready when you are, Admiral," she transmitted back.

"Jumping to hyperspace in three… two… one…"

The star field outside the viewport dissolved into swirling blue for several long seconds, and then they were there above the system's sun, close enough to see the huge bronze shape of the Star Forge atop its glowing ribbon of plasma, and the depressingly large fleet spread in ranks around it.

Far below her, the huge hangar doors mounted at various places around the Death Star slowly rolled open and the fleet berthed inside swarmed out. Leia actually felt the vibration in the deck beneath her feet as the Phoenix's superlaser array howled to life and the eight great beams angled independently to destroy warships in the enemy formation.

Then the battle was joined and Leia was no longer in the throne room but in a thousand other places at once.

"So how do you want to do this?" Luke asked his father from the Falcon's copilot seat. "There's not much room to maneuver between the shield and the hull of the station, and we still have to pick our entrance point."

"My grandsons are near the factory complex," Vader rumbled back without looking up from the controls. "We will go in through one of the launch bays and then coordinate a landing spot with them. From there, once Jacen and Ami's teams have secured charges in the other two plasma intake complexes, we will evacuate and detonate the charges to bring down the shield."

"We'll have to coordinate the detonation with Thrawn," Luke said. "To make sure the Phoenix is ready to fire the moment the shield comes down."

"Stay in contact with your sister," said Vader. "She will let him know."

"So how are we going to get the launch bay open?" Luke asked as Vader gunned the engines and raced down over the curving hull of the central section.

Instead of replying, Vader simply acted. Wordlessly, he gestured for Luke to take the controls for a moment, and then Luke sensed his father drawing upon the Force.

Far below them, just barely visible along the curvature of the station, one of the huge doors leading to the factory complex slowly opened, and several squadrons of enemy fighters streamed out. Vader stretched out into the Force and, with great concentration, bent and buckled the enormous kilometers-broad metal doors to more or less permanently wedge them open. Sparks and debris flashed out into space as the great hydraulic motors strained to close the doors again, but ultimately failed, giving out with yet another explosion.

"Ready turrets," Vader calmly said into the intercom.

The fighters came after them like hornets out of a kicked hive, lasers flashing out at them in dazzling patterns. As Vader twisted the Falcon through a stomach-churning spiral, spraying concussion missiles from the launchers in the forward mandibles, Luke sank into concentration, deflecting the fire the Embers among the squadrons hurled their way, and from the seat behind him, Revan added his own considerable power to the effort. The cockpit viewport was completely obscured by unnatural flame, but the battered old freighter's new pilot didn't need to see to fly her.

Behind them, the turrets spat blaster fire at the Burned fighters, which were swarming so closely about them that practically every shot hit something, whether intentionally or not. Many fighters tried to ram them instead, but Vader dodged each and every one. The hull groaned and creaked ominously under the strains of all the sudden maneuvering, but the structural integrity field held.

The space between them and the open launch doors was so clogged with enemy vessels that a journey which should have taken only seconds stretched on into long minutes.

At the edge of the Belkadan system, space was also getting very crowded with enemy ships.

"Errant Venture in position," Malysa said distantly, her eyes gazing at Home One's tactical display without really seeing. "Kam is at the helm, and Tionne and Tahiri are down in the launch bay, ready to deploy the mines on your signal, Admiral."

"Are you certain they will be able to maneuver safely, Master Kolos?" Ackbar asked concernedly. "Cloaking fields are opaque from both directions; the Venture is as blind as she is invisible."

"Admiral, there are almost a thousand Jedi scattered throughout our fleet," Malysa replied distractedly. "I may not quite have Leia's talent for Battle Meditation, but with this many Jedi around, I can receive and relay telemetry well enough; it's almost like we're all there on the Venture with them."

Ackbar nodded once. "Very well, Master Kolos." He looked up at the comm speakers. "General Antilles, is your battle group in position?"

"Ready, Admiral."

"General Bel Iblis?"

"Ready, Admiral."

"Ackbar to all ships," the Mon Cal said, placing his flipper-hands on the railing around the holoprojector. "Execute!"

Though she could see the icons moving on the tactical display, Malysa drew more information from the battle meld she shared with the other Jedi spread across the battlefront. The enemy fleet surged for their position, forced into a loose funnel shape by the debris field. Some Burned ships flew through the mine-laced floating junkyard on both sides anyway, and though some made it through, the majority of the enemy vessels who tried this paid for it in blooms of fire.

As the leading edge of the enemy formation drew close to the gap, the Errant Venture soared invisibly in front of it, dropping thousands of electromagnetic mines which were also nearly unnoticeable by sensors - if the Burned were even using them.

Its load dropped, the Venture scrambled to get out of the way, heedless now of engine emissions detectable through the cloak, and as soon as it was clear, Malysa relayed to her fellow Jedi Masters that it was now safe to activate the mines.

Seconds before the arrival of the charging Burned formation, the mines went online and immediately began drifting towards the largest concentrations of metal nearby.

A broad-band hail went out, and a raspy, genderless voice announced, "We are the Burned. We have come to purge the unworthy. Those who are not part of the Fire will be-"

And then that ship blew up as dozens of mines slammed into its hull and detonated, rupturing several vital systems and finally the reactor, which consumed the leading enemy ship in a star-bright fireball. Another ship went up next to it, and another, and another, until the entire leading edge of the enemy formation was on fire.

The enemy warships drifted, crashing into one another and the ships behind, but still the Burned pressed on, plowing through the chaotic jumble with single-minded determination.

A part of Malysa felt sick at seeing so much death, but she knew there was no coming back from the Fire; those who had been completely converted were in effect already dead, transformed by the process into something else, no longer the sentient beings they had once been.

Despite reminding herself of this, Malysa was still unable to completely suppress her horror as the Burned charged recklessly ahead, some of the warships deliberately flying through the minefield to make way for their fellows behind, showing complete disregard for their own lives.

"Ready turbolasers," Ackbar said next to her, and though he also tried to hide it, she could sense how much this unsettled him, as well. "All guns, fire when ready."

Back at the Star Forge, in an empty locker room near the factory, Jenn paused as she buckled on the pair of boots Anakin had scavenged, looking up at the corner around which the Solo boy currently stood. "Run that by me again."

"Grandfather says they're on their way in through the factory," Anakin repeated, "and he wants us to find a good place to pull an Ami so he can pick us up with the Falcon."

"Those were Vader's exact words, were they?" Jenn said dryly.

"Well, not exactly," Anakin admitted.

Jenn stood from the bench and tugged at her too-big gray jacket's left sleeve, starting to roll it up. "Is there some kind of unwritten rule that uniforms of any sort have to be as itchy as possible?" she muttered to herself, scratching at the leg of her equally baggy trousers with her other hand. "This is worse than that lousy Peragus miner's outfit."

Corran looked over at her as she walked around the corner. "I'm not sure if we can make it back to the airlock where we came in," he said, fastening the cuffs of his own appropriated gray fatigues. "A lot of hostiles are moving through this section."

"There are plenty of corridors with nice big viewports near here," Jenn replied, hitching up her trousers again. She looked down to adjust her belt another notch tighter. "The Falcon can just blast her way in."

"When in doubt, blow something up," Ben quipped as they headed for the door.

Jenn half-smiled lightly. "That's always been one of my preferred strategies."

Ben grinned. "I knew there was a reason you and my mom get along so well."

Jenn was about to reply when suddenly the door to the locker room slammed closed between them, apparently of its own accord, and the lights went out at the same instant. She paused, frowned at the door, then pushed the control. Nothing happened.

"What's going on in there?" Corran asked, his voice muffled by the door.

"I don't know," Jenn replied, pushing the control again.

Still nothing.

She let out an impatient sigh as she drew her lightsaber. A second's concentration, focusing on the power currents behind the wall, revealed the location of the door's motor. Jenn ignited her blade, then drove the tip quickly and precisely into the wall. As she let her blade go out, she gestured with her other hand and pulled the door open with the Force.

"What was that about?" Corran asked, poking his head and shoulders through the doorway.

"No idea," Jenn replied. "I don't sense any unusual attention on us; must've been a random malfunction."

Corran scoffed as they set off down the hall. "Technology."

Even before she and Jacen finished cutting through the thickly armored hull of the station with their lightsabers, Jaina felt the buzzing, almost crackling sensation in the Force; the Burned were nearby, and they knew her team was there.

"What is this stuff?" Jacen muttered to himself, not for the first time, as he slowly dragged his lightsaber's emerald blade through the dense metal plating between the airlock of their dropship and the interior of the station.

"This is taking way too long," Jaina said, hearing the flat tones of her own voice filtered through her helmet. "We might have to try something else."

"The only other way into the intake complex is through the plasma stream itself," Jacen countered, not looking up from his task. "Not even a ship made of solid Mandalorian iron could survive that."

"Is it possible to selectively detonate some of the charges the YVHK droids placed on the plasma regulators on their way down?" Qeris asked over the comm.

"If some of the regulators but not all of them go out," Blue Max mused in reply, "the station's safety protocols would trigger an automatic shutdown of the plasma intake. The only way to turn it back on would be from the consoles inside the intake complex itself."

Jaina could hear the Imperial Knight's pleased smile in her reply. "Precisely. We can then simply fly our ships up into the intake complexes, disable the control consoles, and leave without having to cut our way into the station and breach these doors."

Jacen frowned. "Suppose Pyrron turns off the safety protocols from his master console in the control tower; if even a little plasma is still coming into the pylon, this won't work at all."

"And if he just turns off the sheathing field altogether, the entire intake complex would be too hot to go into," Max agreed. "Kriff. I forgot we're dealing with a psychopath. It'd play merry hell on the station's systems if he disables the safety protocols, but I don't think he's planning long-term right now."

"I've got it!" Ami said excitedly. "We still cut through the outer hull, but leave the barricade doors sealed and take our ships off the holes; that'll put at least a compartment or two's worth of vacuum between the Burned and the intake complexes, and even they're not stupid enough to charge through that. Then we blow the charges, wait for the plasma to trickle off, and fly in through the intake like Qeris said."

"Again, this hinges on the safety protocols kicking in like they're supposed to," Jacen persisted. He smiled even though Ami couldn't see him. "But otherwise, that's a great plan."

"Query: What about the droid teams?" HK-47 asked. "You don't plan to just leave us here, do you?"

"You don't need oxygen," said Jaina. "If we depressurize the compartments around the intake complexes, you can stay there and guard the other side of the barricade doors while we disable the intakes to keep anyone from turning them back on. Once that's done, we can come back for you and blow the rest of the charges on our way out."

"Sounds like a plan, unless someone comes up with a better idea," said LaRone from the main compartment of their ship. "Turc, Bentis, what's it look like at your position?"

"Ami and Qeris are nearly done cutting their way into the station, sir," Turc replied. "Doesn't look like any enemy ships are on their way to us; they all seem distracted with the Phoenix and the fleet. I have Renniq and Felth on the turrets anyway."

"Thrawn's really stomping them up there," Bentis put in. "It's like it doesn't even matter that he's outnumbered five to one. I wish we'd had this Phoenix thing a few years ago."

"Yeah, and if Hutts had wings, they'd still be too lazy to get off the ground," said Vazkes. "Cut the chatter and get back to work, Bentis."

"Yes sir, ma'am," the other commando replied with a practically audible smirk.

On Executor's bridge, Admiral Piett sat in his command chair, engaged in a running dialogue with several of the other warship commanders.

"I'm receiving reports of critical reactor damage on the Retribution," said Admiral Downes, fleet commander for Phoenix group. "The captain has ordered evacuation."

Piett looked over his command board. "There's a heavy concentration of enemy vessels in that area. Divert the Stalwart to pick up the pods before the Burned can get to-"

Suddenly he was interrupted by a blast of horrible noise, an awful chorus of frenzied screaming mixed together with incoherent gibbering, as if a stadium full of people had all gone insane at once and were screaming their minds away.

"What is that?" he demanded of the comm officers, both of whom were working madly at their consoles.

"It's a broad-band transmission from the Star Forge itself, sir," the senior comm officer said. "The signal is so strong, it's breaking into our transmissions."

"Can you filter it out?" Piett called down to them over the noise, resisting the urge to shudder. The mindless howling seemed to be coming at him from all sides.

"It's on every frequency, sir," said the junior comm officer. "We're trying to filter it out, but the signal's just too strong."

"What about line-of-sight communications?" Piett asked.

The senior comm officer shook his head. "There are too many enemy ships around us, sir; we can't get a steady signal."

Piett frowned. "Internal communications?"

"Unaffected for now," the junior comm officer replied.

So at least he could still give orders to Executor's crew, Piett mused. That was better than nothing, he supposed.

"Can you mute this at least?" the junior sensor officer called from the other crew pit, wincing at the horrible noise as she looked across the walkway at them.

"The comm is our only link with the rest of the fleet," said the senior comm officer. "If we mute this transmission, we won't be able to hear any of the Grand Admiral's orders."

"We can't hear him over this anyway!" she countered. "The comm might as well be off already."

"Well, what are we supposed to use, flash code?" the navigator said crossly.

Piett made the decision. "Mute this noise," he ordered. "If the Phoenix finds a way to jam this transmission, they'll let us know."

The comm officers obeyed, and the horrific bawling was suddenly, blessedly silenced. However, the silence was somehow even more terrible; the chatter of the general frequency was part of the normal background noise, and now with communications severed from the rest of the fleet, the bridge was almost eerily quiet, juxtaposed with the fiery violence outside.

Trying not to let his anxiety over this show in front of his crew, Piett stood and straightened his uniform jacket with a tug. He then walked forward along the command walkway, ostensibly to give himself a better view through the bridge viewports, but more to provide a visible example of calm to his clearly nervous crew.

"Fighter Control, do we have any contact with our squadrons?" he inquired as evenly as he was able.

"None, sir," came the reply. "I can track them, but I can't get through on the comm. They're on their own for now."

"I see," Piett said neutrally. "Work with Fire Control to provide as much cover for our pilots as you can. Concentrate on defending the vital sections; the rest of the fleet cannot warn us at the moment, so keep a sharp eye for any ships that look like they're about to ram us."

Both sections acknowledged in a crisp, professional chorus.

"Sensors," Piett went on, looking down at that section, "can you locate the source of the enemy signal?"

The sensor officer worked at her console for a moment, then answered. "It's coming from antennas at the apex of all three pylons, sir."

Piett looked out through the broad viewports at the gigantic shape of the Star Forge. "Can we hit them with the main weapon at this distance?"

"Negative, sir," the fire-control officer replied. "The shield is still up, and even if it wasn't, there are too many enemy ships between us which could intercept the beam."

"And since we can only fire a full-power shot every five minutes or so, they'd have too many ships on us before we could try again," Piett mused aloud. "Very well. Continue to concentrate on defense for the moment."

What he thought, but did not say, was that things looked worse than ever right now.

He didn't have to; everyone on the bridge was thinking the same thing.

"If Max was here, he could take control of a few of the point-defense turrets and give them some cover," Anakin said as he watched the Millennium Falcon dodge its way through the factory, spinning and swerving through the swarming cloud of pursuing enemy fighters.

Standing next to him in the middle of a long curving corridor, one entire wall of which was an enormous viewport overlooking the central factory section, Ben frowned. "And if Hoth wasn't so miserably cold, it'd be a great place to build a resort."

Anakin frowned back. "What is that supposed to mean?"

"It means," Ben replied with sarcastic patience, "why are you complaining about things we can't change? All the computers on this level are locked down anyway, because I'm pretty sure Pyrron knows where we are."

"I know that!" Anakin said crossly. "Why are you snapping at me?"

Ben sighed, reaching up to massage his temple with his left hand. "Sorry," he said. "I just have a really bad headache right now."

"Me, too," Anakin commiserated. "I have this weird dull ache in my joints, too. I'm not sure what's causing it."

Get ready, Revan's mental voice 'said' to them, nearly unintelligible through the increasingly 'loud' buzzing sensation in the Force. Back away from the viewports.

Having also 'heard' him, Jenn and Corran waved the boys back, lightsabers in hand. As the four of them moved away from the viewport, Ben and Anakin dug into their belts and took out the goggles in the compartments there.

"Oh, blast!" Jenn said, snapping her fingers. "Corran and I don't have goggles and breath masks; they got melted on the way up."

"Sorry about that," Corran said ruefully. "I was so focused on shielding us, I guess I didn't quite include our clothes and equipment as part of us. That's difficult to do with things not attuned to the Force, you know."

"Don't worry about it," Jenn said, waving this away. "We'll just hold our breath on the way down."

"Here they come," said Ben.

At first, Anakin thought he was referring to the Falcon, which he could see soaring upward toward their position even now, but then he sensed it himself.

Ben's sky-blue blade flared into being beside him, quickly joined by the viridian and cyan blades of the two Jedi Masters before Anakin ignited his own indigo weapon.

The doors at all points in the corridor opened, and Burned Ones flooded in, a hundred pairs of eyes glowing brilliant orange in the dim yellow light of the corridor, a hundred pairs of boots pounding along the metal deck plates straight at them.

But instead of attacking, the robed cultists and the clones in gray fatigues stopped, forming a perfect circle three meters around where the four of them stood back-to-back. The Burned simply stared at them, unblinking, unnervingly silent, perfectly still. More and more of them continued to stream out of the doors, but they only took up position in ranks behind the others, until almost the entire corridor was filled with a crowd several hundred strong.

Anakin nervously shifted his grip on his lightsaber, eyeing the distance between the horde and the huge viewport; some of them would certainly be sucked out when the Falcon blasted the viewport open, but there were still enough to overwhelm the four of them with sheer numbers and keep them from going anywhere. Outside, there were so many fighters chasing the Falcon that they wouldn't be able to hold position for long.

"If anyone has any ideas, now's the time to share them with the group," Corran said, looking around at the motionless crowd.

"There is only one choice left to you now," said a raspy but deep voice they knew all too well.

One portion of the circle parted to reveal a gray-robed figure, none other than the Burned Lord himself, in person this time. The dim yellow light filtering through the crowd cast strange shadows on Pyrron's bald, completely tattooed head, further emphasizing the orange glow emanating from his eyes. Even still, Anakin could plainly see the Burned Lord's unnervingly intent expression as he looked at the four of them.

"Again and again you have rejected me," Pyrron rasped. "But now you have nowhere to go." He held a hand out to them in invitation. "You already hold a spark of our Fire within you. Submit to the Burning, allow your former selves to be purged so that you become part of the Fire."

Jenn's reply was short, brusque, and determined: "No."

"You cannot escape this time," Pyrron warned. "The Fire surrounds you now, and if you do not join with it, it will destroy you."

Jenn's gaze did not falter. "If you were talking to anyone else but the four of us, you might be right," she said mildly. "But we've already survived your Fire. We've taken the worst you can throw at us… and we're still ourselves. You can't do anything to us."

"Is that so?" Pyrron said, spreading his hands.

He raised his arms and crossed his wrists at about the level of his collar with the back of his hands held toward them, fingers outstretched just in front of his shoulders. Flames flickered out from between his fingers, slowly spiraling around each digit to gather at the tips, as if he had long fingernails made of fire.

A moment later, the hundreds upon hundreds of his followers around them raised their hands in unison and did the same thing, adding thousands more points of light.

Slowly, so slowly it was almost imperceptible at first, the flames began to brighten.

-/\-

Author's Note: Apologies for the delay. It seems the closer I get to the end of this story, the more Darth Real Life is determined to make sure I have no time to work on it. Till next time, thanks for reading!