The captured Pal'shoran freighter drifted slowly and unremarked into the great flotilla. Darth Terrid had heard about the damage these ships had wrought against the Imperials but never thought to calculate their strength until how. The sensors calculated well over one hundred ships visible on this side of the planet alone; they were a strange mix from a dozen different types, some he recognized from his teachings as a child and others unrecognizable. The great dark warship in the center stood out from the rest, and there was something vaguely familiar in its jagged shape. It tugged on memories, perhaps of long-forgotten history lessons in Chiss schools, and the nagging mystery made it more intimidating. Such feelings were unworthy of a Sith; he knew that well and tried to stifle them.
When they settled into a steady orbit over the planet, Darth Kheykid put the hauler on autopilot and rose from his chair.
"We are ready," the Barabel hissed.
"Are we all going aboard?" asked Serissa. The young woman had been quiet and sullen since taking her first life, but Terrid sensed no regret or indecision inside her. She was simply getting used to what she had done and what she was irreparably becoming, as he once had.
"All of us," Darth Avanc confirmed. "We have no more need of this ship."
"Is that why you've wired it with extra explosives?" Serissa crossed his arms beneath her breasts. "What do you expect to do with this ship?"
"Ram that vessel, if it will help. "Avanc pointed at the flagship. "Or perhaps not. It never hurts to be prepared, or to use all the tools available to you. Remember that."
"I learned that one a long time ago," she said coolly.
"Good. Gather your weapons and come to the Intruder. Once we're aboard that ship we'll find out what's really going on."
-{}-
Allana's heart pounded fast in her chest as her shuttle neared the great raider fleet. Rollra was easing them into the formation as quickly and smoothly as she thought possible without risking attention. To Allana it felt painfully slow and nerve-rackingly fast at the same time.
As they got closer the Erath flagship became clearly visible. Once she'd marked it with her eyes it was impossible to look away. Abeloth. Fifty years ago that monstrosity had nearly killed Luke Skywalker, the most powerful Jedi she'd ever known. Ben had fought a version of her too. Tahiri Veila had done it twice. The Force abomination could spread her consciousness of multiple bodies and Allana had no doubt she had done so for both the so-called king and queen of the Erath.
She remembered that Abeloth's incredible power burned quickly through the bodies of non-Force users. Both the Erath she'd possessed must have been very powerful for her to retain their forms for several years. Now it seemed she was drawing Sothais Saar to her, whom she'd touched many years ago when he'd been a child in the Maw sanctuary. As a powerful and veteran Jedi his body would also last her some time. Worse, once she stole it, she'd possess a part of Saar inside her and have access to all his valued knowledge of the modern Jedi Order.
That was why she had to be stopped as soon as possible. Before entering the system they'd received a comm from Arlen saying he was on his way with all the Imperial Jedi knights he could muster. She could only hope he arrived soon. There was no time to waste.
As they got closer to the fleet she dared reach out with the Force, uncertain what she'd find. She'd never been close enough to Abeloth to feel her before, something she'd been thankful for all her life. A light touch from her as a child had cursed knights like Saar to delusion and madness. She prayed the Jedi she was bringing now were similarly resistant. Qel had been an apprentice at the time but had had no contact with her; Valiss and Rollra had been born after Uncle Luke had beaten her into retreat. That meant they should be safe, but with Abeloth there was no knowing the limits of her power.
"Do you feel anything?" whispered Valiss. In the deathly silence of the cockpit they'd all be trying the same thing.
"I don't know," Allana whispered. "I've never felt her before."
"But you've felt the dark side."
She'd felt far too much of it, and far too early. "I don't think I feel that from the ship. I don't know if I feel anything. Not even Jodram or Ayen." She didn't want to add that they were quite possibly dead already. "What about you, Master Qel?"
The Weequay narrowed his eyes. "I think there is a darkness there… but it is faint."
Rollra groaned that faint was not something she'd associated with Abeloth.
"Abeloth could hide her presence so well not even Luke Skywalker could tell he was looking at her," Allana said.
"But we'll know when we find this one… Won't we?" asked Valiss.
Allana wasn't sure of that. She wasn't sure of anything, but Qel said, "When we find Master Saar we'll find her. In one form or another."
It was a grim thought and no one sought to add to it. As they flew closer to the Erath ship Allana checked the sensors. The raiders' vessels around them had mostly been keeping steady orbits around the planet, but she spotted two Tylonian ships behind them pick up speed.
"We might have a problem," she whispered. "Rollra, see off our aft-port? Think it's trouble?"
The Wookiee woofed agreement and flipped on the rear shields without breaking for a run. There was no certainty those ships were coming after them, but they had to be ready."
"Can we try hailing Explorer again?" asked Valiss nervously.
Allana tapped on the comm console and tried another hail, as she had when they'd entered the system. Again they got nothing. She dreaded the thought of going to Jade and telling her she'd let Jodram die; the thought that she was quite possibly flying to her death was even worse.
She'd faced lethal situations many times before, knowing every instance that being a Jedi involved putting your life on the line and even sacrificing yourself for others. Even her father, for all his many sins, had died for her sake in the end. It was, strangely, a thought to give her strength.
When she looked at the scanners again she knew she'd need that power. "Those Tylonian ships are closing in."
"Are you sure they're on our tail?" Valiss asked.
"I think- damn. They're starting to launch drones."
"And the drones are heading our way?"
"Looks like. Rollra-" Suddenly her screen lit up. She tapped the console, bringing up the broadest scan so she could see it all. A mass of warships was exiting hyperspace and falling inbound. They must have numbered several dozen and when the markers all turned blue she gasped aloud.
"It's the Chiss. They've brought a whole fleet."
"Chiss? How is that possible?" Master Qel said. "They'd never attack without provocation!"
"Well, maybe the raiders finally provoked them. Look, they're all breaking formation to counter the Chiss. We might-"
The whole shuttle shook as laser blasts splattered over their rear shields, ending her brief spurt of hope. Rollra gave a defiant roar and pushed the engines to full, charging straight toward the Erath ship even as it started to pivot and lumber toward the newly arrived foe. A few Tylonian drones whipped past the cockpit and spun around for another pass, spitting out weak but myriad red laser blasts.
Rollra shouted for them all to hold tight to their seats and charged ahead. Alarms wailed. Smoke came from somewhere behind them. More laser blasts rocked the ship as their shields were buffeted to bursting but they dove on, zeroing in for their target as the great dark belly of the Erath ship eclipsed their vision and readied to swallow them whole.
-{}-
Even crippled by multiple hull fractures and a smashed-open cockpit, Ossus Explorer made a surprisingly defensible redoubt. Its hull was highly resistant to small arms fire and the gaps in the hull were narrow enough to make excellent sniping positions for two Jedi armed with heavy-grade blaster rifles. Qemar placed herself behind the cockpit and sniped through the broken viewport. Jodram stuck the tip of his barrel through the rent-open floor of the cabin and picked off the surrounding soldiers one by one.
But in the end, they could only hold the enemy for so long. They had the broken ship surrounded and he could only watch as they dragged heavy repeating cannons into the rear of the hangar and set them up for use.
Over the constant crackle of rifle-shots strafing the shuttle, Qemar shouted, "Jodram! Do you see it?"
"Oh, yes."
"What do we do?"
All he could think was: get ready to die. That he still understood none of this- what had turned Master Saar, what this Storm King really was and why he was leading these savage attacks on Imperial worlds- was bad enough. Worse still was the thought of Jade, of Nat and Kol. That he'd never be there to help his sons grow up seemed crueler than death itself.
Then he felt something in the Force, a faint touch, almost distracted, but he knew it was Allana. She was close. She was coming.
"Hold on!" Jodram called. "Just a little longer!"
Qemar shouted something back but a great thunder burst through the hangar and everything around them shook violently. Peering through the tear in the hull saw a flash of flame and the gleam of metal, then heard a horrible scraping sound and the shocked cries of the soldiers arrayed around Explorer.
To get a better view he scrambled out of the hold and up to the cockpit. Qemar, apparently unafraid of being shot at, had hoisted herself through the threshold into the forward cabin. Jodram joined her, stepping carefully over the shattered transparisteel shards to see Allana Djo's familiar elegant and emerald-hulled shuttle smash nose-first into the opposite wall of the hangar, having already cut a scorched and smoking line through the deck and smashed dozens of black-armored soldiers on the way down. The remaining attackers were stunned and confused, half of them prone on the floor from the concussion of the shuttle's impact. Looking more closely at Allana's ship, Jodram saw that one of its aft engines seemed to have been blown out and its sleek dorsal fin was torn up by laser-blasts.
"We have to help them!" Jodram shouted. "Come on!"
He slung the rifle over his shoulder, grabbed his lightsaber, and ignited it as he threw himself through the broken viewport onto the deck. The soldiers still alive tried to put up a fight but they were stunned and injured; the two Jedi moved among them, nimbly slashing off the barrels of guns and knocking their would-be attackers away with kicks and Force-pushes.
As they neared Allana's shuttle the side airlock popped open and the first one to leap out was a ginger-furred Wookiee waving her arms and roaring at them to stay back. The Weequay Master Rovum Qel appeared next, followed by Allana and a young blonde woman Jodram vaguely recalled as Cenya Valiss.
There was no joy or relief at recognition. Rollra kept waving her arms at them while Qel and the others sprinted for the hangar exit. Jodram realized the shuttle's reactor must have been about to burst and followed them. He slowed just enough to make sure Qemar was on his tail, then threw himself through the door and into the access hallway. When Qemar jumped through a second later Rollra slammed the controls with a furry paw and heavy blast doors slammed down, sealing them off from the hangar.
"Thank you!" Jodram panted. "Master Qel, Allana, what's going on? How did your-"
The entire hall shook so hard they nearly fell and the blast doors only half-muted the thunderous explosion in the hangar. If the shuttle's reactor blew it probably tore up the rest of the hangar and caused a breach in the atmospheric seal. The wreckage of both their ships, as well as all the dozens of soldiers who'd attacked them, were probably now gushing out into space.
"Well," Qemar sighed, "There goes our ride."
The realization that they were trapped here and still probably going to die killed all relief. Very seriously Jodram looked at Allana and Qel. "We have to stop Master Saar, don't we?"
"It's probably too late for that," Allana said. "But we have to try."
"Why?" pleaded Qemar. "What's going on?"
Reluctance passed between Allana and the Master, but Qel said, "I'll tell you as we move. We've lost too much time already."
-{}-
When the two dozen Jedi-flown TIE Sabers reverted to realspace they fell immediately into a bedlam. Marasiah had been told to expect it; Davek had commed them while they were en route to say that a Chiss fleet, led by his aunt, would reach the designated system before they did. Still, the scale and ferocity of the battle shocked her. The Chiss were throwing themselves at their enemy with vengeful ferocity and the raiders were retaliating with their usual madness. The space around that small lifeless planet was a constant light-show of explosive bursts and lasers strobing red, green, and blue.
"We're heading for that Erath ship!" Arlen called to all pilots. By some small grace the raiders hadn't erected their usual comm-jamming field yet. "All ships, follow me!"
Marasiah checked her console to make sure the data from her sensors was being streamed back to Davek on the Makati, then plunged with Arlen and the other Jedi into the fray.
Their goal, as Arlen had explained during the lightspeed ride here, was to get aboard the Erath ship and aid the Jedi already aboard. Their enemy: the Force abomination known as Abeloth. When he'd said it Marasiah had barely believed. She'd felt the same shock and skepticism radiating through all the other Jedi as well. None of them had even been alive when Abeloth made her last appearance in the known galaxy. Marasiah had heard stories from her mother-in-law, who'd actually fought one of the creature's possessed bodies on Coruscant, but something in the back of her mind had never really accepted it all as fact.
Even after becoming a Jedi Knight there were still some things she couldn't believe really existed in the Force. This was one of them.
The military part of her was frustrated by that, and all the other unknown variables. TIE Sabers, unlike traditional fighters of the type, had been designed to land on any surface without needing the special racks that only Imperial capital ships carried. Still, there was no telling how easy it would be to force their way aboard the Erath flagship and land, especially now that battle with the Chiss had been fully joined. The dark vessel, as massive as Davek's Makati, was in the middle of the raider horde as it threw itself into battle against the CEDF line. The only relief was that the raiders seemed so concentrating on battling the Chiss that most didn't even notice the twenty-four Jedi TIE fighters slicing through their forces, destroying ships that got in their way or shot first but otherwise ignoring smaller ships for the big one lying ahead.
Marasiah checked her scanners. Of course the shields were up. The Jedi ducked beneath the belly of the flagship and hugged close to the defensive field. No other fighters or gunships tried to bother them but the flagships started to turn its belly cannons to fire. Most of heavy guns were more suited for slugging with capital ships than nailing snubfighters but Marasiah felt a flare of anguish wash through the Jedi's battle-meld and knew one of their pilots had died.
"All fighters, follow my lead," Arlen called. "I've spotted a medium-sized hangar, looks like it's got open space. We've got to bust open their shields."
Marasiah swung around until she spotted Arlen; he already had nine other fighters tucked in formation behind him and he began his battle-run, pumping laserblasts and torpedoes into the defensive screen over the shield generators in hopes of smashing them open.
She tried to keep her frustration from spilling into the battle meld. Arlen was letting his emotions get to him; he was too frantic, too obsessed with getting to Abeloth as quickly as possible without fully evaluating the field of battle or communicating his plan to his soldiers. He was probably going to get more Jedi killed that way.
But as the most senior knight in the group and son of the great Jaina Solo Fel, there was nothing Marasiah could do to countermand him. Checking once more to make sure everything was transmitting back to Makati, she joined the formation loaned her own attacks to the shield generators.
Like any well-designed capital ship, the Erath vessel had been prepared for these attacks. Gun turrets around the hangar mouth designed to track smaller fighters did their job, picking off two more Jedi and vaporizing them. The loss of three of their own pumped angry determination into the battle meld and they kept attacking. In the end it simply came down to attrition. The shield over the hangar could only take so much, and a pair of torpedoes from Katrin Mull's fighter finally slipped through, detonated, and brought down the defensive screen.
"Excellent work!" Marasiah called "Knight Squadron, with me. We'll clear away the defensive turrets. Saber Squad-"
"We're getting ready to land," Arlen said. "All pilots, prepare for fast evac and combat. Try to clear the deck with your cannons first."
And hope they didn't blow up the whole hangar before they landed, thought Marasiah. Her pilots moved swiftly, picking off targets of opportunity and destroying one turret gun after another until the entire hull section around the hangar mouth was cleared. By then Arlen was already taking his ten surviving fighters in. Only two fighters were spraying low-energy blasts from their canons to clear the deck, which meant there must not have been that much resistance. Marasiah pulled her fighter around to get a better look inside and saw the hangar, while empty, had less usable space than she'd expected; certainly not enough for twenty TIEs.
She flicked her comm to Arlen's private channel and said, "There's not room for all of us."
"I know. I'll take the Sabers in. I think I we can fit maybe two more-"
"I'll give you two and take the rest of the Knights back out."
"Are you looking for another hangar?"
"I'd rather help the Chiss and keep the feed to Davek going."
"Good plan."
As she watched, his Saber extended its landing struts and set down unopposed on the flight deck. The others TIEs began to do the same. She said, "Don't get yourself killed, dammit."
He actually laughed. "I'll try not to. And same to you."
Another channel chimed for attention and she switched over. Katrin Mull, frantic, said, "One Vagaari gunship heading straight for us, Lead."
"Understood." She switched to the broadest comm channel. "Knights Eleven and Twelve, you're clear to land. Everyone else, with me. We're staying in this fight a while longer."
As she spun her TIE around, spotted the approaching gunship and kicked her engines ahead to meet it, she actually felt grateful and guilty at the same time. She'd been flying TIEs for over half her life; even the chaos of this battle didn't really scare her.
Abeloth, though, was terrifying. She was glad not to be facing it and dreaded the thought of telling Davek she'd let his brother die fighting it alone.
-{}-
The Erath vessel, gigantic and unfamiliar to any of them, should have felt like an endless maze, but Allana knew instinctively which way to go. It was as helpful as it was terrifying; she hadn't been able to sense Abeloth outside the ship but now she could feel the cold and aching need that Luke and Ben had described to her, wiggling like a tentacle in the back of her mind, reeling her in closer and closer.
Perhaps because Abeloth knew she was aboard, they faced only sporadic bouts of resistance, as though the Force entity was testing them. Clusters of black-armored soldiers appeared in the hallways and opened fire, and again and again the Jedi were forced to fight them. The soldiers were relentless; even when the Jedi destroyed their rifles or broke bones to stop them without killing they kept on attacking with bladed weapons or even their boots and fists. All too often the only way to stop them was to kill, and grim brutality of it quickly wore each Jedi down.
After the third or fourth such encounter Allana bent low and pulled the helmet off a dead soldier's face. As she'd expected, she looked into the lifeless multi-faceted eyes and rainbow-colored skin of an Erath. The others they unmasked were the same. These were the soldiers who'd stayed loyal to Abeloth when the rest of their planet did not. She wondered if it was because of their own fanaticism or Abeloth's Force-power mind control. In the end it didn't matter. All they could was press on.
Everything changed when they entered what looked to be a mess hall. Broad and open like none of the other places they'd found, a series of tables had been thrown up on their sides as barricades. Dozens of black-masked Erath soldiers crouched behind them rifles resting atop the table-sides and aimed at the Jedi. The six of them raised their sabers to deflect but not shots came. They didn't step forward either; the goal was clearly to constrain them but not to fight.
The two groups stood facing off for an agonizingly long moment; Jodram, flexing his two-handed grip on his saber, whispered, "What should we do? Charge them?"
Qel glanced at Allana. "Does our path lie ahead, Jedi Djo?"
It did. She could feel Abeloth's presence drawing her forward. That it was only reaching out to her was the most terrifying part. Perhaps it was because she had Anakin Skywalker's blood in her; perhaps it was because of the vision Luke and her father had seen of her in the Maw. Either way the creature seemed intent to take her, body and soul.
The sound of another saber igniting turned their attention back to the enemy line. They saw the bobbing blue-white of a blade held high, then the pale face and long hair of Sothais Saar. He stood tall behind the crouched Erath soldiers and stared at the Jedi across the chamber.
"Master Saar, how could you?" Qemar bleated. Master Qel and Allana had already explained to everyone the true nature of what they were fighting and what she'd done to Sothais Saar, but they were still struggling to wrap their minds around it.
"That's not Master Saar," Allana whispered.
"Are you sure?" asked Jodram, voice shaking. "Maybe he's still possessed, not-"
Saar jumped nimbly over the barricade and stepped to the center of the room before stopping. He held his arms wide and smiled; as Allana looked at that chalky face the grin seemed to grow wider, and the darkness in his eyes deeper, until there was nothing beneath his brows but total blackness and the faint gleam of a starlight where pupils should have been.
Fear shot through her, freezing her in place. After all these years she was finally face-to-face with Abeloth.
"You've come this far, Jedi Queen," Saar's voice boomed through the room. "Come a little closer."
Allana found her voice. "Never."
"I'll spare the rest of them if you do."
She didn't believe that for a second. "No."
The mad smile wilted; Saar shook his head with what seemed to be remorse. "That's your choice, then."
Then it all happened at once. Saar threw himself at the Jedi and the soldiers behind him sprayed laserfire, filling the chamber. It was too much for six Jedi to deflect all at once. Hot blasted winged Allana's arms and side as she struggled to block Saar's pounding saber-attacks. Qemar, Rollra, and Jodram threw themselves at the barricades. Jodram and Qel tried to come in behind Saar- Abeloth- and take the creature three-on-one but Abeloth danced away. With a pulse of Force energy, she threw Jodram and Qel hard against the back wall and drew Allana forward. She struggled to pull back, but her feet scraped across the deck and an unbearable pressure forced her on her knees until she was prostrate before Abeloth. She looked up into the old Chev's face to find it grinning again, and stars blazing bright in the blackness of its eyes.
She thrust her lightsaber upward, straight into Saar's stomach. Abeloth didn't even flinch. She reached out with both hands to grasp Allana's head but the Jedi struck out again, wildly flailing her saber in fans of light that sheared off both of Saar's arms at the elbow. They dropped to the floor and Abeloth looked at the scorched stumps like they were an unexpected but mild inconvenience.
Allana watched as tentacles seemed to resolve out of thin air, ghost-like wisps of form that emerged from Saar's smoking elbows and stretched out longer and longer until they writhed in front of her face.
Then something slammed into Saar's body, throwing it back against a wall. An explosion followed the second later; another invisible hand grabbed Allana and pulled her back across the deck until she slammed into the same wall Jodram and Qel now slumped against.
Her ears rang from the concussive shock but she watched as a dozen more Jedi charged into the fray, sabers bobbing blue and green and gold and white. Most of them joined the ones already fighting at the barricades but Arlen Fel crouched down beside her and placed a hand on her forehead.
She saw him mouth the words are you alright? and barely, faintly heard them.
"I'm okay," she said and tried to stand. Arlen helped her rise on shaking feet; Jodram and Qel helped her too. The grenade's explosion had filled the room with smoke but she saw lightsabers slicing through the haze and a fast-decreasing number of laser-blasts. In less than a minute it was finally still.
Someone used the Force to funnel the smoke down into a hallway, clearing the space so they could see it fully. Sothais Saar's body, blackened and battered, lay limp but intact on one side of the room, surrounded by a dark impact crater that had dented a portion of the floor and wall. The barricades had been toppled and the soldiers were all dead. Allana's heart plunged to see two human bodies belonging to Imperial knights she didn't recognize. When she saw the great form of a Wookie slumped against a wall with a dozen blaster marks still smoking from her pelt, it absolutely plunged.
"Oh, Rollra," Allana staggered across the room. Valiss, crouched next to her, shook her head. Losing his daughter at such a young age would be horrible for Lowbacca. Even now the Grand Master was probably feeling that loss through the Force, as was Rollra's.
Qel gripped her shoulder hard. "We have to keep moving. Can you still feel Abeloth?"
Allana pushed away her grief and let the Force flow through her. She felt that same tentacle of need touching her, beckoning her to come through the doorway and deeper into the ship.
"Abeloth has at least one more body on this ship. It has to be this Storm King."
"Not the queen the Erath mentioned?"
"I don't know. But we have to destroy her Erath bodies if we want to stop this war."
"Then we need to keep going." Arlen looked down on Rollra's body with grim determination. "All of us."
As soon as he said it there was a scraping sound from the far side of the chamber. The remaining Jedi looked in shock as Sothais Saar's body, still lying in the center of the blast crater, began to retch. Limbs broken at the joints flailed unnaturally and the body suddenly snapped at the hips and sat upright. Long white locks of hair draped across the Chev face as it twisted on a canted, broken neck. Dark eyes gleamed through the curtain and fixed on the Jedi.
Yet for all Abeloth's power, this body had been badly weakened. With limbs and bones shattered it struggled to stand up. Master Qel turned to Allana and snapped, "Keep going! Jedi Fel, keep her safe! We'll hold her back!"
Allana started, "You can't-"
"He's right." Arlen grabbed her by the shoulder. "Come on, we have to keep moving. If there's only two bodies we can split up."
"But-"
One of Arlen's Imperial knights dropped to one knee, pulled a military-grade blaster pistol off his belt, and began shooting. Blast after blast cut through Saar's torso, sending tremors through the body without felling it.
"Allana, go," Jodram said and switched on his saber. "We'll finish it off. You have to get the other body."
He was right; they all were. As a few more Jedi moved to surround Saar's body, the rest started through the opened door. Allana joined them, and together they plunged deeper into the ship.
-{}-
When the Afsheen Makati exited hyperspace it had three dozen capital ships from the Fourth Fleet along with it, ranging from gunships and frigates to massive Compellor-class destroyers and Impellor-class carriers. It was what they'd been able to scramble in time for a fast attack; they'd had to leave a third of the fleet behind at Ord Thoden. From the bridge Davek looked down the Makati's eight-kilometer-long hull and saw Captain Korak's Nightwatch gushing out a stream of TIE fighters and bombers, hundreds of them, all rushing to join the chaos over this black unnamed world.
Marasiah and his aunt had both been feeding them a live-stream of data from the battle. He knew that Arlen's Jedi strike team had boarded the Erath vessel that now sat large and visible in the heart of the maelstrom. The Chiss had endured frenzied attacks by the raiders with the best aplomb they could manage. On the tactical holo he marked his aunt's flagship sitting at the rear of an encircling line that had pinned most of the enemy into the small world's gravity well. They already looked to have dealt great damage and received their own share in turn. His sensors marked the burn-out and dead hulls of four Chiss star destroyers and a dozen more support ships. The battle didn't seem to have reached his aunt's ship yet, thankfully, but neither had the Erath taken visible damage. He only hoped the Jedi could decapitate it from the inside.
As the Fourth Fleet deployed the raiders scrambled to respond, more slowly than Davek had anticipated. That gave the initial TIEs and fast-moving gunships a chance to pound the enemy and soften their forward lines for the advancing star destroyers. Davek should have been encouraged by it, but a glance at the tactical readout sobered him. Right now the Fourth Fleet and the Chiss combined to have roughly the same number of active capital ships as the raiders. The raiders, however, were in a defensive mode with their backs to the planet and, worse, would being made suicide attacks when they got desperate.
Davek hurried over to the comm station and asked, "Any word from Admiral Grave?"
"We just got a buzz from the Second, sir," the lieutenant told him. "They report they're about one hour inbound."
One hour. Everything could happen in one hour, especially in a fight bound to be savage. All they could do was fight and keep the raiders contained until then.
Davek was determined to do it. Here, at least, they had the bulk of the enemy fleet cornered, including the flagship. He still didn't know what was really going on behind all this- Arlen hadn't even tried to explain- but the ones responsible for the death of his father were here. He let that fact settle into him and knew what had to be done, would be done.
Jedi spoke ill of the desire for revenge. For once, Davek was thankful he was not a Jedi.
-{}-
When the Sith faced opposition in the halls of the flagship they cut through it ruthlessly: Kheykid leading the charge with an animal flurry of blades and claws and thrashing tail, Darth Avanc with his graceful saber-thrusts, Terrid with his heavy blows left and right, Serissa in the back, shielded from stray laser-blasts by all their red blades but more than ready to fire past them with carefully-aimed rifle-shots that dropped one black-armored soldier after another. Any hesitation to kill was gone from her; part from the ritual killing of the Pal'shoran, but more for the adrenaline-fueled knowledge it was kill or be killed.
Prying several helmets off the dead defenders clarified some things. Like all Chiss schoolchildren, Ran'wharn'csapla had been told of the Erath warlord Nuso Esva, he of rainbow-colored skin, insectoid eyes, and hair like black storm-clouds. The controversial Mit'thraw'nuruodo had crushed the Erath war fleet almost a century ago and nothing had been heard of the race since. Clearly they lay at the heart of this, though in what way Terrid still didn't know.
Despite bouts of fierce fighting, Darth Terrid was surprised how little resistance they met. Before departing Intruder their sensors had lit up, reporting that a Chiss battle fleet was descending on the raiders, but so far no explosions had rocked this vessel. The Erath must have been distracted, but they should have still moved against intruders aboard.
They got their answer, first through the Force. All the Sith sensed it; even Serissa seemed touched by a niggling presence. They felt anger and frustration and desperation but also an inner peace beyond all the turmoil.
"Jedi," Darth Avanc said aloud. "They are in combat."
They let the Force guide them closer. They used their sabers to cleave through two decks and drop down until they were close. They felt it welling directly beneath them; the Jedi fighting and something else, a darkness that was powerful but restrained and unlike anything Terrid had ever felt before. The only thing it reminded him of was when he'd been taken to view Lord Krayt in stasis; hints of the unconscious Dark Lord's power had emanated from his body and promised an even greater wrath when he awoke.
Whatever was beneath them was like that: one part of an even greater dark power.
Darth Avanc dropped to one knee and plunged his saber into the deck. The others stood aside as he carved a circular hole in the floor big enough for even Darth Kheykid to slip through. Instead of letting the cut-through portion of the ship fall he lifted it up with the Force and let it rest in their corridor.
They all crowded close to see everything. The large room, perhaps a mess hall, was already filled with bodies and scorch-marks from explosions. A group of Jedi danced and clashed through the smoldering ruin: a Weequay with a violet saber, a blue-green Nautolan female, a pale-haired human with a blue blade and two dark-haired ones wearing the white armor chest-plates common to Imperial Jedi.
In the center of them all, battling all five Jedi at once, was a male Chev with a blue saber in hand. He was the source of the darkness, though he was no Sith Terrid had ever seen. From the confusion on Avanc's face he was no One Sith at all. As Terrid looked closer he saw the Chev moved with an unnatural fluidity; joints bent back in ways they shouldn't and at one point his head swung too far and too natural for an unbroken neck. Yet still he kept fighting, as though the body itself were merely a battered puppet for something even greater.
As they watched the Weequay lunged in close enough to spear the Chev through the heart. The creature barely seemed to notice; with the flick of a wrist the blue saber cleaved straight through the Weequay's neck and the body tumbled dead on the floor. Terrid stared closer still and saw that the Chev had no hands, not even wrists. The arms looked to have been cleaved off just past the elbow and strange translucent tentacles, barely visible, writhed out from the gap to clutch the lightsaber's handle.
Dread and confusion mounted together as they watched the dead Weequay's saber flip up into the other set of tentacles. Wielding two sabers at once, the Chev sent himself into spin. The other Jedi tried to skip away but one Imperial was caught by a horizontal whirl that cut him neatly in half at the waist.
"It's her," Avanc gasped. When Terrid looked at his former master he saw the Keshiri's violet face had gone pale, his jaw slack. The veteran Sith, always so calm and assured, bled absolute horror into the Force like nothing Terrid had ever felt.
"What is it?" Terrid asked.
"That is no Jedi," Kheykid hissed.
The Chev kept spinning fast and without stopping. It would have been enough to scramble any other being's brains but it kept moving, lightning fast, and caught the other Imperial as he tried to flee. The Jedi fell, minus one arm, and the Chev finally stopped spinning and raised up both blades to cleave the wounded knight in half.
That was when the other two- the blond human and the Nautolan- spun into action. With shocking bravery they fell on the Chev from behind; the Nautolan speared her saber through his back while the human took one brave horizontal swing through its neck.
The head toppled off its shoulders. The headless body stood there, wavering, half-arms at its sides, still clutching the sabers with two sets of ghostly tentacles.
Then, with a cry, Serissa opened fire. A half-dozen laser bolts lancing down from the ceiling and speared the Chev's body through the chest. It dropped the sabers and fell, but amazingly did not lay prone. The stumps of its arms caught its fall and it struggled to rise up from its knees.
"Darth Kheykid, with me," Avanc said, and dropped down through the hole. The Barabel followed right behind him, leaving Terrid and Serissa to watch.
-{}-
They came out of nowhere: two dark figures falling to the deck and impacting so hard it sent shudders through the floor. A lightsaber sprung out from the smaller figure's hands, a blazing red. From the other, larger body two shorter blades appeared, jutting out from the wrists like elongated claws. A tail thrashed eagerly against the deck and at that moment Jodram was sure he was hallucinating. All of this should have been a hallucination: Sothais Saar's betrayal, Master Qel's death, this crazed headless body that still wouldn't lie down after the exhausting fight that had claimed half the Jedi who'd stayed to put it down.
And now, to top it all off, the Barabel Sith Lord he'd fought seventeen years ago appeared in front of him now. It had to be the same: the big creature's predatory grace, black-and-red face, and short dual sabers had haunted his memory all these years. It was the same Sith who'd cleaved off his left arm, the same Sith his friend Wharn had died to kill.
That Sith, and another, fell right on Abeloth's prone body. Three blood-red lightsabers hacked away at the bent torso; the remaining Jedi stood back in shock and awe and watched as what was left of Master Saar struggled to rise on its knees. It spread out its arms and tentacled pushed out. One took the smaller Sith- he looked like an older human with violet skin- and threw himself across the room. The Barabel savagely hacked with both sabers, cleaving a diagonal cut through the body from should to hip. The body fell in two pieces and the Barabel hacked at it again, cutting a straight vertical line until all that was left were smoking pieces, too chopped-up and scattered to move.
And then, like a great exhalation of breath, Jodram felt Abeloth's consciousness finally leave that body.
The Sith from his nightmares stood over Sothais Saar's remains and turned its slit-eyed reptilian gaze on the three Jedi. The Imperial knight was too wounded to stand but Jodram and Qemar put themselves between him and the Barabel and raised their sabers to defend.
The Barabel stayed where it was, watching them. The violet-skinned Sith rose to his feet and called his fallen saber to his hand.
"We should save one of them for questioning," the humanoid Sith said.
The Barabel tensed to leap; then the door through which Allana and Arlen had disappeared burst open and three more Imperial knights rushed in. Someone must have sensed Master Qel's death and sent backup. The humanoid Sith pivoted toward them but the Barabel kept facing Jodram and Qemar. Everyone froze; none of them wiling to start the fight anew.
"We'll save this fight for another day," the violet Sith said. Then he and the Barabel leaped into the air and disappeared into the hole in the ceiling through which they'd come.
One of the Imperial rushed over to his fallen comrade. He asked, "What happened? Where did the Sith come from? And Abeloth-"
"That body's dead." Jodram waved his saber weakly as the pieces of Master Saar. "And the Sith just… showed up."
"We can't let them get away," the Imperial said.
He was right. If the Sith who'd engineered the crises in Senex-Juvex and Hapes, the Sith who'd killed Ben Skywalker, were involved, the Jedi couldn't let them escape without learning more. As confused and exhausted as they all were, this wasn't close to over.
-{}-
Allana felt it when a piece of Abeloth died. From what Ben and Luke had said, the Force abomination could possess multiple bodies but in doing so it spread its power thinner, and when one body was killed Abeloth as a whole was wounded and would need to recover.
There was at least one more body aboard this ship, and now was the time to kill it. They'd advanced deeply into the ship when she felt the other body's death; close, she thought, to the command deck where Abeloth would be orchestrating the great space battle that raged around them. When Saar's body finally died the tentacle of need that had been dragging Allana forward suddenly withdrew. Maybe Abeloth was weak; maybe she was afraid and no longer wanted to risk capturing Allana while she had a dozen other Jedi fighting alongside her. No matter, what, it was all the more incentive to press on.
Explosions started rocking the ship and Allana knew that meant the battle had come to the Erath ship at last. She chose to take that as another sign of Abeloth's weakening but it also meant they might find themselves in danger from their own allies soon.
Now that Abeloth was no longer trying to lure them in she set to defend herself as well. It had been clear for a while that they were getting close to the bridge; now they were forced to cut through layers of lowered blast doors and fight off an increasing amount of armored Erath troopers. The soldiers themselves seemed weakened along with their master; their shots went wide more often and they reacted slowly when the Jedi broke through their defenses and began disarming them. Despite their weakened state they took down two more of Arlen's Imperial knights before the group reached a set of blast doors more thickly layered than anything they'd encountered yet. As the remaining eight Jedi began to hack through the armored defenses with their sabers, Allana stood back from them all. She reached out with the Force, through the armored wall, and felt for Abeloth's presence. This time Allana was the one to touch her; she felt the same constant cold need but also fear of a wounded animal.
Whatever state she'd be in, Abeloth was on the other side, readying herself for them.
Arlen stepped back from the blast doors, letting Valiss and the Imperials finish the job. He asked, "Do you feel her?"
"Do you?"
Grimly, he nodded. "I'm not sure if the others do. I think it might be..."
"Skywalker blood?"
"I don't know. Anakin never actually met Abeloth, just the Ones she called her family."
"I remember the stories."
"I never really thought they were more than that."
"I remember the last time she showed up. I'm sorry you had to be here for this."
The hallway rocked hard around them; the battle must have been getting close. One of Arlen's knights looked back at them and called, "We're almost through!"
He looked at Allana. "Ready?"
"No." She switched her lightsaber on.
"Fair enough," breathed Arlen, and waved the knights back. They fell away blast doors that were now laced and fractured with dozens of deep saber-cuts. Allana had never mastered the Force ability known as Shatterpoint but here they'd done the next-best thing: carved the armored door into so many pieces all it would take was a little combined Force-effort to rip it apart.
The remaining Jedi stood back, sabers in one hand and the other arms outstretched. They linked minds and Allana let the shared bravery and determination wash over them, for the moment canceling out their shared dread of what lay on the other side.
Then, as one, nine minds pulled the blast door apart. Burnt metal screamed in protest as it ripped. Sheared-open gaps stretched wider as the carved pieces separated.
Then they shoved the armored chunks forward. They flew into the chamber beyond, fell thunderously onto the floor, skidded and scraped and threw up sparks, smashed into the bulkheads and crushed the Erath who'd gathered behind the doors to defend their master.
When the sparks and smoke cleared Allana took it all in: the bridge of the great flagship and the great broad transparisteel window that wrapped halfway around the command deck, giving a panoramic view of the constant laser-flash and explosions and swarms of darting ships that made up the chaotic battle of which this ship was the heart.
Standing in the center of the deck, surrounded by debris and smashed-down bodies but untouched by them, was a male Erath in a black martial uniform. His head was bowed but hair billowed up like black clouds. Arms hung at his sides and Force lightning crackled between his fingers. When the King of Storms lifted his head his multifaceted eyes gleamed like fields of stars.
The Jedi charged. Abeloth raised both hands and spent out a wash of Force-lighting but the Jedi were prepared to block. Most of the caught it with raised sabers; those who couldn't fell back, weakened. Arlen and Allana led the charge. Arlen was younger, stronger, faster; he threw himself forward, saber-first, not at Abeloth but above. As he somersaulted his blade dipped down, slicing through the Storm-king's shoulder and neatly severing one arm.
He never landed. An invisible Force wave pushed Arlen before boots could touch deck and threw him hard against the transparisteel. Before Allana could deliver another blow Abeloth lashed out with half-visible tentacles that had instantly sprung out from her sheared-off arm. They knocked Allana to the side as well; then Abeloth raised her other hands and blasted the remaining knights with another gust of Force energy. Allana saw Valiss crumple and fall under the blast, saw another Imperial knight rise again and hurl his saber through the air. Its blazing pinwheel suddenly stopped and fell into the Storm-king's grasp. The knight, stunned and shocked at what he'd done, had no time to react. Abeloth sent out another gush of Force lighting that lit up his entire body, viciously charring him to the bone.
She knew Abeloth couldn't expend so much energy without dropping her guard. Fighting back the icy pain the tentacle had left in her body, she grabbed her saber and charged Abeloth from behind. The Storm-king pivoted to block her, too late. She shoved her blade into its stomach and shifted upward, burning through black uniform and flesh to where the heart would be on a human.
The attack had some effect. The Erath body shuddered in pain. Allana knew that wouldn't end it so she pulled out her blade and jumped back, anticipating a retaliatory blow. The one-armed lightsaber strike was so strong it knocked her own weapon out of her hand and sent it skidding across the debris-strewn deck. The next blow came from the tentacles; they smashed into her from the side, cracking her left arm and sending pain shooting through her whole body. She barely had the strength to scream; the Storm-king delivered another blow that cracked ribs and brought her to her knees.
Another lightsaber flew through the air. Abeloth, distracted by her prize, was to slow to block it as it spun and sliced across the Storm-king's waist, cutting through stomach and hip-bone before it whirled back around and flew to rest in Cenya Valiss' outstretched hand.
The Storm-king howled in agony. Another wave of Force energy picked up the remaining Jedi and threw them against the bulkheads. Allana was thrown onto her broken arm; the impact-pain was blinding and the next thing she knew she was on the ground at the base of a broad transparisteel pane; the great battle continued to flash around her. She rolled onto her good side and saw the rest: the Storm-king barely standing but still unbroken, held on his feet by Abeloth's unimaginable Force energy. The Jedi were scattered across the chamber, all so weak they could barely stay upright. Abeloth surveyed the wreckage of the bridge until her eyes found Arlen Fel. She began to take staggering towards him.
Allan reached out with the Force; she felt Abeloth's intent, Arlen's fear, the panic from the other Jedi. And she felt awareness outside the bridge too, but not far away.
A mind touched hers: curious, concerned. Out there, in the battle, but close by.
She thought it might be Davek's wife.
As Abeloth drew close to Arlen he ignited his lightsaber, ready to defend himself to the death. Allana pushed herself upright, stifled down the pain shooting from her arm, and called, "Abeloth, wait!"
The Storm-king turned to look at her. In a deep voice that seemed to echo Abeloth said, "Yes, Jedi Queen?"
"You want me? Fine," she glared. "Take me. I don't care. Just let them go. You offered that before."
"That was before. This is now."
Arlen jabbed his saber at her. "Come any closer and we'll cut your karking legs off!"
Allana touched him in the Force, told him stay calm, and trust me. She fought down more pain and rose on trembling legs. "Take me. Let them go. Do you really need another body if you have me?"
The Storm-king's head tilted thoughtfully. "I do not trust you."
"Fine." Allana held up her saber for all to see, then lazily tossed it to Abeloth's feet. Battered, defenseless, barely strong enough to stand, she said, "Good enough?"
Without anyone touching it, her saber sparked and melted. Abeloth said, "That is a start."
Then an invisible hand picked Aren off the deck and hurled him across the bridge, toward the ruins of the door. He had enough awareness to call on the Force to soften his fall, but he still tumbled into the hallway and disappeared from view.
"Run if you want," Abeloth said. "You won't get far."
Allana felt the confusion and fear and anger from all the others and sent them calm. And she reached out, too, to touch Marasiah's mind and said wait and do exactly as I tell you.
"Go," Allana called, as strongly as she could. "It's me she wants. Go."
Valiss and the other Jedi who could walk picked themselves up and staggered for the hallway. Allana felt Arlen's mind and told him what to do.
Abeloth staggered toward Allana. After so much damage it was clear the Storm-king's body wouldn't last much longer; the lure of Allana's, Force-strong and with relatively minor damage, was too strong a lure for the battered Force entity.
Allana knew it. She cleared her mind, took a deep breath, and told Arlen, now.
As one, the remaining Jedi picked up the chunks of debris from the blast doors and threw them through the air. Abeloth didn't bother to duck; they flew right around her and smashed into the broad window-panes. The layered transparisteel was designed to withstand direct hits from turbolaser blasts, but with the Jedi's combined powers the armored shards gathered great enough force to smash a hole through the viewport.
Then, with a great howl, the atmosphere began to gush from the bridge and spill into space. Allana didn't resist; she felt the current of escaping air lift her body up and pull it toward the gap. As she saw the same current picked up the Storm-king's broken frame and hurl it toward the vacuum she allowed the tiny smile of relief.
-{}-
Until it happened, Marasiah didn't know what to do. Her squadron of TIE Sabers had been flying tight circles around the Erath flagship's recessed bridge section. The tempest in the Force there had been unmistakable, but when a mind on that bridge had reached out to touch hers she hadn't recognized it or known what it wanted. Then another joined in, more familiar: Arlen's. They needed her to stay close and be ready, to do something, but she still had no idea what.
Then the bridge had burst open from the inside. Transparisteel shards and chunks of debris spilled into space. Marasiah brought her circling fighter to a shuddering halt and watched. Among the debris she watched a single body tumble out into the void. It blazed with a dark Force energy and the instinctive knowledge of a Jedi told her it had to be destroyed.
With the aid of the Force and the natural reflexes of an ace pilot, Marasiah dropped her targeting reticule on that flailing body, locked on, and fired a single torpedo. It was a tiny target but it was close and moving on a straight trajectory. As the torp flew out Marasiah gave it a tiny nudge with the Force to ensure it flew true.
The proton torpedo burst, a brief flare of light and heat, then ashes and void.
-{}-
The Jedi barely made it out in time. They'd destroyed the first set of blast doors to access the bridge; the second set, the one they'd pried open with the Force but left intact, was an eternal-seeming ten meters straight down the hall. The knights used the Force to help push themselves toward the doors even as the air started to gush out through the shattered bridge viewport. Arlen clung to the edge of the shattered blast doors and reached out with the Force to grab Allana. She was pulled hard and fast toward the vacuum and fell halfway out into the cold void before he could arrest her plunge. He reeled her in even as the escaping air threatened to pull them both into space, and when Allana was close enough to grab with his own hand he felt the Jedi behind him grab them both, reeling them to safe down the hall with their combined strength.
When they landed hard on the deck and the door hissed shut in front of them, sealing them off from the breach, Arlen immediately rolled over to face Allana. The woman lay on her back, eyes closed; he reached out to touch her face it stung with cold from the vacuum. He moved his fingers to her neck and felt a pulse; he tried to touch her with the Force and got a fluttering of the eyes and the creaking open of a mouth.
She tried to speak but all that escaped was a rasp. Arlen bent over her, pressed his forehead to hears, and let a rattling, relieved laugh escape.
"It's okay," he whispered, "We did it. Can't you feel it? She's gone."
-{}-
All of a sudden, everything about the battle changed. Caught between the tightening arms of the Chiss and the Imperial Second Fleet, the raiders had been striking out with increased ferocity. More and more ships were reducing themselves to living missiles, hurling themselves at the closest capital ship and smashing though hull and shields. Davek had lost three full star destroyers when a Tylonian frigate broke through the Makati's defensive screen and smashed into the hull at full speed. The impact had been far down toward the bow, five or six full kilometers away from the bridge, but the resulting explosion had torn through the hull and send powerful shudders through the length of the great star destroyer. That damage had brought all their forward shields to a breaking point and Davek had been forced to halt their drive toward the Erath flagship still in the heart of a storm that was getting increasingly contracted and intense.
Then something happened. The ships that had been suicidally hurling themselves at Davek's fleet broke into evasive maneuvers. They kept firing on their Chiss and Imperial opponents but their strategy had suddenly and thinkably changed. He couldn't believe it until the first cluster of Pal'shoran ships slipped through the Chiss part of the blockade and jumped to hyperspace.
They were all trying to run.
He was still trying to wrap his mind around that when Tactical reported the arrival of the Second Fleet. A glance at the tactical holo showed as many new ships inbound as there were fighting the raiders already. Admiral Grave and his men would want their piece of the fight. As far as Davek was concerned they were welcome to it.
"Admiral," the comm officer called, "We're being hailed. It's the Teshik. Admiral Grave requests instructions."
"Tell him the enemy's trying to slip away. Don't let them."
"Yes, sir." After a second the lieutenant added, "Sir, we've got another hail. It's from Knight One. She's requesting to speak with you personally."
Somehow, for all the ferocity out there, had hadn't doubted that Marasiah would still be flying. She might even know what the hells was going on. Davek came over to the comm station and said, "Put her on.
"Makati, do you read?" His wife's voice, static-marred as it was, had an instantly calming effect.
"We read you," he said. "What's happening out there?"
"We took her out. That's why they're all trying to run."
"Took who out? Is Arlen alright?"
Her sigh crackled over the speaker. "Arlen's fine. So's Allana. We lost a lot of Jedi, Davek, but she's dead. I think."
"Who? This, ah, Queen of Night?"
"I think it was the King of Storms, actually. I can't explain it all now, but we cut off the head and they're running. A bunch of shuttles are leaving the Erath ship now. They're all jumping ship."
"The Second Fleet just arrived. Well contain them the best we can-"
"You'll destroy them, you mean."
"Marasiah-"
"Do what you have to. I'm going to see what I can do for our Jedi."
The comm line closed and Davek was left fumbling with more questions than answers. He had a feeling not even Marasiah really understood what had just happened. He hoped his brother and Allana would be able to fill them in, because right now nothing felt like a victory.
He turned away from the comm station and looked out the viewport. In the far distance Grave's fleet, unbattered and ready to fight, smashed into the enemy and mercilessly turned their frantic fleet a field of explosions hundreds of kilometers wide.
No, it didn't feel like victory at all.
-{}-
The Sith almost got back to their ship before Darth Avanc called an abrupt change of plans. They'd latched Intruder to an airlock portal located near one of the auxiliary hangars and were caught in rush of Erath trying to get to the shuttles docked there. The soldiers who'd once fought and died to keep them from advancing barely paid notice to them now. All they seemed to care about was getting off this ship.
Darth Terrid still had no idea what was going on; what the enemy they'd seen in the mess hall was or why Avanc was desperate to get back to Intruder when there were still Jedi boarding parties coming after them. Only four Jedi were in pursuit, by his count, and they were all haggard and exhausted from their fight in the mess hall. Darth Kheykid alone probably could have handled them but for Avanc the priority was getting away from easy prey.
And then, suddenly, it wasn't. After being pushed aside by another rush of Erath, Avanc grabbed Terrid by the front of his tunic and pulled him into a side hall. Serissa and Kheykid joined them, ducking out of the flow.
"Something's changed," Avanc said.
"I can see that." Terrid jerked himself free. "What happened? What was that thing?"
Avanc breathed deep, let it out. "I can't explain right now. But we need to know where they're all fleeing to."
"What? Why?"
"Because this isn't over yet. Our enemy isn't dead yet."
"The thing in the mess-"
"Was one body. The Jedi must have killed another but it has more out there. Darth Terrid, go board one of their shuttles before they all get away. These are her servants. If anyone's running back to her it will be them."
Something in what he said was stirring long-buried memories, of what Terrid couldn't pin down. "You mean hijack a ship?"
"I mean stow away. Lay low. Let it take you to your destination, or until you know the destination. Then kill the crew and hail Intruder." He saw Terrid's gaze tilt toward Serissa. "Take your apprentice. It should be an easy task. From the looks of them now they won't put up much of a fight."
Whatever Avanc knew he wasn't going to explain until his orders were carried out. Terrid had no idea what this threat they were facing really was but apparently Avanc did, which meant he had no choice but to bow to the older Sith Lord's demands and hope he knew what he was doing.
"What about the Jedi behind us?"
"Darth Kheykid and will take care of them. Go."
He looked at Serissa and saw the confusion and reluctance on her face. He felt the same, which meant they'd at least be in the same mess. "Let's go," he rasped, and turned back toward the trickle of Erath now hurrying down the halls to their hangar. Serissa followed without a word.
Even when they got to the hangar no one seemed to pay much attention, but Terrid insisted on stepping back behind the cover of some emptied supply crates to scout the situation. Three Erath shuttles remains, each one a with a dark low-domed body like the back of an insect. Only a few more soldiers were left to straggle in; the shuttle nearest to them was already firing its main thrust engines and raising its landing ramp, which meant they had only two options left.
He looked at them both and noticed one seemed to have a second cargo hatch still hanging wide. It was the perfect opening; he jabbed a finger at it and Serissa nodded. The shuttle closest to them roared to life, kicked up on its repulsors, and pushed out toward the hangar mouth. With the blaster rifle cradled in both arms she and Terrid both stepped into the open and prepared to run for it.
That was when the Jedi arrived.
-{}-
When Jodram and Qemar broke onto the maintenance catwalks strung above the hangar space, it hadn't taken them long to spot the two dark-clothed figures crouched behind the supply crates in the corner of the flight deck. They'd had to rely on the Force as they'd given chase to the Sith, and when they'd sensed the dark, intent presences of the Dark Side users split into two groups the Imperial knights had chosen one path, Jodram and Qemar the other. Why they all weren't heading back to the same ship he didn't know, but maybe he could find out later.
There was no denying how scared he was. He'd fought Sith once before and nearly died. He'd been an apprentice then, half-trained and overconfident, but that was no guarantee he'd fare better today. He was thankful, at least, that the Barabel was nowhere in sight.
When the shuttle directly beneath them rose and lurched for the exit, the Sith started moving too. He and Qemar moved as one, leaping over the catwalk railing and igniting their lightsabers as they fell, Force-slowed to soften the impact. The heat from the shuttle's engines washed over them fast as they fell through it; then they dropped onto the deck right behind the Sith.
One of them, the male, ignited his lightsaber as he turned. The other, female and younger, spun on her heel and raised a blaster rifle. Jodram hefted his saber to block the first shot, then froze, stunned by the blue skin and glowing red eyes of the male Sith Lord. And in that same second, the Chiss seemed to freeze too.
Then a blaster bolt skimmed Jodram's upper arm; pain brought him back to his senses and he deflected the next shot back at the young woman. The Chiss raised his free hand and released a blast of Force lightning that Qemar caught on her lightsaber as she charged. The Chiss ducked beneath the Nautolan's horizontal saber-swipe, then released another burst of lightning directly into her stomach. Qemar let out a cry and lurched off-balance. The Chiss slipped one step back and swung his saber back for a killing blow.
Jodram was there to block him, using the Force to throw Qemar out of harm's way as he did. Blue and red sabers crackled against each other and their eyes met again through the sparks. Revelation begged but Jodram wouldn't, couldn't allow it. This was a battle to the death and another shock would kill him.
He sensed the girl's next laser-shot before it came and ducked out of the way. That was enough to knock him off-balance; the Chiss reached out and caught the collar of his shirt, and in the same moment released another burst of Force lightning that scalded Jodram's body and blinded him with blue-white.
The next thing he knew he was being pulled off his feet; then he slammed hard into metal and he found himself on his back, staring upward at two shadowed shapes as pain still twitched through his body and a throbbing hum rose around him, like a starship warming its engines.
He heard something else, like a heavy latch sealing airtight, and then the dark cabin rattled more. He must have been thrown on one of the fleeing Erath shuttles, maybe in a cargo hold.
Jodram tried to rise but a boot slammed in his sternum and pinned him to the ground. He reached out and grabbed the booth with both hands, like he could pull it off his chest.
The man above him leaned close. Glowing red eyes settled just out of reach of his flailing hands. The whole cabin shuddered again and he knew this ship was taking off, flying free of the Erath flagship, taking him far away from the other Jedi and leaving him captive in the hands of a Sith.
But not just any Sith. A dim light flickered on, bringing clarity to the darkness. The young woman with the rifle stood to one side, uncertain. The Chiss leaned over Jodram still, looking at him closely. With reluctance, knowing what he'd find, Jodram let himself examine the blue face above his. All the youthful softness he'd remembered had been carved away by time and terrors he couldn't imagine, but he knew that face, just as the Sith knew his.
