Vitor had no idea how long they spent marching through the tunnel. He heard his grandmother say that the industrial site into which they'd exit was located fourteen kilometers from the Jedi academy; he didn't know how fast he'd be able to cover that distance and normal speed and they were definitely moving slower than that.
His grandmother was the slowest one. They all knew it but they all kept pace with the old Master out of deference. They stopped from time to time; five minutes every hour, maybe, though he wasn't sure. He could feel Jaina drawing on Force energy to keep herself moving. The invisible energy seeped from without into her body, energizing her muscles and keeping air cycling through her lungs.
During one break Vitor dared ask her what was going back at the Academy. She said she couldn't tell, only that people were dying. He chose to believe that and walked on in ignorance.
When they finally reached the far end of the tunnel there was another hatch like the one they'd left through. Deir Sinde opened it; he and Kagen Alar waved for everyone to stay back and went through the portal, sabers lit, to scope out the surrounding area.
They came back a few minutes later and waved the rest of them through. It was the inside of some vast storehouse, filled with rows and metal racks laden with industrial equipment Vitor couldn't recognize. There seemed to be no one around and Vitor couldn't sense anyone in the Force besides the other Jedi.
The awkward herd- one old Master, one adult knight, and fifteen apprentices of various ages- exited through a side door and stepped outside. The cool wind felt like the breath of life; even the steel-gray sky overhead was welcome after so long in the claustrophobic tunnels. Yet as soon as he registered the breeze Vitor heard the sounds of multiple airspeeders not far away.
"Back in the building!" Sinde called, and the apprentices ducked for cover. Vitor lingered; he heard airspeeders and something more, very distant, a faint sound carried on current of wind. It was high-pitched and repetitive, like a wailing alarm. Then Deir Sinde grabbed his arm and pulled him into the open door-frame just as an airspeeder passed low over the industrial yard.
"Did they find us?" Sinde's son Treis whispered.
"Not yet." His father hooked a pair of small macrobinoculars off his belt and traced the speeders as they flew straight away. "They're not turning around for another pass. Master, do you know which way we're facing?"
From the back of the group, safely inside the warehouse, Jaina said, "I believe they were flying north toward Ravelin."
Sinde's brows drew together. "Why Ravelin? The Academy is east of here."
"Something must be happening in the city," Roan said.
"Yeah, but what?" Vitor looked at the older Sinde, then his grandmother. The two adults shared looks of mutual confusion.
"Hey, hear that?" Alar cupped one ear.
"You mean the alarms?" Vitor whispered. "You hear them too?"
"I hear them," Mohrgan offered.
"Yes, but something else… Getting louder..."
The paused. Vitor took one cautious step out under the sky listen to the wind, the distant repeating wail, and something else, a constant drone that sounded like an animal scream.
Then the pitch shifted down and he said, "TIE fighters. Not sure where."
Sinde nudged him back under cover and motioned for him to stay. Then the knight crouched and jumped up, using the Force to pull himself to the edge of the warehouse's high broad roof. Vitor heard his boots slam onto the metal above and waited another minute until Sinde jumped back to the ground.
"I'm seeing TIEs and local police airspeeders over Ravelin," he reported. "I'm not sure what's going on there."
"The academy?" asked Jaina.
"I see smoke. And TIEs flying circles."
It would be too easy for all their thoughts to fall on the knights they'd left behind to die. Vitor said, "What do we do now?"
All eyes fell to Jaina. The old woman, standing next to Roan, hooked an arm around her grandson's and said, "It's no good trying to run in this situation. We need to stay hidden and we need to find out what else is going on."
"Your mean our parents?" asked Roan.
"And the Academy, and everything else."
"If there is a communications station in this complex, I don't know where to find it," Sinde admitted.
"It's all right," said Jaina. "I know the way. But most of you should stay behind. Stay safe."
"I'm coming with you, Grandma," Vitor said and put a hand on his lightsaber.
He expected his grandmother to refuse. He expected her to say he was too young, it was too risky, he'd best go back into that hidden tunnel and hide with the other kids until salvation came from above.
But she gave him a simple up-down look and something serious came over her face, like she'd discovered something about him for the first time. The look made him uncomfortable but he didn't shirk from it.
"All right," Jaina said. "But stay close, Vitor. I want you by my side."
-{}-
In the end, Davek gathered the best fleet he could. Every fighting-fit ship in the Fourth was pulled from Bilbringi and sent hurling through hyperspace toward Bastion. He had twelve star destroyers in all, including the fleet carrier Nightwatch on which he'd put his flag, plus three times the number of smaller frigates, corvettes, and gunships. It was a good-sized force, but Veers had the entire First Fleet in the Braxant Sector. The Second Fleet, best Davek could tell, was still at Yaga Minor but if Veers decided to summon Admiral Grave to his side, as he very likely would, then the battle would be over in a flash. Davek's only hope was to end this before it started; if he had to fight it needed to be a short, small, contained battle.
The too-fast, too-short hours en route to the capital were spent running systems checks, readying weapons and support craft, and doing everything possible to prepare for a battle every one of them prayed they wouldn't have to fight.
They reverted to realspace at the edge of Bastion's gravity well and continued to plunge downward toward the planet at full sublight speed. The two interdictor cruisers Davek had brought along immediately started warming their gravity wells generators, hoping to raise a wider interdiction field around the planet that would prevent surprise attacks from vessels in the First or Second Fleets that weren't presently close to the planet.
What was waiting for them at Bastion was bad enough. Long and pale, thin like an eighteen-kilometer sword, the Empire's newest super star destroyer sat directly atop the planet's northern pole. A few Predator-class destroyers, as well as Admiral Hallis' Legator-class flagship Sentinel, were further out from the planet but immediately began falling toward it. Two more star destroyers, hefty Compellor-class ships, were lower in orbit, almost at the edge of the atmospheric shell, and much closer to Ravelin. The sprawling city that housed most of the Empire's government and bureaucratic apparatuses was currently swathed in clouds and fast slipping toward the planet's nightside. It was impossible to get a visual lock on the Jedi academy or anything going on in the city, but the fine-tuned sensor package aboard Nightwatch could pick to infrared emissions well beyond what the metropolis normally produced.
In the midst of frantic preparations, Davek had watching the INN broadcast for updates. Two hours before arrival the network had been cut off entirely. One by one, the smaller news networks had also gone silent. The last one to shut down had been an often-overlooked independent station. It had reported that large-scale riots had broken out in Ravelin and Bastion's other major cities. Holo-footage from the center of Ravelin confirmed what Davek wouldn't have normally believed: thousands, if not millions, had taken to the streets in support of the Jedi Order. The last images shown before its signal died it had been the sky over the protesters swarming with TIE fighters. Not police air speeders but military craft.
The next forty-five minutes until the fleet arrival had been painfully tense. Davek had hoped to learn more about what was happening on the ground when they hit orbit but cloud cover and a jamming field from Invincible left his and his fleet blind and ignorant just when they needed information.
Veers' response was fast but not reckless. He'd hoped to arrest Davek quickly and quietly; a firefight over Bastion was exactly what he'd been trying to avoid. The two destroyers nearest to Ravelin began deploying fighters, a healthy mix of TIE-X interceptors and TIE Demolishers for anti-capital ship combat. A dozen gunships and frigates, quicker than the big destroyers, raced to intercept Davek's fleet. They had no chance of taking down his twelve star destroyers; instead of opening fire they approached Davek's formation and settled themselves into it, as if daring the newcomers to shoot.
Davek wasn't ready for that yet. On Nightwatch's bridge he could see the tactical holo; Admiral Hallis' Sentinel would be here in less than twenty minutes and Invincible was slowly, steadily moving from its perch over Bastions' polar cap. It was still seven minutes away.
As per the battle plan he'd hastily assembled on the way here, Nightwatch was at the tip of the attacking wedge. Hundreds of TIE fighters and dozens of landing craft, all loaded with loyal stormtroopers, were ready to launch on his word. At the rear of the formation, Vice Admiral Renwar held back with two more destroyers in addition to her Tempest. If Sentinel came in guns-blazing, they'd take the brunt of the attack.
Davek was still praying it wouldn't come to that. "Captain," he asked, "Can we hail Invincible?"
"Doing it now," Korak said from the comm station, where he hovered over the shoulder of an anxious lieutenant. Korak was keeping his cool much better that the young ensign Davek remembered from Voidwalker, but one hand still hung at his side, a fist that clenched tight, loosened and tightened again in repetition.
Davek's whole body twitched with energy but he tried to keep his voice steady when the comm lieutenant gave him the signal to talk.
"This is Admiral Davek Fel, commander of the Imperial Fourth Fleet. I need to speak with Corrien Veers at once."
The other man's holo-image sprung into existence. With the same steady tone and haughty lilt, Veers said, "This is the legally elected Head of State, Mister Fel. I'd remind you whose title is valid here."
"I reject your unlawful attempt to remove me from my position. I am still commander of the Fourth as appointed by Supreme Commander Darakon."
"You reject Hallis' authority?"
Veers was trying to draw him into technicalities, waste his time. The two closest destroyers were already deploying fighter screens. If Davek was going to send ships down to the planet they'd have to fight their way through.
"I've come to stop your illegal action against the Jedi Order, and against those Imperial citizens who support it."
"I have only done what is my duty by law as part of the emergency powers granted to me by the constitution your father helped draw. The Jedi are treasonous agents, just as you are, and they are being taken into custody so they may stand trial under Imperial law. Do you respect that law or don't you, Mister Fel?"
"If you're respecting that law, lower the jamming field. Let me see the Jedi academy. Let me talk to the Jedi."
"I will do nothing to compromise the security of this law enforcement operation in progress. If you would only wait to see-"
Davek snapped his fingers and the lieutenant killed the transmission. Korak said, "Sir, we don't have much more time."
"I'm aware, Captain."
"Sir, what if it is just a police action? What if the Jedi have surrendered and are being taken into custody?"
He knew they'd never surrender. Every Jedi he'd known, from his mother on down, clung to the memory of the Order's near-extermination under Palpatine.
And when they defended his mother would be right at the heart of it, even at eighty-three years old. Very likely, she was already dead, but he hoped he'd arrived in time to save his sons.
He glanced at the tactical holo; the first wave of picket ships loyal to Veers had settled themselves among his destroyers. They held their fire now; the moment he launched fighters and landing craft they'd attack. Invincible and Sentinel lurched ever closer. The first wave of hostile TIE-X fighters were only minutes away.
His heart raced as he took out his comlink and thumbed it on. "Marasiah, do you copy?"
"Standing by," she said; crisp, succinct, so-military even now. She was in the cockpit of her TIE fighter, waiting to launch along with a half-dozen and over four hundred other pilots.
"We can't get any sensor readings from Ravelin. We have no idea what's going on at the Academy. Please, can you sense anything?"
"One moment," she said, and killed the connection. She'd drop into the Force to seek out far-off presence of the people below she knew and loved: her friends, her mother-in-law, her nephew, her sons. They could be captive or dead or fighting for their lives and Davek had no way to know.
Not until his wife spoke again.
-{}-
When the attack came it came from nowhere. Vitor sensed no danger at all and the only warning was a shout from his grandmother two seconds before the first black-cloaked figure jumped to block the alley mouth in front of them. Even then Vitor couldn't believe what was happening until a blood-red saber-blade extended from the Sith's fist.
And as he stared at those red blades, felt the alley walls constrict him and the rain patter on his head, he realized he should have seen this coming. He'd dreamed of it this very morning.
Sinde was fast; his lightsaber snapped and hissed to life. Flecks of light rain sizzled against his blade as he held it in a horizontal blocking position and stepped between the Sith and those he'd brought with him: Vitor, Jaina, Kagen Alar and his son Treis.
Vitor heard the slap of more boots on pavement and spun around; a second Sith had dropped in behind them, strapping them in the narrow space between two high warehouses.
Alar grabbed her lightsaber and ignited it. Vitor fumbled with his weapon; by the time it was lit the Sith were already on them. He could see little of their faces, only the black robes and heavy hoods, flashes of jawline underlit by sizzling red. Sinde blocked the first two blows from his attacker then swiped out offensively. Treis lurched for his father, even though the boy was too young to have made a lightsaber. Jaina grabbed him with the Force and pulled him to her. Alar struggled against the rain of fast, heavy blow. Vitor leaped to help, ducked underneath a broad horizontal swipe by the Sith and struck at its knees. The Sith jumped back two steps and Alar used the opening to press the attack. Vitor could feel the fear bleeding off the older apprentice but desperation made her reckless; her attacks were fast and uncontrolled, the opposite of how she'd sparred with him just a few eternal hours before.
Vitor sprung forward to help. In this narrow space there was little room to move around and the Sith was beaten back a few paces more. Their sabers clashed and criss-crossed and carved straight scars into the walls of the warehouses around them.
Then Vitor heard and scream felt agony in the Force. He spun around on instinct; the Sith had scored a blow across Sinde's torso, causing the knight to bend over at the waist in pain, saber-arm dangling at his side.
Treis scream but Jaina held him tight. The Sith lunged again; a blade of red light speared out through Sinde's back. When it withdrew his body collapsed, dead in the quickening rain.
The Sith who'd killed Sinde dashed for Jaina. Instinct took over; Vitor rushed for his grandmother. After one leaping stride he knew he'd be too late; nothing could stand in the way of the red blade now bearing down on her.
Then one wing of her bulky brown cloak furled back. Her arm shot up, faster than he'd seen it before, and a blue blade of light caught the Sith's right before it fell. The Sith froze, stunned; Vitor slid across the rain-slick pavement, slowing only a little as he held his blade out long in front of him, hoping to spear the Sith through the chest while it was distracted.
But the Sith jumped back, just barely avoiding his blade. Vitor wanted to press the attack but he heard a scream, spun around, and saw Alar, running back toward them, stumble and clutch the place where the second Sith's blade had cut deep and hot into her side. She stumbled, Vitor watched as his grandmother without even a gesture, picked the apprentice off her feet and pulled her close. Then they all stood together, backs to the warehouse wall, three trainees and one Master. Deir Sinde's lightsaber blazed in his son's hand; either Treis or Jaina had called it there, Vitor didn't know which. The old woman was smaller than any of the trainees and he instinctively moved to shield Jaina's body with his own.
The Sith, one on either side of them, hesitated for just a second. They stepped closer as one, then stopped just outside striking range. Vitor didn't understand; he could sense their evil intent in the Force and wondered if they were calling for help.
Then, as one, they raised their free hands and sent out two waves of sizzling Force lightning.
Treis hefted his father's lightsaber but could do nothing to stop the energy that wrapped around his blade and crackled all over his body. Alar, already wounded, only lasted a few seconds more before dropping her saber and collapsing to her knees in agony.
Vitor barely lasted longer. Paint burst on him from both sides, overwhelming his petty defenses, his senses, everything. He barely managed to hold on to his saber but lost the strength to lift it; he opened his mouth to scream but couldn't hear anything for the pain boiling in his mind. It felt like his skull would burst.
Then he fell beside the other two apprentices; the cold wet stones were a weird relief. He landed on his side and rolled onto his back, looked up and saw the lightning converge on his grandmother from both directions.
Jaina had shut off her lightsaber. She let the lightning come and when it did it didn't touch her; it sparked and crackled in the air as though she'd raised an energy shield around herself. Through his pain and disbelief Vitor realized she'd done just that. When he blinked his eyes to focus he saw her face, eyes closed and restful, as though in quiet meditation.
Then the lightning dancing over her shield shot back out at those who'd produced it. Vitor was too weak to stand but he wrenched his body and arced his neck, skull rolling on the hard ground until he could see one Sith frozen in place, body set aglow by jolts of its own dark side energy.
He heard a lightsaber and looked back at his grandmother. Jaina had her weapon in both hands; with amazing speed the old woman lifted it up and blocked the second Sith's blow. By then the first had recovered was on her too, and Vitor was certain not even Jaina Solo Fel could withstand that.
But he was wrong. He knew, intellectually, that they'd once called his grandmother the Sword of the Jedi. That she'd been the Order's best duelist and most resolute fighter. That she'd slain a Yuuzhan Vong warmaster three times her size and too many Sith to count. To him, though, she'd always been a tiny white-haired old woman, a stern but loving mentor whose further deeds were only legend.
To move that fast Jaina had to be drawing on the Force, using her own frail body as a marionette moved by the universe's invisible flow. She blocked one red lightsaber, then another, then went back to her enemy, slipping her blade beneath its attack and poking the blue tip of her own into its gut. Then she spun, bent at the waist and ducked under the second Sith's strike. She popped up on her heels to come up right in front of her attacker and wedged her saber into its torso. Then she tore up, splitting through neck and head, and just as fast she withdrew, turned around, stopped an awkward wild strike by the remaining Sith. Then she cut low and horizontal, taking it right above the hips and slicing the body in two.
When the fight was over she immediately sagged against the wall, a puppet with cut strings. Fighting the pain that still sparked through his body, Vitor rolled onto his stomach, pressed hands against the pavement, and pushed himself to his knees. He crawled on them to his grandmother, who was now sinking to the ground, too weak to stand.
"Grandma!" he shouted. "Are you okay? Grandma!"
She he crawled close and put his hands on her shoulders Alar gasped behind him, "Master, that was incredible."
The old woman's smile was slight, satisfied. "Knew I still had it… in me."
"Grandma!" Vitor shouted again. He couldn't help himself. He cupped her face with one hand and shook her head lightly.
"I'll be fine," Jaina muttered, faint against the increasingly hard pounding of the rain. "Just… Need to recharge."
Vitor heard a new sound; he only recognized it for what it was when he looked back and saw Treis Sinde collapsed on top of his father's body. The boy's body retched as he sobbed. Vitor knew there was nothing he could do for the younger apprentice, as much as he wished there was.
"Is it over?" Alar said as she sat upright and groped for her lightsaber, still clutching her side wound with her other hand.
As soon as she asked it Vitor felt a spike of dread. His grandmother's eyes, tried a second ago, popped open and she said, "No. We need to get back… as fast as we can."
He started, "Are they-"
"Yes." Jaina reached up and squeezed his hand. "More Sith. They're after the others."
-{}-
Wrapped in the airtight silence of her cockpit, that tight familiar space, Marasiah found it easy to touch the Force and reach down toward the planet below. She felt what she'd expected and hoped not to find: panic, pain, death. Jedi fighting Imperial stormtroopers, both sides horrified that it had come to this but desperate to survive.
She reached further. She needed to find her family. She found her mother-in-law first; Jaina Solo Fel was an old woman now, with a Force presence that was unmistakable but usually subdued. The Jaina that Marasiah felt was a flare of energy, unrestrained. She felt other presences mixing with it: dark, angry, intent, somehow very cold.
In the years since becoming a Jedi, Marasiah had heard so much about the Sith but she'd never felt one until now. She'd never felt it, but the dark side was unmistakable.
Then the flare died down, and for a second Marasiah was afraid Jaina had died. But the Sith presences she'd felt were gone; those two at least. The dark side still lingered down there. More Sith remained.
Marasiah clung to the fainter presence Jaina continued to project. For just a second the two womens' thoughts touched across the void. Marasiah's hand, resting in the lap of her black flight suit, contracted involuntarily. She felt a warm familiar grip that wasn't there: Vitor's. Then she felt his presence in the Force too: far away but distinct. She felt Roan too; somewhere else, possibly, and just as terrified, but still alive.
There was no telling for how long. When she could no longer feel Vitor's hand she lifted her own and flicked on the comm.
-{}-
"Our sons are in danger," Marasiah said. "Your mother too."
It shouldn't have relieved him like it did. "They're alive? You're sure?"
"Yes. Other Jedi are dying, Davek. They're being killed."
"Stormtroopers."
"More. I felt Sith."
The word made his chest tightened. He knew what Sith had done in Senex-Juvex all those years ago. He'd half-suspected the Sith were behind the wild raiders' attacks. Somehow, stupidly, he'd never expected them to be working with Veers. The man's evil had always been more obvious and more banal. He should have known better; Palpatine himself had been a Sith and of course his kind wouldn't leave the Empire alone.
"Understood," Davek said. "Stand by to launch."
The second the flicked off the comm Korak, hovering at his shoulder this whole time, said, "Admiral, are you sure about this?"
"The Jedi are being killed down there," Davek waved a hand at the planet below. "Other citizens almost certainly are too."
"If we launch TIEs and landing craft, Veers' men will shoot them down."
"They'll try. We'll defend our people."
Korak reached out, grabbed his shoulder. "Sir, we're talking about Imperial soldiers killing each other."
"People are already dying."
"But this-" he struggled for words. They were at the brink of something no one could wrap his mind around.
"Do you want to live in the kind of Empire Veers is making?" he told Korak. "This isn't just about my family. We have to choose what Empire we want, right now."
He realized the truth as he said it. For eighty-eight years the Empire had muddled on without its emperor, struggling for a direction with no one able to provide something absolute. His father had tried; he'd lived and died trying but the state he'd sought to make was still an Empire with an emperor, a crippled and questioning shadow of what it had once been.
There was only one way out, and only one answer to that question. He saw it clearly, felt revelation's awful weight, and knew what had to be done.
He marched over the comm station and asked for a broadcast to all ships. When the lieutenant gave him the signal he raised his voice.
"All ships, prepare to launch TIE fighters and landing craft on my order. Captains, keep your shields at full and prepare targeting solutions on the nearest hostile ship. All TIE fighters are to be weapons-free at launch." He knew the honorable, moral thing would be to not fire unless fired on, but waiting for the first shot could cost crucial seconds and crucial lives. The hostile TIE fighters were within firing range of Davek's fleet but the bigger destroyers were a few minutes out of range; in that short time Davek could cripple or destroy all the hostile pickets before they did much damage.
Then the comm officer frowned and said, "Admiral, we're getting a hail from Tempest, top priority."
If Renwar wanted him now it had to be urgent; he told the other ships to stand by to attack then signaled the comm officer to chance freqs. When the new line clicked on he said, "Farl, make it fast."
For a drawn-out second there was no reply; then she spoke, voice heavy, and with her first sighing breath he knew what she'd say.
"Admiral Fel, I cannot countenance this action."
"Farl, we can't-"
"Corrien Veers is the elected Head of State. I won't fire on Imperials acting under orders from the legal government."
"Listen-"
"Sir, I can't let you start a war."
"The war's already started. People are dying on Bastion."
"Jedi, not our soldiers."
"Both. And those Jedi are born-Imperials. They're patriots. Dammit, we don't have time to argue."
"I'm sorry, sir." Her voice trembled just a little. "If you launch assault teams my ships will have no choice but to fire on yours."
He looked at the holo; Renwar's three destroyers were edging closer, out of the rear position he'd assigned them. In less than two minutes they'd be within firing range of Davek's main line. Five minutes after that Invincible would be ready to bring down everything it had.
Davek snapped his fingers; the comm lieutenant killed the transmission and Davek spun on Korak. "Get to tactical. Tell all ships Tempest and its flankers are now hostile targets."
His jaw dropped. "But Renwar-"
"Do it, Captain! Have Maelstrom and Conqueror turn around and prepare to engage her ships. Comm! Get me a line to all ships except Renwar's!"
The lieutenant's hands shook as he worked the console. Korak hurried for the tactical station. Turning two destroyers to brawl with Renwar's three was all he'd be able to manage; once Sentinel got close to the battle their ships and their crews might be forfeit.
Assuming they chose to fight for him. Assuming anyone did. He'd trusted Renwar implicitly because she was a Voidwalker, the same reason Major Briggs had trusted his old sergeant. Malkin had clearly been loyal to Veers from the start; Renwar had just broken under the weight of her conscience. They were different but the same; friends turned enemies in a broken Empire.
There would be a lot more of that soon.
He glanced out the viewport at the planet below, at the drift of clouds that obscured his mother, his sons, the city where he'd grown up. "All loyal ships, this Admiral Fel," he began. "You have your orders from a minute ago. Every word still stands.
"All fighters and landers away. All ships-" he took a breath, then stepped over the edge. "Open fire."
And he watched from the front of the bridge as hundreds of TIEs and assault shuttles began to gush out toward the planet below. The deck shuddered softly beneath his feet as distant guns thundered to life. Far away explosions sparked, the first fires of an Empire at war with itself.
