Author's Note: This story takes place one month after my
other story, "Second Chances", but you don't have to read it in order to
understand this one. If you're
interested in how Jacen and Tenal Ka get together then you might want to read
it. This takes place after Vector Prime
but ignores everything else in the New Jedi Order.
Disclaimer: I don't own any of these characters (except
Xander Karsay) and I'm not making any money off of this.
There are a lot more chapters to come, so I'll
try to update on a daily basis. And of
course, reviews are always welcomed.
CHAPTER ONE
Xander
Karsay stood with his hands clasped behind his back, gazing intently out the
large oval window inside his private office.
For
the past four months, he had taken residence in this stronghold located
somewhere in the Outer Rim. When he had
first arrived, soon after waking up from an extensive coma, the place had been
nothing more than an abandoned warehouse, but through his own ingenuity and
private funds he had been able to turn it into so much more.
Karsay had been a student of Brakiss
during his time at the Shadow Academy.
He had never really understood his former master's devotion to his
Emperor and the Second Imperium. Karsay
himself had only joined the Shadow Academy when he had found out that his force
potential, if developed properly, would provide him with the ultimate power to
command his every wish and crush anyone who opposed him.
He was furious when Brakiss passed him
over for Darkest Knight, saying he had not yet developed the discipline
required of a fighter for the Second Imperium. Karsay would question his
master's authority every chance he got, and his hot temper had landed more than
a few trainees in the infirmary for an extended period of time. But he knew that was just an excuse for
Brakiss to give the title to his protégé, the street scamp, Zekk.
He never thought Zekk was deserving of
the title. Karsay never truly believed
the loner from the streets of Courscant had given himself completely over to
the dark side. He was weak, never
letting his anger take full control of his actions. Karsay had never trusted him, even after he had gone on a few
missions with him and Zekk had proved he was capable of carrying out his
master's orders.
It had turned out that he had been
right all along. Upon waking up from
his coma, Karsay had learned the so-called Darkest Knight Zekk, was nothing
more than a traitor. He couldn't handle
all that power and responsibility that the dark side of the force had to offer. Zekk had turned his back on the Shadow
Academy – and the Empire – begging the cowardly light side Jedi to take him
back.
The sudden insistent beeping of the
comm on his desk broke him away from his thoughts.
He flicked a switch. "What?"
He snapped, "I specifically left orders not to be disturbed.
There was a pause. The person on the other end was almost
certainly trying to come up with some excuse as to why their leader's orders
had not been followed.
"Master Karsay," the voice over the
speaker said at last, "I have the information that you wanted those smugglers
to find for you,"
"I see," Karsay said, calming down
considerably, "bring it in,"
"Yes, sir,"
Not more than thirty seconds later,
Karsay had a face to go along with the voice that had interrupted his
solitude. A nervous looking man in his
mid-twenties with curly black hair shuffled into his office. He stood silently at attention, waiting for
his employer to give him the order to speak.
"Well, what did you find?" Karsay growled at him.
"Sir, I did what you asked and hired
those men to find who you were looking for,"
"And?" Karsay prompted, growing
impatient.
"It's as you thought," the young man
began nervously, "he's still at Skywalker's Jedi Academy on Yavin Four,"
Karsay smiled coldly. "Of course he is, where else would he
go? Skywalker's the only one who would
take that pathetic coward in,"
The young man just nodded his head.
"You can go now," Karsay said with a
dismissive wave of his hand, "and pay those smugglers for their services from
my personal account,"
"Yes, sir," he said nodding his
head. He quickly turned and hurried out
of the room, glad that he was no longer needed.
Karsay wanted to laugh at the stench
of fear that was pouring off of him as he practically sprinted out of the
room. It gave him a sense of
superiority that all those who worked for him feared him. Karsay could not remember what the nervous
man's name was, but it was of no importance anyways. Karsay knew that the man he had hired to take care of all 'the
little details' would do his job without complaint, not wanting to upset his
master like the last person had. A few
hours in the torture chamber had straightened out Karsay's previous middleman
out. He remembered the screams could be
heard all the way up into this very room.
That was until Master Karsay had put him out of his misery, permanently.
Karsay walked back to the window, his
blood red cape flowing behind him. He
let out a satisfied smile as he crossed his arms over his broad chest, his
sleeves lifting up just enough to reveal an incredible looking tattoo on his
left forearm. The news he had been
given had invigorated him. He had been
unable to act out his revenge for the past two years because he had been stuck
in a coma that no one had ever thought he would wake up from. That was until six months ago.
He had spent two months just healing
and trying to get himself back into peak physical condition. When he left the medical facility, he came
to this out of the way planet and established his fortress. He recruited troops
to serve him and had spent every waking moment waiting for the day where he
would have his revenge on the one who had betrayed him all those years ago.
That day had come at last for the only
true Darkest Knight there ever was.
Zekk blinked back the burning sweat
that fell into his emerald eyes.
Breathing heavily, he shook his head to remove the strands of
almost-black hair that had come loose from his ponytail and fallen into his
face. Holding his flame coloured
lightsaber out in front of him, he waited patiently for his opponent to make
the next move.
His foe stood a few meters in front of
him, his shimmering green blade held in the same outright position as
Zekk's. He was drenched in sweat as
well, but the oppressive humidity of the jungles on Yavin Four did not seem to
affect him. His opponent let a lopsided
grin appear on his face and charged forward.
Their lightsabers clashed together,
letting a shower of sparks plummet onto the flat jungle ground. Zekk pushed his blade forward, trying to
find an opening in his opponent's attack, but he would not give Zekk an inch.
Parry. Thrust. Block.
It went like that for some time, and
eventually Zekk lost track of how long they had been going at it. He was so intently focused on the battle in
front of him that nothing else seemed to matter.
The quickness of his opponent's
thrust, after diverting the last blow Zekk's blade had delivered, caused Zekk
to stumble back momentarily. But that
was all his foe needed.
In a blur of motion, he lifted himself
over and behind Zekk, so that when Zekk regained his balance and went to swing
his blade, there was no one there. Zekk
could hear the buzzing sound of his opponent's blade behind him, and knew he
was caught. One swing of his opponent's
blade and it would be all over for him.
"All right," Zekk said, shutting off
his lightsaber, "you beat me,"
Behind him, his opponent powered down
his own blade.
"Can I have that in writing?" Said Jacen Solo.
Zekk turned around to face him, and in
a joking voice said, "your sense of humour will be your undoing,"
Jacen just laughed.
"Seriously, though, you've gotten
better since the last time I faced you," Zekk complimented.
Jacen merely shrugged. "I've been practicing a lot more,"
"He's been trying to impress Tenal Ka
with his swordsmanship abilities," came a new voice.
Jacen and Zekk turned to see Jacen's
twin sister and Zekk's girlfriend, Jaina Solo, emerge from the Jedi Temple and
onto the sparring area.
"That's real funny, Jaina," Jacen
replied sarcastically to his sister's comment, but was unable to keep his
cheeks from turning a light shade of red.
Jaina could not help herself from
smiling at her brother's embarrassment.
"Anyways," she went on, "the reason I came out here was to let you know
that the Rock Dragon just requested clearance to land,"
Jacen perked up. "Tenal Ka's back?"
Tenal Ka had spent the past two weeks
visiting with her clan on Dathomir. It
had been months since she had last seen her grandmother, the leader of the
Singing Mountain Clan, Augwynne Djo.
And in light of everything that had happened to Tenal Ka in the past few
months, with her failed marriage and public humiliation on Hapes, Jacen had
readily agreed and even encouraged Tenal Ka to take a break from everything, by
visiting the one place she truly felt was her home in the galaxy.
"Yeah, she should be landing in the
next fifteen minutes or so," Jaina told her brother.
"She wasn't supposed to be back until
tomorrow," Jacen remarked, running his fingers through his sweat-tangled hair
in an attempt to make himself look more presentable.
"Well," Jaina began, pretending to
walk back to the temple, "I could always use the comm and tell her not to come
until tomorrow – "
"No, I'm perfectly fine with her being
early," Jacen said quickly, putting his sister's thoughts to an end.
Jaina shrugged innocently. "It was just a thought,"
"And here's another thought," Zekk
said, eyeing his friend's outer appearance and wrinkling his nose, "if you
don't want Tenal Ka to get back in her ship and take off, you might want to
consider jumping in the 'fresher before you meet her,"
