The shimmering blur of violet and scarlet assaulted Luke with the fury of a midsummer hurricane in the oceans of Naboo. His turquoise blade flashed frantically back and forth in front of him to keep the onslaught at bay, and even with the Force as his ally his defenses barely held.
One brief glance into Mara's eyes revealed that she had given herself over to Vaapad.
Luke swung with all his strength to smash away both of her lightsabers at the same time. He pressed out with the Force and sprang into a high twisting back flip that brought him down again a few meters away from her. He set his feet and readied his blade, and hoped for a reprieve.
"Please, Mara," he said. "Stop this. Let go of your anger. You don't want to leave everything you love behind. I don't believe that you do."
She slid her pair of blades into an attack position again, but she stayed where she was. "How dare you tell me what I want, after what you've done to me?"
"I never meant to hurt you."
"Sure. You can say it all you want, and it still won't be true. You're a liar. A liar and a thief."
"A thief?"
"A thief."
Luke's danger sense spiked again. "What did I take from you, Mara? Tell me. Please."
She looked away, and shook her head. "You took everything."
"I don't understand."
"Of course you don't!" She looked back at him, and her green eyes were blazing with a fiery hatred he'd never seen before, even in the eyes of the Sith he'd fought. "It just proves you don't really know me. You don't really love me. If you did, you'd understand."
At her words the hollowness that had been building in his gut rocked his spirit to its core. "I love you and you love me. Everything of yours I have, I have because you gave it to me willingly, because of our love. That is the truth."
Her lips curled into a grim scowl. "My heart. My body. My soul. I gave it all to you. And what did I get in return? Your body. Your heart – or at least enough of it to keep you from betraying me."
"Yes," he interjected to be sure she knew the truth. "No one but you. Only you since Tatooine. I promise."
For an instant something inscrutable flickered across her face. "But you never gave me your soul," she continued. "Not really. You never gave yourself completely as I did. You had no right to accept my soul, if you couldn't give yours in return. You're a thief."
Luke nodded. "You're right. Until now I never surrendered my soul to you. You're right about that. But I'm here now, Mara. That's why I'm here, don't you see? I'm here to fix what I've done wrong."
"It's not enough," she said. "It's too late to fix this."
"No," he said. "It's never too late."
"Yes, it is," Mara spat. "That's the other thing you stole from me. The other thing you don't understand."
Luke knew she was about to attack him again, but he held his ground. "You're right."
"You can say you're here to fix this, to make things right. But I can't trust you. I can't believe in you. You stole my trust and my faith. I can't believe in you. I can't believe in anyone but myself, ever again."
"Mara, I –"
"No!" She strode forward until their blades were only centimeters from colliding. "When Anakin… When he gave himself over to the darkness, I was there. I was at his side. I watched him abandon everything he'd ever taught me, everything he'd ever said, all his vows and promises to Padmé and to me. I felt him choose to break all the most sacred bonds in his life, and for what? For nothing!"
Luke nodded once, and waited.
"If he'd done that to save me, or to get to Bryon, or… I could have understood that. It wouldn't have made it right, but I would've understood." Mara blinked, and single tear traced down her cheek. "But it was for nothing. Nothing! It gained nothing, and cost everything. He betrayed me. The one person I should've been able to believe in, no matter what. Always. And it was as if I wasn't even there. He didn't even care what he did to me. He didn't care how much he hurt me. He… broke me."
"And then I did too," Luke said. "When you needed me most of all, I pushed you away."
She laughed. "I hope someday when you're a Jedi Master your wisdom moves at a faster pace than this."
"I'm sorry."
"Sorry doesn't give me back what you stole! Sorry can't make me trust you. Sorry can't make me believe in you. Sorry is worthless. Worthless!"
"I risked so much to find you, Mara," he said. "Our mission… I endangered the mission when I left them all behind to save you. Because you needed me. Because I can help you. Because I don't want anything else in the galaxy except to be with you. Hold onto me, Mara, and I'll never let you go again."
For just a moment she hesitated. "No. I don't believe you."
"I'm not lying," he insisted. "I know you can sense that."
She blew out an infuriated hiss. "I believe you, but I don't believe in you. If I trust you now, you'll just betray me later. You'll just cast me aside like Anakin did, and destroy what's left of me. I can't let you do that."
"You're wrong. I'll never hurt you that way."
"It doesn't matter what you think you'll do, or won't do. I'm better off alone. I know that now. I don't need Anakin. I don't need you. I don't need anyone but myself. Now get out. You're not going to change my mind."
"No, Mara. You don't have to be alone. You never have to be alone again. I'm not afraid any more. You can believe in me, and we'll never be alone."
"No. Get out!"
Luke prepared for inevitable. "I'm not leaving, Mara. I'm not leaving without you."
And once more she attacked.
---
With quick strides Anakin surged forward to meet the approaching Sith Master. Their blue and red blades smashed together three times to start the duel.
Vengous took a few steps to her left, and swung another strike.
Anakin parried it with a twist of his wrists, and matched her movement to keep his body between his enemy and Padmé, who stood a few meters behind him. Through the Force he could sense Padmé trying to find a way to score a blaster hit on Vengous, and he could feel Nyklas' anxiety slowly building as the infant perceived his grandmother's fear.
His enemy slid to her left again, and attacked with an intricate pattern of arcs and slices.
Anakin snapped and rolled his blade to defend the barrage, and once again he matched her positioning.
Vengous swung high, then low, then high again.
He slapped the blows away, then took the offensive. He slid his turquoise blade around another strike from Vengous' scarlet laser sword and danced his weapon through a vicious Vaapad maneuver.
The Sith Master met him swing for swing, her red blade carving a mesmerizing swath of color through the air to deflect each attack in turn.
Anakin took a long stride toward her and unleashed an even more powerful series of blows, building one upon the next to gradually bring her defenses out of position.
But Vengous was worthy of her status as a Master, even a master of evil. Her face betrayed no concern or doubt as she fended off the entire barrage.
With a swift parry and roll of his wrists Anakin spun away from her counterattack and took the offensive for himself again. He swung low, then high, then across her body.
Vengous blocked him, and their blades screeched as she pinned the weapons to the side.
Anakin felt Padmé's intention the instant before the ringing retort of blaster fire sounded behind him.
The blaster bolts whizzed past his shoulder – and missed Vengous, who with a simple twist of her torso had evaded the shots.
Anakin freed his blade and swung for his enemy's leg, but yet another parry thwarted him. Through the Force he sensed Padmé's dismay at her inability to get a clean shot, and more so her resignation that Vengous would block or avoid the shots regardless. Padmé slid her blaster into its holster and started plotting. Anakin couldn't help but smile – she really was a fighter, and it was one of the things he'd always loved most about her.
Suddenly Vengous counterattacked once more, her scarlet lightsaber pounding relentlessly into his parries.
Anakin let the Force guide his hands, and he kept all the attacks at bay. It wasn't easy, but he wasn't outmatched either. At least not yet.
Vengous continued her ferocious onslaught. Each strike tested Anakin's defenses and every blow was more aggressive than the last.
He took a single step backward, set his feet, and looped his wrists into a difficult cross-handed parry. It gave him the positioning he wanted, and in the next heartbeat Anakin trapped his enemy's lightsaber against his and began to wrench their weapons up and over their heads in a complete arc. The energy blades screeched and spat sparks as he drove them back down toward the floor.
The laser swords hissed and whined when they collided with the ferrocrete floor of the docking bay. Anakin didn't hold the pin, though, but instead rolled his wrists to free his blade and lunged in a spearing blow toward Vengous' undefended chest.
The Sith Master sprang backward into a high twisting flip that brought her down nearly ten meters away. She set her feet and flicked out her left palm.
An invisible wave of power surged outward, and instantly the Force told Anakin it was aimed not for him but for Padmé. He flicked out his left hand in turn and countered the oncoming blast of kinetic energy with an opposite one of his own. His arm shook from the violence of the collision, and the Force boiled and swirled with the effects of their concentration. After a long heartbeat the waves of power dissipated, and Anakin lowered his hand.
Vengous narrowed her eyes, but didn't say a word.
Anakin's awareness in the Force showed him where Padmé was, and he deliberately took a few strides backward to provide a better shield from the inevitable next attack.
Vengous narrowed her eyes even further, until they were almost closed. Still she stood in place without moving, without speaking.
Anakin felt the Force churning around him like a devastating summer sandstorm sweeping across the deserts of Tatooine. His enemy's intentions were obscured by the power of the dark side burning within her, but the frenetic currents of the Force left no doubt she was about to attempt something.
He got his answer when he heard Padmé's yelping gasp behind him. He looked back over his shoulder to see her clawing at her throat with her bare hands, trying to break an invisible stranglehold. Her face already was flushed red and her wide eyes were full of fear, pleading for help.
Anakin closed his eyes and pressed outward with the power of the Force. He wrapped his strength in the light side around Padmé and blasted his focus at her neck. For a moment a malicious barrier obstructed his path, but a fierce burst of his concentration smashed it to pieces. Like a flock of birds scattered by a roving predator, the evil might of the dark side released its grasp on Padmé's throat.
He spun around to face Vengous again and saw that the Sith Master had used the opportunity to close half the distance between them.
"Well done, Skywalker," she said. "You will indeed present as great a challenge as I had anticipated."
Anakin scowled. "You will underestimate my powers to your detriment, I can assure you of that."
"Oh, no, Skywalker," Vengous replied coolly. "I will make no such mistake as Sidious did."
"I'm delighted for you."
"No doubt you are." Vengous took another stride forward. "Let us see who is the more powerful."
Even before the attack began Anakin snapped out his left hand again and stretched out with the Force. An instant later crackling blue currents of Force lightning erupted from his enemy's left palm and arced straight toward Padmé and him. Just as he had during his first confrontation with Vengous on Naboo a year ago, Anakin sharpened his focus and drew all the deadly electricity toward his bare hand. The dark lightning swirled and hissed in a tight ball just beyond his grasp, and with a flick of his wrist Anakin directed the energy to arc upward to the ceiling of the docking bay high above them, where it dissipated among the metal rafters.
Vengous grinned at him, and took yet another stride forward.
Anakin knew the Sith Master hadn't expected that attack to work. She wasn't trying to defeat him – not yet.
No, she was sending him a message. A message he understood loud and clear.
Vengous was a Sith. The Master of the Sith. She had access to dark arts beyond Anakin's worst imaginations. Not only that, but she would not hesitate to use them to defeat him. She would use the Force for attack, for aggression, to destroy. She was the antithesis of a Jedi, and she had no conscience to restrain her. Her goal was simple, and she would use any and all possible means to attain it.
Anakin, on the other hand, was a Jedi. The Chosen One. A child of prophecy destined to bring balance to the Force. A Jedi Master. For over three decades he had been taught, and had taught others in turn, to use the Force for knowledge and defense – for duty. In the face of the diabolical abilities of the Sith he could respond only by blocking those efforts and striving to slay his enemy without succumbing to the temptation to use the powers Vengous could wield so effectively against him.
In a contest of power in the Force, a Jedi could not prevail – he could only survive.
And in a contest with blades Anakin was at an impossible disadvantage. He had no doubt he could triumph in a simple duel with the Sith Master, one on one with no distractions. But there were distractions – two unforgettable distractions. Padmé and Nyklas.
That was the message of his enemy's lackadaisical attacks with the Force so far, and her strides toward him with scarlet blade at the ready. Anakin could not hope to win this way – not dueling Vengous while protecting his beloved and his grandson from the deadly powers of the Sith.
Unless he moved the pieces on the dejarik board, and fast, he would lose.
He was certain of it.
Anakin retreated rapidly until he felt Padmé reach out her hand and press it to his back.
"Go to the X-Wing," he ordered without looking back to face her. "I'll cover you."
"No, Ani," she said sharply. "I won't leave you!"
"You must," he said.
Padmé hesitated.
"Nyklas," he said simply.
Her hand pressed harder into his back. "I understand."
He glanced quickly over his shoulder and met her gaze. "Are you ready?"
Padmé nodded once.
"I will protect you," Anakin said, facing Vengous again. "Take the X-Wing and go."
Padmé removed her hand from his back, and in the Force he felt her steel her resolve to save their grandson even as her heart broke with anguish at the thought of leaving him behind. Anakin took a deep breath, and prepared to charge Vengous with Force-powered speed.
"Run," he told his wife. "Run! Now!"
---
Leia glanced over at Winter. "Are we almost there? We don't have much time."
"Don't worry," the white-haired intelligence agent said. "We'll make it."
Leia frowned. "I just want this place blown up – and now."
"Stay cool, Princess," Han said, flashing her a lopsided grin. "I've got it all under control."
No sooner were the words out of his mouth than they turned a corner in the hallway to see three Vyhrragian officers in gray uniforms coming from the other direction.
The officer in the middle saw them first. "What the –"
Han's shot cut him off in mid-exclamation, and Winter's shot took down the one on the left. Leia took aim and fired at the third – but not before he'd reached down to his belt for his comlink and screamed a frantic warning in the planet's native tongue.
The ringing echoes of their blaster fire faded, and immediately the piercing alarms began to blare.
"Guess they know we're here now," Lando said.
"I knew this easy stuff was too good to last," Han muttered.
"Right," Leia said. She looked up at Han. "I thought you said you had this under control?"
He grinned at her again. "Oh, I still do, sweetheart. Like I always say – too easy is no fun."
---
Danaé was almost to the auxiliary control room when the alarms went off. She powered her feet with another burst of the Force and charged ahead. She rounded the corner of the hallway to see the open portal to the control room only ten meters away – and its large blast door already was lowering rapidly from the ceiling.
With a tremendous headfirst lunge Danaé dove forward and tumbled smoothly beneath the thick metal door in a green-and-brown blur just before it slammed to the floor. Immediately she sprang to her feet inside the control room and ignited her emerald lightsaber.
The distinctive snap-hiss of the weapon activating instantly drew the attention of the dozen enemy officers packing the room. Her startled opponents still had the composure to draw their sidearms and take aim at her, though. Not that she'd really expected them to just give up, even to a Jedi.
"Surrender," she said in a quiet, unnerving voice. "You can't win."
"Not a chance," said one of the officers. Even before he squeezed his trigger the Force told Danaé his intention.
Her thrumming blade hardly moved in her right hand, and the single blaster bolt flew straight back at the shooter and struck him squarely in the chest.
Danaé took a quick, deep breath to settle her emotions while the body thumped to the floor. "Surrender. Now."
Another gray-clad officer raised his pistol – and Danaé flicked her left wrist to yank the weapon from his grasp, then sliced the pistol in two in mid-air.
"Put down your weapons," she said. "Please."
This time the officers obeyed, and ten pistols clattered to the floor. And she hadn't even had to resort to mind compulsion.
"Which station controls the signal jamming?"
One of the officers – the youngest, she thought – stepped forward and pointed. "This one," he told her.
Three long strides brought Danaé to the computer station, and she used a single two-handed, overhead cleave to destroy it. She looked back at the young man. "And the other?"
The boy gulped. "What?"
"I can tell when you're lying," she said flatly. "Which other station?"
"That one," he replied, pointing again.
"Thank you," she said, and demolished it too. She turned to the boy again. "Open the blast door."
He nodded, walked quickly to the wall panel, and tapped in a code. With a hiss and a squeal the door slid upward.
Danaé strode to the open doorway, then looked back over her shoulder. "I suggest you remain here until they come for you," she told the officers. "If you surrender, your lives will be spared."
She stepped through the open portal into the corridor, and tapped the same code the boy had used into the wall panel on her side of the door. In a heartbeat it slammed down again, and Danaé plunged her blade into the panel. When the shower of sparks confirmed the electronics were destroyed she deactivated her lightsaber and ran off down the corridor to find Leia and her friends.
---
Over the sounds of the raging firefight in the clearing Bryon almost didn't hear his comlink beeping. He snatched it from his belt and held it up to his ear. Sure enough, the jamming was gone. He flipped a switch and clipped the device to his fatigues just below his chin.
"Status report, Beta squad," he said while still shooting at the twelve brownshirts still advancing on Sarré and him. "Where in the blazes are you?"
"Almost there, General," came the immediate reply. "Don't worry."
"Don't worry? You're not the ones getting shot at, Lieutenant."
"Not yet, sir."
Bryon laughed. "Roger, Lieutenant. Delta squad?"
"Two minutes away, sir," replied the next lieutenant.
"Gamma squad?"
"Objective reached at mark oh-two-oh, sir," the final lieutenant said, and simultaneously Bryon heard a noticeable increase in blaster fire from the opposite side of the generator building.
"Defend and reinforce your location, Gamma," he ordered. "Delta, mark two-eight-oh. Beta, mark one-nine-oh."
After his subordinates confirmed their instructions, Bryon took a deep breath. "Status report, Alpha squad."
Eight of his twelve squadmates checked in. Better than he'd expected. "Copy, Alpha squad," he said. "Colonel, can you hear me?"
"Roger, Skywalker," said the rebel leader's voice. "Holding positions. That's the best we can do. I'm sorry."
"Copy, Colonel." Bryon took another deep breath, and flicked off the comlink. Eleven brownshirts now.
Sarré looked up at him. "Well?"
"Not good." He fired. Ten remaining. He looked down at her and shook his head. "Not good at all."
---
Will Graff tapped the comlink control button at the base of his helmet. "Why haven't we deployed yet?"
"In case you've forgotten, I'm not omniscient," Cerule Starblaze hissed.
"Hey, I'm just asking," he shot back defensively. "Keep your pants on."
"For you, Graff, always."
Will only shook his head, and tapped the button again. "What's the delay, Admiral?"
"The shield's still up," Mirkalla's voice said through his earpiece. "And we're only at sixteen minutes on the countdown right now."
"We should launch anyway," Will said. "We'll be that much closer to the planet when the shield drops."
"Graff is right," Starblaze added quickly. "Let's launch."
In his shock at the miracle of her agreement with him Will missed the first part of Mirkalla's response, but he pulled himself together in time to hear Captain Antilles and Captain Fel confirm that the landers' starfighter escort was in position for the descent and Mirkalla give the order.
"Thank you, Admiral," Will said. "You won't regret this."
"May the Force be with you, Major Graff," Mirkalla said. "And with you, Major Starblaze."
Even before they'd double-clicked off the feed in acknowledgement, Will felt the rumbling of the repulsors that meant his lander was lifting off in the destroyer's docking bay. After a few seconds the inertial compensator kicked in, and he and his troopers sat back for the short trip down to the planet.
His helmet comlink clicked on again. "Will, it's Wedge. You sure about this?"
"We are."
"If that shield doesn't go down, you're done for in those landers. You'll never make it back to the fleet."
"I understand that," Will said. "Don't worry, our friend is down there. He'll have that shield down on time."
Starblaze's voice chuckled grimly. "Or this'll be the shortest offensive of all time."
---
Padmé ran as fast as she could toward the single maroon-and-white X-Wing a few dozen meters away across the docking bay. Abruptly the wide hangar doors began to creak open slowly, and she knew Anakin must have found a way to activate the controls with the Force. It had been a long time since she'd flown an X-Wing – since the rescue mission to Xixus a year and a half ago, in fact – but this time would be no test of skill or finesse.
She just had to get away.
Padmé had covered nearly half the distance to the starfighter when she heard Anakin's sharp shout.
An instant later she felt herself shoved fiercely to the side as if by the push of a powerful pair of invisible hands – and a crackling arc of blue lightning tore through the space where her body had been a split-second earlier.
She landed hard on her knees and hands, and the extra weight of Nyklas on her back drove her even harder into the ferrocrete floor. She winced at the stinging pain, but clenched her jaw and sprang to her feet again.
She glanced back to see Anakin and Darth Vengous engaged in a blistering lightsaber duel. The blue and red blades sliced and arced with blinding speed, and the screeches and clashes of the colliding energy blades echoed throughout the cavernous docking bay around them. It was as quick and as violent a battle as Padmé had ever seen – faster and more intense than any sparring match with Obi-Wan or Mara. It was frightening in its ferocity.
Padmé turned around and ran toward the X-Wing again. She wanted more than anything to help Anakin somehow, to find some way to assist him. But she had to protect Nyklas – that duty was even more important. So she ran.
She was close, so very close, when she heard a tremendous roar of ripping and tearing metal. She looked to the side to see the docking bay's refueling arm break away from the wall and hurtle straight at her.
Padmé tried to scream, and again her voice froze in her throat.
The massive chunk of metal pipes seemed to fly in slow motion as it bore down her. A million thoughts raced through Padmé's head at once, and the only one that mattered was that she wouldn't get to say goodbye to Anakin or their children. She didn't even have time to close her eyes as the refueling arm arrived to take her life.
But it didn't.
Impossibly the twisted mass of metal pipes spun away at the very last possible instant. The edge of one of the torn pipes smacked violently into her forehead, and she felt the sharp, jagged metal slice along her skin. Somehow the rest of the refueling arm flew past without touching her.
Padmé's eyes followed the projectile as it spun across the docking bay. Anakin stood with his left arm extended, yanking the refueling arm toward him with the Force.
Just as he parried away another strike from Vengous' scarlet blade the heavy debris careened past him and smashed him on the arm. Anakin stumbled, and immediately a crimson stain began to spread along the sleeve of his tan Jedi robes.
Anakin would do anything to make sure she and Nyklas got away.
Padmé knew she had to succeed.
She was just about to run for the X-Wing again when the full effects of the blow to her head filled her mind with a throbbing, overwhelming pain. Her vision blurred and her head sagged. Her stomach roiled and her legs wavered.
Padmé took a step forward – and fell to her knees.
---
Luke ducked beneath the first strikes, violet blade slashing in behind scarlet. He rolled to the side and sprang to his feet again, and snapped his wrists to bring his turquoise laser sword around to parry the next attack.
Mara reached him in a single bound and swung the red blade high and the other low.
Somehow he managed to deflect the path of the violet lightsaber enough to keep it from severing his legs at the knees, then whipped his weapon around into a smashing block against the thrumming energy blade headed for his throat. A long stride backward bought him a second to regroup.
She paused for a moment, readying the pair of weapons in her hands.
Luke knew he had to find some way to pierce the shroud of darkness enveloping her. He couldn't perceive her intentions or emotions. He couldn't reach out to her through the Force; behind the mists of hate and anger her presence was elusive and indistinct. He couldn't overpower her and break her will. His only hope was to talk to her, reason with her, and rely on his faith that she was not yet too far gone to listen.
Mara lunged forward suddenly and unleashed another onslaught of devastating blows. Her blades were a brilliant haze of color that struck again and again at him. Not sparring blows. Not subduing blows. Mortal blows.
The Force alone guided his hands to parry the attacks. His wrists snapped and rolled and twisted and turned to keep his turquoise lightsaber in just the right place at just the right time to save his life. Only by millimeters did he evade the barrage.
Abruptly Mara's blades swung outward and then in again, closing on him from opposite sides like deadly pincers.
Luke threw himself face-first to the floor. It was the only way out.
Even as he spun over onto his back Mara towered over him, her scarlet blade slashing out to pin his turquoise weapon to the side and the tip of her violet blade poised at his throat.
Luke felt the drips of sweat running down his face, and swallowed hard. He had to find someway to reach her. He wasn't going to win this. It just wasn't possible. Only infrequently over the years had he been able to beat her in a sparring duel, and not a single time since his father had taught her Vaapad. And this was no sparring match. This was real. Terrifyingly, truly real.
"I said," Mara hissed, "get out. This is your last chance."
"You won't kill me," he replied, compelling the calmness into his voice. "You won't."
"Argis thought the same thing. Didn't turn out so well for him, did it?"
"I suppose not."
"So," she said in the new haunting, cold voice, "what's it going to be?"
And then, suddenly, he saw it. She might be blinded by her rage and hatred and he might be her opponent now, but she was still Mara and she still thought of him as Luke. He knew it was true because he saw the opening – the one that meant she didn't believe he would do whatever it took to save her.
But he would. He was going to save Mara or die in the attempt.
"I'm not leaving," he said, and in the same instant he slid his head along the floor away from the violet blade – and kicked up with his right foot with all the strength he had ever used to fight anyone.
Utter disbelief filled Mara's eyes as his boot smashed squarely into the center of her chest and sent her flying across the room.
---
Luke was on his feet by the time Mara landed with a resounding thump ten meters away. He took a moment to collect his thoughts and slow his pounding heartbeat. He reached out into the Force and drew on its soothing energy to calm himself. He cleared his mind and lowered his weapon, and waited.
Mara sat up slowly, then rose to her feet. The two bright energy blades remained ignited in her hands.
"I'm sorry, Mara," he said. "But you gave me no choice."
She began to stalk toward him again, and her eyes were as dark as a starless night. "You're going to regret that."
"No, I don't think I will."
"Oh, really?"
Luke nodded. "I'm not afraid any more, Mara. Not of you. Not of us. Not of anything."
"I'm delighted for you."
"You know I love you. Since… Xixus, I guess. When we first felt it. Since Tatooine, when we finally accepted it. I thought it was the beginning of the best days of my life, Mara. I did."
By now she stood only a meter away. She did not attack, but slowly she began to circle him with both lightsabers held ready to strike.
Luke kept his blade at his waist and pointed at the floor. "But then… Look what happened to the people I love, Mara. Think about it. Master Obi-Wan gave his life to save me because I was too weak to do what was right. My father failed. My mother took on a burden she didn't want, only to find she'd been betrayed just like you. Leia lost Han. Danaé killed Oga. Bryon almost died. It was too much to handle."
Something flickered across her face again before the fury returned. "I needed you then," she said. "I needed you more than I'd ever needed you before. And you needed me too. But you pushed me away."
"I did. It was wrong. I see that now."
"How wonderful for you. I don't care."
"But you do, Mara," he said firmly. "I know you do."
"I don't."
Luke pressed on with what he felt compelled to say. "When I thought about what happened, I thought it meant the Force had turned against us. All of us – the Skywalkers. I thought the Force wasn't with us any more. We'd all been hurt so much, lost so much. And I thought… I knew you'd be a Jedi Knight soon. You'd be free from being my father's apprentice. And when that happened you wouldn't be a Skywalker any more, and the Force would be with you again."
Mara's eyes narrowed. "You thought you were protecting me?"
"Yes. I thought that if I let you love me, I'd be dooming you to a life of misery and suffering."
"And you took it upon yourself to decide that for me."
"Yes, I did. I was wrong."
Mara snorted. "I don't need protecting, and certainly not from you."
"I know that now."
"So what's the point of this little confessional of yours?"
"I'm not afraid any more," Luke said, and the conviction in his heart rang out in his voice. "I'm not afraid of loving you. I'm not afraid of you loving me. I'm not afraid of the future."
"Right. You've mentioned that several times already."
Luke took a step forward, and extended his left hand to her. "I love you, Mara. I will always love you. It's you and only you for the rest of my life. I will love you no matter what the future brings. Unconditionally."
At his final word that flicker – was it fear? doubt? hope? love? – crossed her face again, and this time it lasted a moment longer than before. "No. It's too late. It's not enough. I'm better off alone."
"No, Mara. That's not true, and you know it."
"It's too late. Now go. Please. Don't make me kill you, Luke."
He smiled. The wall of hate had been breached. Now there was a chance. He knew that if he trusted in the Force, in himself, and in her, he really could win. "I won't fight you, Mara."
She readied her blades – and this time she hesitated.
---
Anakin stumbled backward a few more strides, and he barely held his footing as he spun around to face Darth Vengous. Simultaneously he surged the energy of the Force into his left arm to dull the pain and slow the bleeding from the deep wound slashed by the flying refueling arm. Across the docking bay the debris smashed to pieces against the wall.
"An admirable effort, Skywalker," his enemy said with a bemused grin. "But you cannot hope to prevail."
Anakin unclenched his jaw long enough to speak. "This isn't over yet."
"Oh, but it is," Vengous replied. "You have already lost."
"I don't think so," Anakin hissed, and he charged forward again.
A flick of her wrist and a blast in the Force stopped him in his tracks.
Vengous grinned, more darkly this time. "Everything that has transpired to bring about our confrontation here has done so according to my design. Everything that can result from this day of violence and war will lead to my victory in one way or another. Everything that occurs serves my purpose."
Anakin shook his head. "You won't fool me with your bravado, Darth."
"Nor me with your faith, Jedi."
Anakin glanced quickly over his shoulder. Padmé's was on her knees, struggling to stand. Her pale face was streaked with trails of blood dripping from a long gash on her forehead. Her plain white flight suit remained unblemished, and in the Force he could sense Nyklas' agitation from where their grandson hung snugly along her back in the green carrier. Padmé wasn't hurt badly, but he had come a split-second away from watching her die before his eyes. He couldn't let that happen. He had to think of something, and quickly.
When he looked back at the Sith Master, Vengous laughed. "You cannot save your family now, Skywalker. Each and every one of them is doomed."
Anakin narrowed his eyes and readied his blade, but did not say a word.
Vengous looked at Padmé behind him. "Your bold attack on Vyhrrag is lost. I foresaw your futile assault long before you ever ordered it. Your children on their mission to destroy the shield generator are walking into my trap. A battalion of my best troops awaits them. They will be destroyed."
"No," Padmé cried from her knees, still too dazed to stand. "No!"
"Oh, yes," Vengous said. "I'm afraid that even if you somehow escape me, you will never see them again. Within minutes, far from here, the blood of your sons and your daughters will stain the soil of Vyhrrag."
"You would be a fool to underestimate them," Anakin said. "They are far more resourceful than I."
"Perhaps," Vengous said. "But I am no fool."
"Your power is waning," Anakin said as calmly as he could. "I have felt it. Your defeat is already in motion."
Vengous laughed, a long and chilling chuckle. "Once again you are mistaken, Skywalker. For that waning only signals that my victory is at hand."
Anakin shook his head. "A dubious claim."
"Then allow me to explain," Vengous said. "You see, your young apprentice has taken it upon herself to hunt down and murder all of my acolytes."
"What?"
"Oh, yes. I thought you knew."
"You're lying!"
"No, Skywalker," Vengous said flatly. "I am not. Young Jade carries a deep anger in her soul. Begun in response to your actions, it now boils in ire at your imprudent son. When she accepted that anger, when she no longer fought against it, it opened her to the dark side of the Force. In her moments of greatest fury I have felt her attain glimpses of my design, and she has used those insights to wipe out my pupils. All of them."
Anakin felt his legs waver, but a quick deep breath restored his composure. "So you are the last remaining Sith? Perhaps you should not be so confident."
"The survival of my Order requires only one. Even now, young Jade fights a battle to the death against your son. She will strike him down. I have foreseen it. And when she does, she will be forever my servant on the dark side. She will become my next apprentice, and one day your grandson will be hers in turn. So you see, Skywalker, the Sith are far from defeated."
"Unless you fail to vanquish me," Anakin said. "The ways of the Sith must be passed down from one to the next. The holocrons are not enough to perpetuate your kind. If all living Sith die, your Order will be extinct forever."
"So you have indeed studied the ancient prophecies to their fullest," Vengous replied with a tip of her head. "Yes. That much is true. As with the Jedi, so it is with the Sith."
"It would take the powers of someone far stronger than you to annihilate every living Jedi," Anakin said. "You will never succeed."
"Not in my lifetime, perhaps," Vengous conceded. "But I need not see that victory for myself. For the prophecies foretell of your coming and your destiny. If I defeat you, here and now, then the ultimate triumph of the Sith is inevitable. Be it one fell swoop or decades is irrelevant. You – Skywalker, the Chosen One – you are the only one who can stop us. If you fail, then it is the Jedi, not the Sith, who shall be extinct for eternity."
Anakin stared hard into his enemy's eyes. "I will not fail."
---
Once again Admiral Mirkalla looked at the running countdown on the battle assessment table. Thirteen minutes.
The larger Republic fleet already was beginning to dominate the harried battle in space, but none of that would matter if the shield didn't fall. The Victory Strike plan depended on a rapid, massive invasion of the enemy capital. Waiting too long would create too grave a risk. It would give the Vyhrragians time to bring reinforcements into the system and would leave the invasion fleet vulnerable to failure – if not annihilation.
"We have another problem, Admiral," came Sergeant Brittin's anxious voice from her position at the side console. "A second launch from the hidden hangar."
Mirkalla clenched a fist against his chin. "More troop transports?"
"Yes, sir," she replied. "Five. And ten tankships with them. Headed straight for the generator."
"Five transports and ten tankships?"
"Yes, sir."
Mirkalla glanced over to her sharply. "If we can't get them help soon, it'll be a massacre down there."
Brittin nodded. "I know, sir."
---
Bryon blinked away the blurriness in his eyes from the chaotic skirmish in the clearing around the shield generator building. The darkness and gloom contrasted too sharply with the flames and the bright laser bolts, and his vision was paying the price. He could see another brownshirt moving toward the building well enough, though, and gunned the enemy down with three squeezes of his trigger.
Seven more left.
From her firing crouch below him Sarré fired a few shots too, and killed another brownshirt.
Six. Closing in fast now, but only six. Maybe they'd live through this after all.
Suddenly a new barrage of green laser fire erupted from the forest, across from their small alcove along the wall of the building. Bryon smiled at the sight of a dozen camouflaged Special Forces troopers bursting into the clearing with blaster rifles blazing. Most of them moved swiftly to engage the groups of brownshirts still trading fire with the rebels in the forest, but three of his troopers broke into a dead run straight toward him.
"Beta squad, reporting for duty, sir," said the welcome voice of the squad's lieutenant over Bryon's comlink.
Bryon flicked the device clipped at his throat to broadcast. "Copy, Beta squad. Deploy and defend."
"Roger, General."
Bryon gunned down another brownshirt. Five. "Gamma squad, maintain position. Delta squad, advance and reinforce Gamma when ready."
He already had flicked his comlink switch again by the time his subordinates confirmed the orders. He fired his blaster rifle. Four.
Bryon glanced out into the clearing and saw that the progress of the three Special Forces troopers headed his way had been halted by a firefight with some brownshirts. He and Sarré were on their own again. Not good.
He saw another of the oncoming enemy soldiers. He reacted instantly, and fired. The very next second Sarré fired at a pair of brownshirts, and he saw her bolts strike home. One.
One left. But where? Where?
Bryon's heart raced as he frantically scanned the clearing. Where was that blasted brownshirt?
His answer came in the form of a blaster bolt striking the wall only a millimeter from his shoulder – and a strangled yelp of agony at his waist.
Bryon's warrior instincts took precedence, and he wheeled around and shot dead the enemy soldier who had snuck up on their flank. Zero.
Bryon spun back to the alcove, and a terrible void engulfed his gut – a horrifying emptiness that froze his heart, stole his breath, weakened his knees, and shattered his very soul.
Collapsed in the corner against the walls, head slumped forward lifelessly, was Sarré's limp body. A single blaster shot was burned through her camouflage fatigues into the center of her chest.
Bryon didn't even feel the rifle fall from his hands – and didn't hear his own scream – as he staggered toward her.