The caravan of archaeologists, scientists, and mercenaries plodded deep into the mountains. The way was rough and uneven, and several of the hoversleds tipped over on the steep inclines, spilling equipment upon the rocks and forcing the team to delay their journey. Five days they lumbered along through the wild lands, ignoring the heat that grew to near-unbearable hellfire during the day and finger-numbing frigidness at night. Sometimes, they were caught in a sandstorm and had to drop behind ledges and boulders for protection. On those occasions, the caravan was stopped for long, tedious hours.
Angela spoke with Ooroosh often on the journey, gaining his trust and friendship. Though her initial impression of the Aqualish was that of slimy, filthy, gutter-bred rubbish, he turned out to be a grandfatherly figure with years of adventuring experience and a head full of stories. During the cold nights when she and Ran were sitting under the stars wrapped in a warm blanket, Ooroosh would join them and regale them with tales of his homeworld of Ando and the other planets he had seen in his many travels. Angela knew that Ran was a lover of stories and myths, and was not surprised when he and the Aqualish swapped tales long into the night, after she had taken to bed.
Angela was more interested in Ooroosh himself, and he obliged her curiosity with pictures and other mementos of his family: a wife, four daughters, and a family pet that looked something like a kath hound. "All four of my dear girls are married off now, like you, Callisto," the Aqualish told him with a mixture of fatherly sadness and pride. "They have their own tykes to take care of and have no more time for little old me. Oh, I visit them when I can, always with some gift or toy for the grandkids. But after they got their own families, we just grew farther and farther away. Makes me wish I'd been around them longer."
"What do you mean?" she asked, wanting to understand the source of his sadness.
"I've always been an adventurer, lass," he replied morosely. "I just can't help but get in trouble, seeking out that new relic or hunting down that exotic animal or dueling this or that top-notch gunfighter. Kept me away from my family, it did, and the tykes grew up without me. I didn't even notice it until it was right in my face—they got married and all I could do was see them off."
After that, Ooroosh spoke no more of his family. But his words left Angela feeling empty and cold. Her parents always doted on her, never let her go with wanting. But they were rarely around, embroiled in business and politics as they were. She developed her rebellious streak because they were never around, eventually left home because of it. Did she hurt them? Did she leave them as sad as Ooroosh? Did they regret not being there?
When she went to bed that night, she snuggled against Ran and said, "When this is over, I want to go home." Half-asleep, her lover mumbled an unintelligible grunt that she took to be an affirmative.
The night brought solace from soul-searching. The morning brought trouble.
At five days into their journey, the caravan was due for a delay of the most physical kind. One of the Al'wa brothers—Angela could not tell which was which—shouted, "Gundarks! To arms!" The caravan scrambled for weapons and cover as a horde of green four-armed humanoids lumbered over the rocks from all sides.
They looked like gundarks save for their insect-like heads and fearsome mandibles. With frightening speed, the predators clove through the ranks, their clawed hands tearing through metal, plastic, and flesh. Blaster fire scorched the air and the rocks, seared green hides, and elicited pained, animalistic screams.
Angela drew her blaster pistol and added her firepower to the fray. One of the creatures turned on her, charging with the might of a bantha. But she held her ground and refused to let even an ounce of fear show through her warrior's resolve. She spat bolt after bolt after bolt, each time splashing energy into the great beast's face. It fell dead only two steps away from her, but she did not bother to revel in her victory—more of the monsters were still running through the caravan.
"If only I could use my lightsaber," she muttered, spitting blaster bolts into the chest of another four-armed creature. It, too, collapsed against her onslaught. Another of the predators howled as one of its arms was burned off, courtesy of Ran's sharp shooting. He waved at her from behind the large corpse, which she returned heartily.
"Come, you mindless beasts!" came a shout. Angela saw the fringer, Desh, standing atop two of the creatures, his vibrosword in hand. Three more of the monsters rushed him, and she thought he would soon meet a grisly end. She brought her blaster to bear but found that it was not necessary. The predators fell away, their throats cleanly cut. Desh stood proudly, bathed in blood.
Below him, Angela saw another hard fight, but with much less fanfare. The Zabrak Kanig twirled his force pike with expert care, ending its motion by thrusting it deep into the gut of an approaching predator. It fell to join the bodies of its kin, another victim to the Zabrak's weapon expertise. When another of the beasts came up behind the unsuspecting mercenary, Angela let loose a stream of fire, dropping it in its tracks. Kanig looked surprised and then saw her. He smiled and waved his gratitude. Angela nodded and saluted him.
Then the battle was over. The horde was slain, with only a few of the creatures fleeing the field. Angela beheld the carnage in their wake. Easily half of the caravan's equipment and staff lay in pieces—some of them bloody pieces. The treasure hunt had claimed its first victims.
"Ow!" Kanig yelped as Ran tightened a bandage over the Zabrak's shoulder injury.
"Don't complain," the green-eyed Jedi told him coolly. "You're lucky that this is only a flesh wound. Some of those scientists weren't as fortunate."
"I know," the young Zabrak said, lowering his head. "I tried to protect them earlier, but I got separated when the fighting started."
Ran patted him on his good shoulder. "I'm not going to say that you shouldn't feel bad about this, but there was nothing you could have done if you were there. Those things tore right through us. One man alone wouldn't have been able to save those people. Look on the bright side—we routed the beasts and sent them packing. The other scientists are still alive, and so are all of us mercenaries."
"Still a heavy toll," Kanig whispered.
"Indeed it is," Ran quietly agreed. The young Zabrak was surprisingly compassionate for a mercenary. Ooroosh was right about this one, the Jedi Master thought. His heart isn't in this sort of work. "Come on, Kanig. We're taking point. Those scientists have gotten jittery after that last attack and they want all their firepower in front of them when they start going into the tunnels. Now buck up; you're a soldier. You got to earn your keep, as they say."
"I'll try, Terrik. Thanks." The Zabrak got up and strode forth.
The caravan had reached its destination only an hour after the attack. A great cave in the side of the mountain led deeper underground, into a system of tunnels. Even the cave itself held great historical import, for its walls and floor were hewn stone—hinting that some manner of civilized beings had taken the time to work the land to their desires.
Ran had explored some of the cave while the scientists prepared their gear. He had adventured in enough tombs and underground hideaways to know that they were usually cool and moist near the surface, growing increasingly drier as they deepened. But that was not the case with this cave. It was unusually warm, without a hint of moisture in the air. And he had sensed a presence, ancient and waiting….
Ran was not very strong in the Force. His greatest weakness was his general inability to detect the presence of life forms around him. Over time, his skill in related techniques had improved, but it was still inferior to what many other Jedi could accomplish. He usually only sensed the presence of truly powerful beings and the fact that he was sensing one somewhere in the cave or in the tunnels made him wary.
Angela walked up to him held his arm. "You feel it too," she said. She was far stronger than he was in the Force, he knew, and he trusted in her abilities.
"I can't tell if it is good or evil," he told her.
"I can't either. It feels like someone's mother waiting for her children to come back to her."
"Things begin to grow more complicated." Ran mused. "Look at it, Angela. LeFrein maintains martial law in order to secretly excavate something that radiates in the Force. A third party wants to keep the Jedi out of the picture by killing us. Incidentally, they implicate LeFrein as responsible, which in turn could draw the attention of the authorities, forcing them to put him down and close down his operations."
"It's a nice little package," Angela agreed. She looked at him slyly. "Since when did you grow a brain?"
"I didn't," he replied with a winning grin. "I'm borrowing Ascera's."
The two Jedi and the mercenaries led the way into the cavern system, the caravan following several meters behind. At Ran and Ooroosh's advising, the mercenaries would scout ahead in pairs. For the sake of security—and because he simply did not trust anyone as ruthless as Desh or as duplicitous as the Al'wa brothers—Ran paired up with Desh and had Angela pair up with one of the Al'was. Ooroosh was asked to keep tabs on the other Al'wa while Kanig stayed with the caravan. In this formation, Ran claimed, each pairing would have a long-range gunner and a short-range fighter. He hoped that none of the mercenaries knew that his distrust of them was the driving force of his commands.
The tunnels were intricate, dry, and assuredly manmade. Ran was no scholar or architect, but even he could judge the great age embedded in the hewn stone. Occasionally he saw scraps of durasteel or some other fabricated alloy suggesting advanced civilization. Those clues became more and more frequent the deeper they delved: eating utensils, scraps of decayed clothing, bits of bone. The Jedi Master had a feeling in his gut that something grave and terrible had occurred in the ruins, something that destroyed an entire underground empire.
The mercenaries passed the second level, descended into the sixth, and further on into the tenth. They came to the section of tunnels that had gone unexplored by the other excavation teams. It was here that they saw the remains of those teams. Blood splattered the walls red and equipment and sensor systems lay in shattered pieces. Ran saw Angela cover her mouth in horrified shock, for she had never seen such devastation. He was barely able to contain his disgust himself.
"Fan out," he told the mercenaries. "Let's see if we can't find whatever did this."
"Who died and made you boss?" Desh protested darkly, taking the safeties off his pistols.
The green-eyed Jedi turned on the fringer, reining in his own irritation at the pompous gunfighter. "Look, we don't have time to argue. Most of these bloodstains are only a few days old, but there are some fresher puddles over by that computer terminal. Whatever killed these men is still around here, probably with some survivors, eating them at its leisure. Which suggests, by the way, that it's intelligent enough to hoard food."
The gunfighter looked like he was going to say something insulting, but Ran merely leveled a hard green gaze on him. Desh backed down with a tight sneer. Trying to save face, he shouted at the Al'was, "Go check out the left corridor down there. Hurry it up!" The sneaky marksmen leaped to do his bidding, clearly scared of the deadly gunman's wrath. Desh stormed off to join them.
Angela walked up to Ran, keeping her eyes on the fringer. "That one will be a problem," she noted matter-of-factly.
"It can't be helped," Ran said. "He's good with those blasters. We'll need him. Angie, go run back to the caravan and bring Kanig and the scientists down here. I'll take care of whatever killed these men." The girl nodded and ran back up the tunnel system. When she had gone, the Jedi Master waved Ooroosh over. "My friend, how good a tracker are you?"
The Aqualish puffed out his chest. "This one can trail a kinrath spider in a snowstorm," he said proudly.
Ran clapped him on the shoulder. "Good, because I want to follow this beast. Tracks are old, but I'm confident that you can find it." The Aqualish nodded and the green-eyed Jedi shouted over to Desh and the Al'was, "Ooroosh and I are going to scout ahead. Secure this place and have the caravan come in after." The Bothans simply nodded but the fringer grumbled an angry reply, not keen on being ordered around. Ran let him be; there was no use wasting his energy on him.
With Ooroosh in the lead, Ran spent little time hunting the beast. An hour of winding through the tunnels brought them to a pair of battered bulkhead doors with one of the panels so heavily damaged that it was almost completely off its hinges. A looming opening allowed entry into the room beyond, which smelled of wet fur and blood. They had found the killer beast.
It was an enormous creature, easily big enough to fill the tunnels. Serpentine and aged, the monster resembled a cross between a rattlesnake and a lion with six legs, each ending in sharp claws. But its ferocity was caged by sleep, for it rested upon its belly with lidded eyes. Ran shivered as he beheld is raw power and majesty.
But then he saw the bodies beside it—dozens of corpses, taken from the excavation teams sent down into the tunnels. Most of the bodies were half-eaten, some with only an arm or leg remaining. Two long serpents scuttled through the pile of death. It was like a grotesque peep show, with the snakes sliding in and out of hiding. Ran tried not to gag.
"What do you intend to do, Terrik?" the Aqualish asked quietly.
"I don't know," he answered honestly. "I was going to try killing the thing so that it won't pose a danger to us, but it's apparently a mother. I'm reluctant to kill it on that principle. Is there any way to temporarily seal it in there?"
Ooroosh looked up at the ceiling and Ran followed his gaze. Cracks formed a haunting spider web of structural weakness above them. "A blaster won't do the trick," the Aqualish informed him with an expert's authority. "I've handled enough bombs in my time to know that we'll need something with a bit of package behind it. Or some consistent burst of energy."
The green-eyed Jedi smiled. "I can provide you with a consistent burst. Clear out of here, though. No sense in both of us getting caught in a mishap." The Aqualish was about to protest, but Ran insisted and he ultimately capitulated. Once Ooroosh was safely away—and out of sight range—Ran drew his lightsaber and stabbed its blue blade into the cracks.
In moments, chunks of rock fell in front of the bulkhead doors, sealing the great serpentine beast and its offspring within. The Jedi Master coughed as he breathed in dust and patted himself clean. The collapse had trapped the beasts, but the rocks were loose and easily removable. He nodded at a job well done.
Just then, Ooroosh, followed by Angela, Kanig, the mercenaries, and the caravan, came around the bend. Ran hastily hid his lightsaber. "The creature's been taken care of," he told them.
The caravan plodded onward, reaching the twelfth level before stopping for rest. As camp was made, Ran and Angela found time alone from prying eyes and ears. "We might have a problem," the brown-haired girl said ominously. "When I came back with Kanig and the caravan, I found the Al'was sending a coded transmission through their comlinks. I wasn't able to intercept it, though."
"Did you catch any of the code?" Ran asked.
"I wasn't able to get to my comlink's recorder in time. But it was a mix of Bothese and Basic."
"So they are feeding information to someone," he reasoned. "But who?"
"I'll keep on them, Master. Rest assured, I'll have something more substantial later."
"Good, keep me informed and stay discreet. And take Kanig with you. Somehow, I get the feeling that we can trust him." He quickly amended his orders. "But don't trust him too much. Keep him around as additional firepower in case things get rough."
"I will." With that, Angela went back to work.
Time became immeasurable the further they explored. When it seemed as if time stood still, the caravan came across a vast chasm with naught but a thin stone bridge leading across to the other wise, where a pair of iron doors sealed the way. Ran knelt by the edge of the chasm, brushing pebbles and sand aside. He had noticed correctly—there was writing beneath the dust. "Can anyone read this?" he asked aloud.
One of the scientists knelt by him with a datapad in hand. "Some dialect of ancient Massassi," he informed him.
Ran furrowed his brow. Massassi—the old keepers of Sith lore. Something down here, he realized with growing worry, was somehow connected with the dark side of the Force. He held back the urge to curse profusely and unconsciously clutched his prosthetic right arm. More than a decade ago, his last encounter with the Sith cost him his limb and almost his soul. He had no desire to face the darkness again.
"Can you read what it says?" the Jedi Master asked, dreading the answer.
The scientist nodded and read from his datapad, "'To those who would see the Fall of Empire, I offer you honor, glory, and deed. To those who do not fear death nor succumb to tire, I will fulfill your warrior's need. But first you must face the Trials of Earth, Blood, and Fire, or be destroyed by your own greed.'"
Ran grimaced. "That's bad poetry, but definitely gets the message across. Sounds like booby-traps from here on out." He turned to look at the caravan and the mercenaries. "Everyone keep an eye out for traps of any kind. Bombs, spikes—you name it, look for it."
Desh stomped up to him, poking him in the chest with the barrel of a blaster. "Look here, scuzzy, I'm not taking orders from you."
"You don't have to," Ran shot back, starting to lose his patience with the arrogant gunfighter. "But if you really want to be the first crossing that bridge, go right ahead. I'm sure you'll do us all a favor by setting off whatever traps are out there."
The fringer gave him a baleful glare, trapped by his own attitude and common sense. Ran knew his dilemma: back down and lose face or brave the dangers and possibly lose his life. Then he grinned rakishly. "Yeah, I'll go on ahead," he said to Ran's surprise. He boldly strode ahead of the caravan, both of his blasters out. Suddenly, he fired at the bridge, chipping rock.
The Jedi Master had to give the fringer credit; using his blasters as a mine locator saved everyone the trouble of looking for them, and if he set off a bomb, he had plenty of room to avoid the blast. The caravan shambled along, reaching the halfway mark of the bridge with Desh still in the lead.
It was silent except for the echo of the fringer's blaster rapport and the footsteps of the caravan members. Something felt odd about that—Ran tuned his senses outward, using the Force to amplify his hearing, tuning its ability to pick out specific sounds. The rapport and footsteps bounced off the ceiling, against a stalactite, down into the chasm, against a wall…Ran's eyed widened. The stalactite! He looked up and saw that it was shaking with every echo.
"Desh, everyone, stop!" Ran shouted, adding his voice to the gunfire. The fringer looked back at him curiously as he fired one last shot. In the sudden quiet, they could all hear the creak of stone. Dozens of stalactites fell from above, spears heralding doom.
Ran could feel Ascera drawing upon the Force, turning the deadly slabs of rock aside. He added his own strength to hers, wrapping his mind around them and hurling them into the chasm. But they could not stop all of them. The larger spears slashed into the bridge, weakening it and driving great gaps in the stone. "Everyone across! Hurry!" Ran yelled, grabbing onto Ooroosh and Kanig before leaping across the rapidly-decaying bridge with a Force-assisted leap. He watched in horror as Desh fell over the side and into the darkness below.
Ran landed by the iron doors, deposited his startled cargo, and turned to see Angela landing softly beside him with the Al'wa brothers in hand. But their deeds meant nothing as they watched the rest of the caravan plummet into the chasm. Not even Angela, strong as she was in the Force, could save them. The Jedi stood in helpless silence as the darkness swallowed their other companions.
Angela sat in silence as her Master examined the doors. She had a lot on her mind—watching so many people die at a stroke had unsettled her, reminded her of her own morality and, more importantly, her own weaknesses. She was a Jedi, the strongest that had yet lived, but she could not save them. The weight was too much for her to carry alone.
Their identities had been revealed—the surviving mercenaries knew they were Jedi now. They had awed Kanig, and he grew more respectful and fawning with each breath. Ooroosh had taken it in stride, merely shrugging as they reintroduced themselves with their true names. Nothing changed between them, the Aqualish had told them, for they had protected him and the others as well as they were able. Angela tried to believe that, but the only lives she had saved were the Al'was. They chattered to each other in some coded language that foiled her linguistic facility. They eyed her in askance, growing quiet whenever she looked at them. She could not help but feel she had jeopardized her Master's mission by making the Bothans suspicious.
Ran's voice broke her thoughts. "There's more of that Massassi writing," he told them, brushing aside dirt to reveal a line of hieroglyphs. "Don't have a clue what they're saying though. There doesn't seem to be any lock anywhere."
"Then we should just cut it down," Angela suggested, her hand going to her lightsaber. Ran drew his weapon and both ignited their blades. Green and blue started at opposite sides of the door, slowly slicing an opening in the thick iron. When the excised slab of metal fell away, the Jedi led the mercenaries through.
Beyond lay a circular chamber with a force field at the other end; what mysteries lay beyond that shimmering barrier? The chamber was unnaturally cold in the physical sense and in the spiritual. Angela recoiled as the dark side assailed her mind. She staggered, stumbling over her own feet, but Ran's sure hand steadied her as she regained her senses.
"I feel it too," he said simply, with the cool, collected manner of a Jedi Master. He turned to the mercenaries. "There is great evil here. Be on your guard."
"Aye, lad," Ooroosh acknowledged. He whispered to the others, "Feels like a graveyard in here."
"Master," Angela said as she forced herself to stride deeper into the abysmal darkness, "I feel it—the power in this place. It is like some black god with promises of reward. It is asking me to do horrible things!" Ran stopped and gripped her shoulder tight—with his right hand, she noticed. The hand he lost fighting the dark side.
"Do not fear, Angie," he said firmly. "This is the first time you've faced anything of this caliber. But do not give in to your fear. Trust in your skill and training." He looked ahead, toward the force field. "This is what we Jedi were born to combat. Here we will see the fruit of my experience and your study. Besides," he added with a rakish grin, "there's yet to be a challenge that could beat the two of us."
Angela took comfort in his confidence, no matter how much of it was bravado. Together, with the mercenaries close behind, the two Jedi walked up to the force field. Through the iridescent energy they could see a cloaked figure kneeling in the center of another circular chamber. Its back was to them, but they could sense its dark presence in the Force like a great void amidst light.
There were no controls of any sort on the force field, but the glowing barrier vanished for an instant. The figure stood to face them and doffed its cloak, revealing a wiry warrior garbed in the tight black fighting outfit of a martial artist. Instead of boots and gauntlets, he wore black wrappings. His skin was painted like a midnight sky, a black field streaked with reddish-gold in horrifying patterns, and his eyes—his glowing catlike eyes—were yellow slashes in pools of pure darkness. It held a lightsaber in its hand.
"Leave this to us," Ran told the mercenaries, who stood back in the antechamber. Ran and Angela crossed the threshold, the force field reappearing behind them with a hiss, trapping them in the chamber with the warrior. "He appears to be a Sith," Ran surmised.
Angela was not so certain. "Master, its markings are unlike anything in the records. This is no Sith, though he is obviously trained in their arts. And he does not feel evil as much as…elusive. A dark shroud over something. Master, he feels like he's guarding something."
The warrior raised his weapon in salute and spoke his first words to them. His voice echoed in the chamber, driving his words into Angela's heart, chilling her to the core. "You are correct, young Jedi. I am a guardian, trained and immortalized by the Sith to protect this place of power."
"You guard some manner of Sith treasure," Ran reasoned, igniting his weapon and assuming a defensive posture. Angela brought her own weapon parallel to her body, a neutral stance optimal for switching from attack to defense in a heartbeat.
"No, Jedi Master," the warrior declared. "I guard a threat to the Sith…and to all the galaxy. The Sith found it, the Jedi tried to destroy it. But when the Sith attempted to harness its power, they found themselves wanting. It almost eradicated them. In fear, they trained me to guard it, keeping it from the hands of those who would use it. I am not Sith, Jedi, or anything else save this—I am a guardian."
The warrior spun his lightsaber expertly, raising it above his head in the most aggressive of fighting stances. "You have found this place," he said solemnly, "therefore, you must die." He charged right at them, chopping hard. Angela went onto the offensive, parrying the warrior's blow and moving in for a riposte. Ran added his blade to the deadly dance, and soon three glowing beams of energy played an orchestra of combat.
Angela tried to thrust at the warrior's hip when the ground lurched, foiling her attack routine. The circular chamber was breaking apart, with concentric ring-like sections of the floor floating up into the air. The warrior had leaped onto the topmost of these elevating rings, with Ran on one of the lower rings in hot pursuit. Angela let the Force flow through her, giving strength to her legs as she propelled herself a ring below her Master.
She saw Ran hop up to the warrior's level, watched them duel across the thin circle of floor. Yellow sparks flashed where their blades connected. Ran locked blades and pushed down, leaving him room to punch the warrior in the face, knocking his foe down three rings. Angela let out a silent cheer as she rushed to intercept the warrior.
But her foe had already regained his footing, countering her flurry of slashes with puissant skill. She grunted as a violent wave of the Force struck her in the belly, sending her flying into the far wall. Pain wracked her body as she fell twenty feet to the bottom of the chamber. There was a crack; a rib jiggled in her chest. Despite the agony ripping through her, she forced herself to watch the battle unfold above her.
Ran had come down to the warrior's level, striking fast and hard. He had his enemy on the defensive; the warrior's parries were frantic and always half a step behind the green-eyed Jedi's attack. Only through luck and the Force did the red-bladed lightsaber block the blue. Angela felt hope rise in her—Ran would win!
But then the warrior spun away and kicked him in the face.
Ran stumbled, stunned by the unexpected blow. Angela, wounded as she was, could only watch in rapt horror as the warrior slid his blazing lightsaber into her beloved's back, the blade hissing out the front of his chest. Ran Tonno-Skeve fell from the rings, crashing onto the chamber floor with a sickening crunch.
"No!" Angela screamed. "No, no, no!" Disbelief melted into sorrow. Sorrow boiled into anger. Anger burned into hate. Hate raged into fury. She gave the warrior—the slayer of her friend, her Master, her lover—the most baleful gaze she had ever given any living thing.
With a Force-assisted leap, she met her murderous foe on the rings, her green blade slashing with all the dark energy she could muster. But somehow her anger could not win her victory. The warrior turned aside each blow, foiled every attack routine, countered every furious flurry. With every rage-inspired blow she threw, he advanced a step.
Then the red blade sliced her lightsaber clean in two. Her anger dissipated, and fear settled into her heart. She was at the warrior's mercy—and she knew with grim certainty that he had none.
She dodged his next slash, but it put her off balance and she fell. Again she struck the ground and again she heard a rib break loose. Renewed pain surged through her, blinding her, deafening her, leaving her completely vulnerable to the fearsome warrior that was—even now—leaping from the rings to impale her battered body upon his weapon.
But defeat was an enemy that Angela Marshair never acknowledged. Her vision cleared for a moment, and it settled upon her slain Master's lightsaber. It lay by his cooling body. Above was the warrior. Near Ran was her only means of victory.
The Force wrapped around the weapon and it slid into her waiting hands. Its blue light turned aside the red blade and a return swipe tore the life from her foe. The warrior fell away, its Force-immortalized body rapidly decaying as time caught up with it. By the time Angela set down the lightsaber, her foe was nothing more than dust and rags.
But her defeated enemy was not her main concern. She pushed aside the pain stabbing into her body and crawled to Ran's side, nestling his head in her lap and holding onto her shoulders and chest for dear life. The lethal wound—a black hole of charred flesh—gaped at her, and she knew that no amount of Force healing would save him. Tears streamed down her eyes in a torrential flood and sobs wracked her shoulders.
"Don't cry," Ran murmured, wiping away her tears with his fingers. "I'll be sad if you cry."
"How can you make jokes at a time like this?" she mumbled through her sobs. "You're dying!"
"Am I now? Heh. Doesn't feel terribly painful. I just feel like going to sleep."
"I can't believe you're making fun of your own death! You're incorrigible."
"Yeah, but if I were all wise and 'oh, I'll be one with the Force,' I wouldn't be me."
Despite the grimness of seeing death take away the man dearest to her, Angela laughed. "There are some who'd cheat death, others would who'd hide from death. There are men who'd face it without fear and those who'd embrace it. Then there's the rare few who'd smile back at death when it smiles at them, or laugh at it." She hugged Ran tightly, letting her tears soak into his tunic. "But then there's you, who'd not only laugh at death, but make a joke about it and get it to laugh too." She smiled, though it trembled with barely-suppressed sobs. "Leave it to you to die laughing."
He coughed. "What can I say? I always thought things were better when you had a good laugh." His smile wavered and he coughed again. "I won't lie to you, Angie." He coughed. "I'm afraid. I don't want to die." Another cough. "I love you, Angela—you're my one and only."
"Master…Ran…" she gripped him harder than death. "Don't go. I need you here. Damn it, nothing's ever been able to hurt you or beat you. Why now?"
A bit of his old mischief wandered into his green eyes, which were as bright as ever even though his skin paled as oblivion worked its way into his bones. "Call it the will of the Force—the best trump card a Jedi Master can have. I feel real…sleepy." He closed his eyes, his breathing became very, very shallow. She barely heard his whisper, "How about a kiss for the hero?"
A small chuckle escaped her lips. "All right, scoundrel," she murmured. They kissed one final time, and when they parted, she watched silently as his body disappeared. His tunic and robes fell into her lap with a soft crumple. Then she mourned, and there seemed to be no end to the tears.
