The planet was a typical, lifeless rock but was remarkable for two reasons. The first was the fact that it had a breathable atmosphere despite the absence of oxygen-producing organisms. The second reason was far more urgent to the Trinity Interstellar Naval Fleet that had set up a blockade around it.
A small Covenant strike force had landed only two days prior to the Hegemony losing control of their Halo.
The Hegemony strike force had landed a sizeable force on the ground. All three warships had been of an advanced design that was unknown to Trinity Intelligence. The vessels had managed to destroy an ISN Destroyer and severely damage several more before being disabled. Pathfinder boarding parties, reinforced by Special Forces, had secured the Hegemony vessels for study and reverse-engineering. An entire Ten-Cadre of Marines had been dropped planetside to capture or eliminate the Hegemony leadership. For two days the Hegemony forces, numbering between company and battalion strength, had staged a fighting withdrawal down a series of tunnels and canyons. They had made a stand at the entrance to a massive cavern nearly half a mile into the planet's crust. Eventually, the Marines had crushed all resistance but the Prophet that they believed led the strike force had fled deeper into the planet.
The Hegemony called the planet Havok and General Conner could not agree more.
Conner rubbed the bridge of his nose as he stood gazing out a viewport in the captain's ready room. It showed him an impressive view of the obsidian, craggy, barren surface of the world. Behind him sat General Perry, his injuries fully healed and appendages regenerated, and General O'Kais'. The two were on opposite sides of a briefing table and both stared at a holo-image of a pair of massive stone doors. It still unsettled the General to see bulkheads the polished silver hue that SkyNet favored.
"How many Special Forces squads infiltrated the interior?" Conner asked, turning back to his subordinates.
"Four, sir," Perry answered, his tone more grim that usual.
"How many survivors were there?"
"Three."
"We eliminated the exterior guards and opened the doors," O'Kais' took up the thread of conversation. "I ordered three cadres in and only four Marines made it back out."
"We have recordings. We'll play the ones that best illustrate the situation," Perry said and with the push of a button a holographic window opened to replace the doors.
It looked like the feed from a Marine's HUD. The Marine's squad was making its way down a tight corridor when the space opened wide into a roughly circular room with walls that rose up seemingly without end. The walls were covered in a substance that resembled resin. Conner wondered what it was but apparently the squad leader knew. She ordered everyone to retreat very carefully just before a hole opened in the material beneath her feet. A pair of long, clawed hands preceded a banana-shaped head and deceptively slender shoulders. The squad leader managed one bark of alarm before two solid smacks of a piston-like tongue speared a gaping wound in her chest. A single rail-shot speared a hole through the creature's skull before it could think of dragging the sergeant into the hole. Unfortunately a thin stream of blood splashed onto her armor and began eating away another hole centimeters beneath the first one. The squad's medic, flanked by T-850's, rushed to apply neutralizing agent while the gun-team leader called in an emergency situation report. The T-850's hoisted a stretcher between them and the squad began hustling their way back to a hardpoint the cadre-commander had set up.
The Tau whose eyes they were riding was in the middle of the squad. Suddenly the Marine on his left let out a startled, liquid cry of alarm. The Marine turned to see his brother Fire Warrior with a spear-tipped, prehensile tail sticking out of his chest. With effortless strength the tail flung the Marine's limp body into the Terminators bearing the injured sergeant. The next thirty seconds was a jumble of confusing images viewed through the colorless world of light amplification. The squad formed themselves into clusters by fire- and gun-team. They were prevented from using explosives by the tight confines of the tunnel. Conner cursed inwardly as, all too soon, their Marine was alone and running for the hardpoint.
"XenoMorphs," Conner grunted, "Is that what happened to the Special Forces?"
"No, sir." Perry looked as though he wanted to spit. "That was something worse."
The holo-image changed to the perspective of a Special Forces operator. The difference in the HUD was subtle but Conner's discerning eye could spot them. It looked as though the squad was ghosting their way down a long promenade. Conner couldn't be sure but he thought that it looked as though towering statues lined the path. Then the soldiers came to a gruesome discovery. Bodies, dozens of them, were strung midway up the body of a statue. They were skinless, but their muscles were dry and leathery almost as though the corpses had been preserved. What made the sight even more frightening was what the corpses had been in life.
Yaujta.
"What could do that?" Conner murmured, and was not surprised when O'Kais' delivered more disturbing news.
"Out best estimate has the body count at two hundred plus."
The squad leader barked for the squad to keep moving. Soon the squad had linked up with two others outside of a relatively narrow entrance to the next room. The soldier they were riding switched his carbine to particle cannon mode. Seconds later the squads streamed aggressively into the room along both walls. It was an enormous space with a domed ceiling. A partial wall blocked off the far end and situated in the middle of it was a massive, metallic throne with luxurious looking padding. Flanking the throne was a pair of robed figures with cloaks shrouding their features. Standing a few meters to the right was a Prophet shielded by four Hegemony Paladins. On the throne sat a bare-chest girl who looked no more than sixteen Terran-standard. Bizarre symbols looked as though they had long ago been cut into her breasts. Long, shining red-gold hair covered her shoulders and arms. Her face was the picture of delicate feminine beauty.
The girl seemed entirely out of place in the forbidding environment until you noticed her shining yellow eyes.
"Welcome," the girl said in a honeyed voice.
Every single Marine fired their weapon of choice. The throne disappeared amongst rocket detonations and energy weapon glare. After nearly fifteen seconds the order was given to cease fire. Before the smoke had settled a peculiar hum began to reverberate through the chamber. The pair of cloaked figures strode through the cloud of debris with scarlet beams held casually at their hips.
The Marine they were watching from tossed a boom-stick at them and the squad leader roared for them to scatter. The boom-stick suddenly changed direction as though it were a boomerang. There was an image of the explosive device veering towards the Marine and then a flash of white washed the world away.
"Dark Jedi?" Conner asked, uncertainly.
"Worse, sir," Perry said, "We think the girl's a Sith Lord. Those designs on her chest are pretty similar to Sith symbols but none match what little we have on file from the Hegemony database."
"Why would they come here though?"
"We believe for this," O'Kais' said and the holo-image changed to a wire-frame of the planet's interior. The chamber was lit in bright yellow.
"These bands of red are XenoMorph hives and the blue are territories of a life form almost as deadly."
The bands of red and blue formed a kilometer-wide perimeter that effectively capped the throne room.
"This is what the throne's sitting on."
The image scaled back to the sharp, angular designs of a warship of massive proportions embedded in the very bedrock of the planet.
"We believe it's an intact Forerunner, or the nearest you'll get to it, warship."
Conner frowned and rubbed his nose again.
"I think it's time we got the Triad out here."
Perry and O'Kais shared a look.
"There may be a problem, sir."
One big problem that Boomer had never considered when they asked him to be a super soldier was an inability to get drunk. He had requested a separate bunk immediately after the debriefing for his last mission. To his surprise his request had been approved immediately and Boomer was set up in a modest-sized room with a fully stocked refrigerator. A week had passed and so did several training exercises that Boomer had royally screwed up. After a second week the shrinks had started arriving. There had only been four of them, Boomer had wondered if Command had gotten all the shrinks in North America and put them to work in the BattleDome, but all of them had practically run screaming after only a few minutes alone with him. One, who had asked a particularly annoying question, had suddenly developed a nosebleed that needed medical treatment to stop. So at the beginning of the third week Boomer had requested a case of brandy. Within a day he had his case and had been well on his way to getting rip-roaring drunk.
Didn't quite work out like I planned, Boomer thought miserably.
Boomer had not eaten in three days, nor had he taken even a sip of water, and the amount of alcohol he had imbibed should have poisoned him nearly to death. Despite all of that he was still, conscious, alert, and depressingly sober. He didn't even feel hungry, thirsty, or even much weaker. Whatever they had done to him was either truly wonderful or horrifyingly terrible. He hadn't decided yet.
The door to his room, pigsty really, opened and an Ethereal walked in. The glare from the hallway lights cast Boomer's room in sharp relief. There was only a large bed and a tiny computer terminal for furniture. On the floor were at least forty empty bottles and two equally empty crates sat beside the door.
"Illuminate, soft," the Aun said as he entered the room.
The light-crystals affixed to each corner of the room slowly came to life and bathed the room in a soft, golden glow. It was then that Boomer recognized who had come to pay him a visit. He immediately shot to his feet and stood at attention.
"Apologies, Aun'o… I- no one told me you were coming, sir."
Aun'o Gras'ur merely smiled and began to clear a space on the floor with his hoof-claws.
"Would you meditate with me, Boomer?" The request had the tone of an order and it was not lost on Boomer.
"Of course, Aun."
Boomer knelt on both knees on one side of the space that the Aun had cleared. O'Gras'ur knelt in the same manner.
"Now, breathe, Boomer. Breathe deep."
Boomer looked into the Ethereal's deep-set eyes and took a deep breath.
Gras'ur studied the young human in front of him with not a little awe. As soon as he had entered the room the psychic pressure from Boomer had made the Ethereal want to press his hands to his auditory canals. Instead he had merely raised his mental shields and the pressure had gone.
No wonder the humans went into hysterics. I doubt any Ethereal on Terra could project psychic waves so powerful and we have done nothing but hone our latent psychic powers.
The Council of Auns had decided to send Gras'ur because he was the most adept using the new powers the caste found itself wielding for the Greater Good. Gras'ur lowered his shields enough to send mental probes deep into Boomer's mind. He met instant resistance that caused him to snap his eyes closed. At first there was darkness but then hollow shapes began to resolve themselves to him. Boomer kneeling before Gras'ur was a strong bluish-white aura while the furnishings were barely visible. Then a wave of psychic pressure pulsed from Boomer's solid blue-white skull in malevolent shades of red. Where it touched the Aun the wave simply dissipated but when it touched the walls it broke into dozens of smaller shockwaves. Then another wave would pulse to life before the last echoes had faded. Gras'ur had no doubt that, with a little training, Boomer would be able to push his mental projections past any physical obstacle.
The Aun focused his thoughts into a javelin of psychic force and waited patiently for the gap between waves. When it came he literally struck with the speed of thought. He was surprised that Boomer had little in the way of mental defenses against such probes before he remembered that the human lacked even his limited education in such matters. Boomer's mind was a black void with startlingly bright constellations floating in it. Each represented a different aspect of Boomer's physical brain. The individual brightness of a constellation signified what level of use Boomer gave it. Gras'ur had done this with a number of normal humans and he thought he knew the human mind well enough.
Boomer's brain was like a fiercely burning, freshly born universe compared to the others.
All the systems that Gras'ur was familiar with were shining much more brightly than they should have been, but the sheer number of unfamiliar clusters amazed the Aun. Normally the psychic currents between the clusters were relatively calm but Boomer's were raging torrents that Gras'ur had to actively fight. Some of the strange clusters were cut off completely and dimly glowed at that. This phenomenon he had seen before within his own caste as the different Auns awakened to their powers. Boomer seemed to have just as many as a Tau Ethereal.
What have we created? Gras'ur thought with a metaphysical shiver.
Gras'ur focused on the task at hand and let the currents take him on a tour of Boomer's mind. Sooner than he expected he came to the tight-knit clusters that were Boomer's memories and emotions. Nasty storms crackled their way around the whirling caldrons of sparkling light. Those would be the fears and phobias that had developed over the course of Boomer's life. This was where the pressure was emanating from. Thankfully, the psychic waves crackled outwards instead of in where they could have killed the human. Without preamble Gras'ur dived into the maelstrom.
Suddenly he was small, full of terror, and being carried by a panting human female. The sounds of pursuit were close, too close, and then Gras'ur was tumbling across hard topsoil. They were in an old-growth forest so there was little undergrowth. Gras'ur stood and began sobbing hysterically as five men beat and kicked his mother.
"Mama!" He screamed and ran to her as fast as he could.
One of the men turned and viciously backhanded the small child. Gras'ur's vision blurred along with the child's and when it cleared he found that the boy was bound and gagged. His mother was in the same situation less than four meters away. Tears flowed down her beautiful, dirt-crusted face as she shook her head as if willing him to turn away. Then she began to sob as a man leaped onto her. Gras'ur felt the confusion of the child-Boomer as to what the men were doing to make his mother cry but the Ethereal knew and was sickened. The five men each took their pleasure from Boomer's mother then, to Gras'ur's horror, the leader put an archaic revolver to the woman's temple and pulled the trigger. Boomer howled wordlessly and struggled futilely in his bonds.
The air filled with plasma and the laughter of the men turned to a single, keening wail. A Terminator, an older model that now existed only in historical archives, stepped into view. It was blocky and mechanically precise but definitely one of SkyNet's early attempts at mimicking human form. Several more followed the first, though the lead Terminator did not seem to be in command, and stopped in front of the man who had miraculously survived the hail of plasma. The closest Terminator raised a foot, placed it on the man's head to press it against the ground, and began to exert irresistible force. The man's wail turned to screams of pure terror that made Boomer grin viciously behind his gag. There was a loud crack, the man's lower body began to spasm and void, and then there was silence. The Terminators turned to Boomer and raised their weapons. Boomer was not frightened, he had moved passed that some time ago, but awe filled him in plenty. Even at so young an age he envied the power of the machines. Abruptly the Terminators turned and marched away.
Boomer turned to his mother and began sobbing himself to sleep.
When the child awoke he was in a small, smelly room with a small, smelly man. Gras'ur could only watch in shock as the events of Boomer's life literally flashed in small snippets before his eyes. Boomer's formative years consisted of almost daily beatings and watching the trio of older women that took care of him catch wasting diseases from their clientele. Then the surrogate mothers were replaced by cold-eyed younger women that had spent much of their lives in the new world and made Boomer's beatings daily. Even night up until the night he was taken in by TechCom, Boomer went to bed praying for God to make him a machine. The images move on to TechCom training, Boomer's obsessive aptitude for combat and subsequent first tour. The entire time Boomer trained to kill, even when he began racking up an impressive amount of confirmed Machine kills, he never lost the deep buried yearning to have the power of a machine. Then he had met Yuri and the surge of euphoric love nearly caused Gras'ur to lose his psychic grip. On these brief moments Boomer seemed to linger the longest. Then everything froze on the image of Yuri, oddly naked, impaled through the sternum by a Covenant Paladin. In Boomer's mind he had become a Terminator except his power source had been his all-encompassing hatred of the things that had taken his Yuri. The following weeks passed in a flash and Boomer was peering at himself in a mirror.
What stared back at him was the gleaming façade of a Terminator.
The emotions that boiled over were potent. Survivor's guilt, shame, envy, disgust, elation, and underneath it all was a simmering anger that only needed a focus to be unleashed. Gras'uir withdrew back into the void to consider what to do. There were too many memories tangled up with Boomer's emotional health to just erase them without damaging Boomer's psyche. There was only one thing to do given the time constraints. The Ethereal slipped between the clusters and pushed them apart. It took a good deal of strength but finally the distance was enough. The phobia-storms had lessened in intensity and the psychic pressure waves had almost completely stopped. Upon closer inspection the cluster that was Boomer's emotional response was still receiving bursts of intense energy from one path in particular.
Gras'ur flowed into the current and let it take him into the relatively quiet subconscious. Here the currents were not so strong and the clusters not as bright.
Well, most of the time. Gras'ur amended as a powerful eddy spun him about momentarily.
The Aun found the problem and raised a metaphysical eyebrow. It was the cluster responsible for a number of non-physical sexual function, specifically sexual desire and fantasy. Gras'ur gave a mental sigh and entered the cluster. Boomer was in the Triad's bunkroom dressed in a very small towel. He was sitting on the edge of the bunk when Khory walked in. The Terminator was wearing a floral-patterned skirt of all things and nothing else. Without hesitation she straddled Boomer and kissed him hard. Boomer pushed her off, though it was more like she let him, and stared at Khory in bewilderment.
"What are you doing!" Boomer shouted incredulously.
"If I'm to act human I need to be able to function sexually." Khory seductively crawled on the bunk beside Boomer on all fours. "Teach me?"
Boomer was stunned for at least five seconds before standing with a grin. Gras'ur suddenly found himself standing beside the bunks, watching the two engage in a wide variety of sexual activities. Some of which, though Gras'ur had never actually witnessed humans mating, the Aun thought were physically impossible for normal humans. Then the scene paused on just such an activity.
"I want to screw a machine. How sick is that?"
Boomer's voice beside him was enough shock to catapult Gras'ur back into the void. Boomer followed him, his ghostly image wearing TechCom fatigues, and with a frown etched deep into his face.
"I thought this place was a dream. It's not?"
"It is not," Gras'ur told him after recovering himself. "It is your… mind for lack of a better word."
"This, and the memories, are why I drink when I get stressed. I guess." Even Boomer's metaphysical self seemed uncomfortable talking about it. "Can you fix this, too?'
"I can but it will take much of your sexual desire and function away. Only you can truly fix this problem."
"How?"
"By accepting what and who you are."
"Boomer's frown deepened, "Do you know?"
The Aun barked laughter, "Only you know, Boomer. You have the power to do everything I just did. You can reverse it anytime you wish with teaching. When you return from your mission we can work on a more natural resolution."
"Mission?"
"Yes," the Aun smiled, "You are an important piece of the Triad. It's heart if you will. Would you like to share my knowledge so you are better able to fill that role?"
The answered rumbled through the void like unseen thunder.
"Yes."
Khory-012 looked towards the door from her placed beside Templar's bunk. They had received orders to ready themselves for immediate deployment in thirty minutes. It would take them far less time. Khory had noticed that Tau seemed sticklers for rules. Templar stood from his meditations and shared a surprised glance with Khory. The third member of their Triad was strutting into the room as though the last weeks had never occurred. His first words dismissed them of that notion.
"I'm sorry, guys. Don't make faces, Khory."
Khory did not believe she had been doing any such thing but a system log check revealed she actually had made a face. Other T-X units had reported autonomous physical reactions incited by their emotional emulators but it was the first time is had happened to Khory. She burned with eagerness to report her discovery to SkyNet but she wanted to give Boomer her full attention.
"I don't know what I can do to make it up to you, Khory, but I'll find a way."
Khory cocked her head, "Shit happens."
That was a suitable answer, she deduced from Boomer's sudden grin and Templar's chuckle.
"Mistakes happen, but there was little harm done." Templar added more eloquently.
"Triad once more?" Boomer extended his hand to Templar.
Templar reached to take Boomer's hand and was suddenly swept up into a fierce hug. The Fire Warrior must have weighed over a hundred and fifty kilograms but Boomer lifted him with ease. It was easy to forget, since Boomer was the weakest, that the modified human was far stronger than he looked. After a moment Boomer set Templar down with an arm around the shoulders and fixed Khory with a level gaze. Then he smiled and held out an arm in invitation. Before Khory could move more than a step she was gently lifted into the air and floating into Boomer's waiting embrace. No longer did her emulator tell her what to feel. The device simply broadcast the appropriate signals. The surprise she could understand, along with the feelings of trust and camaraderie, but there were two new things that puzzled her greatly. One was a combination of many emotions that combined into a greater whole. The other was singularly powerful and prompted subconscious hardware to produce vivid images of her and Boomer in a plethora of sexual situations. Khory's processor worked overtime for all of one second.
Then the Machine simply enjoyed it.
Three days later the Triad was on the surface of a hostile enemy world staring down a kilometer deep shaft in obsidian-colored topsoil. Around the opened was a modest-sized ISMC encampment built to provide support for their mission. It had already fended off four XenoMorph assaults, one from inside the hole, but had held the dual perimeters each time. The hole was at the center of a shallow crater and was lined with heavy-duty particle repeater emplacement that shone brightly against their dark backdrop.
General Perry's face appearing in a pop-up on Templar's HUD.
"We have to step up the timetable. No feints; no distractions; no backup. There was an energy spike near the planet's core. Intel thinks they may be close to releasing the last seal. Mission directives hold steady. For the Greater Good!"
"For the Greater Good," the Triad intoned as one.
Seconds later, guided plasma mortars arched into the air around the crater and plunged into the shaft faster than gravity would have allowed. They would detonate at fixed intervals and hopefully clear the shaft of waiting Xeno hordes. When the last mortar was in, Khory dove headfirst into the darkness, followed by Boomer and then Templar. Templar tucked his arms and legs in to be as stream-lined as possible. He knew the others were following suit as well, but Khory's heavier armor would let her gain some distance. The walls they shot past had the smooth, glassy look of plasma scoring. Templar doubted anything could have survived it.
A single Warrior, one limb a melted ruin, launched itself at Templar after bursting from its crusted over hiding place. Templar tumbled in the air with feline grace, deftly avoided the deadly jaws, grasping claws, and stabbing tail, before putting a plasma bolt into its abdomen. Just because he doubted something was possible did not mean he was unprepared. The strobe effect of plasma fire and shuddering booms of mini-rocket detonation told Templar that the rest of the Triad had reached bottom. He magnified on their images and approved of what he saw. Khory was firing her shoulder-mounted plasma rockets down the tunnel they needed to take while Boomer covered another entrance that hadn't been in the recording.
These bugs work fast, Templar thought as he flipped to present his boots to the floor.
Templar decelerated hard but landed as soft as a feather. He fired his carbine into the writhing mass of Xeno's that were attempting to strike Khory's back.
"Khory, advance at Walk Three. One meter spread. Boomer, Boom-Sticks."
Templar reached behind him and retrieved a Boom-Stick without ceasing fire. He and Boomer were using electrical plasma so there was little chance of their weapons overheating. Together they did the deft twist of the wrist that allowed a Marine to activate a Boom-Stick with one hand and threw them down the tunnel. Khory stepped a meter ahead of them and Boomer a meter to Templar's right. Then Khory was off, her rocket-pods finally going dry, with her two comrade's right behind her. The three moved, glided on their anti-gravity thrusters really, at roughly thirty kilometers per hour. Khory's shoulder-mounted particle repeaters, apparently she had changed the weapons on her shoulder mounts, began speaking into the silence the pods had left. She did so well cleaning their path that neither Templar nor Boomer ever had to fight off ambushers she missed. There were a few times reinforcements ran along ceiling and wall but the two handled them quickly enough.
It often filled Templar with a sense of wonder, the way his Triad worked.
Quickly, the mission clock was at five minutes plus, the Triad was ghosting its way past the skinned Yautja.
"They know we're here," Boomer said tonelessly, "There is no use trying to sneak in."
"What should we do?" Templar asked even though nominally the leader he never turned down advice.
"Follow my lead. I'll see if we can thin their numbers."
Templar felt a peculiar tingling sensation for a moment but dismissed it as Boomer took the lead into the room. The décor was almost identical to the recordings and so were the faces with some exceptions. Bodies in Special Forces armor that were staked to the throne-wall was something new. There were only three Covenant Paladins now, instead of four and a Prophet. The woman and her dark-robed apprentices surely looked exactly the same.
"More guests," the young woman smiled alluringly, "And quite powerful, I think. One strong in the Force… the other something new I think. Darth Reign, are these those Jedi-Spartans you warned me of?"
"No, Lady," one of the figures said from the depths of their cowl. "The Coalition would not have spared them for this fly-speck galaxy. These are pale imitations I suspect."
"Come along peacefully and no one has to die," Boomer said calmly.
There were a few moments of shocked silence before the Sith Lord giggled prettily.
"Let's see how pale they are. Paladins!"
Without a word the Paladins stalked toward them with snarls etched into their predatory mouths. When they were within five meters the Triad moved like a precise machine. Khory fired a continuous stream of particle energy from her shoulder-mount while stepping to the right. When she passed Boomer he fired several HE mini-rockets at the Paladins' feet. The Paladins jumped to avoid the rocket detonations, blocking Khory's particle fire with their staffs, and putting themselves into perfect position for Templar. The Fire Warrior put a rail-round through two of the Paladins' brains but the third somehow got its shield up to block. The force of the round practically halted the Paladin's momentum and drew a pained grunt as he landed four meters away.
"Not so pale as you think, Reign."
As if that were a signal the Sith Apprentices became blurs racing towards the Triad. Templar fired once, missed, and barely saves his hands from being sliced off by a crimson lightsaber. There was little else to do but draw his Dueling Blade, activate the particle sheathe, and parry a thrust that would have skewered him. The other Sith had gone for Boomer while the remaining Paladin had engaged Khory.
Then the time for thought was over and all Templar knew was his shining blade. The Sith moved with a dancer's grace around Templar, who felt clumsy for the first time in his life, flipping and whirling as he fought holes in Templar's defenses. Holes he did find in plenty for there were no trained swordsmen on Terra and a Fire Warrior's Dueling Blade had long been a ceremonial weapon carried into battle. The Sith seemed to be everywhere with the crimson lightsaber. Sometime during their circling fight the Sith's cowl had fallen to reveal a beautiful, green-skinned humanoid female. His computer immediately identified the species as Twi'lek. That mattered little to his as another glancing blow took away his secondary shield.
It was only after several more blows, which Templar knew should have been fatal, but merely sheered off his artificial musculature, that he realized he was being toyed with. The Sith could have killed him anytime she wanted to. From the terrible grin that twisted her face the Twi'lek was enjoying it. Despair so deep clouded Templar's mind that it took all he had to parry the next blow.
"Let go, Templar. Let go of desire. Embrace death and become free."
The voice in his head, warm and feminine, was unexpected but so was her wisdom. But it could not be as easy as she said, could it? It took several long seconds for Templar to center himself with Tau litanies but he managed to after taking several more humiliating blows.
Templar closed his eyes and held his blade before his faceplate.
"Finish him, Reign, then give the others a hand. This bore's me."
There was a moment when time seemed to stop, the universe inhaled deeply, and Templar's arm moved of its own accord to brutally slap away his opponent's lazy thrust. Templar opened his eyes to see the Sith stumble backwards, shaking her hand and glaring hatefully. He could see now but everything was different.
Everything.
The apprentice removed her robe to reveal a skintight, dark green jumpsuit. She gestured, a fist-pumping motion at Templar, and her eyes narrowed as nothing happened. Then she came at Templar but he felt clumsy no more. Darth Reign tried for a lightning-quick lunge thrust that Templar nimbly spun around. He brought his blade down in mid-spin and Reign barely rotated on her extended knee for a parry. The Sith rolled forward with the parry, onto her feet, turned and had to leap back to avoid an upward thrust to her sternum.
That leap carried Reign five meters into the air.
Templar jumped after her and the two traded blows as he passed her on his way up. The body of a Marine darted from the wall toward him but Templar spun around and snap-kicked the body towards Reign. With a contemptuous gesture she sent the body careening into the recesses of the promenade. Templar landed and the two combatants regarded each other coolly. Templar felt calm and sure of the outcome. He had never felt such surety in his life. When Reign came at him with a spinning flourish that became an overhead strike that turned into a short thrust, he knew exactly what to do.
Templar chopped down into the thrust but did not break contact. Instead he let the Sith rise while their weapons sparked and hissed between them. He slid his blade down until he could sinuously wrap his wrist around hers. Their blades were still on opposing sides but now it was risky to both to simply disengage. Purple lightning surged from Reign's free hand and it quickly stripped away his primary shield.
"I command the Force!" Darth Reign hissed haughtily, "You can not triumph!"
Templar calmly raised his sidearm faster than a blink, put it to her temple, and pulled the trigger. Gore splattered Templar's visor and was quickly cleaned by an automated cleaner. Darth Reign's lightsaber deactivated and hit the floor seconds before her body. Exhaustion hit Templar, the likes of which he hadn't felt since he became Triad. Without warning he felt himself lifted into the air with his arms rigid at his side. Thankfully his Dueling Blade had last its particle sheathe before coming into contact with his armor. Khory, her armor still smoking in several places, floated over to join Templar as he faced the young woman smiling languidly in her throne. Boomer came to his other side, uninjured, but Templar thought he was just as exhausted as the Fire Warrior.
"That was quite a spectacle. I can't believe the Paladin's reaction when you threw the rifle at him." The Sith Lord actually clapped her delight at Khory. "You even saved me the trouble of dealing with my apprentices. They thought themselves Sith Lords before they found me. I convinced them of their true status but even in my day you could never trust an apprentice too far, yes."
"Your day?" Templar asked, hoping to buy more time for one of them to figure out an escape.
The woman laughed uproariously for a moment, causing her breasts to jiggle obscenely, before composing herself somewhat.
"I came to this place over four millennia ago. You didn't think this paradise was created overnight, did you? I-" The woman grimaced and fixed Boomer with a stony glare. "That was uncalled for in the middle of a civilized discussion. You are strong in the Force though. Very strong to overcome Darth Van. He would have been a mighty Sith Lord if I had let him. I would take your for my apprentice but I think you would never do." Now the Sith bared her teeth in a predatory snarl not unlike a Paladin's. "You might overcome my grip eventually but-"
This time the Sith Lord was interrupted by a resounding chime that made the throne quiver. She stood with regal grace and watched as the throne split to reveal a rounded anti-gravity pad.
"Well, I guess this cuts short our discussion. I can't risk you following though."
The unnamed Sith Lord removed a lightsaber from her belt and activated it with a snap-hiss. It was a mesmerizing shade of violet that almost burned the eyes. She moved forward, still with that regal bearing, and Templar was ready. He had done his best and he was content.
"It's been fun guys," Boomer said, as calmly as Templar felt.
"An honor."
"I'll miss you," Templar almost swallowed his tongue at Khory's announcement.
Then the Sith Lord stopped in front of Boomer, raised her lightsaber, and swept it through Templar's knees. At the same instant Khory spasmed violently and went limp. There was no pain, he had triggered a massive dose of painkiller the moment she had struck, but something was wrong. His nanites were not working, he knew because there was usually a faint electrical discharge, but he also wasn't healing as he should. Normally the pain of cellular regeneration, which nothing seemed to completely numb, was not there. Templar and Khory fell to the floor while Boomer landed on his feet. Templar had fallen forward, just behind his severed legs, and watched as the woman backed away with a girlish smile.
"Now you have a choice. Choose well."
The woman turned and the upturned tips of dual serrated blades stopped just inches from her forehead. Those blades were connected to a bracer of burnished metal, which were affixed to a thick-skinned arm speckled with black markings. That arm was attached to three meters of masked Yaujta hunter. The hunter wore a metal groin-cup, shinguards, bracer, a thick backguard, but only its right pectoral was covered in a thin plate of metal. The other side of his chest was covered in the fine-wire mesh that protected his exposed skin. Barbaric icons had been carved deeply into the left pectoral muscle. To Templar's astonishment they glowed with an eerie violet light. Its long, thick strands of hair were partially gray and Templar suspected this hunter was a veteran.
The Sith Lord shook her head and gestured imperiously. In silence the Yaujta sailed backwards to the throne, flipped, and landed in a crouch atop the wall. The Hunter reached over his shoulder and drew forth a long, thick-bladed curved sword. Pulsing violet light suddenly began to emanate from the alien hunter. Boomer began dragging his two comrades back to the wall as the Yaujta sprang toward the Sith Lord with an earthshaking roar. Templar's armor had also inexplicably failed and he was growing dizzy from blood loss but it looked as though the Yaujta's mask was very plain. That seemed wrong to him. Boomer leaned Templar and Khory against a wall well away from the fierce combatants before kneeling in front of them.
"Watch my back?"
"Always," they answered weakly.
Boomer nodded, took a deep breath, and closed his eyes.
Meanwhile the Sith Lord had tried throwing that strange lightning at the Hunter but each attempt was absorbed by his corona of light. He had closed with the Sith Lord and the two began a deadly dance back and firth across the room. The Yaujta moved with speed and grace that Templar would have been pressed to match. The Hunter never wasted motion, intent on his prey, and fought with wrist-blades as well as sword. The Sith Lord jumped, spun, feinted and attacked far more ferociously than Darth Reign.
The Sith Lord waved her hand and a piece of throne darted toward the Yaujta. He dodged it easily only to go flying over the throne-wall at another gesture. The Sith Lord took the wall in one leap and then all Templar could see were flashes of light. There was also the occasional stand of electronic equipment flying to collide with crushing force against the ceiling. Templar was growing sleepy when the pain of regeneration hit him like a speeding gunship. Something large shattered a huge cut in the throne-wall before landing four meters in front of him.
The Hunter's mask was gone and phosphorescent green blood leaked from both eyes. Several, large cauterized cuts were testament to him not coming away from his battle unscathed. The sight of the Sith Lord was even worse but now she was infinitely more terrifying. One of her eyes was gone from two furrows that had been dug down her face and a gaping wound oozed black ichor onto the ground. A crackling, malevolent corona of black lightning, twice as brilliant as the Yaujta's had been, surrounded her as she circled to stand over the stunned Hunter's head.
"Mighty hunters," she said with contempt as she raised her lightsaber with a twirl for the deathblow.
Templar threw his blade with all his might, hoping with all his heart that his blow would strike true, but he knew the effort was futile. The Sith Lord turned, batted the blade away with a snarl, and the Hunter was on his feet the instant she did. The Sith Lord jerked once, her lightsaber tumbling from a twitching hand, and two blade-tips emerged shining from her lower abdomen. She screamed, purplish lightning crackling from her fingertips, as the Yaujta roared and lifted her up off her feet. With a horrible rending round the wrist-blades tore their way towards the woman's skull. There were moments where the path proved difficult but never did their momentum stop. A click of the blades coming on the jawbones and then the head came free trailing a bloody spinal column. If anything the lightning grew worse until the body was hovering before the surprised eyes of the Yaujta.
To Templar's dazed shock three ghostly figures in long robes appeared around the body. Each held out their arms and the lightning began to dissipate harmlessly. Once the body had settled to the ground the blue-white ghosts faded away.
"Thank you Shas'O Terra Ly'tal," the voice from before said in faint tones.
The Hunter disappeared behind the throne-wall and returned seconds later still clutching the gap-jawed head of the Sith Lord. Boomer sprang to his feet before the triumphant warrior came within three meters. A faint corona of pure white light now surrounded the human. One of the Hunter's upper mandibles twitched slightly. Slowly it took something from its waist and tossed it at Templar. The Fire Warrior lazily caught it and studied what looked like the tooth of some huge carnivore. The Hunter cocked its head toward the throne.
"Boom."
Its voice was like quiet thunder. Without another word the Hunter turned, retrieved both his sword and the lightsaber of the defeated Sith Lord, and disappeared into the darkness. Khory sprang to life then and her posture was bristling anger.
"I'm sorry, guys."
Boomer hugged Khory close with one arm. The gesture should have seemed odd since she was nearly a meter taller in armor but it wasn't.
"Let's get out of here," Templar said, "I need to stretch my nubs."
It was an odd time to laugh, but laugh the Triad did.