35: Knight Falls

"…ow! No, no, you're good. I'm just being a whiney bitch," Benjiro let the medic help him up and took a few steps to test the splint. "Thanks, man. What're we looking like?"

"Keyhoe, Gries, Felth and Gray are dead. Another fifteen guys are too injured to keep fighting. Uh… most of the Valerians are as well, but I sure can't convince them."

"She killed four of us?"

The medic shook his head. "Did my best."

"But why just f… oh, that's it! She's fighting us like we're those spineless poufs on Borleas. She expects us to scatter when we lose a few guys, so…"

"Captain!" one of the commandoes yelled, running up waving his com, "It's the Major! She got through to us!"

"Oh, man, she'd better have some good news."


Beta group moved slowly through the forest, tightly clustered and watching in every direction, warded by a great cloud of the natives. Stormtroopers wouldn't be able to come within a kilometer of them without their knowing, but it wasn't really stormies they were worried about.

Perhaps the main bunker didn't even know they were there… currently, they were fighting their little war solely against Darth Mito. Though Kagura had given a very heartening speech about how killable Sith were, they were still as nervous as all hell. And if professional soldiers were scared, just think of how the smugglers felt.

"Gyaaaah!" one loosed a volley of bolts at an innocent mammal. It dropped the acorn it had been gnawing at and shot up a tree, chittering angrily. The soldiers before him whirled and almost opened fire themselves before they saw his chagrined look.

"Idiot," one of them sneered, and they kept going.

"Wow, you almost got him," Tomo said admiringly, holstering her own blaster. "Little squirrelly things had better watch out for you."

"Dude…" the smuggler lowered his weapon and started walking again, looking around nervously as they passed through a small clearing. "What are we gonna do about her, though? I mean, I heard she can appear out of nowhere and kill you before you know she's there."

"That's ridiculous," Yomi said, an instant before they were blown off of their feet. Tomo threw herself back from the clearing, which had become a nightmare of blazing red-and-violet light, flying splinters and thundering shockwaves. And though she fancied herself more of a lover than a fighter, the old Takino quick-draw hadn't failed her.

Before her brain even realized anything had happened, her blaster was already drawn and pressed against the Sith's forehead. Ayumu was before her, holding the violet lightsaber across her throat. Their eyes met, Tomo's scared and angry, Ayumu's entirely blank.

For long moments, neither moved. Where are those guys? Tomo thought frantically. Her mouth moved without her: "Whatsa matter? Scared?" What the hell did I just say that for?

Ayumu's eyes hardened fractionally. She pressed forward slowly… Tomo swallowed as the crackling blade came into contact with her throat. Her finger trembled over the trigger, but she knew that shooting would be useless. And even if it weren't, would she have been able to? "Any time, Mito… come on…" What kind of an idiot am I? I am so dead!

Ayumu suddenly pulled back and swung for Tomo's head—and stopped an instant before hitting her. Gritting her teeth, she raised her saber to try again, but was distracted by a clatter near her feet.

"Absorb that!" a commando shouted from a safe distance.

Tomo felt something strike her chest hard enough to knock her soaring (Ayumu?), and the clearing erupted. With the blast still ringing in her ears, she scrambled to her feet, not even taking a moment to recover before beginning her tirade. "You asshole, I could have died! What were you thinking! No, no, don't look at me like that! You-!"

Yomi's hand fell on her shoulder. "Calm down," she said weakly.

"Y-yomi! You're hurt!"

"Just a scratch. Now quit shrieking before the stormies hear you!"

"What, like they missed that explos-?"

"Shut up."


Ayumu crouched at the peak of a tree, staring disbelievingly at her shaking hands. Why? Why couldn't she do it? Tomo had been her friend, indeed, her best friend, but she was the enemy now… it should have been easy, it should have…

But then, why should have it been easy? Why should killing anybody be easy? What made Tomo's life more important than, say, the second guy she had run through with her lightsaber? Though her mind didn't want to grapple with the answer, it struck her in the forehead like an errant Shockball anyway.

Nothing.

And it followed that nothing set either of them above any of the unfortunate souls on Borleas, or Irtris, or the assassins she'd battled on Coruscant, or even those horrible Vratix. Ayumu had never had time to stop and think about what she did; Nochichi had always been there, taunting her, insulting her, egging her on, giving her something to focus on and hate…

"Ah… ah know it's a bad time t' crack up," she murmured, "But lookin' at things rationally, ah don't see anythin' else ah can do…" Ayumu sagged, fingers digging into her thick hair. What was she? All this time…

Her com chirped. Moving on autopilot, she clicked it and responded. "Maido?"

"Mito! Get your ass up here!" the Empress yelled, making her wince away from the small device. "We have a situation!"

"A situation? But…"

Yukari disconnected.


Though not even a year ago she hadn't believed in the Force, Chiyo found that being cut off from it now was unbearable. Everything around her seemed drained of life and color, her limbs felt leaden and every breath was an effort. It was like being suddenly and cruelly blinded, and though she knew the effect was temporary, despair tugged her down as if she were doomed for all time.

Chiyo had always been able to keep or regain a positive outlook; you'd have to be to live on a planet like Tatooine for very long. But now she was alone and surrounded by enemies as her friends fought and died, powerless and cut off from the one thing that could offer a solution or even comfort.

C'mon, Chiyo! Be motivated be motivated be motivated be motivated be motivated be… it's… no… use…

Two stormtroopers strode behind her and a single ysalimir handler led her by a set of manacles. This was remarkably lax, but considering how beaten and docile she looked, and this quite apart from her usual aura of harmlessness and adorability, it was an easy mistake to make.

They moved along the top of the station. There, the shell had not yet enclosed it and the viewports still looked out on a sea of stars… and now they were also filled with warring spaceships. The battle was distant, even the greatest Star Destroyer was the size of one's thumbnail, but their engagement still covered the port's entire view as testament to its terrifying scale.

Chiyo came to a halt at the sight. She stared with wide eyes at the battle, suddenly thinking of Wedge, Mike and the other pilots out there, Kurosawa in the flagship, her friends still on the ground. They were out there now, even as she stood, and they were all in danger of dying. Perhaps they had already.

"Hey," the ysalimir handler said, tugging on her manacle. She spared a glance for him and the aggravating creature across his back, then looked back out at space. There was no excuse for this. She had to fight, even if-

"Get moving!" he pulled again, and this time she jerked back. Surprised at her strength, he stumbled a little towards her and the angle of his body just brought his holster into reach for a split second…

She clumsily grabbed his blaster in both hands, throwing herself at his shins just as the stormtroopers opened fire and riddled the poor guy, killing his pet as well. "Uh-!" one said, realizing their mistake a moment too late. Both were jerked off of their feet and slammed against the ceiling to fall senselessly on the deck. Chiyo's lightsaber flew from one's belt and hacked through her manacles before finding her hand.

The Force flowed back into her, life and light and happiness and strength, filling her with giddy joy- but something else came with it. A vague, horrifying sense of the distant battle, of the terror, panic, death and grim pleasure of warriors at their work, as well as the sense of approaching columns of stormtroopers…

Suddenly, Chiyo almost missed the ysalimir.

Vacillating for just a moment, she set out at a light run towards the station's peak. There was only one thing to do. This whole conflict came down to one person: the Empress. She was the only one who could bring it to a close.

She rounded a corner and was treated to a nasty surprise. A trooper with one of the ysalimir on his back was rushing up with a stun baton, and worse, his creature had been blocking another six troopers from her mind's eye. Before he got within four meters, she shot him. The shock of its cage hitting the deck killed the ysalimir, poor thing.

(Did these idiots assume she wouldn't use a blaster because she was a Jedi? Hey, warrior's honor is good and all, but Jedi like to win, too…)

The other troopers started shooting. Perhaps she might have been able to clear them away telekinetically, mind-trick them into leaving or any number of more humane methods, but there was no time to focus or think. There was only time to plunge ahead, parry their bolts, and…

In moments, Chiyo stood over them, not even breathing hard. The swirling horribleness of the Battle of Endor pressed in closer now that she was a part of it. "Oh…" she said sadly, to the universe in general, "Look what you've made of me."

To think she had once felt guilty for blasting whomp-rats.

Shaking off her melancholy or whatever it was, Chiyo started forward again. Another column was approaching fast, and it wouldn't do to be caught-

She blocked a shot behind her back, turning in surprise to see that one of the corridor's troopers was still alive. He had risen to a crouch, clutching a hand to his side, while the other held his carbine on her. As she turned to leave again, he lamented, "What…? She's… she's not human!"

Chiyo froze. After a few shocked moments of indeterminate emotion, she suddenly giggled. "Give the man a prize!" she cried, voice fraying at the edges. "How did you ever guess?"

But before he could respond, it turned out that she had indeed tarried too long; the doors beyond them hissed open to reveal another formation of troopers. Flinkt! The wounded man looked down in a panic as the pin flew out of the thermal detonator on his belt. Before he could reach for it, an invisible fist knocked him into the midst of the newcomers.

Chiyo left them to figure out what to do about it.


"What do you mean the Dream Knife took off? We still need her!" Commander Silvis yelled, slamming a fist on his console. "There are still Rebels down here to be killed!"

"Sir, I'm sure that the regulars can handle them just f…" Tarvis started.

"The regulars? They're a blithering pack of numbnuts that can't even wipe out those rock-throwing vermin, let alone a squad of professional soldiers! Roll out the tanks! Call all of the troopers back!"

"Are you, perhaps, overreacting?" Garus suggested.

"Shut up, you! I'm in charge here!" Silvis rounded on a shadowy corner of the control room. "And you! I don't know why I hired you if you're just going to stand there!" A metallic hand reached out of the shadows and wrapped around his lapel. "Uh… I, I mean, whenever you're ready…?"


Silvis would forever be remembered as an incompetent commander, and this was a fair assessment. In the confusion of their mass recall, the stormtroopers were every bit as much in disarray as their enemies. Men were yanked into trees, dropped into pits, and knocked flying by swinging logs, many without even seeing their first Rebel.

"Damn… I was really hoping you were lying about the tanks," Kagura said. She let the thermal goggles fall around her neck; the sun had risen during their approach.

"Why on Endor would I lie about that?" Wicket asked. "I don't get you at all."

"But I thought you said they had treads," she continued, noting with a grimace that the two vehicles were hovering on repulsor-fields.

"I was just trying to think of the word…"

"Never mind, go over and get the Valerians ready…" she tapped her com, "Kitamura, it's time."

Across the clearing, one of Alpha group's commandoes burst out of the brush and, in an extremely goofy voice, yelled, "I'm like a sitting duck over here!" He plunged back into the woods with a "Woop-woop-woop!" that Curly would have been proud of.

"That's, uh…" Kagura scratched her head. "Okay."

As predicted, one of the tanks plunged into the woods after him, hull smashing through ancient boles and slender saplings with equal abandon. Clearly they were expecting the commando to lead them into some of the native traps, and just as clearly, they expected the tank to be able to withstand them.

That left the other tank and something like thirty-five stormtroopers. There were no towers, fortunately, and any stormtrooper that was stupid enough to climb a tree around here deserved what he got from the natives.

"Step two…" Kagura ordered softly, and in the trees above her, a dozen cat people readied their slings. Despite Silvis's name calling, they weren't planning to throw rocks, however… "And go!"

Thermal detonators pattered into the ground all around the second tank. In the split second before they went off, Kagura could swear she heard somebody laughing… when the smoke cleared, the vehicle was more-or-less undamaged but at the bottom of a fairly deep crater, wedged in sideways. "Be stuck, be stuck, be stuck…"

"Oh, for the love of Klono!" the tank commander howled.

Good enough for her.

Defenders started firing into the trees. They had learned from hard experience that shooting at the natives did very little good, but what else was there for them to do? Unfortunately for them, while their attention was directed at the canopy, the rebels on the ground were drawing a bead on them.

"Go!" Kagura shrieked.

By ordering his men into the clearing to hold the bunker, Silvis had doomed them. They would have put up an excellent fight from the woods using proper guerilla tactics, but tethered out in the open, there was nothing they could do.

They advanced quickly towards the field of fallen stormtroopers. Now all that remained was the walls of the bunker itself and--a searing bolt lashed through the lead man's body and scattered his fellows. "Sniper!" somebody yelled unnecessarily.

"No shit!" Tomo yelled back. Yomi hit her.

Garus panned his sight over the rabble as the blaster recharged. It was like fish in a barrel… though he was usually a nice enough fellow, the old Guardsman had missed the ruthless, brutal efficiency of being a sniper, his profession before being snapped up for the Guard.

There was some return fire, but it didn't bother him. He and a few troopers were atop the bunker's roof, protected by crenellations like the archers of an ancient fortress. You don't have air support and you can't get close enough to throw your 'naids, he thought pityingly, what are you going to do now?

"Just hold them a little longer," Tarvis said from the control room, "Reinforcements are coming."

"I'll hold them as long as you want!" he replied vigorously, firing again. As his blaster recharged, though, he noticed a shadow over his hand. He flung himself to the side as a largish chunk of stone crashed down on his emplacement. "They're throwing rocks!" one of the troopers cried disbelievingly. "Silvis was right!"

At the opposite edge from Kagura, the Valerians were, indeed, bombing head-sized stones on them. Rock-chucking was a time-honored tradition of Valerian warfare, carried on even into modern days, in isolated cases. If you think that makes them barbaric or backwards, stop and think: how many times in modern cinema has the square-jawed hero lost his gun and solved his problems with ridiculous, John Wayne-style punches? Rocks at least have range.

"The hell?" Garus wrenched his sniper rifle off of its stand and whirled about. He zeroed in on van Buskirk… then fell heavily to the ground when a baseball-sized rock beaned him in the head.

"Did you see?" Yomi cried with childish enthusiasm, "I got one! I got one!" The Valerians around her grimly continued flinging away. After an exultant pause, she knelt to heft another rock.

"That looks way too fun," Tomo commented, leaning on a tree behind them.

"It looks stupid," Wicket replied sourly.

"You love that word, don't you?"

"It's clear! Get to the bunker! Kitamura, key-guy, get over here!" Kagura stood boldly and led the general advance. They were in the clear! This was it. They would get into the bunker and…

"I'm pinned down, boss," Kitamura commed back, "There are more of 'em!"

"What, already?" Most of the commandoes were gathered around the bunker doors, but they couldn't do anything, now. "Where did they land—shit!" Indeed, more stormtroopers were emerging from the forest, putting the Rebels in the unlikely position of holding the clearing they had only just taken.

"Should've given it to me," Tomo sighed, sticking a knife under the keycard panel. With a plastic wrenching sound, it came loose.

"Hey, what are you doing?"

"I have a knack for these things…" she cut a wire and pressed it to another. Machinery grumbled beneath their feet and a second set of metal doors slammed down over the first. Kagura shot an angry look back at her. "Um… oops."

The commandoes had spread out around the door, using the makeshift barricades that their foes had just died behind, leaving the two women alone in the archway. Just as Kagura was about demand to give it a go herself, the doors slid open.

"Hey, good job, Tomo!"

"Uh… uh… uh…"

She turned and saw that the doorway was filled with a hulking, dark shape. "I remember you!" it said. "I haven't forgotten, Takino!" A metallic backhand knocked Tomo to the ground as Kagura went for her gun, but a great black fist struck her stomach and set her sprawling as well.

The Sombra stepped out and let the doors close behind him. The commandoes looked back at him in dismay as curving blades snapped out of his forearms and he struck what looked like a Silat stance. "I might just break 6,000 kills today," he announced. "Wait till that HK-47 sees me then! Then we'll see who's emitting laugh-like vocal oscillations!"

"This is not what I need…" Kagura wheezed.


Chiyo ran unsteadily, limping from a graze across her thigh. She had long since forgotten how many waves of stormtroopers she had fought through, and long since grown numb to what she was doing. Outside, the Katana's shields finally gave and its slender hull was ripped apart by turbolasers. Chiyo staggered with something that was a distant relative to a sob, leaning on the wall to catch her breath.

No time, no time… every second she rested, more people were dying. Her senses had given her a new insight into wars; as someone wise once said, winning one was like winning an earthquake. No matter how the battle turned out, it would still be a disaster.

And it wouldn't stop.

The end was in sight, though. She could see ahead the great, gaudy double-doors that marked the Empress's throne room, and sense the woman herself behind them. Before she even got close, though, she got the sense of something even more putrid and sickening than the battle. It was a strong, forceful mind, focused on one task and otherwise almost completely inert. Coming into contact with it gave her a buzzing headache that almost obscured her danger sense in the critical moment.

A red lightsaber cracked down against hers and she skittered back, regarding her new opponent for the split second that he gave her. He was tall and thin, entirely non-descript except for a wild fall of hair that was exactly the same shade as hers. She could feel his thoughts shift as the situation changed, but they did so robotically, seeming to simply click between gears.

"Who the heck…?" the man attacked again and she retreated, nausea squirming in her guts. Something was wrong, something was wrong with him, and yet she got the feeling that he was a lot like her in some indefinable way. This loathsome automaton, whose only independent thoughts seemed to be dimly flickering cruelty and a desire to lash out…

Was this what Nochichi had wanted to make of her?

After a brief, furious duel, Chiyo threw herself inside of his reach and cracked him across the face with her artificial arm. As he lurched back, nose fountaining blood and lightsaber clattering across the deck, she grabbed his collar and drew back her own weapon. "Who are you? Another Sith?"

"Your brother."

"Wh-what?"

"You are… one of us…"

"One of what?" Chiyo shrieked, shaking him.

"It doesn't matter…" he grinned horribly. "Didn't you hear? We've both been replaced." Having said his piece, he lunged for a knife on his belt… and folded around Chiyo's lightsaber, still grinning. The Jedi let him down and closed his eyes, shuddering anew when she touched him.

After just a moment to collect herself, she continued towards the Empress's, sick and weary and desperate to end this battle. Unfortunately, there was one last obstacle in her path: a small, apologetic figure standing in the double doors.

"You," Chiyo said blankly.

"Yup," Darth Mito agreed sadly. "Me."

"That… that creature…?"

"Sorry, we got no time."

And with that, they had nothing left to say to each other. The Jedi and Sith crashed together, blades whirling and lashing more violently than they ever had before. Something was wrong with Mito this time; she didn't move with any semblance of her eerie grace, hacking away like a madwoman. Not that Chiyo was one to talk about missing grace...

Mito broke through her guard and set both blades scissoring towards Chiyo's neck, but, reacting on instinct, the girl blasted her away with a wall of the Force, knocking her sprawling through the double-doors and tumbling to the edge of Yukari's dias.

The Empress stood from her throne, raising her hands to make a dramatic proclamation—then promptly sat back down and tried to make herself as small as possible when she realized the fight was still on. She'd never seen a lightsaber duel before, and though this wasn't the most skillful example, she was suitably impressed.

After what seemed like months of their brutal contest, Ayumu suddenly dropped her lightsabers. Chiyo's eyes automatically followed them down--before she realized what had happened, the Sithling had grabbed her shoulders and Force Shriek filled her body with rattling agony. Fighting with every ounce of her strength to stand… Chiyo collapsed bonelessly.

Yukari stood back up and stared at the two women for a long moment. "That was… that…?" she shook her head rapidly. "W-well? Hurry up and kill her!"

"But I thought the plan was ta…!"

"Forget that! Forget the whole plan, she's too freakin' dangerous, kill her!"

"But…"

"Mito, come here!" In one light hop, Ayumu landed next to the Empress, who grabbed the sides of her head and stared into her eyes. "Drive this through your thick skull and burn it into your defective brain… you will kill Chiyo Mihama!"

Ayumu nodded unwillingly. She returned to her fallen foe and knelt to pick up her lightsabers, drawing a deep, shaky breath. Just one last… one last… and suddenly, Chiyo sat up and thrust the green lightsaber through her side! "Aaughk!"

"Sorry!" Chiyo cried, aware of the absurdity even as she did. She moved to withdraw the saber, but Ayumu caught her wrists. "Wh… what are you…?" Her voice faltered when the green blade flickered out. The Sithling was trembling, eyes downcast. "You didn't just… oh, f—ack!"

Tendrils of telekinesis wrapped swiftly around her limbs and drew her into the air, holding her steady as Ayumu stood slowly before her, bent around the wound in her side, hair nearly on-end with absorbed energy. She reached out and gently laid a hand on Chiyo's cheek, looking as though her heart would break. "It won't hurt," she said softly.

So, this was it. The crusade was over. Everything Chiyo had gone through to this point was meaningless, all of her friends were doomed, and the galaxy would forever groan under the Empire… the Empire that had destroyed Alderaan, pacified Osaka, killed Sakaki, her Aunt and Uncle…

Their eyes met. What did they do to you? Chiyo's heart wailed. It wasn't right… what had any of them done to come to this juncture? Such dreadful things couldn't be allowed to happen! It wasn't right! It wasn't RIGHT!

And suddenly, Chiyo was free and her foe was sprawled on the deck several meters away, gasping in pain. What…? As Ayumu tried to rise, another wave of Force Lightning clawed her to the ground and left her curled tightly, unmoving. She'd even tried to escape to her fourth dimension, but the bolts had followed—no mere electricity, these, but a physical manifestation of Chiyo's fury.

"Holy shit!" the Empress yelled. "Did you just-?"

"Yeah," Chiyo replied, looking at her hands oddly. "I think I just did."

"Whoa… I might have use for you yet!"

"That's the kind of thing you shouldn't say out loud," Chiyo advised calmly. If anything, she seemed to find their situation a little funny. "You wanted to try to corrupt me to the dark side and make me your minion, is that it?"

"Well, I, uh…"

"Is your view of the universe that simple? Did you honestly put yourself on the Dark Side and the rebels on the Light Side, and just assume that if someone fell to the Dark Side they would serve you?"

"Yeah! I'm the Mistress of Darkness, here! The Sith are mine!"

"But did it ever once occur to you," Chiyo asked reasonably, "That if you take a Jedi that merely wants to kill you and twist them to darkness…" a lightsaber sprang to her hand and ignited, painting them both with its crimson light. "You could just get a Sith who's going to kill you?"