Well, this chapter took longer to finish than I intended, but it's here, and it's a big one! As always, I hope you enjoy!
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Chapter Twenty-Three
The turbolift doors opened on a room that had been almost completely devastated. With its ceiling and walls in shambles and every surface covered in debris, the top of the tower was lit by only a few bioluminescent globe stalks, the shimmering lights of Coruscant that filtered through the window, and now, by the blue-white glow of an old Jedi lightsaber.
Ben Skywalker held that saber at his side, lifting it just enough to cast its light toward the base of the stairs where Anakin lay nearly motionless, Jacen kneeling at his side. He swept his eyes across the whole room, searching for Allana, only to find her on a raised platform in the far-right corner, wrapped tight in the Embrace of Pain.
His throat went dry at the sight, and for a moment he couldn't breathe. Her anguish, though muted by unconsciousness, called out to him, a low, constant moan that echoed across their bond. He could have wept right then for the agony she was in, for the pain of seeing her so small and broken and helpless. Instead, he took a deep breath and forced his attention back to the men at the center of the room.
His former master looked up, and even in the dim light, he could see the smile creeping across Jacen's face.
"Hey, Ben. Welcome home."
Ben swallowed his grief, his fear, his desperation, and he stood tall in the face of his adversary. "I'm not here for a reunion," he said evenly.
Jacen continued to smile up at him. It was a sickeningly patient smile, the same one he'd given Ben all those years ago when he explained why the path he'd chosen was the only path to peace. Ben hated it. He hated the thought of Jacen's face being the last one his father had seen before he died. He hated the thought of Allana looking into that face as she was forced into the Embrace. And now this Sith monstrosity held the galaxy's last hope in his grasp, the one man who could truly make a difference, and he was smiling.
Anakin lifted his head just enough to meet his eyes, and in that gaze Ben saw the same fear and shame he'd carried ever since his father died. I'm sorry, his grandfather seemed to say as he lay there. Jacen stood up and advanced a few steps, stepping around Anakin's prone form.
"You look older, even more than on Ziost."
Ben bit the inside of his lip, hard. "Fantastic. Now let them go."
Jacen tilted his head to one side and shook it. "Straight to the point, as always. But you know it's not as simple as that."
"It is that simple. I'm here for Allana and Anakin, and I'm not leaving without them."
"Who said anything about leaving?" Jacen glanced back at Anakin for a second. Their grandfather's head had dropped to the deck, his eyes roaming and unfocused. Jacen took in a deep, contented breath and turned to face Ben once more. "I've been expecting you, Ben. I wanted you to come here."
The sincerity in his voice grated along Ben's nerves, and he felt such an overwhelming urge to silence that voice, to keep it from infecting his thoughts as it had done before. Ben tried to swallow, but his throat was still too dry. Was it all a lie, or had Jacen really anticipated this? Was this his plan all along?
"Do you understand now?" Jacen asked, and behind that sincere tone there was a hint of something desperate. "Do you understand why we're here?"
Ben flexed his fingers around the grip of his lightsaber. "I told you, I'm here to save Allana and Anakin. I don't know what the hell you want, and I don't care either."
Jacen shook his head again. "You've grown so much, and yet you're still blinded by your stubborn refusal to embrace reality. If you're not careful, it will be your undoing."
"I'm not the one who's blind." Ben raised his saber and pointed it at Jacen's heart. "And I don't plan on being undone ever again."
Jacen lowered his gaze and exhaled with force. "You have every right to resent me, to hate me even – but believe me when I say everything I did, I did out of love."
Ben felt a tide of anger surging inside him, threatening to overtake him. How could Jacen still be so delusional? How could the man who fought so hard to end a brutal, galaxy-spanning war really not see how insane this was? Did he honestly believe betraying his family and hunting down his friends and brutalizing entire star systems was the key to galactic peace? That there was any world in which torturing his own daughter was justified?
He took a step in Allana's direction, pulled by the pain he still felt in the space between them; but as he moved, so did Jacen. It took only a few steps for the Sith Master to place himself directly in Ben's path. Jacen spread his hands wide at his sides, his lightsaber still clutched in one closed fist.
"Tell me you understand," he said softly.
Ben looked past him at Allana and felt his pulse beating in his throat. He thought back to his training, the many months he'd spent learning from Jacen, absorbing every scrap of knowledge and every fighting technique. In all their sparring sessions, he'd never once bested his cousin. He'd never even come close. The last time they met before Ziost, Ben hadn't even tried to fight him, because he didn't want to keep going down the dark road Jacen had set him on, and because he'd foolishly thought he could convince his former master to turn back to the light.
He could still feel the snakelike coil of the Embrace around him, barbs dragging across his flesh as Jacen burrowed into his mind. He could still remember the words, the cool, calm rationale, spoken like a balm instead of the poison it truly was. The tremor started in his arms, faint at first but gathering strength until he felt it arc into his throat as the words tumbled out.
"You told me this was for our family." The grip of his lightsaber dug into his palms as he held it ever tighter. "That you were making me strong to protect them and the galaxy. You said that, and then you destroyed both."
Jacen's expression shifted, giving way to a familiar earnestness as he took a step forward and reached out with one hand. "The galaxy is already dying, Ben. It's collapsing under the weight of its own decay. Tell me you couldn't feel that, even before?"
Ben shook his head. "I don't remember what it was like before. This galaxy, the one that's dying? You created it."
"I know that's what you need to believe. I accept that what I've done is horrific, and that you can never forgive me. I don't need your forgiveness. I need your power. Every sacrifice I've made, every life I've destroyed – all of it has been in service to one goal: to set you free. To help you achieve that impossible, exalted state that I once did."
Bile burned in the back of his throat, and as he struggled to comprehend the enormity of those words, Ben felt his entire body go cold. "What?" he choked out.
Jacen took another step toward him. "Imagine for one moment that you're the most powerful person in the galaxy, more intimately connected to the Force than possibly anyone in history – and imagine it only lasts for a few moments. Then imagine you see a future where your child is threatened, and you know that the only way to stop it from happening is to somehow find that power again, that impossible power that you were only worthy of once in your life.
"I can't achieve that unity again, but you can. You only lacked the circumstances to drive you to it. A situation as desperate as mine was, fighting a relentless enemy, facing the loss of everything and everyone you ever loved."
Ben listened to the words, felt them circle him and drag at him and begin to eat him alive. It couldn't be— it couldn't—
"You're insane," he whispered, unable to move. Unable to breathe.
Jacen frowned, as if Ben had merely failed to grasp his words and needed simple correction. "I didn't understand it for a long time. I searched for years, looking for a way back to that perfect unity with the Force. I learned from many teachers, but none of them brought me any closer to the truth. So I accepted my fate, and I returned to the Jedi and to my family." He paused to inhale, and it was as if a world of misery were somehow contained in that breath. "And then Allana was born, and I had a vision of unending war and suffering, and I thought if I could stop that from happening, surely that was right?"
"Right?" Ben's voice shook, and this time he didn't try to hide it. "That future you wanted to prevent is here. You created it with innocent blood, with the blood of our family, all because of some vision. How the hell is that right?"
Jacen took another step toward him, close enough now that even in the dim light, Ben could make out the lines in his face, the burdens that had aged him beyond his forty-two years.
"It wasn't supposed to be this way," Jacen insisted, shaking his head. "I tried to explain it to them. You don't know how much— how I tried— but no one would listen." Jacen looked away for a second, and Ben realized he was glancing back at Allana. The pain that flashed through the Force was pronounced and unfathomable. "I never meant to go so far, but now I can fix it. This is how we fix it. Once you transcend your limits and become completely one with the Force, we can change whatever we want. Bring back whoever we want."
Ben thought of his parents, of everyone he'd lost. Force, there were so many. Not just his dead, but all the others, across all the worlds, for years and years. All for this? They were all dead because they needed to be dead, to wear him down and push him to his limits, so that he wouldn't have any other choice?
For a single instant, he wondered if it was actually possible. The power to cheat death, to turn back time, to change everything.
He looked into his cousin's eyes, not the strange yellow eyes of the Sith, but the brown ones he had grown up knowing. There'd never been a time when he hadn't known those eyes, or that face, or that voice. He'd trusted him with his whole heart, once. A child's heart. But he wasn't a child anymore.
"You're crazy," he breathed out. "Your whole sick plan is crazy."
Jacen's eyes narrowed a fraction. "Is it, Ben? Is it any crazier than a species that exists beyond our ability to sense with the Force? Is it any crazier than a sentient planet? What about our grandfather, dead forty-seven years, traveling across time and space to end up right here, at this moment? Don't tell me that's a coincidence, and don't you dare tell me I'm crazy for seeing the truth that you refuse to acknowledge."
White-knuckled and losing his grip on any semblance of calm, Ben lifted the blade of his weapon to aim once more at Jacen's heart. "You let her go," he said through clenched teeth. "Right now. I won't ask again."
Jacen's expression flickered from frustration to something far darker and more possessive. "If you believe nothing else I say, believe this: no one is taking my daughter from me ever again. If you want to try, then you will fight me for her."
Ben brought his other hand to the hilt of his saber and shifted his stance, raising the blade to his right shoulder. "So be it."
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The sky over Salis D'aar was cloudless and bright with sunlight, its endlessly and vibrantly blue expanse appearing like something out of a painting, or a children's fairy story. On some worlds, the sky always seemed so close, like you could reach up and touch it and carry some of it with you. Tatooine had been one of those worlds, and despite the vast divide that separated it from Bakura in almost every way, when Tahiri Veila thought back to her youth on the desert planet, she remembered a sky very much like this one.
She and Valin stood back-to-back under that sun-bright sky, turning in a tight, unified circle as they fended off three crimson blades from three relentless and merciless Sith Lords. Their weapons tore a blue and silver path through the dust and debris, halting each attack a split-second before they could find their marks. They shifted in and out of each other's spaces, united in thought and purpose, blocking and parrying and evading with near-perfect coordination. It still wasn't a battle meld, exactly, but just as the Jedi had done over Zihrent, so she and Valin fueled one another, lifting each other past their individual limits.
Shots fired from behind her, and out of the corner of one eye, she saw Myri and a few of her soldiers trading fire with the Sith troops across the plaza. A rebel transport ship flew overhead, swinging around to land in a clearing beyond the plaza. Tahiri breathed a quick sigh of relief as she heard Myri yell for the kids to get to the ship.
"You think you've saved them, Jedi?" Darth Dominius's blade slipped under hers and thrust up, trying to create an opening. Tahiri shut off her saber and drew her elbows in, weaving to slip past the Falleen Sith Lord's defenses. She aimed the hilt at his chest and activated her weapon again; Dominius wasn't quite fast enough to block, but Darth Satrus intercepted her blade, twirling his saber in a move that pushed her backward.
"Clever," the human Sith murmured, a hint of a smile on his otherwise stoic face.
"You like that?" she said, bringing her lightsaber across her body for a series of blocks. "I've been practicing."
Unlike Dominius's more traditional lightsaber form, Satrus's movements were liquid and hard to predict. While the former occasionally telegraphed his attacks, his companion gave away nothing, forcing Tahiri to rely more on the Force than her own natural reflexes to counter. She sank into that current, surrendering to it, trusting that it would lead her where she needed to go.
Behind her, she could feel Valin's fatigue, and she did what she could to bolster him. There was still a part of Tahiri that yearned to let loose, to meet her enemies in unrestrained combat and employ every deeply-ingrained fighting tactic seared into her over the years. But they were outnumbered by experienced opponents, and despite their unified front, Valin wasn't the strongest duelist. Though they worked brilliantly in tandem, she feared what would happen if they broke from their defensive circle.
The ground shook beneath them, and as Tahiri narrowly evaded Satrus's agile blade, she caught a glimpse of another AT-AT rounding the corner of a building several blocks away. The comlink on her hip issued static for a few seconds before a familiar voice broke through.
"Tahiri!" Myri said with an urgency that held, as ever, just the faintest hint of mischief. "Malinza said to tell the Sith she sends her regards!"
Wind gusted around them as the rebel transport ship kicked up into the air, and Tahiri nearly missed a block as she glanced back at it, Myri's words not quite registering in her brain. Malinza?
Tahiri caught Satrus's saber against her own, avoiding a swipe from Dominius as she pivoted to press her attack. The ground shook again, and she extended her perception toward the walker – and in a Force-driven explosion of clarity, she realized the AT-AT wasn't targeting the fleeing rebel ship or the soldiers on the ground, because it wasn't a Sith trooper driving it at all—
Her comlink crackled once more. "Oh yeah, Malinza also said to duck."
The blast hit the building nearest them, shattering in a hail of crumbled duracrete and transparisteel shards and hot, twisted metal. The force of the blast sent Tahiri flying away from Valin and the Sith Lords. She clung to her lightsaber as she fell back toward the ground, landing on a section of wall that had been thrown several meters away from its original location.
As she staggered to her feet, she saw Valin's silver lightsaber ignite a fair distance away from her, snapping up to block a blow from the Twi'lek woman. Rebel and Sith starfighters streaked through the air overhead, trading fire at a frantic, unsustainable pace. Tahiri turned to vault in Valin's direction, when in her peripheral vision, she saw a dark-robed figure hurtling toward her, crimson saber blazing a trail through the haze. Behind that blade, two eyes burned like fire from within a flame-red face.
Dominius catapulted toward her, leaping through the air like a bird preparing to take flight. He crashed hard into her cerulean saber, beating her down with every blow. No longer outnumbered or bound by the defensive strategy she and Valin had employed, Tahiri allowed muscle memory to take over. Ritual Tusken gaderffii combat blended with years of Jedi training; it was strengthened by the brutal energy of the Yuuzhan Vong and sharpened by skills she'd developed in answer to the renewed Sith menace.
She probably wasn't anything like the Jedi of old, the ones to whom Anakin Skywalker belonged, the ones the Galactic Empire had tried to wipe from existence. And she probably wasn't anything like Luke Skywalker or Anakin Solo, or even the person she herself would have been in a different, better world. But that was okay, because right here, right now, she was exactly the Jedi she needed to be, the one who would end Darth Dominius and any other Sith who came after her family.
Dominius slammed his blade into hers again, over and over, trying to drive her to her knees. Instead of fighting it, Tahiri dropped to her back and kicked his legs out from under him. Dominius didn't fall, though; he planted one hand on the ground and pushed off in a cartwheel that seemed to defy the effects of gravity. Tahiri jumped to her feet the same moment he landed on his, and they hurtled toward each other again.
As they circled one another, Tahiri caught a glimpse of Valin across the plaza, still locked in combat. He was holding his own against the powerful Twi'lek Sith, but she knew the fight had to be wearing on him. At least they each only had to deal with one opponent. Tahiri stretched out with her senses but couldn't detect Darth Satrus anywhere. She wondered if he'd been caught in the falling debris.
"Where's your friend?" Tahiri asked, swinging her lightsaber from her hip to catch Dominius's descending blade. Her question seemed to spark a new fire in the seemingly unflappable Sith Lord.
"You will die today, Jedi," Dominius spat, his typical composure crumbling away as thoroughly as the ruined buildings around them. "I'll send you and all your kind straight to hell."
"That's funny," Tahiri replied as she parried another blow, "because I was going to say the same thing to you."
Dominius roared and pushed her backward through the debris, gaining momentum as his saber battered hers. Tahiri backflipped onto a narrow support beam jutting out from the wreckage of the building, balancing nimbly on the twisted metal as she searched for higher ground. The Falleen Sith gave chase, navigating the beam with a grace and lightness that was more avian than reptilian, and he grinned a broad, sharp-toothed grin as they ascended high above the plaza. Then he did something totally unexpected.
He threw his lightsaber at her.
She should have reached out with the Force and plucked it from the air, but the sight of it whirling toward her head in a deadly blood-red pinwheel caught her by such surprise that she followed her first instinct, to duck under it. As she did so, Dominius lunged forward and caught her under the chin with a swift kick, and she fell back and hit her shoulder against the beam before toppling off of it completely.
The drop was at least five meters. Tahiri tried to slow her fall, but she still landed hard on her side among the shattered remains of the plaza, gasping at the pain that wrenched through her as she sucked in a breath. Her ribs, she realized. At least a few of them were certainly cracked, maybe even broken. She grunted as she climbed to her feet, forcing the pain back into a small corner of her awareness. She'd lived through worse injuries, and she wasn't about to let these ones stop her.
Dominius was still perched high atop the beam, the pigment of his skin cooling to an ashen green as he regarded her. "All that you've endured, and still you stand." He shook his head and gave her a pitying smile. "The world you fight for is gone, Master Veila. You cling to the dying embers of a galaxy that cannot hope to sustain itself. We will tear it down so that it might begin anew, unencumbered by the countless millennia of rot that came before." He closed his left hand in a fist and raised it toward the sky. "Can you not see your defeat is inevitable? Why fight against it? Why not join us?"
Tahiri tasted the copper tang of blood in her mouth, and she kept her eyes on the Sith as she spat it out. "You really need to work on your recruiting tactics. I know a thing or two about fanatics, including the fact that every civilization built by them eventually falls." She thumbed her saber to life and angled it at him. "I'll take my chances with the dying embers, thanks but no thanks."
Dominius shrugged and flashed another smile. "It was worth a try." He leapt to the ground and flourished his crimson blade at his side.
Tahiri forced herself not to grimace as she brought her weapon to bear. Luminous beings, she reminded herself again, closing her eyes for a single second. Not this crude matter.
The Bakuran sun was warm on her skin and bright in her eyes, and Valin's nearby presence was steady; and Tahiri smiled because the Force was with her.
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Blaster fire echoed all through Eradicator's durasteel gray corridors, and Arden Veiss turned to look over her shoulder, listening.
"It's getting closer," she murmured, trying to ignore the frenetic racing of her pulse. Next to her, Ames fidgeted, passing the hilt of his lightsaber from one hand to the other and back again.
"Nothing we can't handle," he replied, eyes forward, focused on the astromech droid rolling to the front of their group, one mechanical arm outstretched. The soldiers parted before R2-D2, then reformed in a protective semicircle around both him and the computer terminal. Artoo plugged in, and the dataport cycled and whirred as the little droid sifted through Eradicator's system.
"Can you sense the others?" Arden asked Ames quietly.
The tall boy nodded slowly. "Yes, but not like what you're thinking. I can feel them as a group, and Master Horn is more distinct… but my senses aren't as attuned as someone like Ben or Elias or one of the masters." He took a deep breath, and then he, too, looked over his shoulder at the empty corridor. "I can tell they're under a lot of fire, though."
Arden nodded and glanced down at the blaster in her hands. She knew how to use one, of course. Couldn't get very far as a smuggler and thief without learning how, but she'd never been in a situation like this one, where a firefight against impossible odds was all but guaranteed. And even though she still felt that strange sense of hope – of faith – it would be a lie to say she wasn't afraid.
Artoo retracted his arm and issued a long string of clipped, urgent beeps. The soldier next to him glanced down at her datapad. "Medbay, two levels up," she said, reading the translation off the pad. Her eyes went wide as she continued to scan the screen. "He says the children are slated for… testing."
Arden looked up and found Elias at the head of the group. He'd blanched noticeably at the soldier's words, and she saw him swallow hard.
"We need to hurry," he said. "On me. Ames?"
The boy stepped forward and stood at attention. "Sir."
Even with the gravity of their situation weighing on them all, Elias couldn't seem to help the small smile that tugged at his lips. No matter what position he was in now, he was still the stalwart first mate of the Daybreak, and Ames's friend. "You take the rear. No way we're getting there without a fight."
They made their way up the levels and were nearing the last turn to the medical wing when the fight finally found them.
"Rebels!" a muffled voice yelled, and Arden turned in time to see a whole squad of Sith troopers at the end of the intersecting hallway, raising their blasters to fire.
Elias and Ames swept past her, lightsabers igniting with a sizzle as they intercepted the enemy fire. The rebel soldiers behind her started to fall back in the direction of the medbay, shouting over the noise for everyone to run.
The medical wing was a brightly-lit spot of white at the end of the corridor, and Arden jogged toward it, hovering near Artoo, who was surprisingly calm even as laser blasts peppered the air around them. Instead of growing larger, though, that spot of white began to shrink.
"Blast doors!" one of the strike team members shouted. The reinforced durasteel doors shut before they could reach them, trapping them in the corridor with the Sith troopers. Following the rebels' lead, Arden moved to one side of the hallway and ducked behind the closest archway.
"Master Jedi!" one of the rebels shouted. "A little help?"
Elias turned and sprinted to the blast door, and he plunged his lightsaber into the center. The metal glowed molten orange around the bright blue of his blade.
More enemy soldiers poured into the corridor, and the man next to Arden cried out as a blaster bolt caught him in the chest. She tucked as far back against the wall as she could, hardly able to return fire. Ames stood in front of them, lasers deflecting off his emerald saber, whirling too fast for her to keep up with.
"Elias!" the younger Jedi called out, an edge of panic in his voice. "I can't hold them!"
Melted metal shards fell to the floor as Elias yanked his lightsaber out of the door and spun around to join Ames in the middle of the corridor. "Artoo!" he yelled over the din. "Get those doors open!"
The droid squealed in reply, and Arden hefted her blaster to take up a defensive position in front of him. "Ready?"
She fired off several shots as she and the ancient astromech emerged from their shelter, making a direct line to the terminal while Elias and Ames weaved a brilliant web of protection between them and the enemy. Artoo extended an arm and began to sort through the electronic tumblers that locked the blast door in place.
"Come on, come on," Arden muttered under her breath, watching the Jedi out of the corner of her eye. They still moved with incredible speed and precision, but she could tell by the set of their jaws and the sweat on their brows that they were coming up against their limits.
The droid let out a triumphant string of beeps and whistles, and a blast door at the opposite end of the corridor closed, cutting them off from the Sith troopers. Elias and Ames lowered their weapons and staggered backward, breathing heavy.
"Thanks, buddy," Elias said, still fighting to catch his breath.
Artoo warbled what Arden thought might have been an affectionate response, and then the blast door behind them opened, revealing the sterile white walls of the medical wing. What remained of Beta group stepped across the threshold.
Apart from the soft echo of their boots on the polished floor, the medbay was silent. Arden wasn't sure what she'd expected to find here; after what Ben had told her of Yalena, she hadn't really wanted to imagine what might be waiting for them. Somehow, this eerie calm was more unsettling than anything she could have conjured in her imagination.
Doors lined each side of the too-bright corridor, all of them closed. "Spread out," Elias ordered. "Check each one."
The strike team dispersed, and Arden followed Elias as he headed for one of the doors. The room inside appeared to be a typical medbay, with a few beds and medical equipment and more white walls. There was no sign that anyone had even touched this room recently.
"Come on," Elias murmured, his hand resting lightly on her arm. "Let's keep looking."
They exited the room and looked around for the rest of Beta group. Ames was leaving the room across from them, and as their eyes met, he shook his head.
"Master Jedi!"
Arden and Elias turned quickly toward the voice and spotted one of the soldiers standing outside an open doorway at the far end of the corridor.
"I found them!" the soldier called out before running into the room.
Elias tensed for a split-second, and then he sprinted down the hallway, skidding to a stop in front of the door. Arden saw him slump against the doorframe and breathe a long sigh of relief. He looked back at her and smiled, exhausted but victorious.
"They're okay," he said. He disappeared into the room, following after the soldier. By the time Arden reached the room, they were already leading the children out. Most of the kids were still in their nightclothes and appeared disheveled and disoriented, but there were no obvious injuries.
Ames stepped past Arden, scanning the group of children before looking over at Elias. "Master Tivas?"
Elias shook his head, but one of the children raised a hand and pointed to a set of blast doors at the end of the hallway. "They took him in there when we got here. We haven't seen him, but he's…" The girl trailed off, tears in her eyes.
Arden gripped her blaster tight as every eye turned to the blast doors.
"Artoo," Elias said, "get those doors open."
The little astromech made short work of this set of blast doors, and they opened to reveal another brightly-lit room, easily triple the size of the smaller ones they'd searched. Arden wasn't sure what this room might have been before, if it had always been part of the medical suite or if it served some other purpose; but a large space had been cleared to make way for a ring of carts and computer monitors, and at their center, the Jedi healer Orion Tivas lay on the room's sole operating table.
Arden only caught a glimpse before Elias and their team's medic rushed forward, blocking her view, but what she saw was enough to turn her stomach. Ames came up beside her, and she reached out without thinking, grasping her friend's arm. He turned toward her, looking away from the center of the room. The last time they'd been in a medcenter together, they'd been waiting for news about Kohr, and Master Tivas had been the one to deliver that news, to reassure them that their friend would be all right.
"Is he…?" Her throat tightened around the words, and she looked to Ames for a response.
The young Jedi covered his mouth with one hand. "He's holding on, but I don't—" Ames shook his head and glanced over at Elias, who was assisting the medic in wrapping Orion's torso with swaths of gauze. "They just left him here, like that, and—"
Arden squeezed his arm where she held on to it. In the center of the room, Elias and the medic finished bandaging Orion, and they sat him up slowly.
"Easy there." Elias took the brunt of the other Jedi's weight as he shifted him to the edge of the table. "We've got you."
The medic moved to one side, draping Orion's right arm over his shoulder. As Elias did the same to his left, Arden finally got a clear look at the man.
His thin flimsiplast shirt was open down the front, revealing a torso wrapped almost entirely in bandages, scarlet already blooming like little flowers against the white gauze. He was sickly pale, too – hardly anything like the man she'd met just a few days ago.
"The children?" he whispered through dry, cracked lips.
"They're here," Elias reassured. "They're okay. They're all okay."
Orion closed his eyes and sagged against Elias, relief evident in the tears that slipped down his face and the ragged breath that shook his thin frame. "Thank the Force."
Elias lowered Orion gently to the floor, then pulled out his comlink. "Jysella?"
The answer was immediate. "Do you have them?"
"Yes. We found them all."
Arden didn't miss the way the other Jedi hesitated, or the faint tremor in her voice as she said, "Orion?"
Elias held the comlink up in front of the healer. "I'm here, Jys," Orion answered, still weak. "It's good to hear your voice."
"Yours too." Jysella's soft tone turned urgent. "Elias, the detonators are in place. What's your location?"
"The medcenter. They know we're here. Artoo jammed the doors, but it won't be long before they get through." Elias inhaled deep, his eyes catching Arden's for a second. "We could use a diversion."
"I think I can arrange something. Sit tight – we're coming to you."
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In the eerie dark of the ruined Sith throne room, two men clashed.
Born of the same lineage, the same blood, they carried in them a legacy of bravery and heroism, a legacy of light – but also one of darkness, one that had always lain in wait, should they ever stumble. And they had each struggled with the duality of that legacy, the duality of walking in brightest light while casting the darkest shadows.
Maybe it was appropriate that the battle between them should be waged with weapons forged by their grandfather, and that those two weapons should be one and the same, separated only by time.
There was a deeper meaning there that neither man had time to fully appreciate – for as much as theirs was a battle between light and dark, between the conflicting aspects of their family's legacy, it was also a battle between two people who had loved and cared for each other, who had been bound as master and apprentice, whose bond had been built not because they were grandsons of the Jedi Knight Anakin Skywalker or the Sith Lord Darth Vader, but because one was Jacen and the other was Ben, and that was all that had ever really mattered to them.
Twin blades of cerulean crashed and hissed in the gloom, battering against each other as these two men – bound together by blood and love and fate – fought on.
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Against all of Ben's hopes to the contrary, age had not diminished Jacen's combat prowess in the least. If anything, time had only deepened his former master's skill: his form was precise and economical, and he moved swiftly from one counterattack to the next without ever seeming to rush. As an apprentice, Ben had studied those forms diligently, and he had tried to imitate Jacen's minimalist fighting style; but no matter how hard he trained, he'd never gotten the better of his cousin. Ben had hidden his feelings well after those matches, rarely voicing just how frustrated he was at his own inexperience, but Jacen could always tell.
One day, was his master's oft-repeated reply in the face of those frustrations, you'll be even better at this than me.
Ben swung at Jacen's midsection, a tight horizontal blow that would have sliced the Sith from hip to hip if it had landed. But very few lightsaber duels ended that quickly, and they still had many more blows to trade before they reached that point.
"The last time we sparred, you were a whole head shorter than me." Jacen danced out of reach of Ben's saber and observed him as one might a work of art: critical, but interested; analytical, but also moved. "Seems so long ago."
"Not long enough." Ben punctuated his words with a downward thrust, which Jacen intercepted effortlessly, turning his momentum back on him. Reeling a little from the sudden shift, Ben spun away from the blade, putting enough distance between them to regain his footing.
Jacen stood back, continuing to observe rather than pursue. "You look just like him, you know. I didn't realize how much until now."
His father's face flashed unbidden through his thoughts, and he remembered the last time he'd seen him, striding forward to meet the Sith head-on, so focused he hadn't even looked back.
The rage that had been simmering just beneath the surface began to boil over. Ben brought his lightsaber in line with his center and grasped it tight in both hands. "You shut your mouth. I don't want to hear you say anything about him."
Jacen's rueful smile twisted just slightly as he raised one eyebrow, saying nothing. He retreated up the grass-covered staircase, and Ben followed, battering Jacen's saber with his own, each swing becoming more exaggerated, more aggressive. Their blades crossed high in the air, then swung low where they crossed again. Ben leaned into the blow with all his weight and forced Jacen's sword hand away from his body, and he used that split-second to slam his elbow into Jacen's face.
The Sith Master staggered backward, clutching his face with his left hand. Blood trickled from his nose and into his mouth, and the sight of it triggered in Ben an animal-like rush of satisfaction and a desire – no, a need – to see his enemy thoroughly crushed. That swell of dark emotion propelled him forward, carrying him across the debris-filled room as he and Jacen continued to trade blows.
"That's it, Ben!" Jacen's eerie smile was tinged red. "Let go of your limits. Stop worrying about light and dark, and fight me."
Ben growled and shoved back hard against the next attack. "Shut up!"
But Jacen wouldn't be deterred. "If it takes the dark side to get you to open your eyes, then so be it. Once you lose everything, once there is nothing holding you back, then you'll achieve a power greater than any Jedi, greater than any Sith, and you'll finally understand why this was the only way."
Ben roared as he ducked past an overhead strike and rammed his shoulder into Jacen's gut, knocking him to the floor. He resisted the urge to pursue him and end him, trying to ignore that sly whisper that told him he could do it all too easily if he really wanted to, if he just let go.
Jacen stood slowly, saber held in a horizontal line in front of him as he brushed grass from his shirt. His motions were deliberately casual, but Ben could see the heavier rise and fall of his chest, and the sweat gathering on his brow. His old master was growing tired after having already fought Anakin.
"You're so close," Jacen said, taking a deep, satisfied breath. "You don't even know how close you are."
Gods, would he just shut up? Ben fought to suppress that slow boil of rage, even as he felt it roll through him. "Why me?" he gritted out. "Why am I so fragging special? Why not Jaina or Aunt Leia, or my father?"
Jacen's calm expression faltered, and Ben saw that same earnestness from earlier. It made him sick. "Because you were the only one who would listen to me, really listen to me back then. But after Uncle Luke— after what happened— I knew you would never hear anything I said."
—a supernova burst in his brain, and his knees hitting metal, and Mom's voice screaming through the comlink—
Ben held onto his saber as if it were a lifeline. Maybe it was. Across from him, Jacen shook his head and continued.
"I kept making mistakes; I couldn't stop – the coup, the Academy, the alliance with the Sith, thinking I understood them, that I could use them – and then I lost Tenel Ka, and Allana, and Jaina…" Jacen's shoulders sagged, and his voice broke over the words. "I'd shut her out for so long, and then it was too late. I killed my sister, my other half. After that, I knew there was no hope going forward, no hope of ever correcting the balance. The One Sith betrayed me and swept across the galaxy, and that was my fault." He shook his head again, jaw clenched and eyes suddenly damp. "But I survived against all odds, and I have to believe it was for a reason."
Ben's breath shook as he exhaled. "You think we'll just bring them all back and everything's okay? You think you'll be forgiven for what you've done?"
"No. I told you, I don't expect forgiveness. But it's not enough for us to bring them back, Ben. We have to go further than that, or else the whole cycle will start again. Without balance, the threat I foresaw will come, and Allana will die – and I refuse to let that happen."
Ben glanced over at Anakin, lying motionless among the grass and the coral. His grandfather's presence flickered; he was still alive, but fading. Ben turned back and met Jacen's eyes, and a shiver went up his spine at what he saw there. "What do you mean, 'go further'?"
"I wasn't strong enough; I know that now. I need you and Jaina to help bring about the peace we've dreamed of. And I need— we need Anakin."
Ben slashed his saber through the air. "You killed Jaina. You stabbed Anakin in the—"
"Not him," Jacen said with a growl. "My brother. Anakin."
The words echoed inside his head for a minute, refusing to make sense. Ben's voice sounded small and hollow to his own ears. "Your brother is dead. He's been dead for twenty-five years."
"But we can change that. We can bring him back. We can fix everything I did wrong, and everything I've done since." Jacen reached out with one hand, and his fingers curled into a fist. "I can do it, with your help. I can go back, save him at Myrkr, save everyone, and then we'll be able to face the threat I foresaw. No one will be able to hurt our family ever again, and Allana will live a long and happy life."
Ben raised his lightsaber, readying for his next attack. "You really are insane," he growled.
Jacen lowered his hand and assumed his own defensive stance, his mental shields wavering long enough for Ben to sense the icy fury contained beneath. "If you think I'm insane," Jacen said in a cold voice, "then put me down. If you can."
They moved in the same instant, hurtling toward each other, their twin sabers sparking wildly as they collided. It didn't matter that Ben had never beaten Jacen in combat. It didn't matter that he lacked the older man's experience, or that they were in a temple filled with his evil minions, or that the dark side of the Force all but sang here, inviting him into its furious current. Ben was going to end this deranged monster once and for all.
He attacked with a series of quick strikes, each one coming tantalizingly close to hitting its target. Jacen blocked one after the other, his blade maneuvering into position at the last second to parry with seeming ease; but Ben could see the weight of fatigue in his enemy's movements. The delayed responses weren't nearly as deliberate as they appeared, and Ben continued to press the attack, a predator smelling blood.
Then Jacen missed a block, and as he dodged the sweep of Ben's blade, he tripped over one of the twisted ceiling panels that littered the floor. Stumbling backward, he fell against the yorik coral throne, lightsaber held high to block the coming blow. Ben surged forward and raised his weapon to his shoulder, ready to strike, when he caught a glimpse of Allana in the far corner of the room.
The Embrace of Pain was wrapped around her still, and the muscles in her face contracted from the torture it was inflicting on her. The sight of her like that – so small and broken and completely at the creature's mercy – was a knife to his heart. The fury that had filled him bled out in a rush, leaving him cold and empty.
"What are you waiting for?" Jacen breathed out, a ragged edge to his voice.
Ben's shoulders sagged, his saber lowering naturally to a defensive stance. What was he waiting for? He had every right, every reason to end the Sith Lord's existence. This was the man who'd tortured him, murdered his father, facilitated the kidnapping and abuse of countless children, hunted and killed the Jedi. He was responsible for the loss of almost everything and everyone Ben loved. He deserved to die horribly after all the evil he'd done.
Ben stared down at the brilliant cerulean blade in his hands, the blade forged by his grandfather, passed on to his father, and carried by his mother for most of her life. This weapon had seen years of war, decades of it… but there had been peace, too, hadn't there? Maybe not as lasting as his parents had hoped for, but still so very precious, and worth guarding to the end.
"I wanted to kill you," he whispered, still staring at the glowing blade. "I dreamed about it night after night; I wanted it so badly I could taste it. But now…" He shook his head, glancing once more at Allana before meeting Jacen's eyes. "I can't be what you want me to be. I won't. That's my choice, Jacen. To rise above my own darkness, and yours."
He took a deep breath, and he couldn't help the small smile on his lips as he thought of his father's compassion, and his mother's strength, and his grandfather's wry, undaunted grin.
"I'm a Jedi Knight, like so many before me. Like you were, once." And he knew, in that moment, that he didn't hate Jacen. Maybe he never had. Maybe it had always hurt too much to admit that he still loved his cousin, his master, his friend.
And before he even realized what he was doing, Ben spoke again, and he said something he couldn't have imagined saying until that very instant.
"Jacen. It's not too late to turn back. You can still do the right thing."
Jacen was silent, head tilted to one side as he looked from Ben's eyes to the gently humming saber, and back again. The deep furrow of his brow was the only sign that he'd heard Ben's words, or that he was considering them at all. In the Force, his cousin was as ever a blank.
"The right thing," Jacen murmured, lingering over the words. A sad smile quirked his lips. "What is that, do you think?"
Ben breathed in and felt it shudder in his lungs. "Call off your fleet. Stop the attack. Let Allana go."
Jacen reached a hand out to the coral throne and pulled himself fully upright, lightsaber thrumming softly at his side. Ben took a wary step back and raised his own weapon, and Jacen sighed.
"I wish, more than anything, that that would be enough, Ben."
Sharp, searing pain stabbed across his left side, and Ben nearly stumbled as he jerked his head toward the source of that pain. In the dim light, he saw a serpentine creature rearing back to strike him again. He'd never seen an amphistaff in person – like many of the Yuuzhan Vong biots, they had either been destroyed at the end of the war or transformed into tamer creatures upon returning to Zonama Sekot, and this more lethal version was now considered a relic of the past – but Ben still knew how vicious and deadly they were supposed to be.
The beast sprang at him, slicing once more into his side before he could counter it. As it coiled for a third attack, Ben was blasted into the air by an enormous burst of kinetic Force energy. It threw him across the room, and he landed a few meters away from the Embrace. As he stood, he was hit with another wave of energy that buckled his knees and sent him crashing to the floor.
Legs aching, he stood again, holding his saber in front of him. Jacen hadn't moved from his place next to the throne. His arm was outstretched, and Ben heard a frenzied, hissing chorus rise up around him in response. He spun toward the closest amphistaff, knocking the creature away with a deft flick of his saber. Two more lancing, searing blows behind each of his knees, and as he fell to the ground, he saw four amphistaffs circling him, ready to strike.
"Enough."
At Jacen's soft command the amphistaffs halted their attack. As they slithered away, Ben pressed a hand to the wound in his side. His fingers came away slick with blood, and he almost laughed at the sight of it. He tried to move from his knees to his feet, but the motion sent a wrenching burst of pain through his entire body. Defeated by his own flesh, Ben collapsed onto the floor, and his lightsaber shut off with a static hiss that echoed loud in the silence that followed.
"There's only one way out of this, Ben," Jacen called from the other side of the room, approaching slowly. "You know what you need to do. Stop fighting it."
Ben's vision swam, and he gripped the hilt of his saber so tight that his knuckles ached. He tried to push off the ground with his right elbow, but he buckled once again under the intense surge of pain. He wondered what it would feel like to die, if it would be any worse than knowing the fate that awaited Allana now that he had failed her. Would he see his parents again? He didn't know, but he hoped they could forgive him.
Stand up, Ben.
The voice was gentle and unwavering; it filled the dark reaches of his mind with warmth greater than any he could have imagined. For a moment he wanted only to bask in it, to close his eyes and listen to that precious whisper forever.
Ben, you have to stand. The voice was more insistent this time, and he felt as though it was trying to drag him to his feet through sheer force of will. Stand up, I said!
He planted his left hand on the floor and pulled himself to his knees, bracing himself there as he summoned the strength to stand. Jacen was nearly upon him. How could he fight him in this state? How could he hope to win?
Ben, the voice continued. My son, you must stand.
Ben lifted his head and closed his eyes. Instead of darkness, he saw his father's face, saw his clear blue eyes shining like fire.
Stand up now!
Ben's eyes snapped open, and with his father's words echoing in his ears, he ignited his lightsaber and stood up in time to meet the descending blade.
"Impressive," Jacen said, bearing down with all his weight. "I always knew you would become stronger."
Ben smiled through the pain. "Does this mean you're giving up?"
Jacen laughed and swung at his legs, and Ben angled his saber to block. They circled one another, trading blows at an unsustainable pace. Ben surrendered himself to the Force, letting it guide every step, every swing of his lightsaber, every breath. He found he was no longer afraid of what might happen, because the Force was with him, and his father was with him, too. But though the energy of the universe burned bright in him, he was still bleeding too much from too many wounds, and he could feel his body starting to fail.
Allana, he thought, trying to disentangle himself from Jacen's continued attacks. She was all that mattered now, if he could only reach her—
Jacen's blade caught against his and tugged hard, ripping Ben's weapon from his hands. It clattered against the rubble as Ben pitched forward, too weak to halt his momentum. He sensed a flicker of panic in a far-off corner of his mind – not his own panic, but Jacen's, perceived through the shattered remains of their old training bond. Before he could hit the ground, Jacen grabbed him by the collar and hoisted him into the air. The assured veil had fallen from his cousin's eyes, and what Ben saw in them now was closer to madness.
"Jacen," he gasped, weak, pleading. "You can stop this… just stop."
Jacen let out a guttural noise that was as much as sob as it was a growl. "If I stop now – if you don't ascend – then all of this was for nothing, do you understand?" He lifted Ben even higher and pulled him close. "I won't stop, Ben. I'll never stop, not until you do what needs to be done. So stop holding back."
Lightning arced from the Sith Lord's fingertips and tore through him, and as he fell writhing to the floor, Ben knew with profound and terrible clarity that this would be his final lesson on the subject of pain, and that Jacen would once again be his teacher.
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**Author's Note: If you're looking for more to read while waiting for the next update, here are a few related fics that I wrote while my muse was stubbornly refusing to work on Chapter 23. The first is The Way Out Is Through, a collection of vignettes and ficlets from Ben's POV in the ten years leading up to EtF. Most of these depict the deaths of various members of the Skywalker/Solo family. The second is Metamorphosis, which takes place four years before this story. It's told from Jacen's POV as he bides his time on Korriban, waiting to enact his plans. The last one is Turn Ourselves Into These Ashes, which features missing moments/alternate POVs from Chapter 18 of EtF, expanding on the events that occurred when the Sith attacked the Jedi enclave at Haven and took Orion and the children prisoner. The last two vignettes especially were informed by the events that occurred in the chapter you just read, and this chapter was likewise informed somewhat by the writing of those vignettes, so it might be worth checking them out. ;)