EPISODE I
Chapter 14: Despair
Back at the Blazing Manta, Grein had finished repairing the ship's engines and took note of the disruptor field's deactivation. However, she was very unnerved by Zolph's behavior over the comlink. Normally, Zolph Vaelor would have questioned the probability of building a vehicle as large as a Valkoran Fortress Tank. It also wasn't like him to just go out and voluntarily take on a colossal war machine alone. For all she knew, something terrible had happened at that temple.
Grein, determined to figure out what had happened over there before aiding Zolph with the Fortress Tank, got the Manta off the ground and flew towards the temple where Krantisi's disruptor field was coming from.
Landing outside the temple, Grein discovered many destroyed Valkoran vehicles and trooper corpses, some killed in unusually gruesome fashion. She also noticed the Fortress Tank – a frigate-sized four-legged walker resembling a long-legged turtle with each foot about the size of a Gundark walker, a large hypervelocity cannon on its back and its body decorated with turrets – miles away. Even more unsettled, she made her way into the temple where the disruptor field generator was.
Making it into the generator room, she not only noticed the damaged-beyond-repair generator, but a dying red-haired human female with several Forceless mutations and her right arm severed lying on the floor. The woman tried to speak to Grein, but her voice was muffled by the second layer of skin over her mouth. The Chiss ran over to her, knelt beside her, and slowly peeled the second layer of skin off of her face from below her eyes so as not to rip her actual skin underneath off.
"Ow! That hurt! But at least I can breathe and talk now. Thanks." she said to Grein.
"I'm guessing you're Dynn Manthis?" Grein asked her based on what was described of her by Zolph.
"Yep." Dynn then coughed. "I'm assuming you're Grein?"
"Yes, and I assume Maesterus told you about me?"
"Yes. I must say you still look pretty young and beautiful for someone in her early to mid-forties."
"Thanks."
"Listen, if you really are a friend of Zolph's, I have a favor to ask…"
"I'm sorry, Dynn. From what I can tell of what that monster did to you, I can't heal you in this condition."
"I know." She then coughed up some more blood. "But listen, Zolph is really upset by this turn of events. He's taking out all of his anger on the Valkoran. He thinks the organization as a whole is responsible for turning me into a monster and leading him to kill me."
"Of course, Valkor and the Collective were always fond of psychological warfare. If he can't kill the Collective's enemies, he'll settle for breaking them instead."
"I pretty much figured that out not too long ago. Anyway, since I'm going to die anyway, I'd rather not die knowing that he's like that."
"I understand, Dynn. I already know what that's like. I'll go after him and bring him to his senses."
"Thank you, but please hurry. I'll try to hold on as long as I can, but I don't have much longer to live, and staying alive is already painful as it is."
"I don't usually make promises, but I will keep this one and get him back here before your time is up."
More determined than before to help Zolph, Grein rushed out of the temple.
Seeing that the Fortress Tank was still miles away from her location and sensing Zolph close to it, Grein rushed back into the Blazing Manta. She figured that Zolph would board the mechanical behemoth, so taking it out by ship wasn't an option for her, especially since it had anti-air defense guns.
She then went to the Manta's storage wing and took her personal Swoop Bike – a Lhosan S51 Whitefang she bought while Zolph was on rehab following Kratzar to help out during missions – out of the ship. She quickly changed fuel tanks to make sure she would have enough to catch up to the walking fortress.
She then mounted her bike and chased after the walker and Zolph's presence.
Accelerating across Krantisi's plains and around craters made by some of the walker's footprints, Grein cut down several Valkoran troopers she ran into or evaded fire from them and several Gundark-class walkers and Rancor-class assault tanks.
She eventually caught up to the Fortress Tank, which had stopped moving and where she could sense Zolph onboard. She evaded fire from the underbelly turrets and increased acceleration to climb up one of its slanted legs. Getting close to the shoulder, she eventually jumped from her bike and let it fall down to the ground and break. She froze her left hand to the side of the walker and quickly burned a small hole with her lightsaber into it.
She then turned to liquid form and seeped through the hole she made.
Upon entering the Fortress Tank and returning to her humanoid form, Grein noticed more gruesomely killed Valkoran personnel. What separated these deaths from the usual ways Zolph killed them was that they were done almost execution-like. It was quite clear to Grein how enraged Zolph was.
Grein could sense Zolph near the command center in the walker's 'head'. She followed his presence, eliminating any Valkoran troopers that tried to stop her, but ignoring any that were traumatized by Zolph's wrath.
After fifteen minutes of going through the oversized vehicle's corridors, defensive Valkoran personnel and Zolph's trail of carnage, she had reached the command center. Almost everyone there was dead except for two: the walker's commanding officer and Zolph Vaelor, who was holding the officer out of the viewport with the Force and just about to drop him kilometers to his death.
Zolph let go of the officer, but he only fell down two feet before Grein caught him with the Force and pulled him back into the command center. Zolph turned around with his brown eyes turned gold and a blatantly faked smile on his face.
"I thought I told you I'd do this myself," Zolph told Grein.
"Well, too bad. I've come to help you out anyway, and not just with this walking fortress." Grein responded.
His fake smile then dropped. "Why are you protecting these bastards?! They deserve to die!"
"Zolph, I know what happened in that temple and that you are incredibly stressed right now, but you can't take your anger out on all of the Valkoran."
"Why shouldn't I?! They've taken everything from me! First my parents, now her!" He attempted to suffocate the terrified officer with the Force, but Grein then cut him off by throwing him into a wall.
"Only specific individuals within that organization, as well as the Forceless Collective, were involved with both of those events. The people inside this walker had nothing do with them. This isn't justice; this is just murder."
"If you're not with me, you're with them!" Zolph activated his lightsaber.
Grein then activated her saber in response. "I don't want to hurt you, Zolph, but I will if you don't back down."
Zolph started to slash wildly at Grein, with her blocking every one of his blows. After a few seconds, Grein retaliated by Force pushing him away.
Zolph got back up on his feet and attempted to make a jumping slash at Grein, but she responded by grappling him with an arm of water. He then responded by Force pushing her down on her back, causing her hold on him to break.
He attempted to cut her down, but she quickly liquefied to escape the death blow and crawled under him. She then reformed herself and immediately pinned him to one of the walls with an elongated water arm and partially froze him to said wall, preventing him from moving.
As the ice slowly started to crack, Grein lectured him once more. "Ask yourself this: Do you really think this is what Dynn would want?"
Zolph's expression of anger then turned to one of sadness as his golden irises turned back to their normal color. His eyes started to tear up.
"Do you really think she'd want to see you like this?"
The ice then broke and Zolph fell down to the ground sobbing. The officer - still present - left the command center, shocked at seeing one of the Valkoran's most feared enemies utterly broken.
"I made a promise to her that I would calm you down, and that's a promise I intend to keep. She's going through great pain right now just trying to stay alive, and she wants some reassurance that you aren't going to dedicate yourself to avenging her death."
"They turned her into a monster, and I'm the one who killed her! How can I confront her after that?!" Zolph asked Grein as he continued sobbing.
"As far as I can sense, she's still alive and waiting for you. And tell me, are you really going to prolong her suffering out of guilt?"
Zolph stopped sobbing and answered. "No."
"Now you're coming to your senses. I'll let you go see her, but first, we need to do something about this walking fortress. The disruptor field may be down, but that hypervelocity gun on its back will still be trouble for the capital ships even if it's no longer mobile."
"Let's do it." Zolph said with his composure regained.
Zolph and Grein fought their way towards the hypervelocity gun, but only killing those that tried to get in their way, and as humanely as possible.
They eventually reached the turret, where they fought a trio of troopers in Minotaur-class Combat Exoskeletons – the same type of powered armor that Admiral Gravlek wore at the Battle of Ithor before his crippling and reconstruction – guarding the gunnery crew. The gunnery crew fought along with the Exo-Troopers, but all were defeated quickly.
Zolph and Grein then placed explosive charges all around the inside of the turret and exited before destroying it.
After one hour, Zolph and Grein had crippled the rest of the Fortress Tank, rendering it permanently inoperable. Grein then called the Blazing Manta over to their location to fly them to the disruptor field temple.
When they reached the temple, it was already night. Zolph was incredibly nervous about entering the temple.
Grein put her hand on his shoulder. "Go inside and do what you need to do. This is the last chance you'll ever get."
Zolph then walked in alone while Grein waited outside.
Zolph walked into the generator room, where Dynn was lying on the floor, but still alive.
Dynn looked towards Zolph with a weak smile on her face. "Well, looks like Grein kept her promise after all."
Zolph ran to her side, knelt toward her and slightly lifted her torso off the floor, and his eyes started to tear up. "I'm sorry, Dynn! For what I did to you, and for what I did after that!"
"Hey, calm down! It's over. And what you did to me wasn't really your fault. The Collective planned all of this, as well as a few specific people in the Valkoran Empire. Besides, I would rather die than be a body slave for the rest of eternity."
"Who really did this to you?"
"Maesterus isn't the only leadership in the Valkoran. There are a few more Force-sensitives that make up the main leadership, although Maesterus is the predominant face within the ranks. One of them grafted that arm on me. However, it was the true leader of the Valkoran, who orders them from behind the scenes that ordered that vile limb to be placed on me."
"My anger really was misplaced then." Zolph then changed the subject. "Dynn, this is probably my last chance, but…"
Dynn then looked at him with slight annoyance. "Probably?"
More tears started to be shed. "Who the hell am I kidding? This is my last chance! I always loved you, Dynn, and I never stopped even after you joined the Valkoran!"
"Really? I already knew that. Considering the amount of time we spent together and that you didn't have any other close friends at the Academy, your crush was pretty obvious. But hey, I felt the same way for you too, even when I was working for them."
"Heh. And this Force bond that developed probably made it even more obvious."
"I'd give you a goodbye hug, but I'm practically quadriplegic right now."
Zolph then lightly put his left arm around her neck, thinking she wouldn't want her last hug to be with a cold metal prosthesis. She then lightly kissed him on the cheek and he then returned it.
"So that's what it's like." Zolph said never having experienced this before, but his smile then turned upside down. "But what am I going to do without you? You were one of the only people I truly cared about in my life!"
"You need to move on! You've clearly got some other friends who care about you. Hell, I won't care if you get a new girlfriend. You've got a whole life ahead of you."
"I don't know if I can do that. Getting pushed into killing someone you care about isn't something that's easy to get over."
"It may take some time, but you will eventually. Now, I have one last favor. The Valkoran Empire may have been built on a lie and some of them are in for less noble reasons, but some of the leadership and soldiers truly believe they're helping the galaxy. It may take a lot of time, and you may have to kill a few more of them in the meantime, but you have to promise me this: you will try to get the Valkoran to understand what they are really doing, and hopefully turn them around."
"I will, Dynn."
"One more thing. About your parents: their deaths weren't entirely Maesterus's fault, and there's a lot more to him than you already know. I don't have time to say more, but I can see that you'll learn soon enough." Dynn had breathed her last and passed away. Zolph then gently laid her back down on the floor and closed her eyes with his left hand.
"Goodbye, Dynn." Zolph stood up and walked away.
Grein was waiting right outside the Blazing Manta when Zolph walked out of the temple.
"It's done. She's gone now." Zolph then activated a detonator in his hand and collapsed the temple, in lieu of the typical Jedi funeral.
"I'm sorry about your friend. However, you seem to be more at peace now."
"Not entirely, but I think this is what I really needed. Thank you, Grein, for stopping me and telling me about this. I was too angry to sense she was still alive at the time. As emotionally detached as you usually seem to be and as questionable as your teaching methods are, you really are one of the best friends I've ever had."
"No problem. I'm not sure if you knew this, but it was because of situations like this that the old Jedi Order discouraged emotional attachments. Of course, incidents like this are yet another reason we have to defeat the Forceless Collective."
"Yeah. No one else should have to experience what I've been through today."
"Anyway, I gave the all-clear signal to Skywalker and the Alliance Fleet. They should be arriving tomorrow. As traumatic as today has been for you, you should still get some sleep. We've got a big day tomorrow, and I want you well-rested should you have to fight Belluzub."
