"It's a ploy. Tarkin has something else up his sleeve. Ignore him."
Padme's assessment of Grand Admiral Tarkin's senatorial concessions elicits a raised brow from Mon Mothma. "Padme, the whole point of our absence from the Senate was to bring Tarkin to us. To make him agree to come down from his perch and restore order and normalcy to politics. I know he's hardly the trustworthy sort, especially with Mas Amedda still in his ear, but we can't simply abandon all hope for meeting him in the middle. We have to try and find a resolution to our impasse. We have to hear him out."
"No, we don't. That's what Tarkin—and Amedda—want from us," Padme says. Logic screams in her mind and tells her that the Chandrilan senator is right: She proposed the Senate walkout specifically to force Tarkin's hand, to embarrass him in front of the public and bring politics to a standstill in order to put an end to their post-Palpatine madness. If it would end Tarkin's obstructionism and get a new supreme chancellor in office—real leadership again—it was worth it. Mission accomplished: Now here Tarkin is, offering a conciliatory hand, but all Padme can see is a baited hook. "This is their whole game, Mon. They force us to play by our rules while they throw away the rulebook entirely. Tarkin's only promising to put up a vote for a new vice chair."
"One who can immediately name a new chancellor."
"Yes, but it's still only a promise. If we set foot in the Senate again, our little resistance is at an end. We can't walk back out and have any credibility; our entire objective with the walkout was to ensure the people knew we had principles that we would stand up for. We go back on that and we're exposed. Meanwhile, Tarkin can hem and haw and lecture us from his podium, make all the empty promises he wants—and we get back to square one. No leadership. Tarkin and the Jedi still in charge. And now with one fewer weapon in our arsenal. I'll say it again: This is a trap. He wants us to think he'll relinquish his authority. It's a ruse."
It is not just the senators in Mon Mothma's office today. Master Windu and Master Tiin are here, the two Jedi Masters-turned-political leaders gathered at the window and watching the politicians trade barbs. If anyone will take her side on this, Padme thinks, it is them: The two Jedi who have had to sit through this whole farce ever since Senator Aak nominated it, Windu especially embarrassing himself with each day he takes the chancellor's podium with Tarkin and pretends to lead the Senate in this interregnum. Surely they of all people can sense that something isn't right here.
Yet all Windu does now is scowl at her words and shake his head. "Senator Mothma's in the right. If you refuse to budge even an inch, how does that make you any different than Tarkin and his allies?"
"It's not that I'm not willing," Padme protests, looking between the Jedi and Mon Mothma incredulously. Anakin, even Obi-Wan, would never agree to compromise without securing anything real, any guarantee. Mothma has always been the voice of moderation in their band of senators, but this is taking things too far. She has to see that this isn't the past, when political opponents can be reasoned with. It's a nice ideal, a beautiful ideal, but it's not reality. Not anymore. "All we have is a promise, Master Jedi. A promise. And Amedda has already broken one promise when he stepped down as vice chair, only to rise again as Tarkin's so-called aide. Now you expect them to honor this promise?"
"I don't know. I am doubtful, truthfully. But we have to show the public that the Senate and the Jedi Order are open to reason, Senator Amidala. We have to show the people that we are still the Republic, and not everything our enemies accuse us of being."
Senator Burtoni scoffs. "A foolish notion, Master Windu," the wiry Kaminoan says. "Naïve. All you'll do is display weakness. As for what our enemies think of us—who cares? They're our enemies. Let them think we're monsters and worse."
"That is dangerous thinking—"
"It's realistic thinking," Burtoni interrupts Saesee Tiin. "Forget the Jedi avoiding politics so as not to appear tyrants; you lot would be eaten alive inside of a day. Your naivete will get you killed. This isn't the battlefield where your foes shoot at you. Our weapons are subtle and our armor is silk."
Padme watches the Jedi as they argue against Burtoni. She's read enough faces by now to know that Windu, at least, is holding something back. The way he treads around words; the way he halts before answering, approaches retorts gingerly. There's something he knows but doesn't want to tell them, an ugly truth, a dangerous truth. About Tarkin? About the Senate? Or something even more serious? The Jedi have always been peacemakers, unafraid to do what needs to be done. Yet here they are, compromising, negotiating. What could shake them into this level of doubt?
She knows who she could talk to, try and glean the truth from if the Jedi Master won't say it. But that will be its own sort of difficult: Anakin is in a cloud of his own troubles, and she can't break through with him, either. It's as if there's some sort of miasma hanging over the Jedi, whether the orthodox veterans like Windu or the mavericks like Anakin. They know something is wrong. She knows they know it. But that final connection won't come together, and here they remain—standing off, on edge, right when they need to be united in the face of the Senate's division.
Bail Organa, idling by the door and watching the battle of words, clears his throat. "It is dangerous thinking," he says, fretting and glancing at Burtoni. "However, it was already dangerous when the Senate voted to approve having the army and the Jedi lead us. It was as I told Aak in the last session we attended: This a democracy only on the surface. If we want to restore it, we can't go leaping at the most meager of opportunities. If Tarkin and Amedda—and, I beg your pardon Master Windu and Master Tiin, but the Jedi too—leave the Senate, I come back."
"That's exactly what they're proposing, Bail," Mothma says.
"Proposing. No results yet. Until then, and until there's real leadership nominated and up for election, I'm with Padme. This is a lie until it's proven otherwise."
Mothma sighs. "I'm with you, Bail, Padme, even you Halle. I can see what you're doing, and I believe in the same tenants of the Republic as you do. But I can't agree with your hardline stance. Your methods aren't my methods. I am your friend as long as you'll have me, but so too will I stand by my convictions. I'm going to return to the next Senate session and see if Tarkin's promise is genuine. Someone from our side has to look reasonable."
"I want to be reasonable," Padme says, "but we're so far past the point of reason."
"My hope," Mothma says, "is that we're not."
Hope, Padme thinks. That's all you're going by. That's all Tarkin and Amedda are promising. But hope is a flimsy concept when democracy is being shredded in real-time. She too hopes that Mon Mothma and the Jedi are correct and that the Senate's troubles will soon be a thing of the past, Chancellor Palpatine just a memory.
She hopes. But she doubts.
The visions come early today.
Sunrise and sunset are theoretical concepts on Ziost, what with the gray-storm skies veiled by cloud cover so thick that the stars are only a fading memory. Yet day brings relief from the darkness that swirls on this world, even if daylight is weak, feeble, a bleak white bulb fighting against the raging supercell that spins in its infinite vortex above the Celestial's pyramid. Still it is a light. And even though Sae has sunk so far into the darkness, she still feels comfort in seeing the night driven back into its cave.
Yet this morning does not bring any happiness. No sooner has Sae risen from her cot in the depths of the Ziost base then the Celestial greets her in the guise of Adi Gallia.
"How much longer are you going to play at this new life, Sae?" Master Gallia chuckles as Sae rolls out of bed and groans. "All this time, you've known there's nothing stopping you from just running away. Even as a Jedi with Tamri, now as…whatever you're trying to be. This is a big galaxy. The Jedi and the Sith are so small. Yet you follow them around like a loyal pet. That loyalty didn't mean much when you barely made it off of Sullust, and see how Dooku rewarded you for your efforts. Torturing your new apprentice, all to show you how little control you really have here." She smiles as Sae slumps down on her cot and clamps her eyes shut. "Why do you keep doing this?"
"Why do you keep doing this?" Sae grumbles. "Go away. Leave me alone. If you're giving Dooku visions now, then you're in his head, too. Isn't he more interesting than me?"
Master Gallia laughs. "Hardly. He's just another power-grabbing tyrant, a means to a much greater end. You're just…matter in motion. You have no idea what you're doing, so you stumble from disaster to disaster, the unwitting fool traipsing through someone else's story and thinking it's your own. Much more interesting."
"Blazes, whatever. Piss off. You can't get out of my head for one day?"
"That's a bad way to think about it," the Celestial says. It spreads Master Gallia's arms and looks about. "I've had whole eras and ages, but with so much time it loses all its meaning. Years are decades are centuries. But you, no. Your time is limited. You'll never know if you'll resolve all those questions you still battle with before your time runs out."
"Why don't you save me all the trouble and give me the answers?"
Master Gallia laughs. "Maybe you should look to the past, rather than the future, Sae. Do what you want to with the time you still have, because you never know when it's going to end. Here: Let me show you."
The Celestial beckons her to follow before disappearing into her room's door. Sae frowns. Carefully she approaches the door, wondering how stupid it all must look—her following a vision in her own head, just a lost, fallen Jedi Knight going mad a day at a time. If only she'd listened to Tamri. Stepped back when she had the chance. Now she has no idea how she'll ever get rid of the Celestial's manipulations, this Force-bound parasite worming its way through her mind.
She opens her bedroom door and looks out into a warzone.
This is not the base, and most certainly not Ziost, beyond her door. Orange-yellow skies above. Laser fire flashing. Debris, rubble, starship carcasses. Master Gallia stands before her with a knowing smile, her eyes glistening, her lightsaber in hand but unlit. Down from where there usually would be the hallway there is instead open terrain—and a vision of a burly Zabrak, all yellow-and-black tattoos and muscle, charges right at Master Gallia.
Sae is frozen, her heart still, her breaths caught in her throat as the vision plays out. The past—not just a vision. Once reality. The Zabrak slams its horns into Master Gallia's stomach, gutting her against a crashed ship's hulk. Then, as she topples, the Zabrak raises a red lightsaber and brings the weapon down for a killing blow.
Sae slams the door shut. She presses her back to the door, heart pounding, breath coming in tiny, quick pants. Her spartan room before her. Ziost awhirl outside. She takes the door's handle once more, pauses. Then opens it and peeks outside.
Just the hall. The base. The vision gone, the past behind her, time pushing on. And Master Gallia is as dead today as she was in the vision.
Sae slumps against the wall, her head aching. Let them go, the Jedi preached. Let the dead go. Were it so easy.
Still, even with the Celestial's words playing in her head, she continues acting out the part of a dutiful Sith apprentice. Keep following the mission. Keep following orders. Under Dooku she at least has something, even if that thing is Pella's sleepy, grumpy face souring when Sae tells her apprentice that they're moving out again. "Raxus?" Pella complains when Sae tells her of their orders. "Why are we going there? There's nothing on Raxus."
Sae throws a glance of irritation at Pella. "The entire Separatist Parliament is on Raxus."
Her apprentice crosses her arms and kicks at a spot in the floor. Pella has only grown more outspoken since Dooku tortured her as a lesson for Sae; it's a miracle that Dooku isn't here to hear the girl talking like this now. "Who cares about them?"
"People in Confederacy space, which they govern."
"They don't do anything. They just talk. It's Dooku and the Separatist Council, that Gunray guy and all of them, who decide everything."
She's not wrong about that, even if she needs to keep that private. "Well, it's an order. Take it that way. Dooku said we go to Raxus, so off we go."
"And do what?" Pella grumbles, plopping down in a seat across from Sae.
"The Senate's concerned about the spate of attacks that happened on the border of Hutt Space, along with the Republic's victory at Sullust and their march up the Rimma Trade Route. Dooku's going to give a speech to them in private to calm them down and rally the senators around a new offensive."
Pella scowls. "Why do we have to be there?"
"As protection."
"From senators? Ooh. Scary. Overweight politics people who sit in chairs all day and just talk. It's just as stupid as the Republic's political stuff was."
Sae had hoped to avoid this part; she'd been foolish to think Pella would've simply gone along with an order. Perhaps she should put her foot down. Tell the girl they're going, and that's that. It's what the strong do. What the Sith do. What the Dark Side would command. Yet she finds herself explaining things to Pella anyway: "Dooku had a premonition about Raxus. He saw…I don't know the exact details, but something bad coming to pass on the planet. We're there to keep our eyes open. As security. That's the real reason why. Heck, he's concerned enough that he's bringing General Grievous along, of all people. Whatever he saw, it must have shaken him."
Pella looks at her with an expression between disgust and disbelief. "Another vision. Just like before Sullust, right?"
"Right."
"So we're going to do that again. Great."
"Look, I don't know what exactly Dooku saw happening on Sullust, but I know he saw that Skywalker would be there. Maybe it was overconfidence, maybe it was…I don't know. I have no idea. But all I know is that I'm not going to question this sort of thing."
"Why?"
"Why?"
"Why not question it? All the Jedi did was talk about visions and feelings and getting in connection with your inner self or whatever. Garbage. I thought we're supposed to be doing action now," Pella says. "That's why you use the Dark Side. It's when you see things that are wrong but you aren't afraid to act. You do what you have to. You're not hampered by any code or chain or council. It's about doing what you want, rather than what you're told. That's why the Separatists are winning, right? It's why Dooku—" she falls short, fretting and looking away. "Well, it's why we're here, right? And not just sitting around as Jedi and watching the galaxy keep falling apart while doing nothing. Listening to visions and all that crap doesn't sound like doing what you want."
Sae fishes for the right words. She understands that Pella is angry, frustrated, confused—being captured by the Separatists, losing her master, imprisoned in a rocky, dark cell, then forced into Sae's guardianship all while her emotions boiled over; she's hardly had an easy time of it. Embracing the Dark Side isn't about Light and Dark to someone like her; it's about taking back a measure of control after life has snatched it all away and destroyed everything you thought was normal. Sae understands that too well. Far too well.
Maybe she should just encourage that. Encourage her to tap into her anger like Sae did. Let it fuel her; talk to Pella like Dooku talked to Sae in those forlorn days after Tamri's death. But somehow there is still a tiny voice inside Sae telling her no. "Listen," she says. "It's easy to think that with this power we have—the Force, the Dark Side—we can control everything. Anything we want. Do whatever we want. But we can't."
"We can try. We should try."
"No. No we shouldn't," says Sae. "And I don't just mean how Count Dooku is above us, how he gives us orders. It's about knowing what's in your control and what's not, Pella. There are some things you can fight, some things you can change. And others you can't. We have to throw everything we have at the former, and the latter…those we have to make our peace with. Because if we can't, they'll kill us. They'll eat away at us little by little until there's no spark left inside us."
Pella scrunches up her face. "That sounds like Jedi talk."
"I don't care what kind of talk it is. It's reality."
"You make it sound easy. Like you just flick a switch and magically everything's fine."
Sae's chest aches. "It's not easy," she murmurs. "It's not even close to easy, and I still haven't figured it out yet myself."
"Then why are you telling me to do it if you can't? That's hypocritical."
Sae looks away. She blinks, tries to find something to stare at to take her attention, but all she sees is an explosion in deep space. Laser fire. An asteroid base. "We'll be leaving soon," she says softly. "Go pack your things."
Once Pella's gone, Sae slumps down against a wall and rests her head in her hands. She couldn't say those last words to her new apprentice: Because I don't want you to end up like me.
It's funny. Not too long ago she didn't even know Pella. Now the girl is the only thing tethering Sae to anything meaningful. In all her time in the Jedi Order, she heard the mantras, listened to the lessons—be cautious with your attachments, avoid that which would ensnare your heart. Let go of all you would fear to lose. And she tried to listen, she did. Her missions into the galactic underworld as a Jedi Sentinel took her away from Master Gallia for months; one mission saw Sae not see her old master for nearly two years. So much time alone in her work. So much time when it felt like she was the only person in the galaxy who cared about her. And in that doubt grew fear, an old fear, the oldest, originating all the way back from the latent, subconscious anxieties stemming from when she was but an abandoned infant thrown away by her mother on the Coruscant streets. Sae entered this world alone. And deep down, even as the Jedi counseled her to let go of attachments, she feared to end up alone.
Well, she doesn't fear that now. Now she's living it. Now there's almost nothing left under her control; now following Dooku's orders is no different than any other mindless action in her vacuous existence. Pella can't understand that. More importantly, Sae doesn't want her to understand it. And if there is anything more in this world that Sae can still do, can make a real difference in, it's to keep a watch over that girl, the last person left that looks up to her. Maybe even needs her. She can't change the galaxy. She can't make the Jedi change their ways. She can't bring Master Gallia and Tamri back. But she can help one person keep moving forward when this life seeks so desperately to tear them all down.
Perhaps she'll have to keep leading Pella down the path of the Dark Side, if that's what keeps her safe from it all. If that's what ensures she never looks out at the galaxy with eyes like Sae's and thinks: There is me. There is all the galaxy. And never again will the two intertwine.
Raxus looms large and the hour grows short. As Maul, Savage, and their assorted Hutt and Shadow Collective irregulars dip into orbit above the Separatist capital, the importance of the moment grows higher and higher. The paths converge, strands of darkness reaching in like tendrils from across the galaxy to envelop this meandering, unwitting planet. Here sets the stage for the theater of the Sith, a play that—Maul hopes—will put to rest all notion of rivalry, competition, division. Here one contender ends and the other triumphs. Here, should his plan succeed, will see two Lords of the Sith step forth and only one leave.
Step by step. Little by little. Caution, measure. There is no room for carelessness now.
The compact bridge of the stolen Hardcell-class transport from Saluecami closes in as the ship chugs through Raxus's defensive perimeter, a whole armada of Separatst warships standing by for any danger that might threaten the nexus of the Confederacy of Independent Systems. Republic ships, pirate ships, any opportunists. Enough guns in those five hundred capital ships to turn all but the most dedicated attack squadrons into an orbiting ring of rubble. Yet as Maul's ship churns on, not a single gun targets them. Not one computer locks on. His plan up to now has laid the way for this moment, stolen codes and stolen ships and subterfuge, all of that effort to ensure that he and the five other stolen Hardcells following behind in close formation—all riding under the callsigns of just another Separatist cargo convoy ferrying military and consumer goods to the hungry factories and population on the planet below—will make it to the surface unhindered.
"I don't like this," Savage murmurs as the ship veers under the bulk of a Providence-class battlecruiser bristling with turbolaser batteries. "We're too exposed. If they even get suspicious about our codes, we're sitting ducks."
"Which is why we went to such lengths to avoid their suspicions," Maul murmurs, one hand caressing his chin. He leans over the shoulder of his Nikto pilot, one of Gorgosa the Hutt's men. Maul's men, really. The Hutt is just another game piece in the grand scheme, even if he requires flattery rather than threats to keep him in line. "They are taking our codes, yes?" he asks the pilot.
The Nikto nods. "Not even any follow-up questions, Lord Maul. Codes passed muster. We're cleared for landing at the Raxulon spaceport."
Right at the capital city itself, the heart of the Confederacy, the seat of the Separatist Senate. The very location where Count Dooku is set to give a speech in-person very soon, a speech to allay the concerns of his mewling politicians and vassals, a speech that Maul looks to make Dooku's last. A fake Sith offering fake promises of fake imperium. Tyranus never understood the value of the phantom menace, it seems. He still thinks like the Jedi he once was, Jedi Master Dooku still the same whether he wears brown robes or black. Arrogance. Overconfidence. No wonder Sidious took him as Maul's replacement; there's a lot about Maul's former master in Darth Tyranus, even if once-Master Dooku will never be anywhere near as strong as Sidious was. Certainly he will never be as cunning.
Maul is eager to show him that lacking. It is not speeches and fleets and armies that further the way of the Sith. It is the knife in the darkness. And it is so close to plunging into Tyranus's heart.
Through the soft blue atmosphere they plunge, Maul's motley pirate flotilla intermingling with the cloud of aerial traffic thickening the sky. Civilian speeders, pleasure barges, automated transports, heavy freighters, even a few reckless airspeeder racers zipping in and out of the skylanes—there is a touch of Coruscant to these skies, Core Worlds-business springing up here in the Outer Rim. But down there on the surface splays not a mere plane of metal and cityscape but trees and stone and gorges and hills, grasses and shrubbery and streams and wildlife. Where the Republic's home is all efficiency and machinery and the dominating, unstoppable march of man, here a heart still beats. At the center of the galactic schism that has killed so many, there is still so much alive.
Maul looks down at that natural beauty and sneers. He'd put it all to the torch if he had the time.
But he is not here to make an example of the Separatists. Separatists, Republic, pawns within the larger game of real power, real control. Billions of people live on Raxus, but Dooku is the only one who concerns Maul now. There will be time for all those billions later.
"Spaceport's tractor beams are locking on to our ships," the Nikto pilot reports. "Giving up control."
The urban sprawl of Raxulon, the capital city of the Separatists' capital planet, pushes back the pristine nature with its glinting skyscrapers and gilded streets. Riches and luxury abound here, the touches of all that commercial power that rules over the Confederacy, those leeches of the Trade Federation and Commerce Guild and all the rest. Even the spaceport is a product of wealth, with great winged-serpent statues and precious metal-inlaid columns lining the street-side entrance of the enormous dock, five kilometers of harborages and pit-like freight terminals jutting away from the edge of Raxulon's outskirts. Maul makes a note to remember this place, this location. Once the deed is done—once he has taken his revenge on Dooku and asserted his right to rulership of the Sith—he will still need to find a fast ship to escape this planet. There are far too many battle droids here for even the Dark Lord of the Sith to fight against openly.
Thruster jets fire, Maul's transport turns on its axis, and the ship settles down into one of the spaceport's larger landing bays. "We are not finished yet," he murmurs as they land. "They will send an inspection team to ensure our on-site documentation is accurate."
"Is it?" Savage says.
Maul's eye twitches. "I will handle that," he says. "See to the men. Ensure they are ready. Deal with any who are not."
Down the maze-like corridors of the Hardcell, out to the personnel boarding ramp, where two Black Sun infiltrators meet a pair of Separatist dockworkers tromping up with a scanning cart chugging along behind them. Maul squints against the sun and slips into the shadow of the transport's entry hold. No need to make this a public spectacle. He will rely on stealth and silence as long as he can; if all goes well, all the way until he has Dooku at the end of his lightsaber.
The Falleen are cordial; the dockworkers professional. The Black Sun men wave the authorities up the ramp and to the ship. Once they step through the entryway, Maul draws his lightsaber, slips out, and ignites the blade through the chest of the first dockworker. He gasps, frozen in shock in his statuesque death-frame. His partner shouts in surprise—and then is cut off. With his other hand Maul reaches out with the Force grabs the man about the throat. Gasps and choking utterances answer him. Maul kicks aside the impaled man, clenches his fist, and crushes the throat of the second dockworker. Dead and dead. His first two kills on Raxus.
"Brother," Savage says, stepping up from the ship's depths. The burly Zabrak motions to the assemblage of a dozen assorted Hutt and criminal uglies arrayed behind him. "The teams are ready. Their commanders."
Maul scowls and sizes his men up. "You know what we are here to do," he murmurs as he looks each one of them in the eye. Elite enforcers. Born killers. Rabid terrorists. Exactly the kind of men he needs for this. "We began this journey when we burned Bimmissari with nuclear fire. We have fought, connived, and slipped our way through Separatist space here to their very capital, the doorstep of their power. And now, in just a few days' time, we will kill them all."
"Count Dooku is the priority of myself and Savage," Maul continues, pacing before the men. "You already have assignments for each of your teams. Once you are off this ship, scatter into the city. Make yourselves and your soldiers invisible. Lose all possible identification. And then you will wait, in hiding, in the darkness—wait for my signal. Then, when it comes: Unleash torment."
He turns to the hatch, pauses, and looks over his shoulder. "That is all. Now go. Kill, ravage, and take as you will. For this your hour. Your spoils. Your victory. All you must do is earn it."
Savage follows Maul off of the ship as the two Sith tromp across the landing bay. "The men will fight," he mutters, raising his black hood over his horned head. "You can be sure of that, brother. They are eager to fight."
"It does not matter what they are or are not," Maul says, his own hood shadowing his face. "Every last one of those men is here to distract the Separatist forces and buy you and me time, the time we need to kill Dooku. To put an end to his absurd delusions of ruling the Sith. I doubt any of those men will leave this planet alive. And it does not matter if they do or do not." He turns to Savage, his eyes smoldering. "For the truth is that it is our hour at hand, not theirs. Ours, as Sith, as lords. The time to take what is rightfully ours."
He raises his head to the sky. "As Sidious's apprentice, I knew the way of the Sith. I knew the moment would come when I would kill my master and take his place as the Dark Lord of the Sith. But Tyranus stole that moment from me. Yet I have been patient. Careful. I have bided my time for so long, all those years of madness and rage after what Kenobi did to me on Naboo. And now, finally, I am on the cusp of that long-awaited moment." He looks back to Savage and scowls. "Now come, brother. Let us begin our chapter."
Korkie's descriptions of Mandalore do the planet no justice: It is a wasteland, a dead world beyond its domed cities, but there is a stark sort of beauty out here on the dunes of sand and powdered glass. The light in its harsh stare glaring down at the scorched land. Craters still littering the surface after all this time, the signature of a thousand-thousand bombs dropped across Mandalore during the Mandalorian Wars and the later civil strife. The fine sand multitudinous, infinite, as if each grain is a name and a face that died proudly in defense of people, culture, home. And now they are dying again, only this time it is the Separatists and the Sith inflicting all this hurt. The past as present. Violence as a cycle.
Poetic, thinks Tamri as she looks down at the dunes from aboard one of Bo-Katan's gunboats racing over the wasteland. All this destruction. So much history lost. And yet still Mandalore perseveres. Still Bo-Katan is fighting for her people. Still Korkie—next to her now, looking down at the same dunes with a stone jaw and narrow, dark eyes—fights. Because it's worth it. Even when one voice still sings those old songs, it's still worth fighting and dying for. That is a people. That is a nation. It is far, far stronger than mere death.
"Approaching LZ," the gunboat's comm calls out as the ship dips down just over the dunes, the engines kicking up a wave of sand. "Sixty seconds."
"I haven't gotten any word from the others since they started the attack on the fuel depot," Tamri says to Korkie. "Hopefully we won't be interrupted."
"Mm," Korkie murmurs.
"You okay?"
"Let him have his moment of peace," Ventress says from behind Tamri. "Better now while there still is a Mandalore to protect. If Kryze's rebellion fails, this will be all Mandalore before long. Dooku won't tolerate resistance."
Korkie glares at her, but says nothing. Tamri does not answer Ventress either, but she knows the former Sith apprentice has a point. Bo and her people will fight on no matter what, but to have any chance of liberating the planet, they need weapons. If the Bothan was right, they'll find those today in the hidden weapons vault that Fen'leyn mentioned. If not, then Mandalore's fate looks bleak. Pinning the rebellion's hope on an ancient cache seems ludicrous, but against the might of the Separatist occupation, there are few realistic options.
The gunboat pulls up and makes an abrupt stop, dropping down to a meter above the ground and opening its bay doors. "Everyone out."
Tamri drops down onto the burning sands. The ground makes everything hotter: The glaring white sun burns as it is, but the heat blooms off of the desert flats and threatens to cook Tamri alive. Like being on a lava planet. At least the scenery has improved: There is not just flat desert and rolling dunes here but rock and chalk, towering, mushroom-shaped stones carved by centuries of blowing wind, each the color of bone. Like ghostly sentinels watching over the grave of Mandalore past.
In practical terms, the standing stones provide what little shade can be found out here, and it isn't long before everyone who drops out of the five Mandalorian gunboats clusters into the shadows. "No one around. Nothing on radar," Ursa Wren says as she taps her helmet. "Think we're clear."
"What a surprise," Saw Gerrera gruffs, looking around. "Not a city in sight. Middle of nowhere. Nothing for hundreds of miles. Just sand and ghosts."
"There'd better be more than that after coming out all this way," says Bo-Katan. To Tamri she adds, "Jedi: These were the coordinates the Bothan gave you, correct?"
"It's all I know," says Tamri. "I didn't know anything about this until I was halfway through the Concordia base."
Ursa releases a spherical radar drone that pops up and zooms away. "Now we wait," she says. "See if it finds anything."
"Saw," Bo says. "Have you gotten any word from your people in the attack on the depot?"
"No," Saw mutters. "I got something else, though. While we were in flight."
"What?"
"Some kind of action going on inside and around Sundari. I don't know what. Just heard there was a lot of shooting. Seems like they're ignoring our diversion."
Bo turns and faces towards the horizon, her hands on her hips. "Damn."
"Sundari?" Korkie speaks up. "Aunt Bo—you're fighting in the city itself?"
"No. At least, we try to avoid the main cities," Bo says. "The occupation isn't picky about civilian casualties, though. Sometimes the fight finds us."
Only the beginning, Tamri thinks. Little by little the Separatists will wear them down. A single skilled Mandalorian may be worth ten battle droids, but the Separatists have millions of automata. If they want Mandalore—if Bo and her people can't make the prospect of taking the world too unpalatable to pursue—they will have it. All it will take is time and numbers.
The Mandalorians need a victory. A decisive, clear triumph that hurls the invaders back and then some. Something that will ward off the Separatists from trying again. The slow-death will only doom this world. A thousand cuts will slice every last Mandalorian into pieces.
"Hold up!" Ursa says. "Ground-penetrating radar's picking up something. Some sort of signal."
"What kind of signal?" says Bo.
Ursa shakes her head and shrugs. "Blurry. Hazy. Big, whatever it is, but I can barely distinguish it from the surrounding heat. It's like it was intentionally camouflaged. There is something else, though…a smaller signal, but clearer."
"Where?"
"About half a kilometer west."
Bo-Katan points. "Keep an eye out, everyone. Let's get moving and check it out."
When they arrive at the signal's location, however, Tamri can see only more sand in every direction. Nearby Ursa's drone hovers over a patch of terrain, its repulsorlift kicking up sand and clearing the spot directly beneath its thruster. At first Tamri thinks the sniffer drone's mistaken. Then she looks at the spot it's accidentally clearing, and she sees a glint of silver. The unmistakable shine of metal. "Oh," she exclaims. "Look."
Bo kicks at the spot with her foot. Sand clears, and the metal spot grows larger. Then she grabs the drone, aims its repulsor at the location, and uses it as a blower. Five minutes later and Bo's cleared a circular patch of desert three meters in radius, and the result could not be clearer. A metal octagon inside a larger metal plate, with a wheel attached to where the two pieces meet. Saw sums it up: "Huh. That's a hatch."
"Buried treasure?" Ventress says.
"Buried something," says Bo. "Ursa, give me a hand. Let's get this open."
It takes the two Mandalorian commanders a minute—and Ventress's shoving on the wheel with the Force—but eventually the ancient contraption creaks to life. Bo wheels the hatch open and yanks it free, revealing a ladder descending into darkness beyond. "Anyone care to go first?" Tamri ventures.
Bo drops down. "Come on. Ursa, Saw. Jedi," she says. She points to a few of her men standing about. "You stay up topside and keep watch for unwanted guests. The rest of you follow me down."
"As if I haven't had enough of strolling into dark places," Ventress murmurs as Mandalorians descend down the ladder. "No, don't mind me. Just having the time of my life."
The ladder drops down dozens of meters, until the hatch is but a window of light above. Then it ends in a large, open chamber; when Ursa shines her helmet light about, she lights up a foyer spreading out before a cargo lift, the door open, the lift's car ready. "Is this still powered after all this time?" Korkie says, examining the lift controls. The panel sparks at his touch, then whirs to life, blue light blooming. "Whoa. Guess so."
"How far down does this go?" muses Bo.
"Probably far enough to weather orbital bombardment. If it's some sort of keep, you have to think the creators thought of every means of attack," Saw says. "Going down?"
"Yes. We're not stopping now."
Down they plunge, Tamri, Ventress, Korkie, Bo, Ursa, Saw, and a half-dozen other Mandalorians. The lift must sink at least a hundred meters, Tamri guesses, before it finally creaks to a halt, who-knows-how-many years of metal starting and stopping after so much neglect. Miraculous that it still works. Even more miraculous that the power still functions. Far more resilient than the Concordia base, this.
When the lift drops them off, the Mandalorians' helmet lights illuminate a conical reception area complete with a front desk and a still-lit computer. Hundreds, maybe thousands, of years, and still the computer flickers on at their approach. Beyond words. "They built this place to last," Saw says, echoing Tamri's thoughts. He waves his finger over the computer display. "Some kind of manifest," he murmurs, eyes flitting over readouts. "Can't read any of it, though. Not in Basic."
Bo glances over at the display before summoning Ursa. "It's old Mandalorian script," she says. "Ursa, you can read it. Give it a whirl."
Ursa reviews a handful of files before whistling. "Wow."
"What?"
"This isn't just a cache," she says. "It's a huge facility. Dates back to Mandalore the Ultimate."
"Four thousand years," Korkie says under his breath. His eyes find Tamri's. "The man defeated by the Jedi Revan during the Mandalorian Wars."
"I don't need a history lesson. I need results," Bo says. "What do we have? What's useful?"
Ursa shrugs. "Well, I can't make out all of it. Some of the script's different from what I learned as a kid," she says. "Down two floors, a hallway leads to something called a 'mount garage,' or at least I think that's what it says. Something garage. At the deepest and furthest point—via an internal tram that still seems to be powered by the fusion reactor, somehow—is something just titled 'payload.'"
"Go check that out," Bo says immediately.
"Of course," Ursa says, but she hesitates. "There's more."
"What?"
"This says…seed bank. Gene depository. There's a hold of terraforming equipment."
Tamri sucks in a breath. "Blazes," she says. "It's not a munitions cache. It's a doomsday vault."
Bo glances at her. "Why build all this," she muses. "Why build it just to bury it? Just to have everyone forget it, right here under our feet?"
"It is the middle of nowhere," Saw suggests.
"Still."
"Mandalore the Ultimate died with his whole fleet over Malachor against Revan's fleet," Ursa says. "Maybe he was more confident in victory. Or maybe he never got the chance to do what he wanted here."
"Maybe," Bo says. "Ursa, take a few men and see to that 'payload' place. Saw, you and I should check out this garage. Korkie, you say you saw the Basilisk in the base on Concordia. You come too, in case this is the same." She glances back to Tamri. "Your Jedi friend can come with us."
"I'll join you," Ventress says. "I spent enough time around that Bothan. Might as well see the sights."
"We didn't ask you," says Korkie.
"Fortunately for me, boy, I go where I please."
The hallway leading to the garage is only a short couple flights of stairs down from the foyer, but the hall meandering to the bay itself goes on and on. While the power is flowing, none of the group can find any sort of lighting mechanism, leaving Bo's helmet light and Saw's rifle lamp to light the way forward down the pitch-black way. Steel-sturdy Mandalorian iron closing in on all sides. The silence muffling, their footsteps a cacophony. Like walking into a tomb. Which, Tamri thinks, it is. For all she knows, there might actually be four-thousand-year-old Mandalorians buried here. If the architects were thorough enough to include a seed vault, why not?
After ten minutes of hiking down the halls, they at last come to an opening. Still, stale air beyond a doorway that creaks open only after Ventress wrenches it free with the Force. A cavern of steel and time beyond. Saw's rifle lamp pierces through the darkness only to light up the emptiness. "Big place," he murmurs, and his voice echoes off of a hundred unseen edges.
"There's no lights here?" Bo says. She turns her head, her helmet lights flickering—and then they land on what is unmistakably a claw.
Tamri recognizes it. The claws of the Basilisk from the base on Concordia. Only this time Bo turns her head slightly and the light runs over another one, then another. There's more than one of these old metal beasts down here.
"My word," Bo whispers as she approaches the first machine. She raises her head, and her lights illuminate the frontal weapon snout, the missile tubes and plasma turrets cold and black on either side. Four thousand years old, and the Basilisk war droid is as intimidating as during Revan's time. "The weapon that threatened the Republic. The machine that put whole worlds to the torch."
"How many are down here?" Saw says, aiming his rifle around. "How far down does this place go?"
Korkie finds an answer. "Aunt Bo?" he calls out. "I think I found some sort of emergency power switch. Might get the lights on."
"Might get a lot more than the lights," Ventress says.
"We'll risk it," Bo says. "Hit it, Korkie."
Upon activation, a dreamlike red light flashes on overhead. Emergency power indeed. The kind of lights reserved for an attack. Low-power, low-visibility. But then another overhead light flickers on, dozens of meters above the floor. Then another. Then another.
And at last Tamri can see where they are. It's a massive hanger, akin to a Venator star destroyer's fighter bay. Row after row of maintenance wards on either side, each fitted with a slumbering Basilisk war droid. There's a hundred down here. More. High overhead, between a ring of emergency lights, is a colossal tube entrance large enough to fit a small freighter. Exit bay, Tamri thinks. The route to the surface, wherever it ends up.
This is their last line of defense. This is Mandalore's forgotten fortress, the keep to fall back to when all other keeps have fallen. Weapons and armor to last for the mother of all battles, all buried beneath so much Mandalorian iron and earth as to weather the most dedicated of orbital bombardments.
Beside the deactivated Basilisk, Bo-Katan finds a personal weapon secured in an air-tight container. It's trivial to open, but the weapon itself is anything but mundane. It's a massive battle-axe, metal sheath and a blade made of a dark gray, stony material. "A mythosaur axe," Bo breathes as she hoists it up. The weapon is larger than she is, as if made for a giant. "The traditional weapon of Mandalorian duelists. Nobody's seen these in…I don't even know how long."
Her comm lights up with Ursa's voice. "Bo? Bo, we've found something."
"What?"
"It's, ah, this payload area," Ursa says. "It's true to the name."
"What do you mean?"
Ursa pauses before explaining. "There's missiles down here, Bo."
"What kind of missiles? Concussion missiles?"
"I don't know the type, but big ones. Each is like a tower. They're in individual bays, but they're as long as bombers. There's…the computer terminal we found says there's over four hundred of them. I think they're nuclear."
"Anti-orbital," Saw murmurs. "Starship killers. Last resort against an invasion fleet."
Bo exhales. "It's enough to pulverize the Separatist squadron in orbit," she says. She removes her helmet and klooks about at the dormant Basilisks, her eyes wide. "If we can get this stuff online, we can throw them back right here. One battle, enough weapons and armor to…to…"
"To liberate the planet," Tamri finishes.
Bo rests her hand on the nearest Basilisk's weapons snout. "Korkie, the power—can you get any of these online?"
He shrugs at the emergency power station. "I think so. You sure?"
"I'm sure. I want to see it for myself."
"The droid on Concordia was a bit…reckless," Tamri says.
"That doesn't scare me," Bo says. "Korkie, figure it out."
It takes him a few minutes, but in short order he nods, points to his station, and says, "I think I got something."
"Talk to me," says Bo.
"I can't read any of this—it's all Old Mandalorian—but it's all pretty simple. Lots of pictures and diagrams," he says. "Like it was made for civilians, or whatnot. Like any Mandalorian could've come here and found a way to fight back, even if all the warriors were dead."
"Not all," says Bo, looking to the Basilisk. "Can you activate it?"
"Think so. Gimme a sec."
It takes him a minute, but before long a hum of power surges and sparks fly all about the wires hooked into the Basilisk's rear compartment. With a great heave and a grinding of metal and metal, four thousand years of dormancy shudders away and the weapon comes to life yet again, the last hope of Mandalorians long dead clawing its way back into the world. The Basilisk vibrates, then it reaches out one clawed arm and plants it into the metal floor. It raises its snout, and like a hound testing the air after a long snooze, it leans up and stares right at Bo.
She puts on her helmet and takes a step forward. The Basilisk lowers to the ground, dipping its snout as if to invite Bo forward. There is a hush, a silence, a pause. A moment when time freezes and everything hangs in the balance. The moment when everything changes. When the past is washed away and when the future is born. When old blood runs once more and older vengeances are considered, ancient wars waged and rebirthed. When warriors are remembered and renewed, and again the blood runs hot.
Bo takes the mythosaur axe in both hands, the servos in her powered armor's arms straining against the weapon's weight. Then she steps up onto the Basilisk, clambering atop the animal-like droid until she's mounted it like a paladin of yore preparing to ride into battle. All the while the Basilisk does not so much as make a sound. It is not like the droid from the Concordia base—this one is a warhorse of steel born, circuitry and savagery in equal parts. "So," Korkie says once Bo is astride the Basilisk, "what happens next?"
"I'll tell you what happens next," says Bo. "We're not going to wait for the perfect moment. We're not going to continue our hit-and-run attacks, our quiet rebellion. Not with all this. No, we're going to fight. The Mandalorian people were warriors once. We fought the galaxy, took on all comers. We may have lost our way, but it has not forgotten us—and we must return to the old ways if we want any chance to survive. Now there is no talk. No diplomacy. Now we fight. Now we are as Mandalorians once were, as we must be again."
She holds up the ancient battle-axe. "The Separatists want a battle? We'll give it to them," she says. "We're going to draw as many of our people back here as we can, as quickly as we can. We're going to power up all those war droids, get those missiles online, find as much weaponry as we can, and then we're going to empty it all on the invaders. We're going to light up every signal in this place and show them exactly where to find us. Then we're going to kill them to the last droid. We are going to have a grand battle for the fate of Mandalore. We are going to win. And we are going to be free. Do you hear me?"
"Hell yeah," Saw says, raising his gun. "Let's do this. I'm with you."
"As am I. Let's fight," Korkie growls.
The moment. The rush of hearts surging in one direction. Two great tides crashing against one another, one bred of force and power and might, the other born of passion and majesty and history. The breath of nation, the blood of legend. There is no stopping what's coming. Are you ready?
Tamri balls her right hand into a fist and presses it to her heart. "I'm with you too."
