Dantooine

Judecca licked her lips as she rested one hand on her lightsaber. The transport down to the surface always felt like an eternity before a battle, but even more so now.

Dantooine in ashes, and depending on how Thavid does, either the Harbinger in my hands, or a chance to see Baylan in despair as his home burns, right before I kill them all and take the artifact for myself.

She felt the bump of the transport touching down, and involuntarily squinted her eyes as the sunlight came through as the doors opened and the ramp extended.

"No survivors!" she yelled, "Let them burn!" She ignited her lightsaber and led the charge. She encountered her first opponent, though it didn't last long as he was mowed down by her troopers' fire while he was too busy defending against her.

She surveyed the situation: predictably, the vast majority of the Jedi Knights and their Padawans, broken into groups each led by a Master, took position at the gates of the Temple. She could only assume that the rest of the Masters, as well as the Council, were inside the Temple proper, so as to protect the Initiates more closely.

It didn't matter; they'd all be dead by the time she was done.

The Drowning Mermaid

"Any updates?" Karmus's hologram asked.

"I received word from the Council just a couple hours ago," Orrickos explained, "Three Sith ships in Dantooine's orbit."

"Lamia, Gravehound… and Devourer," Karmus named them; Uriel swore at the name of the last one. "We saw them leave Obroa-skai. We'd sent three fighters to try and ascertain their destination before they could make the jump to lightspeed, but only got partial data. Took us a few hours to piece things together."

"Last report, the Sith were still in the process of their orbital attacks," Orrickos said. "I can only assume in the time since then, they've put boots on the ground."

"Karm, please," Uriel urged, "Tell me you have at least one or two ships you can spare."

"I should be able to, but I also might have a better idea," Karmus replied, "I'll try and contact the commander in charge of the Ord Mantell front. They're more than a few clicks closer to Dantooine."

"Thank you."

"You're the best, Karm," Reena called from the pilot's seat.

"Wow, it must be serious," Karmus quipped, "Good luck, guys. May the Force be with you." His image faded.

"Now what?" Adrielle asked.

"Now, we wait," Orrickos said as he sat back in his seat and closed his eyes, dispelling his fear and anxiety, though Uriel could sense that at least a small sliver still remained in the back of his mind.

Uriel decided to follow suit, giving a quick look at Adrielle to do so as well. They were going to have their hands full in a couple hours.

"Don't mind me," Reena said halfheartedly, "I'll just fly the ship… you know, make sure we don't fall into a sun or a black hole, that sort of thing..." She gave a quick glance back at the three passengers behind her.

"We'll make it in time," she promised softly.

Dantooine

Judecca savored the life leaving her foe's body as she looked up. The Jedi had been steadily giving ground ever since the fight began. For all their power and home advantage, the fact remained that they were just one small Temple futilely trying to turn back a surprise attack from three Sith warships of both Lords and troopers.

There would be no Republic aid today. Today they would see just how truly alone they were in the universe that they'd always kept outside from themselves, thinking it somehow made them stronger or special.

"We're almost at the gate!" she urged, "Don't relent!"

She turned in the direction of another Jedi coming toward her. He managed to deflect the blaster bolts of a couple troopers back at them and take the other two off their feet with the Force before crossing sabers with Judecca. The Sith and Jedi exchanged blows, the Jedi trying to use Judecca's body as a shield from the troopers.

Fine, go ahead and try! Judecca smiled wildly as she parried blow after blow until she found her opening and cut down the Knight. Gathering herself, she looked around. Only two other groups were further ahead of hers; luckily both their Sith commanders were still alive. She gave a smirk.

She had an idea.

. . .

They all felt the violent vibrations and explosion throughout the Temple.

Master Koa looked at the other ten Council members and the dozens of Initiates in the chamber with her. "They've broken through."

The Masters nodded, beckoned the Initiates behind them, and the Council stood together, igniting their lightsabers.

. . .

It worked perfectly.

The pressure caused by the lightning from Judecca and two other Sith Lords, combined with a couple well placed grenades, and the gates to the Temple were wide open. Although the Jedi were doing an admirable job holding back the other Sith squads, those three groups now had a clear path into the Temple.

"Move in!" she commanded.

No sooner did she take less than a few steps forward than she heard an engine's roar. She looked up, and scowled at the sight above her.

The Drowning Mermaid flew overhead, raining down a few carefully placed shots on the battlefield to hamper the Sith's movements.

With a snarl, she turned and continued making her way into the Temple.

. . .

"Down there!" Uriel pointed at the battlefield. "It's Judecca, she's breached the Temple!"

"I sense the Masters inside, defending the students per protocol," Orrickos said, "They're more than capable of holding them off, but time is on Judecca's side. The further the Sith advance goes, the more reinforcements she'll have."

"What's the plan, boss?" Reena asked as she made another round.

"Take us to the hangar," Uriel ordered, "Master Orrickos and I will drop down from there, intercept Judecca and the Sith infiltrators from inside. You stay in the air and just do what you can to slow the Sith advance on the front. Keep as many from entering the Temple, and buy as much time as you can for the Republic's reinforcements to get here." He looked to his master for affirmation; he nodded.

"Alright then, I'm lowering the ramp." Reena veered the ship to the rear of the Temple, where the hangars were. "Don't die down there!"

Uriel and Orrickos made their way to the rear and down the ramp, jumping down, before Reena pulled up and began retracting it.

"Will they be okay?" Adrielle asked.

"Eh, you know them," Reena reassured her, trying to sound as casual as possible to hide her worry, "Just another day at work."

. . .

They'd been running for close to five minutes before they met their first opposition.

"Two more over there!" the Sith Lord called out; his three soldiers aimed in their direction and opened fire.

Orrickos calmly deflected the shots with fluid rotations of his lightsaber while Uriel engaged the Sith Lord. Two troopers fell within seconds as the third, to Orrickos's admiration, began moving while shooting, making deflection harder.

"Uriel, coming your way!" he warned.

Uriel disengaged from the enemy just in time to spin and cut down the passing trooper in the process. Orrickos immediately joined the duel and the Sith Lord was finished within moments.

"The students should be deeper inside," Orrickos said, "I'm going to rendezvous with the Council and plan our next move. You find the other Masters, save as many students as you can."

"Yes Master," Uriel replied as they went their separate ways.

Uriel turned down another hallway. He entered one of the training rooms. To his relief, a Master was there with a class of older Initiates.

"Uriel!" Master Galin said in relief, "You're back! What about Master Orrickos?"

"Gone to check on the Council and younglings." He looked at the students. "Are they okay?"

"Yes, no danger here so far, but we have heard some screams around the Temple."

"The Sith have broken through." Uriel waited for the Initiates' panic to die down before continuing. "It's only a couple forces. The Knights and Padawans are holding off the rest of the Sith advance, and a Republic force is en route." He allowed the Initiates their joyous reaction. "But until they arrive, it'll fall on us here to keep the ones inside from pressing any further."

Galin nodded in understanding. "Just tell us what to do."

"Right." Uriel reached for his comlink and contacted Orrickos.

. . .

"This is all of them?" Orrickos asked.

"All the ones we could find." Uriel surveyed all the Initiates. "The rest of them are in adjacent rooms since there's no way we could've fit them all in the Council chamber. But they should be safe, that's all that matters, so the Masters can take the fight to the Sith."

"Do you need a couple of us?" Orrickos asked, "Master Koa and I can go with while the others guard the younglings."

"Due respect Master, they need you guys more than we do," Uriel replied. "They're waiting outside. We'll force those Sith bastards out of our Temple."

Orrickos nodded. "May the Force be with you."

"And with you," Uriel answered as he turned to leave and meet the Masters.

. . .

Judecca frowned as she peered into the fourth deserted training room. She vividly remembered the drills they would practice every now and then in the event of just this kind of thing: the older Initiates with their Masters, the younger ones with the Council. And yet after those first two rooms which she'd taken extra sweet delight in clearing, she'd not seen a single student.

"Eyes peeled," she commanded to the troopers and other Sith with her, "I don't know what they're planning, but they—"

Her words died in her throat as she found herself face to face with a veritable small army of Jedi Masters. And in the front, leading them, was…

"The Force is with us," Master Raius declared, raising his blade.

"So get out of our Temple, witch," Uriel snarled.

Burning fury ran through Judecca as she raised her lightsaber. "KILL HIM!"

And the two groups ran full force into each other.

The Drowning Mermaid

She fired; they scattered.
She fired; they went flying.

"That's the stuff!" Reena exclaimed, "Let the bodies hit the floor!" She glanced back at Adrielle. "What's the status down there?"

She looked up from the comms console. "Just spoke with Master Orrickos. The Masters are doing their best to keep the Sith from spreading throughout the Temple. We just need to just make sure that no more get through the gates."

"Got it!" Reena sent the Mermaid around on another pass, opening fire at any free opening she saw, careful to avoid harming any of the Jedi defenders.

Just then, Adrielle saw an incoming message. She keyed the comms. "This is Drowning Mermaid."

"Mermaid!" the voice on the other end greeted, "We understand you guys need help?"

Adrielle looked up: high in the sky, just at the edge of the planet's orbit, she could make out two Republic cruisers. Her heart leapt in her chest. They were saved.

"Reena!" she called, "The Republic's here!"

"YES!" Reena cheered, "Let the Temple know! Then once the first troopers land, we can follow suit and join up with the others."

"Got it!" Adrielle contacted the Temple again.

. . .

Every time, without fail, whenever Judecca would think she'd overcome her hatred, her bitterness toward Uriel, all it would take was one recollection, one memory, even the thought or sound of his name, for all those feelings to come flooding back. And now that she face-to-face with him once more and filled to brim with that hate and fury, she realized how foolhardy she had been to even consider letting go of such a potent source of power and strength.

Strength she was now pouring into every strike.

"You're too… late!" she taunted, punctuating her words with her lightsaber, "This Temple… No… this… planet! Will burn… and it'll be… on yourhands!"

Uriel, who'd been parrying up to this point, found the opening and locked blades.

"There's only one death on this world that I'd gladly have on my hands," he growled, as he pushed her back and went on the attack. Now it was her turn to give ground. He maintained his offense, falling back on the countless sparring sessions they'd once enjoyed, his body autonomically recalling sequences and combinations he probably hadn't used for years, in part out of a lack of need, but likely also out of some subconscious desire to wall himself off from the memories that they indubitably invoked.

He continued his push for a good minute before Judecca leapt backward to create distance.

At that moment, they were all rocked by an explosion from outside. Uriel gazed up, as though he was looking through the ceiling at the sky, before smirking at Judecca.

"Oh right, should've mentioned… We let the Republic know of this attack. Right after we put your Mandalorian errand girl to sleep."

Judecca gritted her teeth at the absolute audacity

"You lost. You've lost the battle, you've lost your flagship, soon you'll lose Obroa-skai, but best of all…" He reached into his robe and produced a black three-pronged star, with its blue tip brighter than the accompanying red and violent tips.

Judecca's eyes widened in equal parts horror and rage. Impossible.

"You thought Lunan was the only one with a Harbinger? Wonder what your master will do when he learns that you not only failed to retrieve one, but also allowed his enemy to find another?"

With an almost animalistic roar, Judecca leapt at Uriel, renewing her attack, as Uriel began parrying her strikes. Thanks to her anger throwing her off balance, Uriel was able to slip in a riposte which allowed him to go back on the attack. Once more he began pushing forward.

Though she'd obviously never verbalize it, Judecca silently thanked her master for forcing her back on the defensive; for giving her the reminder and opportunity to refocus her hatred. After all, hatred, like fire, is only as powerful and effective as its wielder's ability to control it. And she was bound to control it—and soon, the whole galaxy—as her ultimate triumph over the Jedi. And against Uriel.

Further parrying his strikes, she ducked below a horizontal cut and blocked the following vertical slice, keeping her former master's blade locked with hers as she thrust her foot up between his legs.

The kick stunned Uriel just enough for Judecca to tumble back and push out with the Force upon facing him again. He raised and extended his free hand front of him as he slid back a couple meters, dropping to one knee. But then, before he could follow up with any response of his own…

"DIE!" she screamed, as blue lightning streamed from her fingers.

Eyes widened, Uriel brought his lightsaber up to defend him, but not quite fast enough.
"AAAGGGHH!" he screamed as the lightning that wasn't caught by his blade arced around, enveloping him. He felt like every nerve in, on and around his body was on fire, shooting millions of pain signals a second. After a few seconds which may as well have lasted a lifetime, the lightning stopped and he found himself fallen on one knee, his head slumped forward.

Which Judecca capitalized on by shooting her knee up right between his eyes, dazing him and sending him sprawling backward onto the floor. A malicious smile spread across her face as she stood triumphantly over him.

She'd done it.

. . .

Another soldier fell to Reena's blaster as Adrielle knocked a soldier of her own out cold with her electroblade.

"Why do I feel like we're getting nowhere?!" Adrielle shouted.

Reena glanced quickly back at the Mermaid; in the near ten minutes since the first Republic troop carriers had touched down to provide sorely needed reinforcement to the Jedi, she and Adrielle had gone little more than 50 meters forward. At this point she was beginning to worry if there would be anyone left alive by the time they made it into the Temple proper.

"That's because we are!" she answered, "But it's either that or rush in and get killed, which helps no one! Besides, we're just about-"

Suddenly her words were punctured by…

"ROCKET!" a trooper shouted. Both Adrielle and Reena looked in the direction of—

Silence, pierced by high pitched ringing, ensued, following by the deafening explosion and the wave of heat that rushed over them, as they went flying and landed hard.

Feeling was the first sense to rush back to Reena as dull pain exploded through her shoulder and a sharp pain traced down her head to near her brow. She tried looking through hazy eyes even as the world swam around her. Trying her best to focus, she could barely make out the figure of Adrielle, on all fours but her head still rested on the ground, as Sith troopers—as well as two Sith Lords—ran toward her.

. . .

As Judecca pointed her lightsaber at Uriel, she noticed that the Harbinger had slipped out of his cloak, and was rested on his chest, which had been partially exposed by Judecca's lightning burning through his robe.

"Know this, as you die," she taunted, "Once I finish you, I'll take that from you… then I'll take the one from that slut. This will all be mine…" She raised her lightsaber. "And you'll have given it all to me… and finally done your job!"

With a roar, she did a final vertical slash, only to be blocked by Uriel's blade.

No…

Judecca pushed harder down, hoping to kill him with his own blade, but no give.

"Why… won't you… just… give up?!"

"No…" he resolved, "I… will never… die… Not while you still breathe…"

"What?!"

"As long as you live… you will always… be a failure, Janiah… And your failure… deserves just one thing!" Uriel continued trying to push back. He could feel his muscles being pushed to their limit and began drawing more and more on the Force to give him the boost he needed—anything that would ensure he live to find the last Harbinger, to see Phagos and Judecca denied, to see the Sith fallen once and for all—determined to be victorious. At all costs.

At any cost.

Just then, the Harbinger on his chest crumbled to dust.

And suddenly, everything changed.

. . .

As Lord Gorn's blade came down to end Adrielle, he found his lightsaber blocked by the girl's electroblade.

"What?!" he exclaimed.

In an instant, Adrielle sent Gorn off balance with a swing of her blade and sprang to her feet and sent him sprawling with a couple good, hard strikes to the side of his head. A couple troopers raised their blasters only to have their weapons fly out of their hands in the direction of Adrielle, who then closed the distance between them, felling them with her electroblade.

Lord Vyr charged at her with a roar, but Adrielle turned and extended a hand toward Gorn's unconscious form, as his lightsaber came sailing toward her. She caught it, ignited it, and began deftly parrying the Sith Lord's strikes with her electroblade, as well as the shots from the two other troopers with her acquired lightsaber. Adrielle spun out of Vyr's range long enough for her deflect one trooper's shot back at him, and to bring the other flying toward her, right into the path of the lightsaber she held, before turning back to Vyr.

Adrielle continued parrying and dodging the strikes with a grace and fluidity that not even four shots of grog in a club could bestow on her, before finally ending it with an unceremonious upward slash through the Sith Lord's front.

She then turned her focus to her next target.

. . .

For the first time in their fight, Judecca was overcome with pure, genuine fear, as she continued to give more and more ground while parrying Uriel's strikes.

"What the hell is wrong with you?!" she exclaimed.

"Shut up and fight!" Uriel barked as he intensified his assault.

During his times battling Imperial forces—admittedly more times than he wished, or cared to confess—whenever he would find himself facing down a Sith Lord in combat, Uriel would sometimes envision Judecca in place of the foe he'd be facing, and on those occasions, that simple mental act would end up providing him just the added edge he needed to finish the fight and take down his enemy. But now, as he beheld the reality before him, he found that he'd been projecting himself onto her—his weakness, his failings, his guilt.

Here and now, Uriel Baylan was going to lay all those monsters to rest forever.

Finally, Judecca's defenses gave way and with a final hard blow from Uriel, she was sent sprawling backwards, landing hard on her back, momentarily dazed as her skull bounced off the ground.

Uriel stood over her and raised his lightsaber.

Just then, three things happened at once: Republic troops finally broke through the gates from the front; Orrickos and the rest of the Jedi Council began their counterattack from further in, determined to trap the Sith in pincer attack; and finally Uriel himself was overcome with a vision; a vision of the area right outside the Temple.

Lunan!

When he came to, Judecca was nowhere in sight.

Cursing himself, he sprinted toward the gates, hoping he could still catch her in time to bring her down. He wasn't going to let her leave this planet. He would end it—end her—today.

But as he went through the gates, what he saw stopped him dead in his tracks.

Adrielle Lunan, moving with such precision and agility such that neither Uriel or Orrickos had ever bothered teaching her—blocking and deflecting blaster bolts and parrying enemy lightsaber strikes with an acquired red saber with relative ease, moving in and out of enemies' attack range, and felling said enemies systematically—as Reena and the Republic reinforcements took shots at any stragglers as they were making their way back to the troop transports to return them to the Devourer, the only surviving Sith ship in orbit.

"What in the stars…" Uriel heard Orrickos's voice say in awe as he came up behind him to witness the spectacle.

Within a few more moments, the field battle was over. Those soldiers and Sith Lords who hadn't made it back to the trooper carriers fell beneath the combined onslaught of the Republic troopers, Reena's blaster, and the force of nature that was apparently Adrielle Lunan.

"Adrielle!" Orrickos called out.

At the sound of her name, she quickly turned toward them, as her arms fell at her side. She gazed at the two Jedi at the gates.

Then dropped her electroblade and the Sith lightsaber and collapsed.