A KNIGHTS TALE

by ardavenport

**** **** Part 5

An ominous exhale sounded through the courtyard.

Zon shifted to defensive stance. "Oooops."

A towering black figure emerged from the back of the Outpost. Emoh saw glints from a plastoid helmet and a featureless black cape, like space with no stars. Zon stepped back, wrinkling his nose in distaste.

"Ooooooh, you've got a powerful Sith stink on you. I'm guessing that you're the real deal. Not like your little padwan here."

"He was unworthy. He deserved his fate." The voice was male, deep and low, like doom. Emoh shivered.

"Did you tell him that he was so disposable when you signed him up?"

The black figure reached out an arm, hand grasping the air. Zon dove to the side, rolled and threw the double-bladed lightsaber at his new opponent, but another red blade appeared and cut the weapon from the air. The darksiders glowing blades vanished, the pieces clattered to the ground not very far from his body.

"You have some skill. You may take his place."

"Oooh." Zon shook his head. "No way am I signing up for that fight. I never planned on getting into this one."

"Then you will die." The black figure attacked, slashing down, over and over with his red blade. Zon ducked away from the strikes, his body like water. His opponent looked like he was moving in slow motion compared to Zon's nimble dodges, but one final blow connected to Zon's blade and he went flying. He rolled, regaining his feet though he looked unsteady.

"Whoa. You don't move fast but you are one heavy hitter. Vader, is that who you are? The Emperor's top enforcer? People don't even like to speak your name."

"You cannot defeat me." Vader pointed his bright red blade at Zon, who shuffled to the side, his own blade up defensively with both hands, his graying blond hair disheveled. "Even your Master Yoda could not defeat the Emperor. Your only choice is to join the Dark Side."

Zon shook his head. "It's just not in me. And I look terrible in black." He glanced down at the black-armored body between them, his eyes widening. "If your flunkies were once Jedi, then who are you?"

Vader attacked again, the blows coming faster this time. Zon kept side-stepping, but almost got caught when Vader suddenly changed directions. He scored one hit, but only managed to slice off the bottom of Vader's cape. He was all in black, heavy black boots, black body, arms and legs clad in heavy black material. There was a control box hanging off his chest. Was Vader a machine? A cyborg.

When they broke apart again, Zon was breathing hard and limping, with a smoking black mark on the side on one knee. But his pale blue-gray eyes were wide and bright, almost . . . happy? He pointed his saber at Vader.

"I walked away from the Light. The All-Light. Why would I join the All-Dark now?" He actually grinned, his mouth wide with wonder, his words coming faster as he gasped them out. "But the Force doesn't work that way. Balanced. Light and Dark. Right down the middle. But that's not what the Jedi Order was doing. They were the ones who were out of balance. All along. But basking in the Light all the time, they just could not see you coming. And now the whole galaxy is paying for it. With your Empire." He renewed his two-handed grip on his lightsaber.

"You are going down," he announced triumphantly. "You and the Emperor. I can see it now. It just won't be done with lightsabers."

Vader answered with another volley of blows. Zon dodged, but he was clumsy with exertion. The next time he changed direction, the bright red blade evaded Zon's block and connected with his arm, neatly cutting it off. The blue-white blade went out and clattered to the ground. Vader's blade kept going, cleaving Zon's body diagonally. The pieces fell to the ground, next to his hand and wrist.

Emoh saw his face. His dead eyes still wide with wonder, his mouth open in a big grin.

Vader stood over the body for a moment, helmet lowered, that low ominous breathing filling the courtyard. The red lightsaber went out. The helmeted head tilted as he looked at Zon's face.

"Fool."

Emoh did not know what to do. Their chance of escaping in the ship was gone. Next to her, the Guardians were climbing to their feet, Malbus helping Imwe. Emoh pushed herself up and stood with them.

White armored bodies rushed toward them from behind, booted feet running. More Stormtroopers poured out of the back of the Outpost, twice as many as before, some of them stopping to check on their fallen comrades. Imwe and Malbus went back-to-back in defensive postures, the blind Guardian's staff held across his body. Terrified, Emoh saw Vader turn and see them for the first time. He strode toward them. She took a trembling step toward him.

"I want my reward!" she blurted out, now staring up at the plastoid mask, triangular face plate, black, featureless eye plates, worse than any Stormtrooper's threatening stare.

"I caught him! I brought him to you! There's a big reward for bringing in Jedi! And I want it!" she went on expecting at any moment to be skewered by that red plasma beam.

"Reward?" the Imperial officer appeared, striding up to them. "The only reward you'll get you spacer scum is - - -"

"Pay her." Vader's command cut him off.

The office looked dumbfounded. "Pay her? But Lord Vader - - "

"Pay her!"

The officer shut up.

Vader turned toward his subordinate and pointed at his chest with a black gloved hand. "Pay her, Captain. Double the bounty for Jedi. And let it be known in this city that loyalty to the Empire will be rewarded."

The officer backed up fearfully and nodded. "Yes, my Lord. At once, my Lord." He looked at Emoh. "Come with me," he ordered curtly and without waiting for her he marched quickly back to the Outpost.

Emoh turned back to her companions. Twos had righted itself. "Come on!" she hissed, then turned and followed the captain without waiting.

They followed. Vader barely acknowledged that they existed as they passed. But they all paused at the door of the Outpost to look back at Zon's body in the courtyard, and that big happy grin still on his face.

Emoh Nedry flinched at the holo image of Zon's body being cut in two by Darth Vader. But her guest, seated opposite her at the table by the clear-plas door to the back garden of her cottage, looked, blue eyes wide with wonder. He was young, but far from being a kid, matured too soon by the fight that brought the Empire down.

The holo played on. The group entered the Outpost, the two Guardians together. Malbus's expression smoldered with anger, but he kept a protective arm around his friend's shoulders. Imwe leaned his head on the bigger man's chest, tears running down his face.

She reached over and shut the holo off. There wasn't much more, and she did not need to watch the part where the Imperial officer handed her the money. The money that had paid for her current standard of living. She pushed the projector toward him and he took it.

"Thank-you," Luke Skywalker took it and tucked it into a belt pouch. He was mostly dressed in dark, dusty browns, with black boots and belt and a cape that he kept on even after she invited him in when he showed up at her door. She did not want to know if he was carrying a lightsaber under it. "Thank-you, very much," he breathlessly spoke his gratitude, like she had given him the secret to happiness. He was not that much different than Zon, except younger, and his eyes were real blue, like the sky of an oxygenated atmosphere, his hair thicker and dark blond. And while he could smile, it was serious and solemn, nothing like Zon's big goofy grin.

"What happened to the others?"

"I had to pay Captain Kajer double to get Twos. It wasn't a problem, the reward was huge; I was able to buy my own ship with plenty left over after I left Jedha and I needed an astromech anyway. But Twos was always running its recorder. It was pretty dangerous to have this; you could get arrested for just talking about Jedi back then. But it was the only thing left of Zon. I owed him everything." She looked around at her comfortable though small cottage, filled with the trinkets and art she had collected from many planets. "I kept as far away from the fight, and the Empire as I could . . . " She grit her teeth. Would he think her a coward for not joining the conflict that he had spent years fighting and finally winning? If he did, he did not show it at all, and she had done nothing more or less than what Zon did.

"What about the Guardians?"

"The blind Guardian wouldn't touch any of the reward. The big one took a few chits, a pittance compared to what I got and his friend turned his back on him when he did. But if they lived like monks - - and it looked like they did - - they probably could have lived on it for years. But then Jedha City was destroyed in a mining accident - - - "

"It wasn't a mining accident."

Emoh waited for him to continue.

"The Empire test fired the Death Star on Jedha. Destroyed it all." Luke lowered his eyes, his expression sad. "They destroyed so much." He went silent again, his focus again turned toward thoughts and regrets that she could only guess at.

Emoh's thoughts narrowly centered on her guest, who had legendarily destroyed that Death Star. The Rebel Alliance destroyed the second one. Luke Skywalker destroyed the Emperor, and his enforcer, Darth Vader. The remnants of the Empire tried to carry on, but it could not hold together without Palpatine. And most star systems hated the Empire, so it was not hard for the Alliance to gather new allies to finally defeat it. After that, the galaxy was at peace . . . or at least enough of a peace for Emoh to feel safe to pick a planet, make a home.

"I'd like to ask . . . something." Skywalker looked up.

"Zon said that Vader and the Emperor would go down, but it would not be done with a lightsaber. Did you do it? With a lightsaber?" She winced a her phrasing. It sounded a little obscene. But he did not take it that way. He just smiled and shook his head.

"No, I didn't. I threw my lightsaber away. That wasn't what I needed to defeat the emperor." His eyes lowered again and a very subtle smile curled his lips.

How? Emoh wanted to ask. The stories about Palpatine were horrible; he had been a ruthless despot. She could see that there was much more to what he had just said. But she did not think he would share the details; if he had, then everyone would already know about it. And it did not matter; Palpatine and the Empire were gone.

He put his arms on the table, leaning forward on them. "Now, tell me what you can about Zon."

Emoh sat back, worried. "I don't know anything him as a Jedi, except what's on the recorder. Nobody on the ship ever guessed about that."

"That's all right," Luke shrugged. "I just want to know about him. What was he like?" He looked eager to hear whatever she had to say. He had said that he was trying to recover any information he could about the Jedi; if he had been doing that for the past few years, she supposed that was why she had not heard about him doing anything else since the Empire fell. He had explicitly told her that he was not connected to the New Republic when she asked.

"Well," she picked up one of the two glasses of water she had set out. She had also set out a plate of nuts and fresh fruit slices. And if any of her neighbors stopped by to visit, she could introduce them to Luke Skywalker, hero of the Rebel Alliance. It did not look like he would mind. "He was always cheerful . . . " She set down the cup without taking a sip.

" . . . right to the end."

**** **** **** END **** **** ****

Disclaimer: This story first posted on tf.n on - - - . All characters and the Star Wars universe belong to Disney/Lucasfilm; I am just playing in their sandbox.